Tournament Report
Event: SpaceCon
Attendance: 23
Venue: Three D6, Australia
First of all a big thanks to the TO at ThreeD6 and all those that attended the event. It is a large venue, with great facilities (including live streaming) people came from over three hours drive away. It was a great number and I hope it is repeated in the future.
Pre Tournament Prep: Based on last event our play group, (four attending SpaceCon), thought it was going be ship heavy. I tweaked my list for more bombers, usually preferring Vader/Ig88 in our squad heavy meta, Others made minor tweaks but one of us decided to go in a radical departure from squads and went all-Imp-ship. Given the large pool of players and ship he and we thought it was well worth a try!
My List:
http://armadawarlords.hivelabs.solutions/view_list.php?token=10461
-H9/Warlord/Ruthless is the only aspect that might make some curious that and Ozzel on a VSD.
-The Glad is pretty much fully upgraded and the Raider is there to pick up the anti fight slack/cheap activation.
-H9 is an auto damage to squadrons due to being able to manipulate any Blue dice facing into a single hit. Warlord takes the average two Red Dice output of 1 damage and makes it a double. If you can reliably double tap at long/medium range it is a good damage boost. With Ruthless you can use your Firespray/Bossk hull to deal out two auto damage.
- It comes to down to not being able to run anything else. At 16 points i can do only a few things. +Expanded Launchers/upgrade but i need to combat ships which is not how the VSD is played in this list, or other upgrades from the Glad/Raider. I cannot fit an extra squadron because i am at 133.
-Ozzel on a VSD is amazing for a certain playstyle. That is avoidance. If you are outside of Red Range why move into it? Go to 0 and use a Wulf token to kick back up to full speed when they get into long/medium range (depending on the ship).
-Ozzel is god-tier on Raiders/Glads. On a Glad you can drop from Speed 1 to 3. If you have engine Techs you can drop from speed 3 to 1 and Engine Tech a x2 double Yaw. This gives your Demolisher Raider turns.
Game 1: Akbar, Mc80/Akbar, Cr90/Jania/Projection Expert, x2 Guppy/EA (other upgrades i forgot)
Initiative: Me
Objective: Dangerous Territory, no to Advanced Gunnery, Fleet Ambush
Counter Play: I place my obstacles in my two back corners and the last one away from the majority of theirs. I don't bother collecting. I simply want to mitigate how many they can expect to collect.
Deployment: Place Raider in middle + 6 squads. They deployed in a conga. I deployed my VSD right of raider and my Glad right of both of those, all ships pointing towards where the Conga is flying.
Turn 1: VSD grabs Nav Token. Raider stays at speed 1, VSD speed 1 yaws slightly right. Glad flanks far right intercepting leads guppy.
Turn 2: VSD grabs Squad Token. Rouges fly into Rhymer, hitting the Mc80 in the Squadron Phase.
Turn 3: The lead Guppy moves first and drops to speed 1. I sent my Glad yawing right speed 3+Engine Tech into the front arc, medium range. VSD kills speed to 0 comfortably out of range and sends in bombers.
Turn 4: Glad goes to speed 1 + Engine Tech into close range now the Guppy is trapped for at least two turns. VSD at 0 bombers, Raider uses Ozzel/token to speed jump to 4 into medium of MC80. Their Mc80 double yaws exposing VSD/Raider to side arc. Their second Guppy breaks off to start collecting the 3 tokens.
Turn 5: VSD activates 3 squads, Firesprays/Bobba, H9 flips one dice on front/side arc for two doubles, it uses a Wulf token to get to speed 1 (defense tokens back online) Mc80 is on two. Their turn. They can Akbar the Raider or VSD (both on full health) and get no shots on the bombers or shoot the bombers/shoot a ship. They shoot the bombers seeing as some are getting low from the double blue point defense. The VSD takes a normal broadside for 3 damage. The Raider double taps and kills Mc80 then flys towards the Cr90. Glad double taps and kills the Guppy. Their last Guppy collects a token.
Turn 6: Raider kills Cr90, their last ship grabs a token. 9-1 MOV 280-ish. Their only points were the 91 point Guppy and 30 DT tokens.
Game 2: Motti ISD I, Relentless, Boosted, Expanded, Flight Controller, VSD APT/ EA, 2 Ties, 2 Interceptor, 1 Rhymer, 3 Tie Bomber
Initiative: Me
Objective: Superior Positions. I will be out deployed anyway so Superior it is.
Counter Play: I believe I can wipe his 3 hull squads and get more tokens.
Deployment: My typical setup. VSD pointing away ready to run and at an angle that will let it double tap in later turns. Then surprisingly he deploys very far away. This is bad news. I need to crank to max speed otherwise I won’t score highly.
Turn 1: Raider stays in place, VSD pushes up with Glad.
Turn 2-3: Mostly positioning but Fireball slammed his Gladiator because I have first player. Importantly the Raider jump from speed 1 to 4 and gets into position for turn 4 as I baited his fighters/he answers my Firesprays. Firesprays shoot his anti-squadron-squadrons and retreat, with Intel/Squad Command.
Turn 4: Raider activates with Squad Command.
Bossk kills Interceptor, then the Raider double taps Interceptor/Tie, front Arcs a Tie/Interceptor and Impetuous an Interceptor killing all 5 at once. This is why I no longer run 3 Hull Squadrons. It scoots and now my Bombers go Ham on his Glad and finish it.
Turn 5: I rear arc his VSD with Glad Red dice, and rear Arc bomber, racking up Superior Position points.
Turn 6: Squad Command bombers to rear of VSD, pinning his genericTie Bombers positioning on my flanking Glad. Gladiator shoots and Demolishes his VSD killing it. 9-1 MOV 340 ish. 150 points from Superior Positions.
Game 3
Motti ISD II, Avenger, Gunnery Team, Leading Shots, Boosted, Xi7,ECM, VSDI, Boosted, Rhymer, 3 TB, 1 TA, Vader, Sontir, Bobba, Jump Master
Initiative: Me
Objective Minefields: Contested outpost was perhaps the best choice (for a decisive game) in hindsight because I'm not taking Advanced Gunnery.
Counter Play: Minefields can work out fantastically for me. It depends on the deployment. I hide behind the Mines and Command my bomber wing. This was no such setup.
Deployment: Typical setup by facing towards the exit of the minefield. The board was cut in half and way to dense to move around. There is only one clear area of play.
I deployed raider center right and he deployed way to my left with VSD. With mines in between I thought he was walling in from a technical win. However, we were both on 18, to close to the rest of the field to to risk a draw so he deployed his ISD parallel to the board flying towards to the mine free area.
He quickly realized I was not going to flying into the debris hell. So we both headed from the clear area at slow speed, getting closer waiting to see who blinked. It was not an action packed game and I don’t think he was too happy about my running but as we later talked about the setup was wrong for a decisive game.
Turns 1-3: Raider takes a Squad token. Around turn 3 I lost an advanced that strayed half a centimeter to far from Punishing One. I could not fly back to attack fighters, they would not be in Squad Command range. So now I’m down 12. I tucked my fighters right into the VSD. I needed to make something happen.
Turn 4: Glad tries to bait bombers for the Raider. Glad turns around at speed 1+Engine Techs, it’s doing Raider turns. He doesn’t bite.
Turn 5: He activates bombers by Squad command just to position differently giving me a good chance (or bait?) to send in my Raider, which I do.
Turn 6: Raider goes first and double taps two bombers, front arcs Rhymer and a Bomber. It kills one via Impetuous and another due Bossk. Now they are pinned by Bossk. I fly my Raider into the side arc of the ISD. VSD kills another bomber via squadron command. Raider takes 3 damage via non bomber squadrons. ISD needs to roll 5 dmg or 3dmg + Accuracy to kill. He rolls a double and 3 hits! 4-6 MOV 37.
Summary and Take Aways
Summary:
4th was Rebel Scrugg Bombers (122points squads) I placed 3rd over all (133points squads). The final game opponent placed 2nd (134points squads). Coming in 1st was IonKenics with the SpaceCon Special. ISD II x3 Glads! He faced 2 all ship and 1 Rebel Bombers. Against the Rebel Bombers he went 10-0! I am unsure what lists 2nd/4th played.
Take Aways:
* Squadrons won handily against all ship lists with the expectation of 1st place! Very interesting. They got 2 out 3 matchups they wanted (all-ship) but went 10-0 against the Rebel squadron list they played! What this means for future all ship lists I'm not sure, and I'm not trying to take away from his list or play at all. This was perhaps a once off meta call, he way well already retire this list. But if the other top 4 lists are anything to go off of...I'm sticking by prior statements that squadrons will be ubiquitous but given the right player or fly style maybe all ship can survive.
* Akbar placed 5th. A poll of attendees for Admiral winner put 5 votes for Motti (which it did, and on a mostly small ship list, another discussion is in order) and 4 Votes for Akbar to take it down. And Akbar didn't even place.
* Despite being a lot of ships and our thoughts of it being mostly ships this was a squadron heavy tournament. I still like the flexibility of H9/Warlord because it gets to effect both squads and ships despite the frequent criticism of expense.
Edited by Trizzo2