Midlothian, VA. 29 players registered, only 26 showed up. I am one of them, and I'm carrying a Tagge list with me. Why? Well, this started with me thinking about the objective "Marked For Destruction." Out of 400+ lists available on Truthiness' data sheet, NOBODY else had EVER taken it to a Prime. Of course there is missing data, so I may not have been the first, but still...I wanted to be a pioneer. So what kind of fleet could make this crazy objective work? Dust fields--long range fleets hate them, close range fleets love them. Demo seemed like a good candidate, since he could jump behind a dust field on turn 1 and attack on turn 2. Purrgils...proximity mines? Worth a try. Since I'll probably be playing this objective a lot, why not try ExRax (so that I can use the ExRax AND the Marked For Destruction crit)? I came up with a Tagge Fleet (since Tagge loves close/medium range ships) and sent it to @Dr alex for review (thanks so much for your tips!) about a week before the Prime. Unfortunately I never really tested it before the Prime, so my fleet's first game would be the first game of the Prime.
I know that many people believe that Tagge will be a useful admiral when the moth lies down with the cockroach, and the data shows that many players avoid him like a caterpillar in the salad, but as we'll see he did find some usage.
The Age of Tagge
Faction:
Galactic Empire
Points:
399/400
Commander: General Tagge
Assault Objective:
Marked For Destruction
Defense Objective:
Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective:
Salvage Run
[ flagship ]
Interdictor-class Suppression Refit
(90 points)
- General Tagge ( 25 points)
-
Interdictor
( 3 points)
- Captain Brunson ( 5 points)
- Engine Techs ( 8 points)
- Proximity Mines ( 4 points)
- G7-X Grav Well Projector ( 2 points)
- Grav Shift Reroute ( 2 points)
=
139
total ship cost
Gozanti-class Cruisers
(23 points)
- Minister Tua ( 2 points)
- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
- Slicer Tools ( 7 points)
=
39
total ship cost
Imperial Star Destroyer Kuat Refit
(112 points)
- Strategic Adviser ( 4 points)
- Proximity Mines ( 4 points)
- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
- External Racks ( 3 points)
=
134
total ship cost
Gladiator I-Class Star Destroyer
(56 points)
-
Demolisher
( 10 points)
- Iden Versio ( 6 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Engine Techs ( 8 points)
- External Racks ( 3 points)
=
87
total ship cost
= 0 total squadron cost
The Interdictor is kind of an oddball in the fleet, as Dr alex pointed out, but GSR works well with the fleet. I could see the case for getting rid of the Interdictor and replacing it with two Raiders or something.
Game 1 - Ron
Ron was a very pleasant guy to play against. He brought Dodonna (my favorite Rebel admiral, although I'm not very skilled with him) on Admo, two CR90s (one was Dodonna's Pride), two flots, 6 rogue squads (Hera gave two squads rogue the entire game). I knew Rogue squads would be a difficult matchup for my list, because my Slicer Tools are now less useful. Also, no Larges for my flot to block. Ron had a huge bid, thought about going second, but goes first and chooses Marked For Destruction.
Round one: I deployed badly. Ron did a fake-out which led me to believe his ships would be going one way, then after his squads deployed important ships going the other way. I also apparently forgot the Imperial doctrine of corner-deploying. It had been a while since I had played Imps. I jumped up my Slicer Tools flotilla too fast and he attacked with rogues on turn 1. I used the Scatter once but didn't want to burn it yet.
Round two: I could see now that my prox mines were mistakenly placed in a spot where they were more likely to hit my own ships than his. His fast ships could easily outrun them, despite the GSR. My flotilla uses Scatter twice and dies, putting me behind the activation curve. Demo jumps up to try to hit his Dodonna's Pride, but is just out of close range. (I also hit my own prox mine.) I attack his flotilla instead and it scatters. ET puts Demo at close range of DP. Demo gets attacked by multiple things and must discard its Iden evade.
Third round: Demo recovers its evade, and Ron goes like "GAH! TAGGE!" Fortunately for him, his DP gets an acc and a crit, so he targets the evade and cancels all dice to pull a DP faceup crit (which was all he needed to kill Demo).
Rest of the game: I assumed his Admo was deployed to kill Demo then just decided to run after Demo died, so I turned my ISD toward a CR90 I couldn't possibly catch. Turns out Admo was still in the game, and catches up to my Interdictor and kills it on round 5. The ISD did recover its brace on round 5 due to Tagge, but dies to rogue squads on round 5 too.
Ron and I discussed Marked For Destruction--it doesn't really feel like the objective gives second player enough advantage to justify taking it. Ron also thought I should have just foregone the prox mines entirely for this game, since he had all fast smalls--I can see why he thought so, given how badly it went for me, but I think maybe it would've worked for me to put them on the flanks to discourage his CR90s/Admo from flying in a certain area instead of putting the mines on obstacles and trying to "chase" his ships with grav shift. Despite me losing 400-0, Ron was impressed with how useful Tagge was in this game.
Game 2 - Lark
Lark also had Admo and 3 CR90Bs (SW7s on all, one was Liberator with EF!), Rieekan (and no other upgrades) on an MC75, three X-Wings and Dagger. Lark chose to be first player (I mistakenly told all my opponents that I had 400 points when in fact I was at 399; Lark was at 400 and won the coin toss). Salvage Run.
After the grav shift
Lark's MC75 is speed 2 and everything else speed 4 I think. I deployed at speed 2 and kinda stayed there, because I figured we'd be engaging on round 2 that way.
Round 1 is a rush for the tokens. Lark goes gung ho at speed 4, but also lands on some prox mines which damage two CR90s. Admo killed a prox mine though.
Round 2 Lark picks up two tokens and so do I. But the Rebel ships are in a bad position for fighting: Admo can't shoot anything this turn because of the dust field, and two CR90s are already bruised. Demo jumps into close range of the MC75 front arc and hits it with ER. ISD goes after the same target.
Rest of the game went kinda slow, only four rounds passed. We actually had to hard stop in the middle of round four. Demo and ISD killed MC75, but Admo was out of reach. Interdictor got shot at but never in danger of dying. I killed two CR90s and my Goz died due to taking multiple CR90b shots, getting rammed and overlapping a debris field. Thanks to @CyborgNinja who walked by and corrected me that Lark's CR90 should not take a damage card when ramming a flotilla. 😂
This game ended as an 8-3 for me. I realized into round 1 that I should have put the grav well across from the objective tokens. Oh well. Tagge was never used in this game because I never lost a def token. Lark, if you ever read this, my advice would be to use nav dials on round 1 (deploying at speed 3 is better than 4), and use squad dials later in the game so that your squads can kill things.
Game 3 - Kris
Kris had Ackbar and IO on an MC75, IO on a Potato with EHD, a Hammerhead, GR75, and 6 Z-95s. With only four activations, Kris had no choice but to go first, and chose my CO. Obstacles went on the right side of the board, prox mines on debris and asteroids, and after grav shift it was looking pretty bad for any Rebel ships trying to come near that station.
I didn't get a picture, but my deployment was similar to last game--Goz was in the middle of the board (I forgot to deploy it near the station), Interdictor to its left, then the ISD, then Demo. Kris put everything on the right side of the board.
Round 1, My Goz takes a hard turn right, but cannot reach the station after moving. Everything else turns right. All my combat ships are getting closer to that MC75. As for Kris, he jumps his GR-75 onto some mines, removing the mines and the GR-75 off the board. Now I have an additional activation for the remainder of the game.
2 and 3, my ships take out his MC75 but the Interdictor takes a beating. IO on round 2 is irrelevant because Tagge gets those tokens back. His Hammerhead takes a shot that could have killed my Interdictor, but shoots my ECM Goz instead (he didn't realize it had ECM). IO takes out a redirect on my Interdictor. I made a mistake with my Interdictor, shooting the MC75 with both arcs to make sure it's dead, instead of shooting the Hammerhead in front of it. But I had the ISD double arcing it as well as a Demo shot, so that was probably unnecessary, and led to the Interdictor dying next round.
Round 4--My apologies to Kris, I think he killed my Interdictor this round, which means Tagge would have died before round 5. Anyway his Hammerhead killed it, but then my double-arcing CFing Goz finishes off the Hammerhead.
Round 5--Demo has taken a beating by this point but (illegally, I think, sorry again Kris) regains its evade token. Survives a shot from the Potato and can redirect stuff from the Z-95s. Unfortunately for me, Kris' Potato has escaped my grasp. Rest of the game is just me killing Z-95s, them failing to kill anything, my Goz circling around the station (it got points for round 2-6).
I won this game 9-2. My advice to Kris, if he ever reads this, would be to use squad commands for non-rogue squads. Yes, I realize Z-95s aren't great at attacking ships, but waiting until the squad phase is worse. I think his squads only got two shots off per round, when he had six squads (granted, his Potato was in a bad position for commanding squads, but his MC75 could have done some of that work).
Even though I was doing OK at this point in the tournament (11th out of 26), I dropped out to spend some more time with my friends (who were hosting me and my wife/daughter at their home in Virginia) and family Saturday night (otherwise I'd be getting home around 11pm and possibly waking a sleeping child). Which explains why I ended up in 20th--I got 0 tournament points for game 4.
Final thoughts
So Marked For Destruction...can it work? Maybe? Just one game is unfortunately not enough to tell much. I still think Tagge is the best commander for the objective (Romodi would like those Purrgils, but not the dust fields), but since I had prox mines + the Interdictor with GSR and the grav well, I should have probably gone for Surprise Attack. I don't like Station Assault because 2-3 squads can kill one station by themselves.
As for Tagge, who I tried for the first time: I actually think he's not bad. One of the main complaints is that you need to jump in recklessly on turn 2 to get use out of him, but post-RitR, I think he has some new tools for his toolkit that encourage your opponent to do the jumping (as we saw with Salvage Run and Contested Outpost). And once the Onager comes out, you'll be wishing you still had your brace on round 3. Grav Shift, Grav Well, Proximity Mines, Tagge...give it a try at your local Prime! (Everyone says "Yeah right.") Many thanks once again to @Dr alex for his help.