Sorry if this has been discussed already. But i noticed in the picture of the wing tool that one of the tie fighters is doing a 4 bank. Is this a mistake? Or will this be a new move granted to squadrons using the wing tool? I imagine that would also mean that the inside tie fighter could also do a 1 bank which it also doesnt have on its dial. Sorry i dont know how to post the picture of the wing tool example.

They said during the panel, I believe, that the two outer ships of the squadron are just aligned with the middle ship to keep things simple. Being that I don’t believe they all have to be the same ship, even, it’ll break a lot of conventional maneuver “rules,” since all three ships in a squadron don’t have the same dial.

That makes me wonder... did they use the term squadron? Will Squadron packs be relevant to that feature of Epic and does that make future Squadron packs more likely?

They may even make a separate dial for the squadron. Personally I am surprised they didn't include the 4 bank in 2nd edition as a way to open up the movement options so they could keep the movement profiles more diversified (Imagine a TIE Interceptor with red 4 banks).

Anyways I am interested in seeing how they plan on opening up the dials for huge ships and what new maneuver profiles they may give them. Heck we may see some 3 banks in there or a huge ship hard turn which is a 60 degree turn instead of a 90 (huge ship banks are 30 degrees instead of 45).

3 hours ago, SpiderMana said:

Being that I don’t believe they all have to be the same ship, even, it’ll break a lot of conventional maneuver “rules,” since all three ships in a squadron don’t have the same dial.

Hopefully it won't be just any three ships, or that could get really messy

4 hours ago, SpiderMana said:

That  makes me wonder... did they use the term squadron?  

The terms used were "Flight" and "Flight Leader". In the example pic shown at the panel a TIE Advanced x1 was the flight leader and 2 TIE/Lns were the rest of the example flight. The x1 had performed a 2 bank and the /Lns had been placed with the Flight template with 1 positioning as if it had done a 1 bank and the other a 3 bank.

1 hour ago, Hiemfire said:

The terms used were "Flight" and "Flight Leader". In the example pic shown at the panel a TIE Advanced x1 was the flight leader and 2 TIE/Lns were the rest of the example flight. The x1 had performed a 2 bank and the /Lns had been placed with the Flight template with 1 positioning as if it had done a 1 bank and the other a 3 bank.

Not quite, look at hi res images of the slide and it's clearly a 3 bank, so yes the outer TIE does the equivalent of a 4 bank.

1 hour ago, rawbean said:

Not quite, look at hi res images of the slide and it's clearly a 3 bank, so yes the outer TIE does the equivalent of a 4 bank.

🤨 Link some...

Edit: actually never mind. What the maneuver performed by the flight leader is is beside the fact that in Epic flights are aligned with the new template centered on the flight leader.

Real question is how the Force does bumping work? Does the whole squadron bump? What if it only bumps when you go to move the wingman? Do you just back track and set a dial for the bumping ships? This sounds really sketchy to me. I love the idea, I just am very confused how it's actually supposed to work.

Side note, I also wish they had added 4 bank to the game.

Can’t find pic. Link?

What images? Someone got links?

I haven't searched for the picture, but I know what he is talking about. Check out this video by Crabbok. He talks about it and shows it.

It’s like Legion and cohesion rules - the move template is used for the lead mini and the rest come along for the ride rather than have to move tool each and every stormtrooper (or tie fighter in this case).

12 hours ago, SpiderMana said:

They said during the panel, I believe, that the two outer ships of the squadron are just aligned with the middle ship to keep things simple. Being that I don’t believe they all have to be the same ship, even, it’ll break a lot of conventional maneuver “rules,” since all three ships in a squadron don’t have the same dial.

That makes me wonder... did they use the term squadron? Will Squadron packs be relevant to that feature of Epic and does that make future Squadron packs more likely?

They used the word "formation" but I think the squad packs could help to inform.

What I'm hoping for in this is that the book (and maybe at some point the squad builder) will have a set of formations that can be built up in different ways. I'd kind of expect this type of building to work a bit like other wargames. You'd have a base group, so for Empire might be TIE/ln, TIE/in, TIE/sa, etc. Then your main option is to upgrade your leader. You could upgrade it with a ship of the same type but you'll also clearly have options of different ship types for the leader. I'd expect the formation to follow the leader for movement but I'm curious if they will also follow for when to attack. This will keep things simpler, at least.

So the squadron packs might suggest some basic configurations. Two V19s and a Delta-7 in the leader position certainly sounds like a common configuration that might be seen and I'd expect the formation building rules to include it.

Alternative to my thoughts above, maybe epic formations will be a bunch of quick-build options. Vader in the x1 with two black squad TIE/ln would be a very thematic quick-build in that case, as would a Jedi leader with two v-19s, or Grievous with two vulture wingmen.

I'm curious to see if medium and large will be parts of formations at all. I expect that large almost definitely won't but medium seems like a long stretch of a maybe.

46 minutes ago, BrotherFett said:

I haven't searched for the picture, but I know what he is talking about. Check out this video by Crabbok. He talks about it and shows it.

Thanks that is also where i saw the pic.

I suspect, regarding what to do with squadron cohesion and bumping, that the squadron flight tool will only be used at a certain range (when enemy ships are beyond range 5, for instance). Otherwise there's no good way to do bumping. You could say, "Well, move the flight leader, then align the tool and place the other ships" ... but what if that makes them bump? I can't really think of a clean solution, other than using it to close distance, then switching to "normal" movement. It will still save significant time.

I think it will work like you said. Move the flight leader then arrange the rest of the ships on the wing tool to avoid collisions. I don't really like the idea of two different movement systems being used. It opens it up to cheese and abuse switching between the two. I know epic is supposed to be casual but I like consistency in my games. I have designed and printed my own for testing and to get I feel for it. I just haven't had time to try it.

I imagine bumping breaks the formation and you have to move ships individually

There might be bonuses to keeping a formation together (maybe not requiring exact lineup but all wingmen within a certain range of the lead fighter). Possibly as long as they remain within the formation range, the ship that was left behind can "catch up" on the next maneuver. If the formation is truly broken (probably a wingman beyond range 1 of the lead fighter) then either the formation might have a way to reform (wingmen back within range 1 of the lead fighter) so that on the next maneuver they return to moving together OR the formation is done forever and whatever bonuses that may have meant are now gone. I would also assume a broken formation means the ships broken out of formation fly using their own template.

And from what I can tell, there's not really a different maneuver system. The only addition is that after moving your lead fighter, you use the formation tool to match its wingmen to it. Individual ships (I assume large ships will not fly in formations) will still use regular templates.

11 hours ago, gjnido said:

I imagine bumping breaks the formation and you have to move ships individually

Like in Heroes of the Atari Cluster. This is how I predict it will work.

I wonder if a squad that moves together shoots together in an effort to speed up gameplay. Like, combine the attack power or double the highest attack power in the flight.

1 hour ago, Kehl_Aecea said:

I wonder if a squad that moves together shoots together in an effort to speed up gameplay. Like, combine the attack power or double the highest attack power in the flight.

If you want to be really thematic, only the squad leader shoots and the wingmen crash into him when they are shot at.

3 hours ago, Kehl_Aecea said:

I wonder if a squad that moves together shoots together in an effort to speed up gameplay. Like, combine the attack power or double the highest attack power in the flight.

I really hope that they shoot together. Maybe not necessarily in the way you're describing but maybe at least at the same Initiative step.

8 hours ago, CaptainJaguarShark said:

I really hope that they shoot together. Maybe not necessarily in the way you're describing but maybe at least at the same Initiative step.

Yeah, not gonna lie... I put... ZERO thought into this and realized that there is a max cap of 6 ships per wing movement tool... so, 6 basic TIE Fighters would be rolling 12 dice at once.. that would be disgusting.

14 minutes ago, Kehl_Aecea said:

Yeah, not gonna lie... I put... ZERO thought into this and realized that there is a max cap of 6 ships per wing movement tool... so, 6 basic TIE Fighters would be rolling 12 dice at once.. that would be disgusting.

Maybe not. If you're going to combine attack dice, then it stands to reason that you'd combine defense dice, and have a rule about allocating hits to squads instead of individual ships.

Though this all opens up a can of worms, converting single ships to squads for movement, actions, attacks, etc.

I'm wondering if they limit the build at all too on squads. Like you can have Luke, but his wingman are generics. That would be in line with Armada at least a little.