Screed Dictor & Demo vs Screed Kuat & Demo

For this game, I wanted to try out a modification to my squadron ball and objective selection. I dropped Ciena and a Firespray for the following: Morna, Maarek, Jendon, Boba, and the new inclusion of Dengar and Mauler. My thinking here was to prevent my bombers from being tied up and to give me greater offensive power against opposing squadron balls. For this, I lose a bit of bombing power and the near immunity to flak that Ciena provides. On the other side, Andy brought a list semi-tailored to counter my own. He had Screed on a BTA Kuat, a Flechette Demo (same as my own), and a Vader Raider to knock out my Targeting Scramblers. His squadrons were Ciena, Valen, Gamma, and Jonus. He chose my Close Range Intel Scan. Here is the deployment after I used the Grav Shift (I had already moved my Gozanti when I remembered to take a pic):

In the first round, I positioned my Interdictor at the base of the dust field. Depending on how aggressive Andy was with the Kuat, I could move to the inside for shelter. I put my squadrons behind the dust field as well. If Andy wanted to hit my squadrons with his Demo, he would have to move in front of my Dictor and Demo to do it and open himself up to counterattack. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, Andy kept the bombers on the rock and moved Ciena forward. I hit Ciena in return with Mauler. I scored a lucky roll with the Interdictor and popped his Gozanti. Boba and Morna hit the Raider and brought it down to two hull remaining after it jumped into Vader range. Here is the opening of round 3:

In round three, I cleaned up the Raider after it cleared my Scramblers. My Demo hit his bombers. His Demo hit the Dictor. Andy elected to pursue my Demo with the Kuat and leave the Dictor alone. Morna, Boba, and the Dictor did good work softening Demo. Here is the opening of round 4:

In the fourth round, Andy BTAed my Demo. I cleared some shields from his Kuat with the Dictor. His Demo Flechette-activated Boba. I only needed on hull damage to finish Demo, so I sent Jendon over to pass an attack to Boba, but Boba failed me. I had to send in Maarek to get the job done. I was really hoping that Maarek could start in on the ISD. Oh well, the Demo went down. My squadrons were strung out. Here is the opening of round 5:

In the fifth round, Andy turned the Kuat in to chase my Dictor. He managed to stay entirely in my rear arc. Morna hit the ISD. Here is the opening of round 6:

In the sixth round, Andy killed my Gozanti, which prevented me from sending Maarek against him. Fortunately for me, the Dictor and Morna were enough to finish off the ISD. Jendon was in range as well to pass a second attack to Morna if needed, but that proved unnecessary. It ended as a strong win for me. Andy clearing my Scramblers prevented me from helping Demo to survive the Kuat shot. He had to choose between BTA-killing my Dictor or my Demo and he chose the Demo, thinking that it would be easier to follow up against the Dictor afterwards. By this time, we had activation parity though, so he was unable to get the close range shot that he needed to kill it.

Switching out Ciena and the Firespray for Dengar and Mauler let me kill Ciena and Valen, but I feel like I could have accomplished more with that third rogue. I may even have been able to finish off the Raider on turn 2 before it could remove my Scramblers. My inclusion of Close Range Intel as an objective is good. I really like having the dust field to hide behind if necessary. I can see this one being a solid objective against Cymoon and red-dice-heavy lists. I didn’t collect any tokens, but the added obstacles made up for it.