Shuttle Tydirium Episode 23: Epic Discussion

http://shuttletydirium.podbean.com/e/episode-23-epic-discussion/

Welcome aboard the Shuttle Tydirium for episode 23! This week, we'll reveal the winner of our contest, talk about using high-tier ships in HotAC, and have a lively discussion about Epic play. Many thanks to the Broken Token for providing prize support! Check out their link below!

If you're in the NYC area, check out the Battle For Salvation X-wing tournament Oct 8-9. Phil will be hosting a scenario on the 9th.

Also sign up for the Custom Card League's Vassal tournament!

Captain's Question: 3:55

Contest: 15:40

HotAC - can we use other ships in HotAC? 32:51

Epic: 1:00:20

Broken Token: http://www.thebrokentoken.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/281466752191121/

Email: [email protected]

Battle For Salvation: http://www.battleforsalvation.com/x-wing/

Custom Card League Tournament: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/231138-custom-card-league-tournament-sign-ups/

Look forward to having some nice listening tonight whilst the wife has her friends over for a chick flick.

Epic play sounds fun (there is an epic tournament this weekend but its my boys 6th birthday so wont be able to attend)

Now that I know Jim and Phil enjoy a good debate, I was able to enjoy this episode quite a bit. Excellent discussion! There were so many times that I wanted to chime in, but it was all prerecorded so I just had to stay quiet . So here are some of my thoughts.

• I used to agree about the Damaged Docking Clamps card. I thought it made the Gozanti way better than the GR-75. Then I realized it says, "If you have no docked ships, this section suffers one damage." That's one damage in addition to that damage card. Essentially, if you have no docked ships then you have three Direct Hit cards in each deck of the Gozanti. That makes it a lot more potent.
  
• I can totally see where Phil is coming from with regard to a block of ships. They have the potential to concentrate all firepower on one target, and that can spell doom for the opponent. The one thing that really makes Jim's idea of split deployments better is obstacle placement. If you choose split deployment, you don't send one of your small groups into a wide alley through which your opponent can fit their entire swarm. As you said late in the episode, you have to think strategically about deployment; give yourself options from your starting deployment. Have an optimal maneuver that gets your ships in a good offensive position, but think about where opposing higher PS ships can deploy that would ruin that strategy, and have an alternate maneuver in mind that will let you escape/regroup. I'll have to come up with an example figure later, but if you're going to use split deployment, you have to make the obstacles work for you.
  
• You had a long discussion about squad composition vs. how you fly it. Jim made a point about taking all the time to set up, but then facing a squad that hard counters your squad. I am not so sure about that. In a typical EPIC dogfight, you have 300 points to work with. You should be able to cover for weaknesses within your own squad with that many points. I think deployment/flying are much more important. If they have gobs of Assault Missiles, will spreading out your own forces be worse than eating the extra damage? Answer that question, and then deploy accordingly. If spreading out is bad, there is still plain old range control to fall back on in order to deny the ordnance shots.
  
• Flanking X-wings. Wow, that got heated . I think there is a common misconception with flanking that goes something like this, "Any time I (an individual ship) can shoot my target where I can't be shot back is optimal." Is that entirely accurate? Well, in EPIC play the answer is definitely, "NO!" You really have to think about target priority before you can think about flanking. If you have 3 X-wings and 3 Bandit Sq. Z-95's flying straight at your opponent, who will the opponent shoot down first? The X-wings! So if you send your Z-95's around to "flank," is it actually gaining you anything? Not really - your opponent is shooting at the same ships in both scenarios: the X-wings. This is probably one of the things Phil was considering when he was trying to hammer home the idea that a block deployment is just plain better than split deployment in terms of how this game is designed. So where you really shine is if you can get your opponent to shoot the Z-95's, and have the X-wings out of arc. Realistically, that's not going to happen (at least B-wings have barrel roll so they can dodge some arcs). I think that the only caveat I can come up with is obstacle placement, so that if your opponent turns to shoot the X-wings, it gets the block of small ships or the behemoth huge ship tied up in the asteroids/debris fields. This might be enough to get your opponent to save the X-wings for later, and just take the easy Z-95 targets off the board first. I'm sure there is more to this idea of flanking and target priority, but I think it will get long-winded (oh, wait, it already is).

Thanks for talking about Epic. I would love more people to talk about it. Gearing up for the tournament at GenCon and talking about it afterwards was great fun, and I look forward to more opportunities like that (which is why I wrote all my thoughts here). Keep up the great podcast!