So I'm doing an epic game in about a week and I'm trying to figure out a cool way of introducing scum into it. Any ideas are appreciated. Currently I'm thinking of giving both sides a counter similar to imperial assault. This counter will be have points assigned to each number. For instance 1=10, 2=20 etc. Each side (rebels/imps) can then decide to bid on the mercs to fight for them until the opposite side spends points higher than what was spent previously. For instance round 1 goes by and no points are spent, players now move their counters to 1. This gives both sides 10 points each. The imps decide to spend their 10 points to bid on the mercs, the rebels decide not to bid. The mercs are then able to deploy on the board and are now fighting against the rebels also by spending these points the imps rotate their dial back to 0.Turn 2, the rebels move their counter to 2 and imps to 1. The rebels now are able to spend 20 points to buy the mercs onto their side. Etc. Now the question comes up of what if on round 1 the imps and rebels decide to both bid and both have equal points? I was thinking of going to how much damage was done that turn including shields, whoever did the most damage wins the tie breaker. I haven't figured out a solid idea for this so if anyone has something better please post it. Also if anyone has any ideas of how the sides acquire points that might work better or eliminate tie breaking please post that as well. Thanks in advance

Well for scum squadrons the obvious entry into Epic is 4 IG-88s all with the IG-2000 title. You don't need a huge ship to play an Epic list.

As for huge ships well there are a few options, (besides wait for FFG to make a S&V Epic expansion pack).

1. Huge ships become faction-less . Before the release of the Raider this was common practice. This is the easiest way to implement and something that most people can agree upon. The one thing though is huge ships would loose their theme and it doesn't make that much sense for S&V to have a Raider or Imperials to have CR-90.
2. Restricted Huge Ship list . Only allowing certain ships to cross over factions is also a cheap way but some people may disagree on what ships should be considered for what faction. Also some ships by themselves (like the GR-75) would not work very well in any faction other than rebels.
3. Unofficial 3rd party or fan kits. So This is using an unofficial ship that may have came from a commercial retailer like shapeways or from a fan who made up their own idea of how this ship would fit in X-wing (like my S&V GR-75 scum conversion kit). The drawbacks are as always being unofficial products and not endorsed by FFG you will have to get permission from your opponent first to field them (much like Forgeworld models in 40K before escalation came out). In a tournament or organized event at a store you will need to consort with the TO beforehand, and even so the TO may not allow such things because they will be afraid that home rules may push people away from the game. As for organizers as I just mentioned you would have to sell the adoption of these "kits" and/or "unofficial models" to those that would participate in an epic event. Even then it is probably a safer bet to just to stick with "official FFG products".

Still as a fan of Epic and someone that made a Kit so Scum could have a huge ship and all the toys that come with them. HERE is a link to a PDF download of my Scum conversion kit for the GR-75 Medium Transport uploaded to filedropper.com. For more information on the kit just click the link below in my signature.

Somewhere on this forum there is a thread dedicated to making the rebel huges Scum Friendly. Havn't played with their cards and rules but they looked really cool, flavorful, and mostly balanced.

Well I actually am not so much concerned about having scum huge ships. I was thinking more along the lines of how getting a scum list to fight for your side. I dunno why I like the idea of allowing each side to buy the scum factions loyalty haha. I don't really care about if they have a huge ship with them and including them as another side I'm more about a small fleet being bought each round.

Well I actually am not so much concerned about having scum huge ships. I was thinking more along the lines of how getting a scum list to fight for your side. I dunno why I like the idea of allowing each side to buy the scum factions loyalty haha. I don't really care about if they have a huge ship with them and including them as another side I'm more about a small fleet being bought each round.

Depending on how many players you have, there are a lot of options.

If it is just 2 of you your idea is a good one. Another is you may each "hire" up to a certain number of scum points. For the purpose of balance you can decide whether or not they count as friendly, enemy or 'other' as pertains to pilot and card effects. (So Howlrunner and Serissu cant use each other's abilities, for example)

If there are more than 2 players, you could come up with a scenario where a S&V group just happens to wonder into a star system where a huge battle is taking place and they deside to use the distraction to collect a bounty, steal a satallite, kidnap a senator etc. Maybe the Scum player only gets 150 points for his squad but wins by completing the objective while the rebs and imps only win by destroying all enemies. Could even come up with several possible missions and the scum player draws one randomly so the other players wont know what to defend against.

Just get creative and have fun!

Well Imperial CR-90s aren't that weird, but yeah the Raider's a bit out of place as a loaner ship (though a mini Errant Venture would be hilarious!)

Well I actually am not so much concerned about having scum huge ships. I was thinking more along the lines of how getting a scum list to fight for your side. I dunno why I like the idea of allowing each side to buy the scum factions loyalty haha. I don't really care about if they have a huge ship with them and including them as another side I'm more about a small fleet being bought each round.

Okay so more of an ally chart. Before the 2 subfactions and on may suggesting a 4th faction I did post in some ideas for allowing the mixing of factions but making those more like a new subfaction. But to be fair new factions or even subfactions are not needed. So for this it is just an ally point limit. Rebles and Empire can take Scum but scum cannot ally with others and rebels and empire cannot be combined with each other,

My (untested) suggestion is that if you're gonna use Scum as mercs, just have them not treat any non-Scum ships as friendly for the purposes of card effects (and vice-versa).

So no Xizor knifing Blues, no Dutch giving out target locks to overstressed Drea, etc...

So I'm doing an epic game in about a week and I'm trying to figure out a cool way of introducing scum into it. Any ideas are appreciated. Currently I'm thinking of giving both sides a counter similar to imperial assault. This counter will be have points assigned to each number. For instance 1=10, 2=20 etc. Each side (rebels/imps) can then decide to bid on the mercs to fight for them until the opposite side spends points higher than what was spent previously. For instance round 1 goes by and no points are spent, players now move their counters to 1. This gives both sides 10 points each. The imps decide to spend their 10 points to bid on the mercs, the rebels decide not to bid. The mercs are then able to deploy on the board and are now fighting against the rebels also by spending these points the imps rotate their dial back to 0.Turn 2, the rebels move their counter to 2 and imps to 1. The rebels now are able to spend 20 points to buy the mercs onto their side. Etc. Now the question comes up of what if on round 1 the imps and rebels decide to both bid and both have equal points? I was thinking of going to how much damage was done that turn including shields, whoever did the most damage wins the tie breaker. I haven't figured out a solid idea for this so if anyone has something better please post it. Also if anyone has any ideas of how the sides acquire points that might work better or eliminate tie breaking please post that as well. Thanks in advance

I would stay away from bidding mechanics to win over Mercs; I've given that type of mechanic some thought and there are too many ways it can go wrong. It's not worth the headache if you're just looking for a good justification to field Scum ships.

Ill second GreatMaz's idea. If I were you, I would simply allow both sides to take Scum and Villainy ships as hired mercenaries. Treat your hired mercenaries as neither 'friendly' or 'enemy' ships for pilot ability/card effect purposes.

If you want to make sure both sides don't take the same ships (4IG88), you may want to make some ground rules for how you treat unique ships, etc. Maybe when you're planning lists, take turns picking unique pilots that you want on your side, as if you were a team captain picking kids for your basketball team or something. (And maybe with the 4 IGs all coming together, and the other team gets 4-5 picks in a row if you take the 4IG88s).

Scum Epic is IG-88ABCD. It's something you can't do in normal play because it's too expensive, that introduces whole new capabilities, and requires plenty of investment you can't use in a tournament.

What more do you need?

Scum Epic is IG-88ABCD. It's something you can't do in normal play because it's too expensive, that introduces who new capabilities, and requires plenty of investment you can't use in a tournament.

What more do you need?

Something that is actually fun to play?

Ok so i realized something I forgot to put into my post. I was going to cap the mercs at 76 points. I hadn't thought of card interactions between factions but yes that makes a lot of sense. Ok so how would 300 points per side be with the option to bid on a 76 point scum list who's pilot abilities don't affect imperial or rebel friendlies, only who they were bought to fight against?

Bodyguard and serrisu rolling with a stealth r2f2 Biggs ,jan ors crew on Kyle with a squad leader?

5 evade dice with potential for 7. With focus and evade tokens, and a reroll. Ouch.

Bodyguard and serrisu rolling with a stealth r2f2 Biggs ,jan ors crew on Kyle with a squad leader?

5 evade dice with potential for 7. With focus and evade tokens, and a reroll. Ouch.

No, they are friendlies of a different faction so abilities would not cross over like that. Cuz ya that would be crazy haha. Abilities stay faction restricted.

If you are allowing cross faction synergy, how about 4 Y's wtih 4 HWK's?

Horton, Dutch, Drea and Kavil with a mix of turrets and droids.

And

Katarn, Roark, Torkil and Palob also with a mix of turrets and crew.

Should leave about 80-90 points for some flankers, blockers or transports.

I have an idea:

Crush them with massive ships. That is all.

Long live the Emperor!

Scum Epic is IG-88ABCD. It's something you can't do in normal play because it's too expensive, that introduces whole new capabilities, and requires plenty of investment you can't use in a tournament.

What more do you need?

2 more Aggressors!

We're doing something similar later this week- a multi-player massive epic game- and one of our players suggested a Bounty mechanic which I liked. We're still working through the details but this is where we sit right now:

At the beginning of the game, the imperials and rebels each get to choose e a certain number of enemy ships (we thought 3) to secretly receive bounties. The scum player(s) fight independently, and score double points for killing any ship with a Bounty and half points for killing any ship without a bounty.

Scum Epic is IG-88ABCD. It's something you can't do in normal play because it's too expensive, that introduces who new capabilities, and requires plenty of investment you can't use in a tournament.

What more do you need?

Something that is actually fun to play?

Oh c'mon, IG-88ABCD is hilarious . Boosts give evades, Cannons all get rerolls, every kill earns you a shield... and you can S-loop at right angles.

Believe me, the sum is greater than its parts - and you can freely afford to blow out each agressor to that 52-53pts they always seem to want.

Throw in an ace-swatter or two, and you've got yourself scummy death incarnate.

I've wondered about FFG's plans on huge ships for scum. I don't know anything about the EU though. It seems to me that scum has a higher percentage of large ships than imps and rebs. Is that my imagination? That might be the plan.