WORLDS Round 4: Dave vs Derek

My final game was against Derek (Crewgar) of the Canadian contingent. He had a fairly typical Thrawn 2-Ship build, though he had Brunson on the ISD and Pryce on the Quasar. He picked my Superior Positions and deployed in the center. He set Pryce for round 1. Here is the opening of round 1:

In the first round, he jumped Morna, Rhymer, and Maarek up to hit my Dictor. It was fairly ineffectual. I countered back in the squadron phase, though due to a bit of a blunder on my part, caused Morna to be obstructed against Rhymer and wasn’t able to finish him off. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, the squadrons went at it with Demo throwing out its flak in support. I used HIEs to soften the rear of the Quasar. Here is the opening of round 3:

In the third round, I continued to reduce the squadrons. Here is the opening of round 4:

In the fourth and fifth rounds, I mopped up the rest of his squadrons. Demo escaped from the Avenger front shot without too much trouble. Derek started circling back with the Quasar. When he started coming back, he was hoping to command his squadron remnant. I pounced on him. Here is the start of round 6:

In the sixth round, I finished off the Quasar and earned several more objective tokens. Between his squadrons, the Quasar, and the tokens, I managed to get an 8-3 win. This one was a better game for me. I had prepared quite a bit for Thrawn 2-Ship lists and it turned out that my preparation finally came in handy. I also managed to not make any glaring mistakes. This wrapped up my 2019 Worlds experience, which I’m glad ended on a positive note. I was 61st in the standings, so did not progress to day 2.

A few general thoughts that pertain all of the games:

I was overly aggressive with Ciena, Maarek Steele, and Demo throughout the day. I need to either moderate that (unlikely), or increase the latter’s survivability. In the squadron play, I tend to just throw Maarek and Ciena out there, which works much better when you have a Quasar pushing additional squadrons out, but if Maarek and Ciena can’t kill the target, the counterfire is rough on Maarek especially. This happened in games 2 and 3.

Flechettes were used a couple times, but I ended up using Demo against ships in all four games. Given that, it may be wise to reconsider that role. I anticipated more Rieekan Aces with low bids, but most of the squadron-heavy fleets had larger bids to use in conjunction with Pryce so by the time my Demo was able to activate, the bulk of the opposing squadrons were already activated with a Quasar (games 1 and 4), rendering Flechettes useless.

I regret dropping Boba and the Firespray for Bossk and the Decimator, the Decimator was easy to tie up and having heavy is a major disadvantage. Nevertheless, I doubt that this minor change would have drastically altered any outcomes.

Overall, great experience, really good to get to meet so many phenomenal Armada players.