Hi guys,

since I got such great responses for my rebel ace question, I have some more stuff I wanted to ask.

1) What's the best counter to a conga line? Flying directly at it at speed 1 doesn't cut it, as I experienced in my last game (luckily from the rebel side).

2) I have no won several battles against my opponent by destroying one ship (ususally Demolisher) and then scattering my fleet over the board, waiting out the sixth round and winning by points, which frustrated my opponent to no end. What can you do against that as Imperials? The Star Destroyers never catch up with the Nebs and CR90.

Cut it off. Don't let yourself be attacked by multiple ships if you can help it (this means get used to checking opponents ranges and learning to estimate movements)

1) What's the best counter to a conga line? Flying directly at it at speed 1 doesn't cut it, as I experienced in my last game (luckily from the rebel side).

There's a few solutions:

• Bombers. Vanilla conga lines are often low on fighters and don't have great flak so if you can post up a Rhymerball of some kind you can put a hurting on most conga lines.
• Get to the front of the conga line. Faster ships are best for this, generally Gladiators (for Imperials) or MC30s (for Rebels). You can help yourself by deploying well so the conga line has to commit to its location before you do. That makes getting to the front much easier. Once in the front, you're able to attack the arc with the weakest counter-attack and if done well you can clog up their landing zones, causing a logjam.
• Just don't go there. The conga line is a pretty reactive tactic when left to operate as its user intends. It expects people to fly into the killing zone of their own volition. If you simply don't go there (fly around, slow down), then the conga line needs to come to you to some extent. This can break up the cohesiveness of the conga line. Worst case the game ends in a no-kills draw and the conga line player is cross at you for not just derping right into a blender to let them win. This is fine. A conga line player berating someone for giving them a boring game is like a subway groper berating someone who bumped into them for being rude.

2) I have no won several battles against my opponent by destroying one ship (ususally Demolisher) and then scattering my fleet over the board, waiting out the sixth round and winning by points, which frustrated my opponent to no end. What can you do against that as Imperials? The Star Destroyers never catch up with the Nebs and CR90.

It sounds like your opponent needs some faster ships. You mentioned a Gladiator, but does he have any Raiders or Imperial-class Star Destroyers? Victory-class Star Destroyers have their merits, but they're never going to win a footrace with anything and need to be positioned and used while giving strong consideration to where the enemy intends to be in the next turn or two.

Stick a raider or corvette in front of the conga line, and laugh as they pull emergency breaks to avoid hitting each other. Hopefully have some sort of plan to take advantage at this point.

Blocking up the conga line is the best bet, but it also depends on who's leading the Conga line. If its an MC80, you're golden. Very easy to get (and stay) in its front arc without getting broadsided, and very hard for him, (at speed 2 and that fat ass), to maneuver out of it. Blocking up an MC30 who's leading the conga is much tricker. Smaller frontage means its riskier as you might catch a broadside (and possibly 2), and at speed 4 he can jump right past you.

But really, questions like this are tough to answer without knowing your list and his list. A 2 MC-80 conga line requires a much different approach than a combination of MC30s and AFMK2s. And, the tools you have at your disposal will dictate your possible responses to it.

But really, questions like this are tough to answer without knowing your list and his list. A 2 MC-80 conga line requires a much different approach than a combination of MC30s and AFMK2s. And, the tools you have at your disposal will dictate your possible responses to it.

This, more than anything. Assuming you're building to counter an MC80/AF2/AF2 conga line, just bring an ISD to drop in the front arc and pound away. Or Demolisher. Or a pile of TIE bombers to drop in the conga line's path and barnacle up. Isolate individual ships, either by attacking from the front back (if you can get that block up front) or just take the guy in the rear by cutting him off and piranhaing up.

During deployment place pairs of fighters as soon as you can to delay and see which way his conga line is travelling. Then deploy big ships (ISD) or hard hitting tiddlers (Demolisher/MC30) along that line of advance to cut them off from the front.

A closely packed conga line can suffer from having to activate the front ship first to avoid friendly rams. You can abuse this to attack from the rear. Shadow the conga at outside medium range taking damage on your starboard side then activate engine techs, turn to starboard and send insidious or Demolisher or an MC30 to get behind the rearmost AFII. He can't easily get the rearmost ship away even with first ship activation and you now have your port shields and broadside facing him. If it goes well ram him to stay near. If it goes badly turn hard to starboard again and fly off fast even further to the conga's rear. A few rhymer assisted Tie Bombers chipping in and long range fire from your shadowing fleet can add to this rear blast and sneak the rearmost ship as a kill. Then you either slow down and drop back or speed up and turn away from the other AFIIs and call it a 6-4 win.

Thanks. I had two MC80 and one MKII (600 point game), was up against Demolisher, ISD, two Raiders and a ton of squadrons that never got close enough.

Thanks. I had two MC80 and one MKII (600 point game), was up against Demolisher, ISD, two Raiders and a ton of squadrons that never got close enough.

A couple of comments which, without seeing your game, are largely speculation based on those lists, so disregard anything that's not applicable...

He probably did not fly aggressively enough. That list wants to be very aggressive against a conga line, and it will feel uncomfortable at first, like you're overextended. Which, indeed, is a danger, and part of the skill involved in flying it. Fling a raider or two out front to get that train stopped, avoiding side arcs like the plague once you're in at medium or closer range.

I'm curious whether he delayed his deployment. From the matchup, he probably had enough squadrons to delay plopping down either the ISD or Demo--or maybe both--until last, which is a huge advantage.

Speed control is a big deal when you're trying to approach a conga line, to keep yourself out of those side arcs until you're ready to commit. If I were flying Imps in that game, I would probably have used almost entirely nav commands, at least for the first half of the game. Depending on what your squadron cover was, he may well have been just fine foregoing squadron commands in favor of Nava to keep his ships where they needed to be.

My squadron cover was ****. He consistently flew speed 1 against me, because he wanted to avoid his fleet to get seperated, but of course that was a mistake, as we both acknowledged. We just weren't sure how you would counter it when you saw it. He was totally puzzled when I deployed my ships in an extreme angle (almost 70 degrees, I guess), because he'd never seen a conga line and I never tried it before. In the beginning, it looked like an ultra-fail because we both trailed along at speed 1 and his squadrons were clearly eating away mine, but when I got in range, it quickly turned ugly.