I played a Team Epic game over the weekend at 800 points a side. I was in command of an Imperial Raider, each of my 8-year-olds had an ace-led wing, and another teammate completed our force. The other side fielded 800 points of Scum, including a C-ROC affectionately called “the Crocodile”.

My Raider build was a slightly modified version from what I posted in this thread : Corvus, Admiral Sloane, Targeting Battery, Ordnance Tubes, Concussion Missiles, Proton Torpedoes, Ordnance Team, Bombardment Specialists, Optimized Power Core.

Here are my takeaways:

· We got through 7 turns in about 2 hours—not bad at all! It took us half an hour to setup, due mostly to component-sharing issues. We’ll do better next time.

o For comparison, we’d staged a pre-epic “big game” with 600 points a team, and got through about ~10-11 turns in about 2.5 hours. Epic let us add 200 points to the game and maintain the old-style pace. Wow.

· Wings are *wonderful*. The quality of life improvements alone are worth the cost of admission; my 8-year-olds had no trouble getting around the battlefield and contributing, particularly my daughter’s Soontir-led Interceptor wing.

· The combat utility of wings is real, too. The problem with aces in 1.0 epic was they couldn’t dodge everyone and got clubbed to death by generics. With wings, aces can keep themselves safer, longer—giving time for the field to thin out so they can really go to work.

o Case in point: my son’s Vader died when his wingmates got blocked—isolating Vader and leaving him unable to shift damage to the generics.

· The benefits of wings work both ways: Alpha Interceptors get to be dragged along (at Ini6!) as Soontir does Soontir things, then snap into place, unstressed, able to focus, and ready to kill. Hooray for wings!

· My Raider build was aesthetically pleasing in the way the bits all worked together. I used everything, and every upgrade seemed vital to the ship’s performance.

· If you’re a two-hardpoint huge ship, staple Targeting Battery to one of those hardpoints. The flexibility and bonus mods it grants are terrific, and any damage it deals (and it is a three-dice shot) is just gravy.

· Anything a Raider—particularly an ordnance Raider—bullseyes, dies. Poof.

· Ordnance Team was a last-moment flex, as I wasn’t sure if I wanted that or Damage Control Team. Consider me a believer. In part thanks to Optimized Power Core I had a good amount of energy when I burned my last munitions; cashing it in for two torpedoes, two missiles, and discarding the Disarm token kept me in the fight, hitting hard.

· That said, if you’re ever not reinforcing this thing, you’re either in a spectacularly winning position or you’re about to lose the ship.

· I am more skeptical than ever of Tibanna Reserves. Actions are at an extreme premium for Huge ships; spending one action for two energy seems a losing trade. Optimized Power Core is terrific if your dial and style support it.

I’m supposed to be skeptical of results that agree too strongly with my priors, and it was just one game. Still, even if some of these ideas get proven wrong with more practice, it was a thrilling game and a lot of fun. Yay Epic 2.0!

What did you have in your list that Sloane could trigger off of. I'm asking because allied ships aren't considered friendly ships per the Epic Rules Ref.

1 hour ago, Hiemfire said:

What did you have in your list that Sloane could trigger off of. I'm asking because allied ships aren't considered friendly ships per the Epic Rules Ref.

We said for the purposes of our game that all Imperials were friendly to each other, and vice versa for Scum.

23 minutes ago, ChahDresh said:

We said for the purposes of our game that all Imperials were friendly to each other, and vice versa for Scum.

That works.

Played a 2v2 500 point a side match.

Raider, gozonti loaded with 4 ties, Vader Agent of the empire with 3 ties

Vs

Cr90 with 2 docked Ys, Luke wing leader with 2 Xs, Gr75

Takeaways:

1. Lots of fun!

2. Jamming off reinforce is strong

3. Targetting batteries are great for doing potential damage and getting a target lock for...

4. Turbo lazers are incredible! They absolutely decimate opposing epic ships. My opponent made the mistake of trying to hit vader with the turbo laser two turns in a row. Missing both times. I used my raiders turbo laser to decimate his cr90 2 turns in a row.

5. Wings are amazing for epic. So elegant. Way less dials

6. Epic ships seem indestructible and so powerful...until the crits start piling up. In one shot my raider took 2 crits that both lowered my energy restoration by 1. Then I got ionized so I couldn't spend an action to repair those cards. Raiders with turbolaser and no energy are sad pandas.

7. The liberator title is fun on the CR90. Being able to unload 2 double tapping double modded y wings with ion cannon turrets after every ship has moved is deadly.

1 hour ago, TBot said:

7. The liberator title is fun on the CR90. Being able to unload 2 double tapping double modded y wings with ion cannon turrets after every ship has moved is deadly.

Um... that would be deadly. Which is why undocking happens in the system phase, BEFORE everyone has moved.

Agree with your other points though.

1 hour ago, ChahDresh said:

Um... that would be deadly. Which is why undocking happens in the system phase, BEFORE everyone has moved.

Agree with your other points though.

Oops I goofed that one. Im sad to hear that. That makes the gozanti much less powerful. Was that ruling different in 1st edition?

1 hour ago, TBot said:

Oops I goofed that one. Im sad to hear that. That makes the gozanti much less powerful. Was that ruling different in 1st edition?

Yes it was, which is why I loved having nimble TIE interceptors on board. Turns out they are still good docked to a Gozanti, especially with the appropriate title ( Vector ) so they can focus + evade.

I played two games of four way 500 pt battles. Some were absolutely new to the game and others were experts from the 1st Ed.

It's not the best for weekday game nights. It takes a long time. Most people did not have a list in mind ahead of time and definitely didn't have cards printed out or sorted beforehand. Both games went over 3 hours and we ended up calling it.

Table size is important. We had some that were too big and should probably think about shrinking the size down for things.

Targeting Battery is as good as I had thought.

Wings are powerful.

Ramming the enemy is nasty!

Turbo Lasers are overrated. People that took them ended up firing them maybe once, if that many times. If you want to use one, you have to really work at it.

55 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

I played two games of four way 500 pt battles. Some were absolutely new to the game and others were experts from the 1st Ed.

It's not the best for weekday game nights. It takes a long time. Most people did not have a list in mind ahead of time and definitely didn't have cards printed out or sorted beforehand. Both games went over 3 hours and we ended up calling it.

Table size is important. We had some that were too big and should probably think about shrinking the size down for things.

Did you play Intel Pickup? If so, what did you think of it? And can you elaborate on table size -- do you mean the physical table, or just that 8 players is too many?

Quote

Turbo Lasers are overrated. People that took them ended up firing them maybe once, if that many times. If you want to use one, you have to really work at it.

What went wrong with the Turbos? Range or energy?