Casual Tournament with Screed Kuat & Decimators

I made it out to a local event for the first time in quite a while, which was great. I had yet to even see the SSD in person and I was hoping to face one on the table. This was a two game tournament, which is a convenient Sunday format. I brought a Kuat with Screed, Pryce, OE, ECM, HIE, ExRacks; Raider 2 with Brunson, HIE, and DCaps; Comms Net Gozanti; and my current favorite squadron ball consisting of Mauler, Dengar, Morna, and three Decimators.

My first game was against Dan, who was running a Dual ISD list. It had a nasty ACM Kuat (on left) and a Rapid Launch Bay ISD1 (on right) with Morna, Maarek, Jendon, and Boba inside. I had the bid and picked first player and his Dangerous Territory. I deployed my Kuat and Raider aggressively at speed three. Here is the opening of round 1:

The first round started with a bang. Both of us moved aggressively to the middle. My Raider lined up for a double arc and my Decimators were able to hit the Kuat. I figured I would attack both of the ISDs head on and try to drop the Kuat fast and win the damage race. Here is the opening of round 2:

The second round saw the destruction of Dan’s Kuat. My Raider stripped the shields, he moved in close to my Kuat, allowing me to hit him with my front arc, and then my Decimators finished the job. He dropped his squadrons with RLBs, but they were too far away to shoot. Here is the opening of round 3:

In the third round, I had the double arc on the ISD1 and was able to move out of his front arc. He activated and attacked my Kuat with his squadrons, but was unable to do the requisite damage. My Decimators then finished off the limping ISD1. This gave me a solid first game win from a pretty ideal matchup.

In game 2, I was paired with Maxwell, who was running a Jerjerrod SSD with Ravager, DCO, Krennic, Palpatine, QTC, Enhanced Armament, QLT, HIE, Point Defense, and Gunnery Teams. His squadrons were Morna, Decimator, and a pair of TIEs. We tied for bid and rolled for it. I won, took first, and picked his Fire Lanes objective. Normally that’s a really bad choice, but I was hoping to drop the SSD for full points and contest some tokens with the Kuat while doing it. In the first round I jumped the Kuat into a nice double arc position. The squadrons all came together and fought it out. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, I activated the Kuat first and stripped the shields from the front three zones (without the use of HIEs). Maxwell used a Jerry maneuver to ram the Kuat and stay in place to keep control of the objective tokens. I destroyed the two TIEs and a Decimator for the loss of one of my Decimators. In the third round, I continued to inflict significant damage to the side of the SSD with the Kuat while also ramming to stay in place. My squadrons finished off his Morna and began to lay into the SSD. Here is the opening of round 4:

In the fourth round, I activated the Kuat first and finished off the SSD before it could activate. This gave me a strong win, despite the Fire Lane Token disparity, and a win overall for the tournament. 

My list performed well. The first matchup was highly favorable for me as my Raider and Kuat do very well against larges. Dan was certainly prepared for the SSD, but no so much for a Decimator ball. He made the mistake of setting his Pryce for round 3 while mine was set for round 2. We talked about it after and he didn’t anticipate me positioning my Kuat so aggressively. By placing my Kuat so far out on turn one, I was able to force him to close with me on turn two. This gave me very favorable shots and my Heavy Ions made short work of the shields on both ISDs.

Against Maxwell, the SSD flak gave me some trouble, but the Decimators were able to take it and carry on for the most part. Having first as well as deployment advantage let me place the Kuat ideally for a first/last maneuver and avoid his exceedingly nasty front arc altogether. I also wanted to close quickly to minimize the Krennic effect. I had the double arc on turns 2-4. He intentionally rammed the Kuat twice in order to stay in place for those tokens. That may have been a bad move. Had he managed to get a double arc with his two sides, the Kuat would have been in a lot more trouble. Had Maxwell included an Intel Officer, he would have been able to minimize the effectiveness of my brace, which would likely have had an effect. In any case, it was a good game and it was a lot of fun fighting the SSD.