Another game, another crushing loss.
Hmm, I must be doing something wrong here…
To be fair, this fleet has one gimmick, and Andy did a good job of frustrating that. And the dice were certainly kinder to him than to me (seriously – 5 accuracy results on 6 dice?!).
We played Superior Positions which forced Andy to deploy everything first, meaning I was happy with my fleet setup – most of my ships off on the right flank where they could approach the Star Destroyer and bring in my MC80 and I kept one Hammerhead over on the left to give me some options, and to also prove a distraction.
I was also happy with the amount of activations I had over the Imperials and felt I could send my Slicer Tools forward to mess with his commands and still have enough ships around to pick where to Raddus-drop my capital ship.
When the left flank Hammerhead caught the attention of the Imperial squadrons I was extra happy – pulling them away split the ace ball and made me feel a bit more confident about bringing in the MC80 and my own bomber squadrons to deal what I hoped would be a decisive round of shooting on the Star Destroyer on turn three.
But damn those crafty Imperials! Despite the fact that I love using Imperial squadrons myself, I’d forgotten how fast they were and the hop from my Hammerhead to the Star Destroyer wasn’t that excessive meaning the Imperials were able to spread out and block off a lot of my options for deploying.
More importantly, it meant I couldn’t deploy my bombers from the Rapid Launch Bays without instantly being engaged with the Imperial fighters. Well played, Admiral Sloane, well played….
Imperial turn 1
Rebel fleet on the sniff
MC80 drops by
Death ram, pointy ship wins
And so it was that the decisive turn three, well, wasn’t. Instead, it was a bit of tit-for-tat knocking down shields and scratching the paint work all round. But the next turn, the Star Destroyer was able to get some fortunate rolling and took the MC80 down to just one hull, which meant a ram finished it off before it could fire. Damn.
With the big ship (and Slicer Tools transports plus one of the Hammerheads) gone, chances of winning were non-existent, so I elected to use the campaign rules to disengage, handing a solid victory to my opponent but protecting most of my fleet from destruction.
It was clear things went wrong with the MC80 deployment. The Imperial’s crafty use of squadrons massively cut down on where I could drop, and I realised too late the effect it would have on my bombers. But by that point my ships were committed to a run on the Star Destroyer and I really wanted to take it (and Sloane) out.
Good old hindsight tells me I still had options, though – waiting another turn might have given me better opportunities as the Star Destroyer couldn’t have blown up all my ships in one go, and I probably would have been able to drop behind the Star Destroyer and rack up the mission victory points.
Alternatively, I could have used the left Hammerhead – by that point it had surprisingly survived a salvo from Demolisher and was still trucking – using it to drop the MC80 would have allowed my to change tack and target Demolisher before moving to the Quasar Fire. But that would likely have sacrificed the rest of my little ships and after the first game, I was already hurting with scarred ships and I really wanted that knock out blow that never came…
Post game, Andy took advantage of his victory to invade the planet and set up an Imperial base, putting him already a quarter of the way to victory. The Imperial repair yards did their thing, while I struggled for more resources to bring my fleets back up to un-scarred status. Next time, I’ll know to go for resource points over ‘special abilities’. Still, we both had enough points to upgrade our fleets so the next round of games would be a bit more complicated.
The rules state that the faction with the lowest campaign points picks the first assault, but we realised this would simply result in the same match up as last time so we instigated a house rule to ensure fleets alternated. Belatedly realising I’d be needing a LOT of resource points, especially if I keep losing ships, Raddus gathered his fleet and launched a liberation of Corfai, setting up a clash with Thrawn’s Super Star Destroyer.
Meanwhile, the Imperials opted to get personal by sending Sloane to Saberhing Asteroid Field where the Rebel presence was revealed to be just an outpost, so no base attack just yet, but I can’t afford to lose any income!
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