I was wanting to try a small squad of starvipers for an epic game. How well would these work out as support and general use fighters?

Starviper: Black Sun Assassin (28)
Autothrusters (2)
Starviper Mk.II (-3)
Crack Shot (1)

Total: 28

1 hour ago, Bad Luck 13 said:

I was wanting to try a small squad of starvipers for an epic game. How well would these work out as support and general use fighters?

Starviper: Black Sun Assassin (28)
Autothrusters (2)
Starviper Mk.II (-3)
Crack Shot (1)

Total: 28

It is one of my brother's favorite ships, even before the Mk II.

Like the x-wing, they are a respectable blend of durable and maneuverable with good punch.

As long as you keep em cheap they should be fine. Just accept that they'll die as fast as anything else in epic.

Is Crack shot worth the point investment of going up to the assassin's?

38 minutes ago, Bad Luck 13 said:

Is Crack shot worth the point investment of going up to the assassin's?

Depends what would be cut from the list to put you up there. 24pts for ps1 and autothrusters will do largely the same job in epic, but ps5 and crack are nothing to sneeze at

20 hours ago, Bad Luck 13 said:

Is Crack shot worth the point investment of going up to the assassin's?

In isolation, probably not, BUT the PS Increase is worth the investment. Generally speaking, you tend to see more generics and less aces in Epic than in Standard X-Wing, so getting up to PS5+ can be valuable (it also means you're shooting before any huge ships, so you can't be PS killed by them barring Roarke, Swarm Tactics, or Decoy tricks).

A lot of ships have generics in the PS<5 range, so getting to 5 or higher can be an important milestone, which puts generics like the Gamma Squadron Veteran (TIE Bomber), Black Sun Assassin (Starviper), Black Sun Ace (Kihraxz), and Royal Guard (TIE Interceptor) into very good places. Rebels generics suffer a bit in that they are all either PS1/3 or PS2/4 and only the T70 and A-Wing even have access to EPTs.

In my experience they have been brillaint. A lot of the time my opponents concentrate on the large based ships or some of the more heavily equipped smaller ships allowing me to flank them and get some good shots in. By the time they realise what has happened it's too late, they are already engaged with other ships and haven't got anything left to take out my Starvipers. Autothrusters is a must.

In my experience, relying on autothrusters yields poor or bad results, but that might be due to my local meta. My local meta usually includes sizeable escorts and equipping all of them with autothrusters gets clostly. If only part of the fleet has autothrusters, the opponent focuses on ships which don't have them for the range 3 engagement (so target Y-Wings, Kimogilas, etc). On the following round, the fight usually degenerates to range 1 or 2, at which point, autothrusters don't work anymore.

That's just my experience though.

3 Atk + 3 Def ships are always good in Epic, IMO.

PS upgrading your ships is important if you want to fire on huge ships, and Crack Shot is good for plinking off evade results from the reinforce action, but I think it's better spent on an EPT to improve the consistency of your attacks like Predator or Expertise or to improve your resilience like Push the Limit.

The Starviper doesn't really have the dial to support Push The Limit (no green turns), though, and it does lack one thing which makes the X-wing useful in speed - that lack of speed 3 turns comes up more than you'd expect.

At the same time, as a 24 point ship, the generic viper with autothrusters isn't a bad buy. It's essentially immune to turbolaser fire, and delivers a respectable punch.

The restriction on having multiple copies of an upgrade is an issue, though, because as noted above, you can't equip a squad with them en masse.

4 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

The Starviper doesn't really have the dial to support Push The Limit (no green turns), though, and it does lack one thing which makes the X-wing useful in speed - that lack of speed 3 turns comes up more than you'd expect.

At the same time, as a 24 point ship, the generic viper with autothrusters isn't a bad buy. It's essentially immune to turbolaser fire, and delivers a respectable punch.

The restriction on having multiple copies of an upgrade is an issue, though, because as noted above, you can't equip a squad with them en masse.

The restriction is on ept and secondary weapons. No limits on titles, modifications etc. So 8 starvipers with 8 -3title with 8 autos is legal