An Epic X-Wing game - Rebels vs. Empire, 400pts

[Daeothar]

This weekend, the Voivod and I played our first X-Wing epic game in ages. It was a great game (from my perspective at least  ).

We pitted 400 points each of Rebel and Empire fleets against eachother. Limitation was that both would field (space?) two huge ships, as we feel that that's what epic is for after all.

I brought a Corvette, GR-75, a K-Wing, Y-Wing, HWK-270 and three A-Wings, all filled to the gills with upgrades. My plan was for the A-Wings to unload their Concussion Missiles into the rear section of the enemy Raider and then go fighter hunting. The KY boys  would team up to do the same to the front section, with Plasma Torpedoes, the transport would interfere with any fighter screen and the corvette would put the finishing blow on the crippled raider and then match up against the lone Gozanti, picking off fighters where possible.

The Voivod put on the table: a Raider, two TIE Bombers, four TIE Fighters and a Gozanti, carrying four TIE Interceptors and a lone tarted up Assault Gunboat. He obviously went for quantity over quality, in true imperial style. What his battle plan was, I'm not sure, but his bombers were aiming for my huge ships, while the fighters interfered with my operations, and the interceptors would be loosed at an opportune time to throw my plans askew.

Or something like that.

Because from the onset, my plan went off (almost) without a hitch. As since the KY boys concentrated on the Assault Gunboat playing chicken with the pair first, killing it with two Plasma Torpedoes, I lost the loaded up K-Wing to fire from the Raider, which hurt the action economy of the remaining Y-Wing.

But a couple of turns in, the A-Wings, going first because of the PS12 providing HWK-270, (combined with the A-Wings' Swarm Tactics) fired all three of their Concussion Missiles at the Raider, destroying the aft section in one go. And it was an uphill battle for him from there on, as the Raider depends on its energy coming from the aft section. By then, both the TIE-Bombers were also taken care of, by fire from the A-Wings, Corvette and HWK-270.

The Y-Wing was now out of position to hurt the Raider and had to K-Turn behind it to get back into the fight. The A-Wings broke off and high tailed it out of the scrum, as the Gozanti, finally turning into the fight, had unleashed its cargo of four eager Interceptors right on their six. The HWK-270 turned around and proceeded to provide PS12 to the Corvette coming up right behind the A-Wings.

His TIE-Fighters in the meantime, together with some fire from the Gozanti and what remained of the Raider, managed to destroy the GR-75, which I had intended to be a sacrificial unit anyway. It did frustrate by ripping away tokens around it though, so it certainly did its part.

Eventually, the Corvette broke the Raider's spine and off the table it went. The lone Y-Wing, now in the sights of 3 TIE-Fighters and 4 TIE-Interceptors must have been the luckiest fighter in the game, because all the Academy and Alpha Squadron pillots K-Turned to face the Corvette and the swinging around duo of A-Wings (one got toasted earlier by the Interceptors).

The Gozanti blocked my Corvette, and both ships collided. Several times in a row, putting damage on my front section, which I could repair with my WED-15 droid and other upgrades, while his remaining huge also took heavy critical damage, which he could not repair.

That spelled doom for the carrier, as the lone Y-Wing loosed its last Plasma Torpedo, finally killing it.

By this time, the fighters were all dead, and the remaining 3 interceptors K-turned in exactly the wrong place, so my Corvette rode right over them, leaving one of them remaining. At this point, he admitted defeat, and we shook hands, concluding this battle with a resounding success for the Rebels.

I lost a K-Wing, GR-75 and an A-Wing, while his entire fleet, minus one Interceptor had been killed.

It was a remarkably quick game, especially for us. We had planned the entire afternoon and evening for this game, and we managed to conclude it in under 4 hours!

We both felt that, with two huge ships a side, there had been very little points left for any fighters. So the next game will be with 500 points a side, but still with two huge ships each.

And finally; we used my new full sized space mat for the first time, even though 95% of all the action took place on just 2/3 of its surface    It's of the mousemat variety and was a joy to play on. The planet is another piece of mousemat material, which I bought at Crisis last year; it was a set of 3 different planets, and I feel it does add a bit more visual appeal