hey guys,

So, despite putting hundreds of hours into this game I have never played a game with Epic ships and a pal and I are planning on rectifying that this week but I really have no idea how to start building out lists. We have played 300 point games before with just a firestorm of ships on the mat, but as I have all the Epic ships we were looking to figure out some kind of match-up and was hoping to get advice from the community - particularly as the games take so long to play that trying out and revising new builds isn't as simple as with 100/6.

As my bud plays exclusively Imperials and I'm more inclined towards Scum or Rebels we already have sides picked but where to start with a build? A Raider vs. Tantive match-up seems logical but is the Gozanti more fun? Does the Rebel transport have much offensive ability (either in cards or in strategy) or is it more for the cinematic aspect?

All advice most welcome, particularly with builds or tactics that have worked for you. Paging @Babaganoosh & @heychadwick to the tread

Are you aiming for fun / thematic or something to truly bring out the power of epic lists?

12 minutes ago, dotswarlock said:

Are you aiming for fun / thematic or something to truly bring out the power of epic lists?

great question - as this is our first Epic game, I'd lean more towards fun/thematic but would also love to see something your latter suggestions.

pretty experienced player, just a total epic Noob looking for help

Hey! Great to hear you getting into Epic! It's a ton of fun and I hope you enjoy it. I can say, though, that starting off can be a bit rough at times. I think taking some time to learn the game will go a long way to having fun.

My first bit of advice might be to scale back just a bit. Maybe try something like.....each of you only fly 1 epic ship each. Set a points limit of....120 points? Basically, it should be enough to get the ships and put some bells and whistles on them. No other ships. Just learn how the ships fly. Learn the rules about Reinforce or Shield Replenish. Figure out how the different ships fly. It makes a big difference. For one, the CR-90 doesn't usually want to fly straight at the Raider as it is probably out-gunned. Lots of rookies set them at each other and go guns blazing and it usually means a short game with the CR-90 dying fast and you spent all this time and effort setting up all these little ships to learn that you shouldn't do that with the CR-90! So......take some time to learn how the ships fly before you commit to a 300 pt game. Just do a quick one to get the feel of it.

Another reason for doing just 1 epic ship each is that you can learn the rules. What do all the different cards do? How do you spend your energy? All these things make a huge difference to how the ship performs. People say Epic takes a long time, but half of that is learning how to fly everything. If people get used to the rules and how to fly a ship, they can cut down on the time it takes for an Epic game immensely. So....take some time to figure it out and try out different things. That will help. You also learn things like....don't put your epic ship right on the board edge. As soon as you turn, your rear end swings out and you are officially off the table. If you don't know what I mean, go ahead and try it at home.

Another way to learn Epic is to play the campaigns. They start off slow and build things up. You get to learn about the rules for each ship as you play through it. They are designed to kind of teach you how things work. The first Raider mission is really simple and you only play on 3x3, but you learn how to fly the Raider a bit. It might be easier that way. Still....if you want to jump into it, I get you. I would still recommend just flying the two ships at first by themselves.

Once you get the hang of it, I'd say that 300 pts vs 300 pts is a good start. I'd put maybe 120-130 into the big ship and then put the rest into the others. I would also highly recommend just going with all Generic ships for the rest of the lists. There are a lot of rules and things to worry about and unique pilot rules often get forgotten or just slow the game down. It will just be more streamlined to use all Generics.

Do a gentleman's agreement not to just build a list to kick the other person's face in. Don't go with as many TLT Y-wings as you can. It's just not fun. Don't have Jonus hanging around the Raider to give re-rolls to all his attacks. Don't load up on HLC's or Tie Phantoms. You may win, but was it worth all the setup time and everything?

Try to make squads of ships of about 3-4 of the same kind of ship and fly them in little squads. I like 3 of each, except regular Tie Fighters I put in groups of 4. I load up 3 Y-wings with Torpedoes and cheap turrets to hit the enemy ship. Take 3 A-wings to act as Interceptors to protect your Y-wings by attacking what can stop them. 3 X-wings with Proton Torpedoes act to either counter an enemy threat or hit their capital ship. Imps do the same, but with 3 Bombers, 3 Interceptors, and 4 Tie Fighters. It makes it easier to figure out what each ship is going to do and cuts down on the time. Also, it's just cooler, too!

Work with your friend to build equal lists, but also to plan smartly. The Imperial player can load up on 12 Academy Pilots for utter efficiency, but do you guys all want to wait around while he moves....and then shoots....12 PS 1 Tie Fighters? Even if he takes 12, just spread out the PS of them all. Work together so that one player doesn't have a whole ton of one PS to move as the other person gets bored. Forget what is "best" and just go with what is more fun. The game flow will be better and players will be more engaged if they move/shoot more often. None of this....I'm going to the bathroom, getting a snack, and washing my car while you move all those Tie Fighters.....ok?

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but that should be a good starter to get you going. Remember, the goal is to learn the rules and to have fun. Focus on the basics without all this crazy stuff. Does that help?

In terms of general advice, be careful not to overload your epic ships. It's easy to pile on the upgrades without realizing that you won't get any use out of them.

For your game, I recommend that you make an agreement before the game to require that both sides bring an epic ship. Epic games are more fun and usually go a lot faster when you have an epic ship as part of the list (it's easier to fly one epic ship than to fly 4-5 small ships).

Assuming that you guys agree to that, I'd recommend building a CR90 built primarily for long-range combat. Here's a build I just came up with that I like:

CR90 Corvette (Aft) (55)
CR90 Corvette (40), Weapons Engineer (3), Single Turbolasers (8), Tibanna Gas Supplies (4)

CR90 Corvette (Fore) (70)
CR90 Corvette (50), Construction Droid (3), Single Turbolasers (8), Sensor Team (4), Optimised Generators (5)

17 minutes ago, Bojanglez said:

great question - as this is our first Epic game, I'd lean more towards fun/thematic but would also love to see something your latter suggestions.

pretty experienced player, just a total epic Noob looking for help

Ok, then here is a list that is both thematic (has a Raider) and is very dangerous:

http://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Galactic Empire&d=v4!e!130:61,25,65,125,90,-1,83:30:21:;129:64,91,66:-1:-1:;56:-1,-1,132,-1:-1:-1:;53:71,-1,-1,-1:-1:14:;10::-1:-1:;10::-1:-1:;14::-1:17:;17:140:-1:-1:;151:140:-1:-1:;18:55:-1:-1:&sn=Unnamed Squadron

Kagi : he has enhanced scope to move first in front of the Raider if need be to block an alpha strike using tactical jammer and his natural ability to tackle enemy target locks.

Howlrunner: decoy is to apply PS 8 to the Raider. Her rerolls also apply to its primary weapon and other nearby ships.

Lambda Emperor: self explanatory, fights from the rear lines.

Academy pilots: use to block early / mid game. Can seriously mess up an opponent if they cause a chain block

Night Beast: he's funny with focus evades

Scourge and Mauler Mithel: mean little guys when they work as a pair. Mauler does damage and opens up Scourge's ability. Not bad for PS 7 either.

This build won every game in our epic league this season and was fought to a timed loss (over points) a single time during the past season. So yeah, it works pretty well. I may need some adjusting now that the Emperor is no longer an assured way to be used, but the foundation of a strong build that also has a huge is there.

My advice is to stay away from too many named pilots while learning how to play Epic.

Before making your squads, you should also agree on the field conditions. The standard rules have obstacles spread out, making Captain Needa quite useful, while the tournament rules have 6 pairs of asteroids, so it's like a standard 100 point game but with bigger asteroids. In standard Epic play, all ships set up behind range 1, but in tournament Epic play, you can deploy within range 1-2, which has major implications for deploying a TIE swarm, and for controlling range on the approach. Just something to think about (as if Epic didn't already have enough going on!)

I'm no expert. I've played precisely 2 Epic games, but really enjoyed the hell out of them. I like @heychadwick idea of pre-set forces. If you and your opponent can agree to that, I think you'll have a lot more fun. Some broken combos get VERY broken in Epic.

One thing I'd add to the CR-90 build is to swap out one of the single turbo lasers for an ion cannon. Ion cannons are cool.

Energy management is key. I recommend using the tournament rules at least as far as set up and energy goes. All your cards start with their energy full, so you don't have to charge up on approach.

Have fun and let us know how it goes!

If you are flying an Epic ship I highly recommend using ordinance tubes as the hardpoint weapons are horribly underpowered. Hardpoint weapons simply eat too much energy and are awful for dealing with small base ships. Ordinance tube lets you dish out serious hurt and keep your energy for refilling shields, something that is just not possible if you run the hardpoint weapons.

In my first and only Epic game so far, I wanted to use all Huge stuff, which wasn't the best idea. Either Gozanti OR Raider, but not both.

EDIT: Obviously, this is for 300 points. Might be much more feasible in a 2v2 with 400 points.

26 minutes ago, garciaj113 said:

If you are flying an Epic ship I highly recommend using ordinance tubes as the hardpoint weapons are horribly underpowered. Hardpoint weapons simply eat too much energy and are awful for dealing with small base ships. Ordinance tube lets you dish out serious hurt and keep your energy for refilling shields, something that is just not possible if you run the hardpoint weapons.

Optimized Generators does a lot to help power those weapons. Shooting at long range can be a major boon for the CR90.

Speaking of which, when I have two Single Turbolasers equipped, I like to put them both on the fore section. Sure, there is a huge blindspot, but you can focus three shots on a single target, which is immensely helpful. Fore and aft Single Turbolasers just don't overlap enough for my tastes.

2 hours ago, Bojanglez said:

As my bud plays exclusively Imperials and I'm more inclined towards Scum or Rebels we already have sides picked but where to start with a build? A Raider vs. Tantive match-up seems logical but is the Gozanti more fun? Does the Rebel transport have much offensive ability (either in cards or in strategy) or is it more for the cinematic aspect?

I think the really key points have all been noted already, but I thought I'd answer some specifics you had based on personal experience.

Gozanti cruisers can be fun in different ways than the Raider. The Raider is about pounding something in typical Imperial aggression... but much like all the EU it can be difficult to hit the more nimble Rebel fighters with standard capital grade weapons. The Ordnance Tubes really bring the Raider some teeth - but for the first game, unless you're trying for the best combos I'd say avoid the tubes. Gozanti has some nice tricks and can deliver an unhappy surprise to the opposing side. It's... different. Some people will have more fun with the Raider, some will have more fun with the cheaper and trick laden Gozanti.

The Rebel transport is the least offensively designed epic ship released by FFG. It's the only one without weapons and there's very little you can do to make it do damage. It's not impossible to kill things, but it should not be your goal with the transport. The transport however is the most fun I've had in X-wing and a friend of mine has said more than once he'd fly it in standard 100/6 play if it were allowed. It's cheap, and excellent support for the rest of your force by giving out actions, tokens and removing stress. It can do things to ruin your opponent's plan by stressing them or removing tokens. It's by far more useful than a 'cinematic' presence, so don't worry about it lacking in guns.

For the first game, I'd also advice to keep the upgrade count low. I put way too many upgrades on the **** things, and ended up forgetting more than half.

58 minutes ago, garciaj113 said:

If you are flying an Epic ship I highly recommend using ordinance tubes as the hardpoint weapons are horribly underpowered. Hardpoint weapons simply eat too much energy and are awful for dealing with small base ships. Ordinance tube lets you dish out serious hurt and keep your energy for refilling shields, something that is just not possible if you run the hardpoint weapons.

I'll disagree with some things here. I've used both to good effect.

• Other hardpoints have longer range and that can really matter...especially on how you fly.
• Most hardpoints aren't awful for dealing with small based ships. The worst one is the Single Turbo Laser, which doubles Agility.
• I've killed a lot of small based ships with Single Turbo Lasers. I've shot down many X-wings with them. I've even one shot TWO different Tie Interceptors in the same round with two of them! It's not as useless as you think, especially if they are tokenless.
• As Parakitor said, the Optimized Generators do a lot for hardpoints.

2 hours ago, Babaganoosh said:

In terms of general advice, be careful not to overload your epic ships. It's easy to pile on the upgrades without realizing that you won't get any use out of them.

This.

1 hour ago, heychadwick said:

My advice is to stay away from too many named pilots while learning how to play Epic.

And this. It's hard to remember to use everyone's special ability, and then if not it is just a waste of points. And in the same vein. . .

16 minutes ago, Stefan said:

For the first game, I'd also advice to keep the upgrade count low. I put way too many upgrades on the **** things, and ended up forgetting more than half.

And this. Although, one thing I do is make sure all the loadouts are the same on a single fighter type. That way, you are essentially flying 3-4 copies of the same ship.

The Gozanti is fun, but is mostly an aircraft carrier. If you want to have some fun Epic pounding, design a Corvette and a Raider to be strictly offensive. If an upgrade doesn't run the guns, forget it.

I just played my first Epic match last week, was really fun. We each brought one epic ship. I was the rebels and brought the transport, kept it cheap to just strip tokens from enemy ships and stress if I needed it. Bright Hope title on transport giving it an addition defense with reinforce, along with Torynn ability to strip tokens makes the transport tough to take down. My opponent sent two phantoms to take it out and ended up giving up and went for Biggs and Chewie

When building, I mostly I wanted lots of actionless economy cause I figured it would be a bump fest. So I brought Awings with snapshot, Uwing with Operation Spec that tosses focuses everywhere when you miss, Jess pava with swarm leader (holy crap she is awesome in epic), TFA chewie with expertise (so he gets a modified attack every time a friendly dies, which is a lot, he got three attacks in one round when the raider ran over a Z and an Awing, lol), and filled out with some banditZ. Worked great, snapshot was awesome, opspec had all my guys focused up. Was really quite fun. Only abilities I had to remember was Chewie (whenever a friendly dies, and Jess Pava who is easy to remember, oh and Biggs who everyone knows about).

Rebel Epic Squad

1 hour ago, Parakitor said:

Optimized Generators does a lot to help power those weapons. Shooting at long range can be a major boon for the CR90.

Speaking of which, when I have two Single Turbolasers equipped, I like to put them both on the fore section. Sure, there is a huge blindspot, but you can focus three shots on a single target, which is immensely helpful. Fore and aft Single Turbolasers just don't overlap enough for my tastes.

How do protect your doughnut hole tho, turbo lasers simply cannot deal with 2 or 3 agi ships effectively at all, in past experiences I just get bum rushed and the turbolasers are rendered completely useless. The only thing they can do consistent damage on is other capital ships and 1 agi ships.

22 minutes ago, garciaj113 said:

How do protect your doughnut hole tho, turbo lasers simply cannot deal with 2 or 3 agi ships effectively at all, in past experiences I just get bum rushed and the turbolasers are rendered completely useless. The only thing they can do consistent damage on is other capital ships and 1 agi ships.

Have friendly ships with Ion Torpedoes nearby. Those can stop a whole slew of rushing enemy. That....and various mines/bombs can help.

CR-90's are also good at moving away and at an angle from your opponents. If you can hold them off long enough, you can pummel their epic ship well enough.

40 minutes ago, garciaj113 said:

How do protect your doughnut hole tho, turbo lasers simply cannot deal with 2 or 3 agi ships effectively at all, in past experiences I just get bum rushed and the turbolasers are rendered completely useless. The only thing they can do consistent damage on is other capital ships and 1 agi ships.

In one version I have a GR-75 sitting in the way. "Sure, come into the doughnut hole; my space whale will eat you!" It also had EM Emitter, while the CR90 had Dash Rendar, so the CR90 could shoot through Bright Hope unobstructed, while the CR90 rolled 3 bonus defense dice for the obstruction. In the kinds of squads advocated here, simply putting your starfighters in blocking position can help. Just put ships in the way, and it's really hard to get through. A couple of Y-wings with Ion Cannon Turrets can help a lot. This also happens to work well with the Dodonna's Pride title. Once enemy ships close range, your fighters are sticking close and can benefit from two Coordinate actions to fight opposing fighters. You could even find another crew to help support fighters, like Targeting Coordinator, which doesn't cost an action, leaving you open to Coordinate. Another hilarious protection: Cluster Bombs. I love that upgrade!

This is actually a good example in how to squad build in Epic. You come up with an idea and ask, "What's the worst that can happen." When you identify problems, look for ways you can counter or control for those problems. After you have some solutions, ask yourself 1) Could I get the same effect by jumping through fewer hoops to cover my weaknesses? and 2) Does it look like it's going to be fun?

EDIT: I should clarify that the way I arrived at two Single Turbolasers was because they overlap well with the primary firing arc, and my goal was focus fire. I could add Quad Laser Cannons, but it gets really expensive and energy intensive. So my two original goals were 1) focus fire with the CR90, and 2) don't overload it.

I got really interested in the idea to make two balanced lists for Epic to just get really star-warsy.

The CR-90 is a long range sniper, whereas the Raider is a close in beast. Rebels need to get that ordinance onto the Raider. Imperials can overwhelm the Rebel fighter screen and once the ties get close to the CR-90, if they don't get squashed it's game over. I tried also to balance out the pilot skills. Let me know what you guys think! If I can get two thematic and balanced lists, I want to see if my regular crowd will do this instead of our weekly 100/6.

Rebels:

REBEL EPIC

300 points

PILOTS

CR90 Corvette (Aft) (57)
CR90 Corvette (40), R2-D2 (4), Quad Laser Cannons (6), Engineering Team (4), Engine Booster (3)

CR90 Corvette (Fore) (74)
CR90 Corvette (50), Han Solo (2), Ion Cannon Battery (6), Sensor Team (4), Gunnery Team (4), Backup Shield Generator (3), Automated Protocols (5)

Green Squadron Pilot (21) x 3
A-Wing (19), A-Wing Test Pilot (0), Chardaan Refit (-2), Push the Limit (3), Wired (1)

Gold Squadron Pilot (25)
Y-Wing (18), R2 Astromech (1), Twin Laser Turret (6)

Rookie Pilot (26) x 2
X-Wing (21), R2 Astromech (1), Proton Torpedoes (4), Integrated Astromech (0)

Garven Dreis (29)
X-Wing (26), R2-D6 (1), Integrated Astromech (0), Swarm Tactics (2)

Imperials:

IMPERIAL EPIC

300 points

PILOTS

Raider-class Corvette (aft) (81)
Raider-class Corvette (50), Shield Technician (1), Grand Moff Tarkin (6), Quad Laser Cannons (6), Quad Laser Cannons (6), Engineering Team (4), Sensor Team (4), Tibanna Gas Supplies (4)

Raider-class Corvette (fore) (71)
Raider-class Corvette (50), Single Turbolasers (8), Gunnery Team (4), Tibanna Gas Supplies (4), Optimised Generators (5)

Saber Squadron Pilot (26) x 2
TIE Interceptor (21), Push the Limit (3), Autothrusters (2)

Academy Pilot (12) x 4

Scimitar Squadron Pilot (24) x 2
TIE Bomber (16), Extra Munitions (2), Cluster Missiles (4), Seismic Charges (2), Guidance Chips (0)

44 minutes ago, BlodVargarna said:

I got really interested in the idea to make two balanced lists for Epic to just get really star-warsy.

The CR-90 is a long range sniper, whereas the Raider is a close in beast. Rebels need to get that ordinance onto the Raider. Imperials can overwhelm the Rebel fighter screen and once the ties get close to the CR-90, if they don't get squashed it's game over. I tried also to balance out the pilot skills. Let me know what you guys think! If I can get two thematic and balanced lists, I want to see if my regular crowd will do this instead of our weekly 100/6.

Looks good! One note, if you find you wish you had.....5, 15, 25, or 50 more points to make more of a complete squad then there is nothing stopping you. I mean, if you want to run 305 pts per side, that's fine. When I am making a balanced list, I sometimes just want to squeak a little bit more in.

Notes:

• You mention the Rebels firing from range, but don't have a single Single Turbo Laser. What's going to fire at range?
• You mention Rebel ordnance, but I don't see any.
• PTL perhaps less needed in Epic.
• I'd drop the TLT for two Proton Torps.

Looks good!

4 hours ago, wurms said:

When building, I mostly I wanted lots of actionless economy cause I figured it would be a bump fest.

Did you find that to be the case? Just curious, because I usually do not find it to be too much of a problem.

4 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

Did you find that to be the case? Just curious, because I usually do not find it to be too much of a problem.

not as much as I thought, it was mostly me bumping my own ships trying to keep Uwing with Opspec range 2 of snapshot awings and biggs by chewie. Ive never managed that many ships before.