X-Wing - Epic ships

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

We played a game of X-Wing on Monday using the epic ship rules.  The Rebels fielded a Corellian Corvette, 3 X-Wings, 2 Y-Wings, a Z-95 and the Moldy Crow.  I played the Empire and split my forces with a 3rd player.  I controlled an Imperial Raider and two TIE bombers while my partner (the whiner from the Sails of Glory session) controlled two TIE interceptors and two TIE advanced.

It didn't go well for the Empire in the beginning.  The Rebel player littered our deployment zone with a bunch of asteroids and debris and I was forced to deploy the Raider too far away from the fighters and bombers.





The Rebels deployed close to their corvette and flew straight at our fighters in a line astern formation.  For some reason, he selected the Y-Wings to lead the charge.





The guy controlling the Rebels has added rare earth magnets to all his mounts.  I think it looks great and adds a lot to the immersion factor.  Gonna have to get around do doing that some day.







My original plan (before the whiner showed up and took over half my forces) was to have the interceptors and TIE advanced fighters tie up the Rebel fighters and then have the bombers slip past and hammer the corvette with torpedoes.  Sadly, my partner was a coward and just hugged the edge of the map and flew at the lowest speed possible.




He was finally forced to commit but did so piecemeal and had both his interceptors ripped apart after he charged in head-on (6 vs. 2 doesn't go well, especially when they have shields and you don't).  Fortunately, our luck started to change after this and my bombers managed to land some good hits on the corvette.  The TIE advanced took out two of the X-Wings before one of them got splattered all over the windshield of the corvette (poor Vader, such an ignominious way to go out....).



The Raider and the corvette ended up going nose to nose with the corvette ending up on the losing end.  It's fore section was crippled and all it could do was limp along at minimum speed.  Unfortunately, the Raider couldn't turn and the two ships collided.  There are some problems with the rules as neither of us could turn and we were both inside one another's minimum firing range so we couldn't hit each other.  We just kept bouncing into each other until we finally called it quits after 5 hours of play.

[mirth]

Cool pics! I have to admit the minis do look great.

[BanzaiCat]

Funny, I have the Tantive IV and the Raider too, but neither have seen action, yet...

So, SDR...what's the deal with the whiner? Why'd you have to let him play? Was he new (because damn, I've never played but I even know that TIEs are pretty useless piecemeal against Rebel fighters, or anything with shields)?

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Nope, he's not new.  He's played a lot more X-Wing than I have.  I'm not sure why he chose the tactics he did.  I suspect it was because he was using my build and wasn't used to flying fighters with only a few mod cards on them.  He usually loads his up (stealth, auto thrusters, etc) and I don't think he understood how fragile he'd be.  The intent when I designed my squadron was to use the TIE's greater speed and agility to make slashing attacks from both sides.  Didn't pan out that way.

We let him play as he was the one pushing for the epic game in the first place but doesn't own any epic ships himself.  As me and the other guy were both burnt out on the usual 100 point tournament style play, we thought epic might be fun.  It was enjoyable for the most part (whiner did whine and kept beaking off about rules all day) but it went on a little too long and some of the epic rules need to be tweaked a bit.

[BanzaiCat]

I haven't looked at the epic rules in a while, but it sounds like it would be an easy fix with a few house rules (such as removing the minimum firing distance). That alone would make for some epic, shattering, point-blank broadsides action I think.

[panzerde]

Definitely looks impressive!

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I haven't looked at the epic rules in a while, but it sounds like it would be an easy fix with a few house rules (such as removing the minimum firing distance). That alone would make for some epic, shattering, point-blank broadsides action I think.

Minimum firing distance is fine and adds an interesting mechanic to the game.  The biggest issue we found was with the collision rules and how they didn't work with the fore and aft damage rules for epic ships.  Basically, once a section is crippled, it can't take any more damage but still acts as an obstruction for collisions and LOS.  We found that we were unable to turn without colliding and were positioned in such a way that none of our weapons could hit the other guy so our crippled fore sections just kept bouncing off one another.

The way energy is supposed to be allocated also needs some clarification as the rules don't do a good job of explaining it. 

[BanzaiCat]

I remember the fore/aft section rules...seemed kind of convoluted, but I think I get what they were aiming for, to simulate one part of the ship knocked out but the others potentially fighting on.