I ran my GR75 the other day. It was a lot of fun. Slicer tools were awesome.

Epic is more about having fun with big toys than being 100% compeditive and balanced, if you bought an epic ship and don't want to have it on your table despite the points then I don't get why you would want to play epic

You can field 300 points of snubfighters in an Epic game if you choose, but it's only going to be fun for you.

That is until you have to plan dials for all of them. And you realize that sucks. And then your opponent throttles you for taking 2 hours to plan them.

I think the biggest advantage is that they are HUGE AND BIG AND NASTY AND YOU CAN WRECK FACES WITH THEM.

...... and while swarms beat Epic ships to a pulp, like many other instances in this game, good flying can render a lethal close range TIE squadron little more than an expanding cloud of debris.

One thing I have noticed going up against Huge Ships, its that you darned well better make sure your approach is right - and that you at least disable a section on your first attack run - because if you screw up either of those, a few things are likely to happen.

1. You'll get steamrollered by the huge ship

2. By the time you've adjusted for another attack run it will have recovered all or most of its shields

3. you'll disengage straight into the face of its figher escort

Heh. I usually have one tip for taking on Epic Huge ships: Bring Defenders.

Seriously. Defenders are kings of Epic. They have speed. They have agility. They have a large number of other targets to run interference for them. They can take both Ion Cannons and Ion Pulse Missiles. Have two Defenders roll in and deliver their missiles, then follow up with cannon shots, and that ships is essentially crippled for the rest of the game. And Imperial Veterans is only going to make them three times more devastating in this regard. And that's not even counting Rexler Brath specifically. In terms of wrecking Huge ships, two Defenders can get done what an entire flight group of most other generics can get done.

Anyway, I absolutely cannot wait to have a Raider go head to head with a CR-90. Ion Cannon Batteries = excite.

...... and while swarms beat Epic ships to a pulp, like many other instances in this game, good flying can render a lethal close range TIE squadron little more than an expanding cloud of debris.

One thing I have noticed going up against Huge Ships, its that you darned well better make sure your approach is right - and that you at least disable a section on your first attack run - because if you screw up either of those, a few things are likely to happen.

1. You'll get steamrollered by the huge ship

2. By the time you've adjusted for another attack run it will have recovered all or most of its shields

3. you'll disengage straight into the face of its figher escort

Heh. I usually have one tip for taking on Epic Huge ships: Bring Defenders.

Seriously. Defenders are kings of Epic. They have speed. They have agility. They have a large number of other targets to run interference for them. They can take both Ion Cannons and Ion Pulse Missiles. Have two Defenders roll in and deliver their missiles, then follow up with cannon shots, and that ships is essentially crippled for the rest of the game. And Imperial Veterans is only going to make them three times more devastating in this regard. And that's not even counting Rexler Brath specifically. In terms of wrecking Huge ships, two Defenders can get done what an entire flight group of most other generics can get done.

Anyway, I absolutely cannot wait to have a Raider go head to head with a CR-90. Ion Cannon Batteries = excite.

The Raider can't wait either. That double-tap absolutely wrecks Corvette face compared to it's paltry 5 dice turret and it's got better firing arcs overall.

The new modifications, combined with the start-at-full-charge rules they now use, leave huge ships terrifying - either tougher than ever, running what is often double the energy economy of old, or straight up getting up to five attacks in a round for all of two energy expenditure! (There's a good reason, I feel, that the 'ordnance tubes' upgrade features a raiders prow.)

With all these tricks, it's no longer looking for a point - just working out what their point shall be today.

The big thing the biggest Epic ships have to keep them competitive is more than one attack. I found the CR90 to be fairly effective as long as I could keep the cost around 125 points and made 3 attacks a turn.

I haven't played a lot of epic yet, but my experience so far is that even getting all those attacks off in one round, the CR90 does maybe one or two damage per round even with the new range rule for huge ships. I can never seem to hit anything in this game. Having said that, I have a feeling ordnance tubes might be the upgrade I've been waiting for.

Ordnance Tubes REALLY change the deal. Now you can spend your energy to Recover without losing attacks.

Double Assault Missiles turns after turns wreak havoc among swarms when you have Jonus by your side and Howlrunner with Decoy to make the Raider to attack at PS8.

Or you can go with Cluster Missiles to protect yourself at close range

...... and while swarms beat Epic ships to a pulp, like many other instances in this game, good flying can render a lethal close range TIE squadron little more than an expanding cloud of debris.

One thing I have noticed going up against Huge Ships, its that you darned well better make sure your approach is right - and that you at least disable a section on your first attack run - because if you screw up either of those, a few things are likely to happen.

1. You'll get steamrollered by the huge ship

2. By the time you've adjusted for another attack run it will have recovered all or most of its shields

3. you'll disengage straight into the face of its figher escort

Heh. I usually have one tip for taking on Epic Huge ships: Bring Defenders.

Seriously. Defenders are kings of Epic. They have speed. They have agility. They have a large number of other targets to run interference for them. They can take both Ion Cannons and Ion Pulse Missiles. Have two Defenders roll in and deliver their missiles, then follow up with cannon shots, and that ships is essentially crippled for the rest of the game. And Imperial Veterans is only going to make them three times more devastating in this regard. And that's not even counting Rexler Brath specifically. In terms of wrecking Huge ships, two Defenders can get done what an entire flight group of most other generics can get done.

Anyway, I absolutely cannot wait to have a Raider go head to head with a CR-90. Ion Cannon Batteries = excite.

In general I'd say that a lot of ships and upgrades that under-perform in the 100pt format really shine in Epic.

For example having 3 attack value ships is crucial against Huge Ships when they Reinforce - 2 Red just isn't enough to land reliable hits.

A turn of speed is also useful to get through the range 4-5 zone where they can shoot you, but you can't shoot back.

X-wings actually have a slight edge over B-wings in this regard - and Torps are even worth the points for a 2x4 attack dice attack run before you break off and regroup.

I think that it takes some experience to get good with Epic ships. Each has their own style of play and you need to really understand the ship when you use it. How many games of regular X-wing did it take for you to learn some tricks and smart approaches? It's the same with Epic, but it takes longer and harder to find as many people that want to play it. I've found the more I play it, the more I learn tricks and such. I think the Epic ships can hold out against all snub nosed fighters, but you need to know what you are doing and be prepared to fly against such a list.

The new upgrades do a lot to help out in this, as well. Upgrades that let you do other actions, but still get shields back help. Getting more energy for weapon systems is fantastic. Ordnance Tubes not only helps you not spend energy, but it opens up a lot of new tactics that can help vs. swarms.

Ion Torpedo is something you can really use in Epic. You do the 4 damage to the target, but you also Ionize it and everything in R1 of the target. Have a lot of enemy ships coming at you? ZAP...now half of them are a turn behind. That helps control their swarms, allows you to set up traps, and do damage to a portion of them all at once. Make sure you have an effective fighter screen and you can either now focus on just the first half of their ships or you know where the rest of them are going to be and even Tie Fighters get 3 dice at R1. I see this weapon as being better than even Assault Missiles. Oh, or you can Ionize a bunch of ships and then set to ramming speed next turn. Not only are they good on your capital ships, but they are good on your fighters, too. You can use X-wings, Y-wings, and Tie Bombers with these to assist in controlling the enemy on the field of battle.

Also, Tie Fighters have a hard time do damage to Epic ships with Reinforce. You block 1 damage on all shots at that section. The most damage Tie Fighters can do is 2 and it doesn't even happen often. I've tried taking down Epic ships with Tie Fighters. It's not as easy as it looks. You want to be close, but not too close. You want to be behind, but you got to get there first. Even after the rear is destroyed, you then need to move to the front to be able to hit it, and that gets dangerous....especially when they can turn.

The CR-90 works best on the run. If you can stay away from a swarm, you can kill it off before it gets to you. Use Proton Torpedoes to good effect and boost your main gun as often as possible. Also, Single Turbo Lasers will hurt things with only 2 Agility. There are a number of repair droids now that can help clear up some damage if you get hit hard, but are able to get away. If you have the CR-90, then you have the best ships at your disposal: X-wings! Great for Epic as they are fast, are solid, and can dish out some damage. Use your escort wisely and you can get them chasing your big ship as your X-wings pick them off from behind. The CR-90 can take some skill to really figure out how to fly. With the new tools you can last a lot longer to slowly dish out the damage.

Imperial Raider was designed to take out snub nosed fighters. Loaded with the right weapons, you can dish out a lot of damage to enemy ships. Just make sure you don't take too much damage in the meantime. For that, you need to control their approach. Proton Torpedoes are great, as well as using your small fighters. Interceptors are great to....intercept them! They are fast, can evade, and do damage at close range. If they ignore your fighter screen, you can can rip them up. If they engage your fighters, the Raider will have time to dish out damage to weaken their list. Regular Tie Fighters are also good as they are cheap and you can do the same thing (just less effectively). You can almost get 2 Tie Fighters for 1 Tie Interceptor, though.

I think the new upgrades has levelled the playing field with Epic. With experience and these new toys, you can take on an all snub nosed fighter list.

In my experience, the one thing I always want when things go badly in Epic (both forced to take Huge Ships) are more Fighters... not more robust Epic Upgrades.

Don't you mean ion torpedo? Protons don't ion...

In my experience, the one thing I always want when things go badly in Epic (both forced to take Huge Ships) are more Fighters... not more robust Epic Upgrades.

It's true that you still don't want to load up your Epic ships too much. Just be smart about which ones you want.

Don't you mean ion torpedo? Protons don't ion...

Doh...yes. Fixed.

Uh... Um.. I accidentally totally demolished my friend last night with a missile load out Raider. He didn't put new toys on the corvette. I think that epic has been totally changed... Felt good blowing up Dash with a Raider though.

Loaded with the right weapons, you can dish out a lot of damage to enemy ships. Just make sure you don't take too much damage in the meantime. For that, you need to control their approach.

I have the feeling that simply equipping ordnance tubes and assault missiles does a good job of that.

Omega Leader and Crackswarm don't care about Reinforce... great way to ruin a Corvette pretty quick.

You have a gozanti, are HAVEN'T USED IT!

You can give it to me.....

Also, as I understand it, Huge ships absolutely wreck low agility large base ships that can be a threat to your fighter swarms. They did this before, but do it even more with the Gozanti upgrades.

It's a sort of rock, paper scissors deal

The upgrade cards for non epic.

Loaded with the right weapons, you can dish out a lot of damage to enemy ships. Just make sure you don't take too much damage in the meantime. For that, you need to control their approach.

I have the feeling that simply equipping ordnance tubes and assault missiles does a good job of that.

Ion Torpedoes are better than assault Missiles in my mind. Both are good, though.

The nature of epic games is that they're not uber competitive. Have fun with it. Field ships that feel cool.

So 10 TIE Fighters and 10 TIE Interceptors then?

I've only played about 5 Epic games, so I haven't had time to develop a very robust idea of the strategy involved. But my feeling is that, if Epic strategy were really deconstructed and scrutinized at the level that the 100pt game is, we would discover that the Huge ships are a liability, and that you should only be running smaller stuff. I'm just not convinced that they can pull their weight. It could be that it's just a mistake to load up your epic ship with 50pts worth of upgrades. That's everyone's first instinct when they started out, when they put way too many upgrades on all their ships. Possibly the 110-130 pt Huge ship loadouts are more sensible.

That said: why are you even playing Epic if not to have giant ships beat the crap out of each other? I see Epic in the same way I see 5000pt Apocalypse games of Warhammer 40k: a spectacle, a really cool way to spend the evening. It may yet prove to be a tactically interesting way to play, but I think it needs a lot more play time and big tournaments to really hash a sort of baseline strategy.

I've only played about 5 Epic games, so I haven't had time to develop a very robust idea of the strategy involved. But my feeling is that, if Epic strategy were really deconstructed and scrutinized at the level that the 100pt game is, we would discover that the Huge ships are a liability, and that you should only be running smaller stuff. I'm just not convinced that they can pull their weight. It could be that it's just a mistake to load up your epic ship with 50pts worth of upgrades. That's everyone's first instinct when they started out, when they put way too many upgrades on all their ships. Possibly the 110-130 pt Huge ship loadouts are more sensible.

That said: why are you even playing Epic if not to have giant ships beat the crap out of each other? I see Epic in the same way I see 5000pt Apocalypse games of Warhammer 40k: a spectacle, a really cool way to spend the evening. It may yet prove to be a tactically interesting way to play, but I think it needs a lot more play time and big tournaments to really hash a sort of baseline strategy.

I think this is definitely a mistake to overload an epic ship. I added 36-38 points to a Raider and feel buyers remorse. It doesn't need it... Though it was self sufficient at that scale and was dealing significant damage. I could do the same five points cheaper without significant loss based on what I learned in that match.

It's definitely more for cinematic fun than true competitiveness. Need missions though that give epic fun for both sides without the death matches. Working on some for the next time.

The Transport's always been good because of all of it's support jazz.

At least that's what I hear, I've never fielded mine.

I fielded a fully upgraded corvette and a fully upgraded transport in a 400pt battle. The transport did more to push my victory then the corvette. As matter of fact it was one of two ships still alive when I won, the other was fat Han lol