Screed Interdictor & Rogues vs Sloane Victory & Quasar

I brought my favored Screed list to a showdown against Andy, who was running Sloane on board the Quasar with Squall, Brunson, Boosted Comms, Flight Controllers, and Disposable Capacitors; a Victory II with Kallus, Warlord, H9s, Gunnery Teams, Heavy Ions, and Disposable Capacitors; a pair of Gozantis (one with Goran), and a squadron ball consisting of Maarek/Jendon, Ciena, Saber, Jonus, and a Firespray. He took first and picked my Most Wanted. I made my Gozanti and his Victory the objectives. Thanks to an extra flotilla on his side, he had a slight deployment advantage. Here is the game at setup, after I had moved the center obstacles my way (to nullify his Brunson):

Turn one, I played conservatively with Demo as Andy seemed disinclined to jump his squadrons forward. I did something of an inside turn with an Engine Tech afterwards to stay close to the asteroid and close the distance to the Victory. My object was to get within long range for an HIE shot on the following turn. Unfortunately, I was just a sliver short of that. Andy spread his squadrons out to protect them. Here is the close of round 1:

Turn two, Andy activated the lead Gozanti first in order to wait me out. I activated Demo and moved up conservatively into flak range of Ciena and Saber and was able to Flechette activate both while tying Maarek up with my own Ciena. Andy moved his Quasar up at speed two, which put it into range of my HIE shot. I activated the Interdictor and took that shot before aggressively moving into close range of the Victory to pin it in place and take advantage of my Scramblers. Here is the close of turn 2:

Turn three was a painful one for me. The Victory activated first and came two damage shy of destroying Demo outright. With its second shot, it was able to pop my objective Gozanti. I was able to activate Maarek & Jendon both with my Flechettes, but the Firespray managed to land the killing blow before the turn was out. My Interdictor got the Quasar down to a single hull, but I couldn’t finish the job with squadrons because Bossk blanked out on one of the Jendon-assisted shots against Ciena, preventing my Decimators from moving in unopposed against that Quasar. Instead, I moved all three up to finish Ciena (Scatter!) and prepare to start bombing the Victory. Here is the close of round 3:

In round four, the Quasar activated and pushed some squadrons, cleaning up both Bossk and Ciena before doing some bombing on the Interdictor. It rammed itself into my flagship in order to go down in a blaze of glory. Between my Heavy Ions and Decimators + Jendon, I was able to barely finish off the Victory. My Interdictor was on a single hull remaining. Andy made a minor mistake here and activated his lead Gozanti, which then obstructed the rear one. Had the order been reversed, it is probable that the game would have ended in a mutual tabling.

I grossly underestimated the damage that the Victory could do at long range to my Demo. I considered it quite safe on the far side, but Andy showed me that this was not the case. I will not underestimate DCap Victories in the future. On the other side, my Scramblers/Brunson Combination really held the Interdictor together. If I’m counting correctly, I took 7 total damage from ramming over the course of three rounds. That helped to soften the Victory as well, but if it wasn’t for the repair commands queued up, I obviously would have gone down. In the future, I will also be more hesitant to place my flagship in such a position of no escape. 

I was quite pleased with the role that Ciena played as a replacement to IG88. Her ability to essentially ignore flak made her the ideal squadron to cover Demo. My Decimators struggled immensely against the opposing Ciena, but had Bossk performed only slightly better (not even asking for average here), that role would have been unnecessary and they could have commenced bombing operations a turn sooner.

On the other side, Andy played his squadrons conservatively and was able to keep them safe as a result, with the notable exception of Saber Squadron, who was pushed out into Bossk’s (usually) lethal reach. His use of the Victory to neutralize my Demo and Gozanti was solid. Had he turned the Quasar inward, away from the Interdictor on turn two, he would have been able to keep it out of harms way for longer. Overall, it seemed well-played and ended up being a painfully close game that could have gone either way had any number of very minor factors been different.