@LTD vs Tokra is done.

Tokra won with 400 (everything) vs. 176 (VSD, 2 Gozanti, 1 Shuttle).

We were playing LTDs Planetary Ion Cannon.

It was really close in the end. It all came down to the last activation. If i could not have killed his last CR90, he would have destroyed my last ship.
But the start was good for me. First turn i was able to take out one YT2400, and the second turn 5 6 more. After this i was free for the ships. But the CR90 did a great job in taking down the VSD really fast (even without Ackbar 4 damage and one acc on each attack).
And around turn 3 i messed up with the Ion Cannon Token. It ended to close to a ship, and poofed (killed even a Gozanti this way). So i had to get a second token, and this cost me some time.

In Turn 5 6 the Squall and the last CR90 were standing right next to each other. And i could finish him off with the squadrons. But it was really close. The last squadron finished him.

I will upload the log later.

Log

@LTD the only disappointment is you not advertising that you were playing.

@BrobaFett took the win against me. I managed to take down his Quasar on turn two before it could activate, but he cleaned out my Decimator ball pretty handily and took down my Dictor as well after I flew it into his face. Demo was the only survivor on my side. I managed to bring down the Quasar plus Howlrunner, Mauler, and Saber for 180 MOV to him. Here is the complete-write up:

https://armadaaarsbydave.blogspot.com/2020/02/2020-vassal-world-cup-vs-brobafett.html

Huge thanks to @BiggsIRL for hosting! I’m glad I was able to act as a last minute fill-in!

Top 16 round.

2 hours ago, jp82729 said:

The ISD picked off 3 mines along the way with the help of linked turbolaser towers.

Erm what?

7 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Erm what?

I guess because the mine is threatened as a squadron you can add 2 dice of any color.

14 minutes ago, spike2109 said:

I guess because the mine is threatened as a squadron you can add 2 dice of any color.

**** no.

Its not a squadron.

19 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Its not a squadron.

"The defending mine token is treated as a squadron with one hull point". There is a question if the "declare target" is a thing here if that counts as token.

5 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

**** no.

Its not a squadron.

I asked on the Discord before the game, and Karneck's judgement was that LTTs can target a mine. I guess I'll leave it up to @BiggsIRL to make the official call. I don't think it would have made a huge difference - the ISD was the one flying nearest to the mines and I kept it at blue range for the flak. It had also only suffered a few shields worth of damage by the end of the game.

1 hour ago, jp82729 said:

I don't think it would have made a huge difference - the ISD was the one flying nearest to the mines and I kept it at blue range for the flak. It had also only suffered a few shields worth of damage by the end of the game.

Agreed.
A speed 3-4 Onager is a **** of a goat to try to keep a carrier safe from. It was a solid game.

LTT vs mines...

GK vs T-man, win GK.

GK wins the toss and chooses 2nd.

We play my asteroid tactics. He goes all in, aiming for my throat. Onager does Onager stuff to MK. MK blows up. Dumb little corvette do TRC things, Onager explodes.

Slugs eat rebel squads. Price they paid for bombing Onager.

ISD takes a bunch of damage bc Cham is a sneaky git. Buuut doesn't die. T-man calls it r5 when nothing can bring him back on top.

Honorable mention: TIEs kill Shara wo looses...

Fun game. Lots of shooting and flying and dying. Some mistakes were made, but it was all very mannerly.

T-man most honorable and gracious opponent.

Angry Ewok vs Aresius just finished,

Ewok had the bid ant took second, we played my Most Wanted Objective

Scared of the speed 0 think my CR 90s were trying to engage late but missed out on several shots early by a few inches, Only the ASF got to consistently hit the Star Hawk starting on turn 2.

Aresius won, I conceeded after the first activation of round 5, Dropped the ASF to speed 0 because he waited Bail Organa Out and then a round from 4 Rogue bombers with no tokens and then a second push from those same squads, paired with the Starhawks guns finished off the ASF, I was trapped at speed 0 by my own Bail move,

well played to Aresius.

Sam defeats Roquax with a table on turn 4 following a brutal 11 damage Onager shot to finish off the 5 hull 75.

I won the roll off and chose first, picking his most wanted. The opening shot of the Onager was savage, doing 7 damage and a crit into Yavaris' side arc. It pulled a structural and we both had a brain fart thinking it was dead. We finished the round and then thankfully he caught the error and we were able to undo back to that point before completing the round. Yav was able to turn in and face his fully shielded front arc at me and the turn 2 shot was unable to take it out. Squadrons began engaging in the middle while MMJ started to soften up the flanking 75. Top of 3 the quasar was able to get the kill on Yavaris and put some hurt into the 75, but it landed at black and a savage exrax roll combined with shield failure crit from apt popped it in one shot. The 75 was unable to get the acc to kill the flotilla in front of it and was unable to hop it, keeping it stuck in my ignition arc. Turn 5 the flotilla sent MM into the front and survived again, allowing the Onager to land the killing blow. Thanks to Roquax for a great and tense game!

And this reduces the field to one lone Rebell.

@Tokra vs jp82729 top 8 game is finished. I was able to table him

Tokra gave me first player and I chose his targeting beacons.

I set up toward the top left and Tokra near the bottom right. I was a little cautious at first to approach the mean squad ball, so I tried to pick off Vector with the Onager (it was heading in the opposite direction of the rest of the fleet). That didn't work, so I decided to turn in and engine tech.

Moralo and the Lambda pestered the ISD on the first turn, but then turned their attention to the Onager. Moralo was rolling double accuracies more than expected, so the Onager survived longer than it should have.

The VSD was able to scoot out of black die range of the ignition token on turn 2, so I used Hondo and Cataclysm to re-place it at the start of 3. The Onager put 2 hull damage into the VSD, but was finally taken out by Moralo and his crew of Lambdas.

The VSD had to move into red range of my ISD on turn 3, and the ISD put a few more hull damage on. It was then able to move into blue range of both the VSD and the rear of the Quasar. Two really good shots by the ISD on turn 4 and a a ram finished off both of Tokra's combat ships for the table.

Thanks again for the game Tokra!

No log, but here are some screen captures:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tN1ZQovlIc-kuqmNd25YbQlbFE_acE1D/view?usp=sharing

13 hours ago, jp82729 said:

@Tokra vs jp82729 top 8 game is finished. I was able to table him

Could you not at least make it sound like it was difficult?

2 hours ago, LTD said:

Could you not at least make it sound like it was difficult?

Onager vs Moralo isn’t all that difficult tbh. Not trying to throw shade at the champ but a long range derp gun can make short work of those two ships with no dretro or protection of any kind

37 minutes ago, MandalorianMoose said:

Onager vs Moralo isn’t all that difficult tbh. Not trying to throw shade at the champ but a long range derp gun can make short work of those two ships with no dretro or protection of any kind

Tokra won against RealVeers who was also running an Onager.

53 minutes ago, RapidReload said:

Tokra won against RealVeers who was also running an Onager.

That’s cause he’s probably the best player on the planet at the moment. Outside of his hands I’d put my money on the onager in that matchup

I'm currently on Mars

17 hours ago, MandalorianMoose said:

Onager vs Moralo isn’t all that difficult tbh. Not trying to throw shade at the champ but a long range derp gun can make short work of those two ships with no dretro or protection of any kind

I am a little bit concerned about the Onagers. Aren't they just strong against absolutely everything ? I'd like to be wrong, but I wonder if the sentence:

"Onager vs. whatever isn't all that difficult tbh."

is not getting more and more right.

Don't they just completely kill the ship-to-ship game ? yes, other ships hit harder at short range, but there are so many things to prevent them from getting there, or already in shambles.

They're not even that weak in defense for a ship under 100 points, with 10 hull - 5 front shields and good tokens, despite ridiculing everything else in terms of offensive power.

I think FFG scored a massive hit succeeding at making the SSD competitive but not excessively strong.

But my initial worries about the Onagers being too easy too strong are really not getting cured following this tournament.

34 minutes ago, Fanfan said:

I am a little bit concerned about the Onagers. Aren't they just strong against absolutely everything ? I'd like to be wrong, but I wonder if the sentence:

"Onager vs. whatever isn't all that difficult tbh."

is not getting more and more right.

Don't they just completely kill the ship-to-ship game ? yes, other ships hit harder at short range, but there are so many things to prevent them from getting there, or already in shambles.

They're not even that weak in defense for a ship under 100 points, with 10 hull - 5 front shields and good tokens, despite ridiculing everything else in terms of offensive power.

I think FFG scored a massive hit succeeding at making the SSD competitive but not excessively strong.

But my initial worries about the Onagers being too easy too strong are really not getting cured following this tournament.

I think it’s less that and more that people are unfamiliar with the new mechanic. Squads and MSU can give it fits, as can non- traditional deployment methods

6 hours ago, Fanfan said:

“Onager vs. whatever isn't all that difficult tbh."

I fought one with 5 TRC90s. Poor thing first tried hiding near an SSD, then running, but neither was happening.

Agree with Moose on the nature of bad matchups, with the caveat that a Quasar/Pelta had better be careful because once it’s dead, the Onager has a good nav chart at speed 3 to not overlap uncommanded squads.

On 2/16/2020 at 7:06 AM, MandalorianMoose said:

Onager vs Moralo isn’t all that difficult tbh. Not trying to throw shade at the champ but a long range derp gun can make short work of those two ships with no dretro or protection of any kind

Thats true about the Onager. And it was bad to use VSD and Quasar against it. These two ships are just going down in no time. Especially when he was rolling exact one accuracy on each attack 😉 . And all other were hits and crits. His red even had a 50% double roll. The pure amount of damage, that he was doing, was just too much.
Maybe, when i would have turned one ship to the left, and one to the right, i might have get one away. But i turned both in the same direction. This made it easy to catch them.

But even with a bit less accurate rolls, i might have lost a turn later. It would not be possible to take down an ISD with Motti in one turn, even with full Moralo. Two turns, with luck and the support from the VSD, is the least you need.

On 2/16/2020 at 7:44 AM, RapidReload said:

Tokra won against RealVeers who was also running an Onager.

But @RealVeers did not use the Cataclysm titel and was not flying an ISD as second ship. This combination, of Onager and ISD II was really a pain. The Onager could not kill the ships. It is going down too fast against Moralo (even with Motti). He could get in one attack. But this one was doing 8+ damage and no brace. This was more than enough to let the ISD finish the VSD. Sadly the Quasar was also in medium range, and he could one shot it as well.
RealVeers has "only" a Gladiator as second ship. This is a big difference.

23 hours ago, MandalorianMoose said:

That’s cause he’s probably the best most succesful player on the planet at the moment. Outside of his hands I’d put my money on the onager in that matchup

(fixed it 😉 ). My lacking tests of the Onager and Starhawk did not help as well 😁 . I underestimated the Onager (by far). Maybe it would have been a bit different with an ECM on the VSD. This lacking ECM cost me two games.
I never thought that the Onager can be such a big problem. But the range and the Cataclym titel are a problem for some medium ships, and especially for these without an evade. 8+ dice on this distance are just deadly for some ships.
But yes, Onager is the best answer for squadron lists right now. Just because it is able to take out the normal carriers from a good distance. Yavaris and Quasar are just going down way too fast against it.

8 hours ago, MandalorianMoose said:

I think it’s less that and more that people are unfamiliar with the new mechanic. Squads and MSU can give it fits, as can non- traditional deployment methods

That is always a very easy comeback to make against a new, overly powerful ship or upgrade or mechanic. I have said this before, but in my mind FFG always put out new waves in a slightly overpowered state to get us to buy them and retroactively fix/balance them with new waves or FAQs.

Not to say that there are not ways to deal with the slight "overpowered-ness", but the fleets you can come up with are usually in themselves not tournament fit as they have glaring weaknesses due to their strong focus to counter one list.
Examples have been given and discussed/contested by the community:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/302502-onager-live-stream-info/?do=findComment&comment=3833823
https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/302502-onager-live-stream-info/?do=findComment&comment=3833829