Today I played against another member of Cochise Squadron at Orbital Games in Sierra Vista, AZ. Most of us have been running squadron-less or with a minimal fighter screen for a few months, so I figured I might be able to catch someone off guard by running with a max bomber wing (and maybe getting some people in the area to eventually stop running the same list every week). Here are our lists:
Commander: Darth Vader
Assault: Station Assault
Defense: Contested Outpost
Navigation: Solar Corona
ISD Cymoon 1 Refit (112)
• Darth Vader (36)
• Strategic Adviser (4)
• Gunnery Team (7)
• Spinal Armament (9)
• H9 Turbolasers (8)
= 176 Points
ISD Cymoon 1 Refit (112)
• Wulff Yularen (7)
• Intensify Firepower! (6)
• Gunnery Team (7)
• Spinal Armament (9)
• H9 Turbolasers (8)
= 149 Points
Gozanti Assault Carriers (28)
• Comms Net (2)
= 30 Points
Gozanti Assault Carriers (28)
• Comms Net (2)
= 30 Points
Squadrons:
= 0 Points
Total Points: 385
My opponent has been running Vader Dual Cymoon's for the past few months, and has gotten pretty good with them against squadron-less fleets. He faced a Sloane generic TIE Fighter swarm list in our last tournament and quickly shredded them due to having good flak support against the generics.
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Commander: Leia Organa
Assault: Precision Strike
Defense: Fighter Ambush
Navigation: Superior Positions
Assault Frigate Mk2 B (72)
• Leia Organa (38)
• Lando Calrissian (4)
• Caitken and Shollan (6)
• Boosted Comms (4)
• Electronic Countermeasures (7)
• Enhanced Armament (10)
= 141 Points
Nebulon-B Escort Frigate (57)
• Flight Commander (3)
• Yavaris (5)
= 65 Points
GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Toryn Farr (7)
• Bomber Command Center (8)
• Bright Hope (2)
= 35 Points
GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Boosted Comms (4)
= 22 Points
Squadrons:
• HWK-290 (12)
• 12 x Y-wing Squadron (120)
= 132 Points
Total Points: 395
While I originally wanted to run Garm with this list, I ended up with Leia because I assessed (correctly) that the game would be over by Turn 5 and that I would not get my second round of tokens. I went with Y-Wings as opposed to B-Wings because I wasn't anticipating a fighter screen and I wanted more bomber attacks to overwhelm his defense tokens.
My opponent had initiative and chose to be first player. He chose Fighter Ambush as the objective, hoping to be able to get a lot of the Y-Wings in flak range early before I could get Yavaris to do its thing. He lined up his Cymoons in the corner of the play area facing towards the center. I chose to deploy my ships on line in the center, right across from the station. The transports were deployed so that they would likely have to be engaged first before going after Yavaris and my flagship, with Bright Hope being deployed in the center of my fleet. I deployed all my squadrons at distance 1 of the station, with some just inside my Boosted Comms range, just in case his non-flagship Cymoon or Gozanti pushed forward at Speed 3 (they did not).
Round 1: I moved my transports forward at speed 2, with Yavaris and my flagship moving at Speed 3 to get away from my flagship if it sped up. His ships continued forward at speed 1, trying to slowly move up to get in flak range of my squadrons, except for his flagship that increase to Speed 3 (with a token from Comms Net). I moved most of my squadrons right outside of his non-flagship's close range flak, ensuring that he would plow into them next turn.
Round 2: Because of his flagship's change of speed (bringing it to the fight earlier than I expected) and because it was a much more valuable target, I switched focus towards it with my bombers. My initial attacks against his flagship destroyed most of the shields on the front and sides of his flagship, getting them set up for the next round of Yavaris activations. He was successful with most of his flak attacks with his Gozanti before the bombers moved to their other target. While my flagship continues to skirt the fight, Yavaris moves just in (obstructed) long range of his flagship but out of range of his other Cymoon, activating two Y-Wings against the Gozanti and getting a victory token off it. Round 3 is gonna be a bloodbath.
Round 3: My opponent started the round by taking out both my transports (not having Bomber Command Center anymore hurt). With his flagship utterly surrounded, I activated Yavaris and began putting serious damage on its hull (and getting victory tokens the whole time). Moving forward though, Yavaris was immediately vaporized by the other Cymoon. My flagship finally got some shots off against his flagship, but was unable to finish it off. During the squadron phase, I activated the four additional Y-Wings that were surrounding his flagship as was able to finally destroy it. With my other squadrons surround his remaining Cymoon, they began taking its shields down.
Round 4: Activating his remaining Cymoon first, he barely put a dent in my flagship's shields before ramming it. With the combination of my squadrons and the Assault Frigate's armament, his remaining flagship was destroyed and the game ended.
Thoughts: You need to either bring at least a fighter screen or have an effective plan on how to deal with them. I learned this lesson a few months ago when I went squadron-less and ended up facing a Sato fleet (that included Hera, Han, Shara, and Tycho, neither which I was able to kill). In hindsight, either Precision Strike or Superior Positions may have been better options for my opponent. Precision Strike would have forced me to get crits in order to get victory points (which would have put us about even on victory points) and Superior Positions would have not allowed my squadrons to be repeatedly overlapped (if I went after victory tokens in lieu of just getting damage cards). It was a fun game, but I'm pretty sure he is building a Sloane Aces list as I type.
but a swarm of Y-Wings, it is a great sight