Hi all.
So five of us from the Raleigh-Durham area decided to head up to Maryland for one more shot at some regional prizes. My only other regional was the local one in which I lost every game by narrow margins, so I was looking to change have a better showing. My list, I posted elsewhere, but here it is again:
A Wild Mothma Appears!
Author:
Caldias
Faction:
Rebel Alliance
Points:
395/400
Commander: Mon Mothma
Assault Objective:
Most Wanted
Defense Objective:
Hyperspace Assault
Navigation Objective:
Solar Corona
MC30c Torpedo Frigate
(63 points)
-
Admonition
( 8 points)
- Lando Calrissian ( 4 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
- X17 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
=
95
total ship cost
MC30c Torpedo Frigate
(63 points)
-
Foresight
( 8 points)
- Major Derlin ( 7 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
- X17 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
=
98
total ship cost
[ flagship ]
GR-75 Medium Transports
(18 points)
- Mon Mothma ( 30 points)
-
Quantum Storm
( 1 points)
=
49
total ship cost
GR-75 Medium Transports
(18 points)
- Comms Net ( 2 points)
=
20
total ship cost
MC30c Torpedo Frigate
(63 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- H9 Turbolasers ( 8 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
=
80
total ship cost
GR-75 Medium Transports
(18 points)
- Comms Net ( 2 points)
=
20
total ship cost
1
Tycho Celchu
( 16 points)
1
Shara Bey
( 17 points)
The key to playing flexibly (meaning first or second) with MC30s is to be able to counter-threaten targets and take a punch. This is sort of the evolution of my late Wave 2 list (3 MC30s, 1 TRC90, 5 YT2400s) and updated through my experiences with @Ardaedhel 's 4 MC30 no squadron. I am not as brave as he is, so I kitted out two of my MC30s to be nigh unkillable. RBD really opens up tactical flexibility and allows you to ram/spend less tokens, and, more importantly, let's you live comfortably in an MC80 front arc with no fear of a back-to-back ET ram to death (more on this later). Putting Derlin on Foresight (now and forever known as Forelin) also really pushes Foresight's survivability to be ALMOST as good as Amonition. Think of him as letting you redirect 2 from an XI7 shot, or turning a TRC90 double into just a one shot.
Round 1:
I don't have any fancy pictures, but my first round opponent was a great guy running a Gozanti, an ISDII, and a Victory with all scatter ace imperial squadrons, Jendon, and a Tie fighter. We both admitted this was a really bad match-up for him and that I had some really hot dice (10 damage from H9 dude in one attack). I went first, picked his Station Assault. I killed the ISD, the Vic, and both stations, he killed Tycho and Shara. MOV was 299, one point from a 10-1 (shout out to Tycho for whiffing on that TIE fighter).
Round 2:
Round 2 saw me facing @Reinholt and his Cracken TRC90s with a ton of squadrons including some strategeic. Really great game, and really great opponent. We looked at each other's lists and both agreed this was going to be a 6-5 which could go either way. I went first and picked his Capture the VIP. I thought about Most Wanted, but figured that was going to be too many dice coming my way, and he had the squadrons to run something down. We both played a very close, very tight game where a few key moments really defined the game. He got unlucky pulling a structural on a flotilla, which allowed me to ram it to death, and I missed a double arc by a hair, allowing a TRC90 to make it out alive. He double rammed Mon Mothma with his own Quantum Storm, which almost allowed me to ram his flotilla one more time, but he was deftly able to block me from doing so with a CR90. Game ended with Tycho and Shara dead, and one of my flotillas. He lost a CR90 B and Toryn Farr, but got the VIP. Victory to him with a 37 MOV, what a great game.
Round 3:
I faced Britt's death pickle in this round. Britt and I have been practicing against each other, and we were both a little disappointed to travel so far just to play each other again, but thems the breaks. Britt had an eight point bid and elected to go first. He decided to pick my Hyperspace Assault, so I had to be careful about where I placed my tokens, as that Engine Tech pickle can jump passed my tokens. In the event that happened, once I saw which way his flotillas were going, I deployed Admontion and H9 dude on the extreme other side, and slow rolled them to make sure I could intercept the pickle on my terms. Even with Forelin in hyperspace, I still had last activation, which helped me keep Admonition going on the right bead.
The key moment was it looked like he had to go straight, which would guarantee Forelin would miss the attack, and if I didn't get in the front his XI7s would shred me. So when he moved his flotilla, I saw it opened up a lane for him to ET passed my objective tokens, so I sent Landmonition to block. Unfortunately, I was in side arc by a hair, and I knew it was a dead ship. Forelin and Landmonition are built to reasonably eat one heavy XI7 shot, but two are a death-knell. He did okay damage, enough where I didn't need to burn Lando to keep cards from the hull, so I might be okay. Good news was he didn't feel comfortable eating the ram, so kept going straight, allowing Forelin to come in and rest in that front. Britt played it well enough to make sure I didn't get that coveted double side arc on the front, but front/side was enough. Before I put RBD on here, Britt would just Engine Tech me to death with double rams, and make up the cards with engineering token and command. RBD really helps mitigate the ram damage, so any of you facing a bunch of that nonsense, be sure to slap those onto your ships.
Next turn, Landmonition did indeed survive the next attack, and was able to RBD the cards away, which meant I had to burn down the pickle. I didn't get enough (2 cards shy) so the following turn, he Ackbared Admonition into oblivion. This is the only MC30 I lost all tournament. H9 dude killed a CR90 and a flotilla, and Forelin killed the pickle after 2 rounds of fire and also killed a CR90, leaving only his Tycho and Shara and Ahsoka flotilla standing. MOV was 233 IIRC.
Round 4:
Round 4 saw me playing another local Raleigh player! Nathan is a great guy and our games go back and forth. He is sort of the mad scientist of our group, meaning we all experiment, but his stuff gets really wacky sometimes, and super effective. Nathan wasn't sure what he would run, so he decided on a Cracken carrier build with Luke, Biggs, 3 Xes, Jan, and some VCXes, building the list the day of the tournament. He had Yavaris, 2 flots, and an AFMKII and a CR90B with ET. I had the bid, and since his VCXes make other stuff scary, I took Most Wanted. He painted his flotilla and my H9 MC30.
He had a pretty good deployment advantage, and used it to stall and spread out his ships. I had to spread out as well, just to make sure H9 bro didn't get in a bad spot, but was also relevant to the game. I was able to kite his fighters and use Shara and Tycho to pin some down. I ended up losing Shara and Tycho, but no ships, and Yavaris was able to jump to speed three to keep from being pinned in by Forelin (fun fact, Derlin really came in handy against double-tapping Luke to turn 2 attacks, 2 hits into just 1). I killed all his ships but Yavaris, giving me an 8-3, which was good enough to place 4th out of 44.
Really great tournament. I think 4 rounds feels right, and gets rid of some of the match-up issues some folks have noticed. The match-up is still definitely a thing, but you can recover from a loss if you make it a close one, and one bad match up doesn't mean you're completely out of it.