So how does everyone feel about EPIC. We played an Epic game last night. Tantive loaded up and the Raider loaded up. Overall i must say you really need quantity or quality for the rest of your team. The Raider had quantity while my team had quality and there really was no difference. We just couldn't do enough damage to the Raider. Also for attack quality the Raider is a beast. Any thoughts about EPIC.
Epic Anyone?
It takes a while to really figure it out and develop strategies. The CR-90 is harder to learn as you want to broadside people instead of just run at them. Still, with Jan Ors, you can boost the main gun to a lot of red dice!
I like to play Epic with mostly generics as it is more thematic. It also speeds up gameplay.
I'd think that 3 red attack dice should do enough to take the Raider down. Just go with lots of cheap X-wings.
My thoughts: do no underestimate the importance of having lots of cheap, expendable units. You'd be amazed at what a few Z-95s can do to a huge ship if they get in range to target both sections.
The mistake that everyone does in my neighborhood: trying to have lots of high PS ships.
I think EPIC is great fun and gives me a chance to play ships that normally don't do all that well in the 100 point environment. Those generic X-Wings really shine in EPIC and its tons of fun to see lots of them on the table!
Love epic. Just ran this list in a 400 point team fight. Transport becomes a huge shield that gives 3 dice to anyone behind it. the cr90 hides behind and uses dash to shoot unobstructed shots over the transport. Really limits the opening strike on cr90. Biggs roark and all the daggers just control the middle of the board and try to surround any enemy huge shup.
TANTIVE IV: CR90 Corvette (Fore) (50)
Weapons Engineer (3)
· Jaina's Light (2)
Sensor Team (4)
Tibanna Gas Supplies (4)
Single Turbolasers (2 Energy) (8)
Quad Laser Cannons (2 Energy) (6)
TANTIVE IV: CR90 Corvette (Aft) (40)
· Dash Rendar (2)
Engineering Team (4)
Backup Shield Generator (3)
Quad Laser Cannons (2 Energy) (6)
REBEL TRANSPORT: GR-75 Medium Transport (30)
· Chewbacca (4)
· Carlist Rieekan (3)
· Bright Hope (+2 Energy) (5)
EM Emitter (3)
Backup Shield Generator (3)
X-WING: · Biggs Darklighter (25)
· R4-D6 (1)
HWK-290: · Roark Garnet (19)
Twin Laser Turret (6)
B-WING: Dagger Squadron Pilot (24)
B-WING: Dagger Squadron Pilot (24)
B-WING: Dagger Squadron Pilot (24)
B-WING: Dagger Squadron Pilot (24)
B-WING: Dagger Squadron Pilot (24)
B-WING: Dagger Squadron Pilot (24)
B-WING: Dagger Squadron Pilot (24)
If you mix up lots of named pilots, lots of upgrades, and have lots of interactions going on it's easy to lose track with a lot of ships on the table - so keep things simple - at least at first.
When Epic ships start Jamming, Reinforcing, Regenerating and reparing hull damage with the fix-it bot, it can be really difficult to stick any lasting damage onto them with 2 Attack value ships. Higher attack values, and/or ordnance are your friends. I'm a big fan of the A-Wing Slash with concussion missiles followed up by Red Squadron Pilots with Torps
Send in some swarms of nameless pilots to kill the epics. Throw in a few named pilots to support them or to take out enemy aces.
Epic is great fun. I tend to limit my epic ships to one function each. I design builds with one specific mission in mind. If an upgrade assists in that mission, add it. If the upgrade would not assist in mission completion, save it for another build. For example, I almost always use my GR75 to hand out stress. There are some good builds for that, but adding things that have nothing to do with stress would be a waste of points. KISS, Keep It Simple Solo.
IMO, CR90s and Raiders benefit from a variety of close AND long range weapons. Giving all 3-5 range weapons creates a doughnut of pain and star fighters will shew you up. Likewise, only taking short range weapons will leave you at the mercy (or lack thereof) of enemy capital ships able to complete long range attacks.
Unlimited number of strategies.
Durability becomes key in Epic. I love creating a squad of bombers, escorted by Advanced, to go and take out the Rebel Epic ship. And yes, the Raider is not a retrofitted, out of desperation, transport ship. It is a military vessel designed for war... and it shows in game!
Epic takes a lot longer time to play. Part of the reason is because there is more stuff on a larger table and also part that most players don't understand the rules of epic as well as say a game of standard (it doesn't help that huge ship have some very counter-intuitive rules like measuring from the stock when everything else is measured from the edge of the base). Epic has always been confusing and many players make mistakes in the list building such as freq. jammer on a CR-90 (which is like putting SPA on a B-wing).
Also for the longest time only one faction had huge ships and they were grossly under-powered in order to preserve faction balance. It doesn't resonate well with competitive players as of now only 1 faction has a top meta tier list and that is all 4 IG-2000 for Scum which has no huge ships and that was sort of the point for epic was to have the big ships with the small ships. Say what you want about the Standard meta having no diversity, it is actually way more diverse than the epic meta with each faction having a top tier list. The impact huge ships play in the epic meta is mostly artificial as players wan't to at least field these models that they payed $60-$100 for in order to substantiate their purchase, instead of winning a tournament.
Still I like epic if only for the theme, (heck I made a conversion kit so that scum could have a huge ship as well). How to fix it? Well tough call, for one FFG has stated that epic is for casual play only so there will not be a regionals or worlds epic tournament like standard, and FFG does focus on competitive standard a lot as it has been the focus of hobbyists on X-wing and the reason why many players buy one of each expansion pack to include huge ship expansions. Some say mandatory epic points would help but that would leave out Scum & Villainy (unless you use the conversion kit). I don't think a mandatory point allocation is good in any table top game, however it is a start.
I don't know and since I already shamelessly plugged it in a couple of times 
check out my conversion kit you can find the link in my signature bellow. or you can click HERE if you have signatures hidden in your settings.
...most players don't understand the rules of epic as well as say a game of standard (it doesn't help that huge ship have some very counter-intuitive rules like measuring from the stock when everything else is measured from the edge of the base)...
Wait, that's not a rule. You only measure from center-to-center if you're trying to determine line of sight through that blue line on the huge ship base. It represents that one section of the huge ship can block the other section (e.g. I can't shoot through the bow of the ship to hit the engines). After you determine it's a legal attack, you measure closest point to closest point as usual.
A confusing rule that new people forget is that Huge ships move last, but fire in regular order of Pilot Skill. Easy to learn, but easy to overlook on the first time playing.
As for me, I love Epic play, and I've made several squads on Vassal. I just don't know if there is interest in Epic play on Vassal.
If you want some EPIC strategies
*shameless plug. 
IMO, CR90s and Raiders benefit from a variety of close AND long range weapons. Giving all 3-5 range weapons creates a doughnut of pain and star fighters will pew pew you up. Likewise, only taking short range weapons will leave you at the mercy (or lack thereof) of enemy capital ships able to complete long range attacks.
Unlimited number of strategies.
Fixed that for ya.
Epic is not for Spike. Timmy loves Epic games and Johnny can have some fun as well. I am OK leaving scum and villainy on the sideline until they have an Epic ship of their own. Scum would probably actively avoid fleet level engagements anyway.
I have so far played one game of epic, but only with one Transport in it. I was the rebel and used 4 named X-Wings, 2 stress B-Wings, 1 stress Y-Wing and my Transport was outfitted with a stress guys/deal damage to stressed guys build. My opponent had 6 TIEs with Howlrunner, some aces including the PS8 Defender and a Buzzsaw shuttle.
We had a blast, but the game lasted for 4 hours, so we were pretty exhausted afterwards. We both prefer to have 3-4 100 point games in that time with some breaks in between. I would love to play some more games, though, especially with someone who has the Raider or a Tantive so the huges get to do some of the dicerolling, too. We do have a team epic game planned already with my collection for our TFA hype up sessions in December.
What amazed me the most was the asteroid deployment from the epic rules. At first I thought having 2 range bands between the mini clusters would make for a pretty open field, but nope, those things just got everywhere! If anything it is even harder to spread them out. Deploying asteroids is one of my personal highlights of this game, so that alone gives me some fascination for epic. Its the same game, but so different!
...most players don't understand the rules of epic as well as say a game of standard (it doesn't help that huge ship have some very counter-intuitive rules like measuring from the stock when everything else is measured from the edge of the base)...
Wait, that's not a rule. You only measure from center-to-center if you're trying to determine line of sight through that blue line on the huge ship base. It represents that one section of the huge ship can block the other section (e.g. I can't shoot through the bow of the ship to hit the engines). After you determine it's a legal attack, you measure closest point to closest point as usual.
A confusing rule that new people forget is that Huge ships move last, but fire in regular order of Pilot Skill. Easy to learn, but easy to overlook on the first time playing.
As for me, I love Epic play, and I've made several squads on Vassal. I just don't know if there is interest in Epic play on Vassal.
Again as I said confusing and there was whole arguments in which the TO sided with that person., however this did came from a guy who was a bit of a rules lawyer, but also he was the same person that put Freq. Jammer on a CR-90 so I don't take much of what he says for face value.
Still even the TO was confused by huge ship rules so again other complications with Epic that you don't see with standard can make it frustrating.
Edited by MarinealverI've only ever played Epic with small or large base ships. Getting half a dozen X-Wings beside three E-Wings on a table and not having to bother (too much) about the point sink is great fun.
I've never played with a huge ship yet, and to be honest, I'd probably have to spend a lot of time reading the *shameless plug before I do.
Cheers
Baaa
Epic is not for Spike. Timmy loves Epic games and Johnny can have some fun as well. I am OK leaving scum and villainy on the sideline until they have an Epic ship of their own. Scum would probably actively avoid fleet level engagements anyway.
I don't know if that is entirely true.
Id say 4 IGs is enough of a reason to give Scum a try in epic. Just tell yourself that you are buying them to run the Feedback swarm...
I like the epic format. It's great thing to see when the snooker table is full of ships, just like the movies.
A quick question though. If a Premier Tournament can be supported for Armada, at 2 hours (120 minutes), why cannot Epic Tournaments (only casual in the tournament rules) be supported at premier level?
Epic is not for Spike. Timmy loves Epic games and Johnny can have some fun as well.
Would you elaborate on your thinking on this a little? I know I'm somewhere between a Spike and a Johnny myself (I want to compete and to win and so I study on the forums and practice, but I want to do it with a thematic list using ships that I like), but in my area even the purebred Spikes really enjoyed our first-ever Epic Tournament awhile back (they just didn't all enjoy the sobering realization that Epic is, in many ways, a totally different game as their Standard strategies let them down). So, if Epic tournaments were well supported and it was widely understood that a different strategy is needed to win in Epic, why couldn't Epic be for Spike?
I'd really like to try a Raider game against quad bots. Does that make me a masochist?
Takes too ******* long. Game mechanics get really tedious and meh at larger scale, not better.
Takes too ******* long. Game mechanics get really tedious and meh at larger scale, not better.
Let's say I totally agree with this - why, then, does Spike play 40k?
I'm having a blast with Epic. It is fascinating to see how the huge ships work and how the stand up to swarms of fighters. I think FFG did a marvelous job designing the huge ship system. If only they had released an Imperial ship sooner.
I played my first epic game this past Saturday with three of my friends. We really loved the higher level of pre-game strategy and the in-game tactics that epic provided over the standard 100 point dog fight. We all agreed that a team epic tournament scene would be awesome. I feel that the 100 point format scaled up really well into epic and I can't wait to play it again!