I'm debating taking my first step into Epic play. Thought I'd ease myself into it with the Rebel Transport before considering the Corvette. It'll probably come with other ships, but for now let us assume the GR-75 is alone.

This is what I did on a Squadron Builder:

REBEL TRANSPORT:

GR-75 Medium Transport (30)

Combat Retrofit (10)

WED-15 Repair Droid (2)

Saboteur (2)

· Dutyfree (+0 Energy) (2)

Backup Shield Generator (3)

Frequency Jammer (4)

Slicer Tools (7)

That's 60 points of Transport, with the Dutyfree and Frequency Jammer to cause as much stress as possible for the Slicer Tools to attack. The Saboteur is there for some additional punch if a damaged ship gets too close.

Repair droid and backup shield generator are there to hopefully keep it from being destroyed.

Naturally, some of this might not be available to the Transport. Same Squadron Builder allowed an upgrade to a large ship that required Energy. Doh! But I'm hoping you'll either give thumbs up to this, offer better options and/or tell me how best to field the Transport with whatever upgrades.

I'd like a Transport that can kick butt

Wiser men (or at least more experienced pilots) have cautioned me against spending too many points on my Transports and my experience with them supports their arguments. With that in mind, 60 points seems like A LOT - that's 20% of your Epic squad for a ship that reliably does one damage a turn. I get where you're coming from and I had the same tendency to beef the thing up when I started out but you'll learn quickly that lots of ships (and lots of dice) are generally the better plan for Epic, as opposed to lots of points on fewer ships.

That said, I'm ALL ABOUT Transports that kick butt. So I've been running DraconPyrothayan's 'battering ram' build: Bright Hope, Engine Booster, and Backup Shield Generator. It's a two-large-based kamikaze made for one thing and one thing only: squishing bad guys. It's going to die, but before it does you'll probably run over at least one enemy ship and even if you don't you'll absorb a lot of fire that could've been directed at more important targets and you might even provide some cover for your ships to flank the enemy fleet. At 41 points it also saves enough from your build to afford you a naked Y-Wing or a modestly upgraded HWK or Z-95.

If this particular approach isn't your jam, try to focus on one thing that you want your Transport to do for you and don't spend the points on any upgrades that do make it better on doing that and only that. So far, I haven't found Combat Retrofit to be worth the points at all because if you're succeeding at the Transport's mission it WILL DIE, QUICKLY, but again you're happy if you're opponent is shooting it and not your other stuff.

Hope this helps, and stoked you're getting into Epic! It's sort of a red-headed stepchild around here but I think epic-ness is really what Star Wars is all about anyway.

Bugs on the windscreen strategy.

Splat!

Not my thing but does sound fun.

So first thing, the GR-75 comes with an X-Wing and some neat pilots. I play Empire more myself, but my friend uses his GR-75 a lot in our Epic battles. The biggest thing I've noticed is that I typically ignore it while I kill his regular ships. By the time it gets into play, most of his squad is dead. So, 2 big take-aways:

1) Move your other ships slowly, so they benefit from the GR-75 instead of rushing ahead.

2) You can still only take one action per turn. No need to fully outfit the big ship with everything. Focus on cards that don't use actions if possible.

Thank you both

Some good advice and plenty to think about. Got me wondering about the Transport, and whether I might prefer the CR-90, but I must admit I like the idea of using the GR-75 as a battering ram

aka bug splatter strategy