Stray Thoughts on Epic

With no impending major events and a points adjustment imminent, I've been spending a fair amount of my X-Wing time playing and theorycrafting Epic. I wasn't a huge fan of Epic in 1.0, but the 2.0 Epic is a huge improvement and feels much more like a real game and less like some combination of meme and meat grinder (meme grinder?!).

So without further preamble, here are some random observations I've had.

Scenarios

In terms of true Epic, I've played Intel Pickup, Cover the Evacuation (twice), and Strategic Salvo. I've certainly played a fair amount of Aces High as well, but that's sort of beside the point.

Intel Pickup was my first Epic game and I don't have a good sense of how strong the scenario is. It felt fine, but also potentially like one where I could probably ignore the objective.

Cover the Evacuation is a great concept but, in my opinion, needs to be reworked or house ruled. The first game I played of this, the defender rolled a ton of blanks on the end phase rolls to trigger shuttle tokens, and the shuttles basically just sat in park while we meat-grindered away. During my second game, I encountered a different design issue, where as the attacker I destroyed two points-free shuttles early and then we hit a time limit.

Mostly, with this one, there isn't enough drive to scenario resolution, and you can end up in bizarre situations where the attacker destroys the shuttles but doesn't earn any points for doing so, and may in fact lose if they happened to take more damage than the defender in the process. Thematically, I'm not sure why the attacker wants to blow up the shuttles but is incentivized to let them get close to escape first; is this actually a scenario about crushing hopes?

I think the rules around token accrual should at least be looked at, but on a larger level, I think there are probably better ways to structure how this scenario works while retaining a fantastic theme.

Finally, Strategic Salvo is great. Unlike Evacuation, this one absolutely drives towards an specific ending and doesn't drag. I think it might be a bit slanted towards the attackers, as it strikes me as incredibly challenging for the defenders to destroy multiple warheads, all of which might just obliterate the defender's ships in the process if the defender isn't able to attack them from just the right angle.

All of the above seem to consistently run between 4 and 6 rounds, and I've mostly been enforcing that with a 2 hour clock, mostly to avoid extra mop up turns. Either way, plan accordingly; if an upgrade will require many turns to be useful, then reconsider. Keep your plans relatively short term.

The Huge Ships

The huge ships continue to be fun, although it's a real disappointment that they only feel half-supported for their non-native factions. The lack of titles really hurts, especially given how role-defining some of the titles can be for the huge ships in their native factions.

The CR90 and Imperial Raider both seem worthy of sinking points into, and it doesn't seem particularly unrealistic to expect either of them to be able to point-and-click kill one small ship per turn. The Raider feels stronger of the two, mostly because of the arc placement. For the Raider, things are straightforward: point your guns straight ahead, reinforce fore, and murder everything in front of you. The CR90 seems designed to broadside, but this leaves you very exposed to ineffective reinforce tokens, and these huge ships really need to be reinforcing as much as absolutely possible. Ordnance Tube Raider builds feel like the strongest option of all here.

I'm less sold on the smaller huge ships. I've run two different Gozanti builds and was not convinced either was really pulling its weight. Ship docking seems a bit less appealing since this is incompatible with wings, and half of the Gozanti titles seem oriented around this. I think there are attractive support builds for both Gozanti and GR-75, but 70+ points for a support ship seems pretty steep, even in a 500 point list. Maybe I'm just being too cheap.

I haven't seen the C-ROC in play firsthand so I can't comment on it, unfortunately. Being able to put a Tactical upgrade on it in Separatists seems interesting.

Wings

Wings are great. Setting 3 or 4 dials for a 12+ ship list is amazing. These are a big design win and, in my opinion, are really the special sauce in what makes Epic feel fun and different.

Again, I wish there were more unique wing leader Command upgrades, perhaps even for specific pilots as wing leaders. The Quickbuild cards hint at some fun combinations, but it would have been really fun to have some more unique options for these wings.

My go to wing has been "Pure Sabacc" plus 2 Planetary Sentinels. Currently costing 114 points, this is an incredibly strong piece that can react nicely to opponent plays and can usually get around to objectives as needed.

Inferno Squadron is also an obvious hit. I've run it with both Howlrunner and Vader as wing leaders and I prefer Howlrunner, but I'd like to try a TIE Swarm with Grand Inquisitor in the lead as well.

Notable Pilots/Upgrades

Global effects are obviously strong. Grand Moff Tarkin is a great example of a borderline useless card in standard, since his timing usually means you get the TL you needed... one turn too late. On a ship that can grab a target lock at long range (such as through a Targeting Battery shot, depending on how your local players rule that effect), Tarkin becomes an incredible option.

Bullseye effects are much stronger in Epic, given that there are more ships flying around to bullseye, stationary objectives that aren't slipping out of your sights, and most notably, huge ships that are incredibly easy to line up shots on. Proton Rockets, "Scourge" Skutu, Predator, Foresight, and Calibrated Laser Targetting all get boosts to their value in most Epic games.

Sloane is good but doesn't punish huge ships very hard. Also, range 1-3 feels a lot smaller on a double-sized play area.

Jam is very strong against huge ships as they are highly dependent on their tokens, specifically Reinforce. Many huge ships also tend to stack a lot of tokens, which means this is a format where Jamming Beam is actually useful. High initiative ships that can throw on a Jamming Beam could be pretty good (Poe Dameron comes to mind).

Plasma Torpedoes are excellent anti-huge ship weapons. I've run mixed Plasma/Proton Torpedo wings of TIE Bombers (with Tarkin support) and these can absolutely take down one of the smaller huge ships in one turn.

Damage Control Team is probably way too cheap and is an auto-include in basically any huge ship build. Very rarely are you not going to be spending one of your actions reinforcing, and if you aren't getting a free calculate from something on every turn with your huge ship, you're doing something wrong. The fact that it has an ability that will occasionally mean an extra turn (or more) of effective shooting from your huge ship is not insignificant.

Relating to that, any effect that gives you additional calculate tokens is also relevant. This includes Corvus title on the Raider, any variation of C-3PO, and IG-88D.

Targeting Battery is the other standout upgrade, and I'm usually including it on any huge ship that isn't a truly dedicated support. It's up to rules debate whether you can get the free target lock beyond range 3, but if your group allows that (most of the players I know have been), then this is a fantastic upgrade.

I'm not sure if I'm sold on Point-Defense Battery, but it's probably good if you can build enough support around it, specifically mods on most/all attacks, decent energy recovery, and enough survivability that the opponent won't just erase your ship. This is also probably better in the 300-point epic scenarios.

I don't like Turbolaser Battery. When it works, it's fantastic, but the TL requirement can be an issue, even with Targeting Battery in the mix. Consider that a Targeting Battery + Turbolaser shot requires four energy. Hopefully you're not spending any other energy, because you're going to run out of firepower very quickly if you are!

Optimized Power Core seems fine if you are running an energy-hungry build, but so far I've found it to be unnecessary on the ships I've put it on. The action cost on Tibanna Reserves feels a bit too prohibitive, I don't think I'd run them unless my huge ship had a coordinator supporting it.

Conclusions

Epic is a lot of fun. Set up and tear down are still a pain compared to standard play, but this is obviously to be expected. I think there are interesting list ideas and ship builds floating around that haven't yet been discovered, and I'd love to see more discussion on how to refine these huge ship builds (especially the smaller huge ships, as I'd like to see how they can be effective).

Please feel free to share your comments or experiences on Epic, I'm definitely interested to hear some other real-life experiences on what people are seeing with this format!