So, after all three Epic games I played, one trendline started to emerge for me: Huge Ships are hugely (he he he) vulnerable against fighter wings. A simple wing of 6 TIE fighters can eat any Huge Ship if they don't have any defenses against it. Reinforce helps a lot, but even then, six guaranteed damage per round (provided there's no Jam around...) is bad news and more than many dedicated ordinance carriers can do. And that whole wing has something to contribute after the enemy Huge Ship has gone down. So, what is everyone's best defense against fighters when it comes to Huge Ships? And what roles do your Huge Ships fill? I feel that the CR90 is the worst off at the moment.

I tried the Point Defense Battery to great effect against bombers that weren't able to turn away in time after their first run.

I'm also thinking about having a wing of three cheap missile carriers with Cluster Missiles around to do some real damage to such a wing.

What are your thoughts?

By the way, we need more strategy discussions. I feel like my setups in Epic games are basically purely random, for example.

Bring your own wing to intercept, possibly a wing of cluster missile boats(in the case of CR90: A-wings, Z95s, or Torrents).

T-65s wings could just straight joust them. ARC-170s would be tricky for them to fly past if flown in a loose formation.

To my mind, the most important ways to keep huges alive are running interference with your own fighters and keeping Reinforce in the right direction. (Range control is important, also.) Shots you eat from your non-reinforced sector rip you up.

Interference is important because shield regen allows the huge to shake off potshots, or recover if it gets hammered but then ignored. So long as your own fighters are able to either deprive the enemy of some shots or force them to split fire, the huge can stick around a while. Being able to break up wings in some fashion (whether via ion, blocks, or the threat of area damage causing voluntary splits) can be pretty nice, too.

I think the huges fly pretty differently in style, as well. A Raider I prefer to set up in a corner. It's a super-heavy jouster, and as with any jouster you want to keep the enemy in front of you. I conceive of the CR-90 differently, as a super-heavy turret ship; you want to bait the enemy into a chase and speed away, spitting fire at your pursuers. In my head, the ideal place to put enemies with a CR-90 is on your back quarters, such that you have those heavy broadside batteries in arc but the enemy is behind your centerline. Then you can reinforce rear and keep the 5-ahead and 3-bank open.

10 hours ago, Cerebrawl said:

Bring your own wing to intercept, possibly a wing of cluster missile boats(in the case of CR90: A-wings, Z95s, or Torrents).

T-65s wings could just straight joust them. ARC-170s would be tricky for them to fly past if flown in a loose formation.

The problem with the X-Wings is that their 2 green dice make them really susceptible to concentrated fire. But else I agree.

10 hours ago, ChahDresh said:

To my mind, the most important ways to keep huges alive are running interference with your own fighters and keeping Reinforce in the right direction. (Range control is important, also.) Shots you eat from your non-reinforced sector rip you up.

Interference is important because shield regen allows the huge to shake off potshots, or recover if it gets hammered but then ignored. So long as your own fighters are able to either deprive the enemy of some shots or force them to split fire, the huge can stick around a while. Being able to break up wings in some fashion (whether via ion, blocks, or the threat of area damage causing voluntary splits) can be pretty nice, too.

I think the huges fly pretty differently in style, as well. A Raider I prefer to set up in a corner. It's a super-heavy jouster, and as with any jouster you want to keep the enemy in front of you. I conceive of the CR-90 differently, as a super-heavy turret ship; you want to bait the enemy into a chase and speed away, spitting fire at your pursuers. In my head, the ideal place to put enemies with a CR-90 is on your back quarters, such that you have those heavy broadside batteries in arc but the enemy is behind your centerline. Then you can reinforce rear and keep the 5-ahead and 3-bank open.

One of your two actions should be Reinforce, I totally agree. I had the problem yesterday that I flew perpendicular to the enemy, so Reinforce wasn't in the cards, as they could just fire at whatever portion of the ship wasn't reinforced. Need to be careful there.

I think I might underrate Ion currently in breaking up the enemy wing. If you manage to Ion the Wing Leader, it breaks apart. Then you ram into it or do something else that doesn't allow the whole wing to 1-straight and rejoin formation. (I never managed for a broken off wingmate to rejoin formation yet.)

I see where you're going with the CR90, but I think that's hard to pull off. And attacks at Range 4 are neutered by the fact that the enemy gets at least 2 defense dice...

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A whole other story: I have the feeling that shooting at the wingmates is usually preferable to firing on the Wing Leader.

Definitely shoot the wing-mates first - removing ships from the board as quickly as possible is better than taking out the leader several turns later.

Reinforce, in case you're miss-playing it, works or doesn't work based on the attacker's location, not on whether it can shoot the un-reinforced half.

And dice results are likely to be more important in epic than in normal - focussed fire means most defense dice will be unmodified so rolling well or badly will make a difference.

Yep. Also, this makes the initiative of the Generics extremely important, because you might be able to kill the wingmen before they can shoot. I'm always trying to have the higher generics in my Epic lists if in any way possible for that reason, which has payed dividends often by now.

I did misplay it, thanks!

Absolutely true.

9 hours ago, Gilarius said:

And dice results are likely to be more important in epic than in normal - focussed fire means most defense dice will be unmodified so rolling well or badly will make a difference.

So Serissu is obviously a big help here. I need to pick up a few more M3-A interceptors.

And the gears are turning in my little FO brain: maybe Captain Cardinal can actually be decent for following a wing of fighters to give them at least some mods while the enemy concentrates fire. Of course, his ability will turn off relatively quickly in Epic, so there are probably better options.

*****

By the way, I'm really enjoying this conversation. It's important to help us strike a balance in our expectations for huge ship performance.

Right now my key philosophy is "punish." That is, if your opponent goes all in on your huge ship, you need to have a squad that can go all in on the attackers. This also means you need to be in position on the board to punish your opponent's decision.

The best kind of ship for this, imo, has a big, accurate attack that can switch targets easily.

For example, TIE bombers with Barrage Rockets can punish well because they will not be attacked, so they will have their focus for the extra attack die. Proton Torpedoes aren't great because you don't know how many locks to put on a target, so if you guess wrong the enemy target may die too soon, wasting a bunch of locks, or if you spread your locks you end up damaging a bunch of ships without destroying them. (I see Cluster Missiles as a happy medium).

Likewise, HLC M3-As are good in Epic, but they aren't great for targeting the enemy fighters that are attacking your huge ship because their big attack is restricted to bullseye.

I'm on the fence about two-dice ships. If they are cheap enough, you can get a bunch of them to fire at the enemy strike force (i.e. their wing of fighters trying to destroy your huge ship), but every time you let the enemy roll defense is a chance they negate your attack. I feel confident in a Howlrunner swarm or Advanced Optics First Order wing, but neither of those are particularly cheap. This will take testing.

EDIT: the key about the "punish" strategy is that your huge ship can't be so focal to your win condition that you lose more by letting it get destroyed than you can dish out by dumping all your fire into its attackers.

2-dice ship are still getting damage through on Huge ships, and often enough, it will be critical damage.

Another key point seems to be maneuvering. Much like in Armada, the initial two rounds should decidedly not consist of pointing all ships at each other and fly away. Flanking is more effective in Epic because Wings really get punished by turning. On the other hand, moving about is much more easy when you have repositioning actions. Another key element to this is Coordinate for the wingleader after they did repositioning actions.

1 hour ago, Stefan said:

2-dice ship are still getting damage through on Huge ships, and often enough, it will be critical damage.

You may have misunderstood my statement above. 2-dice ships certainly contribute against huge ships, but if you're trying to stop the bad guys from shooting your huge ship, do 2-dice ships do enough consistent damage to protect/avenge your huge ship? That's what I'm not sure about yet. It's this whole question of "Now that we know wings do unspeakable things to huge ships, what can we do to stop wings?"

No, there I'm with you. I'm currently very keen on Cluster Missiles on cheap two-dice ships, though. That's two two-three-dice-attacks (what a phrase) for a cheap price, and more isn't realistic anyway.

Dealing with Wings to protect your Huge ship is going to be an important thing in large games. I think that people are just getting into thinking about it as the focus on just huge ships fighting is starting to wear off. I think there are a few ways to deal with it:

1. Blocking the wing/wing leader. You can slow down the whole wing if you can block the Wing Leader. Stick a large or medium based ship where you think they are going and you can make a big mess of the whole thing. Delay it for a turn or two.
2. Break the Wing up. Anyone Ionized or Tractor Beamed is out of the Wing. Do that to the Wing Leader and the whole Wing goes down. There are a number of ways you can do this.
3. Hurt/Kill the Wing. You can do this a number of ways, including Concussion Missiles or Cluster Missiles.
4. Run the Wing over with a Huge ship.
5. Don't put as many points into Huge ships.

1) Lots of ways to block the wing leader. Do it with just a single ship or with your own Wing. If you plan it right, you can even block them in the middle of a crossfire of your best attacks.

2) If you can hit the Wing Leader with Ionize or Tractor Beam, the whole wing goes away. You might have to strip a token from the Wing Leader first and then fire your shot at them. Also, something like an Ion Bomb slung with Trajectory Sim could hit a lot of the whole Wing, so even if not the Leader, you can get enough of them the Wing is no longer effective. Another way of defeating the Wing is to kill the Leader. Massed Homing Missiles can do this. Depending on the ship, you can kill it in 3. Maybe Homing Missiles combined with firing at the Leader to knock a few points off. You can also focus fire on the Leader. If it's only a 2 green die ship, it might be worth it to pile on the hits on him as you can only shunt off a couple of hits. Those hits can get through on a low Hull ship.

3) There are a lot of ways to kill the Wing or Damage them. For starters, if the whole wing is damaged, a Concussion Missile will really mess with them. One way to get the whole Wing damaged is to fire at the Wing Leader, who will then spread the damage to everyone. As long as it's not Shields, you are good. I had my Wing of Interceptors hurt this way. It wasn't fun. Cluster Missiles are another way to spread damage around a Wing, as well. If you get a few sets of Cluster Missiles, you can do that. Trajectory Simulator is another way to sling some damage to hit the whole Wing. Seismic Charges are cheap and can mess with the enemy, but depend on Obstacles. Proton Bombs might seem expensive in a normal game, but in Epic, you can really hurt a lot of ships. Well worth the points and even worse when you have two ships with it. Might even be worth it to hit your own ships in the right situation. Someone else said that Heavy Laser Cannons are only good vs. Huge ships, but if you can get a Wing of ships lined up against another Wing, you can see some hits get through. You can also combo a bunch of these attempts to whittle the enemy Wing down.

4) Aggressively moving your Huge ship forward to run over part or all of the enemy Wing will certainly put a damper on their attempt to shoot you down. Many people don't expect it. You do 1 damage for each speed you are going. You also put the enemy ships behind you and they can't fire at you. Many people don't expect it...unless you do it too often. It can also backfire pretty bad if it falls short and puts you at R1 of lots of enemy.

After reading this topic, I did some theorycrafting on YASB.

Quote

Serissu (40)
Elusive (3)
Cluster Missiles (5)
Veteran Wing Leader (2)

Ship total: 50 Half Points: 25 Threshold: 2

Cartel Spacer (28)
Cluster Missiles (5)

Ship total: 33 Half Points: 17 Threshold: 2

Cartel Spacer (28)
Cluster Missiles (5)

Ship total: 33 Half Points: 17 Threshold: 2

Cartel Spacer (28)
Cluster Missiles (5)

Ship total: 33 Half Points: 17 Threshold: 2

Syndicate Smugglers (58)
Turbolaser Battery (15)
Zuckuss (2)
4-LOM (2)
Bombardment Specialists (6)
Boosted Scanners (8)
Corsair Refit (15)
Concussion Missiles (6)

Ship total: 112 Half Points: 56 Threshold: 8

Syndicate Smugglers (58)
Azmorigan (4)
Ion Cannon Battery (6)
Damage Control Team (3)
Optimized Power Core (6)
Insatiable Worrt (7)
Tibanna Reserves (3)

Ship total: 87 Half Points: 44 Threshold: 9

N'dru Suhlak (31)
Lone Wolf (5)
Proton Rockets (7)
Cloaking Device (5)
Afterburners (6)
Dreadnought Hunter (10)

Ship total: 64 Half Points: 32 Threshold: 2

Captain Seevor (30)
Predator (2)
Veteran Wing Leader (2)

Ship total: 34 Half Points: 17 Threshold: 2

Mining Guild Surveyor (25)
Predator (2)

Ship total: 27 Half Points: 14 Threshold: 2

Mining Guild Surveyor (25)
Predator (2)

Ship total: 27 Half Points: 14 Threshold: 2


Total: 500

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0: https://raithos.github.io/?f=Scum and Villainy&d=v8ZeZ500Z132X119WW98W259Y139XW98WY139XW98WY139XW98WY376XW273W66W31W275W283WWWW308WWW99Y376X262W269WWW277W286WWW307WW285Y156X124W102W91W105W260Y247X127WW259Y248X127WWY248X127WW&sn=Unnamed Squadron&obs=

The Sniper C-ROC, as nasty as it is, is good for 2-3 good shots at full output. But in that time it should draw a LOT of aggro, being able to snipe wingleaders out of their formations. It is ultimately expendable.

Seresu brings the pain, with an Inititive 5 cluster missile formation, potentially devastating a wing that goes after an obvous target. as a formation of 2 red primaries, it also nips away at reinforced large ships.

The Insatiable Wort is a stealth Corvette. if it's tanking, it has shield regen as good as a Raider or CR90, and if it's being ignored,it has energy recovery as good as a the corvettes. The ion battery is generally useful, and Asmorigan helps set up the Sniper Croc's bombardment specialists by lettingthem save their long range calculate token until the missile is in range.

N'Dru is a flanker, a Lone Wolf and Dreadnaut Hunter. he's built to get across an epic board in a reasonable amount of time to distract or disrupt.

And Captian Seevor's formation can remove a reinforce or a low init lock, being a credible threat to larger targets for what is really not that many points.

On 12/27/2019 at 8:40 PM, heychadwick said:

Dealing with Wings to protect your Huge ship is going to be an important thing in large games. I think that people are just getting into thinking about it as the focus on just huge ships fighting is starting to wear off. I think there are a few ways to deal with it:

1. Blocking the wing/wing leader. You can slow down the whole wing if you can block the Wing Leader. Stick a large or medium based ship where you think they are going and you can make a big mess of the whole thing. Delay it for a turn or two.
2. Break the Wing up. Anyone Ionized or Tractor Beamed is out of the Wing. Do that to the Wing Leader and the whole Wing goes down. There are a number of ways you can do this.
3. Hurt/Kill the Wing. You can do this a number of ways, including Concussion Missiles or Cluster Missiles.
4. Run the Wing over with a Huge ship.
5. Don't put as many points into Huge ships.

1) Lots of ways to block the wing leader. Do it with just a single ship or with your own Wing. If you plan it right, you can even block them in the middle of a crossfire of your best attacks.

2) If you can hit the Wing Leader with Ionize or Tractor Beam, the whole wing goes away. You might have to strip a token from the Wing Leader first and then fire your shot at them. Also, something like an Ion Bomb slung with Trajectory Sim could hit a lot of the whole Wing, so even if not the Leader, you can get enough of them the Wing is no longer effective. Another way of defeating the Wing is to kill the Leader. Massed Homing Missiles can do this. Depending on the ship, you can kill it in 3. Maybe Homing Missiles combined with firing at the Leader to knock a few points off. You can also focus fire on the Leader. If it's only a 2 green die ship, it might be worth it to pile on the hits on him as you can only shunt off a couple of hits. Those hits can get through on a low Hull ship.

3) There are a lot of ways to kill the Wing or Damage them. For starters, if the whole wing is damaged, a Concussion Missile will really mess with them. One way to get the whole Wing damaged is to fire at the Wing Leader, who will then spread the damage to everyone. As long as it's not Shields, you are good. I had my Wing of Interceptors hurt this way. It wasn't fun. Cluster Missiles are another way to spread damage around a Wing, as well. If you get a few sets of Cluster Missiles, you can do that. Trajectory Simulator is another way to sling some damage to hit the whole Wing. Seismic Charges are cheap and can mess with the enemy, but depend on Obstacles. Proton Bombs might seem expensive in a normal game, but in Epic, you can really hurt a lot of ships. Well worth the points and even worse when you have two ships with it. Might even be worth it to hit your own ships in the right situation. Someone else said that Heavy Laser Cannons are only good vs. Huge ships, but if you can get a Wing of ships lined up against another Wing, you can see some hits get through. You can also combo a bunch of these attempts to whittle the enemy Wing down.

4) Aggressively moving your Huge ship forward to run over part or all of the enemy Wing will certainly put a damper on their attempt to shoot you down. Many people don't expect it. You do 1 damage for each speed you are going. You also put the enemy ships behind you and they can't fire at you. Many people don't expect it...unless you do it too often. It can also backfire pretty bad if it falls short and puts you at R1 of lots of enemy.

My experience so far is that shooting the Wing Leader for damage is not the way to go; ion or tractor are much more efficient here and can break the whole wing up easily. This leads to this: break up wing, then kill leader. Or else, kill all the wingmen first. That's much more viable a strategy than one thinks initially since the wing leader isn't THAT much stronger than the generics in raw damage poutput.

Yes to all sources of splash damage.

Running over a wing with a Huge Ship is difficult. Not only is your movement very restricted, it's also very easy to miss the wing and be in a really bad spot afterwards. I wouldn't really recommend this. Unless....do we have an upgrade combo that let's me adjust a huge dial after seeing the enemy wing dial?

On 1/1/2020 at 6:26 AM, Stefan said:

My experience so far is that shooting the Wing Leader for damage is not the way to go; ion or tractor are much more efficient here and can break the whole wing up easily. This leads to this: break up wing, then kill leader. Or else, kill all the wingmen first. That's much more viable a strategy than one thinks initially since the wing leader isn't THAT much stronger than the generics in raw damage poutput.

Yes to all sources of splash damage.

If the enemy Wing doesn't have Shields and you also have Concussion Missiles.....then I recommend shooting the Wing Leader to splash that damage around and use a Concussion Missile!

Quote

Running over a wing with a Huge Ship is difficult. Not only is your movement very restricted, it's also very easy to miss the wing and be in a really bad spot afterwards. I wouldn't really recommend this. Unless....do we have an upgrade combo that let's me adjust a huge dial after seeing the enemy wing dial?

Well, if you are able to combo blocking the enemy Wing the turn before and then they are a bit boxed in the next turn. Yeah, it's situational and requires some chance, but my friend (J-bot) is very aggressive with his ships and I don't think a game goes by that he doesn't ram at least one ship. He's gotten quite good at it and it's surprising how many people aren't expecting it. Personally, I know it's coming and plan for it.

New Vagabond TIE striker seems to fit my description as a punisher. Sure, the enemy wing could shoot your huge ship, but then Vagabond drops 2 Proton Bombs in front of the wing. I'm excited! Of course, TIE strikers aren't known for being durable, so it won't take much for them to shoot him down. He still draws shots away from the huge ship, which is the point.

Diamond Boron Missile (DBM) on Vynder has been my go to wing destroyer then follow it up with a concussion either from my raider or another source. Absolutely wrecks wings especially since you can't redirect the air damage.

Put Vagabond in a wing of two other sentinels and make him at veteran leader if you want him to stick around

1 hour ago, AegisAngel said:

Diamond Boron Missile (DBM) on Vynder has been my go to wing destroyer

I'm so excited for card packs. I don't have Diamond Boron's yet, so it will be good to finally have them (and a lot of other cool stuff like Cluster Mines and Ion Bombs).

On 1/1/2020 at 6:26 AM, Stefan said:

Running over a wing with a Huge Ship is difficult. Not only is your movement very restricted, it's also very easy to miss the wing and be in a really bad spot afterwards. I wouldn't really recommend this. Unless....do we have an upgrade combo that let's me adjust a huge dial after seeing the enemy wing dial?

Strategic Commander/Captain Needa, perhaps? Always works on friendlies that need the help. You have to maintain speed and difficulty, though. Depending upon your ship's dial, Seasoned Navigator may do better.

On 1/1/2020 at 3:26 AM, Stefan said:

do we have an upgrade combo that let's me adjust a huge dial after seeing the enemy wing dial?

It'll likely cost energy t make use of but this functions in that manner.

So, one thing I realized today: as a Rebel against a Raider, you may want to actually let your Dreadnought Hunters (or ships with similar functions) be overrun. You get to place them behind the Raider, and then, it's hunting season. Just need to be able to tank the damage on your shields, but B-Wings are excellent for this.