I will be playing an Epic game in a few days as Rebels, and I will be facing the Raider for the first time. No idea what its upgrades and escort will be, but I think it's safe to assume Palpatine will be on board. Any suggestions?

I'm sitting with the same problem. I am going through the upgrade card to see which jump out at me. My idea for the list is to use the CR90 to attack the raider and my fighters to engage his. I think a few B-Wing with heavy laser cannon could support the CR90. Once I have a formal list I will post it.

Cr90 with 2 single turbolasers, sensor team, engineering team, Weapons Engineer, shield generator, and tabana gas is a good start to a gunship build.

Deploy it at a 30-45 degree angle so it slides across the board as the imperials move into your firing arcs to engage. deploy your obstecals in a slanted line for it to move parallel too, or to act as a screen to tie up fighters.

Make 110 of your points generic X-Wings, then throw in Ethan with Sensor jammer, ptl, shield upgrade, and R2D2.

Basic x-wing are great in Epic games.

Cr90 with 2 single turbolasers, sensor team, engineering team, Weapons Engineer, shield generator, and tabana gas is a good start to a gunship build.

Deploy it at a 30-45 degree angle so it slides across the board as the imperials move into your firing arcs to engage. deploy your obstecals in a slanted line for it to move parallel too, or to act as a screen to tie up fighters.

Make 110 of your points generic X-Wings, then throw in Ethan with Sensor jammer, ptl, shield upgrade, and R2D2.

Basic x-wing are great in Epic games.

Is the GR-75 of any use at all in a competitive Epic match? I've seen some cool-looking builds that seem to synergize with stress-inducing small ships, and also one that sets the transport up kind of like a kamikaze with some of the cards from the corvette (struggling to find the lists presently, sorry). Any experience with or input on that kind of thing?

Slicer Tools and Toryn Farr are gret upgrades for the GR75. Strong support ship that really can lay down the damage despite not having any hard point weapons at all.

For the CR90, I would suggest talking a HWK 290 to run escort. Either Roark Garnet or Jan Ors. Roark lets you shoot at PS12 while Jan lets you add an additional attack dice to your primary weapon on the CR90. Paired with the CR90's native ability to add an extra attack dice when shooting your primary, you are rolling 6 red die a turn. You can easily wipe off small ships a turn with just your primary--Han Solo crew card makes it a bit easier too. The Turbo Lasers could be good but I have found them to be an overall disappointment based on the price tag, number of attacks and the bonus it grants targeted ships. Good luck!

Cr90 with 2 single turbolasers, sensor team, engineering team, Weapons Engineer, shield generator, and tabana gas is a good start to a gunship build.

Deploy it at a 30-45 degree angle so it slides across the board as the imperials move into your firing arcs to engage. deploy your obstecals in a slanted line for it to move parallel too, or to act as a screen to tie up fighters.

Make 110 of your points generic X-Wings, then throw in Ethan with Sensor jammer, ptl, shield upgrade, and R2D2.

Basic x-wing are great in Epic games.

Is the GR-75 of any use at all in a competitive Epic match? I've seen some cool-looking builds that seem to synergize with stress-inducing small ships, and also one that sets the transport up kind of like a kamikaze with some of the cards from the corvette (struggling to find the lists presently, sorry). Any experience with or input on that kind of thing?

Oh the GR75 is amazing. But I wouldn't go for 2 huge ships in an epic game until you pass 400 points. Make it either a debuff boat or a buff boat, but don't mix and match. Also once you start taking damage, you might lose your only action to self preservation, so don't go too wild and leave it exposed.

Some good advice is to build 100-120 point starfighter "wings" or "flights" where you have 3-4 ships that work together. For example, 3 Dagger Squadron Pilots (24) with Ion Cannons (3) and Tacticians (2+1) make a good 90 points of really harsh control, and you have wiggle room to slap either Radar Jammers to make them unappealing targets to concentrated fire (12 points) or Advanced Sensors for increased maneuverability (9 points).

Giving a group of like-minded strike-craft a Flight Leader might not be a bad idea either in 400 point games. Taking the Previous example, throwing in Nera Dantels (26) with Dead Eye (1) Recon Spec (3+1) and Extra Ion Torpedoes (5+2) with Sensor Jammer for defense (4) makes a pricey but deadly Ion thrower. That is 144 points for a 4 craft formation, each with only one evade dice, but all with the ability to change hits/crits to focuses, and causing Ion+Stress effects on targets, giving the rest of your 256 points targets of opportunities. Another good leader would be Ibtisam, set up as a tanky fire magnet with the ability to modify the attackers dice and her own with the right upgrades.

But having only 4 ships at 144 points of your task force might be a points sink, so lets take a look at what other ships the rebels have:

-Green Squadron Pilots: given PTL and refit, they are only 20 points each. Take a swarm of 5, then trick them out by making them PS5 as well, or predator for an attack buff, or wingman so they can relive each-others stress when pushing the limit, or other friendly crafts around them.

-Generic E-wings (gasp!) next to a transport, with the transport supporting them and giving them a sudo-PTL, but without the stress. 3 evade dice with 5 health can be nice, especially if some of the generics have Jammers on them, and re-generator droids. Because the Transport moves last, it can give an action to an e-wing (like barrel roll), allowing it to re-position around an ace.

-12 Z-95's at 144 points? Self explanatory. Keep bunched up for the tie-bombers now!

-Y-wings. I would have 1-2 y-wings flying with the huge ships. Why? Turret. Ion Turret. Suddenly they need to kill the Y-wings flying escort to the CR90 before they attack the CR90 itself. Good investment. Don't overlap your own y-wings though!

-B-wings. 1 evade, 8 health. Melt fast under fire

But X-wings... Oh boy X-wings... So unloved in the cutthroat listbuilding of 100 points, these guys get to shine when you play with them in epic. It is almost mandatory to take at least 4 plain X-wings for 84 points I feel. Maybe make them Red Squadron (because PS 4 is the sweetspot in epic, to be able to shoot back at an epic ship if it kills you) and an R2 for the stress relief if you want to put something on these guys. Make sure they stay together and support each other.

If you have a lot of ships, then Ethan is a auto include. Your opponents will try to kill him, so make him tanky and defensive as possible, and biggs might help here too. But Etahn rolling out with a flight of 5-6 X-wings will kill something dead, due to all the criticals.

A solid build is Etahn, Gaven, Cracken, Biggs, Tarn, Red/Rookie, Red/Rookie. Very strong wall that can stay in a loose formation but still take advantage of Etahns effect. Ethan flys in the middle, with Gaven and Craken (one has squad leader, other has wingman) feeds a tanky Biggs+R2F2orR4D6 with tokens who protects the 3 of them. Once Biggs is down (he might only last the first joust, but he sucks up all the high PS shots like a pro) they feed Etahn and the rest of the team with tokens. Tarn does what Tarn does, and that is be awesome at 25 points with R7, but otherwise act like a generic with the other 2 generics. Assuming biggs dies before he can shoot, you still get Five 3 dice primary attacks, and a 2 dice attack, with each changing a hit to a crit for free. The only ship with a lot of points invested in it should be Etahn, and he should have plenty of tokens, both evade and focus, and be regenerating lost health each turn, making him a bullet sponge, and only weak to potential phantoms or ion batteries. Just make sure they cant splash more than 2 other ships with AoE ordnance like assault missiles and ion torpedoes.

Slicer Tools and Toryn Farr are gret upgrades for the GR75. Strong support ship that really can lay down the damage despite not having any hard point weapons at all.

For the CR90, I would suggest talking a HWK 290 to run escort. Either Roark Garnet or Jan Ors. Roark lets you shoot at PS12 while Jan lets you add an additional attack dice to your primary weapon on the CR90. Paired with the CR90's native ability to add an extra attack dice when shooting your primary, you are rolling 6 red die a turn. You can easily wipe off small ships a turn with just your primary--Han Solo crew card makes it a bit easier too. The Turbo Lasers could be good but I have found them to be an overall disappointment based on the price tag, number of attacks and the bonus it grants targeted ships. Good luck!

Use the Single turbolasers to target the Raider, the Palpatine shuttle, or the decimator/punishers. They can change an eyeball to a hit for free, and you cant target lock the Raider twice when using Weapons Engineer. If you take gunnery team (it's a meh card), and have extra energy, you can modify a blank to a hit. So assuming you get an average roll of 1 blank, 1 eye, and 2 hits, you can spend 1 energy to change the blank to a hit, and the turbolaser changes the eye to a hit as well. Then Etahn kicks in and changes a hit to a crit.

Don't take single Turbolasers unless your building a gunboat. Support boats/flagships tend to get closer into the fray, and need energy for support abilities. But for gunboats with 2 single turbolaser and a primary weapon in the front, you can potentially get 3 strong attacks off in the opening moves of the game, at a distance the raider cannot respond too. Getting in that first unopposed strike can be a tide turner sometimes. Just make sure you have Gas and Engineering teams though, cause you can burn through 6 energy a turn from just the fore firing, alone!

Thanks for all the advice. My game is tonight, wish me luck! hehe

I'm still not 100% sure of the build I'll use, but I'm considering this:

CR90 Corvette (Fore) 79 points

- Quad Laser Cannons

- Single Turbolasers

- Engineering Team

- Sensor Team

- Han Solo

- Backup Shield Generator

- Jaina's Light

CR90 Corvette (Aft) 55 points

- Single Turbolasers

- Weapons Engineer

- Tibanna Gas Supplies

Etahn (PTL, Advanced Sensors, R2-D2) 42 points

Dagger (Advanced Sensors) 27 points

Red x3 23x3= 69 points

Gray (ICT, R3-A2, BTL-A4) 27 points

Total: 299 points

http://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Rebel%20Alliance&d=v3!e!80:86,65,64,92,91,83:13:-1:;81:29,64,-1,66:-1:-1:;74:18,43,-1,3:-1:-1:;2:-1,-1:-1:-1:;2:-1,-1:-1:-1:;2:-1,-1:-1:-1:;6:0,-1,-1,69:21:-1:;43:43,-1,-1,-1:-1:-1:

Looks like a legit list!

Just make sure that you don't send your CR90 at him, but have him go to you! Aka, deploy at a 45 degree angle or shallower, and go straight. You will basically fly from the right to the left (or vice versa) across the map, and only really need to start turning into them when you need to make sure your guns will still have arc. ( My last game I didn't need to turn at all . He moved into range 5 from my fore section, and while he couldn't shoot me, I unloaded 3 strong hits, 2 into the raider, one on the palp shuttle flying escort to it. Ignored the phantoms and interceptors until they finally got close, and had the X-wings joust at them. X-wings probably would of died if the game kept going, but I took out the shuttle and the fore of the raider)

Depending on the situation, keep your fighters close together, and deploy the lowest PS in the front to prevent bumps. Keep them in-between your CR90 and them, at range 1-2 of the corvette. When they reach the range 4 band of your fighters, you can then turn in to engage them next turn, because they should be in range (your 2 turn+their movement might make it a range 2 engagement), and if they are sending a few from behind, don't fret about K-turning to attack.

Actually, if they are comming in from behind, that means they went all the way from their side to your side, did a sharp 90 degree turn, and are catching up (which would be like 5 turns of just moving). If they are trying to do that, turn into them, and bombard them from range. But don't send your fighters out from underneath the protective arc of your guns for the first few turns.

(Exception: Ion torpedoes and Assault Concussion Missiles. Actually, you might want one of each. Drop the dagger to get a Z95 with assault concussion missiles, and upgrade a red to Tarn and give him R7 and Ion Torps? Idk if it is really that necessary.)

Or maybe the same list as above, but Tarn + R7 Astro instead of the Dagger + AS... then Etahn could get a Hull Upgrade also.

Or maybe the same list as above, but Tarn + R7 Astro instead of the Dagger + AS... then Etahn could get a Hull Upgrade also.

Huh. I usually put shield upgrade on him, but how often do you get to regenerate all 4 shields? *shrugs*. Didn't think about that.

Also remember, he is going to die first because of his ability.

I can see AS being good as you can avoid bumps or PtL and preform a green, but I take a Sensor Jammer proxie (don't own the actual card) as it tends to screw with big ship attacks (they can't take the focus action!) or strips a fighter swarm of their focuses, leaving interceptors and whatnot to rely on unmodified green dice, meaning your generics that fire after can actually deal more damage! xD

I ran him with Garn+wingman and Craken+squadleader in that last game, and he survived in-part because he did every single action on his bar, and got an extra focus. Maybe a comms booster would of been a better idea? But I like the Gas+Shield Generator Combo too much

But yeah, don't be bummed if you lose him, just make it so he survives the first pass/joust, and most of your fighters and your big ship guns can benefit from his ability!

I think Sensor jammer is worth it, but you can also make the case of "Its like putting a ton of upgrades on biggs" where all biggs really needs is R2F2 and focus passing.

Yeah, I almost always put Hull instead of Shield on the 2 named E-Wings if I have the points, to help a bit from Direct Hit crits (Vader, Proton Bomb). So far I've used Sensor Jammer on Ibtisam only, but you're making your case for sure here... thanks (again) for the advice. I was thinking on using Focus+Evade every turn with Etahn, ideally with Advanced Sensors and immediately removing the stress with a green maneuver (regaining a shield with R2-D2 of course), but now...

its the enduring question of how to make a starfighter survive 6+ strength 3-4 attacks. If it can't, well, hopefully the fact that the rest of your fleet is fine makes them pay for the concentrated fire.

Or maybe, the focus+evade+jammer makes them not even think about targeting them

The game was a lot of fun but so long. I ended up playing the list above, but with Tarn+R7 and Hull on Etahn instead of the Dagger. My opponent played only Large ships as support for his Raider... 4 Lambdas (each with Recon Specialist and Fire-Control System) and 1 Decimator (Kenkirk with Ysanne, Rebel Captive and Predator)... 56 health total just for "support"! The Raider had the following:

Fore (Ion Cannon Battery, Coms Booster, Engineering Team) 64 points

Aft (Ion Cannon Battery, Quad Laser Cannons, Sensor Team, Tibanna Gas Supplies, Palpatine) 78 points

We couldn't finish the game so the Imperials won on points. I lost Etahn and the Fore section of the Tantive. He lost the 4 Lambdas. The Decimator was down to 9 hulls but the Raider was almost full health! He played really slow with the Raider. I made a couple of big mistakes and forgot a few things, but it was very cool. Quite intimidating to see all those large ships across the table, but the X-Wings truly shine in this format. I almost went with Sensor Jammer but while setting up I forgot to change it, then I was glad when I saw that the Lambdas all had Recon Specialist.

Thanks to all for the input.

What would you say you learned, or what would you do differently when deploying/moving/fighting?

My advice is all based off of my experience with my group of players. So I want to hear what other people did or would wish they did so I can think about it and maybe recommend it to other people.

That is defiantly an odd imperial list to say the least! Did the Single Turbolasers have a field day?

Well, the movement/flying itself was very cool. I didn't destroy any of my ships, so that's a plus! hehe I really like the way Huge ships move, it's well done and logical. I should have forced him to come to me more maybe, but he deliberately moved very slow with his Raider at first, sending all his Lambdas and the Decimator at me. That was his strategy I guess, so the Tantive would be hurt when the Raider showed up. I wonder if I could have pulled it off if we actually finished the game. After taking care of the Decimator, I would have tried to get behind the Raider with the small ships to cripple its Aft section first. You were right about X-Wings anyway, they're great for that format. The Single Turbolasers were very strong, yes. They're really worth their cost (in both points and energy!). The problem against the Raider though was that even if I could take a few shots before it got close enough for its own firing range, it just regenerated its shield by then. With so many Large ships to deal with, I could not concentrate fire on the Raider soon enough to get to its hulls and maybe make it suffer some crits.