With too many people overwhelmed by holiday spirit, our December Casual only drew two contestants. Fortunately, they were willing to "settle" for some Epic, multiplayer scenario goodness. We decided on the Key Cargo Retrieval scenario, as supporting three players. I pulled the 500 point side, while Player 2 chose 250 points in Imperials and Player 3 picked up 250 points in Separatists.
Alderaanian Guard (146)
Raymus Antilles (12)
Point-Defense Battery (10)
Ion Cannon Battery (6)
Leia Organa (6)
Bombardment Specialists (6)
Damage Control Team (3)
Optimized Power Core (6)
Thunderstrike (4)
Ship total: 199 Half Points: 100 Threshold: 13
Luke Skywalker (62)
Sense (5)
R4 Astromech (2)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)
Veteran Wing Leader (2)
Ship total: 71 Half Points: 36 Threshold: 3
Blue Squadron Escort (41)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)
Ship total: 41 Half Points: 21 Threshold: 3
Blue Squadron Escort (41)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)
Ship total: 41 Half Points: 21 Threshold: 3
Blue Squadron Escort (41)
Servomotor S-Foils (0)
Ship total: 41 Half Points: 21 Threshold: 3
Magva Yarro (50)
Pivot Wing (0)
Ship total: 50 Half Points: 25 Threshold: 4
Saw Gerrera (52)
Pivot Wing (0)
Ship total: 52 Half Points: 26 Threshold: 4
Total: 495
The Imperials fielded Vader with FCS/Afterburners, Vermiel toting Palpatine, and Wing lead by Howlrunner with Iden and...someone...all with Crackshot. The Seps had a FAT Maul, a fully loaded Sear, and four TFDs with Struts.
This was my first time seeing a Corvette on the board, let alone playing one. Wow.
Here we are at Turn Zero - the rules stipulate that each of the 250-point teams put half their ships in reserve.
Turn One: I pushed the Shuttle Remotes forward fast and hard, and sent Luke forward and boosting as fast as they could. The U-Wings were set to flank/control my left side, while the Thunderstrike moved slowly up to control the middle and keep an eye on the right flank. I put a crit into Iden and stripped the shields off Maul, while the opposition forced one of the Shuttles to drop its Cargo. At the end of the turn, per the scenario rules, the opposition forces were allowed to bring in any reinforcements they desired, which meant the board became very crowded very quickly.
Turn Two: Vader and Vermeil dropped in behind the U-Wings, while Sear and the two remaining Drones came in from their own original deployment zone. The Drones and Sear moved to cover the center of the map, while Maul pulled a surprise s-loop and just barely missed getting creamed by the Thunderstrike. Luke and company slow-rolled a right bank and rolled left to try to block up the TIEs while the U-Wings moved into flanking position. If I recall correctly, I poured fire into Howlrunner and ended the round with five damage spread between the three TIEs, which in turn forced Howlrunner to drop her picked-up Key Cargo. I also put a little more damage into Maul and damaged one of the Cargo Pods.
Turn Three: The Drones moved around a bit, and one of them transformed into spacedust. Maul moved forward and got knocked down to one hull. Leia instructed Luke to perform a talon roll, which only one of the X-Wings managed to complete, and which was actually of great benefit to me. The U-Wings stopped and turned around and so on, while the Thunderstrike pulled a stop. Let's see. Most of the Cargo Remotes were dropped this turn, but all three of the TIEs succumbed to the cold grasp of empty space. A bit of damage got spread around Luke's Wing, and the CR-90 got hit pretty hard. And Maul took his last damage.
Turn Four: Sear picked up two of the Cargo remotes, as did one of the Drones. Then two Drones blew up and Sear and Vermiel were both reduced to a single hull.
Turn Five: I blew up two of the Cargo remotes to keep them out of the hands of the baddies. I also finished off Vermiel and Sear, and hurt Vader very, very badly. Luke and his Wing k-turned, just barely staying on the mat.
Turn Six: Leia popped again. Vader succumbed eventually to seven shots, and the last Drone survived two Range One shots. As I had acquired three victory points by destroying Cargo Remotes, and there was only one opposing ship left on the board and it was facing the wrong way, we called.
Conclusions: This felt sliiiiiightly unbalanced. However, in talking it over afterwards, we thought perhaps if they had coordinated a little better and hadn't shot each other up, it might have gone rather differently. And they thought maybe they should have focused the CR-90 down right quick instead of allowing it to have three to six attacks each turn. Maybe, although they definitely needed to hit those Shuttles, too. Definitely another case of there being nuances not immediately obvious at Turn Zero which really made it end up feeling unbalanced, but wherein a second run-through might play out very, very differenty. The CR-90 is a beast, but so is a Wing of X-Wings; and U-Wings are of course always a joy to fly.
Loving the new formats and scenarios!