Hi All,

I've been challenged to my first Epic level game. 300 point Tantive vs. Raider and all that nonsense. Looking forward to it but I'm having trouble figuring out what to put on the Raider itself. Do I run it fairly light or go heavy? What do you do?

Thanks for any opinions, I could really use some info to chew on.

Heres a list of what used in my last epic game vs cr90. Its built for long range combat vs another huge ship. Two target locks at range 5 help out the primaries and single turbo lasers, which should only be shot at the cr90. Jerjerrod can be used to dump the weapons engineer early if a bad crit comes up and everyone's closed in on you. Try not let that happen. I normally line myself up to go along the long edge and just 1 forwards until the enemy's pass over you then turn in. Note that epic ships only make 30 degree turns not 45. That huge ship template is weird to get used to. I'd bring alot of tie fighters and advanced and anything else that you can fly to take down escorts. I have thought about trading weapons engineer and sensor team for sheild tactician and the title that allows you to recover an extra shield, I think it would be a little more defensive but alot lacking in offense.

Edit: I forgot engineering team for an extra energy when going forwards. Put this on the side with energy. Helps out alot.

Raider-Class Corvette: Raider-Class Corvette (Fore) (50)

Tibanna Gas Supplies (4)

Single Turbolasers (2 Energy) (8)

Raider-Class Corvette: Raider-Class Corvette (Aft) (50)

Weapons Engineer (3)

· Moff Jerjerrod (2)

Sensor Team (4)

Backup Shield Generator (3)

Quad Laser Cannons (2 Energy) (6)

Single Turbolasers (2 Energy) (8)

I find Needa at the helm and Palpatine in an escort ship hilarious, but that might just be me,

Plow straight through, asteroids do not concern you with the emperor's help.

Raider-Class Corvette: Raider-Class Corvette (Fore) (50)

Gunnery Team (4)

Tibanna Gas Supplies (4)

Single Turbolasers (2 Energy) (8)

Raider-Class Corvette: Raider-Class Corvette (Aft) (50)

Weapons Engineer (3)

Fleet Officer (3)

· Impetuous (3)

Sensor Team (4)

Engineering Team (4)

Single Turbolasers (2 Energy) (8)

Quad Laser Cannons (2 Energy) (6)

That's the set up I like. You can get a lot of mileage out of weapons engineer and Impetuous. Gunnery Team and engineering team are definitely worth it as well

Thank you guys for your responses. I've been messing around with a list and would love a critique or two. I think this is a good mix of firepower and the mini swarm should give me a little "shoots first" without costing me too much. I expect my opponent to be flying a lot of named pilots as that's his MO. So I went for quantity plus resilience.

Raider-class Corvette (Aft) 50

Weapons Engineer 3

Fleet Officer 3

Single Turbolasers 8

Quad Laser Cannons 6

Engineering Team 4

Sensor Team 4

Impetuous 3

Raider-class Corvette (Fore) 50

Ion Cannon Battery 6

Gunnery Team 4

Tibanna Gas Supplies 4

Omicron Group Pilot — Lambda-Class Shuttle 21

Omicron Group Pilot — Lambda-Class Shuttle 21

Scimitar Squadron Pilot — TIE Bomber 16

Extra Munitions 2

Plasma Torpedoes 3

Cluster Missiles 4

Scimitar Squadron Pilot — TIE Bomber 16

Extra Munitions 2

Plasma Torpedoes 3

Cluster Missiles 4

Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter 12

Academy Pilot — TIE Fighter 12

"Mauler Mithel" — TIE Fighter 17

Swarm Tactics 2

"Howlrunner" — TIE Fighter 18

Swarm Tactics 2

This is your list as is:

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

Don't forget that Howlrunner also works on the Raider.

Don't forget that Swarm Tactics does as well.

I'm going to muck about with it a bit, free up some points here and there.

Mucked about version:

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

I dropped one shuttle. The 21 points I used to:

- change the Fleet Officer to Targeting Officer, allowing your Bombers to acquire their targets after everyone has moved and arc dodged, no telegraphing your intent, not until it's too late!

- change the remaining OGP to Kagi, with Rebel Captive and Sensor Jammer. Keep him close to the Raider, forcing people to not use Target Locks or waste time attacking Kagi first. Punishing them with Rebel Captive is just icing on the cake.

- Give the bombers TIE MKII, making them more agile.

- Drop Mithel to AP, this adds just enough points to put in another AP.

Not saying this is better, but it would suit my flying style more.

Mucked about version:

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

I dropped one shuttle. The 21 points I used to:

- change the Fleet Officer to Targeting Officer, allowing your Bombers to acquire their targets after everyone has moved and arc dodged, no telegraphing your intent, not until it's too late!

- change the remaining OGP to Kagi, with Rebel Captive and Sensor Jammer. Keep him close to the Raider, forcing people to not use Target Locks or waste time attacking Kagi first. Punishing them with Rebel Captive is just icing on the cake.

- Give the bombers TIE MKII, making them more agile.

- Drop Mithel to AP, this adds just enough points to put in another AP.

Not saying this is better, but it would suit my flying style more.

I like those changes. Fleet Officer on a Raider seems nice because you completely dodge the stress aspect, and you have a very large range 1-2, but the original squad had no problems getting focus tokens. So I think adding Targeting Coordinator is a good choice to help out those bombers. Also, Kagi + Sensor Jammer is hilariously fun in epic play, so good suggestion there.

A couple of other comments. First, the Ion Cannon Battery is on the Fore section, which isn't terrible, but it means if you land at range 5 of the Corvette it gets to shoot you without fear of return fire. I might move the Ion to the Aft and the Single Turbo Lasers to the fore...but the consequence is that it is not as easy to concentrate fire on a single ship with all of your cannons. It's a trade off. Actually, now that I wrote that all down, I would keep it the way it is. Concentrating fire is huge. And at any rate, at that early engagement they'll have TL'd Kagi instead of your Raider, so aren't likely to do much damage. Hopefully.

Scimitars. They are going to be pretty big target priorities. If you really want them to hunt the corvette, I would bump them up to Gammas to be equal PS, enabling simultaneous fire if they are destroyed by that ship. Where would you get the points? Rebel Captive is nice on Kagi, but not essential. Neither is Sensor Jammer, but I love it too much to get rid of. I think I'd drop Rebel Captive, so you'd only need to free up one point. Which one?

The Raider title. Don't get me wrong, the Impetuous is a very good title -- if you are hunting starfighters. If you're pouring your firepower into the enemy capital ship, it's 3 wasted points. I would change for the 2-point Assailer title for two reasons. First, you're obviously going to be using the Reinforce action every round. Second, the CR90's primary weapon will always fire on you from range 1-3, so you always get an agility die against that attack, and have a 5/8 chance of getting an evade result. I really feel the Gammas are important enough to make this switch. If you don't think so, I'd drop Sensor Jammer instead of Rebel Captive and call it a day.

Good call on the Gamma's. That should help (unless Roark, but he must die first anyway).

Thank you very much, again, guys.

Taking all into account I've come up with this

I really like running Mauler. And that mini swarm has done me very well in the past. I think that it's worth one AP to have Mauler in the list. That also gives me the points to go Gamma. And with the title change I have the points to add Moff Jer to the shuttle giving me some extra resilience mid/late game with the albino void bovine.

Of course C/C on these little mods is welcome. I think this list has a lot of merit against an unknown rebel opponent who will be taking a Tantive.

Just don't forget to keep Mithel or Howlrunner close to the Raider to boost its PS. There's a huge difference between shooting at PS8 or PS4.

And have a look at Ion Pulse Missiles, if you're going up against a Tantive, screwing its energy buildup is a nice trick as well.

Yep, it looks good. Can't wait to hear what squad you end up facing. Hope it goes well!

In the end there is alot of trial and error in building epic. Some components of any list can become near useless if your opponent just simply denies the opportunity to use them. I have note found taking 1 of each hard point to be any good but it might work well for you. And as mentioned by others ionization of an epic ship is very nasty. Especially if you can land 3 or 4 in one round since the most you can potentially generate from movement is I believe 4.

And I don't agree that you will always be performing the Re-enforce action. I have even gone 5 of 6 turns in a match without it.

And I don't agree that you will always be performing the Re-enforce action. I have even gone 5 of 6 turns in a match without it.

True, I was using hyperbole. But one of the biggest blunders I see in new players in Epic is that they recover shields instead of reinforcing when they are under attack. I'm curious, were you under attack when you went 5-6 turns without using Reinforce? We want to hear the juicy details so we can improve our game!

Times when you should avoid Reinforce:

• Your opponent has a clear shot at both sections, and is free to shoot whichever section you choose not to reinforce. In this case, recovering shields on the section that is the most damaged or the most critical to your strategy may be beneficial.
• The opposing squad does not have shots (or you can confidently predict they won't take shots) on your huge ship. This is the best time to recover shields, and it's actually a waste of an action to use Reinforce.
• You have enough energy that the amount of shields you can regain outpaces the amount of damage you would prevent with Reinforce. This rarely happens in my experience, but when it does it is usually at the tail end of the game when enemy ship counts are dwindling. Recover acts to demoralize your opponent, as well as keeping the big guns operational.

Is there anything else I missed? Do you disagree with any of the above statements? Please, let me know.

I have not found taking 1 of each hard point to be any good but it might work well for you.

I haven't played with one of each hard point enough to know if it's good or bad. But I do know that I tend to not choose one of each because I have a very specific role in mind for my corvette. I will usually choose 2 hard points, usually the same type, and call it good. The type I choose dictates my optimal range, and I usually flesh out the rest of my squad to help fill the gaps. But I didn't feel like dumping all that information on somebody who has never played epic before. I feel these nuances are best picked up through experience.

I haven't played with one of each hard point enough to know if it's good or bad. But I do know that I tend to not choose one of each because I have a very specific role in mind for my corvette. I will usually choose 2 hard points, usually the same type, and call it good. The type I choose dictates my optimal range, and I usually flesh out the rest of my squad to help fill the gaps. But I didn't feel like dumping all that information on somebody who has never played epic before. I feel these nuances are best picked up through experience.

I had originally taken the Fore Turbolasers out for the Ion Cannon to grab points for other things. But could have gone back to that instead of Moff Jer. I just really like the thought of Moff Jer holding a gun to the rebel captives head and saying "stop shooting at us or he gets it!" And then he could "get it" if a particularly nasty crit pops up. hahaha! Take that rebels!

I see what you guys are saying though and perhaps I should take the Aft Quad Lasers and make them Ion instead? After all the Quad Lasers seem to be anti smaller ship batteries and the point of this Raider build is to kill the Tantive with bomber support, right? That would give me the one Turbolaser for closing distance and the 2 ion cannons for crit work on the Tantive once I close in. Then the rest of the boys just have to work on clearing space for the Raider and bombers to get their job done.

Also I was running the Cluster Missiles on the bombers to have all ranges covered. But the Ion missiles do have merit. Should I not worry about the range 1 bomber attacks and bulk up on mulitple 2-3's? In fact if I did that I could use those two points gained to go back to double Turbolasers and a single Ion for the Raider.... hmmm

I see what you guys are saying though and perhaps I should take the Aft Quad Lasers and make them Ion instead? After all the Quad Lasers seem to be anti smaller ship batteries and the point of this Raider build is to kill the Tantive with bomber support, right? That would give me the one Turbolaser for closing distance and the 2 ion cannons for crit work on the Tantive once I close in. Then the rest of the boys just have to work on clearing space for the Raider and bombers to get their job done.

Also I was running the Cluster Missiles on the bombers to have all ranges covered. But the Ion missiles do have merit. Should I not worry about the range 1 bomber attacks and bulk up on mulitple 2-3's? In fact if I did that I could use those two points gained to go back to double Turbolasers and a single Ion for the Raider.... hmmm

Personally, I like the Cluster Missiles here. Ships only move forward, and eventually you'll be at range 1-2 of the huge ship and can launch these beauties. Reinforce really takes the teeth out of them, so try to come in at an angle that allows you to pick which section to shoot at. Targeting Coordinator will help because, if you lack initiative, they will choose which section to reinforce before you hand out the target lock token...but you're Raider will have to stick pretty close to the bombers to pull that off.

The more I think about it, the more I like ditching the Quad Laser Cannons. Powering up all your weapons takes a lot of energy, so sometimes less is more. However, the advantage to having weapons that don't overlap in range is that you can pick each turn which weapon to power with energy depending on which enemy ships match the proper range. Again, trade offs.

And I don't agree that you will always be performing the Re-enforce action. I have even gone 5 of 6 turns in a match without it.

True, I was using hyperbole. But one of the biggest blunders I see in new players in Epic is that they recover shields instead of reinforcing when they are under attack. I'm curious, were you under attack when you went 5-6 turns without using Reinforce? We want to hear the juicy details so we can improve our game!

Times when you should avoid Reinforce:

• Your opponent has a clear shot at both sections, and is free to shoot whichever section you choose not to reinforce. In this case, recovering shields on the section that is the most damaged or the most critical to your strategy may be beneficial.
• Your the opposing squad does not have shots (or you can confidently predict they won't take shots) on your huge ship. This is the best time to recover shields, and it's actually a waste of an action to use Reinforce.
• You have enough energy that the amount of shields you can regain outpaces the amount of damage you would prevent with Reinforce. This rarely happens in my experience, but when it does it is usually at the tail end of the game when enemy ship counts are dwindling. Recover acts to demoralize your opponent, as well as keeping the big guns operational.

Is there anything else I missed? Do you disagree with any of the above statements? Please, let me know.

I have not found taking 1 of each hard point to be any good but it might work well for you.

I haven't played with one of each hard point enough to know if it's good or bad. But I do know that I tend to not choose one of each because I have a very specific role in mind for my corvette. I will usually choose 2 hard points, usually the same type, and call it good. The type I choose dictates my optimal range, and I usually flesh out the rest of my squad to help fill the gaps. But I didn't feel like dumping all that information on somebody who has never played epic before. I feel these nuances are best picked up through experience.

Yes you make good points.

And no two epic matches are alike in my experience so far with so much going on over the span of the table.

You are spot on about picking a role for your ship and sticking with it.

In that particular match I was pointing into a swarm of Rookie pilots and Bandits who had R2-F2 Biggs to draw fire off of them with my raider. Leading up to that point they had been way out of the fight due to bad placement on my opponents part.

First round of shooting between the swarm and raider was at range 3 of the 2 lead rookies and range 4 of Biggs. I had TL'D biggs and a rookie and managed to shoot down biggs with the Raiders Primary weapon and require a TL from that and then got fairly good rolls to take out 1 Rookie and then I believe only received 1 Damage from the Rookie who was alive and Range 3.

It was a unique experience by far and greatly tipped the balance of the match in my favor.

Maybe I do over do it on information but it seems like Epic has not had much discussion on these boards but nontheless there is lots of good information in this thread.