I reckoned I should just toss them all into one thread, rather than spamming stuff.

And coming soon: A Passing Engagement (with pictures) and a brief on an Atmospheric Entry.

Right, so it has been several weeks since we played the Atmospheric Entry Scenario. I didn't snap any pics, unfortunately, and I don't recall perfectly what happened, but I do remember it feeling like the most balanced-out-of-the-box scenario I've played so far. I ran a Wing of Fangs loaded with the cargo for the planetary surface, escorted by a Wing of Ion Scyks. My opponent had a Wing of X-Wings (Wedge/Luke/Thane/one more(?)) and...Lando? I thought I would be cheeky and run my Wing of Fangs along the edge of gravity well and flank with my Scyks. My opponent straight up jousted at the Fangs just outside of the gravity well's zone of influence. The lack of extensive blue maneuvers on the Fang dial hurt, badly. But Fearless and Concordia Faceoff were rock-solid - Wedge was gone in the first round of combat. The Ion Scyks put in a ton of work, keeping first Luke and then Thane in chains. I believe that in the end I only delivered one package to the surface - too much stress on my Fangs made them easy targets for the Falcon (of all things). I definitely want to try this one again.

We played the Passing Engagement scenario last night. I had a Separatist Privateer with a Stalwart Captain, Ion Cannon Battery, and Bombardment Specialists, a Wing of Precise Hunters lead by DFS-311, and three Petranaki Aces with Crack and Predator. My opponent flew a Gozanti with a Stalwart Captain, Ion Cannon Battery, Bombardment Specialist, and Fifth Brother - with a light Vynder docked - and a Wing of three i4 Interceptors with Shield Upgrades and Marksmanship.

Turn Zero: I've actually already given up on my Shuttle Remotes (blue on the left), and intend to use my Nantex to annihilate the Gozanti. Meanwhile, I expect my drones to handle my opponent's Shuttle Remotes (in red on the right) with a little help from the C-ROC (yo, yo!) which will flank in - hopefully.

Turn One: My drones and Privateer eliminated one of my opponent's shuttle remotes, and dropped a little damage onto the other one. One of my shuttle remotes was slightly damaged, and I hurt the red Interceptor. The Gozanti managed to get just one hit on his ICB shot, but green dice be green dice.

Turn Two: Oh, wow. I messed up. Badly. I misjudged the turn from the C-ROC (yo, yo!) and crushed two drones. I only managed to plink the Shuttle Remote hidden under my Privateer. Meanwhile, his Interceptor wing has almost completed destruction on one remote, and has started hurting the other one, while the Gozanti is spreading shots all over the place. My Nantex are putting the hurt on the Gozanti, though, and my ICB managed to put a crit into its hull alongside the two Ion tokens seen here. I've completely given up on destroying the second red Shuttle remote, and pretty much given up on my Shuttles making it out alive.

Turn Three: Vynder undocked during the System phase and SLAMmed out. The Interceptor Wing destroyed one of my Shuttles and damaged the other. In the meantime, three Range One shots from the Nantex shredded the Gozanti. A primary followed by a tokened-up ICB shot added insult to injury, including some very nasty Precision crits - and almost ionized the bastard. His Gozanti got under my shields, unfortunately.

Turn Four: Oh, wow. I mean, I hoped he would be aggressive, but I hadn't hoped for this much. My C-ROC (yo, yo!) ran over two of his Interceptors, outright destroying one with the three-speed maneuvered-fueled crit-fest and taking the other to one hull and on fire. My drone got the killstrike on the Gozanti - thanks to the Huge ship crits being horrifying. The two Nantex on the left have already deleted Vynder in two *extremely* hot shots. My opponent's Shuttle Remote escaped at the end of this round, and I thought that was the end - my shuttle would be destroyed next round and I would lose on points. However, I did ionize the white Interceptor.

Turns Five and Six: I forgot to take pictures, but it was kind of all over, really. I missed running over the white Interceptor, but kept it locked down. The yellow Interceptor failed to kill my Shuttle Remote - barely - and met an untimely end thanks to some hot, long-range Nantex dice. I lost another drone and half of the C-ROC (yo, yo!), but managed to get my Shuttle to safety with a single Hull point remaining. The final score ended up being a win for me, 400-248.

Conclusions:

1) I *love* this C-ROC (yo,yo!) build. But I definitely need a ton more practice flying it. Crush my own droids, bah!

2) Nantex, or indeed any three-attack ships, are murder on a stick, especially if one is gutsy enough to get into Range One of those fat, juicy Huge targets.

3) CIS maybe doesn't want to use the Wings??? Nantex certainly don't want to be tied down like that, and it does in fact hamper the droids pretty badly. And the droids, geez, just don't waste points on anything except the Trade Fed Drones.

Played a session of Fog of War last night. Due to one player being late and unprepared, we started late and consequently called it at 10:30 without a clear winner. I ran two C-ROCs with ProxMines and Saboteur's Map, ICB and B.Specs, and Azmorigan/Stalwart Captain - and my Kimo's with Predator and mixed munitions started in reserve. One fellow had a full Howlswarm with Swarm Tactics and a heavy Gozanti in reserve. One player had a bloated 200-point Raider and bloated 100-point Defender in reserve. The final player had three B-Wings with Plasmas and FCS and reserved Garvin/Porkins/Jake. B-Wings focused the Stalwart C-ROC with some chipping from the Raider. Prox Mines contributed a total of two points of damage. Kimo's rerolled blanks into blanks. It was a very poor game for me between dice simply saying "Hey, go home!" and missing running over Rebel ships (and leaving them at Range 1) several times. The Raider was getting regular five-die primaries plus two to three Bonus Attacks each round, and of course the Howlswarm was as painfully accurate as ever.

One gets so much more mileage out of a fully loaded Raider than out of a similar number of points spent on TWO C-ROCs. The C-ROC really is little more than a very large large-base ship, and we all know how good those are right now. And if one looks for fun in casually blowing up everything with minimal muss or fuss, massed small bases is still the way to go.

I think it would have been more fun (and more balanced which basically equals more fun), had we run this as 2v2. The reserves mechanic was entertaining and provoked a lot of strategical complication and therefore warrants continued use.

I'm very jealous you are getting to run thru these. I have still not had a chance to play ANY epic at all.

Also, it's just weird to see these run on 3x3. I think of epic as 6x3 or Huges flying off the mat in 2 turns.

My locals are all pretty much black-hearted filthy casuals - it's actually difficult to get them to play a "standard" match, to the point where I have to sort of beg/bully them into it when I'm craving a straight-up game of space-chess, ha ha. And yeah, new Huge Ship movement is so much better - especially that 0-turn. A CR-90 or a Raider on a 3x3 is a thing of terror, due to how much space they can threaten and control.

Three at the FLGS last night, so Scenario play it was! We decided we did not want to go all night, so played ATMOSPHERIC ENTRY . 300 points attempting to deliver the cargo, and two 150-point lists defending. I drew the attacking straw and ran IG-A&C with titles/AdvSen/Crack as two of my cargo carriers, and a Wing of Ion Scyks led by Serissu (as cargo carrier) with two Spacers and Sunny. With the points changes, I was able to get an Ion Cannon on Sunny and still have a (totally unnecessary) 3 point bid. My opponents flew Dash with Outrider and Ezra with an Ion Turret for 150 points, and phat Grievous with two Petranaki Aces with Deflection and Predator.

Turn Zero: I learned from my previous attempt at this scenario and set up such that I wouldn't have to interact with the Gravity Well on the right edge until ships were pretty much ready to escape. I also managed to get a very favorable obstacle cluster going - which my opponents aided by NOT putting Dash in a position to take advantage of????

Turn One: IG-A four-straight, bank boost with linked Evade. IG-C four-straight, Calculate. Serissu three-straight into (barely) a bump, Wing forms up and Focuses. Ezra two-bank, barrel link Evade; Dash one-straight(?) focus; one Ace 4-straight, one Ace 5-straight; Grievous two-hard, boost. I think Serissu stripped Dash's focus. IG-A plinked a shield off Ezra while IG-C stripped Dash's shields. The three i1 Scyks managed to plink on two points of damage and an Ion token, and Dash's return fire managed a single shield off one of the Spacers. Ezra's shot was evaded without recourse to the token, and the CIS squad was out of range.

Turn Two: Ezra went two-straight and rotated his Ion arc, which ended up blocking Dash's eventual two-hard. IG-A four-straight, boost - bugging out for that exit point! IG-C AdvSen for Calculates before bumping Dash. The Petranaki Aces moved in and self-tractored to positioning and arc rotation, with Grievous following. Serisuu one-banked with one Spacer and Sunny following. The left Spacer would have bumped IG-C, so was forced out of formation, but it worked out fine. Dash's completely unmodded shot against IG-C did nothing, and the Aces's shots put the right-hand Spacer on two hull. The IG's had no shots, but the Scyks concentrated all fire on Dash - had he survived, he would have been ionized, but his green dice just decided not to play and the Ion Cannon plink damage was enough to take him out. In return, Ezra ionized Serissu, which broke the formation and was gross.

Turn Three: Sunny went one-hard right to face/block Ezra and/or the CIS; the right Spacer (damaged) did a 3-k; the left Spacer went two-straight; and Serissu eventually did her Ion one-straight. The CIS guys moved in, tractoring for reposition. Ezra did a surprising-to-me one-hard right, keeping that Ion Turret on Serissu. Serissu rerolls on defense were enough to keep the right Spacer alive, although he was unable to touch Ezra. Ezra didn't put any damage through on Serissu, nor did Grievous. Sunny plinked a shield off Grievous in return. IG-A did a conservative one-bank Calculate in order to be available to transfer a token to C should focus fire come that way - and escaped at the end of the turn with his cargo for the planet surface. IG-C did a three-bank boost, but was not targeted. Sunny and the unstressed Spacer formed up on Serissu again at the end of the round.

Turn Four: IG-C three-bank right, boost left. The stressed and damaged Spacer one-banked to block Grievous. Ezra went one-straight to clear his stress. The two Aces banked in and tractor-repostioned/moved arcs. Serissu and her reduced Wing three-banked right, rolled toward the edge in a bid for space away from the Aces - which left just enough room for the left Spacer to form up. Woot! Petranaki Ace #4 - the forward element - had a Range Three bulls-eye on the remaining IG - but even Predator and a focus couldn't push any damage through. He probably would have fared better helping to focus on Serisuu - who was VERY happy to have some Wingmates to spread damage around as her dice even with rerolls went a little a cold. I only had one shot, and Sunny did not manage to do any harm to the lead Ace. At the end of the round, IG-C escaped to the planet surface with his deadly cargo and both Spacers and Sunny were on one hull each.

Turn Five: The solo Spacer 3-k'd for some reason. Ezra I think two-hard rolled? The Aces I think were expecting Serissu to not go so fast? They banked left and maneuvered such that their mobile arcs were both pointed forward. Grievous came in as fast as he could to get on the tail of the Wing. But Serissu went five-straight and everyone focused. Again, my solo Spacer was my only shot, and he did nothing to Ezra. Ezra had no shot, nor did either of the Petranaki Aces. Grievous, with his effectively fully modded shot managed to put a crit into Serissu in spite of her fully modded defense - which she shifted to the Spacer, killing him. Then, at the end of the round, Serissu was *just* in range of the escape point and made it to the planet's surface.

So, the game ended with my having scored 105 points for Dash, plus 150 points for the delivered cargo. My opponents scored a grand total of 63 points for a couple half-Scyks and one whole Scyk. A 255-63 shellacking in just under an hour. In discussing afterwards what went wrong for them, it was decided that my opponents might have fared better swapping their starting positions - the Aces really wanted to joust, while Dash would have done better taking advantage of the obstacles. And also, Rebel dice were *awful* while mine were uncharacteristically hot. What felt like a fairly well-balanced scenario on the first attempt a few weeks ago felt like an unbalanced mess this time around - due perhaps almost entirely to Turn Zero?

31 minutes ago, Kleeg005 said:

What felt like a fairly well-balanced scenario on the first attempt a few weeks ago felt like an unbalanced mess this time around - due perhaps almost entirely to Turn Zero?

This is the way.

Once again, three players at last night's session at the pub. One playing his tenth game ever, and the other playing for the third time in six months and perhaps the sixth time in 2.0(?). We pulled out Fortified Position as a six-round timed mission that shouldn't go terribly long. Also, as the newer player had only three ships to his name, and in a further bid to keep the game from going too late here in the midweek, the attacking players ran a total of 400 (rather than 600) points, and I flew 335 points (rather than 500) as the defender. Further further, the slightly less-new player had forgotten all but one list's-worth of cardboard at home - so, again, had only 200 points of cardboard to put on the table. Which is fine; I can easily adapt a standard 500 point Epic list. No worries.

Player one, the very new fellow, ran Lando in the Falcon, with Nien and...some other upgrades, Norra with Ion Turret and Veteran Gunner, and Wedge with Crack Shot. Player two ran 0-66 with the Scimitar title, a relay, and some other upgrades, and four Separatist Drones with struts and Shells. I had two C-ROC's with Ion Cannon Batteries, Bombardment Specs, and one with IG88-D and one with Lando, three naked Cartel Spacers, and two Cartel Executioners with Crack Shot and Proton Torps.

Turn Zero: My opening target priorities are the Infiltrator and the Falcon. The attackers placed the first Priority Target Token on the turret closest to the Falcon. It is interesting to note that this scenario is scored only on those tokens, and not on ships destroyed at all. The Infiltrator started cloaked.

Turn One: The Scyks three-banked left to intercept and gum up the Rebel formation, while the Executioners moved three- and two-bank left to sink the Infiltrator as fast as possible. The C-ROC's zeroed and tokened up. The Infiltrator decloaked forward and one-banked around the rock (which I placed), while the Drones moved in two separate wings. Lando came two-straight and boosted, while both Wedge and Norra three-straighted. The round ended with the lead Executioner on one hull, having taken shots from almost the entire Separatist list, and the Priority turret having taken two hits from Lando. Meanwhile, the Scyks stripped Lando's shields and the C-ROC punched some damage and dropped all the Ion tokens in the world onto the Falcon. And 0-66 became one with the floating motes of space dust, eating a Range One shot, a Proton Torpedo, a Range Three primary, AND an Ion Cannon Battery shot. Ouch. One of the Drones took a hit from the turret nearest to it, while the Priority turret managed to put a hit onto Lando as well. I dropped a second Priority Target token on the farthest turret from Lando at the end of the round.

Turn Two: I forgot to take a picture? Huh. Well, the lead Scyk one-bank right to get the block on the Ionized Falcon, while the middle two-straight and focused up and the last made a three-bank left in case the more distant drones did something cagey. The damaged Executioner (sporting a Loose Stabilizer and on one Hull) went one-straight, while the other one hit a two-hard right and locked Wedge. Once again, the two C-ROC's zeroed and tokened up. The two further Drones moved one-hard left and got some juicy Range One shots on that burning Executioner, while the more distant Drones rolled five-straight. Lando drifted forward into the block, and both Norra and Wedge both moved two-straight. Wedge and Lando killed the first Priority turret, scoring the first official points for the game in the attackers's favor. Norra plinked a shield off the Scyk...I think. The wounded Executioner died, but popped the undamaged Drone on his way out. The undamaged Executioner torpedoed Wegde, dropping his shields and giving him a crit of some description of other, and the the one Scyk with a shot plinked Lando again. The two C-ROCs popped the second further Drone and plinked Lando, but to no great effect apart from a couple more crits on the already smoking Falcon. The four Drones unload into the remaining Executioner, dropping his shields and putting some crits into him. During the end phase, I place a second Priority Token onto the the furthest turret.

Turn Three: Scyk number one turns one-hard left to block Lando if he decides to yolo the C-ROC; the other two do three and five speed k-turns. The remaining Executioner one-banks to block Lando if he chooses to go straight. The near C-ROC zeroes one more time, and locks Wedge. The other C-ROC does a two bank that juuuuuust clips a debris cloud, for no practical effect. It locks up the none-rocked Drone. The remaining Drones hard-one, one making it onto a rock. Lando attempted a slow-roll, to be blocked by the Executioner, while Norra and Wedge both slam into the Falcon's butt - the Rebel player, recall, is very new, and is not yet practiced in judging movement. So, shooting. Wedge smoked the last Executioner, HARD. After some debate about the merits of an unmodified shot onto a reinforced C-ROC with no green dice versus an unmodified shot onto a three-green tokenless Scyk, Lando whiffed at the Scyk. Norra double-tapped the Scyk in front of her and plinked a shield from it. One Scyk whiffed at the rocked Drone, and the other plinked Wedge. The green C-ROC plinked one of the Drones and critted/ionized the other; the other C-ROC removed Lando, even without the help of the Target Lock which I unthinkingly placed onto Wedge. The next Priority Target token went onto one of the satellites during the end phase.

Turn Four: The far Scyk moved two-straight to clear its stress, while the far right Scyk one-banked for the same reason. The near Scyk 3-k'd, and both C-ROC's went one-straight and tokened up. The ionized Drone made his sad little drift, while other surprised me and moved off the rock...right into Range One of my farthest Scyk. Norra three-banked, trying to get after those distant Priority Target tokens. Wedge I think went two-straight and focused. Wedge and Norra decided to try to take down the stressed Scyk, and in their three shots to him to one Hull with an Ion token. The two Drones tried and failed to hit the farthest right Scyk. In return, the two Scyks murdered the lead Drone, and the green C-ROC cleaned up the other one. The other C-ROC stripped Norra's shields with that juicy Range One shot, and ionized Wedge - leaving him predictable and on one Hull. During the end phase, another Priority Target token dropped...somewhere.

Turn Five: I forgot to take a picture again. Player two had no drones left, and the brown C-ROC ran over Wedge with a two-straight, removing him rather unceremoniously. Norra tried to hit Scyk she had ionized the previous turn, but failed, and then the two C-ROCs poured hot fire into her. We called it, as an ionized Y-Wing wasn't going to get anywhere at all in the last turn or maybe two - depending on the die roll to determine the ultimate timing of the game.

From set-up to complete tear-down, including list building on my part, the game took three hours. The actual gameplay took only about an hour and a half. Briefly discussed target priority and set-up with the new player - how bumping his ships the way he had was completely avoidable and how, especially in a scenario like this, spreading arcs is good. The Separatist player registered shock at how fast the Infiltrator melted, and how it rather took the wind out of his sails. They discussed how they might have set up differently, to perhaps slow roll the opening a little to try draw my forces out. But I countered with the problem of having only six, or maybe seven, rounds in which to punch the turrets and the satellites - slow-rolling might in fact be counterproductive. Again, on the first run through of one of these scenarios, and especially with newer players who hadn't yet experienced Epic scenario of Huge Ship play, it felt horrifically one-sided. I really hope it didn't turn them off of the format.