2v2 Space Brawl 2:Electric Boogaloo
For the second straight week our group decided to run a 2v2 space brawl. We had intended to run objectives this week, but in the interest of getting the game started we postponed the addition of objectives until next week. Given this week’s results, we will most certainly be introducing them at next Tuesday night’s session
We swapped partners this week, last week’s Gladiator driver and my former partner running the Rebels, myself and last week’s Victory commander coordinating the Imperial march. Each player gets 200 points of a 400 point fleet. The Empire won initiative.
The Rebels (Reconstructed from memory. I may misremember something. I may also misattribute which squadron was commanded by whom.)
Player A – Assault Frigate Mark 2B, Gen Jan Dodoona, Gallant Heaven, ECM’s, Expanded Hangers, Flight Controllers
4x B-Wing Squadron, Tycho Celchu, 2x A-Wing Squadron
Player C- Nebulon B Escort Frigate, Yavaris, XX-9 Turbolasers
CR-90 Corvette B, Dodonna’s Pride, Overload Pulse, Raymus Antilles, Engine Techs
Wedge Antilles, Luke Skywalker
The Empire
Madaghmire- GSD 1, Demolisher, Engine Techs, Wulf Yularen, ACM’s
GSD 2, Insidious, Engine Techs, Expanded Launchers
TIE Interceptor, 2x TIE Fighter
Player W- Victory 1, Admiral Screed, Dominator, Flight Controllers, Expanded Hangers, Enhanced Armament, Defense Liason Mauler Mithel, Howlrunner, Soontir Fel, TIE Interceptor
Deployment- Forgot to take a picture of the deployment, although I do have several once the action starts. The Empire placed their ships close together, Insidious on the outside, Demolisher in the middle and Dominator(Vic) on the right flank. The empire’s right flank is still on the left side of the deployment area, and she sets up on course to the space station.
The rebels went with a far more, shall we say, unorthodox set up. The Gallant Heaven set up slanted to her starboard side, but more or less directly opposite the Victory. The Yavaris and Dodonna’s Pride set up on far opposite sides of the deployment area. Presumably the idea here was to affect a pincer movement.
Turn 1- Nothing much happens here. The empire sails straight ahead, the gladiators at speed two, the Dominator using a nav command to drop to speed one. Some discussion ensues as to the merits of surprising the opponent on turn one vs. just starting the **** ship at the speed you want to move at and banking a token, retard. I’m told that everyone is impressed at the size of my phallus, and that I can go f---myself. On the other side of the board, Gallant Heaven inches forward, while Dodonna’s Pride races towards relevance at speed 2 and Yavaris points her bow heroically away from the enemy at speed 3. Scotch is imbibed by all.
Turn 2- Some more forward movement. The most important thing to note is that Gallant Heaven moves before Demolisher. The shot below will illustrate the approximate board state when Demolisher activates. The only thing to note is I initially forgot to take this shot, so it’s taken sometime during the squadron phase. The B-wings were out of range of Demolisher at the end of turn 2, and moved in during the squadron phase.
If you notice the Corsec marker, that’s where the Demolisher ends her movement, and vomits a side arc of black dice into the side arc of the Heaven. The rolls were strong, ACM’s get triggered. At some point during this turn I believe Heaven and Insidious traded red dice shots, I think both of them wound up taking on shield damage. Then the Squadrons start moving, with Tycho and an A-Wing darting forward to tie up the Royal Guard and some TIE’s. B-Wing’s and X-Wings attempt to spread along a predictive path of the Demolisher, and the Victory’s full wing of Aces over Interceptors park just outside of engagement range of the rebel fighters. More whiskey is consumed by all parties.
Turn 3- Demolisher activates to start the round. The gunners on the gladiator were hopped up on Alderaanian Aderol and Sullustian Speed, and the side and front arc rolls both yielded very strong results. I don’t believe any roll showed less than 5 damage before defense tokens were applied. The final shots sent the Gallant Heaven to its eternal rest, and you can see in the upper portion of the picture the upraised hands of her commander, who really wants to know WTF just happened.
Demolisher then swings out to chase Yavaris, who everyone agrees was waaaaaaaaay too **** far from the action, and probably should have been Salvation. They agree even more when she takes a front arc shot that comes up three crits on Inisdious. Those shots of course are evaded then braced, and Insidious shrugs as she takes a singular damage to her shield. Insidious takes some Anti-squadron shots at nearby A-Wings, missing terribly at the generic squadrons but able to get a point of damage on to Tycho.
Cursing the ineffectual gunners and the sudden scarcity of performance enhancing pharmaceuticals, Insidious swings out behind Yavaris. Dodonna’s Pride swings up alongside the Dominator in a sudden spurt of bravery, and then it’s the big guy’s turn. Revealing a timely squadron command, her wing of aces jump on Tycho and his wing squadron, blowing them out of the sky, and rather neatly putting all the Imperial squadrons in one spot. With the slow B-Wing’s more or less out of the fight at this point, the Imps are content to allow the Rebel X-Wings to come to them, if they so choose. The Dominator also takes a side shot at the Corvette winging past her starboard guns. Still drinking.
Turn 4- Insidious leads off, and putting her Expanded Launcher enhanced front arc and solid side arc onto the rear of the Yavaris, tears a gaping hole in her aft.
Insidious then moves along to begin a course start swinging back towards the Dominator. Dodonna’s Pride takes a pot shot at the Dominator’s side and swing along the edge of space behind the Dominator. Dominator activates and fires twice at the Corvette, bringing her to a single hull point of life. At this point, the game is called, as even should the Corvette escape the Dominator she’s just going to run straight into the two Gladiators. The following picture is the board state at our conclusion. Demolisher would still have a move before the squadron phase, so she would not have been anywhere near those pesky B-Wings.
Final Thoughts- This was my first chance to drive a gladiator, and neither title disappointed. I think even with Insidious I would use ACM’s in the future, but I wanted to play around. The engine tech’s are amazing, and allow for some wonderful maneuverability.
On the other side of the board, there were a few questionable decisions. Clearly, in deployment they were spread way too far apart, especially Yavaris and Heaven. I liked a lot of what Player A was doing with his list. The only mistake I really felt he made was that he activated Heaven before Demolisher, and when he allowed me a place to put Demolisher that put two arcs on him where there were no B-Wings threatening my Gladiator. His very reasonable concern was that he believed if he had moved them closer they would have found themselves engaged by our TIE Fighters, and unable to move with Heaven/attack our ships anyway. As it goes, we actually didn’t have a squadron command teed up for turn 2 anyway, and he likely could have got some damage in. He would still likely have lost the Space Whale.
Player C’s list did a nice job of complementing A’s, but the way he played it more or less eliminated the synergy that should have been there. Additionally, I wouldn’t put Overload Pulse and Dodonna’s Pride on the same ship, and XX-9’s seemed an odd choice. Had I noticed before the game started, I would have mentioned it to him. In his defense, this is all of the third time he’s played the game, and only the first time he’s ever played the rebel side. He did find the Demolisher, Engine Tech, ACM combo last week, and so I think I should have offered more advice in regards to construction, although his partner is more or less as experienced a player as I am, but perhaps too nice a guy to tell him he was screwing up his positioning. And this is why evil will always win. Because good is dumb.
Next week, objectives! We are also toying with the idea of a free for all or emperor style game type, but I think we are going to wait for wave 2. As always, any and all feedback is welcome below! Please let me know if you enjoyed the write up, and what could be improved upon.