Played a casual 200 point game yesterday. Wanted to dust off my Raider and use it with a flight of TIEs for a thematic fun game.

I ran the Raider with Targeting Battery and Tibanna Gas Reserves and house ruled that the shields didn’t recover two each round. Even with that, the Raider still seemed overpowered.

Anyone else tried a huge ship in a 200 point game and come up with any house rules to help balance them?

Play 300 point games where you both can bring a huge ship.

I've been on for a long while about how Huge Ships are probably unbalanceable in 200/6. Double actions, all the attacks (but you only did one bonus attack), I guess you're not doing regen. The costs are just entirely wrong.

Ion Cannon Battery, for example, is the same price as an Ion Cannon Turret, rolls more dice, inflicts more tokens, has more range, and gets to fire in addition to your normal attack. A Gozanti with Targeting Battery is cheaper than a VT-49 generic. It's never going to work out well.

On 11/13/2020 at 6:47 AM, drail14me said:

Played a casual 200 point game yesterday. Wanted to dust off my Raider and use it with a flight of TIEs for a thematic fun game.

I ran the Raider with Targeting Battery and Tibanna Gas Reserves and house ruled that the shields didn’t recover two each round. Even with that, the Raider still seemed overpowered.

Anyone else tried a huge ship in a 200 point game and come up with any house rules to help balance them?

Part of the balance for Huge ships is numbers (of small ships) and distance (playing on 6x3).

You're putting an alligator in a small mosh pit with a few chihuahuas.

I think you shouldn’t bring a huge ship unless you at least up the points to 300.

It’s also better to use the epic battles missions if you can. Having an objective other than blowing stuff up helps make it a balance because the huge ship can only do so much for the objective on its own

500 points or bust.

I have been thinking about implementing huge ships as obstacles instead of rocks etc. They don't move. You place them and maybe they have a weak turret or strong but limited arc and the players each control one. Its just an idea and it might require a obstacles to get people to get close to each other huge ships. You need to get on the opponents side to score points, pick up cargo or maybe get your full list on the table. Maybe you need to reach a beacon that sends a signal to the rest of your fleet. But something like that, to get my huge ships on the table.

The Huges need to be strong to be able to cope with the many attacks from the high number of ships and other Huges in Epic. Thus powerful weapons and action chains, so they can pull their weight. And I am glad they can, unlike 1st edition, where you for 35pts could get either a naked C-Roc or Lothal rebel. The VCX had 2more health, amazing dial and 4dice attack, the Croc was weaponless.... and could not turn, so running into obstacle, and then pretty soon off the map.

The above comparison to Alligator in a mosh pit is fitting. However, while Huges turn better now, the alligator has space problems, so you can calculate where it has to go, unless it flies off. Bullseye is easy to obtain, so a specialized force like TPV Scyks with Heavy Laser cannons and Deadeye shot could bring down a Huge. Once Huges accumulate crits and bleed energy they go down fast.

Against a Raider within 200? Do not think though. Raider esp. is too cheap, can bring some defensive Tie l/n which fit as well.

Within 200 you also have the time problem, difficult to half point a Huge within 75min.

So you would need to have some special scenario. Fighter force stumbling upon a Huge, which is e. g.

-a struggler after an earlier space battle, damaged, licking its wounds and repairing, with a restricted escort fighter screen. After a certain round limit it goes fully operational again. Destroy it in time or die.

-refueling and acquiring supplies from a "milk cow" transport (submarine term) in the depth of space and thus not battle ready

-a meeting place for a clandestine of officials for shady business in space, not expecting this unwelcome disruption

-pirates or enemy forces have stolen one of your Huges. They cannot man and handle all controls, and are repairing. Ionise it, so that your combat shuttles with marines can reboard it.

Raider is excessive, but even the humble C-ROC is a nightmare at 200 pts.

58 point buy in, for 16 health, with regen... and double actions.

Toss on a team and a hardpoint and it's still quite cheap. IG-88D for scum too, for the double calculates on the linked actions.

Something like this for example:

Syndicate Smugglers (58)
Ion Cannon Battery (5)
IG-88D (3)
Comms Team (8)
Optimized Power Core (6)

Ship total: 80 Half Points: 40 Threshold: 8

Regen 2 energy per turn as long as you're flying blue, take reinforce and coordinate>double calc. Coordinate up to 3 ships(2 sustainably, 3 in burst, or 3 sustainably if you don't shoot the ion) at i7. Shoot 4 dice ion attack that deals a crit and definitely pushes ion tokens if it hits.

The other alternative is focus more on the output of the C-ROC, take damage control team, so you can reinforce>double calc, and take a lock.

The REALLY silly thing to do is take both those configs(-IG-88D on one), and still have 48 points for a third ship, I'd recommend a StarViper. Coordinate the BR>focus at i7 for the i3 StarViper? Sounds good.

If you're playing with huge ships, are you also allowing wings? I've only played a handful of epic games, but wings seem *super* powerful to me. Being able to protect key force multipliers (Serissu, Howlrunner, Jonus, Drea etc.) Or being able to maneuver and reposition at the initiative of the squad leader and still take actions for the rest of the wing. I think there's a reason huge ships need to be costed as they are. Again, limited experience but to me the least effective thing in epic are individual ships outside of wings.

On 11/14/2020 at 10:20 AM, eljms said:

If you're playing with huge ships, are you also allowing wings? I've only played a handful of epic games, but wings seem *super* powerful to me. Being able to protect key force multipliers (Serissu, Howlrunner, Jonus, Drea etc.) Or being able to maneuver and reposition at the initiative of the squad leader and still take actions for the rest of the wing. I think there's a reason huge ships need to be costed as they are. Again, limited experience but to me the least effective thing in epic are individual ships outside of wings.

Wings are useful, but I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say "powerful." Obviously, you've landed on two of the best features of wings, but on the downside they make it obvious where are number of your small ships around going to be headed, allow your foe to more easily concentrate fire on or flee from the wing, and are tricky to maneuver around obstacles. One well-placed block and your wing is going to come apart like ten-pins meeting a bowling ball. Personally, I use a wing to get off a respectable alpha strike and then often break the wing to allow me more flexibility in targets.

Small ships are incredibly important outside of wings. They prevent your huge ship from getting swarmed by smalls, and attempt to do the same to the enemy. Aces tend to be less important, IMHO; like the huge, the are there to support/be supported by the generic starfighters.

Lastly, the bullseye arc is a goldmine. No skill is required to line up a bullseye when you have a half-score of targets and one of them is the size of a barn.

All of which goes back to my original point: Epic is a very different approach to listbuilding. While I applaud folks' attempts to get a Huge on the table, you really should play they way a Huge needs to be played, not the other way around.