9 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

I'm really not visualizing what you're saying.

You have "red corner" and "blue corner to deploy in. Limits your deployment options but not your flying options, in my opinion.

3 minutes ago, lazycomet said:

Agreed. I don't like the "fish in a barrel" approach to Portrait Mode. It all-but-eliminates any PilotSkill-Placement-Strategy as you have 5-10 rounds to slow-roll.

Landscape Mode all day and night. Putting Turn-0 Placement Strategy to work.

I'm curious how well it would work to keep the game in portrait but force players to only deploy on one half of the board (determined by player with initiative). Would prevent losing your Epic ships on turn one. You could place a bunch of A-wings along your board edge to race out and flank. I think the diagonal engagements that this encourages could be a lot of fun.

Edit: Basically @wfain picture but just spread halfway. i.e. you can almost get straight across if you want or be way back in the corner if you prefer.

Oh, okay. That would work fine. (OTOH, so would just extending the vertical line all the way up/down (i.e., deploying on the short side). It would often extend pre-engagement another couple of rounds, though. (But, again, if people are relaxed about movement, there's no reason both teams can't be moving at once, which saves a ton of time.)

You know, the more I think about it, the more I'd like to try "portrait" epic. The CR90 can just bank across the map and be waiting for enemy ships to come into range of its broadside cannons. Alternatively, depending on rock placement, you could have it zoom up the middle with Quad Laser Cannons and shoot ships on either side of it (if you wanted to do the whole suicidal running of the gauntlet thing).

Still, in my mind the "landscape" format seems to be ideal for taking advantage of pilot skill at set up.

Also, for better or worse, "portrait" format completely nullifies Lieutenant Dormitz' antics as seen here .

7 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

Still, in my mind the "landscape" format seems to be ideal for taking advantage of pilot skill at set up.

The big problem with it is that it enabled things like immediate alpha-strikes from huge swarms of PS 5 bombers. If people "take advantage" of the closer starting ranges, it can end an Epic game before it starts ... and renders the larger map completely irrelevant.

I don't know if there are videos of big Epic tournaments, but if they are, you can see this in action. IMO, it really sucks. Furthermore, I'm spoken to people who have been on the wrong side of this, and as a consequence, they hate Epic. (And I don't blame them.)

Setting up with plenty of space in between does minimize PS advantage, but it maximizes Epic flying skill. I consider that a huge net positive.

5 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

The big problem with it is that it enabled things like immediate alpha-strikes from huge swarms of PS 5 bombers. If people "take advantage" of the closer starting ranges, it can end an Epic game before it starts ... and renders the larger map completely irrelevant.

I don't know if there are videos of big Epic tournaments, but if they are, you can see this in action. IMO, it really sucks. Furthermore, I'm spoken to people who have been on the wrong side of this, and as a consequence, they hate Epic. (And I don't blame them.)

Setting up with plenty of space in between does minimize PS advantage, but it maximizes Epic flying skill. I consider that a huge net positive.

Ah, I see what you mean. LagJanson and I almost completed our entire Epic match at GenCon on just one 3x3 mat. I can see how that's a bummer for some people, especially when your huge ship gets wiped out in one alpha strike. Like I said, I'm game to try "portrait" format. Sounds interesting.

35 minutes ago, wfain said:

You have "red corner" and "blue corner to deploy in. Limits your deployment options but not your flying options, in my opinion.

This is the way to go. I am convinced of it. I would stretch the red and blue zones the full 3 feet of one map though. Allows for more flexibility.

Edit: Going full "portrait" would make for a very plodding experience and doesn't leave much room for flanking really.

Why not simply play on a 4x4 or 6x4 area (apart from the obvious mat problem)?

1 hour ago, wfain said:

You have "red corner" and "blue corner to deploy in. Limits your deployment options but not your flying options, in my opinion.

This is absolutely the way to go. We kind of hit this out of gentlemen's agreements in playing Raider vs Corvette games and just finding they played best if we deployed in opposite corners. Never tried to codify it, but I suspect a Range 5 x Range 3 area would work.

As for Huge base effectiveness, the Gozanti mods really help make things work, but they could probably take 1 modification per ship card and really shine. Reinforcement tokens are way more powerful than people give them credit for, but it really limits the actions of the ship and automated protocols really fixes this for the transports. Alternatively, it would be really helpful for Hardpoints to have less limiting range bands. Throw Rhymer's ability on some kind of "Targeting Crew" upgrade and you're probably good to go.

Ultimately though, the problem with the Huge ships is that they were designed in the Wave 2 era where the game didn't realize how badly its combat engine needed access to tokens and how critical it was to give ship extra action economy. The huge ships have this to a degree, but not enough to support the volume of attacks they need to be able to make in order to be effective.

I think that Teams which offered action economy to Huge ships could really help them feel worth their points on the board. Teams are slots with multiple useful but niche options, so I can see these being easy go-to upgrades unless you have something specific you're trying to achieve.

While the Rebel Transport can't target lock, it doesn't seem problematic to allow a ship with literally no way to attack to do that. Every other Huge ship can do all three actions, so you aren't opening any doorways by introducing these cards.

The Transport doesn't have Team slots so it couldn't take any of those anyway. Those team cards are pretty much strictly better than Automated Protocols, which is already probably the best upgrade for the 1 card ships. Tactical Advisors basically already exists in the form of the Targeting Coordinator as well.

Huge base ships can actually get a lot of actions out of energy cards; that's really not the problem. I actually would say that Transport class ships are fine as is. The Covette's are the bigger issue and their problem stems from the inability to effectively make all their attacks with properly modified dice. The Raider does okay thanks to Jonus, but in general they need a way to be able to be able to reliably fire all 4 weapons (primary + 3 hardpoints) and have the dice modification to make those attacks work.

55 minutes ago, Mangipan said:

I think that Teams which offered action economy to Huge ships could really help them feel worth their points on the board. Teams are slots with multiple useful but niche options, so I can see these being easy go-to upgrades unless you have something specific you're trying to achieve.

While the Rebel Transport can't target lock, it doesn't seem problematic to allow a ship with literally no way to attack to do that. Every other Huge ship can do all three actions, so you aren't opening any doorways by introducing these cards.

The transport doesn't have a Team Slot anyway, but it can take Targeting Coordinator, which lets it acquire a lock and then pass it to an ally if it chooses to.

Just now, Engine25 said:

The transport doesn't have a Team Slot anyway, but it can take Targeting Coordinator, which lets it acquire a lock and then pass it to an ally if it chooses to.

It's becoming increasingly obvious that my local group owns every epic ship but the transport.

It's surprisingly one of the strongest Epic ships. It's one of the few I even consider worth it to overspend on upgrade slots. 33 points for just an engine booster to send it flying at the enemy has pretty good odds of earning its keep or soaking up a lot of shots. From there its how much you're looking to spend, as its very easy to give it additional options for 4-5 extra points a pop. Bright Hope can make it near invincible while Automated Protocals opens up the Coordinate and Jam options. Targeting Coordinator or Comms Booster can cheaply give actions to other ships and Frequency Jammer can help you play the Stress game. There's also things like Toryn Farr to debuff the enemy. It's probably the most effective ship in terms of doing powerful things efficiently once you get past its inability to roll red dice.

On 2/27/2017 at 4:18 PM, gamblertuba said:

I'm curious how well it would work to keep the game in portrait but force players to only deploy on one half of the board (determined by player with initiative). Would prevent losing your Epic ships on turn one. You could place a bunch of A-wings along your board edge to race out and flank. I think the diagonal engagements that this encourages could be a lot of fun.

Edit: Basically @wfain picture but just spread halfway. i.e. you can almost get straight across if you want or be way back in the corner if you prefer.

IDK, it's very hard to completely remove a non-transport EPIC SHIP in one volley as the rear section might be out of range or non-target(blocked LOS). And a crippled FORE section can still crush things in its path.

On 2/27/2017 at 4:39 PM, Jeff Wilder said:

The big problem with it is that it enabled things like immediate alpha-strikes from huge swarms of PS 5 bombers. If people "take advantage" of the closer starting ranges, it can end an Epic game before it starts ... and renders the larger map completely irrelevant.

I don't know if there are videos of big Epic tournaments, but if they are, you can see this in action. IMO, it really sucks. Furthermore, I'm spoken to people who have been on the wrong side of this, and as a consequence, they hate Epic. (And I don't blame them.)

Setting up with plenty of space in between does minimize PS advantage, but it maximizes Epic flying skill. I consider that a huge net positive.

Before the entirety of the PORTRAIT or LANDSCAPE debate, Epic Tourney Meta forced competitors to THIN up their Tantive/Raiders... If you sunk 160 into the Tantive and got lit up in a tourney, I highly doubt it was the Mat Layout/Config to blame. I run a Tantive / Raider under 116 pts so I can have a fighter screen that lays waste to their bomber screen and I do well regardless of layout.

On 2/28/2017 at 7:33 AM, Mangipan said:

I think that Teams which offered action economy to Huge ships could really help them feel worth their points on the board. Teams are slots with multiple useful but niche options, so I can see these being easy go-to upgrades unless you have something specific you're trying to achieve.

While the Rebel Transport can't target lock, it doesn't seem problematic to allow a ship with literally no way to attack to do that. Every other Huge ship can do all three actions, so you aren't opening any doorways by introducing these cards.

Sorry but even though Huge ships need all the help they could get you should put in an energy cost in all of these. 2 for the Reinforce, 1 for the Maintenance Droids (so it is less effective as a standard recover). 1 for the tactical advisers but then again you might want to make it 2 points. However doing so also opens up room for Jam and Coordinate actions as well.