Since I’m now able to leave my house without Seventh Sister being called to hunt me down, I’m looking forwards to getting out to my local gaming clubs and eventually tournaments, playing games against new opponents. Because these won’t have the same format of both sides drafting the fleet and then reporting the battle from their own side I’ll be collecting them under their own banner using the “Road Warrior” tag.
The first game is against a local player I’ve not had the opportunity to play before at Steel City Wargames. He has let me know he’ll be playing his first game with a new Grand Republic fleet, so I decided now is a good time to break open the Separatist Alliance fleet I’ve been accumulating.
I’ve got an okay selection of ships, but not everything an admiral might want to give them a completely free hand with fleet construction. I have:
- 1 Separatist Starter
- 1 Provident class
- 1 Recusant destroyer
So a good selection of ships, but since I didn’t want to proxy anything Squadrons wise I would be limited to 4 Vulture droids. Hopefully Separatist Squadron packs will become available again soon, but the smart money is betting it could be a few of months yet. With this in mind I definitely wanted to include good flak and some Reserve Hangar Decks in the fleet, as the Republic has some quality bombers available to them.
Something I’ve been thinking about lately is missions, and in particular how the Defense Objective is usually considered to be the least advantageous to the 2nd player. Certainly this is the case if the number of times I’ve played Contested Outpost is anything to go by. I therefore wanted to build a fleet around making a Defense Objective that was as advantageous to me as possible – without looking like it was. People are pretty aware of the scams you can pull with Fire Lanes, but maybe I can get some shenanigans on with Abandoned Mining Facility…
So, Wat Tambor will generate me un-godly amounts of engineer points which can then be used to snort up a dust cloud for objective tokens 4 at a time. Nice. He’s also generally useful on a high value ship like the Providence when playing other missions.
Since I should have a nice advantage in points off the mission they’ll be little reason to sully myself by getting in a load of fights – better to pick off an enemy or two at long range and I’ll pick my forces with range in mind.
So, I have a strategy for my Defense Objective. The other two will be a straight fight with some strong advantages for me. Playing Surprise Attack will reward long range capabilities with the opportunity to get early damage on the enemy flagship, maybe even a quick kill. Solar Corona is a beating in the ship fight and full use of the powerful CIS defense token suites should give a big edge, again standing off at distance will delay the enemy from getting round me to turn the tables on direction.
I fitted out the providence for defence and support of the rest of the fleet – Kraken only works once per activation so extra dice fixing with Intensify Firepower would be useful for all these unreliable red dice. I’d also need a Hardcell Transport to help it out with tokens – Comms Net over resupply since only the Providence is really hungry for it. The transport will provide some ablative armour for more valuable ships, and probably have all it’s shields stolen as well.
A Munificent Frigate would be a good platform for another Heavy Ion Emplacements – Kraken can guarantee me the Blue crit even when only throwing a couple of dice. Hardcell Battle Refit is a solid red dice platform to fill out the activations – I gave it XX-9S for a laugh since my Double HIEs should shred enemy shields extremely quickly and large enemy ships showing up can take an avalanche of extra crits. Since I expect it to be fairly far back and staying out of trouble I gave it Beast of Burden so it could assist the more valuable ships with their defences.
Overall I think this is a fleet with more teeth than is immediately apparent – between the HIEs to batter ships and a fearsome flak capability that can be followed up with a small team of Vultures I have tools to deal with most threats here.
Salvage Fleet
Author: Starwars Tabletop
Faction: Separatist Alliance
Commander: Kraken
Points: 400/400
Assault Objective: Surprise Attack
Defense Objective: Abandoned Mining Facility
Navigation Objective: Solar Corona
[ flagship ] Providence-class Carrier (105 points)
– Kraken ( 30 points)
– Lucid Voice ( 8 points)
– Wat Tambor ( 5 points)
– Reserve Hangar Deck ( 3 points)
– Thermal Shields ( 5 points)
– Heavy Ion Emplacements ( 9 points)
– Ordnance Pods ( 3 points)
– Intensify Firepower! ( 6 points)
= 174 total ship cost
Munificent-class Comms Frigate (70 points)
– Disposable Capacitors ( 3 points)
– Heavy Ion Emplacements ( 9 points)
= 82 total ship cost
Hardcell-class Battle Refit (52 points)
– Beast of Burden ( 6 points)
– XX-9 Turbolasers ( 5 points)
= 63 total ship cost
Hardcell-class Transport (47 points)
– Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 49 total ship cost
4 Vulture-class Droid Fighter Squadrons ( 32 points)
= 32 total squadron cost
The Other Option
Considering how worried I am about those fearsome Republic bombers, I’m surprised myself that the Providence hasn’t equipped Point Defense Ion Cannons to help defend against them. That would leave 4 points spare, which probably means Linked Turbolaser Towers on the Munificent instead of XX9s on the Hardcell – something which is admittedly a bit of a gimmick to try and get extra Kraken value. Still, large ships can be hard nuts to crack, so any extra crits I can get might be quite valuable on something like an ISD with a ton of hull.
The Opposition: 397 Points
Venator I-class Star Destroyer (90 + 57: 147)
· Admiral Tarkin (30)
· Clone Captain Zak (5)
· Local Fire Control (4)
· SPHA-T (7)
· Wide-Area Barrage (2)
· DBY-827 Heavy Turbolasers (3)
· Resolute (6)
Venator I-class Star Destroyer (90 + 18: 108)
· Clone Commander Wolffe (6)
· Local Fire Control (4)
· Flak Guns (3)
· Wide-Area Barrage (2)
· DBY-827 Heavy Turbolasers (3)
Armed Cruiser (37 + 4: 41)
· Assault Proton Torpedoes (4)
Armed Cruiser (37 + 4: 41)
· Assault Proton Torpedoes (4)
5 x V-19 Torrent Squadron (5 x 12)
It’s a bit of a shock to see my opponent has brought 2 large ships, seemingly kitted out like Christmas trees, has more & better squadrons, with 2 small ships supporting, and yet has still managed to keep it under 400points.
That was cause for more than a little concern.
My opponent decided on 1st player – hardly surprising with all those black dice ships – and picked my Abandoned Mining Station mission…
Setup is straight forward, see below. It’s my opponent’s first game in over a year, but even so they don’t gift me a second dust cloud or anything.
The main thing I notice is that the pair of CR70 cruisers are a very, very, long way from the Venators and are starting at only speed 2, so it’s going to take them a hella long time to make it round the dust cloud, avoid the purgles and attack me. So that’s good, because these double salvo Venator Mk1s are rather intimidating, with huge damage potential.
Turns 1&2
We start with a not too quick approach as I jostle for position and manage my speed – the Hardcell Transport is out front because I might want it to rush forward and activate Kraken while my other ships are stay at long range. I also get to start hoovering up objective tokens in quite a satisfying way. Meanwhile the CR70s ramp up to speed 4 and are coming on a very wide arc to keep clear of the purgil I’m nudging into their direction.
The Battle-cell (far left) takes potshot at the left-hand Venator, then it reminds me Salvo is a thing , and I take as much damage as I deal.
I realise I’ve mucked up my tokens a bit too- I really want Lucid Voice to have both a CF and nav by now, but it’s got neither as I was resolving dials instead. Not very savy, as it means I can’t activate Intesify Firepower on turn 3 unless I’m willing to discard it.
Objectives: CIS – 4, Republic – 0
Turn 3
My opponent surges forwards with the flagship, putting a big SPHA-T shot into the side of the Munificent. Accuracies lock down the Brace & Salvo so it eats 5 damage on the side & rear. Resolute puts a little long range damage on the battle-cell and then slows down to a crawl to sit in the middle of my path like a big pizza-shaped brick.
I *think* the battle-cell can tank a shot off the Venator 1 (although a good roll could one-shot it), so I’m going to try to wait it out and let them bump. The Munificent repairs a couple of shields while absorbing more ore, and puts a bit of damage back on Resolute, although I hadn’t accounted for it’s super narrow front arc, so I miss out on the big HIE hit.
My opponent continues his Venator aggression, first the V-19s are activated to raid hardcells for Repair and chip a shield or two off, then it blasts the battle-cell, but the roll is poor and misses out on any accuracies so the damage just knocks off a few shields. They bump, which should be useful for preventing the Providence from getting double-teamed by them at close range.
With the Venators activated I have a free hand, and I use it to pull the enemy flagship from all sides, overloading it’s defence tokens and quickly melting it’s shields away. I also get to funnel an enourmous pile of objectives as Wat drains shields off the back of the Transport-cell, which is looking pretty rickety.
Objectives: CIS – 10, REPUBLIC – 2 (no more objectives get scored)
Turn 4
The big concentrate fire blasts keep coming with a SPHA-T blast onto Lucid Voice to light up it’s shields (I miss the window for Thermal Shields and have to eat the whole thing), but worse Zak powers up a side shot and nukes the transport with juuuuust enough damage for the kill.
I certainly don’t want the same thing happening to battlecell, so it shoots up the Resolute then flies off into a side-arc to hide from any more retaliation.
The 2nd Venator’s best target having flown off it settles for poking a couple of dice at the battle-cell and my Providence – who gives as good as it gets because between IF and Kraken it’s Salvo is essentially a guaranteed 3 damage.
While the CR70s are coming behind me I can go to town. The Munificent blasts Resolute to pieces and comes about to line up the other Venator next. The Provident activates squadrons to burn up some Torrents, then drops an HIE crit onto it’s face and warms it up with a solid close range bludgeoning – the Lucid Voice’s broadsides are no joke, especially with all the dice-fixing I have active. There some awkward blue-on-blue ramming, but at least the station is fixing some of it.
Turn 5
Lacking a token to eat, I burn IF, since this looks like it will be the last round with significant shooting, while Tarkin dishes out Concentrate Fire to the team. The surviving Venator repairs a couple of shields and puts some big hits onto the Provident and Munificent, but gets to eat Salvo hits back in return. Beast of burden finally gets to provide some benefit as I refresh all Flagship’s best tokens while battle-cell sails off to safety. Munificent gives the Venator the business with another successful HIE and double-arc, there isn’t enough left to ram. That’s handy because after putting some obstructed shots into the Providence’s back the 2 cruisers (who can’t slow down from speed 4) swing past to sit in it’s side-arcs at close range. A good role further improved by Kraken and IF means one gets blown apart whilst the other is only lightly kicked around. There’s only 2 Vultures in range to activate (1 out the reserve hanger), but they drive-by another Torrent.
At this point we call the game.
Conclusions
The fleet preformed fairly well, it could have been better:
- If I’d managed my tokens more effectively – I over-valued the repair token on the Transport when it should have powering up the Provident.
- With HIE hogging the Kraken dice fixing the fleet definitely needed Intensify Firepower! The Salvos were glorious.
- I also never used the D-caps on the Munificent because I didn’t point it in the right direction for it’s very narrow front-arc.
- The XX-9s did feel gimmicky in the sense they didn’t do anything – by the time the crits started landing the ship was nearly dead. It was also hard to activate twice because it required a Concentrate Fire dial to use boosting a side-arc shot and to get lucky rolling at least one natural crit between the 2 shots. If I need to free up some points, that will be an easy cut.
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