Saturday, December 5, 2015

Armada: Vassal Tournament - Game 1

Slashing your ships with my MC80.

Holiday Vassal Tournament - Game 1
Objective: Superior Positions

HERO
Faction: Rebel Alliance 
Points: 391/400 
Commander: Admiral Ackbar

[ flagship ] MC80 Command Cruiser (106 points)
-  Admiral Ackbar  ( 38  points) 
-  Home One  ( 7  points) 
-  Intel Officer  ( 7  points) 
-  Engine Techs  ( 8  points) 
-  Electronic Countermeasures  ( 7  points) 
-  XI7 Turbolasers  ( 6  points) 
-  Leading Shots  ( 4  points) 

Assault Frigate Mark II B (72 points)
-  Intel Officer  ( 7  points) 
-  Gunnery Team  ( 7  points) 
-  Electronic Countermeasures  ( 7  points) 
-  XI7 Turbolasers  ( 6  points) 

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
-  Jaina's Light  ( 2  points) 
-  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points) 

1 Dash Rendar ( 24 points) 
2 YT-2400s ( 32 points)

Vs.

clontroper5
Faction: Galactic Empire 
Points: 390/400 
Commander: Admiral Ozzel

[ flagship ] Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer (120 points)
- Admiral Ozzel ( 20 points) 
- Relentless ( 3 points) 
- Captain Needa ( 2 points) 
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points) 
- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points) 

Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points) 
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points) 

Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points) 
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points) 

Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points) 
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points) 

4 Firespray-31s ( 72 points) 


Pre-game thoughts:
I've played against clontroper5 a few times in the past but I have never fought against his Ozzel.  I mean, I've seen the list in action so I know how deadly those Raiders can be if they start blocking up my lanes of fire.  For such little ships, they do a lot of damage once they start ramming and putting up APTs for guaranteed damage.  I already knew he had the activation advantage as well as first and last move.  He would probably take Superior Positions since a list like this wants to go first, which works out pretty well for me because I can do a layering deploy and movement phase where I'll be able to layer interlacing firings arcs in support of each other.  Those Raiders don't have a lot of health, so as long as I'm able to fire on them or force them out of the fight, I can concentrate my effort in removing the biggest threat on the table which is the ISD.  I have much more firepower than he does coming from my capital ships, so I'm sure I can do it.

Deployment - I go for an aggressive layering strategy.

This is what interlacing firing arcs look like.  By deploying and moving with this method, if a Raider gets in front of one ship, it will be eating broadsides from another ship in return.  The cross deploy from the ISD also means that I'm looking for no quarter and that I'm out for blood.  If I can angle correctly with Engine Techs on the MC80, I will be able to keep his ISD in my starboard arc while my port side will punish any flankers.  However, this would depend on his movement entirely, which when fighting Ozzel, is always a tricky thing.  I know that the speed changes will be tricky, so it's absolutely necessary that I pay extra attention to possible angles of attack and how I can maintain overlapping fields of fire.

End of 1 - The Rebel and Imperial forces dance towards each other.

The first round here I get a little bit too aggressive with my CR90.  I wanted to lure the Raider out of position from the rest of the fleet so I can fire on it with my other ships after it moves. but I misjudged how far he can move and he was able to set up a double-arc on me.  Damn.  No worries though, I have Redirect and shields in the front, I should be fine.  Dash and the boys get into the fight and start throwing dice.  Too bad they rolled like complete garbage.

End of 2 - Jaina's Light is destroyed while the Rebel forces return fire!

Yeah I'm not fine.  He rolls double crits up the ying yang with Concentrate Fire on first activation and erases Jaina's Light from the game after she takes a Structural Damage.  Now I'm down even more activations which is not a good thing.  Home One slashes in this round and puts long-range shots into both the far Raider Dagger and into Ozzel's flagship Relentless.  I do solid shield damage to both ships and was able to angle in a way where I received no return fire from the ISD.  The Raider does a few points of damage to my MC80, but I redirect most of it to the rear.  My fighters continue to throw crits and accuracies but nothing on attack.  We ping away at each other.

End of 3 - Vengeance unleashed.

Some serious dice gets thrown around here and the ISD rips into both ships.  Redirects and Braces come out in a hurry, ECMs get thrown and damage cards get placed.  The Raider managed to put some APTs into the Home One and it zooms away out of return fire.  Home One is hurting, but so is his ISD when I rip huge damage into him from Ackbar's flagship.  Ackbar's slash also catches Dagger in a flurry of dice and he explodes.  Unfortunately, Home One misses the navigate's double-click by just a hair and lands his big fat ass on the front of the MKII's base.  Great, another damage.  The MKII moves and puts more damage into the ISD, Inteling a Contain away and putting in good damage to hull with its XI7s.  One of the Firesprays breaks loose and goes on Home One's rear, putting some damage which gets redirected to starboard shields.

End of 4 - The destruction of Ozzel's Imperial Star Destroyer.

It's a bloodbath and both flagships have their engineering crews working overtime.  On his turn, he fires with the ISD but was only able to deal 6 damage.  I ECM for brace and redirect to the front and return fire.  I leave the ISD with 1 hull point and a crit, which he flips up and reveals a Projector Misaligned.  This forces him to lose all the shields on his port side, which my MKII takes advantage of and rips into.  Ozzel's flagship explodes in spectacular fashion and I smile like a huge nerd squid.  I still have one of his Raiders riding my ass, and my shields are now pretty damn low to do anything super effective.  Meanwhile, all his Firespray needed was to roll 3 hits to kill Dash with his brace up.  He rolls 3 hits and Dash dies.  My remaining YTs scramble to lock down the rest of the Firesprays.

End of 5 - Another Raider vanquished.

Here is where my opponent made a serious error I think.  He decided to CF my Home One but was unable to do too much damage to it.  He was just outside of black range and was unable to kill me by ramming.  His Raider was stuck going high speeds and didn't have the clicks to make the ram connect.  This forced the Raider to overrun into blue range of Ackbar and he promptly got smited down by the fishlord on his activation.  I hit the techies to get a sharp turn behind my MKII.

End of 6 - Victory to the Rebel Alliance!

We run away to save what points we had left and it's a 8-2 victory for the Rebels.  Since the MoV chart hasn't been updated, our tournament is using modified points since the game is now played at 400.

Post-game thoughts:
I knew I was at a severe activation advantage going into the game.  My plan to lure his first Raider out both succeeded and failed on my end due to his better positioning and dice.  Once he killed that CR90, I knew it has to be a damage race.  This is where my ships came out on top because I was able to throw out a lot more concentrated damage than he did, and burned out a good amount of his tokens.  Yeah, the Raiders really hurt, but once they make their bombing run they take a little bit to get back into the fight.  Especially if he wants to survive the massive broadside arcs of the MC80.  Thinking back to the game, if I was playing Ozzel, I would have just rammed the MC80 with the flanking Raiders on the left side of the map; stayed in CF range and kept throwing APTs.  Sure, you will take damage next turn, but the MC80 can only throw the broadside on one target at a time and you can bet that's going on the ISD.  Ramming and black dice throwing APTs every round is a sure way to overload the MC80s defenses and kill it much sooner.  After all, 8 hull means nothing to multiple ships ramming you and handing out crit cards and free damage.  The Raider's 4 hull might as well mean 4 unavoidable damage by ramming if he's not being shot at.

I hope you enjoyed the battle report.

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