This quarantine thing is getting old. I needed my fix, so I drew up a couple 300 point lists to drop on the kitchen table and went to town against myself. I find 300 points with Huge ships to be perfectly manageable on a 3x3 surface using the standard Range1 deployment zone. Rocks can be a little more challenging, but you do learn **** quick that way, right?

I ran through two games in quick succession. New Republic Volunteers with GA-97 and ICT and a few other things, phat Rey with "It's the Resistance!" assigned, and three Blue Squaddie A-Wings with Heroic and AdOps. Versus a Separatist Privateer, three Petranakis with Predator/Crack, and three Precise Hunters with ESC/Struts/Munitions Failsafe. Two blowout wins for the Separatists. Just a few observations, rather than full batreps.

"It's the Resistance!" is ******** fun in Epic. Dropping Rey in behind the enemy forces on Turn Four was sweet. Even if she still just burned to the ground in two rounds. Large base ships are *really* hard to use effectively, especially when they get ionized so easily by the Huge ship Ion Cannon Battery - which is just a brutal, amazing hardpoint. The A-Wings were solid and consistent - so much so that I think it might be worth it to throw in named pilots and see what they can do. But I didn't fly them in a wing, and I don't think I want to, as that would hinder their mobility. But the poor GR-75. It simply cannot be used as an attack ship in the way that the C-ROC can. The GR-75 is purely a support vessel, and takes a very different mental approach to the game. This is a task I think I will enjoy - ferreting out that perfect support build - but I think it may well be best suited to bigger, 500 point games. Maybe? I mean, given its relatively low Energy resources, the way it moves, and the Range limitations of most of those support abilities, this strategy could be rough to implement. And in a smaller, 300 point game, it feels like this difficulty would be exacerbated.

Whereas the Separatists are solid. Grievous on a Huge ship is money in the bank. Those Petranaki Arena Aces are fantastic - although I think Marksmanship would be a better shout than Crack Shot if one is using them specifically to sink Huge ships. ESC on the Vultures was...useful? That single attack with three dice denying range bonuses wasn't terrible, but it didn't feel amazing. Upgrading from the base Trade Fed Drone to the Precise Hunter did actually pay dividends, though. The thing with the Vultures is that they always feel bad to attack, like you're wasting you attack on a piddly little two-dice popgun while the big guns are out there smacking you around - but those popguns add up, even against a reinforced target, and especially with the added accuracy.

After two rounds of trying to make "It's the Resistance!" work, and feeling like there miiiiiight be something to it, but that I had sadly been wasting my time with the GR-75, I decided to switch things up entirely. Yeah, I played a third game against myself. I *really* needed my fix.

I dropped a Syndicate Smuggler with ICB and stuff, a Serisuu-led wing of HLC Scyks, and a Dreadnought Hunting Fenn. Against a big, fat ol' CR-90 escorted by Bodhi and Benthic in their U-Wings. The idea was to test how effective against Huge bases a wing of Scyks would actually be, whether Dreadnought Hunter had any utility, and just how good Rebel crew were. I had Leia and Chewie on Bodhi, and Saw and Magva on the CR-90. Now, the Scum won in the end, but it was a near thing - Fenn was on one hull, and only Serissu of the three remaining Scyks had her shields up. The takeaways for me were thus:

Fenn is *not* really a very good Dreadnought Hunter. He's too fragile, and approaching a Huge ship, especially a Corvette, is a *scary* proposition. But does he get tucked into Range One, there will be PAIN. Again, against a Corvette, with all that shielding, Dreadnought Hunter wants to be on the ship that is NOT the highest initiative - in order to ensure that the crits thus generated actually land on hull and not on shield. Woops! An HLC Wing is actually quite difficult to use, especially on a crowded map. I think I managed six total HLC shots? The difficulty arises mostly from the speed differential - Huge ships are slow, whereas Scyks are reasonably quick. The best strafing runs come in at an angle to allow multiple turns of shooting, but that negates the utility of a Bullseye weapon like the HLC. And it is so very, very easy to get into Range One - which, if you are running at an angle for that long strafing run, means that some of the wingmates are going to be knocked out of the Wing by running into the Huge ship. Also, the denser obstacle field on a 3x3 mat can further make Wings more challenging - I rocked wingmates twice and dropped one one a debris field once, which stress pulled him out of the Wing. Lessons are being learned. Thoughts are percolating. On the other hand:

Man, the CR-90 is a gas! Those Corvettes are just amazing fun, what with all the shenanigans and the gigantic health pool (and the Rebel crew for support and synergy). Saw is *brutal* on a CR-90. Although Magva was a total waste. Having Bodhi out there extending the Target Lock range for the list was beautiful, and probably could have been abused much more strongly - will be abused much more strongly now that its utility has been demonstrated. U-Wings are just so good - like X-Wings. Rebels have some truly amazing tools for Epic in those two chassis, let alone being able to dollop them on top of a Corvette. Yeah, a little fiddling with the list, and it will never lose. Until it runs up against Imperials or First Order? Ha ha.

All of this just makes me want a Scum Corvette all the more. I want my main faction to have all the fun I see the others enjoying! It occurs to me, again, that my three preferred factions ALL lack a Corvette. Huh.

Thanks for sharing. I've been on an X-wing hiatus since the lock down started. Been playing lots of classes games withthe family.

But yeah, that Epic urge is hard to scratch these days. The online venues don't support Epic yet; maybe not ever.

*****

I totally agree with your assessment of Bodhi. There is a lot of potential there, but I hesitate to make it a core part of the list because it paints such a big target on his head.

Interestingly, this is the same problem I have with the GR-75. You can tool your list to really take advantage of its ship ability, but as soon as you start adding upgrades it becomes a target. And it really doesn't have the durability to be a target. Ideally, you send in a group of fighters to draw fire, than rock up there with your transport to start repairing the squad's shields, causing your opponent to question their choices in target priority. But like you said, the slow maneuvers of the GR-75 can make that a challenge. I simply haven't put it on the table enough to get that down.

On the other hand, ships blow up in Epic. It's just going to happen. So maybe I shouldn't worry so much about these guys getting shot out of the sky, and just bring enough hearty threats to exact revenge.

I begin to wonder if perhaps two GR-75s isn't the way to go? I have a lot of table time with C-ROCs, either singly or in pairs, and they are much, much more effective when they can work together. I suspect the same would hold for the GR-75. They're generally cheap enough, after all. Of course, that would mean finding another one for sale somewhere, and then getting another Huge ship conversion kit. Hmm.

13 hours ago, Kleeg005 said:

I begin to wonder if perhaps two GR-75s isn't the way to go? I have a lot of table time with C-ROCs, either singly or in pairs, and they are much, much more effective when they can work together. I suspect the same would hold for the GR-75. They're generally cheap enough, after all. Of course, that would mean finding another one for sale somewhere, and then getting another Huge ship conversion kit. Hmm.

They are cheap, it's true. How do you equip your double C-ROCs? Because I don't feel comfortable adding more than a single weapon on the GR-75. Probably just a Targeting Battery. But if I'm feeling really adventurous...

GR-75 (65)
- Luminous (12)
- Point-Defense Battery (9)
TOTAL: 67

Luminous not only grants an additional +2 energy capacity, but also allows the ship to deploy far forward to get enemy ships in range of the Point-Defense Battery sooner. Follow up with something like Quantum Storm behind it firing the Targeting Battery and using most of its energy to recover the Luminous ' shields and you've got a pod of whales that's tough to crack.

If you kit them out generously you're looking at roughly 150 points of GR-75, so at the 300 point level you've got half the squad still available for other ships. I think RZ-1 A-wings are a good balance because of their 3 agility compared the transports' 0 agility.

P.S. I just realized these are Rebel builds, not Resistance. If you play with Resistance you won't be able to use the titles, but it could still work. Maybe. In fact, without the titles you'd have more points for the rest of your squad.

I mean, the titles add so very, very much to the utility and survivability of the GR-75. And then you add in some insanely good Rebel crew.... I do fly Rebels and Resistance both, although they rank #4 and #3 respectively. I have begun to toy with some listbuilding using the Rebel titles. But that sexy CR-90 is so **** tasty. What I should really do is put both of them on the table and see where it goes, ha ha.

Ah, the C-ROC. My favorite build is just Ion Cannon Battery and Bombardment Specialists. Cheap as ****, and that Ion is *brutal*. They burn down really quickly, so it's better not to invest much in them. Corsair Refit is a straight-up trap. If I'm just running one of them, I'll usually drop Stalwart Captain on it, too.

So, New Republic Volunteers *can* support a pair of Cobalt Bombers and a lean-ish Poe. They faced a lean C-ROC, 0-66, three Discord-toting Drones and two Bombardment Drones. Yeah, we can definitely confirm that droids HATE Trajectoried bombs. Wow. So the Droids chipped at the Bombers and 0-66 died trying to cut up the GR-75, because Poe is mean. The Bombers wrecked ALL the droids, while Poe ate a Prox Mine trying to flank around behind the Separatist lines. The C-ROC crushed the Bombers - literally. One of the Bombers ate three crits on Hull being run over, including the dream cascade of Hull Breach - Direct Hit - etc. Then the C-ROC bullied the GR-75, but.... Huge ships really don't like Plasma Torpedoes, or being ionized with an X-Wing behind them.

It was amazing. Poe on two Hull with the crit that adds a hit when you suffer a crit, facing an Ion Cannon Battery - which deals a crit when it hits. If it hits, Poe dies. Poe is ionized, rolling toward the C-ROC with a single Hull left and a Stalwart Captain; even if Poe kills the C-ROC it still gets to shoot a double modded Ion shot. But Poe lands a single crit onto the C-ROC's hull, and it's a Precision hit that knocks out the ICB. Glory, glory. Fantastically thematic, eh? If he hadn't made that shot, if the C-ROC had been able to fire, the game would have gone to final salvo - 16 dice for the Separatists versus 11 for the Resistance.

That was a lot of fun.