In WWII, the carriers had three different type squadrons to tackle different missions:

1) Fighters to protect the carrier task force from opposing planes.

2) Dive bombers to attack targets from above, distract AA and damage guns, decks, etc.

3) Torpedoe planes to attack and sink capital ships while being low to the water.

Will we start seeing a similar makeup in Epic?

1) Fighters to defend the Capital ship by going after the others attack ships!

2) Bombers to provide hit and run tactics on the Capital ship.

3) Torpedoe launchers to destroy the Capital ship.

What do you think? Will you look at Epic builds with tasks for each squadron in mind?

You are acting as if Epic hasn't been around for a while?

And no, not specifically. As far as I recall capital ships weren't in the habit of flying through enemy fighter planes.

nope

the red/green dice system in X-wing lets even tie fighters wreck havoc on the slow capital ships. You don't need dedicated bombers to hurt them (in fact, the dedicated bombers do less damage than the fighters)

compare: 3 Tie Fighters to Prox mine + conner + Muni K-wing.

paradoxically, bombers in X-wing are amazing counters to high agility, high maneuverability; low health ships.

the WW2 designations are more Armada's thing

No. Bring ships with at least three green dice. Stay out of range of the quad lasers, stay out of arc of the primary weapon, hide your smile if he brought turbo lasers. Oh and torpedoes are a waste of points against capital ships also. And torpedo carriers tend to have not enough green dice, see above.

Hmm, I do disagree here.

Flying bombers against epic targets is quite usefull, but you have to make a dedicated squad of at least four, including our famous friend, Captain Jonus. Wreck the epic ship with cluster missiles, mop up the next turn.

Whether normal 100 points or epic, the biggest target goes first. People are surprised when you ignore everything that is taking a shot and go for the corvette

If you try to tackle the fighters first there is a big chance you will no longer have enough for the epic ship, which still keeps shooting.

In Armada it is very much a thing.. racing ahead with your interceptors to block incoming fighters from attacking your strike craft or to attack unescorted enemy strikes.

But .. bombers with extra munitions and torps can still do a lot of damage to a Corvette in x-wing ...

But .. bombers with extra munitions and torps can still do a lot of damage to a Corvette in x-wing ...

Anything can do a lot of damage to a Corvette, as a Corvette is only marginally better than a Gr-75 at shooting back. The escorts are the only threat. Even a lowly tie fighter can cling to the exhaust tubes of a Corvette.

But .. bombers with extra munitions and torps can still do a lot of damage to a Corvette in x-wing ...

Anything can do a lot of damage to a Corvette, as a Corvette is only marginally better than a Gr-75 at shooting back. The escorts are the only threat. Even a lowly tie fighter can cling to the exhaust tubes of a Corvette.

Said the self-confident Imperial Commander

But seriously, with just regular TIEs a decent escort can make quick work of them.

That, or I am just more comfortable with bombers.

Yes. I'm starting to do it now. Of course, I am usually the one setting up the Epic games on both sides of things. I'm usually sticking 3 ships of the same type together with a particular task in mind. I'll have Interceptors try to zip ahead and distract enemy ships. I'll have ordnance ships try to go long and make a run on the enemy ship. I'll have those with bombs move ahead and lie mines and then unload at the incoming enemy.

I also find it is good to avoid the giant furball in the middle. Send your bomber/torpedo ships wide.

Whoever said Torpedoes are bad for epic clearly hasn't played with them much. They are great, especially for the free critical hit. Crits are just deadly in Epic and much better than missiles. I'll even say Plasma Torpedoes are great in Epic as most likely you will have extra shield left over after you hit them.

It's also impossible to stay at R3 and continue to have shots at the Epic ship. There is also escort ships, as well.

Yes. I'm starting to do it now. Of course, I am usually the one setting up the Epic games on both sides of things. I'm usually sticking 3 ships of the same type together with a particular task in mind. I'll have Interceptors try to zip ahead and distract enemy ships. I'll have ordnance ships try to go long and make a run on the enemy ship. I'll have those with bombs move ahead and lie mines and then unload at the incoming enemy.

I also find it is good to avoid the giant furball in the middle. Send your bomber/torpedo ships wide.

Whoever said Torpedoes are bad for epic clearly hasn't played with them much. They are great, especially for the free critical hit. Crits are just deadly in Epic and much better than missiles. I'll even say Plasma Torpedoes are great in Epic as most likely you will have extra shield left over after you hit them.

It's also impossible to stay at R3 and continue to have shots at the Epic ship. There is also escort ships, as well.

Historical wargame rulesets and rulesets based on historical warfare (Star Wars space combat) should see play based upon historical tactics as tactical and effective in play as it was in real combat! So it seems Heychadwick has seensome of this truth in XWing Epic! YAY!

Star Wars was made more of WWII in space than with actual physics to space combat. For me, I'm more than happy with it. I know there are a bunch of phsyics fans that want to see a ship not lose it's forward momentum as it turns and fires at an enemy next to it. I just like a good story and know WWII air combat. The whole trench run is based off some WWII black and white movie about some Brits bombing a dam.

To me, Star Wars closely resembles Pacific naval combat of WWII. Instead of islands, you have star systems. Most planes can't go far without a carrier that they are based on. These carriers are precious and vulnderable to torpedo ships and other capital ships. You need to use your fighters to protect your carriers while you also attack theirs. Sounds like Epic X-wing to me.

I wrote an Epic scenario recently called Attack on Actaeon Station:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/179998-attack-on-actaeon-station-epic-mission-feedback-welcome/

It's about the Rebels scoping out a space station that they think is weak due to Imperial forces being spread too thin. A local Moff is investigating the station to make sure it isn't too weak. The Rebels feel that now is the time to strike as they want to kill the high value target and destroy the station. So, maybe it's not quite as weak as they want, but the chance to kill the Moff is worth it.

I designed the Rebel forces purely for their role:

CR-90 with attack upgrades to duke it out with space station at long range

Torpedo squad of 3 Y-wings loaded with Torpedoes and Ion Turrets

Interceptors of 3 A-wings with Cluster Missiles

3 X-wings with Torpedoes to act as all around good ships. They can do a torpedo run, use main guns to blast station, or go toe to toe with any of the station defenders.

Imperials have the space station and the shuttle for Moff Jerjerrod.

4 Tie Figthers for general purpose defense

3 Tie Interceptors to intercept enemy ships

3 Tie Bombers to drop proximity mines against incoming ships and then launch missiles at CR-90.

VT-49 patrol craft to do what it can and distract incoming enemies.

It comes down to what tasks do you give your flight groups? Who do you send to do what? The first time we played it we had the Rebel ships all bunch together and try to go down the middle, but it slowed down everything so much and allowed the defenders to eventually take out one attacker after another in such a confined space. The next time we played we had things go wide. Tie Fighters went after the Y-wings, but their firepower was too weak and they kept getting ionized. X-wings were sent after Bombers and did a good job of blasting them before they dropped too much ordnance. A-wings went after VT-49 as Interceptors went after them. They distracted themselves pretty well, but allowed the Y-wings and X-wings to get through. The CR-90 was destroyed, but the small ships were able to destroy the station pretty easily.

So, it comes down to who do you set against what other squads? I think you have to enter a mindset where you are setting up the different flight groups. If you do it and your opponent doesn't , it could work in your favor. If you are a flight group that goes wide and after your target and everything else goes into the furball in the middle. Your ships in the middle might die, but if you get to the target and blow it to pieces, you probably win the day.

At least it's more fun for me to think of Epic games in this way as opposed to the biggest combo rip off that I can pull. You know, how many ships can I put within R1 of Jouns. What super cool combos can I stick into a list to inflict maximium damage. That might be great for 100 pt deathmatches, but gets boring for Epic.

Well the cinematic combat scenes were based off of WW2 air raids and navy fighter battles. Still as mentioned X-wing miniatures is a 2D representation of a theoretical 3D combat scene. So many things from WW2 fighter tactics won't match with X-wing tactics.

Same thing about say paintball and well trained infantry riflemen. Even playing in the woods paintball has a shorter effective range than say real life bullets and can't effectively go through foliage (or anything else for good reasons) so with paintball cover and concealment are the same thing. A well trained veteran special operation infantryman may have some skills that crossovers to paintball but that won't necessarily make the the best woods paintball player.

Point is games are supposed to be fun and fair, real life is supposed to be efficient and manages risk. They don't always work hand in hand.