2019 VASSAL Autumn Tourney Round 3 vs Order66 Beta

In Round 3 of the Vassal Tourney I was paired against Order66 Beta who was running a Piett ISD2, Glad2 Demo, Corvus Raider, Comms Net Gozanti, Mauler, Valen, Jonus, and a generic TIE bomber. I had the bid, picked first, and selected his Hyperspace Assault. Here is the opening of the first round:

The first round was the Pryce round. I held back with my ISD in the hope that he would drop Demo before I engaged his ISD. Alas, no such luck. My Decimators took the central area of the projected combat zone. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, I jumped up to speed three to start getting some work done. Tel was able to tie up both Mauler and Valen, which left my Decimators free reign to start laying into the ISD. Here is the opening of round 3 after Demo dropped in from Hyperspace:

In the third round, I activated my ISD first with a squad dial to further soften the opposing ISD with my Decimators. This was a mistake as it left them unable to respond to developments later in the round. I was able to strip the Demolisher title with my BT Vader, which was pretty sweet. I also made a massive mistake by positioning my ISD head-on with the opposing ISD, cutting off my own escape later on. Here is the opening of round 4:

In the fourth round, I activated my ISD first, but didn’t have another squadron command to help me burn down the ISD or even a Nav to help me escape my predicament. Instead I had a repair. Not good. I was able to tank the ISD shot without issue, but had to use my ECM. I was stuck in the double arc of the Gladiator and the absence of the Demo title meant nothing. It was able to finish off my ISD. My Decimators put some damage on the Gladiator and finished off the ISD. I was just out of close range of the Gladiator with my Raider. Here is the opening of round 5:

In the fifth round, I activated my Gozanti first and finished off Demo with a pair of Decimators. My remaining two Decimators softened the Raider in the squad phase. The sixth round repeated that technique and my Decimators were able to destroy the Raider before it activated. Here is the final board state:

It was well played by Order66. He was at a very significant disadvantage, but he managed to make the most of it and score a kill on my ISD, holding me at an 8-3. The use of Vader against Demo upon exiting hyperspace was really solid, but I failed to capitalize on it. I’m still kicking myself for not planning an escape route for my ISD. I was more concerned about getting out of close range of Demolisher rather than focusing on long-term survival. Iden once again did great work on my Raider. It kept the opposing Raider from procuring any APT hits. My fighter wing did admirable work with Tel Trevura holding Mauler and Valen at bay.

JJ SSD vs Ackbar Defiance

For this match, I thought I’d try out the SSD. I was running the Assault variant with Jerjerrod, Annihilator, DCO, Kallus, Intel Officer, HIE, LS, QBT, LTT, QLT, and Gunnery Teams. In support, I had a Raider with Corvus, Iden, ExRacks, and OEs. Andy brought an Ackbar Defiance with a pair of TRC90s, Comms Net flotilla, Shara/Tycho, a HWK, and a VCX. I took first and picked Planetary Ion Cannon. Here is the opening of round 1:

First round, Andy turned a CR90 inward to get it in range for shooting. The other drifted just into range of the SSD as well. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, I scored a solid hit on the right hand CR90 and a minor hit on the left hand corvette. I then took the full firepower of the opposing fleet that stripped most of my frontal shields. The heavily damaged CR90 moved out of range while the other one was stuck just moving out of the more dangerous front arc. Here is the opening of round 3:

Round three, the Raider killed the GR75. The Raider then went down to a double ram from the MC80, which also landed on the debris field and stripped the far shields. The CR90 survived a side arc shot from the SSD and flew off into the rear arc. Here is the opening of round 4:

In the fourth round, I used JJ to turn into the MC80, which was now shieldless and down to four hull. It had saved its brace all along for the next shot. Here is the opening of round 5:

In the fifth round, I was able to kill the MC80, finishing it off with a ram. The CR90s turned in to try for the kill as I only had 5 or so hull remaining. Here is the opening of round 6:

In the sixth round, I was able to kill both CR90s before they could shoot. Had Andy disengaged with the CR90s, it would have been a fairly close game as he had scored half points on the SSD quite handily. But, given that this was a casual game, he figured he might as well go all in.

Jerjerrod performed wonderfully as my admiral. I had a Nav command on the first turn to adjust speed and give me a token for later use. The rest of the game, I simply had repair commands dialed up. My Linked Turbolaser Towers also performed beyond expectations. I forced the HWK to flee after a single long-ranged LTT shot dropped it to a single hull. I was able to bring the VCX down fairly quickly too. On the anti-ship side, it generally provided all I needed for rerolls. I believe I only had to use leading shots once. Planetary Ion Cannons ended up being a fairly benign choice, though they did hurt the Raider a bit.

Casual Tournament with Screed Dictor & Demo

I went to another casual tournament at Cool Stuff in Orlando this month. I have not used the Interdictor with the new objectives yet, and wanted an opportunity to give that a try. I brought a modification of my personal favorite list: A Screed Interdictor with title, Brunson, Targeting Scramblers, Grav Shift, HIE, ET, and DCaps; Demo with Iden, ET, OE, and ACM; a Comms Net Gozanti; and a squad ball of Dengar, Tel Trevura, Morna, and 3 Decimators. I picked three of the Gravity Rift objectives: Rift Assault, Rift Ambush, and Doomed Station.

In the first game, I was paired with Matt, who brought a Dual ISD Jerjerrod list consisting of an ISD2 (on my left), a Cymoon, a pair of Gozantis, and 4 generic TIE fighters. We tied for bid, rolled for it, I won, and picked his Fire Lanes. Here is the deployment (before I moved those obstacles):

Matt had a significant activation advantage, but my goal was to split the two ISDs by spreading Demo and Dictor on both flanks with my Decimators in the center. I also wanted to try to pick up some firing lane tokens. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, Matt dropped is ISD2 to speed 0 to avoid a double arc HIE salvo from the Dictor. I accidentally moved Demo into long range of the Cymoon. The Cymoon used JJ to try to keep Demo in the front arc. My Decimators hit the Cymoon hard. Here is the opening of round 3:

In the third round, I maneuvered the Dictor out of the front arc of the ISD2 and tried to set up for a double-arc. I moved Demo to avoid another front arc shot. My Decimators continued the work on the Cymoon. Tel Trevura went down thanks to a multitude of accuracy results from the TIE fighters that prevented me from using up the defense tokens. Here is the opening of round 4:

In round 4, I moved Demo out of danger, which allowed the ISD2 to move into long range of the Dictor. The Cymoon was almost dead so I started in on the ISD2 with the Decimators, knowing that I’d activate Demo first on the following round to finish the Cymoon. Here is the opening of round 5:

In round five, I indeed finished the Cymoon and laid into the ISD2. I made a major mistake of having a repair command dialed up on Demo with no Nav Tokens while at speed 1. This meant that I couldn’t pull it out of danger and it was stuck in the front arc of the ISD2 with no shields. Demo went down, but I was able to line up a nice double arc with the Dictor for the following round. Here is the opening of round 6:

In the sixth round, the Dictor was able to bring the remaining ISD down to 2 hull remaining before finishing it off with a double ram. Thanks to the loss of Demo, the fire lane tokens, and the length of the game, Matt scored well. I think I end up with an 8-3 victory.

My next game was against Maxwell, who brought his JJ Assault-type SSD with Krennic, DCO, and loads of other upgrades. He had a squadron ball of Morna and a pair of Defenders. He had bid, took first, and picked my Rift Assault. I placed the rift in the middle with rocks flanking it. I deployed the Dictor and Demo to move around the rift and try to pull him into it. Here is the opening of round 1:

In the first round, I jumped the SSD with my Decimators. Tel Trevura tied up his squadrons. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, Maxwell JJed his SSD toward my ships. My Decimators continued the good work. A Defender went down with Tel still going strong. Here is the opening of round 3:

In the third round, I managed to fly Demo over into the SSD rear flank arc, thinking I could easily take a single shot from that weak arc. The SSD was starting to take hull damage at this point. Here is the opening of round 4:

In the fourth round, Maxwell got a crazy good, essentially perfect, unmodified shot from his rear flank that was able to destroy my Demo. Eight damage with three accuracies was the result. He used Ravager to add a pair of black dice. I was just out of range of my Targeting Scramblers. Maxwell then moved onto the Gravity Rift in order to try to kill my Interdictor. His only hope was to table me on the following round as my Decimators were all still going strong. My Dictor got the double arc shot on him, rammed him, and then my Decimators finished the job, destroying the SSD before it could take the shot. Here is the final board state before removing the SSD:

In the end, I got second place despite my solid wins. My desire was two-fold: to try the gravity rift objectives paired with an Interdictor and to try to match my ECM-less fleet against the SSD to see how it fared. Both objectives were met and I was quite please with the results. Grav Shift in conjunction with the gravity rift really proved potent. I have noticed that the Rift Assault objective seems to be the weakest of the rift objectives. Something to keep in mind. Lastly, that Ravager title with the right upgrades and rolls can produce some absolutely devastating results. I won’t soon underestimate its damage output. Great games from both Matt and Maxwell though, and congrats to Tim for taking the win!

Madine Mon Karren vs Thrawn ISD & Demo

I brought Mon Karren with Madine, Bail, ET, WBT, HIE, and LTT; an MC30 Scout with EST, TRC, ExRacks, and OE; slicer Storm with Ezra; a Comms Net flotilla; and squadron support consisting of Shara, Tycho, Dash, and Lando. On the other side, Andy brought a Thrawn list with an ISD2, standard Demo, BTVader Corvus, a Gozanti, and Ciena/Valen. I had a slightly higher bid and picked 2nd, despite being out-activated. Andy picked my Rift Assault and we were off to the races:

I kept Mon Karren back in the hope that Andy would get reckless with his Raider and I’d be able to kill it before the ISD entered the fray. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, I was able to activate my Liberty after the ISD and Demo. I used my Engine Techs to position Mon Karren in front of the pair. I tried to get Demo into a double arc, but went a little too far and my front arc ended up being out. This made me split fire between Demo and the ISD on turn three. I was also just within range of the gravity rift, which meant that I only had an effective speed of 2+1. This resulted in the ISD getting a double arc on me. I totally misplayed that approach. Fortunately, Andy accidentally blocked his Demo in with the ISD, preventing him from giving chase right away. Here is the opening of round 4:

In the fourth round, the ISD stripped the shields from the MC30, but landed right on the gravity rift. I used Ezra to move the rift enough to remove obstruction for the MC30 shot. It was a good shot that brought him down to 3 hull. Lando was able to finish the job in the squad phase. Mon Karren was down to just a few hull as well. Here is the opening of round 5:

In the fifth round, Mon Karren indeed went down and Andy positioned Demo to finish off my MC30. Here is the opening of round 6:

In the sixth round, the tabling was completed, a disaster for the rebellion. The ISD was destroyed, but not due to great play on my side. Andy simply got too aggressive and couldn’t avoid the rift. Choosing Bail over strategic advisor ended up being a bad move. Similarly, me choosing second player in order to make proper use of Bail was a mistake given that I was out-activated. The Rift Assault objective ended up scoring Andy some points while I made no use of it. Only having two ships that can score points on it puts me at a distinct disadvantage. Good learning experience.

2019 VASSAL Autumn Tourney Round 2 vs BrobaFett

I was paired against BrobaFett in round 2. I had never played him before, but I knew him by reputation as a sort of Thrawn 2-Ship expert. He dropped the Quasar in favor of an Arquittens with Needa and TRC. His ISD2 was heavily equipped with Avenger, Pryce, GT, LS, QBC, and Boosted Comms. His squadron ball consisted of Morna, Maarek/Jendon, Hondo, Jonus, and Dengar. We had the same bid and rolled to determine initiative. He won and chose first. He then picked my Fighter Ambush. I deployed my squadrons a ways away from his as I was concerned about him using Hondo to pull one of my squadrons into his MMJ mulching machine early on. We both set Pryce to round 2. Here is the opening of round 1:

In the first round, Broba’s ISD charged in at speed 3. I maintained a comfortable speed 1 with my own ISD while jumping to speed 4 with the Raider. In the squad phase, Morna, Maarek, and Jonus all hit the Raider while Hondo pulled Morna out of Flechette range. Thanks to Iden, I only lost my front shields. My own squadrons began to soften the ISD up. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, the Arquittens scored a critical on the Raider when I chose to cancel the double hit instead of the critical. This resulted in the Raider’s inability to resolve any critical effects. So much for Flechettes. I hit the ISD hard (ExRacks would have been so much better) and jumped out of the front arc to try to catch the Arquittens. Broba’s ISD activated and he used his squads to assassinate my Morna and then did a really great maneuver that landed him at long range of my own ISD. I tied up MMJ with Dengar and Tel on either side. Hondo activated one of my Decimators. The remaining 2 Decimators scored victory tokens on the ISD. Here is the opening of round 3:

In the third round, Broba’s ISD was hurting and needed to go first. He took down my Gozanti and used Hondo and Jonus to hit my ISD before laying into it with his own front arc. He wasn’t quite able to escape my own ISD front arc. My Raider hit the Arquittens with a double-arc and jumped to long range. The Arquittens softened the rear of the Raider. My ISD fairly easily finished off Broba’s flagship. In the squadron phase, Tel Trevura really earned his pay by keeping MMJ occupied. My Decimators finished off Maarek. Here is the opening of round 4:

In round 4, I forgot to spend my squad token to activate my damaged Decimator. I paid for this by losing it to a near perfect roll from Hondo before it could activate. My ISD chased the Arquittens. I also forgot to flak. I was definitely running out of mental steam at this point. Here is the opening of round 5:

In the fifth round, I forgot to use that squadron token yet again, which allowed a single hull Hondo to activate and roll a perfect four hits to eliminate Tel. I lost another Decimator to Morna, but in the sixth round was able to finish off Jonus. The Arquittens managed to stay at long range thanks to a banked Nav token and escaped with only 2 hull remaining. Here is the final board state:

Going into this one, I really didn’t feel like I had a reliable strategy. I wasn’t sure if I was going to play it conservatively and try to win the squadron fight or go for the ISD. When Broba charged out, he made the decision for me. When I got the critical effect on the Raider in round 2 that neutralized flechettes, it similarly forced me into the position of pinning all my hopes on the destruction of the ISD. I made a number of mistakes in the squadron fight that Broba was able to exploit to obtain superiority in that fight. He is definitely a formidable opponent. Great game, a real bloodbath, which is exactly what I expected.

Here are some thoughts on upgrade choices: my Raider did really decent work, but Flechettes are incredibly underwhelming on this platform. ExRacks would have been significantly more useful. Iden and Corvus are both fantastic upgrades. I will certainly continue to use them. HIEs were of limited value in this fight because of all the shield stripping that the Raider did on the approach. LTTs did good work, but I totally forgot to flak and use them to give me an edge in the squadron fight. They would have helped immensely in round 4 and 5. I was very clearly fatigued and need to print out a flow chart or checklist to mitigate against mistakes like this. I dropped Mauler Mithel to add Tel Trevura to my squadron ball and he was totally worth it. He may be my new favorite squadron (or second favorite after Morna). I effectively tied down Morna and Maarek by using him on one side and Dengar on the other. His escort prevented them from attacking Dengar or any Decimators. On the other side, Hondo worked really well. He is great at pulling vulnerable friendly squads out of compromising positions and shutting down key opponents. I’ve certainly got my eye on him to try it out.

Bottom line: Fantastic game, great learning experience and so tense from round 1 all the way through the end. Thanks Broba.

2019 VASSAL Autumn Tourney Round 1 vs ChavoGuerrero

For this tourney, I decided to run an Admiral that I’ve never used before: Ozzel. I stuck him on an ISD2 with HIEs and LTTs among other things. I also brought a Flechette Raider with Corvus and Iden to try that combo out. In support, I had the Comms Net Gozanti and a squadron ball consisting of Tel Trevura, Dengar, Morna, and 3 Decimators. I expected a bunch of SSDs but was sadly disappointed.

In the first round, I was paired with ChavoGuerrero. He brought a pair of Thrawn Dictors that were kitted out to tank. He also had Demo as a closer and a very good reason for me to not choose 2nd player. In support, he had a pair of Slicer Gozantis. I picked first player knowing that I’d be facing an uphill battle against Chavo’s objective suite. Ion Storm was a bit of a surprise as I was expecting Rift Assault. Regardless, the yellow and blue objectives were more painful for sure (I’ll let you guess them), so Ion Storm it was. Here is opening of round 1:

In the first round, I passed a Nav token to the ISD in order to jump up to speed three when combined with the Ozzel effect. This was overly aggressive for sure, but I really wanted to get a nice shot off in the next round. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, I passed another Nav token to the ISD, hoping to use it to drop to speed 1. Unfortunately, the slicer Gozanti scored a critical and used the objective effect to make me discard the Nav token. This was about the worst thing that could happen as I really wanted to stay in front of the Dictors, but without ramming and landing on asteroids. Here is the opening of round 3:

In the third round, I activated the Raider first and finished off Demo. Chavo’s left Dictor finished off my Raider, and my ISD over-shot the battlefield. Here is the opening of round 4:

In the fourth round, I continued to work away at the Dictors with my Decimators. My ISD contributed as it was able. Thanks to an over abundance critical and accuracy results from my Decimators, both Interdictors were still in the game at the opening of round 5:

In the fifth round, I was able to kill an Interdictor with my Gozanti by activating one of the Decimators first thing. The remaining Interdictor had Wolff on board and was repairing like mad. Here is the opening of round 6:

I was 2 damage shy of sealing the deal in the sixth round. The Interdictor escaped and, while the victory went to me, Chavo managed to hang on to his tournament points in a matchup that was not favorable to him from the outset, so great job there. He deployed the rocks well and managed to keep a nice close formation that really kept me on my toes. Those Dictors can really do damage over time when allowed the double-arc, so I was cognizant of that on my approach. Really good game.

Thoughts on Upgrades:

Linked Turbolaser Towers are fantastic on the ISD2. I used them every shot. Corvus & Iden are also wonderful. Iden allowed the Raider to survive a Demo run and then plant a nice Raid token on the Interdictor to complicate the repairs. Corvus let me deploy the Deci-swarm and then redeploy later. Good stuff.

Thrawn Dual Dictors vs Piett SSD

In this game, I wanted to run a Thrawn list that I’ll be facing in the Autumn Vassal Tournament. It consists of a pair of Interdictors, a Demo, and a pair of Slicer Gozantis. On the other side, Andy brought a Command SSD with Piett, TEA!, Rapid Launch Bays, and an assortment of other upgrades with a Comms Net Gozanti in support. The squadrons in the RLBs consisted of Maarek/Jendon, Rhymer, and a pair of Defenders. Andy had a 1 point bid and chose second. I picked his Abandoned Mining Facility, which was one of my objectives as well and I really wanted to try out with an Interdictor. Here. Is the opening after the Grav Shift:

In the first round, I grabbed a bunch of victory tokens from my mining efforts. I accidentally set Demo to nav instead of repair and missed that token. Oops. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, I scooped up more victory tokens and made the mistake of activating Demo before the SSD. Andy was able to point the thing at Demo and even positioned himself for the double-arc. In the third round, I activated Demo first, but was unable to reposition and the SSD proceeded to kill it with help from the RLB squadrons. My Gozanti also went down. Here is the opening of round 4:

In the fourth round, I lost my flagship Interdictor. In the fifth and sixth, I did more damage to the SSD and he almost finished off my remaining Dictor. Here is the final board state:

This was a narrow defeat with 16 victory tokens earned on my side counterbalancing the loss of most of my fleet. The takeaway point is that Abandoned Mining Facility is a fantastic objective choice for any fleet with a Grav Shift Interdictor.

Ackbar Proximity Mines vs JJ SSD!

Now that I had my copy of Rebellion in the Rim, I decided to try out an Ackbar fleet that heavily utilized proximity mines. I brought an Assault Frigate with LTT, ECM, Walex, and GT; an MC75 with QBT, LS, GT, ECM, ExRacks, and Strategic Advisor; a pair of Comms Net GR75s (one with Sabine); and a squadron component of Shara/Tycho, Lando, and Mart Mattin. On the other side, Andy brought his new SSD with JJ, Ravager, Intel Officer, Kallus, Ozzel, LS, Spinals, QTC, QLT, and PDR. In support, he had a pair of Gozantis, one with Comms Net, the other with Repair Crews as well as a pair of TIE fighters. We tied on bid (none), he won the roll, and picked my Surprise Attack. Here is the deployment:

The first turn involved a JJ turn to avoid some mines. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second turn, Andy dropped to speed 0 to avoid coming into range of my guns. I moved into range of his instead. I parked Mattin on the station in order to start dropping mines on the SSD. Here is the opening of round 3:

In the third round, Andy increased speed and hit both of my combat ships at long range. I jumped out of range with my Frigate while staying at long range with the MC75. Here is the opening of round 4:

In the fourth round, Andy was able to do a JJ turn into his own Gozanti in order to ram it and stay in place, out of range of the Assault Frigate. A cheesy but effective move. My MC75 was able to keep pace with damage alright, thanks to the Comms Net tokens and repair dials. Here is the opening of round 5:

In the fifth round, I dropped a Gozanti and a TIE and tried to set up for a final round close range double arc in order to score half points. Here is the opening of round 6:

In the sixth round, Andy performed a JJ turn, which took his SSD out of range of the Frigate and moved it from medium range to long range of the MC75. I destroyed the second Gozanti and TIE fighter, which gave me a 7-4 win.

Proximity Mines: They might be more effective against low-hull targets like MC30s and CR90s, but against the SSD, which also has the double flak dice, they were entirely useless. I used Mattin’s bomb ability a couple time, but ended up forgoing it by the end in order to just throw dice.

JJ on the SSD: I wonder if FFG neglected to fully play test the SSD with Jerjerrod. The movement is just wacky. At speed one, any other ship (even with JJ) would be closer to the enemy after executing a maneuver in the direction of the enemy. Not the SSD. You can actually get much further away because of the major nose rotation. Also, being able to ram ships that are next to you and not remotely in front of you is really strange. JJ ends up feeling a bit "gamey" in the way he maneuvers the SSD. That being said, he is absolutely the best Admiral for this ship, hands down. A solid way to deal with him is to get in nice and close to the side in order to prevent that sort of movement. Large bases with ECM seem to be well suited to this. Having activation superiority (5 is easy to attain) also helps to accomplish this task.