Screed Interdictor & Rogues vs Sloane Interdictor & Quasar

For this practice match, I brought my Vassal tournament list for a showdown against a Sloane list that consisted of a Brunson type Interdictor, upgrade-heavy Quasar, and a Gozanti with BCC. The squadron ball consisted of Maarek/Jendon, 2 Defenders, Dengar, Mauler, and Rhymer. Andy took first player and chose my Superior Positions. Here is the setup:

In the first round, I sheltered Demo behind the rocks to prevent a turn two alpha-strike with bombers. I also crowded all of my squadrons but IG88 on top of the rocks to keep them from being hit by Mauler. Here is the close of round 1:

In the second round, the Quasar was first activation. There wasn’t a solid target for attack, so other than Mauler, the squadrons were mostly repositioned conservatively. I was able to eliminate Mauler with the IG88 double tap and then pick apart Rhymer. Here is the close of round 2:

In round three, IG88 and Bossk were eliminated on my side and I started in on his Interdictor. Here is the close of round 3:

In round four, the Defenders hit the rear of Demo, racking up a bunch of tokens, but were not able to finish it off before I activated and destroyed the Interdictor. I also destroyed the Gozanti with the Interdictor and some squadron fire. Here is the close of round 4:

At the top of the fifth round, Andy activated the Quasar and pushed Maarek up to hit the rear of Demo, finishing it off and securing another token. The rest of his fighters hit the rear of the Gozanti, destroying it and winning more tokens. The Quasar landed on the debris field within medium range of the Interdictor, however, and between HIEs and my unengaged Rogues, I was able to finish it off while gaining five more tokens. This resulted in a strong win for me.

I noticed a significant weakness in my own list during this game, despite the strong win. My Demo setup excels against squadron heavy lists when I am first player, but is not nearly as potent as second player. Because of the Quasar on the other side, almost all of the opposing squadrons were activated by the time Demo was able to flak in round 2 or 3. This made Flechettes superfluous and it was unable to contribute as meaningfully to the squadron fight. Most squadron heavy builds in my experience have less than five points for bid, but if I do encounter something with more than that as I did in this match, it gives me a real disadvantage in the squadron fight.

On the other side of the table, it is hard to say what would have happened had Andy held the Quasar back in round 2, but saving the squadron activations until after I had moved some of my assets might have tilted to game in his favor, though that is hard to say because it would also have let my Demolisher hit some of his unactivated squads with Flechettes.