In most wargames you have a conflict between what you, the player with your omniscient view of the battlefield, what you want your troops to do and what your troops, with their limited view, would want to do. This is represented in some games by 'must engage closest enemy' rules or by rolling to see if your orders are obeyed, etc.

X Wing, in it's quest for simplicity, has bypassed all this in favour of simply having your ships do whatever you want. This results in suicidal martyr pilots who are willing to sacrifice their lives for the cause. You don't notice this so much in the 100/6 games because there's not so much going on, but in Epic you wind up with slightly odd situations where incoming fighters totally ignore their enemy counterparts, sacrificing their own lives in order to fire a torpedo salvo at the capital ships.

Which is a bit odd. Not enough that I don't enjoy the game, in fact, epic games at 300+ points are by far my favourite way to play the game! But the lack of a way for fighters to 'pin' their counterparts in place is notable in it's omission.

It's going to depend on the ship - TIE Bombers, Y-Wings and B-Wings would absolutely ignore enemy fighters to make a missile / torpedo run at a capital ship.

Perhaps a general rule that says something like "Small and large ships may not declare a huge ship the target of an attack if they have a small or large enemy ship within their firing arc" ( I don't like restricting it to Range 1 - you really don't want all your fighters bunched up close to your Epic ships) then have some kind of squadron designation card that reverses the rule for your ordnance carriers - so they can attack the capital ship but must ignore its escorts.

Or maybe make each player apply a squadron designation to each group of his ships that assigns them particular target priorities that must be adherred to:

Interceptor Squadron - must give target priority to Escorts, then Interceptors, then Capital Ships, then Bombers

Escort Squadron - target priority to Bombers, then Interceptors, then Escorts, the Capital ships

Bomber Squadron - target priority to Capital ships, then Escorts, then Interceptors then Bombers

I've read a lot that people find epic huge ships are to weak.

Would it be a good idea to just introduce an additional free "Evade"-result to the defense rolls of the Epic Huge Ship every time it is attacked (as in has to defend from red dice) by primary weapons ?

This could quite well raise its endurance against swarms and general strafing.

Already got that - it's called the Reinforce Action

Reinforce

Ships with the Reinforce action icon in their action bar may perform the reinforce action.

To perform this action, place one reinforce token next to either the fore or aft section of the ship.

When a ship with a reinforce token is defending, the reinforce token adds one result to its defense roll, but only if that token is assigned to the targeted section.

This effect does not spend the reinforce token; thus, a reinforce token can provide this effect for multiple attacks during a single round.

During the End phase, remove all reinforce tokens along with focus and evade tokens.

It's going to depend on the ship - TIE Bombers, Y-Wings and B-Wings would absolutely ignore enemy fighters to make a missile / torpedo run at a capital ship.

I know we're talking about a wholly fictional galaxy, but I don't think those ships would just ignore a fighter screen to do a bombing run. They'd get torn to shreds and never get a shot away. That's why we have interceptors and fighter escorts, why Red and Gold squadrons were devastated (because they HAD to ignore the fighters to do the trench run.)

It's going to depend on the ship - TIE Bombers, Y-Wings and B-Wings would absolutely ignore enemy fighters to make a missile / torpedo run at a capital ship.

I know we're talking about a wholly fictional galaxy, but I don't think those ships would just ignore a fighter screen to do a bombing run. They'd get torn to shreds and never get a shot away. That's why we have interceptors and fighter escorts, why Red and Gold squadrons were devastated (because they HAD to ignore the fighters to do the trench run.)

Well that's pretty much exactly what happened in WWII when American Torpedo Torpedo Bombers and Dive Bombers took on Japanese Capital ships at Midway - whole squadrons sacrificed in the hope of a single critical ordnance striket - and the footage of that kind of aerial combat was the inspiration for the attack on the the Death Star.

And in the attack on the Death Star, the plan was for Red Squadron to provide cover for Gold Squadron while they made their bombing run - Red Squadron only stepped in to finish the job because all but one of Gold Squadron were destroyed.

So there's most definitely a precedent for those tactics in-universe

Epic needs a remake from the ground up in order to be viable to me.

Too clunky & time consuming - not to mention the balance issues.

Already got that - it's called the Reinforce Action

I know. What I meant was a natural and constant Extra-Evade against primary weapons, not only the Reinforce action.

Epic needs a remake from the ground up in order to be viable to me.

Too clunky & time consuming - not to mention the balance issues.

One could argue about the balance issues of the standard 100p. Dogfights. EPIC with huge ships is a different game modus than the 100p. dog fights are. Just that. Not better or worse...!

I do think the raider and tantive are just too weak with hull and shield values, especially when compared to some of the newer large ships. I would expect more hull and shields on the epic and maybe thresholds where hard points or cargo are lost after a certain amount of hull has been taken out.

I do think the raider and tantive are just too weak with hull and shield values, especially when compared to some of the newer large ships. I would expect more hull and shields on the epic and maybe thresholds where hard points or cargo are lost after a certain amount of hull has been taken out.

I dunno - early game when your opponent is at full strength they can go down a little easy - but If the Huge ships survive into the late-game, and they start Recovering Shields and Reinforcing Sections they can be a tough nut to crack - especially if you're trying to swarm them with ships with only 2 attack dice

Something that shifts the mechanic towards drawing fire away from the Huge ships in the early rounds might be simpler and add a greater tactical layer, than some kind of stats-kludge on the Huge ships

I love epic and mini-epic (150-200 point games allowing the not so huge ships) so very much.

I really wish i could play this game mode more.

Epic allows some crazy games.

It allows flight groups of X-wings, flying in, a-wings flanking. Biggs escorting loaded bombers...

TIE Swarms

capital ship combat

Hits on huge convoys.

Carrier ops with Gozers.

Bomber waves....

Truly it is where space battles go to thrive.

Last night was only the second time I've tried Epic play with a huge ship vs. fighters. The first time was team epic, and we were Rebel with both a GR-75 and a CR90. We devastated the Empire, but their tactics weren't sound: virtually half their forces arrived too late to the battle so it was essentially 400 vs. 200, followed by 325 vs. 200.

Last night the Rebels had no huge ship, and we were up against an Imperial Assault Carrier loaded with bombers (300 points, 2 Rebel players vs. one Imperial player). The only other ships he had were"Redline" and Colonel Jendon. He overspent on Munitions a LOT. As a result, I only lost shields on one of my 4 T-70's. With a more balanced squad, it would have been a lot tougher.

So I don't know what to think. Seems to me that the huge ships may not be as weak as people think. In my experience, the "swarm" player has to maneuver well enough to get all ships shooting at the same turn, which isn't always easy. Huge ships really need to use the asteroids to their advantage, and I think Dash Rendar and Captain Needa will be great for setting the approach using obstacles for cover. Clever maneuvering and critical evaluation of your squad composition will probably win the day. That said, I haven't played against so-called cheese squads, so maybe there is some difficulty.

Actually, I think having small based ships that can use Ion Torpedoes to be key. So, for the Imperials, that means Tie Bombers. The Rebels have a dirth of ships that can fire Torpedoes. Of course, the Imperials can start to use Assault Missiles.

The idea is to slow down squads of small based ships so that the snub nosed fighters can get in close and dish out some damage. Tie Interceptors and X-wings are key here.

But ion torps dont stop actions or shooting. True it may mess up their angle but against a huge ship base thats unlikely unless they werent facing towards it even remotely. If they cant hit your huge ship, either they get one hell of a defensive boost against anything it can throw out or it cant do anything either. Most of the supporting qualities are range1-2 too, with a few being 1-3.

What I'm thinking of is prioritizing the enemy Torpedo ship. Get your snub nosed fighters out ahead to deal with them. If you can Ionize the group of them before they get in firing range, then you can try to deal with them before it's too late. Ionize as many as you can and use some other ship to focus fire on them while they are slow. Rebels can use X-wings to use Ion Torps and other X-wings to open fire and blast as many as you can. Ion Torps also still do damage, which is good. Maybe A-wings with Cluster Missiles, as well. Imperials will have to use Tie Bombers to Ionize and then Tie Interceptors to get in fast and do the damage to the torpedo boats.

That's the goal. I have set up matches with squads and I always include a torpedo squad for each side, but I haven't used Ion Torps for control much yet. I want to work on that attempt. Also good with CR-90 that is trying to stay at a distance and blast at long range.

It then becomes the job of whomever has the torpedo ships to screen them well enough. This is where the strategy of it all comes in. If not placed well, things can go badly.

I never really felt the epic rules "worked." A little too much detail, a little too labor/thought intensive for what is generally a smooth game.

I've found that starting with Epic takes a bit to get familiar with the rules, but after a few games it's really just as quick as a regular game....rules wise, that is. There are a lot of tricks and tips to streamline game play. The biggest I'd recommend is to set up your ships in squads with different tasks. It makes decision making a lot easier as you are moving 3-4 ships as one most of the time. Also, stick, with mostly generics as all the special rules can slow down game play.

I've found that starting with Epic takes a bit to get familiar with the rules, but after a few games it's really just as quick as a regular game....rules wise, that is. There are a lot of tricks and tips to streamline game play. The biggest I'd recommend is to set up your ships in squads with different tasks. It makes decision making a lot easier as you are moving 3-4 ships as one most of the time. Also, stick, with mostly generics as all the special rules can slow down game play.

Another way to help speed things up and prevent things being missed is to share your squad list with your opponent, then you can use voidstate's squad builder to combine the list and print out the turn order for all the ships.

useful little tool that

Also, stick, with mostly generics as all the special rules can slow down game play.

This is such solid advice. Don't get me wrong, Howlrunner for example is stunningly powerful in Epic play. She's also one of the biggest time sinks imaginable. Pimp out the huge ships, but keep the fighters generic. It's ok to have a named squad leader for funsies, but loading up the list with them though effective can really cause your game to draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag.

I do think the raider and tantive are just too weak with hull and shield values, especially when compared to some of the newer large ships. I would expect more hull and shields on the epic and maybe thresholds where hard points or cargo are lost after a certain amount of hull has been taken out.

You hit the jackpot. The main problem with the huge ships as FFG designed them is that they clearly inspired their stats in this game on their stats in the lore, and the lore comes from the PC games in the 90s (X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and the rest).

For a CR-90 corvette, you can see in the specs that they have

Shields: 400 SDB

Hull: 195 RU

Total: 595 hitpoints (SDB and RU are StarWars units for basically hitpoints)

In comparison a B-Wing has:

Shields: 125 SDB

Hull: 60 RU

Total: 185 hitpoints

In this game, FFG chose these stats for the CR-90

Shields: 5+3 = 8

Hull: 8+8 = 16

Total: 24 hitpoints

And the B-Wing is

Shields: 5

Hull: 3

Total: 8 hp

Perfect match proportions between this game and the PC games!

Obviously, you can clearly see the problem here: Should a CR-90 just as sturdy as roughly 3 B-wings?

That seems so wrong, right? Yes, it is wrong, because a corvette, or any of the other semicapital ships wasn't that weak in the PC games, so where did FFG made their mistake, then?

FFG missed one thing from how the semicapital and capital ships worked in the PC games. They have an Armor stat!

All Fighter-size ships (includes transports) have an Armor of 1.

All Freighter-size ships (including corvettes) have an Armor of 4.

All Capital-size ships (including from frigates to star destroyers) have an armor of 16.

The armor was used like this:

When a ship attacks another ship, the damage of the weapon is divided by the armor class of the defending ship.

So something similar needs to be made here.

What about a straight double (or triple, even) of the hitpoints and shield values? If both players are using an epic ship, it is an equal perk for both players.

What about a straight double (or triple, even) of the hitpoints and shield values? If both players are using an epic ship, it is an equal perk for both players.

too overpowered - Huge ships can be unkillable beasts in the late game

the issue with demanding you bring an epic ship is

1) not everyone can afford that much at once. Even the ~70USD ones are a price dump and pretty hefty for some people. The main reason theres so many in this game in my area is everyone can pay ~20 a month for a kit or splurge a little more for 2 kits so they can still play. Im one of the few that doesnt have that issue so even though ive been playing for 4 months i already own all the imperial stuff and all the rebel stuff except the rebel huge ships and Dash lol. (most of the "skill" i claim to have comes from previous games applied to this one)

2) Scum have no epic ship yet. And yes scum do play epic lol.

i still think the best way to deal with the epic ships' durability is an escort rule. Would be really easy to add and it would prevent alphastriking a huge down...atleast as easily.

Reinforce helps but its not that amazing. Usually you can still target the other section that isnt reinforced: thats how my friend was able to vaporize my raider in a single round (1 section i mean). I reinforced the one he was near, and only 1 ship was required to hit the fore section so he hit the aft with everything, even the ones that were losing range1 or losing torpedo range.

Unless i misread the rules about that blue line and it technically extends beyond the base, making it impossible to hit the aft if youre in the fore area regardless of the angle. I got the impression if it passed the actual printed line you had to hit the other section.

Don't forget the Rebel Transport and/or Gozanti! You can get them on sale pretty cheap. Also, there are those people like me that would let others borrow some of their ships.

I got my CR-90 for about $55 on sale.

I do need to get another 2 GR75s...

I fully intend to host some big ass games at some point.

Also, stick, with mostly generics as all the special rules can slow down game play.

This is such solid advice. Don't get me wrong, Howlrunner for example is stunningly powerful in Epic play. She's also one of the biggest time sinks imaginable. Pimp out the huge ships, but keep the fighters generic. It's ok to have a named squad leader for funsies, but loading up the list with them though effective can really cause your game to draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag.

See, I'm just not sold on this. Epic is a great format to field, for example, all the named TIE interceptor pilots because you never see them otherwise. And with all of them out, they can't all be focused down, so to even get see them use their neat little pilot abilities. The bonus is, if everybody field generics, I have a good chance of PS killing some event ships.

Special rules that would slow the game down are ones that require checking ranges/angles constantly, such as formation fly benefits. Ive tried to think of ways to add such a perk in without having a diagram of how they need to be positioned, otherwise 1) keeping that position would be an issue when you turn, as it usually is in this game depending on the type of ship and 2) you are going to come across people going "Aaaactually your TIE fighter is twisted slightly so hes out of formation technically" and would just waste so much time. Only way ive been able to think of to add it in would be too easy to abuse, so i stopped trying lol.

You could add a template you put your ships on and have the highest PS in front and all the ships just follow his/her movement, but that would also add more things to buy/carry around and would be cumbersome to say the least. I.e. a special base that holds 3 small bases in a triangle formation so you can pick all 3 up at once, or at any point break the formation and remove the template. But like i said, cumbersome lol

Special rules that specifically only impact the Huge Ship, either what he does or what you do to him, wouldnt really slow the game much. Main reason my first epic game took so long wasnt because we did 500pts but because i kept having to doublecheck the huge ship timing on things since its completely new to me: something i'd get used to after a few games.

Also, stick, with mostly generics as all the special rules can slow down game play.

This is such solid advice. Don't get me wrong, Howlrunner for example is stunningly powerful in Epic play. She's also one of the biggest time sinks imaginable. Pimp out the huge ships, but keep the fighters generic. It's ok to have a named squad leader for funsies, but loading up the list with them though effective can really cause your game to draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag.

See, I'm just not sold on this. Epic is a great format to field, for example, all the names TIE interceptor pilots because you never see them otherwise. And with all of them out, they can't ask be focused down, so to even get see them sure of their newest little pilot abilities. The bonus is, if everybody field generics, I have a good chance of PS killing some event ships.

I think if you are just learning Epic and having problems with game flow then this is one way to really streamline the game. Get a bunch of games down and play styles down. After that, I'm sure it's better to chuck in the named ones.

I will say that too many named guys and you just forget their special ability. So, you spend points for things you end up not using.

Kir Kanos, though, is a really good pilot for Epic in my opinion. Give him an Evade token and he's going to add a whole hit to his results. Yes, you don't get dice modification (without having something like Squad Leader or Fleet Officer nearby), but you get to add a hit. So, your averages might be about the same as just using a Focus, but your maximum damage gets one whole hit higher. That's good to help knock things out at R 2-3....like Epic ships....or Torpedo ships.

Special rules that would slow the game down are ones that require checking ranges/angles constantly, such as formation fly benefits. Ive tried to think of ways to add such a perk in without having a diagram of how they need to be positioned, otherwise 1) keeping that position would be an issue when you turn, as it usually is in this game depending on the type of ship and 2) you are going to come across people going "Aaaactually your TIE fighter is twisted slightly so hes out of formation technically" and would just waste so much time. Only way ive been able to think of to add it in would be too easy to abuse, so i stopped trying lol.

Well....a couple of things.

1. You can always use your templates starting off to help put all your bases on the same facing. Use it like a ruler or straight edge to just make sure the bases of your ships are facing the same way.
2. Leave the width of the template between your ships. Learned this from HotAC. It means you can do some maneuvers to and not bump.
3. You don't have to use one dial for all ships in a squad. Good for the first couple, but afterwards, you just use one dial each, but it still helps speed things up because they are all doing roughly the same move.
4. Anyone who is going to be annoying about ships being perfect during a big epic game is going to be a little annoying, especially if things are getting bumped. People should be willing to give a little in a game like that...within reason.

Yes. Yes and Yes.

I want more Gonzanti variants, Jabba's yacht, the Hammerhead corvette from SW:Rebels and if FFG made an X-wing compatible ground war game- I would want it too.

i'm totally down for more epic thingys... in the least, they could release a big 3-part token for a space station.

Because I haven't seen it mentioned. FFG did have Prize support for both the Epic Tournament and the Team Epic tournament at Origins this year.

Winners - plastic double sided maneuver template

Acrylic Energy Tokens

Extended Art Targeting Coordinators (participation prize)

This same stuff will be the prize support at the North American Champioship at GenCon. FFG also is possibly looking at some updates to the Tournament Rules for both Epic and Team Epic formats.

Here is a picture:

Also, stick, with mostly generics as all the special rules can slow down game play.

This is such solid advice. Don't get me wrong, Howlrunner for example is stunningly powerful in Epic play. She's also one of the biggest time sinks imaginable. Pimp out the huge ships, but keep the fighters generic. It's ok to have a named squad leader for funsies, but loading up the list with them though effective can really cause your game to draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag.

See, I'm just not sold on this. Epic is a great format to field, for example, all the names TIE interceptor pilots because you never see them otherwise. And with all of them out, they can't ask be focused down, so to even get see them sure of their newest little pilot abilities. The bonus is, if everybody field generics, I have a good chance of PS killing some event ships.

Please don't misunderstand. If you dig the special pilots, synergies, and interactions, then brother, more power to you. If you go full Thoreau and Time is but the stream you go a-fishing in, then have at it.

If however you find that Epic runs too long for your tastes, special pilot abilities and certain upgrade cards are the best place to cut some of that time. In Epic I think the happy medium is to treat your named pilots and upgrades like salt. Best to just sprinkle a little seasoning in.