Questions about playing with Epic ships

By gundamv, in X-Wing

Would it make sense to play an Epic game with one side having a Rebel Transport (+ some support, perhaps) against an Imperial Raider (+ some support, perhaps)?

Also, would it make sense to play a scenario where one side has an Epic ship and the other side uses several regular ships in an attempt to take down the Epic ship? I'm envisioning something like the Battle of Endor with a bunch of A-Wings and B-Wings against a Super Star Destroyer, but with the Imperial Raider substituting for the Super Star Destroyer.

I don't know if you can get to 300 points through upgrades only on the raider.

Maybe 200, but I don't know if that's balanced or not

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

would it make sense to play a scenario where one side has an Epic ship and the other side uses several regular ships in an attempt to take down the Epic ship? I'm envisioning something like the Battle of Endor with a bunch of A-Wings and B-Wings against a Super Star Destroyer, but with the Imperial Raider substituting for the Super Star Destroyer.

Or like half of the missions in X-Wing/TIE Fighter/X-Wing Alliance.

We recently played an epic game of Scums vs rebels, with the rebels fielding a Tantive with some support ships and the scums fielding 3 (mini) swarms trying to take down the capital ship. Had great fun, and the scums won in the end.

The Scums had a mini swarm of titled y-wings with ioncannons, holding down the Tantive while a swarm of headhunters and miniswarm of Mangler heavy Scycks took care of the support ships, then after the support ships were mostly destroyed they swooped in to help the sole surviving y-wing take down the tantive. Scums had the upper hand for most of the battle, partly due to a decent battleplan, but probably also due to a better list, the rebel support ships were mostly upgraded named pilots, but they were outmatched by the sheer numbers of the mostly unnamed scums. still great fun with a few learning moments.

Based on (yet another) squad builder, it seems that the absolute maximum points you can reach with a cr90 is 163, nowhere near balanced against a 160 pt fleet.

However, there's a mission in the campaign which lets you play 5 turns with the hug ship only against a tie swarm. So that's the closest thing that comes to mind.

About the first question, I don't see what's wrong with that as long as the overall squad reaches 300 pt. Probably you could get away with even less than that, but I havn't played enough to know if 250 or 200 points matches are balanced or not.

Edited by Zabby

Would it make sense to play an Epic game with one side having a Rebel Transport (+ some support, perhaps) against an Imperial Raider (+ some support, perhaps)?

Also, would it make sense to play a scenario where one side has an Epic ship and the other side uses several regular ships in an attempt to take down the Epic ship? I'm envisioning something like the Battle of Endor with a bunch of A-Wings and B-Wings against a Super Star Destroyer, but with the Imperial Raider substituting for the Super Star Destroyer.

Yes and Yes.

First off, Epic doesn't have to be 300 vs 300. That's the "official" epic format, but you can always do what you want. I've had a lot of fun playing Epic and want to play some more as soon as Regionals are done with. I've had the CR90 vs. all generic Imperials and had a blast with it. I've done it a number of times. I've gotten people into the game that way. Anything works, really. I've wanted to use a number of Decimators vs. Rebel Epics....with a number of support ships. I've also wanted to make a space station out of a plastic bowl or plate and make some rules up. I think it will be a ton of fun.

My advice for Epic is to keep the special characters to a minimum. With so much going on, it's hard to remember all the special rules and such. Also, it's more thematic to play with mostly generics. Even if you use a few elites, it will make them more special. I would also recommend a number of people for each side. Give people task forces and group up the ships. With that said, please make sure to spread out the PS level of all the ships. Even if you want a bunch of Tie Fighters in the game, don't give the same guy 5 Academy Pilots. It bogs the game down too much with one person moving a bunch of the same ships. Try to spread the PS points to different teams on one side, so that everyone is moving a ship or two for each PS level.

Try to make both lists and be fair when you make them. If you make the non-epic list filled with high attack ships, it won't be much of a fight. You load up with Phantoms and Interceptors to take out a CR90 and it dies pretty fast.

Would it make sense to play an Epic game with one side having a Rebel Transport (+ some support, perhaps) against an Imperial Raider (+ some support, perhaps)?

Yes.

Also, would it make sense to play a scenario where one side has an Epic ship and the other side uses several regular ships in an attempt to take down the Epic ship? I'm envisioning something like the Battle of Endor with a bunch of A-Wings and B-Wings against a Super Star Destroyer, but with the Imperial Raider substituting for the Super Star Destroyer.

Yes.

Simply put, Epic play caters for all of the above, and then some. I played a 150 point Epic game with a GR-75 and support on one side against an 150 Imperial swarm on the other, and it was great fun. The Transport is fairly cheap for an Epic ship and offers some amazing support options, which balances out it's lack of firepower.

A capital ship with no support against fighters? Possible, but a very tough fight for the Epic ship. Might work if you had the fighters come in in waves, and the Epic ship needing to escape (i.e. cross the board to reach a hyperspace buoy and jump to lightspeed before it is destroyed).

Which brings us to cinematic play. All of the Epic ships come with scenarios and campaign missions which are great fun, the Raider will likely get a fair few as well. And there's nothing to stop you coming up with your own scenarios (like the jump to lightspeed one above).

I've played the campaign that comes with the CR 90 from the Rebel side, and it's a tough fight against the Imperial fighters. It's got a lot of hull and shields to chew through, but little in the way of evasion, especially when you start needing to regen shields and can't Reinforce as your action.

I don't know if you can get to 300 points through upgrades only on the raider.

Maybe 200, but I don't know if that's balanced or not

YOU STOLE MY FACE

lol

I don't know if you can get to 300 points through upgrades only on the raider.

Maybe 200, but I don't know if that's balanced or not

YOU STOLE MY FACE

lol

Well right now since only Rebels have epic ships making an Epic ship requirement would make 2 of the 3 factions unplayable.

So where does the Rebel Transport fit, well in a recent Epic tournament the store simply said all huge ships could be used in any faction (does not extend to upgrades and other ships) and that there must be 1 huge ship per team. Now the only thing a Rebel transport would be good would be to save room for more standard ships (small/large base ships) thus having more of a starfighter swarm.

So really the Rebel transport is only if you want a huge ship in play but don't want to spend a third of your list when you can spend it on taking more B-wings and X-wings. More fighters tend to take down huge ships pretty fast. However I think we all can agree it wouldn't be much of an epic match without a huge ship.

Well right now since only Rebels have epic ships making an Epic ship requirement would make 2 of the 3 factions unplayable.

You don't need an Epic ship to play in Epic. If the Raider isn't done by the time I'm done with Regionals, I'm gearing up to have a CR-90 & support face off vs. 3 Decimators & support. Also, there are the missions in the various ship packs. I've also done all generic Imperial ships vs. the Tantive and 4 escort fighters (205 vs 205).

However I think we all can agree it wouldn't be much of an epic match without a huge ship.

Oh, I don't know about that - 4 IG-2000's all sharing pilot abilities is pretty **** epic.

Now that the Raider has been officially released, would it make sense to play Rebel Transport + stuff vs. Raider + stuff, say, in a 200 point or 300 point game? Or would that likely end in a massacre?

Depends on how you kit out the Rebels?

The raider isn't as good at supporting allied ships ass the cr90 can be - its much more combat focussed. But a good 300 pt game would be:

Cr90, 1 or 2 gr75 transports and a handful snubfighters vs Raider and a large number of ties supported by shuttles. imperials get the offensive edge, but rebels can load those transports to jam/ionization reactor anything coming close.

Anyone else finding that the raider seems to have a much harder time killing a CR90 than a CR90 has killing a raider?

Tie fighters and interceptors are the easiest way to kill a tantive

Well right now since only Rebels have epic ships making an Epic ship requirement would make 2 of the 3 factions unplayable.

You don't need an Epic ship to play in Epic. If the Raider isn't done by the time I'm done with Regionals, I'm gearing up to have a CR-90 & support face off vs. 3 Decimators & support. Also, there are the missions in the various ship packs. I've also done all generic Imperial ships vs. the Tantive and 4 escort fighters (205 vs 205).

I know that, I was talking to the OP about making Huge ships required to play epic. Now that the Raider is out in order to play Scum & Villainy you have to either fly all squadrons (which is pretty much the most powerful build) or make a house rule set of your own such as the GR-75 conversion kit. Still all squadrons are going to be the most powerful list builds. As far as types of list these are the only list you can play.

  1. Rebel Starfighter Wing
  2. 1 Huge Rebel Ship & Rebel Starfighter Squadron
  3. 2 Huge Rebel Ships Flotilla
  4. Imperial Starfighter Wing
  5. 1 Imperial Huge Huge Ship & Imperial Starfighter Squadron
  6. Scum & Villainy Starfighter Wing

With one more list on the way after the Gozanti Transport

  • 2 Huge Imperial Ship Flotilla