VASSAL Tournament Round 3: CommanderDave vs GiledPallaeon

This was the third Vassal Round and also the third time I face off against a Thrawn fleet. The first was squadron heavy, the second a medium squadron ball, and this match was squadronless. GiledPallaeon was my opponent and he ran a Kuat, Demo, TRC Arquittens, and a pair of Gozantis. Thanks to his Strategic Advisor, he was able to wait me out with all three combat ships. Unfortunately, he was short on deployments. He chose my Most Wanted and I made his ISD and my Gozanti the objectives. I was able to place my combat ships on the side opposite his ISD to try to force him to fly through my bomber cloud. Here is the setup:

Round one involved positioning. I set my Demo up to hit his Arq and Giled positioned his Demo as a counter. Ouch. Here is the end of round 1:

In round two, I hit Giled’s Demo with my Interdictor and squadrons, leaving it on two health. My Demo hit his Arquittens. The end of the round left my Demo softened up considerably. Here is the close of round 2:

Round three was the deciding point. Giled activated his Demo first and finished mine off. I then activated my Dictor and killed the Arquittens with a double arc shot before Engine Tech ramming the opposing Demo to death. I waffled on this move a lot as it let him move his ISD up for a close range activation next round. Unfortunately for him, the ISD ended up with only the side in arc. This was the deciding moment as I knew that he couldn’t kill my Interdictor, even with Darth Vader boarding and eliminating my Targeting Scramblers. Here is the close of round 3:

In round four, I was able to finish the ISD off with my squadrons. Here is the closing board state:

This was another strong victory, but it was a very favorable matchup for my list. I was definitely starting to sweat when he took my Demo down as it increased my risk of being tabled. The decision to ram his Demo was a little risky, but it worked out. Had Giled gotten the double arc from the Kuat ISD, I would have been in grave danger of destruction with the loss of Scramblers, especially if he could generate an accuracy on the front arc shot. Great game, very tense!

Thrawn ISD & Demo vs Ackbar AFmkIIs

In preparation for my upcoming Vassal Tournament match against GiledPallaeon, I decided to run my opponent’s list against my usual sparring partner, Andy. The list is fairly intimidating with a Kuat ISD, Demolisher, TRC Arquittens, and a pair of Gozantis for activation padding. The Kuat has the Darth Vader boarding team rather than the BTAvenger combo. It’s a very aggressive list that really benefits from going first.

On the other side, Andy brought a four activation Ackbar list with a pair of AFmkIIs, TRC90, GR75, scatter Aces, and a VCX. His TRC90 had FCTs to make the VCX do double duty with tokens. I chose first player and picked his Advanced Gunnery objective. Thanks to his squadrons, he was able to outdeploy me, so I had to work hard and fast to reposition. Here is the close of round one:

In the second round, I moved the ISD up fast to block the frigates while keeping my other ships out of range. I saved the ISD for last to prevent the double hit from the objective frigate in the rear with the intent of moving first in the next round. This was my main target due to the points bonus. Here is the close of round 2:

In the third round, I lost my Arquittens to the unavoidable double broadside from the objective ship while eliminating the TRC90. My ISD was damaged, but nothing serious and was in just the right spot to put serious pain on the frigates. Here is the close of round 3:

In the fourth round, I delivered the deathblow to the opposing objective ship, but wasn’t quite able to finish the deed on the flagship frigate, which was able to move out of the ISD front arc. Here is the close of round 4:

Round five was uneventful. The side arc shot from the ISD left the frigate limping, but couldn’t finish the task and Demolisher was too far away to move in on round six to finish the job. We called it at the close of round 5:

This was interesting to run an opponent’s list and it helped me to see the strengths and weaknesses of that list. GiledPallaeon’s list benefits from the flexibility of having Thrawn nav dials ready to go. I elected to set all three as navigate and set the ships’ dials to the second most useful command - repair came in very handy. Thanks to the flotillas, my combat ships had no shortage of tokens as well. The damage output was significant from both the ISD and Demo thanks to their Assault Concussion Missiles. Activation advantage was also powerful, as usual. On the flip side, five deployments seems very light. I had to commit my two heavy hitters before Andy placed his two frigates. This resulted in a less than optimal starting position.

VASSAL Tournament Round 2: CommanderDave vs Thrindal

Round two of the Vassal Tournament pitted my Screed list against another Thrawn list. This one was very different from the previous Thrawn matchup. My opponent, Thrindal, had a BT Avenger type ISD with Rapid Launch Bays. In the bays, he had Rhymer, a pair of Firesprays, and a Jumpmaster. In support, he had two Arquittens and a BCC Gozanti. He had bid and chose my Fighter Ambush. I was able to Grav Shift a debris field right where I wanted it and stick my whole rogue ball on top of it. Here is the setup:

In the first turn, I did some work on the ISD, stripping shields and getting one damage through. Here is the close of round 1:

In the second turn, Thrindal used his RLBs to tie up my squadrons for the turn. My Interdictor, sensing the approach of the ISD, turned tail and ran. Here is the close of round 2:

In the third turn, I finished off the right most Arquittens with Demo, slowed the Interdictor to stay out of the front arc of the ISD, and freed up my squadron ball, allowing both Firesprays to hit the ISD. Here is the close of round 3:

The fourth turn was the culmination of the game. My Gozanti activated Morna and Jendon to soften the ISD up further. Demo hit the ISD in the side. The ISD hit back, almost killing Demo. My Interdictor stripped the Arquittens’ shields and finished the opposing flagship. In the squadron phase, my Firesprays and Bossk were able to finish off the Arquittens, completing the tabling. Here is the board state at the close:

Going into this game, I had a strong fear of his flagship. I knew that it could potentially erase both of my combat ships in a single round so I tried to keep them far apart and played very conservatively with the Interdictor. All of my objectives were bad for him, but I thought that Most Wanted would have been the least of the evils. When he picked my Fighter Ambush, I was quite hopeful of a positive result. It ended up being a very strong victory for me, but could very well have gone the other way had I engaged on his terms instead of playing conservatively with the Dictor.

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.