If you coudl design the next "Epic" expansion for X-Wing, and didn't want to just make another HUGE ship, how would you approach it? Scum already has a nice option with the ability to field more than 2 IG-88's in Epic, which I think is a very cool way to look at Epic play. What other options are there? Perhaps a stationary expansion? A Space Station similar to Attack Wing's DS9? Perhaps a new pilot pack with different halves to existing huge ships? Like a modified FORE section to teh CR-90 or something that pairs up to the card?

My idea would be the "Locked" formation tray. Essentially it would look similar to an Ice Cube tray, and hold 8 small base ships. The rule would be that you MUST field it with 8 of the exact same generic ship and pilot - so 8 Academy TIES, for example. Here's the thing - it would move slow, probably using the Epic Ship dial, but would have the special ability of being able to pick up each ship and turn them 90 degrees if you give them all a stress or something.

Why use this tray? 3 reasons:

• New Abilities for an entire squad flying together - the squad itself could gain a formation flying bonus, similar to a howlrunner-type effect.
• Speed of gameplay - it woudl GREATLY improve game speed especially in the case of Epic games where you already have a TON of points on the board, now simply 1 maneuver dial can account for 8 ships!
• Something new - It's a way to add to the Epic game without having to add epic ships, plus it's a new way to use your existing ships. Also it would work for all 3 factions.

So that's my idea for something new added to the Epic format. What about you guys?

Off board turbolaser artillery. I strongly disagree with trays.

Trays might potentially work, but only on the basis of wingman pairs. Any more than 2 ships and the opportunity cost in lost maneuvers/options isn't worth the convenience.

However I would like to see squadron rules - For example if you take 12 TIE Fighters, 12 X-Wings or whatever, then every ship in that squadron benefits from a rule. If it's a fairly small advantage then it might not cost any points, given you're already having to shell out for the ships themselves. If it offers a good advantage then it might cost additional points.

Alternatively you could start smaller than squadrons, and give rules for Wing Pairs and Flights, allowing people to take smaller individual units of a certain ship, for example two X-Wings taken as a wing pair could both have the Wingman EPT, but only for their partner. Flights could have a free Squad Leader upgrade. And so on. You could have different abilities based on the different types of ship, for example if you had a pair of A-Wings they could get a free Evade action if they both reveal a 5-straight dial, or B-Wings could get some kind of "Concentrated Fire" effect, allowing them to both reroll an attack dice if they attack the same target. All of these abilities would only work within R1 so people had to stick together, of course.

What about flights?

a group of 3 of the same ship automatically get the wingman EPT?

Bleh I just saw that posted above. great minds...

I like the EPT and concentrated fire ideas!

Another idea could be to include a capital ship hangar. A 1/270 (or other scale) capital ship such as a Calamari Cruiser would be too big for the game table. However a battle around the ship and therefore in front of it's hangar bay can be done and this way I think that it would greatly improve the epic game.

Apart from a capital ship it could of course be a hangar bay from a space station i.e. a Golan defense platform or something similar.

Haven't thought of extra rules or benefits yet.

Unfortunately I am not very good at modelling otherwise this would be at my gaming table!

tie squad 10pt. choose you main attacker, then instead of attacking this turn all other ties in formation may ad 1 attack die to main attackers attack.

tie squad 10pt. choose you main attacker, then instead of attacking this turn all other ties in formation may ad 1 attack die to main attackers attack.

I could see something like this working as a title or something, even in regular play. But perhaps no modification of attack dice allowed or something. It'd be OP to say spend 1 token to change them all, or spend all tokens to change 1. So it'd either be spend 1 token per focus die rolled, which would work I suppose, but then is it spend 1 TL for each die rerolled as well?

And then it could just get OP'd. I think it's better to leave it as unmodified attack. Do you want 4 2 dice attacks, or 1 5 dice attack? Against a high AGI target, the 1 5 is probably better, but against a Fat Turret, the 4 2 is probably better.

tie squad 10pt. choose you main attacker, then instead of attacking this turn all other ties in formation may ad 1 attack die to main attackers attack.

I was thinking about something like this.... but the attack would have to be completely non-modifiable.

EDIT- ninja'd

Someone else - I don't recall who - once suggested that the Skipray Blastboat be a large (rather than huge) Imperial epic ship, given that it sported a capital ship power core. I always loved that idea - a large ship with energy, a forward arc, missiles, and a turret - and it could work for Scum, too.

We wave reserves!

Upon the loss of a ship above PS4 , the next PS down ship enters play.

I beleive your looking for armada when you talk about trays.

Not sure if this fits here or maybe some crazy idea for how to implement the idea of a "Rogue Squadron" upgrade for X-wings.

Anywho, how about 2 X-wings or 3 Ties of the same squadron roll all of their attack dice simultaneously. Then target locks and focus can be used to modify or reroll any of those dice.

X-Wings still see plenty of use.

minefields. and a pre battle ordnance pool - as it's the nearest thing I can think of to making torpedoes viable.

Asteroid turbolaser / ion battery / warhead launcher / shield gen / command centre emplacements.

I think that the squadron rules are a good way to go. But I would limit it to however many of a ship you can fit in 100 points. So 8 Ties, 4 X-wings, 3 E-Wings, etc.

Stands to reason the more expensive the ship, the less there are of them in a squadron. This is also very manageable from a collection perspective. From a sellers standpoint that is a good goal, as you don't discourage people since they could theoretically use all the ships for that in a normal game, and you encourage people to expand their existing collections.

The squadron effects would be free. For X-Wings I could see something like this: "When firing ordnance, do not discard your target lock token if another friendly ship in your squadron has a target lock token on the same target." Thematic to coordinated fire, offers some great options to combat huge ships and give those torpedoes a nice boosts in efficiency as you can save the target lock for the actual attack.

Don't know if this would happen, but I think that this could be a great way to go.

Nice post Crabbies, it is something I have been working on idea wise for STAW too.

I too think a stationary emplacement would be cool. Treat it like a stationary epic ship, give it emplacements like the CR-90. Maybe give it the ability to coordinate, jam, have crew, etc. might have to play on a bigger map though as it would hamper manuvering of oteher epic ships i would think.

The squadron tray seems a bit awkward and out-of-place in this game to me. That's what we will have Armada for, I imagine.

I do like the idea of the space station, though. It could come with some really great missions too.

Also, DariusAPB's off board turbolaser fire sounds line an interesting idea. I've got a 15" Star Destroyer model that I'd like to set up along side the mat to be some sort of physical representation of the source of that. Also, isn't there already a mechanic for that in the Transport expansion in one of the escape from Hoth missions?

On the EPIC side of that space station idea is something that's been extensively floated before is a Death Star kit for trench-run missions.However, for that and for hangar bay missions, I wonder if it's just best to leave that for fan-brewing.

I've actually considered that it might be fun to make a play board resembling the dorsal frontal hull of a Star Destroyer, complete with the angled surface. It wouldn't be all that portable, of course, but it'd be a fun modeling project. Also, my opponent and I would have to use my weighted bases to prevent the ships sliding down the angled edge.

But... that's a digression. We're talking about potentially official FFG products for epic.

I would be up for:

1. Missions w/suggested prebuilt squads
2. Space Stations - Epic
3. Epic stationary (or the sides of) ships
4. Missions w/suggested prebuilt squads
5. Hangers - Epic
6. Asteroids facilities can be used in epic.
7. Missions w/suggested prebuilt squads

Great ideas

Trays eliminate the skill involved in this game that many people cultivate, the ability to fly in formation and really make it count.

Stationary emplacements might be kinda cool.

Someone else - I don't recall who - once suggested that the Skipray Blastboat be a large (rather than huge) Imperial epic ship, given that it sported a capital ship power core. I always loved that idea - a large ship with energy, a forward arc, missiles, and a turret - and it could work for Scum, too.

I really would like for them to include the Skipray for both Scum and Empire. However, I think it should just be a large-base ship, and not necessarily epic.

I know the source you're talking about regarding how it has capital-ship level output. I don't know why they did that, but it seems ill-considered to me.

Fractalsponge has a great digital mock-up of the Skipray that I really like. It kind of reminds me of Airwolf, from when I was a kid.

I think it would be neat to have a station* some sort, that had it's own power source, shields, and defenses. In my mind, I'm thinking of something the size of a GR-75, but stationary. It would have some support options more powerful than currently available, but only at close range. This gives the defender the choice between staying close, and inviting defeat, or losing those benefits and meeting the threat head on.

I also think Epic battles need to end a turn or two or three after one side loses 2 or more Epic Points**. That makes it more interesting than a straight up dog fight- you'd need to be thinking about how to _kill_ the Huge ship on the other side.

*Really want to say "small base", but the opportunity for confusion there is either Large or Epic.

**The Aggressor would count as half an epic point, until the release of a Scum Huge.

I've been thinking of home-brewing some rules for masses of small based ships.

I think doing flights and pairs is the answer and it would work thusly.

#1 A flight is composed of a named pilot plus 2 generics or else 4 generics

#2 A pair is composed of two named pilots

Named pilot is always the 'lead ship', for generics, one ship is declared lead at game start. For pairs, lead is declared at the beginning of the maneuver phase. Immediately following loss of leader, new leader is indicated.

Activation is done on leader's pilot skill. Leader is moved as normal and takes all actions as normal. Immediately following the leader completing his move, squadmates are moved in and placed 1 straight from leader's side or rear (like barrel roll but back too), placement ON an asteroid is allowable. Then, those ships can take any actions they normally legally could do, except for any action that would cause them to move.

There may be some actions that would have to be specially defined. For instance, cloaking. All cloak together and decloak together.

If a single ship of a flight or pair is in range of a single ship of the active flight or pair, then all ships of both flight/pair are in range.

Ships still fire in pilot skill order, firing individually. So Wedge with a pair of rookies means Wedge fires, enemy lower PS ships fire, repeat as necessary, etc, then rookie A fires, then rookie B fires.

Controller of targeted ship declares which of the ships of his flight are going to be taking the shots. This ship rolls evades and takes any damage. If destroyed, any extra damage is 'washed over' to the ship of his choice, repeat as necessary. This has some implications. If range is just barely there (or if range 1 is just barely there) the target may choose to have the closest ship hit first, and if the leader manages to destroy it, this may mean that now when range is checked everything is now outside of range 3. OR, you let the furthest ship get blown up first to maintain range so you can fire back. OR you can put a bunch of defensive upgrades on your leader, but he'd be the one to take damage.

(similarly, super-whisper plus friends, the squad now decloaks together, whisper only shoots, and then they all cloak together OR whisper hangs out vulnerable until his two low PS mates have fired.)

Asteroid base with hangar as a huge model for S&V (I know it says BESIDES huge ships).

Trays make no sense for the kind of combat envisioned in the OT, as that is based on WWII air battles and dogfights. Formations make sense for bombers, strikers and craft en route to AO or RTB, but not once the shot has hit the fan.

Apart from that I think more scenarios would be great. I especially like Kevin at Sunries superb passive-aggressive way of suggesting it. Well done.
I'd also like some sort of official campaign engine. Of course you can always go with just a regular campaign tree and then there are absurdly complex campaign systems with experience points, upgrades etc. but I think I'd like something inbetween: Not too complex, but with results, a greater goal and some resource management and missions requiring specific craft (limiting the player's choice in craft but not necessarily in upgrades/pilots).

Note on my idea. a big part of the reason for doing the full maneuver for 1 then just basically 'catching up' the rest is to move the game faster. Flying in formation is a great skill, and this may take away from it slightly. Not entirely sure how to address this but I have some ideas

Allow squads to be flown without leaders, each ship maneuvering alone, allowing the group to be targeted and target en-mass as described before, but any ship not within 1 short straight (maybe 1 short curved) is temporarily considered not part of the group, so isn't a valid target for en-mass shooting or for receiving damage, but also gets no firing action.