2020 VASSAL World Cup POD Play Review

For the 2020 Vassal World Cup, I submitted a list and was placed on standby in case anyone canceled. As it turned out, someone did cancel and I was placed in Pod E. Here is my list:

Gladiator II-Class Star Destroyer (62 points)
-  Demolisher  ( 10  points)
-  Agent Kallus  ( 3  points)
-  Ordnance Experts  ( 4  points)
-  Engine Techs  ( 8  points)
-  External Racks  ( 3  points)
= 90 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
-  Hondo Ohnaka  ( 2  points)
-  Comms Net  ( 2  points)
= 27 total ship cost

[ flagship ] Interdictor-class Suppression Refit (90 points)
-  General Romodi  ( 20  points)
-  Interdictor  ( 3  points)
-  Captain Brunson  ( 5  points)
-  Engine Techs  ( 8  points)
-  Disposable Capacitors  ( 3  points)
-  Heavy Ion Emplacements  ( 9  points)
-  Targeting Scrambler  ( 5  points)
-  Grav Shift Reroute  ( 2  points)
= 145 total ship cost

1 Tel Trevura ( 17 points)
1 Morna Kee ( 27 points)
3 VT-49 Decimators ( 66 points)
1 Dengar ( 20 points)
= 130 total squadron cost

The first game was against Green Knight. He was running a Romodi Onager/ISD2 list with a pair of Gozantis and 6 TIE fighters. I had never faced the Onager with my Interdictor and was more than a little concerned about it. I had the bid and chose 1st player. The objectives were dreadful and I selected Surprise Attack which may not have been the best choice. Nevertheless, here is the opening of round 1 (Before the Grav Shift):

In the first round, I moved parallel and away from the Onager and ISD, hoping for an opportunity to turn in and engage on more promising terms. These terms never came so I spent a lot of time simply running to stay out of black dice range on the Onager. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, I put myself out of range for Brunson. I played Demo conservatively to prevent myself from being tabled. The squad fight was begun in earnest and I started to lay into the Onager with Decimators as well. Here is the opening of round 3:

The third round saw the destruction of the Dictor and continued Decimator damage to the Onager. Here is the opening of round 4:

In the fourth and fifth rounds, my Decimators continued to shoot the Onager. The rolls were mediocre and the work was slow. My Gozanti was taken down by the Onager (Vader choked out Romodi to do it). Here is the opening of round 6:

In the end, I was able to finish off both the Onager and one of the opposing Gozantis. Between these and the destruction of the TIE fighters, I managed a close victory (6-5). Lessons were learned in this game. One such lesson is that running from the Onager is generally futile. Best to take it on the chin and close the gap. My running caused me to nearly miss killing the Onager. Had the Dictor gotten a shot or two in, it would have softened it immensely for the Decimators.

The second game was against 187-Leon. He was running an almost identical list to Green Knight, except he had the OSD instead of the Testbed and he dropped two of the TIE fighters and made a couple minor upgrade changes. Leon had Fleet Ambush. This was an ideal choice for me as it allowed me to start the Decimators off closer to the enemy ships. Additionally, I could place Demo up close instead of the Dictor and there were no raid tokens involved (which was a killer in the previous game). Here is the opening of round 1:

In the first round, I was able to activate Demo first and scoot around, outside of special firing arc thanks to Engine Techs. Speed four really seems to be in order to avoid that thing. My Decimators moved in at the end of the round to strip many shields from the ISD. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, I once again managed to escape the Onager special firing arc with Demo. I also moved my Interdictor in to act as a finisher against the ISD. I missed the remaining pictures and my log file didn’t save properly, so I will summarize the remainder. Demo was popped by the Onager, thanks to the hefty side arcs and some fire support from the rear of the ISD before it went down. My Interdictor did indeed finish off the ISD with a double ram in round 3. My Decimators then finished off the Onager which had been softened by Demo. The TIE fighters managed to destroy Tel Trevura. Overall, a successful game that gave me a 9-2.

My third POD Game was against Green Squadron 3. He brought Ackbar on an MC80 Assault Cruiser with Bail as well as an MC80 Command Cruiser and a pair of GR75s. He had the bid and gave me first. I picked his Advanced Gunnery, which while scary, was much better than the Exogorth objectives. I had deployment advantage and elected to set up in a loose formation with Demo on the far flank. Here is the opening of round 1:

In the first round, I aggressively moved forward with the Dictor while keeping Demo well out of the action. My Decimators were just a little too far from the MC80s to contribute in the first round. Here is the opening of round 2:

In the second round, I got into the front arc of the MC80C after stripping shields with my Heavy Ions. The Decimators followed up in the squad phase. Here is the opening of round 3:

In round 3, I destroyed the MC80 Command Cruiser and began to work on the Assault Cruiser’s shields. Bail was set for round 4 and he had a pretty ideal activation lined for the opening of round 4:

In the fourth round, the MC80A managed to bring down my Dictor, but it took a double-ram to do it. By the end of the squadron phase, his shields were depleted and his hull was down to only 4 thanks to the ramming and previous asteroid collisions. We called it at that as it was quite unlikely that it would survive. Here is the final game state:

Good games from all three opponents!