Hello everyone, I hope your days are going well

There's a chance that I enter into an epic tournament this weekend. It sounds like a lot of fun, but I've actually never flown an epic mission before. So I'd really like some help preparing for it.

This is the squad I'm considering:

Raider (fore)

-Tibanna Gas

-Single Turbolasers

Raider (aft)

-Captain Needa

-Shield Technician

-Instigator

-Engineering Team

-Quad Laser Cannons

Soontir Fel

-Push the Limit

-Autothrusters

-Stealth Device

Turr Phennir

-Veteran Instincts

-Autothrusters

-Stealth Device

Deathrain

-Extra Munitions

-Proximity Mines

-Advanced Sensors

-Experimental Interface

Shadow Squadron Pilot

-Advanced Cloaking Device

-Recon Specialist

Shadow Squadron Pilot

-Advanced Cloaking Device

-Recon Specialist

My general plan is to have my Raider be the big-game hunter. Any epic ships that my opponent has on the field he's going after. Needa is there because I have awful luck with asteroids, and I don't want anything keeping him from his prey. Also, he should have plenty of energy to use to keep his shields up and double tap each turn. After the epic ship is taken care of, PWT's are next on the chopping block.

My squints are there to keep pace with the Raider, and swat any flies that may make a go for his blind spot. They're fast and maneuverable enough that they should never have a problem staying out of his way. I like to think of them as the little fish that latch onto a shark and eat parasites.

Deathrain is there to add a serious level of control and no-go zone for my opponent's aces. Deathrain really needs to worry about my opponent's epic ships though, as his 1 agility isn't going to go very far.

Lastly, the Shadow Squadron pilots are there to serve two roles. One, they can be a huge pain for any swarms my opponent flies. Advanced Cloak will ensure they recloak by the time any big guns come to bear on them. Also, they'll have at least one focus token to use for their defense. Additionally, they're great at taking down epic ships. They're exceptionally fast and can get behind my opponent's epic ships easily. The decloak each turn will also help them keep pace and not outrun it.

I would really appreciate any help I can get with this. Like I said, I've never played an epic game but I'm sure this will be a lot of fun.

I'm excited for you to get to play in an Epic tournament! I love Epic, but haven't tried a tournament yet.

I think your list is a great place to start, and that you'll learn more from playing a squad you designed, than from following everybody's critiques and advice (which are often really good). I think the Raider looks pretty good, not too heavy on the upgrades, but it has enough firepower and energy to fuel it. I just worry about you only having 5 supporting ships. They could go "pop" in a hurry, especially if your opponent uses a swarm to block your TIE interceptors. If your opponent doesn't bring a swarm, you're likely in good shape. I'm excited to hear how the generic TIE phantoms work out.

But I am having a hard time getting behind "Deathrain" here. I think Experimental Interface may be a bit much for him. Extra Munitions is only saving you one point over having two copies of Proximity Mines, but if you dropped Experimental Interface for a second Proximity Mines, you could have 4 Prox Mines for a mere 8 points (instead of 12). Or you could put a Seismic Charges on him to help handle swarms better in the event that the opponent doesn't have any aces. It saves you 3 points AND gives you more bombs than any other ship in the game can carry. That's what I would do.

Last thing I'm going to say is that we have no idea what an Epic tournament meta will look like, so you may run into some hard counters to your TIE interceptors, like ships that focus on dealing stress. I don't think there's any reason to worry too much about it at this point, and instead focus on going out and having fun.

Parakitor,

I've also never flown Deathrain, but I'm excited to try out bombs. What about changing his loadout to 2x Proton Bombs, Advanced Sensors, and Extra Munitions.

I realize that my biggest threat is definitely swarms, so having a big fat "don't go here" sign like Deathrain with a bunch of Proton Bombs should help protect my blind spots.

Parakitor,

I've also never flown Deathrain, but I'm excited to try out bombs. What about changing his loadout to 2x Proton Bombs, Advanced Sensors, and Extra Munitions.

I realize that my biggest threat is definitely swarms, so having a big fat "don't go here" sign like Deathrain with a bunch of Proton Bombs should help protect my blind spots.

If you have the points for it, I say go for it. Personally, I think Proton Bombs are what Extra Munitions was made for. They are way too expensive just on their own.

EDIT: By the way, you could probably afford it if you ditch the Advanced Sensors, and since you drop them before you reveal your dial, Advanced Sensors isn't doing a whole lot anyway.

Parakitor,

I've also never flown Deathrain, but I'm excited to try out bombs. What about changing his loadout to 2x Proton Bombs, Advanced Sensors, and Extra Munitions.

I realize that my biggest threat is definitely swarms, so having a big fat "don't go here" sign like Deathrain with a bunch of Proton Bombs should help protect my blind spots.

If you have the points for it, I say go for it. Personally, I think Proton Bombs are what Extra Munitions was made for. They are way too expensive just on their own.

EDIT: By the way, you could probably afford it if you ditch the Advanced Sensors, and since you drop them before you reveal your dial, Advanced Sensors isn't doing a whole lot anyway.

I read this and was confused, because it all added up correctly in my squad builder. Then I realized I had my phantoms set as Sigmas... Oops.

So I agree with you on Advanced Sensors, but unfortunately I'm 1 point shy of being able to do double Proton Bombs. Instead, I can do a Proton Bomb and a Cluster Mine. That gives me some much needed control as well as being a nice counter to PWT's that can make life very difficult for my squints.

Squad Builder

I'm excited for you to get to play in an Epic tournament! I love Epic, but haven't tried a tournament yet.

I think your list is a great place to start, and that you'll learn more from playing a squad you designed, than from following everybody's critiques and advice (which are often really good). I think the Raider looks pretty good, not too heavy on the upgrades, but it has enough firepower and energy to fuel it. I just worry about you only having 5 supporting ships. They could go "pop" in a hurry, especially if your opponent uses a swarm to block your TIE interceptors. If your opponent doesn't bring a swarm, you're likely in good shape. I'm excited to hear how the generic TIE phantoms work out.

Totally agree with all of this. I'm quickly becoming more interested in Epic than Standard, but to be fair I've only played in one Team Epic tournament (though my partner and I did win it). Stoked that you're getting into it as well!!!

My experience in the tournament I played really backs up everything Parakitor has said, especially about your TIEs popping in a hurry if your formations get disrupted. I also worry about the named pilots you have whose abilities are only useful for making them a threat in themselves - ships like Soontir And Turr don't strictly 'support' your other ships, right? And if your opponent has some Epic experience it's unlikely he'll worry about that too much at first. A single Interceptor, even a really good one, is still just a single Interceptor. Basically what I mean is that in Epic three Interceptors scare me more than one Soontir and one Turr.

I apply a similar logic to ordnance in Epic. It can be great in the right circumstances, but you want to use it on the cheapest ships available because a savvy opponent will be gunning for named pilots with ordnance first as they're a good way to get a chunk off points of the board quickly. Also, my advice would be to go for the area-of-effect ordnance over stuff like Proximity Mines. The mine might kill a single ship, sure, but something like the lowly Seismic Charge can actually end up burning away far more hitpoints if you place it to hit several ships at once. I like your idea about Proton Bombs, and Clusters are definitely the better choice of Mines because of what I said previously about area-of-effect.

Like Parakitor said, your Raider build seems pretty solid, especially because you'll tend to lose the fore section first and the way you have to set up you won't lose any upgrades to a crippled fore. Then it just becomes a battering ram that can still shoot!

Phantoms in general worry me in Epic, as arc-dodging just isn't as effective a strategy in my experience. You have a lot more space to work with (it feels like more than twice as much, somehow) which makes the whole proposition a bit dicier. On the other hand, they do roll lots of red dice, so again I would suggest considering just taking the cheapest pilots possible with no upgrades and trying to maximize the total number of dice you get to roll.

In fact, I think that's pretty much the name of the game in Epic: maximize the total number of dice you get to roll. Lots of modification can win a game for you in Standard, but I think that's less true in Epic if you're playing against an opponent that just has waaaay more dice to roll and waaaay more hitpoints to chew through. That was really the secret to my success when I played that tournament, because I'm honestly a very novice pilot. We played Rebels, though, and only faced Imperials or Imperials and Scum (weird tournament rules) and always had more ships, more dice, and more hitpoints than the other guys. Ultimately that was enough to overcome me flying my own ships off the table and letting them get crushed by my partner's CR90.

In my limited Epic experience more ships will always trump upgraded ships. The issue with high PS arc dodgers like Fel and Phennir in Epic is that there are so many more shots coming in and arcs to dodge that they are not nearly as effective as they are in "standard" 100 point play. Same thing goes for the Phantoms - although your reasoning behind them is extremely compelling and I would be interested to hear how they fare. Lastly 1 agility and 0 agility ships are a no-go for me in Epic. Although it may save your capital ship from a turn of turbolaser fire they will just get shredded by the big guns before they can pay for themselves.

In my limited Epic experience more ships will always trump upgraded ships. The issue with high PS arc dodgers like Fel and Phennir in Epic is that there are so many more shots coming in and arcs to dodge that they are not nearly as effective as they are in "standard" 100 point play. Same thing goes for the Phantoms - although your reasoning behind them is extremely compelling and I would be interested to hear how they fare. Lastly 1 agility and 0 agility ships are a no-go for me in Epic. Although it may save your capital ship from a turn of turbolaser fire they will just get shredded by the big guns before they can pay for themselves.

Rather more succinctly put than some of my points, totally agree with the above. The point about turbolasers and low-agility ships is a good one that I overlokked - X-Wings, for me as a Rebel player, are significantly better than B-Wings, despite having fewer hitpoints. They both roll three red dice, but X-Wings roll FOUR green dice when targeted by turbolasers. This logic might well make Bombers a better choice than Punishers for an Imperial Epic list.

Interestingly, when I played epic the more experienced folks kept repeating that PS matters so much more in epic than in standard play, which sounds contradictory to what you all seem to be saying.

Interestingly, when I played epic the more experienced folks kept repeating that PS matters so much more in epic than in standard play, which sounds contradictory to what you all seem to be saying.

Oh I think maybe what they were getting at is that bumping up to the PS 3/4 generics can be worth the points, which I've definitely found to be the case. Is that possible? And of course some of the named pilots with cool support abilities to buff your Huge ships can be good: Major Rhymer and Howlie, or Roark and/or Jan. In the games I played, though, the aces accounted for 1 to 1 1/2 kills against my generics before their wingmen or the CR90 shooting at freaking PS12 because of Roark got them. Basically, Vader against a Red Squadron wins. Vader against -six- Red Squadrons loses.

Thank you all for the replies, they're a huge help!

What do you think about this squad instead?

Raider-class Corvette (Aft) (50)
Captain Needa (2)
Shield Technician (1)
Quad Laser Cannons (6)
Engineering Team (4)
Instigator (4)

Raider-class Corvette (Fore) (50)
Single Turbolasers (8)
Tibanna Gas Supplies (4)

Soontir Fel (27)
Push the Limit (3)
Autothrusters (2)
Stealth Device (3)
Royal Guard TIE (0)

Shadow Squadron Pilot (27)
Recon Specialist (3)
Advanced Cloaking Device (4)

Shadow Squadron Pilot (27)
Recon Specialist (3)
Advanced Cloaking Device (4)

Scimitar Squadron Pilot (16)
Extra Munitions (2)
Plasma Torpedoes (3)
Proton Bombs (5)

Tempest Squadron Pilot (21)
Accuracy Corrector (0)
TIE/x1 (0)

Tempest Squadron Pilot (21)
Accuracy Corrector (0)
TIE/x1 (0)

Total: 300

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

I really like Phantoms, and my FLGS has come to expect them from me (mostly because I fly atypical squadrons of them.) So I'd really like to include them, and who knows they might pull off something awesome. Also, while winning is a lot of fun, I'm really just going for the epic experience to see what I've been missing out on haha!