Here's a battle report from the Dave and Adam's Store Championship held in Willamsville NY on Jan 23rd 2016. First, a big thanks goes out to the crew at Dave and Adam's, especially Colin, for running a fun and organized event. I believe everyone had a good time; I certainly did. They told me they are applying for a Regional Championship and I hope they get it. Second, shout-outs go to our travelers from Canada, Rochester, Syracuse, and Northeast Massachusetts. It was nice to see folks driving in to join our local event. The event had 14 players: 8 locals, 2 from Canada, 2 from Rochester, and 2 IFF guys (Dano from Massachusetts and DrunkTarkin (Jud) from Syracuse). We played 3 rounds.
I brought the following Rebel fleet. It's something I've been playing and tweaking for a couple of weeks now and I've found it does well against anything I've encountered. It was tweaked for this tourney to combat bomber builds (Fireballs) and builds containing 1+ large ships. The key to this fleet is the Yavaris Nebulon and the unique squadrons. Rieekan's ability gives my squishy ships an activation after dying and can cause ramming fits in traffic jams. He also keeps my 2 unique escort squadrons on the field to soak enemy squadron attacks after they die. Yavaris on my dead Nebulon can cause a LOT of damage if positioned properly. The fleet was built in tandem with objective selection and, with Rieekan, going second isn't a liability and is almost always a boon.
Rieekan's Elite (399/400)
Assault Frigate Mk.II B (72 + 34)
- General Rieekan (30)
- Boosted Comms (4)
Nebulon-B Escort Frigate (57 + 12)
- Raymus Antilles (7)
- Yavaris (5)
CR90 Corvette B (39 + 8)
- SW-7 Ion Batteries (5)
- Tantive IV (3)
CR90 Corvette B (39 + 5)
- SW-7 Ion Batteries (5)
Squadrons x8: (133)
- "Dutch" Vander (16)
- Luke Skywalker (20)
- Wedge Antilles (19)
- Scurrg H-6 Bomber (16)
- B-wing (14)
- YT-2400 x3 (48)
Objectives:
- Assault: Precision Strike
- Defense: Hyperspace Assault
- Navigation: Dangerous Territory
MATCH 1
(vs Chris, playing Rebels; Objective: Dangerous Territory; I'm 2nd player)
Chris and I play regularly and I was hoping I would play someone else in the first round, but them's the breaks in tourneys. My fleet is heavily influenced from a Rieekan build Chris crushed me with over the Thanksgiving holiday. We didn't know what each other were playing in this event so both of us were surprised to see each other’s builds. In short, the small ships in a Rieekan build can cause fits for large ships, and Chris was playing Ackbar with 2 MC80s and various squadrons. Almost the exact setup as our Thanksgiving day game, but with switched sides.
This is the only pic I have form this match and it shows turn 2, right before my Nebulon parked directly in the front arc of both of his MC80. A combination of rams, Rieekan, Nebulon squadron double activations, and no Ackbar side arcs on my Nebulon kept my Nebulon alive the entire match. Multiple Yavaris activations caused most of the damage to both of his MC80s and his squadrons. Chris' front arc shots on my Nebulon didn't produce much damage and my Nebulon actually survived the battle. I killed 1 MC80 and all(?) of his squadrons and captured 5 objectives, and Chris killed 1 of my CR90s and 1 squadron. I won 9-1.
MATCH 2
(vs Judson, aka DrunkTarkin of IFF, playing Empire; Objective: Dangerous Territory; I'm 2nd player)
I've been listening to the IFF podcast since its beginning and immediately recognized Judson's and Dano's voices. Judson was playing a Screed Empire build with 1 ISD (ECM, Gunnery Team), 3x Galdiators (Demolisher/Insidious, all 3 with APTs), and 4 TIE fighters.
As you can see in this second turn pic, Judson placed his obstacles in a way that limited my options to gather objective tokens. After setup, my plan was to kite his ISD, and the Gladiator nearby, with my entire fleet and keep my squadron hoard between us. I felt I would be able to insta-gib his 4 TIEs with little effort and let me bombers work on the ISD and Engine Techs gladiator, while my fleet kept it's distance from Insidious and Demolisher. Judson did a great job with his 4 TIEs and kept my squadrons busy for 1 turn longer than I had hoped. The plan to stay away from Insidious and Demolisher only partially worked. My CR90s stayed mostly out of the way, but my AF was caught at point blank range of these 2 gladiators and it wasn't pretty.
This is turn ... 3 or 4 of our match, and Judson's Insidious and Demolisher took out my Assault Frigate and heavily damaged the closer CR90 soon after. I did some damage to both of these glads and argued with myself over trying to use my squadrons to chase down Insidious and Demolisher or sending them into Judson's fresh ISD in hope of getting two back-to-back Yavaris activations on turns 5 and 6 to take down the ISD and get lots of points. Around this time Judson vocally contemplated turning his ISD away from Yavaris and missing out on the objective token. He decided to go for the objective token and deal with Yavaris. After moving my squadrons adjacent to the ISD, Yavaris was able to get two full rounds of squadron activations to give my 3 best bombers 2 attacks each. That was just enough to take down the ISD and flip the score to my advantage for 7-3 win. I'm pretty sure I would have lost 3-7 if his ISD turned away. I'm not sure my squads would have caught the ISD.
MATCH 3 (vs Dano of IFF, playing Rebels; Objective: Most Wanted (sort of!); I'm 1st player)
Dano, myself, and Matias from Canada had the most tourney points (16) going in round 3. I was paired up with Dano, who was playing a fleet similar to mine. Dano had an AF (Rieekan, and some other upgrade I can't recall), one Nebulon (Salvation and Wulf?), a CR90 A (Turbolaser Reroute Circuits, Leia, Jaina's Light), and another CR90 A (Raymus Antillis, Tantive IV), and squadrons: Han Solo, Dash Rendar, Tycho Celchu, 1 X-Wing, 1 YT-2400, 1 HWK-290.
Obviously, this fleet can toss command tokens all over the place, and Dano did this often and to great effect. Dano's fleet was less points than mine and he chose to be the second player. I chose Most Wanted as the objective. "Dano, do you pick the Most Wanted ships now?". I kept asking Dano this as we setup obstacles and ships. I couldn't remember when the objective ships were supposed to be picked. Of course, after we finished setting up 8 ships and 14 squadrons we forgot about the Most Wanted ships and jumped right into turn 1. Haha.
This pic, from turn 1, shows our deployments. My plan was to the close the distance to Dano's CR90 TRC ships as soon as possible, leveraging Rieekan's ability if needed. I also felt that, with Yavaris, I could win a squadron showdown and was planning to force an early squadron scrum to quickly kill his squads and free mine for ship bombing duty. As you'll see, both of these plans were poorly executed by me, and Dano exploited this.
This pic, from turn 2, shows the results of a poorly executed Nebulon move. While my AF stayed within Boosted-Comms squadron range, my Nebulon was not within medium range of my squadrons and I had no choice but to leave my squadrons behind to fight by themselves. Not good. Dano used his AF and Nebulon to add lots of damage to my squadrons, while his CR90s lobbed TRC damage at my poor CR90s.
This pic, from the end(?) of turn 4, shows one of my CR90s destroyed, my AF and Neb out of range of my squads, my Wedge and Luke destroyed, Dano's Han, X-Wing, and YT-2400 destroyed, and Dano's ships still pounding my squads. Not much happened after this. Dano killed my other CR90, I killed one of his, and I killed the rest of his squads. The game ended with me having a few points more than Dano, for a 5-5 tie, leaving us both with 21 tourney points. It wasn't until the game ended did we realize we forgot to pick the Most Wanted objective ships. Doh!
The other player with 16 tourney points, Matias from Canada, came in 3rd place overall. Since me and Dano were tied in tourney points, it went to MOV points and Dano had ~30 more MOV than me and won the Dave & Adam's Store Championship! Congrats to Dano, he played very well. All 3 of my games were a blast and I thank Chris, Judson and Dano for being great players and very fun to play. I hope to play the IFF guys again, they are as fun to play as they are to listen too! "Dano, do you pick the Most Wanted ships now??? It has to be now, right!!?"
