So, this is going to be a fairly short battle report, since it was a three round tournament for starters, and my third round opponent had to bail out (wife 8ish months pregnant with first kid, something going on with her, in other words a legit reason). For my list, it's the Motti's Carnival Act from the Fleet Builds subforum with one tweak, no Medical Teams, but I'll repost it here.
Motti's Dreadnoughts Mk 1
Author: GiledPallaeon
Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 397/400
Commander: Admiral Motti
Assault Objective: Station Assault
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Dangerous Territory
Imperial
II-Class Star Destroyer (120 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 136 total ship cost
Imperial
II-Class Star Destroyer (120 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 136 total ship cost
[ flagship ]
Interdictor
-class Suppression Refit (90 points) "Flag"
- Admiral Motti ( 24 points)
- Minister Tua ( 2 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
- G7-X Grav Well Projector ( 2 points)
- Grav Shift Reroute ( 2 points)
= 125 total ship cost
First round I squared off against a gentleman (if he's on here, he's welcome to tag himself) running Vader, a pair of Arquitens with EA and Intel Officers apiece, a pair of Comms Net Gozanti, and an ISD-2 with Gunnery Teams, XI7s, ECM, (I don't think there was anything else on the ISD), and a quartet of TIEs as a speed bump. I had bid, so I went second and he took Station Assault. As most can probably guess, the stations went in one corner, G-7X blocking as much as possible across the way, and with GSR set up to chuck them deeper into the corner. The Interdictor deployed along the back side of the deployment zone pointing roughly 30 degrees out, one ISD alongside, another twenty degrees off horizontal, and the final one about 25 degrees off that (9:30, 10:30 and 11:45 or so for those that prefer clocks). He deployed in the opposite corner, and I chose, for better or for worse to drive out to meet him. Here's where things got dicey (for me). One Arquitens managed to shoot the gap between the Imperial s after they wheeled to present a united front with Flag. This left Flag and the nearer ISD pinning Vader, while the other one pinned a Gozanti and the other Arq. (The second Gozanti was in semi-trail of Vader hanging around behind his portside shield dial and ended up sliding past at a moment that will be clear shortly.)
Here's the tricky part about Vader's ship. Flag had it double arc'ed, and the ISD alongside her was primed, but had taken a beating from the Arq s during her approach run. He also, the careful observer will note, outactivated me, so Vader went last. Two accuracies, and Flag's starboard shields are gone and hull damage (six or so) is taken. At this point, we can't tell whether he's closer to the ISD or Flag, so the TO has us roll a blue. The result came back as Flag, so Flag gets a ram. No biggie right? Yeah, no. RBDs kick in, then Vader fires again. 12 damage on the ISD (burned RBD the turn earlier, I THINK, if it didn't I'll be furious so I'll remember it this way), 10 on Flag, and he rams Flag again. Bang bang. 2/3 of the fleet is now dead, and half of the real combatants. The other ISD avenges itself on the Arq it pins (and the Gozanti dies when it rams a larger ship for the third time in two turns), but can't bring the third side shot (plus a full frontal battery earlier) to enough to kill the escaping Arq , and tries to swing to engage Vader, hitting a debris field as he does so. Turn 6, he can't roll well enough can he? No, he can, second ISD goes bang, I'm tabled, with the small comfort that I forced the engagement so far away the escaped Arq had to roll perfectly on five reds (three plus one plus EA) to kill the near station (spoiler: it didn't). That's a 9-2 for those scoring at home, a huge swing from when before Flag and her consort engaged Vader, where it looked like the perfect storm and I would get the table. Yeah, no.
Here's an image from Round 1, one ISD still to move for me.
So, moving on from that calamity, I'm squaring off against another Imperial list with another Imperial , but this time Motti like me, ECM, Gunnery Teams, Needa, and Avenger , a blank Arq , Suppressor with Comms Net, and Demolisher with ACMs, OE, and SFO, with Saber, Stele, Jendon, and Vader pulling up the rear. Again, for reasons best known to someone other than me, he took Station Assault. Again, Flag hid them in the corner while the dreadnoughts did their spike ball thing, but this time, he dropped the Arq inside G-7X at the edge of the deployment zone, and deployed everything else in a ball just beyond G-7X. I sealed my fate Round 1, with my first ship movement. The outside ISD was sortied in an effort to intercept the cruiser, hopefully able to turn back to help kill Avenger . Well, about that. It was still flying roughly parallel to the other ships, but has now doglegged to the outside of the formation (towards the table edge). Flag and the other ISD are hugging each other, waiting for Demo to arrive. Unfortunately, Avenger decided to make a break for it, and used Speed 3 to jump the gap that had then opened between the two Star Destroyers. Flag's consort saw this Turn 2, and dove to stop it, but the angle meant that there was a ram, but the corner of the ship there was not nearly enough to hold Avenger, which promptly jumped the two battleships.
While those shenanigans are going on, Demo , Suppressor , and Flag have been having it out. Flag needed a ram to kill a double-arc'ed Gozanti at a range of approximately five millimeters (this thing's armament never fails to underwhelm), but the maneuver helpfully holds Flag in position outside of Demo 's missile range. Obviously this isn't a huge deal, but bought Flag another turn before Demolisher finished what Avenger started during her high speed pass. That is roughly the below image. (Yes there is food on the table. It had just arrived, it was two o'clock and breakfast was 8:45 at Waffle House. I don't care, I cleaned up after myself thank you.)
The rest of the tale is fairly simple. Flag died the round after this, at which point Avenger was hurling some remarkably poor rolls (ConFire for five damage at medium range, please and thank you) at the stations. Believe it or not, the farther ISD (the one parallel to the Arquitens ) actually got clear of her sister enough (literally half a millimeter) that with Navs all around the other Star Destroyer (the one near Flag) actually swung her nose around, and killed the Arquitens and badly wounded Motti, who had the Round 6 dial not been Nav would have departed the table. Demolisher and all the squadrons, as did both of my ISDs, all flew away, unlike the hulking wrecks formerly known as stations.
As I mentioned before, my third round was forced to bail and I didn't get a third game, so I'm going to switch to Roses and Thorns about the fleet. Rose, when the fleet forces the fight on its terms, the other guy has to have the luck of the gods themselves, and even that might not save him if Flag isn't the one hanging in the wind. I really don't understand why both folks took Station Assault, but if it's the objective I'm playing against the most, it's actually probably the easiest (if not necessarily best ) for me. I'm torn about the Interdictor , if I'm being completely honest. It's caught in a bind; it's the only ship that can be Flag in this mix, and GSR and G-7X give me huge deployment and obstacle/mission advantages, but the **** thing keeps dying. I probably need to keep tweaking the formation, and develop better patterns of deployment to better take advantage of different scenarios.
Thorn, this fleet really really really wants to go second, and only has a tiny bid to ensure that. Now, most fleets that want to go first that outbid are just doing me a favor, but I know there are a handful of second-player bid objectives out there, so that irks me on principle. Thorn, this fleet lineup is fairly inflexible. There's precious little room to iterate around different upgrade sets, since every upgrade on every ship is fairly crucial. Gunnery Teams and Leading Shots both put in plenty of work, and RBDs is about half the point of the fleet. Tua on Flag is more or less a given, the question being ECM or RBD, and that Flag is the Interdictor is also fairly forced. If over time G-7 starts to not be as effective a zoning tool as it has been to date (need to figure out if it's G-7 or that there are always the two ISDs opposite it, weapons powered up), it might get dropped, but that's only two points of savings. I'd like all sorts of things for every ship, like XI7s on the Imperial s, ICB and Engine Techs on Flag to give it the ability to play with her consorts, as well as the new Disposable Capacitors, but the discerning eye will catch that my wish list is 28 points long, and I have a budget of three, one if I take ECMs through Tua.
Rose, because this really bears repeating, the fleet appears capable of winning any ship-ship slugging match, especially with other Larges. Ackbar isn't a huge threat unless it's TRCR90 spam, and nothing handles that well, so the only really poor matchups are Aceholes (very real threat) and Rhymerballs. I can mitigate both with the objective play, turtling until they close then leaping out to fight. (This is definitely the Rhymer tactic. "I see you have entered range. Nav dial plus token = speed 3; I am now on top of your combatants and the carriers if no Relay.") If it wins the objective, it's also less necessary for the ISDs to trade in their values completely if they fall, since I have a 80/120/60-80 pt cushion. If I can learn to not make stupid errors, like letting Avenger down my throat onto the stations or the like, I think the fleet has a lot of promise. It's also dead simple to play, and for that reason ideal for long tournament settings where I will be fresh enough to have a mental edge over my opponents. We'll see. If anyone has any thoughts, I'm happy to entertain them here or on the Fleet Builds thread, please for the love of all things holy, just pick one.
I must commend @jamie nasmyth for running a tight tournament. I also greatly appreciate everyone else who came out and I met ( @CaribbeanNinja weren't you there?), it was a great day. @Megatronrex , feel free to shoot me a PM when you're in Atlanta, the Imperial fleet is always happy to escape drydock.
Edited by GiledPallaeonI don't remember what it blocked out...
) Would have been 32 at Giga.