Not strictly a ‘squad list’ post, more about positioning.

I’m playing a 300pt game tomorrow and amongst other things I’ll be using the Rebel transport (in part as a battering ram).

on a 6x3 board what do people favour when it comes to position and orientation? The rest of the squad will be made up of x wings and a wings.

2 hours ago, Dansolo said:

Not strictly a ‘squad list’ post, more about positioning.

I’m playing a 300pt game tomorrow and amongst other things I’ll be using the Rebel transport (in part as a battering ram).

on a 6x3 board what do people favour when it comes to position and orientation? The rest of the squad will be made up of x wings and a wings.

Well, you'll have to deploy first. So you can't position yourself reactively.

I would recommend a corner at 45'. That allows you to aim yourself at any part of the board without pointing yourself into a corner without the space to turn away again.

The overall aim, I'm assuming, is essentially a Bright Hope/Engine Booster Leeeroy Jenkins! into your opponent's face with the X-wings coming in behind as a mop-up crew...

Keep the rest of your guys 'inboard' of the transport, with a few X-wings on the outside to discourage anyone trying to come down that board edge and get behind it.

Also, make sure that someone can - if you have to - get in front of the transport. If you find yourself facing half-a-dozen minefield mapper punishers making the edge of your deployment zone look like the North Korean border, being able to fling an ~ 20 point prototype pilot forwards to detonate them all is better than running over them with something you actually give a darn about.

Always, always keep your guys together. the fact that you have plenty of space to deploy in does not mean you should spread out. If you think you're going to do a 'flanking move' or something similar, you're likely to find the guys on the wing may miss the first turn or two of shooting, which may tilt the whole game against you!

Also - Criticals hurt. Much more than just regular shield hits. If you have...say...half a dozen points spare, consider some Seismic torpedoes. Even Rookies can fire them early enough to clear a road for the transport.

Worst case, you get to take a couple of shield damage rather than two face-up damage cards as the transport plows into obstacles.

Best case, you can turn an obstacle pair into an instant-detonating bomblet in the middle of your opponent's squad.

17 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Well, you'll have to deploy first. So you can't position yourself reactively.

I would recommend a corner at 45'. That allows you to aim yourself at any part of the board without pointing yourself into a corner without the space to turn away again.

The overall aim, I'm assuming, is essentially a Bright Hope/Engine Booster Leeeroy Jenkins! into your opponent's face with the X-wings coming in behind as a mop-up crew...

Keep the rest of your guys 'inboard' of the transport, with a few X-wings on the outside to discourage anyone trying to come down that board edge and get behind it.

Also, make sure that someone can - if you have to - get in front of the transport. If you find yourself facing half-a-dozen minefield mapper punishers making the edge of your deployment zone look like the North Korean border, being able to fling an ~ 20 point prototype pilot forwards to detonate them all is better than running over them with something you actually give a darn about.

Always, always keep your guys together. the fact that you have plenty of space to deploy in does not mean you should spread out. If you think you're going to do a 'flanking move' or something similar, you're likely to find the guys on the wing may miss the first turn or two of shooting, which may tilt the whole game against you!

Also - Criticals hurt. Much more than just regular shield hits. If you have...say...half a dozen points spare, consider some Seismic torpedoes. Even Rookies can fire them early enough to clear a road for the transport.

Worst case, you get to take a couple of shield damage rather than two face-up damage cards as the transport plows into obstacles.

Best case, you can turn an obstacle pair into an instant-detonating bomblet in the middle of your opponent's squad.

Good advice! Thank you for the reply.

A lot of things there for me to consider.

ill give it all a go later on and let you know how it works out. I’ve only played a handful of epic battles before and never really considered keeping all my ships together. The temptation is usually to try and split them to attempt a flank.

5 minutes ago, Dansolo said:

I’ve only played a handful of epic battles before and never really considered keeping all my ships together. The temptation is usually to try and split them to attempt a flank.

The problem is how far I see people split up when doing this.

An epic board is two boards joined edge-to-edge, but ships are allowed to deploy up to range 2 in. That means that:

• Ships setting up opposite each other that both perform a speed 3 move (or a speed 5 and a speed 1) are exchanging shots in the first turn.
• A ship setting up on one corner of your deployment zone trying to get across the board has to cross two board's widths to get involved.
  • If, for the sake of argument, you realised you'd set up an A-wing Prototype Pilot on the wrong end of your deployment zone, it could take four to five turns at full speed (speed 5 straight and boost) to get to where the fighting is. The battle is going to be long over by this point.
  • Even deploying in the middle of the board iwill take a turn or so to get to the action (because it's the same as completely crossing a normal board), and - as noted - shots fired first turn with an emphasis on alpha strikes in a lot of successful epic squads means you can lose a lot of stuff in that time.

I took on board your original points and it worked really well, I won!

thanks for all the advice, I’ll work through all the points in your second reply too next time I play. I’m still fairly inexperienced in the game so this is all a massive help. Cheers