Is there a down side? The only down side I can think of is the 2pts for the veteran leader upgrade. Is it the case that if you have 3 ships of the same type it should always be made a wing.
If wings moved at the lowest pilot skill instead of highest would people still take them? In my mind you would still use wings on the initial engagement and ease of movement then the leader would have to leave the wing if they wanted to do their arc dodging thing.
Positionally you have a high concentration of ships in a single spot, which cuts down on what you have left to maneuver with and form boxes.
You also have the higher potential of being dodged entirely by faster ships since your firing arcs are so close together and uniform in direction.
The downside is that you commit to moving together, or you have to overtly commit to a split ahead of time. This makes the individual ships more predictable, since instead of having to project 3+ ships you can project a single entity.
Of course, the flipside is that this makes it easier for the controlling player, too.
Broadly speaking, wings are a Good Thing, and I would pay the two points for the improved quality of life alone, never mind the power gains. I suppose they have trouble with AOE and control effects (ionize the wing leader!), but those are tolerable.
Thank you for your insight. They do seem to be a net benefit. I guess my real issue is that the conversion kits came with just two dials for most ships
Two downsides come to mind. First, the wingmates are limited to specific actions. Really, the only actions that your ships may miss out on are reload, rotate turret, and actions on damage/upgrade cards.
Second, in scenarios that involve securing objectives, having ships clumped together can leave you in a bad or predictable spot. This also depends on how many ships/points you are putting in your wings, so probably not a big issue in most cases.
To me, the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages, so if I ever have 3 of a given ship type (small base, obviously), they will almost always go in a wing.
Also, what is the advantage of a mid ps wing over a low ps wing? Battle hardened veterans should have an advantage. Or is it all about the leader, who should seemingly be less effective since they are now trying to lead a wing, possibly full of rookie pilots.
25 minutes ago, BenDay said:Also, what is the advantage of a mid ps wing over a low ps wing? Battle hardened veterans should have an advantage. Or is it all about the leader, who should seemingly be less effective since they are now trying to lead a wing, possibly full of rookie pilots.
In first edition, Epic was a great opportunity to dust off those higher PS generics, because they didn't see play in tournaments. To some extent, that's still true, so coughing up a few more points to shoot enemy ships before they shoot is good.
Also, if there is a specific talent upgrade you want your wingmates to have you have to take higher initiative generics, e.g. Advanced Optics on Omega Sq. Pilots.
Another option is Swarm Tactics on the wing leader so that a dying wingmate gets one more shot before it goes.
If you're taking about named pilots, it's almost always about the pilot ability more than the initiative. In fact, another advantage of wings is that a group of pilots at various initiatives can fly in formation without worrying about activation order.
It will be interesting to see if the initiative wars in Epic 2.0 get as fervent as they were in 1.0. The rule of thumb at one time was "bodies beat out upgrades" so if cutting pilots down to the lowest initiative generics allowed you to take more ships, you were best doing that. With how much damage huge ships can both take and dish out, things may have changed. You might be able to have fewer ships with the initiative it the upgrades to make up for it. Maybe this is where area of effect abilities can be strong.
(P.S. the really interesting one to me has always been Obsidians and Zetas, which are one point more for one initiative higher than the base TIE fighters, but have no talent slot. When the game gets to the point that those guys make a difference it's really interesting trying to predict the meta for a given event).
2 minutes ago, Parakitor said:
It will be interesting to see if the initiative wars in Epic 2.0 get as fervent as they were in 1.0.
Maybe not if people don't get too competitive, but I suspect wings will have ps 5 and 6 leaders and people will start taking initiative bids to try and out maneuver. Swarm tactic will be useful especially on ordnance wings.
3 hours ago, BenDay said:Thank you for your insight. They do seem to be a net benefit. I guess my real issue is that the conversion kits came with just two dials for most ships
Well, if all your ships are in a wing, you need only 1 dial.
But you can forget about ever splitting up. 🤣
10 hours ago, BenDay said:Maybe not if people don't get too competitive, but I suspect wings will have ps 5 and 6 leaders and people will start taking initiative bids to try and out maneuver. Swarm tactic will be useful especially on ordnance wings.
There is no initiative bid in epic. First player is determined by roll-off or some such.
On 12/6/2019 at 6:52 AM, Bort said:There is no initiative bid in epic. First player is determined by roll-off or some such.
Is it? I missed that.
On 12/7/2019 at 2:30 PM, BenDay said:Is it? I missed that.
Epic Rulebook P12, Player Order section, combined with P9, Scenario Setup, step 1. Determine Player order.
Another disadvantage of wings is lack of diversity. One of the guys at the epic event on Saturday came with 2 X-wings, 2 Y-wings, 2 B-wings and AP-5. That meant he couldn't have a wing because he didn't have 3 of any ship type. But He had a broad array of ship roles and abilities with 4 ship types instead of 2 or 3. That should probably factor in to people's decision tree as they plan their epic squads.
7 hours ago, Parakitor said:Another disadvantage of wings is lack of diversity. One of the guys at the epic event on Saturday came with 2 X-wings, 2 Y-wings, 2 B-wings and AP-5. That meant he couldn't have a wing because he didn't have 3 of any ship type. But He had a broad array of ship roles and abilities with 4 ship types instead of 2 or 3. That should probably factor in to people's decision tree as they plan their epic squads.
Meanwhile, an Agent of the Empire twirls his moustache and laughs mockingly....
On 12/5/2019 at 7:01 PM, BenDay said:Swarm tactic will be useful especially on ordnance wings.
Not specifically; Swarm tactics affects engagement order but the usually initiative complaint for wings carrying missiles and torpedoes is the initiative order problems when acquiring the target lock. In that case, since wingmen activate after the wing leader, regardless of their initiative, a high initiative wing leader can provide the ability to 'outfly' an opponent for the purposes of getting target locks. Putting Tomax Bren in a TIE/sa bomber wing makes sense just for his I5 for this reason, despite Captain Jonus' frankly awesome ability.
On 12/5/2019 at 6:53 PM, Parakitor said:(P.S. the really interesting one to me has always been Obsidians and Zetas, which are one point more for one initiative higher than the base TIE fighters, but have no talent slot. When the game gets to the point that those guys make a difference it's really interesting trying to predict the meta for a given event).
The problem with the 'mid tier' ships - Obsidian and Zeta - is that even if you think "I will have the higher initiative generics" my default reaction is to reach for Omega Squadron or Black Squadron; moving from I1 to I2 only moves you to 'level' with a lot of low-tier generic pilots (most of the rebel heavies have I2 'basic' pilots, for example) and you need to increase your initiative by 2 to 'skip' an opponent.
On 12/5/2019 at 6:53 PM, Parakitor said:Also, if there is a specific talent upgrade you want your wingmates to have you have to take higher initiative generics, e.g. Advanced Optics on Omega Sq. Pilots.
[pedantic]That's a tech upgrade[/pedantic] but I know what you mean. Even buying up to I3 is often not worth it without also taking the chance to pack stuff like Crack Shot.
I4 is about the lowest value I'd consider buying just for the sake of initiative value - Saber Squadron Interceptors are quite tempting as an en-masse force for this reason, thinking about it; TIE interceptors were always moderately nice in epic because they gave you a 'true' 3-dice attack for about the lowest cost going, and with I4 you can lay down enough fire to seriously impact someone's quality of life before most generics ever get to fire - and even get 'last ditch' shots against I4 named pilots.
4 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:[pedantic]That's a tech upgrade[/pedantic] but I know what you mean. Even buying up to I3 is often not worth it without also taking the chance to pack stuff like Crack Shot.
Yep. I totally meant Fanatical, but I wrote the wrong thing, a problem more and more common these days.
I was going to say I'm not sure fanatical is that great either - concentrated fire being likely to destroy a ship entirely rather than just leave it 'shields down' - but I guess a First Order Elite with TIE/fo wingmen might make good use of it; slope-shoulder 1 damage to a wingman and enable fanatical into the bargain.
37 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:I was going to say I'm not sure fanatical is that great either - concentrated fire being likely to destroy a ship entirely rather than just leave it 'shields down' - but I guess a First Order Elite with TIE/fo wingmen might make good use of it; slope-shoulder 1 damage to a wingman and enable fanatical into the bargain.
This exactly. Of course, they can still choose to target the wingmates instead of the leader. Shrug. You also get those situations where one enemy ship doesn't have arc or range on the target that everybody else has been shooting, so Fanatical could be active on more than one ship. Eh, Fanatical doesn't look fantastic in Epic, but I think it's worth putting it on the table a few times to see how it shakes out.
On 12/5/2019 at 8:05 AM, BenDay said:Is there a down side? The only down side I can think of is the 2pts for the veteran leader upgrade. Is it the case that if you have 3 ships of the same type it should always be made a wing.
If wings moved at the lowest pilot skill instead of highest would people still take them? In my mind you would still use wings on the initial engagement and ease of movement then the leader would have to leave the wing if they wanted to do their arc dodging thing.
The whole point of Wings was to make larger games easier (aka faster).
19 hours ago, Parakitor said:Another disadvantage of wings is lack of diversity. One of the guys at the epic event on Saturday came with 2 X-wings, 2 Y-wings, 2 B-wings and AP-5. That meant he couldn't have a wing because he didn't have 3 of any ship type. But He had a broad array of ship roles and abilities with 4 ship types instead of 2 or 3. That should probably factor in to people's decision tree as they plan their epic squads.
How did that player make out? They must have had a huge ship as well right.
18 minutes ago, heychadwick said:The whole point of Wings was to make larger games easier (aka faster).
And they do that, but they do more than that as well. I am just trying to figure out if there is any consideration or compromise when taking wings. It does seem that with a choice between three pairs or two trips, the trips will be stronger for same points.
i am very curious about parakitor’s comment above.
Edited by BenDay5 minutes ago, BenDay said:How did that player make out? They must have had a huge ship as well right.
No, we didn't require it because he came in and replaced somebody who left early, so he only played in the 900 point brawl. But those Rebel ships feasted on all the i1 vultures and TIE fighters, so it worked well for him in that game.
And in Epic format, you don't need a Huge ship to begin with. Well, maybe if a specific scenario or Event says you do. But otherwise they are still optional. Speaking of Wings... I don't have enough Rebel small ships to form a single Wing. I have 2 X-wings, 1 B-wing, and 1 Y wing. Oh, and a sheathepod.
17 hours ago, Faerie1979 said:And in Epic format, you don't need a Huge ship to begin with. Well, maybe if a specific scenario or Event says you do. But otherwise they are still optional. Speaking of Wings... I don't have enough Rebel small ships to form a single Wing. I have 2 X-wings, 1 B-wing, and 1 Y wing. Oh, and a sheathepod.
Yeah, that sounds like my scum. If wait, I guess I do have 4 Y-wings and 3 Z-95s. I'm looking to pick up a couple more Khiraxz and M3-A interceptors.