Howdy Folks!

So recently I flew a modification of my standard epic list but instead of using the rebel transport and a combination of X-Wings, A-Wings, and B-Wings I had a Corellian Corvette, some X-Wings, and an A-Wing. However, I have not flown a single named pilot in epic in I felt like my list was missing something. Without the fighter swarm I just didn't feel in control of the battle at all. So which aces stand out to you?

Honestly, the Pilot Skill 6 and 7 tend to do well in Epic because you can easily take a single generic and make them a little bit better for not too much investment. Epic is sort fo funny, in Standard more ships is more expensive in list building. In Epic upgrading a single ship to a top aces is more expensive. Sure with most table top games that involve a lot of models it is sometimes better to keep individual models cheap on the point side so you can take more but with the ship limit it is fairly safe to upgrade a group of ships wholesale.

You like A-wings? Don't take Tycho, a Slicer tool transport will have too much fun with him. Instead take Every named A-wing except Tycho and make them Green Squadron or something. I sort of wish there was some sort of squadron mechanic that works similar to IG-2000 where more of the same type of ships get to benefit each other.

I don't know which ones shine, but I know I enjoy flying the seldom seen pilots. Zertik Strom can be hilarious because at range 1, enemies don't get their range combat bonus, which can be pretty demoralizing in Epic.

Carnor Jax can be really effective with Coordinate, Comms Booster, and so many other abilities that hand out focus tokens for him to block. Unfortunately, it paints a HUGE target on his head, so I don't know if he really can be called effective.

For Rebels, I like Luke because his ability is good for every shot he takes, and Jess Pava is nice because she's surrounded by friendlies.

Ehtan is pretty **** good.

24 minutes ago, Tbetts94 said:

Ehtan is pretty **** good.

Yes. Really ******* good.

Just have him trail behind 4 Z-95's. All those crits are murder on huge ships.

Captain Jonus is good for a round or two but once the enemy gets him in range he is done.

Tarn with M9 is nice and affordable.

Lando with Numb in the Falcon is a fairly durable support ship and also pretty thematic as Gold Leader.

The key to Epic is sneaking in those ships that can give a little boost to the squad without drawing too much attention. Wedge and Soontir and Cobra will have 8 shots coming their way the first round.

Generally, more ships = better.

Etahn, Roark, Jonus, Howlrunner are all useful but will be targetted as early as possible - is support ships.

The only named pilots that are awesome in epic are the IG88s. Even x7 defenders go down in a round or two when 6 ships or more are shooting at them, so I don't think that they are as effective as the same points worth of Interceptors - which can have Autothrusters to help keep them alive.

Predator is useful though, as are support crew in a Tie Bomber Shuttle like Fleet Officer and Systems Officer or Operations Specialist.

For the empire, Jonus is great, Howlrunner, Carnor, Kagi, and Dormitz and deathrain has a lot more value

For rebels, Etahn, Roark, Jess,

I tend to go for aces that have movement/repositioning options, like Ryad and Juno.

I actually avoid power-up aces like Howlrunner, because they just wind up with a big "shoot me first" label on them. . .which isn't that hard to do in epic.

Also IG-88 A/B/C/D tends to do relay well. All hail the Bot Brothers

1 hour ago, Marinealver said:

Also IG-88 A/B/C/D tends to do relay well. All hail the Bot Brothers

Agreed. (And mentioned above.) Worth repeating though: there really aren't any better ships to spend 200pts or so on.

On 3/3/2018 at 5:57 AM, pickirk01 said:

Captain Jonus is good for a round or two but once the enemy gets him in range he is done.

Tarn with M9 is nice and affordable.

Lando with Numb in the Falcon is a fairly durable support ship and also pretty thematic as Gold Leader.

The key to Epic is sneaking in those ships that can give a little boost to the squad without drawing too much attention. Wedge and Soontir and Cobra will have 8 shots coming their way the first round.

Well again Epic is also a great opportunity to bring out all the B-list celebrities from X-wing simply because they are not as familiar so the ways they work almost always come out like a surprise.

Graz the Hunter all of a sudden becomes a 3 agility ship in the initial face off with all the ships aiming at it.

I'd expect Dash to still be good with all those extra obstacles around. Eaden Vrill may be good combined with the Epic Jam action. Leebo's ability to choose crits is always handy.

Bodhi Rook in the U-Wing looks very useful as you could lock onto targets across most of the battlefield. All the HWK pilots look good if you can keep them alive long enough, but Roark, Kyle and Torkil are probably the best of them.

Poe and Rey are still solid. Built right they can take a lot of damage.

Garven and Dutch for passing around focus tokens or target locks may be nice. Also Airen Cracken for similar reasons.

All the named YV666 pilots look good too. Bossk with a Mangler cannon is very likely to get his ability to work against huge ships. Moralo's increased arc for a Heavy laser cannon will be even more useful with all those extra ships in play, whilst Latts could help you focus down enemy support ships.

All the Lambda and Upsilon named pilots look useful, but particularly Yorr, Kagi, Stridan and Dormitz.

All of those pilots are good - but still die in one round. A wild space fringer is cheaper than Dash and still goes down in one round.

E.g. Poe and Rey: 100pts ish or 1/3 of your fleet. Dead early on or you hold them back letting your 200pts take on the entire 300pts of the enemy.

If I have eg 8 interceptors firing at them, they go down. It's why this thread is full of advice saying that aces aren't good in epic.

There is a way to keep a top ace alive though : docked on a Gozanti for just 2 rounds longer to avoid the big bumpathon furball.

The B or C list pilots who never see normal play and are only a point more than a generic pilot can be very useful though. If you remember to use their ability, of course!

Apart from the larger Epic ships, is there anything in Epic that couldn't be destroyed in one round? Not a lot could survive 24 red dice at range 2 with focus tokens I'd imagine, but whilst those theoretical 144pts of Interceptors (assuming you've gone for the cheapest option) could focus down Dash or Rey (worth approx. 60pts), that leaves 80pts of relatively unmolested ships they haven't dealt with, and which will no doubt take a few of the Interceptors out in the same turn (unless we are in some odd situation where the Interceptors have caught Rey on her own away from the rest of the fleet). Alternatively, those Interceptors could pair up and potentially take down 3-4 generics between them, which would probably amount to the same or more points than the ace they could have focused on.

Besides, you'd be surprised how much damage some of these ships can soak up under the right conditions. Poe at range 3 with Autothrusters and a focus can shrug off 2 hits from every attack just as long as he doesn't roll triple blanks or triple focus. Rey with Finn and attackers in arc gets her bonus defence and re-rolls. Dash just hides behind rocks for no penalty to himself and claims the bonus defence dice. When they do go down, if they have soaked up enough attention and done some meaningful damage of their own it will have been worth it.

That said, I agree with you general point that Epic can be a rough environment for many aces and I probably wouldn't use Rey myself, just an example of something I've seen used by others that worked quite well. At the Epic tournament I went to last year I took Wes Janson as my main ace and if he lasted more than one turn of shooting he was doing well.

I think if you are going to take aces either equip them light (so its not such a big loss when they are gone) or make them as tanky as possible so they have to be scraped off the table. And yes many of the PS4-7 named pilots (some of whom I mentioned above) have some abilities worth spending the few extra points on. Garven may die as easily as a Red Squadron Pilot, but he's also not enough of a threat that's it's worth your opponent going all out to kill him at the expense of more opportune targets.

Finally, one ace I forgot to mention above that may shine more in Epic than standard X-Wing is the newer version of Chewbacca. There is no restriction on the number of times he can make his bonus attacks per turn so could get a lot of extra shots with a swarmy list. With just Rage and Inspiring Recruit he's only 44pts so not overly expensive, while having roughly the same durability as a GR-75. One to try out I think next time I can get a game of Epic in.

2 hours ago, JudgeDeath said:

Apart from the larger Epic ships, is there anything in Epic that couldn't be destroyed in one round? Not a lot could survive 24 red dice at range 2 with focus tokens I'd imagine, but whilst those theoretical 144pts of Interceptors (assuming you've gone for the cheapest option) could focus down Dash or Rey (worth approx. 60pts), that leaves 80pts of relatively unmolested ships they haven't dealt with, and which will no doubt take a few of the Interceptors out in the same turn (unless we are in some odd situation where the Interceptors have caught Rey on her own away from the rest of the fleet). Alternatively, those Interceptors could pair up and potentially take down 3-4 generics between them, which would probably amount to the same or more points than the ace they could have focused on.

Besides, you'd be surprised how much damage some of these ships can soak up under the right conditions. Poe at range 3 with Autothrusters and a focus can shrug off 2 hits from every attack just as long as he doesn't roll triple blanks or triple focus. Rey with Finn and attackers in arc gets her bonus defence and re-rolls. Dash just hides behind rocks for no penalty to himself and claims the bonus defence dice. When they do go down, if they have soaked up enough attention and done some meaningful damage of their own it will have been worth it.

That said, I agree with you general point that Epic can be a rough environment for many aces and I probably wouldn't use Rey myself, just an example of something I've seen used by others that worked quite well. At the Epic tournament I went to last year I took Wes Janson as my main ace and if he lasted more than one turn of shooting he was doing well.

I think if you are going to take aces either equip them light (so its not such a big loss when they are gone) or make them as tanky as possible so they have to be scraped off the table. And yes many of the PS4-7 named pilots (some of whom I mentioned above) have some abilities worth spending the few extra points on. Garven may die as easily as a Red Squadron Pilot, but he's also not enough of a threat that's it's worth your opponent going all out to kill him at the expense of more opportune targets.

Finally, one ace I forgot to mention above that may shine more in Epic than standard X-Wing is the newer version of Chewbacca. There is no restriction on the number of times he can make his bonus attacks per turn so could get a lot of extra shots with a swarmy list. With just Rage and Inspiring Recruit he's only 44pts so not overly expensive, while having roughly the same durability as a GR-75. One to try out I think next time I can get a game of Epic in.

Yes TFA Chewie is a great option. I have been looking at a determination, counter measures, glitter stim set up to stay cheap and give him an extra round or two. Have not tried it yet nor have I decided on crew options.

Initial thought is to have him flanked by several Z's with Etahn lurking nearby for the crit support.

For scum, you have:

- Sunny with light title (12 points, can't go wrong with that)

- Unkar with cloaking device and Vizago: cloak, move, next round decloak, move in the path of the enemy and cause mass tractor beams. Use Vizago to switch to a deadman's switch and you're pretty much set up.

Those are some of the basics that come to mind.

Youngster is pretty good. Whilst you're limited in the numbers you can field, 3 other TIE fighters, 4 TIE/fo and 4 TIE/sf all benefiting from his ability can be rather tasty.

15 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Youngster is pretty good. Whilst you're limited in the numbers you can field, 3 other TIE fighters, 4 TIE/fo and 4 TIE/sf all benefiting from his ability can be rather tasty.

I've had an idea for a list for a little while: Youngster with Rage, 4x Crack Shot Black Squadron pilots (you can get 8 small ship, 4 large ship, 4 of any secondary weapon or Elite upgrade, if I'm reading the new regs correctly), 4x Deadeye/Cruise Missile SFs, and a Gozanti of some kind deploying some ordnance ships (Cluster/AccC Advanced, with the PS 8 title?).

Clear the way for the Prophets of Rage.