So here is my short report from yesterdays game:
As I expected my opponent rather choose to heavily upgrade ships than to play a massive swarm. SO he ended up playing just 8 ships into my 7 ships (almost fully upgraded CR90 + GR75 included!).
He had two HLC Defenders a HLC support shuttle, two heavily upgrades bombers and three Interceptors one of which beeing fel i think.
I had both epic ships jan ors, dutch vander (both with blaster turrets) and 3 Z95 with assault missiles.
Setup:
The setup was kinda interesting, we didnt know if the epic ships had to be places first so we went for normal pilot skill order. I had to place my Z95 first so i set them in the middle to leave averything open (i had the crew who could give them pilot skill 12 for one activation face so i thought tehy could get TLs anyway). My opponent wanted to fly all the heavy ships together and simply blow me up on the approach while the Interceptors should flank. He had to place half of the heavy ships and half of the interceptors before my epic ships so i knew where he was going to be. I chose to let the epics come in diagonally from the left flank (where he had his Interpecptors). The HWK and Y-Wing were left of those are were meant to savely approach and overtake the epics.
Initial Turns:
I had a problem. Over 200 points with higher pilot rankings were facing my poor Z95s in the middle of the table. Even if they get their target locks with pilot rating 12 in the activation face due to moving later they would be blown up during the shooting phase before they can shoot their assault missiles. So i chose to try crossing the line of my epics whila staying away from the middle. It was a risky call though depending on how fast my opponent would move in the opening turn. He chose to advance rather fast so it would be a close call how many ships get into range in turn 2.
Meanwhile on the flank: I noticed that the HWK and Y-Wing are to **** slow to overtake the CR90 in just a few turns. but try to fly over it is also very risky and i didnt want to turn left to not get totally out of combat. My CR90 got its primary weapon buffed by ors, used its own buff and could target lock on range 5. So it blew one of Interceptors out of space with one shot.
Next turn went similar on teh left flank with the interceptors fleeing to the middle and my two turret ships having a **** bad position. The middle was were it would get exciting. I tried to escape the range of the heavy ships by taking 4 straights (although only 45° to them). Because my opponent didnt move his pack perfectly and some ran into each other not all of them came into range. My Z95 still got shot by about 3 ships but managed to survive mostly by him rolling the dice very poorly. So by biggest problem was solved the epics were approaching rapidly (with dishing out dmg mostly with the CR90 primary) and it was time to turn around and get some of those assault missiles of.
Mid game:
Half of the enemy heavy ships concentraded on blowing up the transport (it was heading right into them with its range 1 ionization + dmg upgrade beeing ready) while the other half tried to kill off the Z95. The transport was successfully taken out by heavy HLC fire in just two turns. However 2 of my Z95 managed to fire their assault missiles hitting multiple ships in tose two turns before geeting killed. The CR90 managed to dish out constant dmg to bombers and interceptors and even getting into range 2 within those turns to attack the shuttle on top of it. On the flank ors was somewhat useful through his buff while i still had a bad position with both of the small ships. I tried to cross the CR90 but the maneauvers are too **** short and both had to use several turn by turning towards the CR90 and only with the second move beeing able to cross it (y-wing with a 3bank) and slow down to turn in after the epic ship (HWK).
End game
Through assault missiles, ionizing upgrade and CR90 fire allmost all of the enemy ships had taken some minor to heavy damage (interceptors and bombers getting killed first). After the Z95 and transport fell most of my enemies ships were parallel of the CR90 so they couldnt easily turn to attack with with HLCs. Thats why he focussed dutch vander next (and one Z95 that was still alive with one hull) who was finally able to cross the lie of the epic ships followe even further behind by jan ors. Both ships hardly didnt do any damage but somehow they managed to survive long enough for my CR90 to take down one ship after the other.
In the end i had jan ors with 1 hull left and and the CR90 with only 2 shield dmg against a sontir fel that had to flee (the last range 5 shot managed to land 2 more dmg on it).
Final Thoughts:
It was a fun game. My opponent played epic the first time. He had bad luck to not take out 1-2 Z95 on the first approach and thats were it got ugly for him. Even though his firepower was rather impressive in the mid game the transporter was just a big distraction from the CR90 which probably shouldve been his main target due to how hard it turned out to take it down in the end game. I had almost 200 points in the two epic ships but managed to land quite some damage with the Z95 assault missiles. I'm not sure if there is any official ruling but jan ors ability should be forbidden to use on the CR90. 6 red dice with target lock are a pain in the a.. for most imperial fighters. On the other hand a 130+ points model should be able to hurt so its hard to say after one game.