So I’ve played a few games of Epic over the years and ultimately I have enjoyed it.

But I have found that there is more than a few wrinkles with the format that cause it not run as fluidly as perhaps it could/ should do. And it can frequently miss the cinematic “mark” that I think most of us who play this format (Filthy Casuals ) think it should have.

Add in that FFG seemed to have pretty much given up on FAQ’s / Errata for Epic just adds to lack of smoothness to the format.

Granted, being more of a format played by Casuals, who tend to be more forgiving of winkles in the game rules on an individual level, it might not even need these winkles ironed out (Or See them).

So I was wondering,

1, If there was already out there some kind of Community project along these lines

2, What things (if any), would need correcting/ clarifying or outright re-writing

Under the belief that Epic play should be played under the following ideals

1, 300 point is the game size

2, Must include an Epic Ship

3, Spending more 200 points on small based ships is “not in the spirit of Epic” (Subjective granted, but people spending 40pts on a Transport and the rest on small based ships, should really just be playing 300pt dog fight because they clearly “don’t get it”)

I don't own any epic ships nor have I played it, but it does intrigue me. My main reason is that there aren't any players in my area that seem to be willing to play epic.

Having said that, I feel that your "Community Project" sounds like a good idea. @Darth Meanie plays epic, so maybe he can give some input, as does @Joe Boss Red Seven but he plays his own kind of game, so maybe he's the one to reach out to.

I made a post about this discussion on whether huge ships should or should not be mandatory for Epic play. Surprisingly most players supported it but jsut because it was the most popular opinion doesn't mean it is well justified or FFG will adopt it.

• The main problem with huge ships is that they often don't do very well against meta lists that are either expanded or put together. Given between any huge ship build and 8 TLT Y-wings plus a couple jumpmaster/YTs and the result are predictable before the start.
• The main issue with starfighter wings is that aside from IG-2000 Aggressors the starfighters don't act any differently from Epic. Sure you cant take 8 Y-wings with TLT, but in the end it is just more Y-wings with TLTs. There needs to be something for small and large ships that gives them a different play style in Epic than from the play style in standard. Looking at the IG-2000 title for ideas, maybe some synergistic titles that the point cost would be too much for 100 competitive standard but for epic you can stack them on and have a list that is greater than the sum of its parts.

So that is the 2 major issues with Epic,

1. huge ships don't do well against top meta ship builds from competitive standard, and
2. standard ships (with exception of IG-2000 Agressors) are exactly the same in Epic as they are in competitive standard.

If Epic is going to get more player attention it will have to do something that gives the format a difference over competitive standard. Right now I love Epic and I will admit, that is where it is lacking.

"Squadron" titles that are good for Epic only.

Red Squadron - Must include Garven Dreis. 0 point Squadron upgrade. All ships in this squadron must be T-65 Xwings. All ships in this squadron gain an EPT.

Yellow Squadron - Must include Dutch Vander. 0 point Squadron upgrade. All ships must be Ywings. All ships in this squadron may equip proton torpedoes for 0 cost.

Something like that. I think it would add a lot of flavor into Epic matches.

Also, the requirement that you must spend at least 60 points on Epic ships would be a nice addition. I think this gives more than enough room to have some decent upgrades on a transport.

Others have pointed this out before but it would be awesome, more cinematic and better for epic ship balance if there were 'escort' rules, like in Armada. That way you could actually use your fighters to screen your huge ships and provide some protection for them. Here's a thought.

"When attacking with a Small or Large ship, you cannot declare an attack on an enemy Huge ship if there is an enemy Small ship inside of your firing arc at the same or lower range band"

Kind of clunky wording, but allows fighters to intercept incoming forces and stop them from attacking your huge ship. Since Huge ships could still target each other you'd have a very cinematic turbolaser slug fest between the cruisers while a bunch of fighters engaged in a furball in between, hoping to break through and make attack runs on the enemy cruiser.

47 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

I made a post about this discussion on whether huge ships should or should not be mandatory for Epic play. Surprisingly most players supported it but jsut because it was the most popular opinion doesn't mean it is well justified or FFG will adopt it.

• The main problem with huge ships is that they often don't do very well against meta lists that are either expanded or put together. Given between any huge ship build and 8 TLT Y-wings plus a couple jumpmaster/YTs and the result are predictable before the start.
• The main issue with starfighter wings is that aside from IG-2000 Aggressors the starfighters don't act any differently from Epic. Sure you cant take 8 Y-wings with TLT, but in the end it is just more Y-wings with TLTs. There needs to be something for small and large ships that gives them a different play style in Epic than from the play style in standard. Looking at the IG-2000 title for ideas, maybe some synergistic titles that the point cost would be too much for 100 competitive standard but for epic you can stack them on and have a list that is greater than the sum of its parts.

So that is the 2 major issues with Epic,

1. huge ships don't do well against top meta ship builds from competitive standard, and
2. standard ships (with exception of IG-2000 Agressors) are exactly the same in Epic as they are in competitive standard.

If Epic is going to get more player attention it will have to do something that gives the format a difference over competitive standard. Right now I love Epic and I will admit, that is where it is lacking.

You bring up some very good points, that I also feel need to be addressed (Hence this very thread)

While I am not looking to get a "Competitive Epic Tournament" Format, I'm not opposed to it happening should we get there. What I AM hoping for at a minimum is to be able to field 150 points of Raider/ CR-90 and it actually be a game against (non-tech'd) small based ships. If we could get to that, my personal goal for this will be achieved.

Though I'm not convinced that adjusting small ships for Epic rather than adjusting Huge to be better is the way to go.

29 minutes ago, droz69 said:

"Squadron" titles that are good for Epic only.

Red Squadron - Must include Garven Dreis. 0 point Squadron upgrade. All ships in this squadron must be T-65 Xwings. All ships in this squadron gain an EPT.

Yellow Squadron - Must include Dutch Vander. 0 point Squadron upgrade. All ships must be Ywings. All ships in this squadron may equip proton torpedoes for 0 cost.

Something like that. I think it would add a lot of flavor into Epic matches.

Also, the requirement that you must spend at least 60 points on Epic ships would be a nice addition. I think this gives more than enough room to have some decent upgrades on a transport.

Re: Squadron titles - While I like them from a thematic point of view, as per above, I do not think making Small ships better is the way forward to adjusting Epic play.

Some (Un-play tested) Examples of what I was thinking

With the exception of Sensor Team (Maybe Engineering team) I am frequently struggling to find a reason to field Gunnery Team Or Ordnance Experts. Granted Epic ships seem to have a theme that dice mods are tough for them, so it shouldn't be trivial as "Let them gain Focus tokens" but they need ( I feel) some way of being able to mod their dice reliably and repeatedly, outside Jonus or Esege fly CAP around the ship.

So, Gunnery Team (Team) 4 points (Again as an example)

Once per attack, you spend 1 Energy to change 1 blank result in to a [HIT]

Ordnance Experts (Team) 5 points (Massive change, but as an example)

Whenever an equipped [Missile] or [Torpedo] card instructs you to discard a Target Lock, you may spend 1 Energy to acquire a Target Lock on the Defender.

Another idea that others have tossed around is limiting the damage that small ships can do to huge ships with their regular lasers. Huge ships would have this rule:

"When defending against a Small or Large ship's primary weapon, <turret> or <cannon>, after the compare results step, if there is more than one uncanceled <hit> or <crit> result, you may cancel one result of your choice."

Another example of clunky wording on my part, but the idea is that a 2 dice attack should have a really hard time punching through shields on an epic ship. Combined with Reinforce on the defending section this would ensure that little snub fighters like TIE's or A-wings can't get more than 1 hit through on each attack. This would help out Epics vs. swarms quite a bit.

As a note, there are people on here who play in epic leagues at their local shops. Changes included:

• mandatory requirements for large base ships of a certain point value to replace epic ships where unavailable.
• limitations on TLT (worth .5 epic points towards the max limit, but does not help achieve the minimum epic point value)

Myself, I just played an epic game this week, and am still trying to push a greater interest locally... as a one off game occasionally I've got players, but league/tournament style has only a lukewarm response at best. Enjoyed the play at GenCon though!

No reason for extra defense vs Large ships. They're in a pretty comparable price per shot bracket and Large ships are generally the best target for huge ship weaponry.

In general, the BEST thing you can do is change deployment to the corners. This makes much better use of RNG 5 and keeps the huge ships from getting a fighter in their rear early.

As for what huge ships really need? It's mostly just reliable dice fixing for their attacks. They need to be making 3-4 attacks a turn, and the limit of 2 rerolls with target locks does not make those attacks as valuable as they should be.

I would generally agree a cap of 200 points on small based ships is probably a fair choice. At the very least requiring a huge ship keeps the format from becoming a bloated, overlong game of standard.

I will be watching this intently. For your consideration, my fix for Ordinance tubes as I think they are stupid broke, this replaces the like about not discarding Ordinance at all.

When you would be instructed to discard a torp or missile, you may instead spend two energy.

1 minute ago, ForceSensitive said:

I will be watching this intently. For your consideration, my fix for Ordinance tubes as I think they are stupid broke, this replaces the like about not discarding Ordinance at all.

When you would be instructed to discard a torp or missile, you may instead spend two energy.

Stupid broke as in Too powerful?

They all require I TL to fire, (IIRC) Only Homing Missiles don't force the Discard of the TL. There range is limited compared to other options. Due to the TL requirement you can only fire them at 1 Target* (And currently, can only modify the last attack)

* Baring Weapons Engineer, which along side Targetting Coordinator and Sensor Team I almost always have

They break the design concept of the epic class ship by allowing you to ignore it's most integral mechanic: ENERGY. And with a few upgrades and fighters in your squad you don't even need to spend much time getting target locks so all that unspent energy goes to Shields and weird other uses. And usually gets you more damage potential and accuracy in the process.

I think the one thing Epic is missing (besides huge ship balancing against meta) is some type of starfighter formation. Mechanically Scum is the only one with a formation (as of now) and Rebels and Imperials have the huge ships.

If by integral you mean inefficient and poorly implemented... sure? I mean, they literally had to dump free energy into these things to make them even marginally usable. Ordinance Tubes pay a small premium over the standard hardpoints unless you're paying in target locks and even then really suffer from having even the underwhelming dice fixing available to huge ships. Making Tubes pay the overpriced energy cost of hardpoints on top of their other costs is hilariously inefficient compared to something that is already pretty hilariously inefficient. Optimized Generators is actually a pretty good card if you run Hardpoints though; give it a try.

32 minutes ago, LunarSol said:

If by integral you mean inefficient and poorly implemented... sure? I mean, they literally had to dump free energy into these things to make them even marginally usable. Ordinance Tubes pay a small premium over the standard hardpoints unless you're paying in target locks and even then really suffer from having even the underwhelming dice fixing available to huge ships. Making Tubes pay the overpriced energy cost of hardpoints on top of their other costs is hilariously inefficient compared to something that is already pretty hilariously inefficient. Optimized Generators is actually a pretty good card if you run Hardpoints though; give it a try.

Just tried the Generators actually. Fully decked out CR90 was able to unload a lot of fire down range with frightening consistency. Technically, I think it was the star for the Rebel side, destroying an Interceptor outright, ioning another into a rock where it died and doing pretty good damage to a bomber and the opposing Raider. I'm sold.

2 hours ago, Shockwave said:

What I AM hoping for at a minimum is to be able to field 150 points of Raider/ CR-90 and it actually be a game against (non-tech'd) small based ships. If we could get to that, my personal goal for this will be achieved.

I think just requiring a minimum 3 epic points fixes this.

I don't agree that requiring epic ships is a must. X-wing can feature fights between fighter squadrons in the space between 2 super heavy vessels (or more), if you make epic ships mandatory you lock out that theme in epic fights as well as skew the balance since epic ships vary wildly in balance.

Tantine sucks.

Transport is, passable, and would be a 30 point tax in all epic rebel squadrons.

Raider is also only, passable.

Gozanti is perhaps the best epic ship yet.

C-rok dont look to good yet.

Epic, in my opinion, is fine as it is or could use a simple system requiring a few simple elements to be in place in each list. For example:

1 Pilot with 6 PS minimum, a "squad leader".

At least 4 pilots with 4 or less PS:

3 hours ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

Another idea that others have tossed around is limiting the damage that small ships can do to huge ships with their regular lasers. Huge ships would have this rule:

"When defending against a Small or Large ship's primary weapon, <turret> or <cannon>, after the compare results step, if there is more than one uncanceled <hit> or <crit> result, you may cancel one result of your choice."

Another example of clunky wording on my part, but the idea is that a 2 dice attack should have a really hard time punching through shields on an epic ship. Combined with Reinforce on the defending section this would ensure that little snub fighters like TIE's or A-wings can't get more than 1 hit through on each attack. This would help out Epics vs. swarms quite a bit.

Absolutely agree. Some suggestions:

-Huge ships should regenerate ___ shields after each attack

-Recover between attacks

-Reinforce should be 2 evades, maybe 3? (not just for CR75)

-small base ships only half their uncacelled damage

-small ships attacking reduce their attack dice

Let's avoid the rebalancing of ships shall we and stick to the event rules, eh?

18 hours ago, Marinealver said:

So that is the 2 major issues with Epic,

1. huge ships don't do well against top meta ship builds from competitive standard, and
2. standard ships (with exception of IG-2000 Agressors) are exactly the same in Epic as they are in competitive standard.

If Epic is going to get more player attention it will have to do something that gives the format a difference over competitive standard. Right now I love Epic and I will admit, that is where it is lacking.

I would agree with both of the above statements. OTOH, nothing does well against the meta except other meta, hence the complaints about the X-Wing, Scyk, etc. etc. etc. Since FFG seems to be driven only by meta and rebalancing meta, I think the only way to solve this problem is to simply agree to play Epic for fun. This means avoiding the meta intentionally, and playing all those ships that you don't play in 100/6. Essentially, agree to play at Tier 2 on purpose.

The one thing I would say about point 2 (since I know what you are trying to get at), is that XWM still plays different without Huge ships at higher point totals. For example, with a 6x3 playing area, I have had games were I never have to pull a K-turn or use a red maneuver, because there is plenty of space and plenty of targets.

16 hours ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

Others have pointed this out before but it would be awesome, more cinematic and better for epic ship balance if there were 'escort' rules, like in Armada. That way you could actually use your fighters to screen your huge ships and provide some protection for them. Here's a thought.

"When attacking with a Small or Large ship, you cannot declare an attack on an enemy Huge ship if there is an enemy Small ship inside of your firing arc at the same or lower range band"

This would be a cool idea.

16 hours ago, Shockwave said:

With the exception of Sensor Team (Maybe Engineering team) I am frequently struggling to find a reason to field Gunnery Team Or Ordnance Experts. Granted Epic ships seem to have a theme that dice mods are tough for them, so it shouldn't be trivial as "Let them gain Focus tokens" but they need ( I feel) some way of being able to mod their dice reliably and repeatedly, outside Jonus or Esege fly CAP around the ship.

Epic needs more crew that do cool things.

15 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

They break the design concept of the epic class ship by allowing you to ignore it's most integral mechanic: ENERGY. And with a few upgrades and fighters in your squad you don't even need to spend much time getting target locks so all that unspent energy goes to Shields and weird other uses. And usually gets you more damage potential and accuracy in the process.

Eh, I disagree with this. Ordnance has traditionally been very hard to use effectively, and without Focus tokens, this is the perk that Huge ships get when firing missiles/torps.

I have to admit that I have become of the opinion that Huge ships exist only to package small ship fixes. It is a great format, and it is largely ignored by FFG despite being the one part of the game that costs the most money to get into.

17 hours ago, Shockwave said:

You bring up some very good points, that I also feel need to be addressed (Hence this very thread)

While I am not looking to get a "Competitive Epic Tournament" Format, I'm not opposed to it happening should we get there. What I AM hoping for at a minimum is to be able to field 150 points of Raider/ CR-90 and it actually be a game against (non-tech'd) small based ships. If we could get to that, my personal goal for this will be achieved.

I have to say that I would be completely opposed to Epic becoming anything Competitive or Tournament. IMHO, it is what is ruining the base game.

29 minutes ago, Shockwave said:

**The Objective is to Win, the point of playing is to have fun.

The Objective is to have fun; winning is a side-effect of playing a two-sided game. Fly casual.

14 hours ago, BlodVargarna said:

I think just requiring a minimum 3 epic points fixes this.

Not until there's more low Epic point ships added. Requiring 2 transports to run a transport is silly and expensive in a format that already has a pretty high barrier to entry. I'd actually be fine with this if you could declare a large ship as worth 1 Epic point though. I think that could almost be a rule in general honestly.

14 hours ago, tsuruki said:

I don't agree that requiring epic ships is a must. X-wing can feature fights between fighter squadrons in the space between 2 super heavy vessels (or more), if you make epic ships mandatory you lock out that theme in epic fights as well as skew the balance since epic ships vary wildly in balance.

Tantine sucks.

Transport is, passable, and would be a 30 point tax in all epic rebel squadrons.

Raider is also only, passable.

Gozanti is perhaps the best epic ship yet.

C-rok dont look to good yet.

They really don't vary that wildly post Gozanti upgrades. Tantive is probably the worst, but its not that far behind, particularly if you deploy corner to corner. Transport is arguably one of the best of the Epic ships once you get a head around it. It creates huge problems at a very minor cost.

Herm... I like some of these ideas. Without play testing any of them, the small/large base must target small/large base if able seems pretty good, but honestly, I think I prefer this instead:

Huge Ships - After comparing dice results from a small/large base primary attack, you may cancel half of the hit/crit results remaining (rounded down). It makes it so that 2 attack ships can still do damage if they roll 2 hits, but they will at most do 1 damage. This doesn't change if they're attacking the reinforced section, but it does change the probability of doing damage. 3 dice will do at most 2 damage (if they roll all 3 hits), will at most do 1 against reinforced... So it ends up being that a slew of ships can take out an epic ship, but they're much better equipped to take on the fighter escort. Meanwhile the primary weapon thing means that an X wing with a Proton Torpedo is going to do significantly more damage with that over his lasers. This is all subject to play testing of course, but I like the direction it goes.

One thing though that I think is absolutely necessary - epic ships cannot be affected by effects of non epic ships. They've already done that a bit with Biggs, but it should apply to Jonus, Roark, and Esege as well. Jonus rerolls on the Raider is just a ridiculous buff to the ship, and Roark making the Tantive shoot at PS12 can easily erase entire ships before they shoot a single time, and Esege's "you can use my focus tokens" is on similar levels as Jonus (but more expensive and less reliable). Getting rid of all of those is a requirement imo.

Also, increasing to 400 points seems to help quite a bit. It allows you to field a full 150pt epic ship without having to only fly 4-5 fighters. And it allows you to fly both epic ships and then a good 200pt escort for quite the immersion of a space battle.

Gah, now I want to play some more epic!

9 minutes ago, Khyros said:

Herm... I like some of these ideas. Without play testing any of them, the small/large base must target small/large base if able seems pretty good, but honestly, I think I prefer this instead:

Huge Ships - After comparing dice results from a small/large base primary attack, you may cancel half of the hit/crit results remaining (rounded down). It makes it so that 2 attack ships can still do damage if they roll 2 hits, but they will at most do 1 damage. This doesn't change if they're attacking the reinforced section, but it does change the probability of doing damage. 3 dice will do at most 2 damage (if they roll all 3 hits), will at most do 1 against reinforced... So it ends up being that a slew of ships can take out an epic ship, but they're much better equipped to take on the fighter escort. Meanwhile the primary weapon thing means that an X wing with a Proton Torpedo is going to do significantly more damage with that over his lasers. This is all subject to play testing of course, but I like the direction it goes.

One thing though that I think is absolutely necessary - epic ships cannot be affected by effects of non epic ships. They've already done that a bit with Biggs, but it should apply to Jonus, Roark, and Esege as well. Jonus rerolls on the Raider is just a ridiculous buff to the ship, and Roark making the Tantive shoot at PS12 can easily erase entire ships before they shoot a single time, and Esege's "you can use my focus tokens" is on similar levels as Jonus (but more expensive and less reliable). Getting rid of all of those is a requirement imo.

Also, increasing to 400 points seems to help quite a bit. It allows you to field a full 150pt epic ship without having to only fly 4-5 fighters. And it allows you to fly both epic ships and then a good 200pt escort for quite the immersion of a space battle.

Gah, now I want to play some more epic!

I'm not sure any of that is really strictly necessary. Smart use of Reinforcement tokens is usually enough to limit the effectiveness of small ships as long as there's not too many of them. I think Jonus is the only really egregious buff and even then.... meh? The bigger issue is probably just that no one else has anything close.

I do generally prefer 2v2 Team Epic in general though (1 ship required per side, not per player) and the game does feel pretty good at 400 points. In general, I'm rather fond of team Epic because, where most games feel like they slow down when you play with a partner, the simultaneous dial setting actually speeds X-Wing up a bit.