The guy who runs our weekly games has decided it's time for some Epic. So we're going to start running 400 point epic games.

I don't have any Epic ships. This seems to be a problem, since the focus of our weekly game might be shifting toward Epic.

Is it possible to run a 400 point list of regular ships that can pose a challenge to the big boys? Or should I just get wrecked until I decide to buckle down and blow a big wad of cash on an Epic ship so I can keep enjoying a fun night of X-Wing AND maintain a bit of self-esteem?

I have mostly Imperial ships (no shuttles or starwings). List suggestions would be very welcome.

Wings are your friend:

• Bomber wings with Jonus, always good to throw lots of dice with passive mods.
• Howlrunner and TIE wings in general are "a known good" against Huge ships.

You'll want to slip in some source of Jam into your list so you can strip the Reinforce token off huge ships and then your TIEs can really go to work. To be fair at that point numerous 3 dice attacks into a ship with 1-0 Evade dice and no reinforce will start stripping the hull plating.

To be clear this is a brief precis of the comments I've seen on here as I've yet to get to play any real games of Epic.

Wings of small-base fighters have the capacity to straight up murder Huge-base "Epic" ships. So you don't need to worry in that respect. But as above, you are going to want to take advantage of the Wing tools. It speeds up planning and maneuvering massively, which is a good thing. A very good thing. If anything, your mates with the huge ships may object to *your* power levels being too great. Maybe.

First, let me say that they have changed the naming convention. Epic now means games played with the Epic Battles scenario boxed set. That's the one that includes all the stuff for Wings and is a great buy at only $25. Huge ships are now what is called when you are talking about the really big ships. They aren't "epic ships" anymore. Just FYI.

When people first get into Huge battles, they always want to bring out their Huge ships and gear them up towards fighting other Huge ships. That means they usually put too many points on them and don't gear them up to fight small fighters. So, I would say that you are in a really good spot to play with them! Just remember that they regen shields each round. You will have to keep up firing on them. Don't let them run you over. They can die if you really concentrate fire on them.

For Epic play our group is looking at doing points by the threat conversion recommended in the rules book. For Epic Escalation what ships can reach 125-200 points that are not huge? I have a fully equipped scum yt-1300 with craft and it barely made the minimum. Am I missing something? Is it best to stick with quick builds for that scenario? There are not many 5 threat quick builds for standard ships either.

9 hours ago, stootchmaster said:

The guy who runs our weekly games has decided it's time for some Epic. So we're going to start running 400 point epic games.

I don't have any Epic ships. This seems to be a problem, since the focus of our weekly game might be shifting toward Epic.

Is it possible to run a 400 point list of regular ships that can pose a challenge to the big boys? Or should I just get wrecked until I decide to buckle down and blow a big wad of cash on an Epic ship so I can keep enjoying a fun night of X-Wing AND maintain a bit of self-esteem?

I have mostly Imperial ships (no shuttles or starwings). List suggestions would be very welcome.

If you invest 400 points in small ships, you can murder the **** out a big one. But unlike in 1.0, it might be a fair fight.

9 hours ago, stootchmaster said:

I have mostly Imperial ships

An excellent faction in Epic games. You need to get the Epic Battles Expansion or proxy/borrow wing upgrade cards/squadron numbers.

There is the standard Veteran Wing Leader which allows east formation flying and protection for the leader. A nice Imperial only wing card is Agent of the Empire which allows a TIE Advanced v1 or x1 to lead a bunch of TIE/ln Fighters

Then throw in a Dreadnought Hunter or two, nice on an x1 with the critical generation (Maarek Stele is particularly good) or add Marksmanship. Precision Shots are pretty nasty on huge ships.

Don’t be daunted by the huge ships - they are beasts but not indestructible.

Thanks for all the great advice! You gave me hope that I can still play X-Wing no matter what size of ships are on the field!

I did a fair job of taking down a Tantive IV with a wing of TIE Bombers led by Capt. Jonas , supported by a fully-pimped out Redline Punisher and a TIE Reaper flying around coordinating/ jamming.

Captain Jonus (45)
Saturation Salvo (5)
Barrage Rockets (8)
Bomblet Generator (5)
Shield Upgrade (6)
Veteran Wing Leader (2)

Gamma Squadron Ace (30)
Saturation Salvo (5)
Barrage Rockets (8)
Bomblet Generator (5)
Shield Upgrade (6)

Gamma Squadron Ace (30)
Saturation Salvo (5)
Barrage Rockets (8)
Bomblet Generator (5)
Shield Upgrade (6)

Gamma Squadron Ace (30)
Saturation Salvo (5)
Barrage Rockets (8)
Bomblet Generator (5)
Shield Upgrade (6)

“Redline” (52)
Trajectory Simulator (6)
Proton Torpedoes (13)
Barrage Rockets (8)
Fifth Brother (11)
Bomblet Generator (5)
Shield Upgrade (4)

Captain Feroph (47)
Elusive (3)
Informant (5)
Tactical Officer (6)
Shield Upgrade (4)
Total: 397

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0

This thread is great!

What other lists of other factions would be good without any Huge ship?

On 1/23/2020 at 10:01 PM, LUZ_TAK said:

This thread is great!

What other lists of other factions would be good without any Huge ship?

Well, just about anything, really. Wings are pretty good at moving big ships and also focusing your fire.

• Formations of Tie Fighters are good, as are ships with Ordnance.
• I can see a Wing of Z-95's with or without Missiles being useful.
• Three Y-wings with Torpedoes can also be really good.
• 5-6 Tie Interceptors with Soontir Fel are really nasty to face against.
• X-wings of any type are really strong. You can even have the Wing Leader close his S-Foils for Boost and the rest of them keep them open....and still follow behind.

Just about anything is good in a Wing. There are other options besides Wings, though.

• Trajectory Simulator can launch nasty Bombs forward to hit enemy formations and Huge ships. Get two of these in your list (not in formation) and you can cover a large area.
• Cheap Medium or Large ships can go and block enemy formations. They also draw a lot of attention that can allow other ships to do more damage. Some of the larger ships are pretty cheap, too. They are great distractions. Especially useful if you have a Dreadnaught Hunter you want to protect.
• Kimogilas are really strong in big games. The Dead to Rights rule helps push damage through and it's easier to get someone in that Bullseye arc. Huge ships, especially. You can ignore Reinforcement. The named ones are also good to mess with targets. One steals Shields and the other causes damage to all in the Bullseye.
• The new Mag-Pulse Warhead missiles are nasty against Huge ships. Easy to hit even with 3 dice. The big ship gets a Deplete token and....more importantly...a Jam token. Huge ships only get 2-3 actions and removing a Green token (or Target Lock) can really help (especially with a Raider).

On 1/16/2020 at 12:25 PM, heychadwick said:

First, let me say that they have changed the naming convention. Epic now means games played with the Epic Battles scenario boxed set. That's the one that includes all the stuff for Wings and is a great buy at only $25. Huge ships are now what is called when you are talking about the really big ships. They aren't "epic ships" anymore. Just FYI.

Wasn't it the same in 1E?

Maybe I'm missing something, but I checked the 1E Rules Reference and it shows:

FORMATS OF PLAY There are three formats of play as described below.

• Standard Play: This format is the standard dogfight with a recommended squad point total of 100 points.

• Cinematic Play: This format uses missions to create scenarios with special objectives.

• Epic Play†: This format increases the recommended squad point total to 300 and allows huge ships and cards with the epic icon (󲁩) to be used.

Similarly, the "Huge Ship Rules & FAQ" define Huge Ships:

Huge ships are mounted on two large ship bases, and are governed by the following rules.

Not that it really makes a difference...

What everyone is saying is on point. I had a wing of TIE Bombers loaded with missiles that not only took down a huge ship in two round, they stayed in the game long enough to reload, swing around, and finish off another wing of Y-Wings. It was, truly, epic.

When we play epic again, I may only field wings and smaller ships so I can get in, do the work of taking out any huge ships, then clean up the leftovers. And Dreadnought Hunter was a card I should have paid more attention to; that would have made those bombers even more efficient huge ship killers.

On 1/31/2020 at 4:35 PM, RebelRogue said:

Wasn't it the same in 1E?

Maybe I'm missing something, but I checked the 1E Rules Reference and it shows:

FORMATS OF PLAY There are three formats of play as described below.

• Standard Play: This format is the standard dogfight with a recommended squad point total of 100 points.

• Cinematic Play: This format uses missions to create scenarios with special objectives.

• Epic Play†: This format increases the recommended squad point total to 300 and allows huge ships and cards with the epic icon (󲁩) to be used.

Similarly, the "Huge Ship Rules & FAQ" define Huge Ships:

Huge ships are mounted on two large ship bases, and are governed by the following rules.

Not that it really makes a difference...

True, it doesn't really make a difference.

Epic in the past was x many points on a 3 x 6 and you had to have a Huge ship.

Epic Battles now is one of the 11 scenarios with various points and various size boards and you don't have to have a Huge ship.

Apologies for the slightly tangential question, but I cannot find the answer anywhere in my Epic rulebook (might just be being blind), but do the Squad building limits with regards to how many ships of the same type, or total you can have change for Epic games? It feels like a major factor in playing Epic without Huge ships, and part of me just wants to see how many TIE/ln's I can put on the field at once.

2 hours ago, PartridgeKing said:

Apologies for the slightly tangential question, but I cannot find the answer anywhere in my Epic rulebook (might just be being blind), but do the Squad building limits with regards to how many ships of the same type, or total you can have change for Epic games?

The situation is reversed.
The tournament rules limit you to 2-8 ships while anything else is unlimited with respect to the number of ships (or rather limited by the rules your group decides on):

Quote

Squad Building
Each player must build one squad to use in a tournament. A squad cannot exceed 200 points, though it may contain fewer than 200 points. A legal squad list contains between 2 and 8 ships from a single faction. [...]

On 2/28/2020 at 6:17 PM, PartridgeKing said:

Apologies for the slightly tangential question, but I cannot find the answer anywhere in my Epic rulebook (might just be being blind), but do the Squad building limits with regards to how many ships of the same type, or total you can have change for Epic games? It feels like a major factor in playing Epic without Huge ships, and part of me just wants to see how many TIE/ln's I can put on the field at once.

For the old "Epic" format in 1st edition the upper limit for a certain ship type was 12 (and 8 for non Epic play), thus only 12 TIE/ln back then, after that you had to field other ships, if you wanted to field more ships. But that was then.

As of now in 2nd edition we have the limit of 2-8 for the vanilla 400/6 deathmatch (thus simultaneously giving the upper limit of 8 for a certain ship) where as the new Epic format (with or without Huge ships participating) seems to have no limit.

I was under the impression that Epic limited you to eight of the same type as well.

Glad to see I'm not at least just being blind.

YASB kicks up a message saying a legal tournament squad must contain between 2 and 8 ships, for both normal and Epic, and that only goes away when you have 8 ships total. For some reason I thought there was a change to the squad building limits in Epic, as having the same ship count limit for over double the points of the game seems a bit... limiting to say the least!

On 3/1/2020 at 3:34 PM, Stefan said:

I was under the impression that Epic limited you to eight of the same type as well.

That was 1st Ed Epic. Non-tournament 2nd Ed (which includes Epic Battles) means you can have as many whatever as you want. No limit.