2020 VASSAL World Cup POD Play Review

For the 2020 Vassal World Cup, I submitted a list and was placed on standby in case anyone canceled. As it turned out, someone did cancel and I was placed in Pod E. Here is my list:

Gladiator II-Class Star Destroyer (62 points)
-  Demolisher  ( 10  points)
-  Agent Kallus  ( 3  points)
-  Ordnance Experts  ( 4  points)
-  Engine Techs  ( 8  points)
-  External Racks  ( 3  points)
= 90 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
-  Hondo Ohnaka  ( 2  points)
-  Comms Net  ( 2  points)
= 27 total ship cost

[ flagship ] Interdictor-class Suppression Refit (90 points)
-  General Romodi  ( 20  points)
-  Interdictor  ( 3  points)
-  Captain Brunson  ( 5  points)
-  Engine Techs  ( 8  points)
-  Disposable Capacitors  ( 3  points)
-  Heavy Ion Emplacements  ( 9  points)
-  Targeting Scrambler  ( 5  points)
-  Grav Shift Reroute  ( 2  points)
= 145 total ship cost

1 Tel Trevura ( 17 points)
1 Morna Kee ( 27 points)
3 VT-49 Decimators ( 66 points)
1 Dengar ( 20 points)
= 130 total squadron cost

The first game was against Green Knight. He was running a Romodi Onager/ISD2 list with a pair of Gozantis and 6 TIE fighters. I had never faced the Onager with my Interdictor and was more than a little concerned about it. I had the bid and chose 1st player. The objectives were dreadful and I selected Surprise Attack which may not have been the best choice. Nevertheless, here is the opening of round 1 (Before the Grav Shift):

In the first round, I moved parallel and away from the Onager and ISD, hoping for an opportunity to turn in and engage on more promising terms. These terms never came so I spent a lot of time simply running to stay out of black dice range on the Onager. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, I put myself out of range for Brunson. I played Demo conservatively to prevent myself from being tabled. The squad fight was begun in earnest and I started to lay into the Onager with Decimators as well. Here is the opening of round 3:

The third round saw the destruction of the Dictor and continued Decimator damage to the Onager. Here is the opening of round 4:

In the fourth and fifth rounds, my Decimators continued to shoot the Onager. The rolls were mediocre and the work was slow. My Gozanti was taken down by the Onager (Vader choked out Romodi to do it). Here is the opening of round 6:

In the end, I was able to finish off both the Onager and one of the opposing Gozantis. Between these and the destruction of the TIE fighters, I managed a close victory (6-5). Lessons were learned in this game. One such lesson is that running from the Onager is generally futile. Best to take it on the chin and close the gap. My running caused me to nearly miss killing the Onager. Had the Dictor gotten a shot or two in, it would have softened it immensely for the Decimators.

The second game was against 187-Leon. He was running an almost identical list to Green Knight, except he had the OSD instead of the Testbed and he dropped two of the TIE fighters and made a couple minor upgrade changes. Leon had Fleet Ambush. This was an ideal choice for me as it allowed me to start the Decimators off closer to the enemy ships. Additionally, I could place Demo up close instead of the Dictor and there were no raid tokens involved (which was a killer in the previous game). Here is the opening of round 1:

In the first round, I was able to activate Demo first and scoot around, outside of special firing arc thanks to Engine Techs. Speed four really seems to be in order to avoid that thing. My Decimators moved in at the end of the round to strip many shields from the ISD. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, I once again managed to escape the Onager special firing arc with Demo. I also moved my Interdictor in to act as a finisher against the ISD. I missed the remaining pictures and my log file didn’t save properly, so I will summarize the remainder. Demo was popped by the Onager, thanks to the hefty side arcs and some fire support from the rear of the ISD before it went down. My Interdictor did indeed finish off the ISD with a double ram in round 3. My Decimators then finished off the Onager which had been softened by Demo. The TIE fighters managed to destroy Tel Trevura. Overall, a successful game that gave me a 9-2.

My third POD Game was against Green Squadron 3. He brought Ackbar on an MC80 Assault Cruiser with Bail as well as an MC80 Command Cruiser and a pair of GR75s. He had the bid and gave me first. I picked his Advanced Gunnery, which while scary, was much better than the Exogorth objectives. I had deployment advantage and elected to set up in a loose formation with Demo on the far flank. Here is the opening of round 1:

In the first round, I aggressively moved forward with the Dictor while keeping Demo well out of the action. My Decimators were just a little too far from the MC80s to contribute in the first round. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, I got into the front arc of the MC80C after stripping shields with my Heavy Ions. The Decimators followed up in the squad phase. Here is the opening of round 3:

In round 3, I destroyed the MC80 Command Cruiser and began to work on the Assault Cruiser’s shields. Bail was set for round 4 and he had a pretty ideal activation lined for the opening of round 4:

In the fourth round, the MC80A managed to bring down my Dictor, but it took a double-ram to do it. By the end of the squadron phase, his shields were depleted and his hull was down to only 4 thanks to the ramming and previous asteroid collisions. We called it at that as it was quite unlikely that it would survive. Here is the final game state:

Good games from all three opponents!

Proxy Fight: Romodi Onager vs Agate Starhawk

For these games, Andy and I decided to print out fake Onager and Starhawk bases in order to get a feel for both on the table. In the first game, I took the Onager (Testbed Cataclysm/Ozzel type) with Romodi, an Arquittens, Brunson Dictor, and a pair of DCap Gozantis. On the other side, Andy brought the the Starhawk with Concord and such, a pair of GR75s, one with Adar Tallon, and a squadron ball including Lando, Dash, some Lancers, Gold Squadron, Jan, and a Y-Wing. I had bid, took second, and Andy picked my Solar Corona. Here is the opening of round 1 after obstacle movement:

In the first round, I pushed the Onager up to the station and positioned the Dictor to soften up the Starhawk with HIEs. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round I hit the Starhawk with the Dictor and escaped its front arc. The Arquittens was just out of range to contribute. My Onager was in range to use black dice, but I totally forgot to add them in and ended up using just the red. Here’s a tip: don’t forget to roll all the dice in your armament! Here is the opening of round 3:

In the third round, I dropped the Onager down to speed 0 to avoid disrupting my Arquittens and Dictor formation. The Dictor was taking some pretty heavy squadron damage at this point. Here is the opening of round 4:

In the fourth round, the Dictor went down and Andy used his special weapon to speed my Onager up to 2. I was able to knock out the BCC flotilla with the Onager. Here is the opening of round 5:

In the fifth round, I destroyed the other flotilla and then began to evacuate as the Onager was taking some fairly substantial damage. Here is the opening of round 6:

In the sixth round, my Onager went down, but not before it took a pair of Lancers with it. Solid win for Andy. I really liked the proxy-Onager and I was also much impressed by Romodi’s performance, despite the loss. The Onager, despite being reputed as a tank-killer of sorts, did solid work on flotillas.

In the second game, I tried upgraded my Test Bed Onager to the OSD with the medium range super weapon and Rakehell, traded the Dictor for a Raider 2 and TIE fighter swarm. Andy swapped out his squadrons for Admonition and a big bid. He took first and selected my Contested Outpost. Here is the opening of round 1:

In the first round, Andy played it safe and I tokened up and secured the station. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, Andy dropped to speed 0 with his Starhawk to keep it out of range of my Raider. I stuck the Raider in a nice double-arc position and prepared a nice kill zone around the station. Here is the opening of round 3:

In the third round, I shot the Starhawk with the Raider and jumped up to speed 4. Andy surprised me by using his super-tractor-beam to drop the Raider to speed 0. He then positioned Admo to kill it on the following turn. Nice trick. Here is the opening of round 4:

In the fourth round, Andy did indeed destroy the Raider and then tried to block my Arquittens with Admo. I jumped over him and began to put a bit of damage on Admo. Here is the opening of round 5:

In the fifth round, Admo hit the Arquittens and my Onager hit Admo. Thanks to a CF command and the obstruction, I threw 5 reds out the side and managed to nearly wreck Admo. Here is the opening of round 6:

In the sixth round, Andy destroyed my lead Gozanti and my Onager and trailing Gozanti combined to keep the station out of enemy hands. This gave me a solid win thanks to the 100 points of station tokens. Andy played this one very conservatively. His Starhawk was never in much danger and the fighting was mostly done with Admonition. I very much liked the OSD variant, especially with its stronger side arcs. The Orbital Cannons were much preferable to the Composite Beam in my opinion. The effect on the Beam is nice, but the extra range on the Cannons would have been extremely useful in game 2. Going forward, I plan to default to the OSD with Bombardment Cannons. Gunnery Chief Varnillian was fantastic in both games. In game one, I used Veteran Gunners and regretted it. In game two, I used Weapon Battery Techs. That too underperformed for me. I may try Sensor Teams next.

In the third proxy game, I tried the Testbed Onager with a Quasar and a Defender-heavy squadron ball. Andy brought Unity, a Pelta with EST and Projection Experts, and a medium ball with Shara/Tycho, Dash, and Lando. I took first and selected Asteroid Tactics (Huge Mistake). Here is opening of round 1:

In the first round, I got aggressive and sent my fighters in to the attack. My Onager hit the Pelta, but after the Evade, Brace, and Redirect, didn’t manage to score a single damage. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, I continued to hit the Pelta, but couldn’t quite bring the black dice to bear and only scored very light damage. I wasn’t able to score many accuracies and as a result used my entire squadron ball to just kill Tycho. Here is the opening of round 3:

In the third round, I failed to clear the Onager with my Quasar and ended up ramming. The Pelta finally took a solid hit. Here is the opening of round 4:

In the fourth round, I activated the Quasar with the intent of escaping thanks to a navigate command. I shot the front of the Starhawk, forgetting about Salvo. The Salvo fire as able to finish off my Quasar. Oops. I also missed the opportunity to get a great shot in on the Starhawk with the Onager. Here is the opening of round 5:

In the fifth round I ran, but Dash was able to score a Hit/Crit in both rounds five and six against a token-less Onager. Victory for the Rebels! This one was a solid learning experience on my end. Andy utilized the objective very well with his Starhawk. He was able to burn and regain his Salvo token repeatedly. His squadrons were effective in neutralizing my own with a bit of flak help. I found the Cataclysm title to be a bit of a waste. The Rakehell title may have been more useful. I may spend some more time with that one. Regarding Defenders, I really want to like them, but they seem to underperform against both Scatter Aces and ships. This leaves me with a distinct impression of mediocrity. Lastly, I may consider pairing Sloane with the Onager to help with the squadrons. All in all, food for thought.

Casual Tournament with Agate Mon Karren

I went to another casual tournament in Orlando over the weekend and brought an experimental Agate list. I had an alternate list in case there were any objections to me running a proxied Admiral. Here is the list that I ended up using:

MC80 Battle Cruiser (103 points)
-  Kyrsta Agate (com)  ( 20  points) 
-  Mon Karren  ( 8  points) 
-  Walex Blissex  ( 5  points) 
-  Gunnery Team  ( 7  points) 
-  Engine Techs  ( 8  points) 
-  Linked Turbolaser Towers  ( 7  points) 
-  Spinal Armament  ( 9  points) 
-  Leading Shots  ( 4  points) 
= 171 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
-  Comms Net  ( 2  points) 
= 20 total ship cost

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
-  Jainas Light  ( 2  points) 
-  Ezra Bridger  ( 3  points) 
-  Engine Techs  ( 8  points) 
-  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points) 
= 64 total ship cost

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
-  Engine Techs  ( 8  points) 
-  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points) 
= 59 total ship cost

1 Shara Bey ( 17 points) 
1 Dash Rendar ( 24 points) 
1 Tycho Celchu ( 16 points) 
1 Lando Calrissian ( 23 points) 
= 80 total squadron cost

For the first game, I was paired with Bernie. I don’t think I had ever played a game against Bernie, but he is a regular in these parts and a frequent Interdictor user. He had a Piett list with the Dictor, Demolisher, and a BCC Gozanti. His squadrons were bomber-heavy with Maarek/Jendon, a pair of Firesprays, Rhymer, and a few others. I took first and selected his Salvage Run. Here is the opening of round 1 after the Grav Shift:

In the first round, I slowly pushed my flotilla and non-Jaina TRC90 forward to wait for Bernie’s combat ship activations. Then I pounced with Mon Karren to deliver a fast flanking movement while Jaina’s Light took to the center in order to apply some pressure on the Dictor and prepare to grab a sweet objective token. Maarek/Jendon softened Jaina up a bit while the Firesprays hit Mon Karren. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, I activated Jaina’s Light, took the token and flew out to relative safety. Bernie activated his Dictor next and hit both of my TRC90s. Next, I blundered a bit in activation order. Instead of activating my 90 that was threatened by Demo, I went with Mon Karren in order to get a shot in on Demo before it flew off. I was able to destroy the Gozanti, but did minor damage to Demo.  Demo was then able to activate and destroy my TRC90 thanks to the prior HIE shot from the Dictor.  In the squadron phase, I kept Maarek firmly occupied with Dash. The Firesprays chipped away at Mon Karen, but it was slow work against three braces. Here is the opening of round 3:

The remainder of the game involved the destruction of the Dictor by Mon Karren and the wrecking of Bernie’s squadrons by my own for the loss of Tycho. I was able to grab a second Salvage token to tie up the objective points and ended the game with a solid victory. Here is the final game state:

With a solid win on my first game I was paired next with Cameron who was running a Dodonna list with an MC80, Assault Frigate, and BCC flotilla. His squadrons consisted of Dutch, Wedge, Jan, and three generic B-Wings. He had the bid, took second, and I picked his Surprise Attack. Here is the opening of round 1:

In the first round, I used Ezra to move one of the rocks out of the way so that I could maneuver Mon Karren through safely, which I intended to use to intercept the MC80. I pushed Shara and Tycho up to engage some of his fighters in the squadron phase. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, I pushed Mon Karren up to put some damage on both the MC80 as well as the Assault Frigate. It was a bad idea to place Mon Karren in such an exposed spot, but with Agate and three braces, I figured I was basically invincible. Or something. Here is the opening of round 3:

In the third round, I hit both the Assault Frigate and the MC80 before jumping forward at speed three.     Jaina’s Light (On left) survived a long-ranged shot from the MC80. The other TRC90 applied some pressure on the Assault Frigate, but I was loosing the damage race at this point. Mon Karren’s shields were depleted and things were looking ugly. Turn four, I nearly escaped with Mon Karren, but Cameron scored just what he needed to finish it off at long range. Jaina’s Light also went down before it could activate. My remaining TRC90 was able to apply some damage, but it was insufficient to bring down either of Cameron’s heavy hitters and I pulled it out of the fight. Cameron was able to attain a solid win. Well done to him!

Lessons To Be Learned:

- Delay engagement when doing Surprise Attack. Thanks to my tokens, I was able to do some work in round two, but the raid was very painful in round 3 especially. Had I delayed, the raid effect may have been mitigated.

- Agate is fantastic, but still highly susceptible to a lot of small hits over time. Don’t be overly aggressive with Agate.

- Focus Fire. I had a shot on the Assault Frigate in round three with me front arc, but I should have forgone that shot to either flak the squadrons or deliver a side arc shot on the MC80.

- Be careful with CR90s. They are so incredibly flimsy. Not really news here, but I overestimated their survivability in the first game for some reason.

Romodi Dual Interdictors vs Agate MC75

For this game, we decided to try out the upcoming commanders for the first time. I took Romodi and put together a list containing dual Interdictors, an Arquittens, and a pair of Gozantis. Andy brought Agate on board an MC75 Ordnance Cruiser, a TRC90, Yavaris, and a pair of GR75s. In support, he had a medium squadron component with a bunch of Y-Wings and such. I had the bid, took second player, and Andy chose my Doomed Station. Here is the opening of round 1:

In the first round, my more heavily-kitted, non-flagship Dictor took the lead while my flagship remained in the rear. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, I stripped the shields from the MC75. I had an impressive kill-box set up to ensure that there was no escape for his flagship. Andy was more cautious with Yavaris and the TRC90 and was able to keep them mostly out of reach. Here is the opening of round 3:

In the third round, the MC75 went down in a blaze of glory. Yavaris remained out of range of the Arquittens and the rear Dictor. The squadrons piled on my front Dictor, working it slowly down. Here is the opening of round 4:

In the fourth round, my front Dictor continued to take on a steady trickle of damage while Andy’s TRC90 strayed into range of my rear Dictor. He rammed my Gozanti to finish it off after it took some damage from the MC75 and then used engine techs to escape the Dictor double-arc. This brought him into long range of my Arquittens, which was able to throw five reds with LTT and finish it off.

In the fifth round, my front Dictor double-rammed the closer GR75 to kill it and then finally died after it lost the Brunson effect. Yavaris was out of the fight and my flagship and Arquittens were likewise unable to engage. Nevertheless, I was able to collect the objective token on the station every round plus kill a bit more of Andy’s fleet than he killed of mine so it was a solid Imperial victory.

Here’s what worked well: Romodi combined beautifully with the Arquittens. They are a natural fit. The Interdictors with obstruction, DCaps, CF commands, and CF tokens almost guaranteed the HIE critical effect without having to discard a dice as I would in a Screed fleet. The Interdictor is easy to fly in such a way as to get the double-arc. I highly recommend both the Dictor and Arquittens. If I had the points I would also have loved to upgrade the Gozantis to the Assault Type. At one point, I had my Gozanti throw three blue dice thanks to a CF command and obstruction. It would have been an easy thing to have done this multiple times from long range with reds. Alternatively, DCaps could be a very interesting inclusion on the Gozantis for the three blue dice at long range. In short: Romodi is a fantastic commander!