Games and Stuff in Glen Burnie, MD is having an Epic showcase event on Saturday, December 7th for all those people too poor/busy/casual to attend the System Open at PAX Unplugged. So far I'm the only one signed up to attend for sure, but there are about 8 people interested. I'm hoping at least half of them show up. Anybody here on the forums think they'll be able to make it to the event? It would be pretty cool to meet you.

Bring a 300 point squad.
Round One: Passing Engagement
Round Two: Atmospheric Entry
Round Three: To be determined by rounds one and two!

Hope to see you there!

Facebook link , for those that do that.

Gosh, that sounds like a great time. Take pictures!

It was awesome! We had six people show up, and all factions were represented except Scum. Well, Rebels came late, and joined the HUGE 900 point team battle. I made an imgur album with some comments on the pictures. I'll put more of my thoughts down tomorrow.

https://imgur.com/gallery/l8RGwel

EDIT: The album on imgur had problems, so I uploaded it again with a new link. It should work now.

24 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

all factions were represented except Scum.

🤨

So I'm going to ramble a bit, throwing some thoughts down in no particular order. Pictures are in the spoilers for those who worry about data limits on their phones.

The 900 point match was not my favorite. Setting up was fun, but when it came to actually flying it, the huge ships got nuked way too fast. The correct decision would have been to set up our fighters on either side of the Raider and Gozanti so that while the enemy ships are pouring fire into the Raider, our ships could focus down their ships. Unfortunately that is nothing but jousting, which simply amounts to a dice off to see who wins. Not my idea of a fun time. So we, the dark side, spread our ships across our edge so we could react to enemy placement and movement, but dealing with so many ships meant that there were a lot of overlaps and lost actions, and wingmates splitting from wings. It was pretty much chaos.

On a personal note, Tavson at initiative 3 didn't hit as hard as usual because he was only shot by initiative 1 & 2 ships. So he'd bump, lose his action, then roll 2 hits and 3 blanks. Then he'd get shot and be able to get mods. Ugh.

*****

I totally botched the rules on Atmospheric Entry every time I played it. I had the first player trying to reach the gravity well, rather than the exit token in the opposite corner. Strangely, it still felt balanced in all of my previous matches. But this time, it did not. The CR90 could escape at the end of round 2. That's when I realized my mistake. Eager to try it again with the correct rules.

*****

The interaction between Captain Phasma and Petty Officer Thanisson was pretty great. During the end phase, Thanisson allows you to add a second stress to a ship that gains a stress from Phasma (as long as they are in the forward firing arc) by taking a stress on the ship he is equipped to. Huge ships lose energy first, so as long as he's not stressed, he can go from ship to ship, double stressing them. It's fun to pull off, but I can't imagine that it's any fun to play against.

*****

Building your list ahead of time is generally a good idea because you can fine tune it. For example, Proton Rockets do not interact with Ordnance Tubes on the Raider because they are not forward firing arc attacks - they are bullseye instead. So you can't fire them in your full front arc.

Another player had a less than stellar CR90 biuld by just throwing things together in a hurry. It wasn't a real tournament, so we let him make alterations between rounds, but he was on a time crunch, and kept it the way it was. Huge ships need at least one weapon equipped besides the primaries because otherwise they just don't do enough damage for their points, imo.

*****

I alluded to it above, but scenarios are very important for Epic. Without objectives, efficiency dictates that most squads are best off jousting, which just isn't much fun. Passing Engagement is cool because shuttles draw fire away from the ships that you want to see do cool things on the board, like huge ships. Atmospheric Entry is also cool because you can put payload tokens on ships that aren't critical to your squad, so your heavy hitters can do their thing without being attacked by enemy ships. Or you can load up all your payload on a huge ship and hope it survives. There are lots of ways to play it.

*****

Ion Cannon Batteries are amazing! The subtle change between the batteries and the turret/cannon in which you don't actually spend a hit to deal the damage allows them to pile on ions faster. Very neat.

*****

The huge ship damage deck is MEAN! In one game, the Raider had a single damage card, and Concussion Missiles flipped it up so that the raider would receive 2 jam tokens when it engaged. This stripped the lock so it couldn't fire its Turbolasers!

In general, jamming is going to be a real staple in Epic squads that intend to fight huge ships. Being able to strip that reinforce token at will is super potent. And since Jamming Beams are free, I suspect we'll see one or two jamming beams in most squads. Man, they make huge ships so sad!

*****

Over all, I had TONS of fun playing Epic with a bunch of guys that also like to break away from the tournament mold every once in a while. I learned a lot, and I'm looking forward to more!

I had Tibanna Reserves on my Gozanti but never used it. When you need it it's critical, but you may never need it. Good thing it's inexpensive at 3 points. Using an action is a big commitment, though. There will definitely be times you'd rather have the energy, like when the enemy is going to strip all your tokens anyway with jamming, for example.

Can anybody see the pictures in the imgur album? I thought imgur was supposed to be easy, but I've had a heck of a time getting these pictures visible to the public.

Worked fine for me!

Thanks for this, it looks like you all had a blast.