Epic play is different enough from Standard that our valuation of things changes. Some things are proportionally better or worse when you scale them up. We know from 1.0 experience, for example, that generics/numbers are better in epic than standard play, and that arc dodgers are worse (since there are so many more arcs to dodge).

What else? What other ships, pilots, and upgrades might thrive in an epic environment? Let’s take a look.

GENERAL

Multiple targets : if it can hurt more than one target, it’s going to be better when there are more targets to hit. Prepare to see a lot of Diamond Boron Missiles and Tragedy Simulator bombs. Prepare to see the Electro-proton Bomb go from meme to tactical nuke. Conversely, beneficial effects that can help lots of allies are also more valuable—the more targets, the better.

Bullseye effects : few and far between are pilots that can maximize bullseye effects in standard play. Accordingly, most bullseye effects are priced aggressively. In Epic play, things are different. Not only are there more targets (and thus more chances of accidentally bullseying something), but Huge ships and Wings are particularly vulnerable to giving up bullseye shots. As examples, the Heavy Laser Cannon seems an ideal tool to knock down Huge ships’ regenerating shields, and follow-up attacks with Marksmanship can be particularly harsh.

Things that help Huge ships : the preview materials thus far suggest Huge ships can be tremendous forces in battle. Any support ability that’s useful on your typical ship is that much more powerful boosting a Huge.

As we go faction-by-faction, I’ll be pointing out potential stars of Epic, based largely on these two principles. I’ll avoid crew, as there’s an excellent discussion of good epic crew in this thread , except for one which demands mention…

REBELLION

Leia (crew): You knew she’d be here. The more ships she can affect, the better she gets. Unlimited range, unlimited targets, no arc requirement, no questions asked. What’s not to love?

Gavin Darklighter: unlimited friendlies turn a hit to crit when shooting as long as the target’s in Gavin’s arc. Nice.

Saw Gerrera: Saw synergizes nicely with the Wing mechanic of damage-spreading. Any opponent that tries to force damage onto a wing leader risks spreading it to the wingmen—which, in turn, lets Saw boost those attacks. Saw also works great with Huge ships, passively boosting every single shot they take—which can be a lot. And he does this with a solid body himself, while filling his usual coordinating/Leia-carrying U-Wing role. As a more defensive option, Magva has great potential for nerfing lock-based alpha strikes.

Roark Garnet: what’s scarier than a CR-90’s broadside battery plus bonus attacks? A CR-90’s broadside battery plus bonus attacks shooting first . Can’t drain my energy if I used it all on bonus attacks at Ini7, fools! And Roark can carry Leia to boot.

Fenn Rau: not every Epic opponent is going to bring a Huge ship, and among those that do not every Huge ship is going to be a Raider/CR-90-level menace. When those Raiders and CR-90s do hit the table, though, the last thing they want to see is someone saying, “Nah, you can’t use tokens.” Tee-hee.

EMPIRE

Colonel Jendon: Jendon is great in standard, where he affects 2-4 ships. Imagine him in Epic affecting three times that many, then coordinating your Huge ship. The only reason I don’t consider him an auto-include is because…

Captain Kagi: …his inverse exists. There might not be a ship in the game that can do more to shield your Huge from powerful attacks than Kagi. Remember, he doesn’t have to be in range of the people locking, he just has to be in range of the ships that got locked —meaning he can be tucked safely away, helping from afar, denying the ability to use those attacks altogether, yielding action advantage on a huge scale.

Maarek Steele: Give him Marksmanship and FCS and point him at a huge ship with its shields down. Then cackle.

Gideon Hask: not that he’s likely to be an All-Star or anything. Still, in a world where huge ships will take damage that they nurse for several turns, Gideon has the chance to be an extremely cost-efficient nuisance.

Punishers: what was that about Tragedy Simulator bombs? You want how many Tragedy Simulator bombs? All of them? Can do!

SCUM

Torani Kulda: remember how bullseying fools is a lot easier in epic? How does a super-strong bullseye ability sound to you? I thought so. Add Cluster Missiles to proc it twice.

Ahhav: like Gideon, less of a game-changer and more a piece who can punch way above his weight class. Alas, Seevor (and his jamming, which Huges hate) is probably still better.

Drea Renthal: Huge ships aren’t limited. Just saying. Plus, generics are a lot more common in Epic anyway.

Kath Scarlet: if you can’t force her ability in Epic, it’s just not happening.

Emon Azzameen/Sol Sixxa/Captain Nym: who needs Tragedy Simulator when you can just throw bombs wherever you want? Bonus points for Boba Fett crew allowing even kookier shenanigans.

RESISTANCE

Black One: we need to see the rules for how wings work to understand just how silly this might be. As-is, we know that a Wing forms up on the Wing leader, no matter what they did to get to their new position—meaning Black One just went from a limited upgrade to a Wing-wide one. Temmin Wexley with Black One can go from his deployment zone to just outside the enemy’s in one activation, and now he can drag a full wing of T-70s with him. Sounds fun to me!

MG-100 Starfortress: falls into the same category as Kath where, if they’re not good here, they never will be.

FIRST ORDER

Avenger: I guess?

Lieutenant Dormitz with Hyperspace Tracking Data: remember when this guy was broken? Remember when he was forcing turn-one jousts with a token advantage? Remember how FFG fixed it by upping his price point so the rest of the squad didn’t have enough beef to abuse Dormitz? Yeah, there are more points available in Epic. This guy will be a jerk.

GALACTIC REPUBLIC

Sinker: He’s already really good. Now he can affect even more friendlies. Cool.

Padme: potentially. Unlimited targets is nice, and you can use Bravos to protect her in a wing more cost-effectively than using Handmaidens. Huge ships relying on Calculate (and thus being able to affect only one eyeball at a time anyway) might devalue her a bit.

SEPARATISTS

Everything. The whole faction, pretty much. The faction that’s designed to swarm is built from the ground up to scale infinitely. Okay, Kraken doesn’t. But the other Relays do, as do Sear (!), DRK-1 probe droids, and tractor abilities. Separatists in epic will be gross.

I don't know if it will be genuinely good, but GA-97/It's the Resistance! might be fun for dropping a full health huge ship (potentially with docked fighters if/when the Resistance gets a ship that can do that) in your opponent's lap after a few turns. Better than in standard play, anyway, with more ships to hold the fort until it triggers.

@ChahDresh your list of generalities is good. Everytime I think of something else that might be good, it falls into one of those categories.

For example, First Order can use Heavy Laser Cannon on the Upsilon shuttles for pretty good odds of getting 5-dice attacks (bullseye out to range 3, and forward arc range 1). Throw Perceptive Copilot and Advanced Optics on them and you have a very accurate big gun. Heck, might as well spend an extra 10 points for Advanced Sensors just to be sure you get your focus tokens. Lt. Tavson kitted out this way comes in at 90 points. I almost guarantee this will see play.

Yeah, Separatists are going to be very strong in this format. I wouldn't be surprised if their tactical relays and such get a different point cost for Epic. Do you know yet the ship cap limit? It was 12 in 1.0 if I remember correctly.

Off the top of my head a few pilots that don't see the light of day in normal play may have some use in Epic:

Avenger for the FO, friendly ships should be going down regularly. Lots of actions for him. Blackout maybe too, if huge ships obstruct attacks like they did in 1.0

Zertik Storm, Keep flipping nasty Crits on huge ships. He could be fairly annoying.

You forgot Serrisu... I bet she will shine as well.

Rebels have Evaan Verlaine. Add Selfless on her and maybe a cannon or torpedo for about 40 points total, and escort a CR90 and feed it +1 Agility every turn. +1 Agility + Selfless to redirect crits to herself (very handy vs. Turbolasers, to make them miss more often, and vs. Proton Torpedoes, which she's guaranteed to be able to absorb a hit from) will make a CR90 a really tough nut to crack. She can also help other low Agility ships like Han Solo in the early game to avoid going up in flames, something I've already been using to great success in some casual Standard matches with Luke and Han.

Magva and Saw in the U-Wings will be pretty strong support craft with their abilities brought into Epic.

For Scum, Dace Bonearm with any source of Ion will be pretty annoying for huge ships (and can be the source of it himself with 4-LOM or Feedback Array + Static Discharge Vanes), being able to zap 3 energy once every 3 turns.

Don't forget about IG-88s, either. ABC with D either in an Aggressor or in a crew slot for massively stacked abilities, Azmorigan acts like a pseudo Kraken that can let 2 ships keep Calculate or Evade tokens, and Guri, 4-LOM, L3-37 and G4R-G0R V/M can round out a Brobots list with plenty of Calculate networking to go around. C-ROCs can also get the Calculate action pretty easily, so even non-IG-88D C-ROCs can synergize with Brobots. Scum Droids will be a thing. Bonus points for Brobots all being able to carry Tragedy Simulator bombs to annihilate swarms.

Resistance has M9-G8, so as soon as it gets something stronger than a GR-75 all you have to do is lock it and enjoy free rerolls on every attack.

I hadn't thought of it before, but I think Jamming Beam will finally see the light of day. Huge Ships have 0 agility and are likely to be able to stack a LOT of tokens --including Reinforce--, so I could see it being valuable enough that players would even be willing to PAY for it. Stripping Reinforce would be well worth sacrificing one attack with the volume of attacks Epic will have, and Jamming Beam has potential to strip many of their offense tokens, or even suppress Targeting Battery.

Ahhh so many good thoughts! I can't wait to play!!!

I'm surprised you didn't think of Admiral Sloan. Put her on an aggressive Raider and see how many rerolls you get! Don't forget that enemy stresses themselves due to their own moves, as well as friendlies dying.

1 hour ago, heychadwick said:

I'm surprised you didn't think of Admiral Sloan. Put her on an aggressive Raider and see how many rerolls you get! Don't forget that enemy stresses themselves due to their own moves, as well as friendlies dying.

She's good, but she was already mentioned in the companion thread that focuses on crew. She will paint a huge bullseye (pun intended) on whatever ship she's placed on, so it will be interesting to see how she's played. Probably Turbolaser fodder, but that is a pretty expensive weapon to use.

By the way, I finally caught up to your episodes. I love hearing you guys talk about Epic/Huge ships. Can't wait for more!

It seems like a lot of standard play abilities will give unintended consequences in epic. I wonder if they will add caveats like " does not work on huge ships" or perhaps they will rely on the players to avoid NPEs (since I don't think it will be competitive) or perhaps the old fenn shuttle will just become public enemy number one.

On ‎10‎/‎14‎/‎2019 at 12:14 AM, BenDay said:

It seems like a lot of standard play abilities will give unintended consequences in epic. I wonder if they will add caveats like " does not work on huge ships" or perhaps they will rely on the players to avoid NPEs (since I don't think it will be competitive) or perhaps the old fenn shuttle will just become public enemy number one.

They did that in Epic 1.0. I remember nearly invincible Biggs was a thing. I do hope they have some lessons learned from the 1st edition.

Thane with Dreadnought Hunter will be dangerous. Same with Rexler or Maarek.

Dalan in the Kimogila finally might be able to use his ability, as Huges regen shields, so he can nap a shield in later rounds.

Finally a use for Jabba! Even if he still is expensive, cause he costs 1.5pt per extra usage of an Illicit.

Gunbloats are relatively cheap, i wonder if a cannon or reloading munitions wing of Gunbloats slamming though the battlefield could be good as well.

Looking forward to have a wing of Kihraxzes with the leader being Talonbane, or Graz (with afterburners to get behind Huge ships) [i own 6 :)]

4 minutes ago, Managarmr said:

Thane with Dreadnought Hunter will be dangerous. Same with Rexler or Maarek.

Dreadnought hunter doesn't pair with Thane's or Rexler's ability since both of those expose damage cards rather than dealing face-up damage cards as part of an attack.

I don't think it was mentioned yet, but Handmaiden N-1's can as far as I know pass their decoy condition to an epic chassis. Meaning against at least some attacks they will have 2 free evades ready to do as long as they move fast together. Probably won't be great, but it will be something.

On 10/15/2019 at 8:06 PM, joeshmoe554 said:

Dreadnought hunter doesn't pair with Thane's or Rexler's ability since both of those expose damage cards rather than dealing face-up damage cards as part of an attack.

Keywords, right.

So for automatic crits Maarek, or Markmansship Autoblaster (e.g. Scyk, Gunbloat). Maybe Fifth Brother.

Maybe a dark horse for Dreadnought Hunter:

Wulffwarro with Dreadnought Hunter and Saw crew.

You would have to have a number of other high threats so that Wolffwarro can "hide" and survives coming in (only 1 green, albeit reinforcing(!)), and have to use Saw cautiously in order to burn down to "damaged", but not die too early. In Epic Wulffwarro probably wants to reinforce, so for mods Magva crew is a consideration (Punches brutally, if damaged, 5 almost completely modded dice at range 1). Very expensive, and you probably might want to have Magva instead as U-wing pilot protecting your ships. Otherwise an even more expensive build would be Gonk - though highly doubtful that this is worth it (costs and in rounds using GNK Wulffwarro cannot reinforce, and reinforce is probably much more useful in Epic).

7 hours ago, Managarmr said:

Maybe a dark horse for Dreadnought Hunter:

Wulffwarro with Dreadnought Hunter and Saw crew.

You would have to have a number of other high threats so that Wolffwarro can "hide" and survives coming in (only 1 green, albeit reinforcing(!)), and have to use Saw cautiously in order to burn down to "damaged", but not die too early. In Epic Wulffwarro probably wants to reinforce, so for mods Magva crew is a consideration (Punches brutally, if damaged, 5 almost completely modded dice at range 1). Very expensive, and you probably might want to have Magva instead as U-wing pilot protecting your ships. Otherwise an even more expensive build would be Gonk - though highly doubtful that this is worth it (costs and in rounds using GNK Wulffwarro cannot reinforce, and reinforce is probably much more useful in Epic).

Perhaps after a few turns he can leave the battle field and go to a GR-75 to get some shields back.

Just once, I want to see a swarm of 26 Trade federation drones (494 points).

It will be brutal, and glorious.

Question is, what's the best counter?

I'm inclined just to spam rebel transports and ram them all. Line it up right and they'll all pile into each other trying to escape, and you'll surely take out a bunch of them in the process. Then a crack squad for swooping it and taking out stragglers.

12 minutes ago, Bentham said:

Question is, what's the best counter?

I'm inclined just to spam rebel transports and ram them all. Line it up right and they'll all pile into each other trying to escape, and you'll surely take out a bunch of them in the process. Then a crack squad for swooping it and taking out stragglers.

Cr-90 with point defense battery. Just do a speed three maneuver into them. Pick off stragglers with battery and primary weapon.

2 hours ago, Bentham said:

Just once, I want to see a swarm of 26 Trade federation drones (494 points).

It will be brutal, and glorious.

Question is, what's the best counter?

I'm inclined just to spam rebel transports and ram them all. Line it up right and they'll all pile into each other trying to escape, and you'll surely take out a bunch of them in the process. Then a crack squad for swooping it and taking out stragglers.

A front line of bombers with trajectory simulated, agile/tanky fighters to intercept, a huge ship to pick them off outside of range 3, or a good old table flip!

Weren't you limited to only 8 maximum of each ship before in Epic? If that is kept in 2.0, the spammiest list you could do is 8 Trade Federation Drones, 8 Techno Union Bombers and 4 Stalgasin Hive Guards for a 496pt 20 ship list, which Scum can match with 8 Zs, 8 MGTs and some mix of 4 Escape Shuttles/M3-As. I'm pretty sure these sorts of lists won't do terribly well due to Trajectory Simulator bombs, and one archetype that's sure to do well (Scum Droids) will have 3-4 keystone ships (Aggressors) that can easily take Tragedy Protons and make swarms sad.

One thing I think will really damage huge ships is a Conner Nets + Trajectory Simulator combo. Since ion takes energy off of huge ships, launching 1-2 Conner Nets at huge ships can easily knock out all it's energy. This is especially big since it knocks out all of there bonus attacks.

5 hours ago, Bentham said:

Just once, I want to see a swarm of 26 Trade federation drones (494 points).

It will be brutal, and glorious.

Eesh, that's a lot of ships to move individually. Hopefully those 6 points are enough for 4 wing leaders. Heck, at that point with 24 vultures, I think instead of adding 2 more I'd try to get a Tactical Relay in there. Might not fit, though. But the idea of flying 4 wings is very exciting! "Can't trajectory Bing all of us!"

20 hours ago, bob gringo said:

One thing I think will really damage huge ships is a Conner Nets + Trajectory Simulator combo. Since ion takes energy off of huge ships, launching 1-2 Conner Nets at huge ships can easily knock out all it's energy. This is especially big since it knocks out all of there bonus attacks.

You can't do that. Tragedy Simulator only throws bombs, i.e. Seismic and Proton. Conner Net is not a "bomb", nor is Proximity Mine.

The only way to "launch" a mine forward right now is with Constable Zuvio, and can only drop it 1 forward. Which actually can be pretty flexible with Delayed Fuses, since it gives you the ability to set the mine and fly over it without it blowing up in your face.

On 10/21/2019 at 2:50 PM, Enigami said:

The only way to "launch" a mine forward right now is with Constable Zuvio, and can only drop it 1 forward. Which actually can be pretty flexible with Delayed Fuses, since it gives you the ability to set the mine and fly over it without it blowing up in your face.

The Separatists also have a 3-dot Bombardment Drone with the same pilot ability. It’s a pretty fun thing to do, though I’m not sure how strong it is.

On 10/21/2019 at 12:50 PM, Enigami said:

The only way to "launch" a mine forward right now is with Constable Zuvio, and can only drop it 1 forward. Which actually can be pretty flexible with Delayed Fuses, since it gives you the ability to set the mine and fly over it without it blowing up in your face.

43 minutes ago, Matanui3 said:

The Separatists also have a 3-dot Bombardment Drone with the same pilot ability. It’s a pretty fun thing to do, though I’m not sure how strong it is.

The ability is brutal in Furbals using Proxy mines. I'm thinking some places are going to ban Zuvio and Bombardment Drones from Aces High games because of it.