So, I heard very little about epic gameplay in x-wing. All I realy know, except from some rules additions, is that the meta gets rather different.

But how different is the meta in epic?

What to watch out for when building an epic list?

How would a "typical" imperial raider list look like?

Thank you as always for your much appreciated help.

Lots of generics and lots of munitions. Epic ships cant evade!! lol although they can reinforce which is better against most things

The meta is dominated by generics mainly as there are too many arcs to dodge for the likes of Dash/Soontir etc Scaling up from 100 points doesn't work either. a ship that can buff your Generics could do well (as long as it can buff more than one ship at a time)

Regarding the raider, i have no clue. i only have the Rebel Transport so my experience of epic play is limited to say the least.

Some general guidelines:

• You have 300 points to play with, meaning triple the force on only double the board. This means that the 'density' of ships goes up 1.5 times, meaning more fire arcs, more shots on the same target exhausting tokens, and generally arc dodgers take a kicking.
• You have so many shots that firing first en masse is a huge deal - Glaive squadron TIE/D, Gamma Squadron Veterans, and so on are awesome for this reason. It's expensive to upgrade from Rookie Pilots to Red Squadron Pilots (for example), but actually not all that bad an idea. Epic is the one time the non-elite upgrade "more expensive generic" is worth a look.
• Any "every ship within range x" buff becomes much more valuable. Etahn A'Baht can essentially hand an entire B-wing squadron free mangler cannons, for example.
• Don't take upgrades which take time to 'build up' like Moldy Crow, Gonk, or Rey. Ships can start range 1-2 into the board, and epic ships can throw punches out to range 5 if correctly armed. You will be engaged in the fight from turn 1.
• Equally, don't take any list relying on a single ship being alive past the start of the combat phase. A rebel squad could, for example, take Luke, Wedge, Horton (with R2-D6), Airen Cracken, and Wes Janson, all with Veteran Instincts, and put 5 PS10+ torpedoes down range, without breaking the bank. Youngster with Rage is better than Howlrunner for this reason, as it doesn't matter whether Youngster is still alive when the other TIE fighter's turn to shoot comes around.
• At the same time, support ships have a lot more space to run in. Captain Kagi has enough PS to deploy after most opponents and can screw over anyone carrying Sensor Teams and Long Range Scanners something rotten. For that matter, with a sensor jammer (as most big ships have limited ways to use focus results) he's not bad as a biggs analogue flying wing for an epic ship.

The raider.....people tend (with reason) to say epic ships aren't good. That's sort of true. A basic raider won't do as well as 100-and-change of 'normal' ships.

What you need is to build a non-trivial portion of your squad around it and support it, and then it becomes scary.

Personally, I'd recommend a 'missile boat' raider - you lose out on range 4-5 shots (which puts you at a disadvantage against an enemy corvette) but leaves you able to take big chunks out of enemy fighters, which is what you actually want the thing for:

• The Ordnance Tubes modification turns any of your hardpoints, if you want into [Torpedo] or [Missile], with unlimited ammo.
• Impetuous gives you a free target lock whenever you get a kill (note that that still applies with the primary weapons, not just missiles)
• Whilst Homing Missiles give you a missile you can use without spending a lock (so I'd take at least one, probably in the prow so if you lose your aft and the target lock action, the prow missiles are still useful), the real joy is Assault Missiles - epic squads usually feature large clusters of fighters that a couple of assault missiles can put a huge dent into, then finish one off with a pair of primary shots and a homing missile, gain a target lock, and be ready for next turn.
• Pairing the ship with Captain Jonus/TIE Shuttle/Systems Officer/Swarm Tactics is amazing; upping a raider to PS6 (or even better if someone else Swarm Tactics-es a better PS to Jonus first!) can turn a 'cleanup' into a devastating alpha strike.
• You will want a handful of academy pilots to screen an epic ship's backside. The raider's arcs are more useful than a CR-90s, because they allow it to point its prow at the enemy and hide behind a reinforce token better, and because there's an 11-o'clock and 1-o'clock zone of utter carnage where all its arcs of fire overlap, but it doesn't half have an annoyingly huge blind spot on its back end.

More cheap ships is better than a few aces because if you throw enough dice than every hero can die quickly. Also, with lots of heroes it is easy to forget about them.

With that many points, you can find some really broken combos, like Jonus hanging near the Raider to give it re-rolls or Jan Ors bumping the CR90 to 6 dice every round. Also, 12 TLT Y-wings are just broken in epic. Make an agreement not to be stupid with your opponent.

Placement is important due to size. If your B-wings get placed far off, the game could be over before they get involved.

There are things to do to make the game go faster. Put same ships into squads and give them missions. Bombers have ordnance. Interceptors protect them. All purpose fill in the blanks. Makes picking dials easier.

Epic ships die fast to many small ships. Need to protect your epic with a fighter screen. Ion Torpedoes are good for hitting many ships that are bunched. CR-90 likes to circle and shoot while Raider wants to go straight at enemy and blast. Don't let enemy behind Raider as it has no rear guns.

Many people love Raider with Ordnance Tubes, but it isn't the only way. All depends on how you want to play. Lots of builds to try including conservative Raider that hangs back and fires with longer range weapons while enemy fighter screen defeated.

Official epic format is 300 pts per side, but fun games of any points vs any points is fine.

Learn the epic rules before jumping in. Try the campaigns for each ship to learn about them as they are meant to teach you. Also pretty fun.

The meta is entirely different than 100/6. You can't build fat ships in epic and expect it to go well.

Besides missile boat Raider, the other scary one is to look out for TIE/Ds with ruthlessness (which triggers for both attacks).

I'm working on learning the rebel side of the coin for epic play. I imagine scum will look very different as it gets fleshed out in epic as well - I think I need to try that sometime once I'm done with the epic league going on locally (rebel vs imp only). Jabba camped out on the c-roc and load up the glitterstim generics for maximum turn 1-2 shenanigans.

23 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

Placement is important due to size. If your B-wings get placed far off, the game could be over before they get involved.

Indeed. Any plan along the lines of "and these ships will flank" needs to be very careful - unless they're very fast - because the fight starts and ends quickly and deploying on the wrong end of a double-width board can take forever to cross.

Ruthlessness Glaives are hideous en masse.

Oh thank you all. That sounds sooooo much fun indeed!

17 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Ruthlessness Glaives are hideous en masse.

How many is to be considered "en masse"?

Up to you. But I'd consider building your squad in ~ 100 point blocks.

A 200 point investment could easily see 5 with ion cannons, TIE/d and Ruthlessness flying wing, and 5 small-based ships aren't that hard to concentrate on a single target.

Point them at a huge ship and ion fire can cripple its energy supply, whilst Ruthlessness splash damage means your opponent won't dare keep any escorts in close proximity.

Just be careful to set up your approach correctly (i.e. from the side ); ion tokens don't stop a huge ship turning, and watching it run over two or more 40-point elite fighters is a painful experience!

Punishers are scary in epic especially if someone is a higher target priority. Nobody gets to ignore Redline for too long

34 minutes ago, RufusDaMan said:

Punishers are scary in epic especially if someone is a higher target priority. Nobody gets to ignore Redline for too long

I want to see Minefield Mapper used in Epic with Punishers! Also think Bomblet Generator will be nice.

Indeed. they'll be quite a nightmare for epic ships especially , because actually turning enough to avoid running through them will essentially take it out of the fight for several turns, whilst reinforce does nothing and passing through, say, two full sets of mines (or partial equivalents) is enough to blow the shields of the front of a corvette.

90 points is enough to take three cutlasses with twin cluster mines, and you can easily load them out with some proper missiles once you've got the chassis; 'real' missiles are probably better than unguided rockets because the fight will probably be largely settled in the first 2-3 turns; by which time the missiles run out or the punisher is dead - unguided rockets are better for extended slugging matches that you probably won't see.

1 hour ago, SOLAR FLARE said:

Oh thank you all. That sounds sooooo much fun indeed!

Epic is awesome. Can't think of much to add that hasn't already been said. I really don't play XWM much any other way.

As others have pointed out, there are definitely cheap things to do in epic. I prefer to have the restriction that small/large ship abilities don't affect epic ships. The FAQ already addresses that for Biggs, but I blanket apply it to everything. Otherwise you end up with requirements - a Raider requires Jonus, and a CR-90 requires Esege and/or Roark. The game isn't as fun then as you've got 150pts in an epic ships, 30ish points in a support, and then a standard 100ish point squadron.

But at the same time, the 12 TLT Y wings is also BS - they can easily one round an epic ship (even after losing a few before shooting). Gotta remember - having fun is the most important part. Oh, and lights. You must play with LEDs - they make it so much more fun!

Redline, you got me there. What build to use? How much points would you pump into a squad of Redline plus 1 or 2 Punishers. Still want to run those Defenders ?

2 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Ruthlessness Glaives are hideous en masse

Good tip!

6 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Ruthlessness Glaives are hideous en masse.

This.

Yes, these in Epic make you think for pouring the points in one ship, but don't worry.

These TIE Defender/D with Flechette Cannons are amazing! ...and with PTL and MkII Engines, well, they're the Epic "top of the heap" IMO.

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

90 points is enough to take three cutlasses with twin cluster mines, and you can easily load them out with some proper missiles once you've got the chassis; 'real' missiles are probably better than unguided rockets because the fight will probably be largely settled in the first 2-3 turns; by which time the missiles run out or the punisher is dead - unguided rockets are better for extended slugging matches that you probably won't see.

Even one Punisher with Minefield Mapper is enough to change a game of epic. That is 4 sets of Bombs you can put out after placement and before the game starts

4 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

Even one Punisher with Minefield Mapper is enough to change a game of epic. That is 4 sets of Bombs you can put out after placement and before the game starts

This also, good call sir.

I'm thinking the minefield mapper might become THE strategy for Epic games as it really can create havoc for an enemy squad or even an Epic ship. It will be sure fun to try.

12 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

Even one Punisher with Minefield Mapper is enough to change a game of epic. That is 4 sets of Bombs you can put out after placement and before the game starts

This is not the thread to argue about it, but not everyone agrees that you can use Extra Munitions and Minefield Mapper that way. Depending on how you read the rules, you might only be able to drop two bombs during set-up and have to keep the other two to drop during normal play.

4 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Some general guidelines:

• You have 300 points to play with, meaning triple the force on only double the board. This means that the 'density' of ships goes up 1.5 times, meaning more fire arcs, more shots on the same target exhausting tokens, and generally arc dodgers take a kicking.
• You have so many shots that firing first en masse is a huge deal - Glaive squadron TIE/D, Gamma Squadron Veterans, and so on are awesome for this reason. It's expensive to upgrade from Rookie Pilots to Red Squadron Pilots (for example), but actually not all that bad an idea. Epic is the one time the non-elite upgrade "more expensive generic" is worth a look.
• Any "every ship within range x" buff becomes much more valuable. Etahn A'Baht can essentially hand an entire B-wing squadron free mangler cannons, for example.
• Don't take upgrades which take time to 'build up' like Moldy Crow, Gonk, or Rey. Ships can start range 1-2 into the board, and epic ships can throw punches out to range 5 if correctly armed. You will be engaged in the fight from turn 1.
• Equally, don't take any list relying on a single ship being alive past the start of the combat phase. A rebel squad could, for example, take Luke, Wedge, Horton (with R2-D6), Airen Cracken, and Wes Janson, all with Veteran Instincts, and put 5 PS10+ torpedoes down range, without breaking the bank. Youngster with Rage is better than Howlrunner for this reason, as it doesn't matter whether Youngster is still alive when the other TIE fighter's turn to shoot comes around.
• At the same time, support ships have a lot more space to run in. Captain Kagi has enough PS to deploy after most opponents and can screw over anyone carrying Sensor Teams and Long Range Scanners something rotten. For that matter, with a sensor jammer (as most big ships have limited ways to use focus results) he's not bad as a biggs analogue flying wing for an epic ship.

The raider.....people tend (with reason) to say epic ships aren't good. That's sort of true. A basic raider won't do as well as 100-and-change of 'normal' ships.

What you need is to build a non-trivial portion of your squad around it and support it, and then it becomes scary.

Personally, I'd recommend a 'missile boat' raider - you lose out on range 4-5 shots (which puts you at a disadvantage against an enemy corvette) but leaves you able to take big chunks out of enemy fighters, which is what you actually want the thing for:

• The Ordnance Tubes modification turns any of your hardpoints, if you want into [Torpedo] or [Missile], with unlimited ammo.
• Impetuous gives you a free target lock whenever you get a kill (note that that still applies with the primary weapons, not just missiles)
• Whilst Homing Missiles give you a missile you can use without spending a lock (so I'd take at least one, probably in the prow so if you lose your aft and the target lock action, the prow missiles are still useful), the real joy is Assault Missiles - epic squads usually feature large clusters of fighters that a couple of assault missiles can put a huge dent into, then finish one off with a pair of primary shots and a homing missile, gain a target lock, and be ready for next turn.
• Pairing the ship with Captain Jonus/TIE Shuttle/Systems Officer/Swarm Tactics is amazing; upping a raider to PS6 (or even better if someone else Swarm Tactics-es a better PS to Jonus first!) can turn a 'cleanup' into a devastating alpha strike.
• You will want a handful of academy pilots to screen an epic ship's backside. The raider's arcs are more useful than a CR-90s, because they allow it to point its prow at the enemy and hide behind a reinforce token better, and because there's an 11-o'clock and 1-o'clock zone of utter carnage where all its arcs of fire overlap, but it doesn't half have an annoyingly huge blind spot on its back end.

Well said!

3 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

This also, good call sir.

I'm thinking the minefield mapper might become THE strategy for Epic games as it really can create havoc for an enemy squad or even an Epic ship. It will be sure fun to try.

...and Rebels are a bit lacking in this area, except using Nym or a B-wing with Sabine.

23 minutes ago, EdgeOfDreams said:

This is not the thread to argue about it, but not everyone agrees that you can use Extra Munitions and Minefield Mapper that way. Depending on how you read the rules, you might only be able to drop two bombs during set-up and have to keep the other two to drop during normal play.

I get that, but it's my believe that it will get an errata to say that it does mean you can use the tokens. Rules As Written can always be argued, but I'm sure intent is you can use the equipment you spent points on. Perhaps not for the short period before FAQ will be the only time. I see it as only a temporary problem.

5 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

I get that, but it's my believe that it will get an errata to say that it does mean you can use the tokens. Rules As Written can always be argued, but I'm sure intent is you can use the equipment you spent points on. Perhaps not for the short period before FAQ will be the only time. I see it as only a temporary problem.

It could easily get FAQ'd either way. I just have a personal policy that any time I reference a controversial or unclear build, interaction, or rule, I call it out as such, to help cut down on confusion and arguments.

Just now, EdgeOfDreams said:

It could easily get FAQ'd either way. I just have a personal policy that any time I reference a controversial or unclear build, interaction, or rule, I call it out as such, to help cut down on confusion and arguments.

I don't see it going either way. I see it only going to be able to use stuff you spent points on. So far I have never been wrong about which way a ruling like this goes. People argue that RAW says one thing, but the intent is pretty clear.

I've only played one epic game (Team Epic) and my partner had the Huge ship. Are you required to have a Huge ship to play Epic?

Also, I have to add that it is A LOT of fun to see so many ships on the mats, especially when so many bench-warmers in 100/6 actually get to see some flight time & make a difference.

Epic needs two things from FFG:
1) A rule-set that's slightly different thank 100/6 to prevent broken combos as @heychadwick pointed out that is akin to Imperial Assault's Campaign system vs. its Skirmish system.
2) More support in official events. We all know Paul Heaver, Nand T. & Justin P. but can you say the same for their Epic counterparts? I couldn't tell you if there even is one because Epic is not given a quarter the amount of the attention.

The C-ROC got a number of people in my area interested in some Epic games. Now we just need an FFG carrot to dangle in front of them to keep the momentum going.