There doesn´t seem to be much interest in this format. Hardly any tournaments, hardly any topics on the forums, the epic ships don´t seem to generate much enthusiasm except for those crucial cards FFG so cleverly includes for regular play, etc.

Will this format ever take off or would it be wise to look into Armada to scratch that big space battle itch?

Once there's a capital ship on each side, things should improve dramatically.

(Scum calls its capital ship IG-88ABCD, of course. )

That said, these signature ships of the format could also use something of a boost, I suspect - my favourite option at the moment is that hulls automatically enjoy the 're-enforce' rule, to represent heavy armour needing high-power weapons to punch through and kill them. Only catch is what on earth tto do with the Bright Hope, because 3 points of damage reduction on every shot is a little more problematic...

Another option is to perhaps provide a proper campaign structure, as the various posts about narrative campaigns, galactic wars, etc, suggest for adding meaning to the 100pt fights. Those that want Epic fights doubtless value their being more than a simple furball writ large; strategic context would play well into that.

Like a pig with jet engines strapped to its back

Epic games are pretty fun, but they tend towards steamrolls and they take a lot longer. The excitement level reflects those issues.

There doesn´t seem to be much interest in this format. Hardly any tournaments, hardly any topics on the forums, the epic ships don´t seem to generate much enthusiasm except for those crucial cards FFG so cleverly includes for regular play, etc.

Will this format ever take off or would it be wise to look into Armada to scratch that big space battle itch?

Well Reiver pretty much covered it. As for the immediate problem with Epic is that only the Rebel faction has epic ships. For the other factions you might as well just play a 300 point mega squadron. Once the Raider comes out the only problem will be that S&V does not have their own epic ship (however S&V desperately need more ships, Wave 7 will help a little.)

As for this or Armada or Epic well that depends on your preference. Take it from one who started out with the epic pack then moved collect the rest of the ships. Epic is more expensive as you also need ships to accompany your large ship. Now why you might not need a TIE swarm or 3 Firesprays you will need a decent amount of ships especially if you go with the rebel transport. However for Armada it is at a different scale but it also plays differently than from X-wing. Now X-wing without the epic is cheaper than a standard game of armada but X-wing epic is probably more expensive than if you were just to go for standard Armada.

So if you like big ship battles more then you would probably go for Armada, however if you want to feel the scale of big ships slugging it out then X-wing epic.

The rebels have 2 and the other 2 factions 0. Raider still makes it 2-1-0. Armada will probably kill off any real hope of epic being a thing unless FFG rolls out an epic ship for 2/3 factions every year.

Longer, more expensive, less dynamic, another game that perhaps better represents it... Not looking good.

I think FFG made a mistake of making two rebel ships back to back and waiting so long to get an Imperial epic ship out there. But once we've got Raiders on the table things hopefully will start to pick up, and if FFG keeps supporting epic play with new ships then yeah it'll finally take off. Atleast for the Scum faction it'll be easy to find a epic scale ship to add. There are dozens and dozens of ships they can pick from.

Honestly if the itch you want to scratch is massive space battles I think armada is a better choice. 100 bucks gets you a corvette for x wing where 100 bucks gets you a victory class star destroyer, nebulon b, and corvette plus fighters in armada.

Whenever I've suggested sacrificing a casual friday tournament to play one big epic game, my idea gets shot down because everyone in my area needs to practice flying their turretwing list. A lot of people I know have preordered a Raider though, but then again a lot of people have Tantives and Rebel transports.

Also, I deliver mail 6 days a week until 7pm some nights, I don't really have time to dedicate a whole day to playing one big monster game despite how much I love flying 15-20 TIE variants all at once. Maybe if the United States Post Office wasn't a crap place to work for non-regular letter carriers I could.

The rebels have 2 and the other 2 factions 0. Raider still makes it 2-1-0. Armada will probably kill off any real hope of epic being a thing unless FFG rolls out an epic ship for 2/3 factions every year.

Longer, more expensive, less dynamic, another game that perhaps better represents it... Not looking good.

I just posted an Idea to loan the S&V a ship along with some non-unique titles to give the S&V some huge ship flexibility that fits quite well with S&V theme IMHO.

You can view the thread HERE. I'm sure you will find these proposals to be most inclusive to our kind of Scum.

I have both the transport and the corvette. I knew I wanted them for the cards but I thought the ships would be worth it for epic play eventually, but now I´m not sure anymore. They mostly play 100 point regular games at my store, but occasionally some 2v2 200 point games or 150 point games. No epic games that I´m aware of and now that Armada is out we will probably see more Armada than epic X-wing.

I will be getting the raider for the Tie-Advanced cards and to have one imperial epic ship if the format ever comes up. The fact is that I find myself wandering over to the Armada forum more often these days. I can´t help but wonder if FFG is by any chance neglecting the epic format so it won´t be competing with Armada. They make sure to include must-have cards for regular play in the epic expansions to assure sales but the format hardly gets played.

Am I way off here?

I think FFG made a mistake of making two rebel ships back to back and waiting so long to get an Imperial epic ship out there. But once we've got Raiders on the table things hopefully will start to pick up, and if FFG keeps supporting epic play with new ships then yeah it'll finally take off. Atleast for the Scum faction it'll be easy to find a epic scale ship to add. There are dozens and dozens of ships they can pick from.

FFG didn't "wait so long". In their posts about the Raider, they noted that they've been working very closely with Lucasfilm to develop the Raider and if I recall correctly, the development for the Raider started back when the Corvette was announced. It's been a long road, and one that FFG has been working very hard on.

I, for one, am super excited about the Raider coming and our local group has already planned for a weekend of 300-point Epic battles after we get ours.

Beyond that, we routinely play 150-point Epic'esque battles with the Transport, and 200-point with the Corvette. It's a ton of fun, especially if you find "turretwing" a bit stale.

One mistake I feel FFG made was making the two Rebel Epic ships back-to-back without doing a Rebel-Imperial Epic release. In my opinion, what has ended up happening, is that now that they've waited a year for the release of the Raider, people have bought into the Rebel Epic ships, rarely play any games of Epic because of the lack of an Imperial counterpart for a year, and they are now feeling Epic is stale and FFG has lost a lot of potential interest in the format. Maybe the Raider can make the format salvageable, and as much as I hate to say it, I doubt it will be. It's a little too late for a proper release of Epic for it to be hitting the ground running rather than being on the back burner for quite awhile.

One of the reasons Epic ships even sell is because of the Standard dogfight cards that are included in it, not to mention that many of these cards are staples in competitive play. That's why they stuffed the Raider with a TIE Advanced and many copies of ATC and x1 titles. Nothing wrong with it, it's just kinda like "HA! Got you! Now you have an Epic ship you have to have fun with!"

As for supporting the format of Epic, I would like to see promos for Raymus Antilles or alt. art ship cards, like a promo big card that has the fore and the aft, and then you can just stack the flip side of the damaged fore or aft on top of it when the time comes. Acrylic tokens specific to the Epic format would be pretty awesome too because people are gonna want the acrylic energy and reinforce tokens, maybe even acrylic range and movement rulers as the big prize. There's a lot that can be done for the Epic format, it just has to be done.

I expect that, once the Raider finally shows up, Epic will grow very quickly.

Scum don't even really need an Epic ship, since they already have an Epic-only build that a great many players are dying to run: quad-bot IG-88*.

Yes.

Perhaps you missed this: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2014/12/19/here-comes-the-imperial-raider/

I think FFG made a mistake of making two rebel ships back to back and waiting so long to get an Imperial epic ship out there. But once we've got Raiders on the table things hopefully will start to pick up, and if FFG keeps supporting epic play with new ships then yeah it'll finally take off. Atleast for the Scum faction it'll be easy to find a epic scale ship to add. There are dozens and dozens of ships they can pick from.

FFG didn't "wait so long". In their posts about the Raider, they noted that they've been working very closely with Lucasfilm to develop the Raider and if I recall correctly, the development for the Raider started back when the Corvette was announced. It's been a long road, and one that FFG has been working very hard on.

I, for one, am super excited about the Raider coming and our local group has already planned for a weekend of 300-point Epic battles after we get ours.

Beyond that, we routinely play 150-point Epic'esque battles with the Transport, and 200-point with the Corvette. It's a ton of fun, especially if you find "turretwing" a bit stale.

Yes.

Perhaps you missed this: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2014/12/19/here-comes-the-imperial-raider/

It said that before the CR-90 they knew the Imperial players will would want an epic ship which, doesn't mean that development happen then. It just meant that they planed on making an epic imperial ship after the CR-90.

I'm a big advocate for X-Wing Epic. I don't even care about the extended absence of the Raider, epic is fun NOW. If you field a corvette out there and swallow around 120 points to it, it gives the alliance in a rebel vs empire match the FEAR of ship swarms. The loadout must be smart and the escort fine tuned. Every decision is crucial, from deployment, maneuvering feints, blocking, assault missile play, etc. If you feel epic mode is a steamroll, you're doing it wrong and making major squad design mistakes, which to be fair, are easier to make with that extra points room. The most boring epic game is to simply joust without any thought about asteroid deployment, that's not so different from standard play. Bringing a well loaded lone transport is also tons of fun when it's ignored (as it should mostly be, unless you've made critical deployment errors).

Empire side without a huge ship is already fun, you get to bring megalomaniac amounts of ships, allowing you to swarm and joust with absolute confidence. Some ships that are bad in the 100 point format become exceptionally good. Captian Kagi can singlehandedly shut down a CR90 who's scrambling to get offensive target lock help.

Merely the opening up of squad building towards 300 points already kicks up one of the best part of the game (crafting your squad).

I hope it does take off. I absolutely love Epic play. Last time I played, I had a gunship CR90 and a lot of ships with ion weapons. Whenever someone got too close to the corvette I'd ion them so that they'd splatter themselves on the next turn.

Epic is a thing me and my friends play team epic alot actually we almost exclusively play epic unless there is a tournament in the next 2-4 weeks.. There are a ton of new list options that epic opens up things that aren't really doable in 100 point games. I actually prefer epic x-wing to armada. As for tournament play it would need to be a different format than 100 point death match 4 rounds of swiss and a cut to top 8 isn't feasible when you are doubling the round length.

Epic is a thing me and my friends play team epic alot actually we almost exclusively play epic unless there is a tournament in the next 2-4 weeks.. There are a ton of new list options that epic opens up things that aren't really doable in 100 point games. I actually prefer epic x-wing to armada. As for tournament play it would need to be a different format than 100 point death match 4 rounds of swiss and a cut to top 8 isn't feasible when you are doubling the round length.

Epic is a thing me and my friends play team epic alot actually we almost exclusively play epic unless there is a tournament in the next 2-4 weeks.. There are a ton of new list options that epic opens up things that aren't really doable in 100 point games. I actually prefer epic x-wing to armada. As for tournament play it would need to be a different format than 100 point death match 4 rounds of swiss and a cut to top 8 isn't feasible when you are doubling the round length.

Warhammer and 40k have tournaments, and those games can last as long as an Epic match, so Epic tournaments should be doable.

But the thing with Warhammer 40K is that they are objective based formats with the objectives allowing for games to be called and the points to be added up to determine who is the tournament leaders. X-wing as of now is currently elimination for objectives and it takes a while to remove every model to include 2 ships builds. Now with Epic it is often that one side steam rolls the other side so some rounds may be shorter. But also people don't know how epic plays when compared to standard. They often don't know the maneuvers of epic ships and not knowing that it takes 3 banks to make a turn where as all other ships can make a turn in only 2 banks. So these things along with more dials can make rounds last longer.

With tournaments you want a time limit so you can quickly eliminate players and leave the top contestants playing for the title of champion. Very few people can go to a tournament that lasts more than 1 day. With the next round launching within 1&1/2 to 2 hours. There is only so many hours in the waking time of a day.

I think if Epic had objectives like Armada then tournaments can become more viable because there is more than just tabling your opponent to determine the winner. For the final match you can have table the opponent as the last round.

In my opinion Epic is not supposed to "take off" at all. The following is my very personal opinion, so anybody taking Epic more "serious": please don't feel offended, it is not meant as such.

To me, Epic is a lot like 40K Apocalypse: that is meant to get all of your shineys out every once in a while, add a few models that are just not suitable for regular games, and have a blast. Balance tends to take a backseat in those games (no discussion about 40Ks "balance" here, please! ), but for these "mega games" that's okay.

X-Wing is a game about clashes of roughly fighter/bomber-sized ships. Things like the Millenium Falcon and Slave I play a role that fits this concept, but they are also on the upper end of the scale range. Things like the Rebel Transport still make sense for me - as they are a great objective for both sides to fight over (this is the one Epic ship that I got myself, for that very reason).

But the other (soon) two ships? Nope, I just don't see it.

The game these bigger brutes belong to is Armada. This is also the game you should play if you are interested in clashes of capital ships with fighter/bomber support. Armada is meant to be played that way, just like X-Wing is not.

I really like epic games mostly just so I can build large wings of fighters and use all the ships I really want to. Don't really care about it "taking off" in the tournament scene but at some point I just got bored with the 100pt games.

Perhaps because its called "epic" some people are expecting a marching band and parade floats and until they get them don't see epic has having started yet.

I gotta play more games of Armada but it really hasn't blown me away yet.

Epic, for me, us the real deal. Imperial Frigates are trying to do something. Rebel Frigates are trying to stop them. Bombers try to take out the Frigates. Fighters try to take out the Bombers. Mid sized ships escort the bigger ships, and anchor the smaller ones. I lobe it. Can't wait for the Raider to drop, to make the whole thing work better.

FFG has mentioned wanting to support Epic tournaments, so I expect it to happen sooner, rather than later.

Our local group is trying to set up an epic tournament after the raider's release. Basically, you team up with someone by taking the same faction as that player, then go on playing 2 games of individual 200vs200 points that last 90 minutes each. Then, you form the teams in a final 400vs400 team epic final, with the combined MoV deciding the pairing (swiss style). The team that got the highest total MoV from all 3 games wins the event. If there's an odd number of teams, the lowest ranked teams battle it out 400v400v400 or something. We're trying to think about some squad restrictions that will prevent the worst parts of steamrolling, as in, force a the presence of a big ship per team or per player, force large equipped ships for s&v to balance it. The idea is to avoid pure cheap swarms, or 6 firesprays with recon specialists, which are amazingly good and would wipe out any honest list that wasn't prepared against it. Details have to be hammered out. Really wish we could know when the raider will be out.