i dont think anyone would be against a complete epic rework. Keep the movement/energy/what the actions do but otherwise completely revamp the dang things.

I shouldnt have to turn my huge ships into a battering ram to get their points back. I dont care about them being powerhouses but they should enable my forces to be powerhouses, or at least more accurate.

9 hours ago, Marinealver said:

Yeah but the argument is still lat what level of communications it was. A simple email might be good enough to help a TO in a non-premier tournament but it does not qualify as an "official ruling". It's like lending someone $50 (or $5,000) with only getting a verbal "uh-huh" to the question "Will you pay me back next month?" The person whom you gave $50 to can legally argue it was a gift as there was no contract or promissory note or any other notarized document stating that there was an agreement between both parties and one party has violated that trust. Sure an email from the devs have more weight than say a TO at LFGS. But it is still not the official ruling which is why they should at least put it in the FAQ or Errata on Huge Ship Rules.

I find the EMAIL from Frank hilarious because he isn't lying: EPIC SHIPS *can* use Esege's Focus [AS IF THEY WERE THEIR OWN] and then we see that "Focus Tokens have zero effect" on EPIC SHIPS (page 4, rulebook) so the FOCUS is spent and absolutely NOTHING happens per the Rulebook, which is crystal clear on this matter.

HILARIOUS.

email rulings are so flimsy you might as well not even bother with them. Pretty much everyone in my area still thinks if you bump with a striker AA move you lose your action, though i actually almost never have that happen as i bump with the normal move anyway or i was doing a red move every time i DID bump with the AA move.

2 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

email rulings are so flimsy you might as well not even bother with them. Pretty much everyone in my area still thinks if you bump with a striker AA move you lose your action, though i actually almost never have that happen as i bump with the normal move anyway or i was doing a red move every time i DID bump with the AA move.

But Frank isn't WRONG, he just doesn't appear to play EPIC nor does he address the entire question.

I'd love to see Epic changed in some way. I can see that maybe the epic ships need more hull points to stay alive. I kind of think they are OK, though, as the Epic ships are rather vulnerable to snub nosed fighters, especially those with lots of red dice or ordnance. I mean, a few small ships can't really hurt a big ship, but a bunch of them should be able to rip up one of these really small capital ships, right? I think it's probably OK to boost their hull a bit, too, though. I'm OK with that. Shields might be too much with replenish, though.

Personally, I think the epic ships could get more ACTIONS. They have a crew, right? Or....if you add Teams and Crew, that you can get more actions from them. Maybe have a Targeting Team that is only a few points, but they let you do a TL action every round. Things like that. Many of the Epic ships have a lot of actions, but can only do one. If they were able to do multiple actions, I think they would be more effective. I mean, are all the rest of the crew just sitting there doing nothing while the targeting guy dishes out a TL? If you had ships that could do a lot of different actions, you would see them being more effective. They could Jam the enemy. They could Coordinate and give someone a free action. They could TL for their own shots. They could Reinforce their own section. These capital ships are supposed to have a bunch of guys on them, but they only get 1 action per card?

19 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

I'd love to see Epic changed in some way. I can see that maybe the epic ships need more hull points to stay alive. I kind of think they are OK, though, as the Epic ships are rather vulnerable to snub nosed fighters, especially those with lots of red dice or ordnance. I mean, a few small ships can't really hurt a big ship, but a bunch of them should be able to rip up one of these really small capital ships, right? I think it's probably OK to boost their hull a bit, too, though. I'm OK with that. Shields might be too much with replenish, though.

Personally, I think the epic ships could get more ACTIONS. They have a crew, right? Or....if you add Teams and Crew, that you can get more actions from them. Maybe have a Targeting Team that is only a few points, but they let you do a TL action every round. Things like that. Many of the Epic ships have a lot of actions, but can only do one. If they were able to do multiple actions, I think they would be more effective. I mean, are all the rest of the crew just sitting there doing nothing while the targeting guy dishes out a TL? If you had ships that could do a lot of different actions, you would see them being more effective. They could Jam the enemy. They could Coordinate and give someone a free action. They could TL for their own shots. They could Reinforce their own section. These capital ships are supposed to have a bunch of guys on them, but they only get 1 action per card?

Brilliant ideas. I always just assumed the limited actions on EPIC ships is due to the Round-by-Round timeframe. I've always imagined a turn of XWING as being 2-3 seconds. Even with a large crew, 3 seconds is 3 seconds.

Even with 3 seconds being 3 seconds, lots of guys each doing one thing can make a lot happen in that time.

I like the idea of somehow getting more action economy into an epic ship, because a crew would be able to do more than one thing. And it would make them a more useful place to invest points over more fighters.

1 hour ago, heychadwick said:

I'd love to see Epic changed in some way. I can see that maybe the epic ships need more hull points to stay alive. I kind of think they are OK, though, as the Epic ships are rather vulnerable to snub nosed fighters, especially those with lots of red dice or ordnance. I mean, a few small ships can't really hurt a big ship, but a bunch of them should be able to rip up one of these really small capital ships, right? I think it's probably OK to boost their hull a bit, too, though. I'm OK with that. Shields might be too much with replenish, though.

Personally, I think the epic ships could get more ACTIONS. They have a crew, right? Or....if you add Teams and Crew, that you can get more actions from them. Maybe have a Targeting Team that is only a few points, but they let you do a TL action every round. Things like that. Many of the Epic ships have a lot of actions, but can only do one. If they were able to do multiple actions, I think they would be more effective. I mean, are all the rest of the crew just sitting there doing nothing while the targeting guy dishes out a TL? If you had ships that could do a lot of different actions, you would see them being more effective. They could Jam the enemy. They could Coordinate and give someone a free action. They could TL for their own shots. They could Reinforce their own section. These capital ships are supposed to have a bunch of guys on them, but they only get 1 action per card?

Well epic is done in a way that acts more like a strain of the ship and its engines and not the crew. That's why there are no red or green maneuvers for huge ships. As with focus well it is supposed to be more of a pilot action focusing on (everything?) well IMHO focus should have been more like a target lock focusing on only 1 ship for thematic purpose but mechanically it is fine.

So with different actions and an energy management system instead of a stress management system that is how they go form the single pilot in a small starfighter to a full size ship with a crew.

On 2/22/2017 at 4:29 PM, heychadwick said:

I'd love to see Epic changed in some way. I can see that maybe the epic ships need more hull points to stay alive. I kind of think they are OK, though, as the Epic ships are rather vulnerable to snub nosed fighters, especially those with lots of red dice or ordnance. I mean, a few small ships can't really hurt a big ship, but a bunch of them should be able to rip up one of these really small capital ships, right? I think it's probably OK to boost their hull a bit, too, though. I'm OK with that. Shields might be too much with replenish, though.

Personally, I think the epic ships could get more ACTIONS. They have a crew, right? Or....if you add Teams and Crew, that you can get more actions from them. Maybe have a Targeting Team that is only a few points, but they let you do a TL action every round. Things like that. Many of the Epic ships have a lot of actions, but can only do one. If they were able to do multiple actions, I think they would be more effective. I mean, are all the rest of the crew just sitting there doing nothing while the targeting guy dishes out a TL? If you had ships that could do a lot of different actions, you would see them being more effective. They could Jam the enemy. They could Coordinate and give someone a free action. They could TL for their own shots. They could Reinforce their own section. These capital ships are supposed to have a bunch of guys on them, but they only get 1 action per card?

What if it was something to do with representing the skill of the crew, so Huge ships gain a number of actions equal to their pilot score? That way, you could introduce Admirals that have a + 2 PS skill effect or something like that.

However, this is countered by the Reinforce action, as the crew is bracing for impact and not able to perform their duties as efficiently. To represent this, you bring in a caveat:

"Epic ships may perform a number of actions equal to the pilot skill of the ship, taking into consideration any modifiers to their pilot skill. These actions must first be spent on actions listed in the action bar of the appropriate section before moving on to upgrade cards such as crew, system, hard points and teams.
Note that if any section receives a Reinforce token, the number of actions available to that section are reduced by half, rounding up. "

Its a bit 40k ish but I think it works.

You could then release Ackbar, who costs three or four points for example, has an ability that allows focus modifiers when firing from port or starboard and in the bottom left corner has a + 2 symbol meaning that, as long as he is on board that ship, it treats its pilot skill as 2 higher.

Also, i think Epic play would be better if you had to include at least one epic ship from your faction as mandatory. That stops the stupid six Jumpmasters and twelve Gamma Vets just sweeping the board.

On 22.02.2017 at 5:29 PM, heychadwick said:

I'd love to see Epic changed in some way. I can see that maybe the epic ships need more hull points to stay alive. I kind of think they are OK, though, as the Epic ships are rather vulnerable to snub nosed fighters, especially those with lots of red dice or ordnance. I mean, a few small ships can't really hurt a big ship, but a bunch of them should be able to rip up one of these really small capital ships, right? I think it's probably OK to boost their hull a bit, too, though. I'm OK with that. Shields might be too much with replenish, though.

Personally, I think the epic ships could get more ACTIONS. They have a crew, right? Or....if you add Teams and Crew, that you can get more actions from them. Maybe have a Targeting Team that is only a few points, but they let you do a TL action every round. Things like that. Many of the Epic ships have a lot of actions, but can only do one. If they were able to do multiple actions, I think they would be more effective. I mean, are all the rest of the crew just sitting there doing nothing while the targeting guy dishes out a TL? If you had ships that could do a lot of different actions, you would see them being more effective. They could Jam the enemy. They could Coordinate and give someone a free action. They could TL for their own shots. They could Reinforce their own section. These capital ships are supposed to have a bunch of guys on them, but they only get 1 action per card?

Double the amount of energy Epic ships have and simply allow them to pay 1 energy for each action beyond the first (sort of like unlimited Automated Protocols).

1 hour ago, Viktus106 said:

What if it was something to do with representing the skill of the crew, so Huge ships gain a number of actions equal to their pilot score? That way, you could introduce Admirals that have a + 2 PS skill effect or something like that.

It's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure if it would work. Part of the problem that I see is that Epic ships aren't worth the points in the games. They are too easy to kill and don't do enough. There is the danger to put too many points into them and they just die. The challenge I see is the concept of making them more viable. With that, you can do a number of things, such as boosting attacks or defenses. What I like is giving them more actions to make them more integral to the whole battle going on. These things should be there to help coordinate with all the other ships going on and be more of a focal point of the action. So, somehow giving them more actions seems more like a balancing thing. Part of the danger would be to allow people to do things like both a Reinforce action and a Recover action. I like that you have to pick between the two. It's part of the strategy and tactics. So, I can see some limitations as to having multiple actions options. OK...so, that's my premise as to why I think it would be good to change things.

Why not the PS skill of the ship? Well, what about all the ships that don't have a high PS guy? They would be screwed. It would pretty much mean that only the ships with high PS and strong leaders would ever be involved. It would mean that nothing would change for low level engagements or ones that didn't include some major leader. I think all games should change a bit. So, if you want to play some minor skirmish in the larger picture, you are just playing with the older rules. It kind of creates the PS war of the regular game.

The way I see these capital ships is that they are full of crew. There are people set to do all these various jobs on the ship. So, I kind of like the idea that all ships, no matter the PS level, can do more than just one action a section. Now, I also get that perhaps there are skeleton crews on some of these ships. Maybe every ship doesn't get to do lots of actions? Maybe the number of actions is tied to the number of Crew and Team that is on board? If you have a full crew, you can do more actions. This almost rewards you for having more points into your ship. There can maybe be another idea. There are new Crew and/or Teams that can be added that let you do specific actions for free every turn. Yes, epic ships don't get free actions in the way we understand Free Actions. You can say that maybe there is a Targeting Team that lets you do a free TL every round. You will have to make the choice as to whether or not to get the Sensor Team (longer range for TL) or the Targeting Team for your ship. Or...maybe spend points on both! You can have a Coordinating Team that lets you do a free Coordinate action (if you have it) every turn. Either way works in my mind. The more crew you put on a big ship then the more actions you get. Is it any crew or do you need specific crew/teams to do it? I'm not sure. If that's the case, you might then have to make choices as to what type of crew you want. Maybe you don't actually take Zuckuss if you really need to get all those free actions every round.

The simple idea here is a crew or team upgrade (limited, epic only) that allows an extra action.

The much more extreme change I would like to see is a rule change to how Epic Ships suffer damage. Wording is clunky and I'm not sure if it's fixable.

"When defending against a small or large ship, the total damage is cut in half, rounding down."

Too strong? Probably. But good gravy do I want Huge Ships to be mauling each other not melting to a ton of pew-pews from TLT's or garbage like that. Maybe make torpedoes exempt but provide some sort anti-target lock tech for epics. Maybe remove any number of TL by spending an energy per lock.

I would think TL removal should be tied to the Jam action? I mean, you are jamming the ship after all.

11 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

It's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure if it would work. Part of the problem that I see is that Epic ships aren't worth the points in the games. They are too easy to kill and don't do enough. There is the danger to put too many points into them and they just die. Part of what I see is the concept of making them more viable. With that, you can do a number of things, such as boosting attacks or defenses. What I like is giving them more actions to make them more integral to the whole battle going on. These things should be there to help coordinate with all the other ships going on and be more of a focal point of the action. So, somehow giving them more actions seems more like a balancing thing. Part of the danger would be to allow people to do things like both a Reinforce action and a Recover action. I like that you have to pick between the two. It's part of the strategy and tactics. So, I can see some limitations as to having multiple actions options. OK...so, that's my premise as to why I think it would be good to change things.

Why not the PS skill of the ship? Well, what about all the ships that don't have a high PS guy? They would be screwed. It would pretty much mean that only the ships with high PS and strong leaders would ever be involved. It would mean that nothing would change for low level engagements or ones that didn't include some major leader. I think all games should change a bit. So, if you want to play some minor skirmish in the larger picture, you are just playing with the older rules. It kind of creates the PS war of the regular game.

The way I see these capital ships is that they are full of crew. There are people set to do all these various jobs on the ship. So, I kind of like the idea that all ships, no matter the PS level, can do more than just one action a section. Now, I also get that perhaps there are skeleton crews on some of these ships. Maybe every ship doesn't get to do lots of actions? Maybe the number of actions is tied to the number of Crew and Team that is on board? If you have a full crew, you can do more actions. This almost rewards you for having more points into your ship. There can maybe be another idea. There are new Crew and/or Teams that can be added that let you do specific actions for free every turn. Yes, epic ships don't get free actions in the way we understand Free Actions. You can say that maybe there is a Targeting Team that lets you do a free TL every round. You will have to make the choice as to whether or not to get the Sensor Team (longer range for TL) or the Targeting Team for your ship. Or...maybe spend points on both! You can have a Coordinating Team that lets you do a free Coordinate action (if you have it) every turn. Either way works in my mind. The more crew you put on a big ship then the more actions you get. Is it any crew or do you need specific crew/teams to do it? I'm not sure. If that's the case, you might then have to make choices as to what type of crew you want. Maybe you don't actually take Zuckuss if you really need to get all those free actions every round.

FFG made them like really big regular ships and that is where they failed utterly. Lucky some of us know what to do to make a great wargame work. I agree with what you said above Jimbo. I also use a multi point system in my games for power and hull. Basically how it works is I use shield and defense screens that stop all critical damage. Once that is down there is the armour rating and hull rating. The easy way to look at it is that I just double the shields and hull values but there is more to it then that, but I do not feel that my explanations are going to change how people enjoy their games, it makes good sense to me and makes me happy... so FFG can mess up all they want too, I will play the way that makes me happy.

3 minutes ago, streamdragon said:

I would think TL removal should be tied to the Jam action? I mean, you are jamming the ship after all.

I like the idea that Reinforce specifically blocks 1 TLT damage per shot each turn. It's very specific and still requires you to do the Reinforce action every round.

I don't really see a problem with the epic ships so long as either side fields at least 100 points of epic. I played a 300 point game with a raider vs a tantive and it worked really well. The problem comes when you play a rebel transport vs a raider. Then you can really see that fighters are just better bang for you buck than 100+ points being sunk into a raider.

I am generally not a huge fan of very specific counters on general rules though. A general action like Reinforce blocking a particular card like TLT does not sit well. Otherwise why not do the same for Cluster Missiles or the like?

Instead maybe a change to Reinforce instelf: When defending, reduce the damage taken from each attack by 1. TLTs are, if I recall the new rules correctly, still 1 attack. So that should reduce the damage Huge shapes take in general, while also keeping the rule upgrade nonspecific.

1 minute ago, streamdragon said:

I am generally not a huge fan of very specific counters on general rules though. A general action like Reinforce blocking a particular card like TLT does not sit well. Otherwise why not do the same for Cluster Missiles or the like?

Instead maybe a change to Reinforce instelf: When defending, reduce the damage taken from each attack by 1. TLTs are, if I recall the new rules correctly, still 1 attack. So that should reduce the damage Huge shapes take in general, while also keeping the rule upgrade nonspecific.

I think that is exactly the fix we need. Why should "reinforce" be an "evade" result. Straight damage reduction makes much more sense. Reinforce is straight damage reduction. Uncancelable (go away red line, that's a word!) Un-cancel-able by crack-shot and still effective against TLT etc.

For most weapons it is functionally the same thing as an evade result. It is actually LESS powerful against Cluster Missiles (since like the TLT the two red dice rolls are ONE attack), but given their one/two shot nature (and general scarcity) I think that balances, especially with the proposed Jam change.

Thinking on it a bit more though, that does make it practically immune to all the lower cost "cancel all dice and deal one damage" cannons as well. The Ion Cannon (and funnily enough Huge Ship Only Ion Cannon Battery) would still strip Energy (since damage would be reduced, but not other effects). Only real loser I guess is the Flechette Cannon, which to be fair was already garbage to begin with.

I guess have it reduce damage, but not critical damage? Maybe only have the damage reduction apply against Small and Large base (not Huge) ships?

I think you are off on the definition of an attack. TLT and Cluster Missiles only trigger the "declare target" and "after attack" effects once but still count as two attacks. I think... I need to double check the flow chart. Sigh.

I thought it was 1 attack, which is why you cannot use things like Fire Control System between the two sets of Red Dice. You have to go through both sets before you can acquire the free Target Lock.

No youre right. Things that happen during the attack itself triggers on both TLT/Cluster dice rolls, but things that trigger "When declaring a target" or "After attacking" trigger once.

"FCS" is after attacking, which is why you cant get a TL between attacks anymore. You get it after the 2nd attack because thats when "Perform this attack twice" triggers such things.
If you had Juke for instance you could juke on both attacks, since those are during the attack die mods. Vessery still gets his TL every time (why he'd have clusters is beyond me) since his ability is specifically rolling dice.

On 2/22/2017 at 7:17 AM, Vineheart01 said:

i dont think anyone would be against a complete epic rework. Keep the movement/energy/what the actions do but otherwise completely revamp the dang things.

I shouldnt have to turn my huge ships into a battering ram to get their points back. I dont care about them being powerhouses but they should enable my forces to be powerhouses, or at least more accurate.

Theres been a few changes since Epic was first instated with the CR-90. For one the range bonus has been simplified from +1 green dice for each range ban beyond 2 (where range 4 was +2 green dice and range 5 was +3 green dice) to where ships now start with their maximum allotment of energy for all their weapons.

Still with all these changes huge ships are still rather clunky. There was a post on here about changing the reinforce token from add 1 evade result to remove 1 damage and I think that is a good idea (cough*TLT*cough). But yeah I really don't like the best tactical aspect for huge ships is overlapping opposing ships on the mat. I think it takes out the vertical in the game the way standard overlap rules were implemented. But yeah it has been mention if you take or tone that part down (to were ramming is dependent on a die roll) Huge ships will fall greatly underpowered as they were before all these changes.

I haven't tried it but it seems like Epic matches would be better if the deployment zones were along the short ends of the mats instead of the long ones. It makes the weapons that can hit out past range 3 more powerful.

10 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

I haven't tried it but it seems like Epic matches would be better if the deployment zones were along the short ends of the mats instead of the long ones. It makes the weapons that can hit out past range 3 more powerful.

Epic is much more fun this way. (In my local scene, that's the only way we play.) It allows for more Epic maneuvering, rewards to ability to fly different ship-classes in a coordinated way, and prevent alpha-strike-rushing across the mat (which is just a stupid and pointless waste of the beauty of Epic, IMO).

The only "downside" is that it takes a turn or two longer to get into firing range, but as long as players are okay with moving all ships of the same PS at the same time (i.e., not waiting for the person with initiative) during the first two or three turns, it's not even worth mentioning.