I think that Epic matches should include huge ships. However, I think there should still be space for 300-point dogfights. I think that epic needs to be redefined to being a game where each player takes at least 1 epic point instead of being a 300-point game (or 200-point team game). Then 300-point dogfights can just be an "expanded" format or something where rules aren't different, but the point-cap is increased.
Once the C-Roc is out should Huge ships be a requirement in Epic formats?
1 hour ago, ScummyRebel said:I think I like the Mynock's nickname for it a little better, the party yacht.
Yes it will eat up your crew usage so they can't be elsewhere, but for the points in an epic I think the c-roc will be better than the 666 for that same general application.
I think it will mean some slight but still reasonable changes.
For example, Dengar will surely jump on the CROC, but he will be replaced with K4 Security droid with a similar effect. If zuckuss were to go the CROC as well, then you can still put Gunner or IG88D - K4, IG88D and 4Lom is still a very competent crew to run on the Hounds tooth!
21 minutes ago, Budgernaut said:I think that Epic matches should include huge ships. However, I think there should still be space for 300-point dogfights. I think that epic needs to be redefined to being a game where each player takes at least 1 epic point instead of being a 300-point game (or 200-point team game). Then 300-point dogfights can just be an "expanded" format or something where rules aren't different, but the point-cap is increased.
I agree with both.
I sure there are plenty who wish to play bigger dogfights and Epic should be redefined to include Epic ships.
To answer the question, yes, but there should also be some general improvements to huge ships.
That said, the huge ships aren't THAT bad. The 1 card ships are probably fine now; Automated Protocols fixes them quite well. What the 2 card ships really need is reliable dice modification on their attacks. Something akin to Gunnery team that isn't a complete joke.
On 3/2/2017 at 2:12 AM, SwordOwaR said:What's the point of owing an Epic ship if you don't use it when playing Epic! On the other hand just because Scum has a ship coming out should not mean that should you wish to enter an Epic tournament that you must use an Epic ship.
That being said I've faced 300 points of Scum Vs. my CR90 and squad a few times and yes it's a tough outing. Maybe it'd be more beneficial if there was a penalty for bringing 300 points of small/large ships like being worth more in victory points or something?
Or if your list does not have an Epic ship, it can't be over 250 points (or some such).
13 minutes ago, LunarSol said:To answer the question, yes, but there should also be some general improvements to huge ships.
That said, the huge ships aren't THAT bad. The 1 card ships are probably fine now; Automated Protocols fixes them quite well. What the 2 card ships really need is reliable dice modification on their attacks. Something akin to Gunnery team that isn't a complete joke.
Captain Jonus, the crew card.
Basically, yes. Jonus goes a long way towards making the Raider viable.
7 minutes ago, LunarSol said:Basically, yes. Jonus goes a long way towards making the Raider viable.
And I also agree that the Epic ships are pretty darn good. . .they need super concentrated fire to cripple them, and if that happens then I have to ask "what was your starfighter screen doing?"
I think a lot of players don't fully grasp the timing on their rules. In particular, understanding that they move last is a big deal, because it allows you to set your reinforcement token towards the most threatened half. Understanding precisely when you can't freely choose which section your targeting is also a nuance that gets overlooked in my experience and makes the reinforcement token less powerful than it really is.
The downside I've found is entirely on offense. The game's combat engine without tokens has always been a problem and its just too easy for the thing to fire off 3-4 shots and not really accomplish anything without means of modifications.
On 03/02/2017 at 5:35 AM, Xerandar said:If you're going to regulate a beer and pretzels game, start with: more beer
Sure, but the problem is that well-crafted microbrews (particularly those brewed by monks) are so OP. Almost any number of watery mass-produced American lagers stand almost no chance against just one of them.
26 minutes ago, LunarSol said:The downside I've found is entirely on offense. The game's combat engine without tokens has always been a problem and its just too easy for the thing to fire off 3-4 shots and not really accomplish anything without means of modifications.
Can you imagine if the huge ships did not roll dice for their weapons, but simply did max damage? That would be so boring! I think the dice are important, and dice mods are good, but we don't want to go too far with these things. Rolling dice heightens the tension, and increases excitement. I think the best idea I saw was to have more crew that can provide dice mods. Agent Kallus was a step in the right direction, but once that single ship you've called out has been destroyed, he's just taking up space. I suppose you could pair him with Moff Jerjerrod 
Han Solo is another example of a decently designed crew card for dice mods on huge ships, but I'm not too thrilled with him, personally.
I also think the developers took the line, "They're so small they're evading our turbolasers," a little too far. These aren't Death Stars or even Star Destroyers; they are smaller ships meant to combat other small ships. That said, I really like the mechanics of Single Turbolasers: they are bad at hitting small targets, so double the agility, but when they hit they can do some damage, so change a [focus] to a [hit]. In fact, I like all the Hardpoint upgrades quite a bit from a design perspective.
It's not a matter of auto hits, its a problem with the game's dice curve. The value of green and red dice are a little too close to equal due to the low number of dice rolled and green winning on ties to make a high cost ship's relatively low attack volume worthwhile without heavy modification. It's the entire reason the TIE swarm was a problem until they started fixing the curve with a ton of passive rerolls on EPTs.
Green dice are infuriatingly random but so are Reds without the game's bevy of fixes. Focus is the one baked into the core engine, but the problem with it has always been that cheaper ships making a greater quantity of modified shots ruin higher "quality" shots because the quality isn't significantly more reliable than passive defenses. 10 TIEs can roll 2 hits for 10 damage through a reinforcement token more reliably than a huge ships guns can hit a TIE period. That's the problem the game spent a lot of its early life fixing but those fixes don't really apply to huge bases.
4 hours ago, ScummyRebel said:I think I like the Mynock's nickname for it a little better, the party yacht.
Yes it will eat up your crew usage so they can't be elsewhere, but for the points in an epic I think the c-roc will be better than the 666 for that same general application.
There will be just enough crew to include the R2-D2 Bartender
1 hour ago, Parakitor said:Can you imagine if the huge ships did not roll dice for their weapons, but simply did max damage? That would be so boring! I think the dice are important, and dice mods are good, but we don't want to go too far with these things.
Yet, in the current game the norm has become at least 1 dice mod. If you want to be considered a good damage dealer you probably need 2, or 1 mod and one ability that adds dice or results, or allows for extra attacks. Attacks have become **** accurate, and epic ships seem to suffer somewhat, unless you're running Esege with a CR90.
There are loads of ways to mod your Epic ship's dice.
The answer is no. If huge ships are not used then this is a problem with the huge ships, make them better and that's it.
2 minutes ago, BlodVargarna said:There are loads of ways to mod your Epic ship's dice.
I'm not exactly experienced in Epic, but AFAIK Rebels are the only ones that can pull off TL+Focus levels of effectiveness at modding dice.
What am I mssing for Imperials/Scum (beyond rerolls, which are the equivalent of a Target Lock).
The best I can think of for Scum for example is TL/Dengar+Zuckuss.
Just now, SEApocalypse said:The answer is no. If huge ships are not used then this is a problem with the huge ships, make them better and that's it.
I'm inclined to agree. We shouldn't be mandated to bring a huge ship in Epic play. I think the format has so much room for diversity and creative squad building, and requiring a huge ship cuts that way down. That's my opinion.
The issue is cost. You can modify the dice, but not very efficiently because it largely comes from outside sources. An Epic ship generally should cost around 120-140 points for 3-4 attacks or about 40 points per shot, which is pretty much on par with a large ship. Modifying the attack of a large ship generally costs you 3 points. Jonus, who is probably the best example of this, comes in at 5-7 points per shot, but is probably okay since he's not completely without value otherwise and his bonus is passive so its not interfering too much with his personal impact..
Esege on the other hand really isn't worth it at all, IMO. At best you're spending 31 points to give focus to 2 shots and you're costing Esege himself his Action and focus. He'll still do work, probably more than Jonus honestly, but it doesn't make the CR90 worth taking. That's actually a general problem with Rebels, fwiw. They never get passive area buffs, but instead one ship does nothing to make a single attack slightly better. It's why so many of the Rebel synergies don't work in the normal scale and it just completely fails to have an impact in Epic.
11 minutes ago, LordBlades said:I'm not exactly experienced in Epic, but AFAIK Rebels are the only ones that can pull off TL+Focus levels of effectiveness at modding dice.
What am I mssing for Imperials/Scum (beyond rerolls, which are the equivalent of a Target Lock).
The best I can think of for Scum for example is TL/Dengar+Zuckuss.
Agent Kallus, Emperor Palpatine, Gunnery Team, Ordnance Experts. To an extent you can count Weapons Engineer, Impetuous, Mercenary Copilot (though that last one doesn't increase your chance to hit, it is a dice mod).
See, there are ways. Add to that some disruptive abilities that make targets easier to hit, like Tractor Beam or Carnor Jax and you're ready for a fight. Maybe you're hoping for more, but I think that's pretty good.
EDIT: of course, how could I forget about Captain Jonus. Your point is well taken: huge ships get to reroll dice, and that's mostly it. It's odd they can't use focus tokens, but I haven't seen it as a big problem.
Edited by Parakitor9 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:The answer is no. If huge ships are not used then this is a problem with the huge ships, make them better and that's it.
I'd also go against what seems to be the grain of this discussion and say NO as well. Just because every side now has access to huge ships that is no reason that Huge ship should be a requirement for epic play. To me this is especially true if you are looking at point values below 300 points; it really seems to me like 200 points with 4 large ships or some number of fighters should be a real thing.
As others are pointing out the more recent huge ships are getting better and better. What's this mean? It means that your requirement to have a Huge ship greatly penalizes the rebels whose choices have been around the longest and if you want to say X number of points need to be spent you just magnify the issue.
3 hours ago, Voitek said:...For example, Dengar will surely jump on the CROC, but he will be replaced with K4 Security droid with a similar effect. If zuckuss were to go the CROC as well, then you can still put Gunner or IG88D - K4, IG88D and 4Lom is still a very competent crew to run on the Hounds tooth!
Gunner on a Huge ship that doesn't have a primary weapon is a huge waste of points. Depending on the secondaries equipped it is even highly questionable on the ships that do have primary attacks. Maybe that isn't what this quoted section is suggestion but I'm seeing CROC and Gunner used in the same line so I'm wondering.
I only vote yes because I find Epic without a huge ship to kind of be a waste of time. It just turns into a longer, clunkier game of X-Wing past say, 150-200 points with a really high chance of turning into a furball in the middle that really detracts from the maneuvering system that makes the game stand out.
I find the huge ships crucial to the experience. The chunk of points they eat up keeps the activation counts down and moves the game along at a good pace. More importantly, they have a dynamic impact on the board as they move through as a large obstacle that players MUST consider when deciding on their maneuver. It only takes a game or two of a Transport belly flopping into a furball to get people to keep their space.
They're what makes Epic a unique experience, IMO. Without them its just kind of an overlong, unfocused game of X-Wing.
5 hours ago, Helias de Nappo said:Sure, but the problem is that well-crafted microbrews (particularly those brewed by monks) are so OP. Almost any number of watery mass-produced American lagers stand almost no chance against just one of them.
As well they shouldn't. Go Belgian or go home!
17 minutes ago, LunarSol said:They're what makes Epic a unique experience, IMO. Without them its just kind of an overlong, unfocused game of X-Wing.
Eh, I'm on the fence about a mandate for Huge ships being present for Epic. I'll 100% agree with the first sentiment, but X-Wing battles without Huge ships but at higher point totals are still a very different beast than 100/6.
I think a simple rules change for how Huge ships interact with Target Locks might be in order. Currently the rule for all ships is:
"Target Lock: The attacker can spend a target
lock he has on the defender to reroll any number
of his attack dice."
I think that's good for Small and Large ships, but maybe Huge ships ought to get:
"Target Lock: If the attacker possesses a target
lock on the defender, the attacker may reroll any number of their attack dice."
That means that a Huge ship with a TL can attack the same target a few times in one round (because it has multiple weapons) while still having some ability to modify their dice. Given how much energy those things require, it would be nice to have a tiny bit more accuracy with them.