VASSAL Tournament Final: CommanderDave vs PT106

This was the final game of the Autumn Vassal Tournament. Paul (or PT106) outscored me by three points, meaning I needed at least a 7-4 victory to win the tournament. His list consisted of a Motti Cymoon with Strategic Advisor, Intensify Firepower, Gunnery Teams, H9s, and Quad Cannons; Demo with the usual loadout plus an Intel Officer, a Glad II with Projection Experts and External Racks; a pair of Comms Net Gozantis, and Ciena Ree.

I chose Contested Outpost over Solar Corona and Most Wanted as it maintained my slight deployment advantage without being a terrible choice (Most Wanted). I deployed my Gozanti off the side instead of in the center as I knew he could easily pop it at long range and wanted it to survive for a few turns of squad pushing. Normally I would deploy place Demo on the opposite side of the Gozanti, but I had an initial plan of cutting over to the left with the Interdictor and using the Demo the threaten the rear or force the Cymoon to commit either left of right. Unfortunately, on turn one I shied away from that initial plan and elected to push to the right with the Interdictor. Here is the setup:

In round 1, I jumped my Interdictor forward to contest the station, hoping to hit the Cymoon before his Demo could reposition effectively. He skillfully responded by bumping Demo’s speed and using his own Engine Techs to threaten me in the following round. My Firesprays were just out of reach of Demo so I had to spread my fire between the two Gladiators. Here is the close of round one:

In round 2, I activated the Interdictor first, used HIEs on Demo, and put some minor damage on the Cymoon. I also used a Hondo token to tie up Ciena with a Firespray as IG was out of range. Nice placement on Ciena. I was able to bring Demo down to two hull with no brace or redirect available with Jendon/Morna. I activated my other Firespray with a banked token and it gave me a pair of accuracies. Demo got to live for its activation. That could have been game. I kept my own Demo well away from the Cymoon lest I risk being tabled. Demo rolled reasonably well, but I scrambled and braced it. The Cymoon got a fantastic roll with two doubles. No misses. I used Brunson to keep me alive, but was down to a single hull. The Gozanti was able to finish the job (barely) as his last activation. I cleaned up Demo in the squad phase. Here is the close of round 2:

In round three, I nearly finished the second Gladiator. My Gozanti was taking damage though and had to burn the scatter. Here is the close of round 3:

In round four, I finished off the second Gladiator and claimed the station while losing my Gozanti. Round five, I killed his Gozanti and kept the station. Round six, I was unable to finish off Ciena (which would have given me the win) but did keep the station. Here is the close of round 5:

This was a really close game. Paul got very lucky on his Cymoon shot against the Interdictor, though I’m not certain it would have changed the final outcome. The Cymoon build he used is fantastic. It can do some serious work against non-ECM targets and can swat small bases like flies. It effectively kept my Demo out of the fight. His aggressive approach worked well. Had he waited a turn before hitting the Interdictor, my squadrons would have had time to get into the right position to focus the Demo down and remove it from the fight. As it was, he was able to trade his Demo for my Interdictor. This was a good trade on his part. It also took me long enough to work through the Gladiators that I didn’t have time to eat through all of that ISD hull so I did not bother making the attempt.

My primary blunder in the game came in one of two places. In deployment, had I placed my Demo on the left, it would have effected what I was hoping for when I planned this game: making him choose which threat to address with his Cymoon. Then when I turned to the right with the Interdictor, he would have to face away from my Demo. Alternatively, in round one, had I turned to the left with the Interdictor, I could have brought my Demo in behind his Cymoon or had a better chance of dodging his primary arc with the Interdictor. As it was, the Cymoon was able to keep my Demo at arms length and out of the fight while combatting the Interdictor. As an aside, I believe that my list could come out on top with some better choices on my part, which is encouraging to me.

On the other side, Paul made some very solid moves. He used his Gladiators to shield the Cymoon from my squadrons. He kept Ciena away from IG, forcing me to sacrifice a Firespray to let the rest of my squadrons do their thing. He played aggressively and concentrated his firepower in the right spot (even including the Gozanti, which had a CF command dialed in for that very purpose). Great game, solid opponent. Congratulations to Paul in winning the tournament!