Took some time to write up a report of our last Team Epic, but here you have. This time by an old clone trooper...

Captain Kagi´s diary, 34:6:12

Was scrambled today to support a task force. Were hunting down some wanted scum, suited me fine. Commander wanted me to transport a force user, done that before. She appeared dangerous, cocky, young. They are like that, finally ending up having their legs cut off. She´ll learn.

Ordered extra jammers, criminal scum lacking proper systems to overcome jamming. Had three other Lambdas to direct, good crews for non-clones. No match to us clones. We should have more of us left. Would end this war and pacify this Galaxy shortly. Have to do with ordinary humans. I have to train them more.

We caught up with the fighters. Five of Blacks, four Royal Guard Interceptors, two of those new Phantoms. Powerful ships, have to study more of them. Disastrous if one of the pilots turns rogue. Have to hunt him down, would be difficult. I made a diversion with one of the Omicrons, Blacks and rest of the Shuttles in the middle position. Royal Guards guarding the flank. Bloodthirsty, savage but reliable. Felt confident.

Got reading of the enemy. There were the usual filth of the Outer Rim, I could almost smell them to the cockpit. Lot of wanted criminals, three IG-88 droids, corrupt, but effective. We were lucky, a chance to clean up this part of the Galaxy. Some old fighters, a large number of them. I counted six Headhunters and three Y-Wing, one civilian craft. No risk, no chance against our fighters. Droids a different thing, fast, deadly – but only machines piloting. No instinct, easy to predict and confuse. The leader was the worst. It was Slave-1, Boba Fett´s ship. His father - our father - was a great warrior. Had to be careful.

Closed in with the other shuttle, he took the brunt of firing. Faced Fett himself, one droid. Not bad, been through worse. Not Jedis. Easy to kill. Some Y´s closing, no real risk. They entered into range of my jammers, those untrained and badly equipped bunch of misfits didn´t have a chance to overcome us. Blacks took some casualties in the middle of the fight. Brave pilots, will mourn them afterwards. The droid got confused, fled the battle. Probably a short circuit or software bug. Didn´t care, need to kill the rest. Royal Guards destroyed another droid. Minor overload of the shields. Looked good.

[iG-88D took red while stressed and flew off board. That caused another IG to mess up his Segnor and was blasted to bits by RG´s without a chance to retaliate. 1/4 of points gone by round two so it was kinda early game breaker.]

Early battle sans RG´s and IG´s. The first (and more or less the last) Imperial casualties showing

Another view

Solid flying by Royal Guard, the last of the Robot Brothers showing

Got really tight, not room to maneuver. Y-wings all over my ship, red lights were blinking in the cockpit. Not a problem, jammer to protect. The girl was doing some strange gestures, didn´t care. Y´s were firing wide anyway. Blacks supporting, took more casualties. Royal Guards chasing down the last droid, humans prevailing as we did in the previous war. Shuttles in the middle reported no major damage, good thing. They faced all the Headhunters. Too weak ship against our mighty Lambdas. Criminals going down everywhere.

Mid-space. The Lambdas took surpringly few hits as Z´s were flying well but their sights were apparently maintained by the worst outlaw tech near Erepmat Nebula. So some lucky space cows we had.

I swerved towards two shuttles, faced some Headhunters. Y´s on my six, but too close to fire effectively. Disturbed by my jammer and the force user. Fett realised the battle is lost, trying to escape. Good, he is scum, but very dangerous. I was not in a hurry to follow him, more scum to finish. The remaining Blacks took some distance, no need to risk unshielded fighters in a close combat with no room to evade. Lambdas much better.

Kagi takes the middle, one Y-Wing, Palob and a TIE dead. Kagi+SJ+Mara Jade turned out to be quite nasty combo against R4 equipped Y´s who were struggling to clear stress and Kagi sucking Target Locks.

We killed few more Headhunters, got some long range support by Phantoms. Really powerful, rained Emperor´s wrath on the Scum. A civilian craft also destroyed, have to investigate the flight data to indentify if we caught a wanted criminal. The Royal Guards joined in, chased down rest of the Scum. Fett fled, we returned to Redoubtable. A good day´s work, we´ll clean up this villainous Galaxy.

Royal Guard joins the clean-up. At this moment the battle was pretty much finished.

That was it, this time it was quite one-sided game. When we (the Imperials) had lost three TIEs, Scum more or less everything save Boba and the last IG. The loss of two IG-88´s early was a decisive factor, and the dice were also favoring the Law and Order. But this Saturday the Scum will have their chance of revenge, so stay tuned!

And yes, the quiz. This time a tried to make a literary pastiche of a famous fictional diary, but who (the character, not the author) I´m trying to emulate? No prize, only moderate fame and even less glory for the right answer (hopefully someone gets it right ).

The forces were (no details, didn´t make notes):

Imperials:

Kagi (SJ, Mara, EU)

3 Stress-saw Shuttles (FCS, Gunner, Tactician)

2 Shadows (SPA, SJ?)

4 RG Interceptors (PTL, AT, SU)

Howl, Dark Curse, Backstabber

2 VI Blacks

Scum:

IG-88B,C,D (PTL, AT, maybe Mangler)

Boba

Kaa´to

5 Black Sun Soldiers

Kavil (Blaster Turrer, R4)

2 Thugs (Ion, R4, BTL)

Palob (Blaster?)

I know I'm wrong, but I'll guess Captain Kirk. Just to be odd. The historical bit makes me want to say Anne Frank.

Rorschach?

Very cool report.

Rorschach?

Very cool report.

And we have a winner!!!!

Are those Imperials yours, and if so, how did you paint the canopy cover on the Lambdas? They look great.

Are those Imperials yours, and if so, how did you paint the canopy cover on the Lambdas? They look great.

Thanks, it´s a simple airbrush job. Paint the base colour (darkish tone, not black), mask, fade with 2-3 tones to white (or other desired colour). Takes only few minutes. I´m quite satisfied with the results, gives some life to otherwise dull model.

I want your opinion on the Z-95's. I always think of them as easy prey. I never take them seriously (which sometimes gets me in trouble). What's your take? Did they pull their weight? Should the opponent have taken fewer so he could add tricks, or take completely different ships?

I want your opinion on the Z-95's. I always think of them as easy prey. I never take them seriously (which sometimes gets me in trouble). What's your take? Did they pull their weight? Should the opponent have taken fewer so he could add tricks, or take completely different ships?

Headhunters are ok in Epic IMO, in large numbers they can be very annoying, denying freedom of action (and actions) while dealing some damage. In this game they were bit unlucky as they made a nice approach on a shuttle but combination of miserable reds and very hot greens meant that only couple of shields went down. I was expecting to lose that shuttle or at least have it seriously crippled. Then Z´s provided only easy targets for shuttles which were not really hampered by blocking due to FCS.

In our last Epic (no report, I forgot to charge my camera´s battery) Z´s did fine. In epic I would take always 4-6 Headhunters to provide some numbers. For Scum, barebones pirates will do fine as Scum aces are not especially useful in Epic, but for Rebs it´s the opposite as both Cracken and Blount could make some difference.

In general, I prefer to have less tricks and more numbers/killing power in Epic games. Super Aces tend to go down fast when facing overwhelming numbers, and they usually don´t put up enough firepower themselves to justify their deployment. Command-type pilot abilities are of course even more effective (Howl, Jonus, Jendon, Dutch, Garven) than in 100 point game. Thematic, also.

In Epic games I like to think that ships function closer to their intended role in a "realistic" manner. TIE/ln? Space superiority. X-Wing? The same. B-Wing? Assault/Bomber. What is Z-95 then? It´s an obsolete fighter. And what to do with an obsolete fighter? Engage enemy´s heavier, less manouverable ships. Z-95´s will threaten shuttles, freighters, yachts or whatever originally non-combatant crap your enemy is fielding. Ok, so does many other ships, but not at the same low price.