[Epic] IMPERIAL ASSAULT CARRIER - NEWS !!! ONLY !!!

Die Gozanti kommt... samt zwei TIE FIGHTERN!!!



Stay tuned for more information!!

“Next time they make a move, we'll be waiting for them, to snuff out that spark before it catches fire.”
–Agent Kallus
Carry the fight to the Rebellion’s treasonous scum, no matter where they attempt to hide…
Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack for X-Wing™!
Designed for use within the game’s Cinematic Play and Epic Play formats, the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack contains one Gozanti-class cruiser miniature, two TIE fighter miniatures with a variant paint scheme, eleven ship cards, twenty-six upgrade cards, and all the maneuver dials, damage decks, tokens, and game pieces that you need to fly your Gozanti cruiser and its escort fighters. Additionally, the expansion includes a set of four new missions for Cinematic Play that follow a Gozanti charged with interdicting and destroying agents of the Rebel Alliance.
The Gozanti-class Cruiser
A highly versatile and heavily armed starship, the Gozanti-class cruiser could function as either a freighter or a cruiser and was used by various organizations across the galaxy. The Empire made extensive use of the Gozanti, though their cruisers featured heavier armor, faster engines, and better weapons than standard versions. Additionally, Imperial engineers added docking clamps to the ship’s design that allowed it to carry a complement of escort fighters.
Too large for the game’s Standard Play format, the Gozanti-class cruiser nonetheless enters X-Wing as a huge-base ship sculpted at the game’s standard 1/270 scale. Accordingly, it towers over the game’s small and large ships, even as it can carry and deploy up to four TIEs from its signature docking clamps.
The Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack comes with everything you need to add one Gozanti-class cruiser and two TIE fighters to your games. You’ll find the Gozanti’s ship card , as well as ten TIE fighter ship cards, including four new unique Imperial aces. You’ll also find rules for deploying TIEs from your Gozanti, and you’ll find a wide variety of upgrades, including modifications that introduce new dynamics to Epic Play, plus ISB officer Agent Kallus , one of the primary villains from Star Wars Rebels.
Finally, the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack introduces a new campaign to X-Wing Cinematic Play. The four missions of Imperial Crackdown highlight the Gozanti as it pits Imperials and Rebels against each other in a series of battles for control of a distant sector of the galaxy.
The Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack and Standard Play
Even as the expansion’s Gozanti miniature and its Huge ship only upgrades add new muscle to the game’s Epic Play format, the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack brings additional depth to Standard Play with its new TIE fighters, their pilots, and Agent Kallus.
A recurring antagonist in Star Wars Rebels, Agent Kallus is a cunning and relentless ISB officer who’s perfectly willing to join the front lines of any effort to crush the Empire’s enemies. In X-Wing, Agent Kallus appears as a crew upgrade who targets a single small or large ship at the start of the first round and then grants you an ongoing ability to change one of your results to a or result.
At a cost of two squad points, Agent Kallus offers Imperial fleets an efficient alternative to upgrades like Push the Limit and Experimental Interface that grant extra actions. While his ability doesn’t allow you to change all your results into more positive results as if you had spent a focus token, Agent Kallus functions both on offense and defense against the targeted ship, and his efficiency only improves as the game goes on, especially if he targets an extremely durable starship like the Millennium Falcon.
Meanwhile, the expansion’s two new TIE fighter miniatures feature the same coloration as the TIEs shown flying at the Battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi.
Moreover, with unique, new ace pilots like "Scourge," the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack invites you to explore new pilot combinations and further customize your Imperial fighter wings. A predator whose ferocity increases as he catches the scent of blood, “Scourge” gains an additional attack die whenever he attacks a ship that has already received at least one damage card. His pilot ability makes him an excellent pilot to partner with another ace with the same or higher pilot skill value, and it makes him an excellent recruit if you anticipate that you’ll face durable ships like the YT-1300 or Y-wing that can take a lot of damage before they explode. More importantly, though, his pilot ability makes him worth considering in any Imperial squadron that can take advantage of synergistic pilot abilities. You need your other pilots to do their jobs in order to get the best out of “Scourge,” but he bolsters their impact as well.
Allow No Rebels to Escape You
As its Gozanti-class cruiser allows you to deploy your TIEs directly into battle, the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack grants you startling new measures of tactical depth in X-Wing Cinematic and Epic Play. Additionally, its upgrades enhance the versatility of all X-Wing huge ships, and its four new ace TIE pilots lend their unique abilities to the game’s Standard Play format.
Pursue the Rebellion’s subversive pilots wherever they may flee. Hunt them down, and crush them. Allow no Rebels to escape you. The Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack is scheduled to arrive at retailers in the fourth quarter of 2015. Until then, keep your eyes on our website for more previews and other X-Wing News!

Der Transporter ist seit dem 14. Oktober auf dem Schiff! Noch ca. 10 Wochen drauf und er sollte da sein.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/11/20/epic-tactics/



Imperial ships incoming!

The Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack for X-Wing™ is headed soon to a retailer near you. Scheduled to arrive throughout the United States later next week, the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack introduces the huge-base Gozanti-class cruiser to your Epic Play X-Wing battles. Additionally, its twenty-six upgrades permit a wide array of new Epic Play tactics for all your huge ships, and you'll find a wealth of new possibilities for Standard Play among the expansion's two new TIE fighters and their four new unique aces.

As we mentioned when we first announced the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack, you'll also find a new campaign of linked missions that highlight the Gozanti's ability to transport and deploy as many as four docked fighters. We'll look at the rules for docking and deploying your Gozanti's fighters in a subsequent article, but today we'll take a look at some of the tremendous dynamism and tactical depth that the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack adds to your games of X-Wing Epic Play.



Huge Ships Make a Huge Impact

While X-Wing Epic Play utilizes the same basic rules set as your 100-point Standard Play matches, it offers a play experience that is distinctly larger in its scope and feel. Not only does the Epic Play format allow you to spend three or more times the number of squad-building points, it allows you to bring huge-base ships into the battle.

These huge ships contribute to the Epic Play format's distinctive feel in several ways. They're massive, towering over the game's small- and large-base ships, and they change the game's aesthetics accordingly. Suddenly, your squad-based skirmish is something greater. There's a new balance to the battle as starfighters and bombers clash alongside capital ships and transports.



The Gozanti-class cruiser from the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack

Of course, they're not just intimidating because they're physically larger. They maneuver differently, and they're capable of crushing smaller ships instantly, obliterating any they overlap. They also pair fantastically resilient combinations of shields and hull with the ability to reinforce themselves against attacks. Finally, they can use "energy" to recover from the damage they've been dealt or to power all manner of weapons systems and other tools that can make them brutally effective war machines.

Now these huge ships get a huge boost from the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack. Of its twenty-six upgrades, twenty-one are for use only with huge-base ships, and sixteen of those can be used with any huge ship, not just the Gozanti. These include two new Huge ship only crew, the  Ordnance Experts team, a cargo upgrade, and three new Huge ship only modifications that simultaneously present you with potent abilities and important choices about how best to outfit your ships.

First of all, the difficult choices likely don't begin with whether or not you outfit your Gozanti or other huge ship with a modification; the difficulty likely begins when you have to choose between your available options. At just five squad points each, Automated Protocols , Optimized Generators , and Ordnance Tubes are all fantastic bargains and the sort of upgrade that can easily define the role your huge ship is meant to play within your fleet.

A Few Modifications



Automated Protocols is an excellent defensive upgrade, and the free reinforce or recover actions that it grants you allow you to focus more on your ship's other abilities and use them to shape the course of combat. For example, a Gozanti-class Cruiser equipped with Automated Protocols could use its coordinate ability more liberally to grant actions to your other ships. Or you could equip a Broadcast Array to start jamming enemy ships, assigning stress tokens to them, even as your Automated Protocols allow you to maintain your focus on your defenses.



On the other hand, Optimized Generators are good for any huge ship that is built to spend energy on its upgrades. If you're running a Gozanti with an Ionization Reactor , Shield Projector , or Slicer Tools , the Optimized Generators modification will help you fuel them more often. Of course, they're not just for use with the Gozanti. A Raider-class corvette loaded for battle with Ion Cannon Batteries and Quad Laser Cannons will be able to fire them more reliably, round after round, and you'd also have more energy to increase your attacks' accuracy with a Gunnery Team .



Equipped with an Ionization Reactor, Docking Clamps , Dual Laser Turret , Tactician , Shield Technician , and Optimized Generators, this Gozanti-class Cruiser packs a deadly first punch, as it is capable of slamming into battle, ionizing and damaging all ships within Range "1," opening fire with its Dual Laser Turret, and then deploying its TIEs to clean up the remains.



Finally, the Ordnance Tubes modification allows you to convert any number of your huge ship's hardpoint upgrade slots into missile or torpedo upgrade slots. More than that, however, it also allows you to ignore any text that would force you to discard your missile or torpedo upgrade, meaning you can fire them an unlimited number of times. On the Gozanti, this modification would allow you to threaten the massive portion of the battlefield encompassed by its wide front arc with whatever missile or torpedo you've equipped. It's important to remember, here, that it's not just the potential damage that's threatening; the secondary effect of your ordnance can make as much or more of an impact.

Imagine, for example, your Gozanti equipped with Ion Torpedoes that it can fire round after round before it surges forward to crush the smaller ships it has ionized. Alternatively, you could use Flechette Torpedoes or Assault Missiles , either of which would be effectively unlimited.

However, as much versatility as the Ordnance Tubes modification can add to the Gozanti, the Gozanti-class Cruiser isn't even the best candidate for the upgrade. First of all, the Gozanti can equip the Dual Laser Turret for the same five squad points that the Ordnance Tubes would cost, and were the Gozanti to equip the Ordnance Tubes, it would only be able to equip a single missile or torpedo upgrade, as it has only a single hardpoint. On the other hand, the Raider-class Corvette has three hardpoints, meaning it could equip as many as three different types of missile and torpedo upgrades.

If you really want to understand the impact of the Ordnance Tubes modification on X-Wing Epic Play, you should take a moment, here, to imagine the terrifying battlefield presence of an Impetuous loaded with Ordnance Tubes, Ion Torpedoes, Ion Pulse Missiles , Cluster Missiles , a Gunnery Team, and a Weapons Engineer .

Any fighters that you catch in range stand at risk of being ionized, and if they're in your front arc, there's a good chance you'd be able to maneuver your Raider to overlap and obliterate them, which is something that becomes even easier if you use the new Rear Admiral Chiraneau crew upgrade from the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack.



The Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack offers a boost to all your huge ships, not just the Gozanti. Loaded with Ordnance Tubes, Ion Torpedoes, Ion Pulse Missiles, Cluster Missiles, a Weapons Engineer, and a Gunnery Team, the Impetuous is a terrifying war machine capable of quickly obliterating multiple starfighters.

There Will Be No Escape

With the new tactical options that the Gozanti-class Cruiser and the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack's new upgrades add to your huge ships, your X-Wing Epic Play battles are bound to be bigger, bolder, and more dynamic than ever before. Your huge ships will be able to play a wider range of roles within your fleet, and that means they'll do more than ever to enhance the massive scope and distinctive play experience of X-Wing Epic Play and those Cinematic Play missions that permit you to field Epic ships.

Look for the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack, its Gozanti-class Cruiser, and its many upgrades to increase the scope and thematic appeal of your Epic Play matches when it arrives at retailers in just a few weeks!

Quelle: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/11/27/swarm-tactics/



The Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack for X-Wing™ is nearly here!

In our last preview, we looked at what the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack, its Gozanti-class Cruiser, and its many upgrades add to your Epic Play battles. Today, we take a closer look at what the expansion brings to Standard Play.

The New TIE Swarm

Swarms and the TIE swarm, specifically, are as old as X-Wing itself. They're also well-known and understood. In short, you fly a large number of similar ships, concentrate your fire, and batter your opponents with a giant pile of attack dice. Defensively, individual TIEs are fragile, but their agility makes them hard to hit. Moreover, you can lose just about any one or two of the TIEs from your swarm and still outgun your opponent; there are only a couple of unique aces, like "Howlrunner," whose loss really makes much of an impact on your game.



The Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack includes two TIE fighters with an alternate blue paint scheme.

It is, however, the fact that few aces make much of a difference to your swarm that has held the basic strategy relatively static since Wave I. All this time, the default TIE swarm has been "Howlrunner" plus five or six other ships, several of which were almost certain to be Academy Pilots . Other TIE pilots, like "Backstabber" or the Black Squadron Pilot , might provide an additional tactical option, but few other aces could really integrate themselves into the core of the swarm strategy.

Now, The Force Awakens™ Core Set has introduced the TIE/fo fighter, and the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack looks to give the swarm a large, new dose of energy with its two TIE fighter miniatures, which feature alternate paint schemes, as well as four new unique aces.

The reason these aces may reinvigorate the swarm is that they introduce a wide range of synergistic abilities that didn't exist before them. Like "Howlrunner," they introduce abilities that reshape the ways your whole squadron can work together, and most of them also work well with the new TIE/fo fighter aces from The Force Awakens™ Core Set.

Meet the Aces



The first of the new aces is "Scourge." Previously revealed in the announcement of the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack, "Scourge" doesn't offer so much to your other ships, but he does capitalize nicely on the damage they might have already dealt an opponent.

Still, ships that have received facedown damage cards are often nearly exploded whether it's "Scourge" who's attacking them or not. There are, of course, exceptions for large-base ships like the YT-1300 that can absorb a large amount of damage before they're destroyed, but the fact remains that "Scourge" would seem to offer little against a list with Corran Horn or the zippy A-wing aces that have seen a lot more play since the introduction of the Autothrusters and Chardaan Refit upgrades.



This is where "Wampa" comes into play. His unique pilot ability reads, "When attacking, you may cancel all dice results. If you cancel a result, deal 1 facedown Damage card to the defender." It doesn't matter how agile your opponent is, if you cancel at least one with "Wampa," you're going to deal a damage, and that's going to grant an extra attack die to "Scourge."

Of course, scoring results can be a tricky matter, even if you have "Howlrunner" in your list to grant you rerolls. Marksmanship would give "Wampa" the ability to spend a focus to convert a result to a result, but "Wampa" doesn't have the elite pilot talent upgrade slot.



Enter "Youngster." This is the ace who really opens up the full range of new swarm possibilities. With his ability to grant other TIE fighters access to his elite pilot talent's Action ability, "Youngster" reshapes what the swarm is capable of doing. More than that, he reshapes the way that players will have to consider the cost-benefit ratio of the game's various elite pilot talents. After all, a Marksmanship upgrade on "Youngster" isn't really just on him; it's effectively a Marksmanship on "Wampa" and the rest of your TIE fighter pilots, as well.

If you were to put Marksmanship on "Youngster," you could outfit "Howlrunner" with Swarm Tactics and allow "Wampa" to fire at a pilot skill value of "8," before "Scourge." With Marksmanship and the reroll granted by "Howlrunner," "Wampa" suddenly enjoys tremendous odds of triggering his unique pilot ability to assign a facedown damage card to his target. That, in turn, activates "Scourge."

Alternatively, you could equip "Youngster" with Squad Leader so that your entire squad could pass actions to the ships you felt needed them most. For example, "Howlrunner" could grant her action to "Omega Ace," pushing him halfway toward his ability which allows him to count his attack as nothing but results. Or you could do something really outlandish and equip "Youngster" with Expose , which you can then trigger with every ship in your squadron. A TIE swarm of six ships can suddenly roll as many as eighteen attack dice instead of twelve, and the fact that you're not performing focus actions with all of those ships to modify your attack dice is largely mitigated by the presence of "Howlrunner."



Meanwhile, you're most likely going to want to perform defensive actions with "Howlrunner" in order to keep her in play as long as possible. The focus action is generally your best bet, and if she spends her focus token either on defense or during an attack, she could grant it to "Chaser," the fourth TIE ace in the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack. Again, like "Scourge," "Chaser" doesn't give much to your other TIE pilots, but he makes their actions more effective by borrowing from them.

Notably, his ability becomes increasingly potent if you have a list that includes TIE fighters with significantly higher pilot skill values so that he can charge forward toward the enemy, engage your opponent's ships at Range "1," perform an evade action, and then receive a focus token from a wingmate who fires early in the battle. If "Chaser" can provide an immediate threat, he may be able to draw fire away from your other ships, and with multiple defensive tokens, he may even be able to survive the fire he draws.

Sample Swarms

With all the new synergistic abilities that the four aces from the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack can add to your Imperial squad, as well as those you can gain from the First Order's TIE/fo fighter aces, the question is no longer whether or not your swarm can benefit from more synergies than just those that "Howlrunner" provides. The question is: which synergies should I build into my TIE swarm?

To that end, we explore the question with a few different swarms. The first two utilize only TIE fighters and TIE/fo fighters, and the third incorporates the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack's Agent Kallus crew upgrade into a build that features a Lambda-class shuttle and a "mini-swarm."

Maxmimum Firepower



"Howlrunner" with Hull Upgrade (21)
"Mauler Mithel" with Predator (20)
"Scourge" with Predator and Hull Upgrade (23)
"Youngster" with Expose (19)
"Backstabber" (16)
Total Squad Points: 99

Whether or not this squadron is truly still a "swarm" at just five ships may be debatable, but "Youngster" and the Expose upgrade take center stage, alongside "Howlrunner," in this list, which can barrage and overwhelm your opponent with volleys of fifteen attack dice or more.

You could, if you wished, further increase your total output by a several attack dice if you paired "Youngster" and "Howlrunner" with no one but Academy Pilots, but if you did this, you would suffer a significant drop in pilot skill values and lose all the tactical versatility that you gain from your unique pilots, their abilities, and their upgrades. Nonetheless, in a perfect world, if you could maneuver all your ships into Range "1" of enemy ships and trigger all of your list's unique pilot abilities that grant you extra attack dice, you could roll a total of twenty-three attack dice in a single round, which is a simply staggering number of attack dice for any Standard Play build, especially when you consider your ability to modify your results with "Howlrunner" and Predator.

Target of Opportunity



"Howlrunner" with Swarm Tactics (20)
"Omega Ace" with Opportunist (24)
"Youngster" with Squadron Leader (17)
Academy Pilot (12)
Academy Pilot (12)
Academy Pilot (12)
Total Squad Points: 99

This swarm features the unique talents of one of the First Order's top pilots, "Omega Ace," in combination with five TIE fighters, led by "Howlrunner" and "Youngster."

Although "Youngster" is theoretically able to share the benefits of his Squadron Leader upgrade with all of his wingmates, there's really only one meaningful recipient, and that's "Howlrunner." In any given round, the fact that "Youngster" can share his Squadron Leader upgrade means that "Howlrunner" can grant an action to "Omega Ace," allowing him to get the combination of focus and target lock tokens he needs to count all of his attack dice as results.

While it's true that "Howlrunner" could simply equip Squadron Leader herself to provide the same benefit, she has opted for Swarm Tactics, instead, so that both she and another squadmate can fire before "Omega Ace," increasing the odds that the targeted ship will have been forced to use its defensive tokens and making it more likely that "Omega Ace" will be able to add another die (and another result) with Opportunist.

An alternative version of this build might drop "Youngster" and Swarm Tactics. "Howlrunner" would take Squadron Leader, and "Scourge" would fill the void left by "Youngster."

Focused Fire



Omicron Group Pilot with Agent Kallus, Fleet Officer , Fire-Control System , and Engine Upgrade (32)
"Howlrunner" (18)
"Scourge" (17)
"Youngster" with Expose (19)
"Chaser" (14)
Total Squad Points: 100

This final squadron swaps out a couple of TIEs in favor of a Lambda-class shuttle, piloted by an Omicron Group Pilot and crewed by Agent Kallus and a Fleet Officer. Agent Kallus and the Engine Upgrade modification ensure that your shuttle should play an active role in the battle, especially against the ship that Agent Kallus has targeted, and the Fleet Officer allows you to boost the impact of your "mini-swarm." With the Fleet Officer, you can pass focus tokens to both "Scourge" and "Youngster" before they later take advantage of Expose during the "perform actions" step. "Chaser" should also take advantage of Expose, and his unique pilot ability helps cover for the fact that the Fleet Officer can't pass out a third focus token.

This squadron features a reduction in total attack dice versus the first list with Expose, but the focus tokens it passes around complement the rerolls its pilots get from "Howlrunner" and ensure a greater overall measure of accuracy. It also boasts a greater total number of hull points and shields, and it leaves you the option to splinter your forces, sending the shuttle in one direction and your TIEs in another.

There Will Be No Escape



The Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack is on its way to retailers right now, and its new TIEs, pilots, and upgrades will soon make their impact on X-Wing battles everywhere. Keep your eyes open for news of this epic new X-Wing release, along with the expansion's rulesheet, the abilities of the three Gozanti Title cards, and a look at how your Gozanti can deploy its TIEs directly into the thick of battle!

Begin Your Pursuit

Begin Your Pursuit
The Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack for X-Wing™ Is Now Available

"All leads must be pursued."
     –Agent Kallus
Deploy your probes. Deploy your fighters. Pursue all leads of Rebel insurgency, and make short work of those you successfully hunt down. The Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack for X-Wing™ is now available at retailers throughout the United States!
Designed for use within the game’s Cinematic Play and Epic Play formats, the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack contains one Gozanti-class cruiser miniature, two TIE fighter miniatures with a variant paint scheme, eleven ship cards, twenty-six upgrade cards, and all the maneuver dials, damage decks, tokens, and game pieces that you need to fly your Gozanti cruiser and its escort fighters. Additionally, the expansion includes a set of four new missions for Cinematic Play, as well as rules for docking up to four starfighters and deploying them straight into battle.
 

Deploy Your Fighters

Equipped with the Docking Clamps upgrade, your Gozanti-class Cruiser can carry as many as four docked starfighters. They can be TIE fighters, TIE interceptors, TIE bombers, or TIE Advanced, but they must all share the same ship type and must be docked before the game begins.
While these fighters are docked, they are considered inactive for all purposes. They do not reveal maneuvers, they cannot attack, and they cannot be attacked. In fact, they are completely safe from your opponent's weapons so long as they remain docked.
However, while your fighters are docked, they are also doing nothing for you, apart from tying up the squad-building points that you invested in them. Therefore, you will naturally want to find an appropriate time to deploy them.
The rules for deploying your docked ships work a lot like those that allow players with the Hound's Tooth Title to deploy the Nashtah Pup from their YV-666 just before it explodes. Step by step, you simply select a maneuver for the ship you wish to deploy, fit the matching maneuver template to the front or back of the Gozanti, and fly your ship to the opposite end. Then, so long as your ship didn't collect a stress token or overlap an obstacle or another ship, it can perform a single action.
 
Here, though, you will find one important distinction between the rules for deploying the Nashtah Pup and those for deploying your Gozanti's docked ships; the ships that your Gozanti deploys can attack at their pilot skill value immediately in the Combat phase. They do not suffer a round's delay like the Pup.
This presents you a range of tactical options that takes the idea of docking ships to your Gozanti far beyond the thematic appeal of using it to transport fighters without their own hyperdrives. Because you activate your huge-base ships after all small- and large-base ships have already activated, you gain an element of surprise, positional advantages, and an extra burst of speed. Moreover, depending upon the Title you equip for your Gozanti, you can even gain the opportunity to fire earlier in the Combat phase than you normally would.

Tactical Advantages

Outmaneuvering your opponents is one of the greatest challenges in X-Wing. Done right, it is also one of the game's most rewarding aspects. However, it is much easier said than done. Each round, you and your opponent must secretly plot the maneuvers for each of your ships, and to outmaneuver your opponent, you must guess the likeliest end position or possible end positions for each of his ships. Knowing your opponent's ships' range of maneuvers is helpful, here, but then you still have to account for the possibility those ships will perform barrel rolls or boost.
Likewise, you must anticipate the flow of the round and determine where to maneuver your ships. You will want to position them in what you expect is the most advantageous positions, but your opponent will expect as much and might try to block your ships by flying into their paths. So you might want to maneuver into a less likely position – one that still offers an advantage, even if slightly mitigated – but are you just hurting yourself with all this second guessing?
To a large extent, then, the greatest strength that the Gozanti brings to your Epic fleet is the fact that it allows you to bypass this guessing game for your docked fighters, even while it forces your opponent to pay an extraordinary amount of attention to the threat they pose.
Because you deploy your docked fighters after all the small- and large-base ships have executed their maneuvers and performed their actions, you can select their maneuvers and perform their actions with full and perfect knowledge of your opponent's fighter screen. Want your Alpha Squadron Pilot to get the drop on Wedge Antilles orTycho Celchu ? When you deploy it from the Gozanti, you can pick a maneuver that gives you a shot and denies their shots, and there is nothing they can do about it. You can even strip them of their defensive tokens by using theSuppressor Title and acquiring two target locks with a Weapons Engineer .
 
The ships you dock on the Gozanti can also get into battle much more quickly than they could on their own. After all, instead of maneuvering them from the edge of your deployment zone, you can now maneuver them from the front of a huge-base ship that has already surged forward on its own initiative.
This could be a good way to get early shots from the torpedoes on your TIE bombers or from the missiles on your TIE Advanced. Many of your X-Wing ships have different efficiencies in Epic Play than they do in Standard Play, and the Gozanti can help a bomber wing led by Captain Jonus perform a truly terrifying alpha strike – one that could very easily shape the course of the ensuing battle, especially if it involves four TIE bombers all deployed simultaneously from the Vector .
 
Finally, the Gozanti's Requiem Title allows the fighters that you deploy to fire at a pilot skill value of "8" later in the Combat phase. In this way, you can catch your opponent off-guard with your Academy Pilots or Alpha Squadron Pilots, or you can have your unique pilots fire in the order of your choice. For example, you could have Commander Alozen wear down an opponent's shields with his Cluster Missiles before you have Maarek Stele follow up against the same opponent, thereby increasing his chances of scoring a critical hit.

Fly to Battle

Whether or not you use it to carry your docked fighters directly into the heat of battle, the Gozanti-class Cruiser in the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack marks a significant maturation and shift in the dynamics of X-Wing Epic Play. Your huge-base ships become more potent and meaningful than ever, and the expansion's TIE fighters and upgrades offer new squad-building options for both Epic and Standard Play.
You can learn more about the Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack from our previews, "Epic Tactics" and "Swarm Tactics," or you can simply head to your local retailer to pick up your copy now! The Imperial Assault Carrier Expansion Pack is available at retailers throughout the United States. Availability in other regions may vary.