Been playing the Imps (my favorite faction) in Epic (my favorite format), and have yet to win in a score of matches. While it could be that I am the worst x-wing player ever, I have also been trying to surf around for ideas on "what went wrong!" Not much info on Epic play, and the one fairly good commentary I found supported my observations:

1.) The Rebels (and even Scum) have a huge advantage in token passing and mutual ship support

and

2.) Arc Dodging is neigh to impossible in a multi ship environment.

Furthermore,

3.) Glass cannons get chewed up faster than a Wampa babysitting your Taun-Taun (ergo, Swarm is a dead tactic)

4.) The Decimator is a 0-dodge laser sponge.

So, that leaves Lambda Shuttles and TIE/D Defenders as the only useful ships out of the dozen available.

I have had iffy success with Punishers. . .sometimes they wreak havoc, and other times they go down with all their ordnance still in the tubes.

Keep hoping that the next Wave will drop the Skipray Blastboat. . .or an Imp ship that is beefy like the Bomber/Punisher but does not serve as a missile platform for its intended primary function.

Does anybody have success with the Imps in Epic? Love to hear your secrets. . .

Hi. I can only offer limited suggestions as I've only played 3 epic matches and all of them as rebels. Here is a little insight into the tradition ing strategies I use. Maybe it'll present something new to you.

1. Use your epic ship as a shield. Fly eith the epic ship between your small ships. If the opponent goes after it with small ships or epic ships, punish him for it, severely. Range 1-3 against a raider with small ships is problematic. Immediately dive in and support with your small ships.

2. Always, always have a flanking force with ordnance. This will give your opponent something to think about. I'm talking serious flanking where they might not see action until turn 7 or 8. For me, this is usually a a K wing with an E wing, and a y wing. For you rhat could be a punisher (late game ordnance and high health) a tie bomber, and a tie advanced. He will have to divert some forces to threaten the flanking force and that alleviates pressure from the main force.

4. I always tease with survivable ships before the engagement begins. I send my actual flanking force as well as a proxy flanking force (pincers manuever) but right before we enter combat range and he devotes to intercept, I k turn or hard bank away, taking him for a trip and causing a break in formation. If you time it correctly, the turn you run away with the proxy flank, is the turn that he commits with whoever is chassing, and at the same time, the turn your epic ship barely gets in ra ge to fire at them and make them run.

3. Fly a critical hit sponge alongside the epic ship. I just realized I haven't double checked if this works, but I tend to fly Chewbacca next to my cr 90 with "draw their fire" so when the epic ship suffers a hit, chewie eats it. You could mimic this with a lambda flying escort for it. If **** hits the fan, fly the lambda right at the enemy epic ship. He can't ignore it. And it'll give you 1 turn to breathe and regen with the raider

Last but not least, energy js the lifeblood of epic ships, ad I'm sure you know. 1 or 2 tibanna gas supplies as well as a 1 move forward just to get regen and fill all your ships shields and guns js wonderful. Maybe even Darth Vader as a crew is worth it..

Quite helpful, Ace. I have not played with the Raider since I learned they start play all juiced-up; this will be a great advantage.

I wonder if the Decimator can also work as a crit sponge as well as the lambda.

Do you see Palpmobiles in the epic environ? Can swarms actually work?

I often find that equivalent forces (the Raider itself, and TIE/Ds vs. BTL Ys) always cost the Empire more points and chew down the Imps gun-to-gun ratio in play.

BTW, was your foe playing Imps?

I only play Imperial and I've only played (maybe) 6 epic games. I've come out on top in all of them. I blame that on the raider being incredible (with jonus flying alongside )

I enjoy flying about 6 tie/FO's (omega, comm relay, juke) alongside a "raider support wing" of jonus (stealth device) with a pair of hlc defenders and a pair of assault missile extra munitions punishers. I don't fly imperial large ships in an epic game.

Those FO's are absurdly good. With hard points counting as secondary weapons my three quad-laser turrets don't miss (jonus so strong) and I run a weapons engineer for two target locks for my 2 primary shots. Very punchy ship.

Edit: I should add that 4 of the games were team epic (I supplied the ships for my side, so made basically a single 400 point epic list)

Hmm. Don't often have enough points for 6 FOs. Maybe I'm tricking the Raider out too much--do you have a favorite Raider buildout, Bleak?

I typically run it fairly single mindedly. It's exsistance is to shoot as often as possible and hopefully as accurately as possible. Staying on the table is the secondary goal I keep in mind. Typically it ends up costing around the 140ish mark. Crew I never leave without are shield technician, and weapons engineer. The engineer is so very important to keep the primary happy. Past the crew I typically only ever bring sensor team (when I bring a team) and I'm fairly smitten with optimized generators as the modification. (really helps to power the three quad lasers I can't leave home without.) Cargo upgrades I like, but aren't required are tibana gas supplies, and the engine booster.

Outfitted as such and with jonus flying alongside it has a very real shot at killing anything in the game in 2 rounds of concentrated firepower. I've been able to successfully destroy half a cr-90 in a single round of shooting at range 2. I love this ship.

Not to mention it can really spread the love on fighters. It makes 5 attacks all with modification* (as long as jonus is up) and 3 of the attacks have a gunner effect.

If I bulk it out too much and need room for my FO's, first things I drop are the punishers. They're good, but they don't need to be around with how much anti-swarm the raider can achieve.

Edit: here's the cheapest build I run for my Raider, wouldn't run less but can outfit for more.

Raider class corvette fore 50

-quad laser cannons 6

Raider class corvette aft 50

-quad laser cannons 6

-quad laser cannons 6

-optimized generators 5

-shield technician 1

-weapons engineer 3

Total: 127 points

And as an alternative you can also replace the optimized generators with ordnance tubes and replace the fore and one of the aft laser cannons with cluster missiles if you desire even more potential damage output.

Sorry , only ever played one epic match. I was rebel and tried to use the Tantive to shield the transport, I did not do well. The Empire had the Imperial Raider and the Gozanti Carrier, loaded for war with Tie Interceptor's. Once I lost the rear of the Tantive, the transport went down easy. If it help's my opponent did not deploy his TIE's till way into the game. They came out fresh and fast and tore my already limping fleet. We have a rematch next month, keep you posted. This time I want the Ghost, fully loaded instead of the transport tho. And as many Z 95's as i can get my hands on.

Quite helpful, Ace. I have not played with the Raider since I learned they start play all juiced-up; this will be a great advantage.

I wonder if the Decimator can also work as a crit sponge as well as the lambda.

Do you see Palpmobiles in the epic environ? Can swarms actually work?

I often find that equivalent forces (the Raider itself, and TIE/Ds vs. BTL Ys) always cost the Empire more points and chew down the Imps gun-to-gun ratio in play.

BTW, was your foe playing Imps?

Decimator could be a great sponge. Swarms, as bleak aid, can work. Palo mobile I wouldn't take. I can only see influencing 1 die out if the plethora as good to avoid a crit, but he can't do that reliably.

While I like everything bleak had said, I'd still take the dangerous flanking force. It makes the opponent have to deal with 2 fronts

"While I like everything bleak had said, I'd still take the dangerous flanking force. It makes the opponent have to deal with 2 fronts."

As in, "deal with the capital ship or deal with the fighters." Yeah, I have had that experience before.

The Imperials have couple of advantages in Epic games IMO. The first is the possibility to take PS 6 generics (RGs, VI Blacks, soon Glaives). VI Black is only 15 points, and they can be quite effective against other generics and mid-level aces. Throw in the Black Squadron Aces (Backstabber and Dark Curse) who happen to be also PS 6. If TIE fighters feel too fragile, bolt on some extra armour (Hull or Shield) to make one-shotting them much more difficult.

The second ace in the Emperor´s sleeve is the unglorious Lambda shuttles of Omicron Group. They really shine in Epic, you can tool them up for many different roles. Cheap and durable cannon platform? HLC, AS is only 31 points, I sometimes run 2-3 of them with Jonus. General purpose fighter? FCS, Gunner, Tactician is 30 points. And don´t forget captain Kagi, he could be really annoying. Just equip him with Sensor Jammer, maybe Countermeasures and you are ready to troll.

Keep playing, those Rebel terrorists and villainous criminals are beatable.

I might be a criminal, but villainous?

Although Ace9530 recommends it, I would advise you NOT to bring your flanking squad in late. Too many times I've seen the main squad get decimated by concentrated fire from the opponent's entire force, and then it's the "flanking" squad headed straight at a moderately healthy squad of ships. I think you need all guns firing together, but you can still flank and achieve this.

I have had good success with a PtL Saber Squad swarm alongside a Raider and with Captain Kagi. The three dice make a big difference.

I think if you were going to have 2 ATK ships, you'd need to bring a lot of them. I used to prefer Black Sq. Pilots for simultaneous fire on the CR90, but I've started seeing more and more squads that boost its PS, so I think Academies with a few named Pilots would do better. Unless you want to use Elite talents, of course. Epic Crack swarms are... EPIC.

I have no experience with playing Epic myself. I just bought my first one, with three others on order. I did, however, have an idea that I started in another thread, which did have some good feedback with people who do have experience. Anyways, here it is and hope it might be of use, God bless .

Hello my fellow X-wing Miniatures Fans! Hope things are going well for everyone .

So I have recently decided to embark into the new land of Epic/Huge ships to add to my current collection and boy am I excited to fly these new MONSTERS!!! lol

I got my new Rebel Transport two days ago and I am still waiting for the remaining 3 epic ships to arrive next week, but I've been playing on Fab's Squadron Generator with some new builds to get familiar with the new ships and I noticed something very interesting that I would like to get the communities opinion on.

I noticed that both of the Decimator's and Gozanti Cruiser's cost are exactly the same at 40 points . I find this very interesting as while, yes granted, they are totally different ships in completely different ship class's (large vs. huge ships) there are some very interesting similarities.

• They both have turret attacks at 3 dice (granted the Gozanti does have to spend one energy to do so).
• They both have agility values at zero
• Both of their combined hull & shields are almost the same (16 vs. 14)
• Both have the target lock ability
• Both can carry at least two crew members (and therefore Emperor Palpatine)
• Both can only do one attack per round

I realise that some of you may be scratching your head at this (or wondering if I've been sniffing too much airplane glue ) I present a reasonable "why?" to make this comparison.

Assuming you are playing Epic mode, and you are trying to maximize your points (i.e. "best bang for your buck") you look at some of your ships and see that you have two bruisers to choose from (not including the MONOLITH Raider ) and you see that the basic cost for the Decimator and the Gozanti Cruiser are essentially the same. Here are some of the advantages of the Gozanti over the Decimator that may seem appealing to you:

• You can regenerate shields!!! (yippee! Now the Imperials are no longer in the dark )
• You can even repair hull damage, including critical hits!!! (double yippee!!!)
• Darth Vader can (potentially) be used every single round adding one critical hit to your attack while healing the damage from his effect
• You could have one "evade token" (reinforce action) for every single attack (vs. one, Ysanne Isard)
• You can carry and protect up to 4 TIE ships
• You can smash & destroy other large and small ships through ramming (and scream "Banzai!!!" while doing it)

Forgive my zealousness, and silliness, but I thought it was a pretty cool idea to use the Gozanti Cruiser instead of the Decimator for the same basic cost while being able to regenerate shields, hull points and use Vader every turn!!!

Thoughts???

(P.S. - Has anyone considered buying two Gozanti Cruiser's to field instead of one Gozanti and one Raider by chance? I'm debating buying a 2nd one...thanks and God bless !)

Thanks for the topic, I'm going to a team epic game (200pts each player) with my 6 year old soon and I'm trying to figure out a list that works for him. Having Jonus tag along with a Raider and a few other supports should do him nicely.

Providing the full 400 pts of ships on only one collection is proving challenging!

Good luck. I'm not allowed to play Imperial in epic next time. My missile Raider and TIE swarm kinda obliterated the rebels. 400pts gave me a fair bit of play room. The TIEs were largely Academies and Alphas. I had Vader, Juno and Colzet in Advanced. I clogged the space lanes and then pounced on anything that got caught in the net. It kept focus fire on the Raider a suicide tactic and the Raider unloaded missiles and torpedoes on the few that got through. I had points uncommitted. The emperor watched from the edge of the field...