A friend of mine brought back the YT-2400 and VT-49 for me from Essen Spiel, and in this casual game, they face off against each other.
The lists:
My list:
Chewbacca (52)
YT-1300 (42), Push the Limit (3), Lando Calrissian (3), Kyle Katarn (3), Millennium Falcon (1)
"Leebo" (48)
YT-2400 Freighter (34), Heavy Laser Cannon (7), Dash Rendar (2), Outrider (5)
My opponent's list:
Scimitar Squadron Pilot (19)
TIE Bomber (16), Flechette Torpedoes (2), Munitions Failsafe (1)
Scimitar Squadron Pilot (19)
TIE Bomber (16), Flechette Torpedoes (2), Munitions Failsafe (1)
Rear Admiral Chiraneau (62)
VT-49 Decimator (46), Draw Their Fire (1), Fleet Officer (3), Mara Jade (3), Ysanne Isard (4), Proton Torpedoes (4), Tactical Jammer (1)
The game:
I had originally planned to have Jan Ors with Leebo to add even more defensive power to Chewie, allowing him to rock 4 (!) evade tokens under optimal conditions, but switched to Dash at the last minute, a decision I did not regret. More on that later.
A bumpy start. I should definitly have though a bit harder about my initial placement and movement.
We set up in opposite corners and spent the first couple of turns carefully manuvering down the board. I went up the left side, and because I am not used to fly two large ships, I did a little bumping along the way. I had Chewie in front and Leebo behind, and if I'm going to play this list again, I'll probably either reverse the order or let Leebo trail a bit more behind.
From the first turn, I activated Chewie's defensive routine which went like this:
- Green move, usually 1 ahead. After the first turn, this clears a stess token for Kyle to transform into a focus.
- Action: Lando, yielding on average either a focus or an evade token, often both and never nothing.
- Push the Limit: Either evade or TL, yeilding a stress for Kyle.
The result was usually that the Falcon was decked out with 3-4 focus/evade tokens at the beginning of combat.
While I moved carefully up the side, the VT-49 finally made it 2/3 down the board before turning in and engaging Leebo from behind. I tried to get out of TL range, but smacked into Chewie while trying to execute a 4 K-turn and wound up stressed with Chiraneau firing his proton torpedo. This cost Leebo a couple of shields.
Leebo returns fire, and unlike Chiraneau his shot is not obstructed by an asteroid, thanks to Dash. The VT-49 is down a shield or two, due to cold dice and no focus/TL. The bombers have lagged behind, so they were unable to engage.
Next turn, I fail to clear an asteroid while turning with Leebo, and am once again happy to have Dash on board, so I can fire my HLC at the VT-49 again. Chewie also fires at the VT-49, which keeps hammering Leebo.
At this point, the three large ships are at point blank range, and the bombers join the fun, with one of them getting a flechette of agains Leebo, taking out the last shield. My opponent is unlucky that several of his listbuilding choices are negated by my build, as tactical jammer is useless vs Dash and neither YT is concerned about the stress from the flechettes. Also, Chewie has usually provided his own stress, making Mara Jade redundant.
Next turn, Chewie is blocked by a bomber and doesn't move, which in turn causes the VT-49 to stay in place and Leebo completes the pileup by bumping into Chewie. At point blank from both a bomber and Chiraneu, Leebo does not survive, rolling poorly on his last HLC salvo at the VT-49, which has an evade token from Ysanne Isard at this point.
Disengaging, the completely undamaged Chewie makes it clear of the blocking bomber and ends up at range one from Chiraneau sporting three evade tokens, a focus token and a TL on the VT-49.
Tanking Chewie living up to his name.
Predictably, the 0-agility VT-49 does not fare well from being in this position, taking multiple hits and a crit (console fire, I think), while Chewie's multitude of evade tokens soak up the imperial fire.
Even outnumbered, Chewie is in great shape.
Realizing that the VT-49, which has about 6 hull remaining at this point, won't survive this kind of engagement for long, my opponent switches tactics and begins ramming the highly predictable Chewie while trying to get his bomber to turn around and fire the remaining torpedo at the Falcon.
This effectively prevents the VT-49 from taking damage, but leaves Chewie free to hammer away at the bombers, who don't stand much chance of penetrating his defensive hoard of tokens.
The next couple of rounds are a slow, measured round of bumper-to-bumper flying around the edge of the board, my opponent probably more that a bit sorry that Cpt. Oicunn is not flying the VT-49.
Where is Cpt. Oicunn and the Dauntless when you need them?
My opponent is fairly frustrated at this stage, to the point where I feel obligated to point out that he could easily shut down Chewie's defensive routine by parking one of his low PS bombers in his highly predictable flightpath. But to be fair, with the damage to the VT-49 at this point, Chewie could likely survive a head to head exchange, especially since Kyle is giving him a free focus every time he executes a green manuever, regardless of he gets to take actions or not.
The end comes when one of the bombers ends up in the way of the VT-49, preventing it from bumping Chewie. The wookie immediately punishes the mistake and the proud VT-49 is soon reduced to space dust.
At this point, Chewie has only lost a single shield, and with one hull point left on either bomber, my opponent concededs the game, which has already dragged on for quite a while.
Edited by JaceDK