So I finally have my first epic ship, Gozanti Assault Carrier, and am wondering if there is any advice on how to play epic. I have Vader' TIE, The Inquisitor, Rexler Brath, Captain Kagi, Scourge, Wampa, and 2 Black Squadron Pilots with the remaining points going to upgrades. I found the Defender in consignment for $10 - the ion cannon so I used it Saturday as my ship in the Antari Cluster Campaign. Any suggestions on how to play the epics would be appreciated.

Keep in mind that Huge ships give a +1 save when you keep the huge base between your ships and your enemies arc. You can fire past your own ship too so you are gaining cover save bonuses without a penalty.

Epic ships take a beating, so remember that the Reinforce action is huge for surviving multiple attacks. Your epic though can provide a lot of boosts for your fighters so balance defense with support. The Gozanti sucks as an attacker, but is great as support.

Also, fighter launch and deployment as a carrier... Such a nightmare to face

6 hours ago, Qualitypunk said:

So I finally have my first epic ship, Gozanti Assault Carrier, and am wondering if there is any advice on how to play epic. I have Vader' TIE, The Inquisitor, Rexler Brath, Captain Kagi, Scourge, Wampa, and 2 Black Squadron Pilots with the remaining points going to upgrades. I found the Defender in consignment for $10 - the ion cannon so I used it Saturday as my ship in the Antari Cluster Campaign. Any suggestions on how to play the epics would be appreciated.

• Make sure you allow time for the game -epic takes a lot longer to play.
• Dont split your squad up too much - ships can deploy up to range 2 into the board (so turn 1 shooting is quite feasible) whilst ships at the other end of your deployment zone may have 4 feet to cross along the table to get to the fight if your opponent refuses one flank.
• Deployment for the carrier will be driven by what's being deployed from it. If you're looking to deploy 4 ships instead of just 2 (with either the Vector title, engine booster, or admiral chiraneau) you either need to be more or less side on and deploy with turns, or else have a source of focus tokens so you can barrel roll to clear a path for the guys behind.
• Kagi is annoying as **** if your opponent has a sensor team equipped corvette. In fact, he can theoretically shut down all of an ordnance tube raiders hardpoints by stopping them locking on to anything in firing range. For bonus gittishness, pair with sensor jammer/counteremeasure if you have points to spare, or reinforced deflectors if you dont.

6 hours ago, Qualitypunk said:

Gozanti Assault Carrier, and am wondering if there is any advice on how to play epic.

I found my mistake was loading up the Epic ships filling every possible slot. I would advise you think of a role for the ship then equip it. With the Gozanti I always take Docking Clamps then I decide whether I want to support the fighters with upgrades and crew to support them (usually deciding on the title Vector/Requiem first) or whether I want to play havoc with enemy ships (Suppressor). Almost always take Automated Protocols for two actions per turn.

The real nasty thing with the Gozanti is the ability to deploy the fighters - you get to pick there manoeuvre immediately after the Gozanti moves which is almost always last (Epic ship movement starts after all normal ships and the Gozanti has PS2).

I would also advise you start with full energy - that is energy on any upgrade cards plus the full amount on the ship card. This the tournament rule and speeds up play considerably.

Suppressor/Tarkin if your opponent love missile. Requiem for alpha strike. Equip lightly your gozanti. (50-60pts)

Do not be afraid to have number to protect your gozanti.

Don't put your epic ships near the board edge. When they turn, their end skids out like a Tokyo Drift and that will put you off the board.

Don't take too many upgrades that require you to remember a bunch of things as there is so much going on that you won't remember all the special rules.

More generics are generally better than aces as you can have a lot of generics concentrate fire and shoot down an enemy ace pretty easily.

Make sure you understand the epic rules before you go into it. What takes a while is just remembering all the rules.

Protect your epic ship from enemy fighter screens.

16 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

More generics are generally better than aces as you can have a lot of generics concentrate fire and shoot down an enemy ace pretty easily.

Always good Epic advice. Squadrons (3-4 ships) is ships do very well. I find a squadron of TIE Advanced with Accuracy Correctors very effective. They are tough, they are stress/Toryn Farr resistant (very good against the rebel transport Duty Free/Frequency Jammer combo) and they are good against 0 agility epic ships. Also Black Squadron TIEs (or Omega Squadron TIE/FO for toughness) with Snap Shot backed up by an Operations Specialist on the Gozanti. I've had lots of fun with that and again makes them stress/Toryn Farr resistant with all the focus tokens flying around.

Epic is so awesome!

Tempest/Storm with Accuracy corrector

Black squadron/Omega squadron with crackshot or snapshot

Tie/D with Ion Canon

Any low cost ship will do ! I will try a group of unguided rocket agressor Sunday !

When we play Epic it's usually with 4-6 players. One for capital ships, one for the fighters and one for the bombers/strike squads. That way you only have to remember what upgrades are being used for your ships.

As mentioned above, quantity over quality. You want as many guns as possible.

Z's are decent, cheap missile carriers for the Rebels. XX-23 Thread Chasers on a couple of Z's can do wonders for breaking up a Tie swarm.

Make sure your team coordinates their movements! Nothing worse than steamrolling a couple of your own fighters because someone mixed up port from starboard!

There's a couple of ways to spread up the bookkeeping. An inexpensive, dry erase board with the ships listed in ascending order by PS makes the "who moves next" ordeal easier. A check mark when they move and a cross bar when they shoot aids in bookkeeping and keeping things straight.

2 hours ago, Arkanta974 said:

Tempest/Storm with Accuracy corrector

Black squadron/Omega squadron with crackshot or snapshot

Tie/D with Ion Canon

Any low cost ship will do ! I will try a group of unguided rocket agressor Sunday !

I got a sixpack at the last minute last week (as they sold out everywhere) just for EPIC... AKA: The REAL X-Wing Game.

BEHOLD THE GLORY!

1 hour ago, Joe Boss Red Seven said:

I got a sixpack at the last minute last week (as they sold out everywhere) just for EPIC... AKA: The REAL X-Wing Game.

BEHOLD THE GLORY!

For the same cost you can put two Gozanti too !

I got 4 pack just for epic or escalation too !

3 hours ago, Stoneface said:

There's a couple of ways to spread up the bookkeeping. An inexpensive, dry erase board with the ships listed in ascending order by PS makes the "who moves next" ordeal easier. A check mark when they move and a cross bar when they shoot aids in bookkeeping and keeping things straight.

Using a printout from an online builder can help too. You can skip all the cards and keep the play space neater. And it puts all your PS's in order.

5 hours ago, Arkanta974 said:

Tie/D with Ion Canon

I'm going to run a pair of Glaives with this on Thursday for the first time - how do you find them? I always worry they'll be a prime target. But after I faced HLC B-Wings in Epic last time I thought I want some cannon fun

2 minutes ago, Sasajak said:

I'm going to run a pair of Glaives with this on Thursday for the first time - how do you find them? I always worry they'll be a prime target. But after I faced HLC B-Wings in Epic last time I thought I want some cannon fun

They are fine !

With Ion Cannon they can both slow down a Epic Ship in a right moment. Two less energy for the enemy epic ship can be useful. Did you put crackshot ? Veteran Instincts ? Predator ?

2 hours ago, Arkanta974 said:

For the same cost you can put two Gozanti too !

I got 4 pack just for epic or escalation too !

Now that I have my six Aggravateds I can pull this off whenever... Uh-Uh-Uh-AHHhhh-Dat Glory!

That fleet is only about half of my Imperial Fleet.

58 minutes ago, Arkanta974 said:

They are fine !

With Ion Cannon they can both slow down a Epic Ship in a right moment. Two less energy for the enemy epic ship can be useful. Did you put crackshot ? Veteran Instincts ? Predator ?

Predator although VI is tempting I can't resist the thought of re-rolls on both shots! Plus Rebels don't have PS6 generics so I'll probably be shorting first anyway . I will also take TIE MkII just in case of stress issues.

5 hours ago, Stoneface said:

When we play Epic it's usually with 4-6 players. One for capital ships, one for the fighters and one for the bombers/strike squads. That way you only have to remember what upgrades are being used for your ships.

As mentioned above, quantity over quality. You want as many guns as possible.

Z's are decent, cheap missile carriers for the Rebels. XX-23 Thread Chasers on a couple of Z's can do wonders for breaking up a Tie swarm.

Make sure your team coordinates their movements! Nothing worse than steamrolling a couple of your own fighters because someone mixed up port from starboard!

There's a couple of ways to spread up the bookkeeping. An inexpensive, dry erase board with the ships listed in ascending order by PS makes the "who moves next" ordeal easier. A check mark when they move and a cross bar when they shoot aids in bookkeeping and keeping things straight.

Good advice on the white boards, I've added it to my list of things for X-Wing. I'm going with quality over quantity because in real life I'm limited to what fits in my knapsack and large tool box.

Thanks for all the advice, you now have me eager to, well more eager, to get into the game. I have TOS league match first with ye olde TIE swarm, which I should have used for this, ah well.

Two things for the actual gozanti.

1) I haven't actually flown one, but I know for a fact the most awesome epic ship build is a ramming gozanti. Put a Rear Admiral Chiraneau and an engine booster on that beauty (plus some upgrades to make it more durable) and enjoy the destruction for a very reasonable price.

2) Epic ships may be several times larger than standard ships, but they're definitely not several times tougher (maybe except for Raider/Tantive). They will melt down to focus fire early on in the game, and even two TLTs will easily kill one of them in the lategame. Try to make your huge ship either not a very good target for your opponent or make sure it's sacrifice will not be for naught.

1 hour ago, Qualitypunk said:

Thanks for all the advice, you now have me eager to, well more eager, to get into the game. I have TOS league match first with ye olde TIE swarm, which I should have used for this, ah well.

TIE FIGHTERS IS GLORY IN EPICS... BRAH!!!

Overlapping ships with the Huge ship is tricky, in my opinion. There have been so many times where I thought, "Man, if I had done X maneuver, I could have overlapped his large ship!" Don't let that get to you. Trying to overlap ships can put you in really bad situations if you're not careful. In the last match of my tournament on Saturday, I had my Gozanti bank to try to snag some small ships, but in so doing, I realized that I had just cut off my TIE advanced from the battle. They were stranded past range 3 of anything, with the Gozanti in the way. Fortunately, a bank the other way the following round was just enough to let my TIE advanced back into the engagement, so it ended up not being a big mistake (although Maarek Stele did have to keep his stress in order to perform a maneuver that wouldn't get him run over). [A longer battle report is incoming. Stay tuned to the Battle Reports subforum.]

20 hours ago, Joe Boss Red Seven said:

Keep in mind that Huge ships give a +1 save when you keep the huge base between your ships and your enemies arc. You can fire past your own ship too so you are gaining cover save bonuses without a penalty.

Is that true JB? I thought they obstructed attacks full stop. Both the enemy's and yours.

5 minutes ago, 2Hard said:

Is that true JB? I thought they obstructed attacks full stop. Both the enemy's and yours.

It's in the base rules that you can shoot through your own ships.

6 minutes ago, Joe Boss Red Seven said:

It's in the base rules that you can shoot through your own ships.

But they still obstruct when you shoot through your own one. It's not like tactical jammer.