So I'm going to go ahead and assume my own fallibility, but every time i try to do a defense based mission, my opponent focuses on the target ignoring my fighters - i can;t kill his swarm fast enough... How do you guys deal with defending a big plump target?

Reinforce and recover rammed up to full.

For the missions you want to build the GR-75 to endure. You kit it out completely differently to normal epic.

Or make the conditions so they need to eliminate all fighters too., this will prevent them from running full speed to that target and not caring if they lose all their ships along the way

Ram them. That'll fix a swarm.

Defense missions are really tricky to work. Engineering a target that is not too vulnerable and not too resilient is really tough.

One thing that may work for defense missions is a layered or spread-out target. I'm thinking of something that the attacker has to deal with in discrete bites. That's how my gamma base scenario is set up - the attacker has to first find, and then directly attack the target, rather than just a straight-on attack run. A lot of the missions in J Rhea's Battle of Yavin campaign are also layered. You have to destroy power generators and shield towers before you attack your actual target.

In-game, a good way to defend a juicy target is building your ships as glass cannons. Max out their attack, ignore defensive upgrades and abilities. Action-denial can work wonders against ships that rely on ordnance attacks, such as TIE bombers, which are often seen in epic games and target-attack missions.

Thanks guys, given me a lot to think about. I'll add that when defending I am making a point not to use Biggs(I've yet to lose using Biggs for obvious reasons).

You can't defend the GR-75 if it's the mission target. Its a flaw in the rules for the epic ships. We ran several games with the transport being the primary target, and we were not able to keep it alive.

FFG should have implemented special rules for the huge ships, like the primary weapons of non-huge ships being less effective. We tried a house rule with that (primary weapons of small and large ships being downgraded against huge - i can send you the rules if interested) and it worked wonders, all the sudden you have a completely different setting as you have to bring ordnance to destroy a huge ship, no more simply swarming it with TIE/Ln or Interceptors. Both sides get targets then - Rebels want to destroy the bombers/missile carriers before they get a chance to destroy the transport.

I'll have to check that out Shaadea - it was the hoth campaign. Also my opponent was being a bit of a duck in the 2nd mission and angling his templates (so firing any direction - not just left/right. I came to the conclusion that the hoth campaign was just broken, but was hoping someone would prove me wrong.

Thanks guys, given me a lot to think about. I'll add that when defending I am making a point not to use Biggs(I've yet to lose using Biggs for obvious reasons).

Biggs can only be used with small and large ships, not huge ships:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/x-wing/support/X-Wing-Epic-Tournament-Rules.pdf

(under: "Epic Play Card Restrictions")

Reinforce and recover rammed up to full.

For the missions you want to build the GR-75 to endure. You kit it out completely differently to normal epic.

Pretty much the best advice given so far.

Just finished a linked Hoth campaign recently this weekend, found it to be very balanced for both sides (Rebels won!)

The Bright Hope Title card really helps and Toryn Farr is wickedly annoying. Backup shield generator is another great option. Don't shy away from upgrades with the GR-75.

Plus, kitting out your escort ships with a ton of offensive capabilities really stresses out the Imperial side. Use ships that can hit hard and make them hit even harder!

In my group's games, transports have done very well. The most successful transports are built to be specialists - either tanky or support ships, and in both cases they are always closely supported by fighters. Reinforce is a very useful ability in the initial engagement, and in a furball, the coordinate ability and the comms booster upgrade work wonders in supporting escort ships.

Overspending on Huge ships is a big risk. It's very easy to load up on upgrades, and every point on the transport is a point not spent on the escorts, and since the transport is almost always a support ship, it's effectiveness is limited by how many ships it has available to support. I mostly agree with Hothie's take on huge ships. He wrote up a great discussion on running huge ships and successfully ran a CR-90 in at least 4 games.

I've only had a few chances to play with the corvette, but it does seem to be more difficult to use effectively than the transport. Certainly there is more temptation to overload it. I've run the transport plenty of times now with a support build using 2x comms boosters and I've found it to be very effective.

I'll be heavily reading up on both of those, thanks.

We're running a Hoth campaign right now and play the last mission tomorrow. To be sure for all my experience and largely success with huge ships it is hard to protect. Mission one is skewed to imperials, two to rebels. Three could be terrifying for either side. I went with backup shield, engine booster to help ram, tibbana gas, wed-15 as my build. And maximum for power for the escort with a touch of support. Unfortunately I tried to be very fluff accurate while we were designing our lists. Really missed the falcon haha. Could you post your squads when your finished? With mission results of you can?

We're running a Hoth campaign right now and play the last mission tomorrow. To be sure for all my experience and largely success with huge ships it is hard to protect. Mission one is skewed to imperials, two to rebels. Three could be terrifying for either side. I went with backup shield, engine booster to help ram, tibbana gas, wed-15 as my build. And maximum for power for the escort with a touch of support. Unfortunately I tried to be very fluff accurate while we were designing our lists. Really missed the falcon haha. Could you post your squads when your finished? With mission results of you can?

I ran the first mission of Hoth a while back and had a pretty solid win as rebels. I had a bright hope transport with at least one comms booster, and maybe Chewie (who is cheesy but really good for a transport). I was running Garven, Tarn, and two GSPs with PTL, and comms boosting them each turn (for effectively 3 actions).

The first couple times i ran a transport I had a WED-15, but never really felt like there was a good time to use him, instead of using the energy for recover, or other actions like comms boosters. Did you find the repair droid useful?

One option would be to modify the win conditions so that even if the transport is destroyed you keep playing, and if you lose all of your ships you can not do better than a draw. That way if you just suicide rush the transport and ignore the escorts you're going to lose too many ships and risk a draw instead of a win. A successful winning strategy needs to engage the escorts and clear a path to the transport, not just throw dice at the primary target until it dies.

Oh yeah. MVP to some extent. Mission one he flipped a really bad crit down. Mission 2 my carry over crit could be flipped down for three energy so moved one forward, flipped it for three, tibanna, action plus energy to discard it. Expecting to do the same at the beginning of three. Your right about it. It is really hard to find time to use it though. I paid the two points for it expressly for the 2nd and 3rd mission 'turn ones' and happened to get a extra use in the 1st so not regretting it. Chewie would be good your right. Personally don't overly like comms booster but never equipped it so never really played to it, might change my opinion of it if I did. Many seem to like it. Mission one was hardest for me. We figured out long ago a 'ideal' mine deployment and none has really deviated from it. He went after my escorts first and after knocking out half of them killed the 75 a turn before it could get off. bounce back mine in the escape corner sucks Lol