300 point fight, I was flying a Vic2 and a Glad1 and my opponent had a Vic1, a Vic2, and loads of squadrons. I was first player so I deployed my Vic2 right about the center of the board with the space station about 2 -3 1-speed moves away. He placed his first Vic on the left side of the deployment zone (his right side), angled to face the space station. I tried to "delay" by deploying my squadrons but since he had more squadrons, that didn't really work so I deployed my Glad1 to the right of my Vic at around distance 4.5. He placed his second Vic (Vic2) right beside the first one.

My squadrons ended up between my 2 ships, his squadrons were more to the right of his ships (closer to center). The objective ships were my Glad and his Vic2

What basically happened was that I 1-speed moved my Vic into the space station and I tried to maneuver my Glad for a flank shot. He just moved in with his Vics and mowed down my own ship and when that was done, took down my Gladiator. On the last 2 rounds of the game, his Vic1 was right in front of my Vic2 but I was on the space station so I basically repaired the collision damage and I was able to take out his Vic1 before his Vic2 took out my own ship. While this was happening, the Gladiator was still trying to flank. Just as my ship got taken out, the Gladiator came in but it was too little too late. Secondary shots from previous rounds took out his shields so by the time he swooped in to the enemy Vic, there was no shields left.

As for the squadrons, well, my guys took care of his guys quite well, I had my Mithel, Howl, and Fel left by the end of the game but obviously with both ships gone, I was as good as tabled.

I know, I know, I broke the first rule of trying to win against Imperials --- never park a ship in front of a Victory-class ship, much less at close range. When he plunked his Vic on his corner of the setup area, I thought he'd put his other one on the opposite side or at least at the center. Facing 2 Vics was something I didn't want, but on a Victory ship myself, I don't think I could've outran him.

Second error was probably flying the Gladiator too far up the table.... I went up to around 3/4th of the table while my Vic was on the lower 1/4th. I was initially scared of his squadron (he had 2 bombers) but now I wonder if I should've just flown my Gladiator through the swarm and just used my squadrons to tie up his squadrons. Not being able to use black dice is really cutting into my ability to spread some Imperial love.

Any ideas what I else could've done differently? Thanks!

It's kind of hard to say without some pictures to see the board state, and an idea of what upgrades you guys were running. Was the gladiator running Demolisher? Insidious?

Also you said something about "with both ships gone, I was as good as tabled". That's correct. You were tabled. The game is over once you are out of ships, squadrons don't keep it going.

Without the above information available to me, the only thing I would say is that you wanted to time it so you would concentrate the fire from both of your ships onto one or the other of his. It seems from your review that you effectively took your Gladiator out of the fight, leaving your vic to 2 v 1 the enemy fleet, which is not a battle you are going to win without significant help from the dice gods.

One of the biggest strengths of the VSD is its two redirects, if my opponent has shields left when I destroy his ship I got lucky. Add in the Brace and you could be needing in excess of 20-25 damage to kill a VCD. Parked on a spacestation for 1 healing each turn, not a favourable trade off, even allowing you opponent to drift by and take down two shields you have 14-16 damage to destroy that VCD.

The Gladiator in this case runs a bit behind the VCD and uses it to soak up damage while it positions itself. Once ready it does a flyby and moves in as the last ship then away as the first.

about VSDs out running VSDs...well you should be able to since you move at the same speed and have a head start

what I'm more curious about is how he out squadroned you with 2 VSDs when you had one and a cheaper GSD (unless it's loaded up the butt, but even with demolisher and all that shininess the GSD - 1 comes out to a few points over the VSD - 2). It's possible you're investing too heavily in characters (especially in regards with Soontir, which doesn't really add much to mauler + howl that a normal interceptor couldn't add)

personally, I can see GSDs being nightmares for VSDs to deal with. They're a little bit like nebs, only they don't have a glaring side arc and you dont want them in close range of you Shouldn't have much difficult swooping around the side of a VSD (esp not with engine techs) unless he's running them one behind the over to cover for it.

Sorry for the basic drawing, but I literally have no photoshop skills. Anyway, the setup is roughly as shown above, and like I said, my objective ship was my Gladiator and his was the Vic2 that is the left-most blue triangle. My squadrons deployed between my two ships, his deployed to the right of his ships (towards the center of the board), and the black circle is basically where the giant furball took place. I wonder if I should've just flown my Gladiator through that and would've been more useful for maybe 1-2 turns, at least I know I could've used my side-arc attacks as they'd be in range.

My squad was a Vic2 with Screed, Sensor Team, Overload Pulse, and Dominator plus a Glad1 with Wulff, Engine Tech, Assault Concussion Missiles, and Demolisher. My squadrons were Howl, Fel, Mauler, and two Tie Advanced for protection.

He was flying a Vic1 and a Vic2, his upgrades I can't really remember but he had loads of no-named Tie fighters, two bombers, Howl, and Ryhmer IIRC.

I'm not sure I follow what you mean about redirects being a strength.... sure, it is good when you still have full shields but obviously, these drop faster than I can replace them I would've thought the Brace was more of a strength as it halves the damage taken, THEN Redirect would help out.

As for being parked in the space station, it did help me as I was able to collide twice and effectively NOT take any damage and it allowed my Vic to survive long enough to take out one of his Vics.

With regards to running away, well, I'm not sure if I want to do that anyway. Rear-arc shots vs. front-arc shots, it'll be clear who is the winner, plus I don't think a Victory-class can even do a 180-degree about-face in the 6 turns of the game...

I do agree Soontir doesn't seem to be as useful as I'd thought him to be. Sure, I get to damage a few ships but placing him in such a way that he gets maximum effect is difficult. I'd have to move my Advanced first, then it's a toss-up between Fel or Mauler. In this particular game, Mauler was able to do a total of 6 damage, 1 to each squadron that was trying to engage one of my Advanced. I think Fel was able to force 3-4 damage during the engagement while Mauler would've done 8-9 by the end of the game. I might trade Fel for another Tie Advanced and a Tie Fighter seeing as my build was 297 points.

a navigated Vic can pull a 45 degree turn, so you can 180 in only four rounds

kudos to the mauler use. he seems like fun

I had two Advanced squadrons in front and then flew Fel in between them but slightly behind them. He then proceeded to fly his squadrons within range 1 of the Advanced but out of Fel's range. They basically made an arc around the Tie Advanced, but that meant there was a big gap that Mauler was able to fly into.

Being able to 180 the Vic seems useless in the above scenario though. I think if he thought my Vic was going to run away, he'd have just borne down on my Gladiator.

Maybe I should've deployed further to my right? But then again, I deployed first so I didn't really know where he was going so I decided to plunk my Vic in the center.

"in only four rounds" should imply heavy sarcasm

4 round of navigation... I kinda got it from that.

Still annoyed at this scenario though. I won 2 games at 9-1 and lost this one 1-9 and came in 4th. If I'd have done better on this game, I could've come in 2nd or even 1st so I'm determined to learn as much as I can from this so it doesn't happen again.

Still can't think of how I could've really played this differently. While my Gladiator is speedy, my VSD is slow as a brick so I'm really at a loss as to how I could've changed the outcome, barring perhaps having chosen a different objective card.