Hey all, shaking off the rust for a Jamie P battle report in the hopes that I’ll get to write one for an event someday. I’ve recently restarted playing the game and today my report features my first ever encounter with a Starhawk.
Since returning to the game I’ve picked my trusty rebels back up while I wait for the galactic republic to release. Even so, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed playing with some very different fleets than I did when I played a few years ago, although my undying love for General Dodonna has not changed. Crit roulette is still incredibly fun and retains the power to turn games for me.
The fleet I’ve become most comfortable with since returning:
Fleet Total - 388
CR90 Corvette A
General Dodonna
Jaina’s Light
Turbolaser Reroute Circuits
Assault Frigate MKII B
Toryn Farr
Flight Controllers
MC30 Torpedo Frigate
Admonition
Skilled First Officer
Assault Proton Torpedoes
H9 Turbolasers
Ordinance Experts
GR-75 Transports
Ahsoka Tano
Comms Net
GR-75 Transports
Bomber Command
Biggs Darklighter
Jan Ors
Nora Wexley
Gold Squadron
2x X-Wing Squadrons
It’s a little bit of everything really. 5 activations isn’t the most you’ll see but it’s passable. The initiative bid is half decent and wins against anything that isn’t extremely dedicated at going first.
The squadrons are fairly light but well supported from bomber command, Toryn Farr, and flight controllers. I didn’t want to run a fully focussed carrier fleet like I used to. They can do damage if used correctly or if the opponent underestimates them. And they’ll compete against enemy squadrons relatively well.
I like having the Assault Frigate as a ‘sort of mainstay‘ of the fleet but I haven’t invested so much in it that if it’s destroyed I feel crippled. And that’s generally the theme of the fleet in a nutshell really. It’s all points efficient, it’s all valuable, and losing any one piece doesn’t cripple how it operates.
The MC30 is currently my favourite ship in the game and the damage this little dude can crank out is simply astounding. I’ve had people tell me H9s are too expensive but I also think people forget that not every ship in the game has Electronic Countermeasures to defend itself with. Plus **** near auto killing flotillas is still a handy trick. I’ve seen this little firecracker double arc a Demolisher Gladiator into dust from full hull and shields. It definitely works a lot better when you’ve got the initiative, hence the respectable bid. But you can still use it to force enemy activation order when going second.
In addition to the MC30, the CR90 gives me access to some very fast elements in my fleet which are handy for objective play. So far Jaina’s light has been a good way to keep Dodonna safe while still being on a ship which can be relevant to the game.
The fleet plays like a pack of wolves. None of the ships want to be the centre of attention for long so it all relies on moving at correct speeds to avoid staying in enemy gunsights for more than a turn or two. And it attacks enemies from multiple angles.
It’s main weakness is that it definitely can’t stand toe to toe with ISDs and relies on correct navigation to avoid taking heavy damage. But in recompense for that it’s a fairly manoeuvrable fleet overall with all ships capable of speed 3.
When it came to taking on a Starhawk I’ve been told a wise strategy is to go all in on taking it down or avoid it altogether. I think that’s good advice and this fleet is very well set up to avoid a Starhawk in a lot of situations. Particularly when they have no initiative bid.
Along with being my first game against a Starhawk it was also my opponent’s first game using a Starhawk. Although he is an experienced Rebel player. I didn’t take exact notes of his fleet but it was 400 points on the nose. From memory:
Starhawk MKI
Amity
Admiral Agate
Major Derlin
Flight Commander
Rapid Launch Bays
Turbolaser Reroute Circuits
Leading Shots
CR90 B
Tantive IV
Raymus Antillies
Electronic Countermeasures
GR-75 Transports
Bright Hope
Toryn Farr
Bomber Command
Biggs Darklighter
Keyan Farlander
3x X-Wing Squadrons
2x B-Wing Squadrons
He had a brace of really difficult scenarios to choose from. I just remember flicking through the red and the yellow cards going ‘nope, aaaaand nope!’ Pausing to re-read the blue scenario multiple times I figured I could take advantage of it. It was Volatile Deposits.
For those unfamiliar with it, you score 15 point victory tokens for having the most command in ships within distance 1 of each asteroid at the end of each turn. The downside being that the asteroids also provide a fairly nasty crit effect which damages in an area, including squadrons, not too dissimilar to the crit effect of the red ignition upgrade for the Onager. It also replaced the station with two dust clouds.
I knew due to the placement rules that my opponent would position two of them close together, I would therefore position one of them slightly away from the action, the intent being that my flotillas could cruise close by. They’d be out of range to be shot while hopefully providing their buffs like bomber command to the combat area. If I’m stacking up tokens of my own consistently then I can at least nullify some of my opponent’s and put the focus more on the battle.
Additionally, since he only has 3 activations, he can’t spare the ships to sit near asteroid fields and generate tokens as easily as I can.
The deployment ends up like this:
Turn 0
by
Jamie Perkins
, on Flickr
As expected, the Starhawk is babysitting the two asteroids closer to my opponent’s deployment zone with my assault frigate and flotillas near my own asteroid field.
My plan is simple, avoid the Starhawk for as long as possible and use my higher activation count and the initiative to carve out the other elements of his fleet while stacking as many victory tokens as I can.
If the Starhawk turns towards my assault frigate as I expect, the frigate takes a wider angle and spends some time behind the left hand dust cloud. If the Starhawk turns toward my MC30, the two faster ships there both burn hard and wide up to speed 4 to get behind the Starhawk and hit the support ships.
All my ships are set to speed 2, all of my opponent’s ships are set to speed 1
TURN ONE
My assault frigate and flotillas move up around my asteroid field, with the bomber command flotilla dropping to speed 1 to catch the victory tokens in later turns.
MC30 and CR90 both bank Nav tokens and angle themselves cautiously. Waiting to see what the Starhawk does.
The Starhawk drifts forward and turns to my right which angles it straight on the board. Seems like he might go for my MC30 or he may just be consolidating his position on his asteroids.
TURN TWO
I’m very keen to see where my opponent’s ships end up this turn, I have an opportunity to dive in and take out the flotilla depending on how things sit.
I activate my flotillas and the CR90 first to see where the Starhawk goes. My CR90 jumps to speed 4 and flies out wide to the right to ensure it avoids damage. The CR90 will likely have a quiet game with so many enemy squadrons not the board.
The Starhawk again turns towards my MC30. I respond by turning my assault frigate in slightly, now that the Starhawk is turning away from it.
My opponent does indeed leave his flotilla a little too far forward. Intending to threaten me with squadrons. I jump the MC30 up to speed 4 with a nav dial and token, parking right next to the flotilla. Taking damage from a debris field but allowing me to get a double arc on the flotilla for the top of turn three.
Turn 2
by
Jamie Perkins
, on Flickr
TURN THREE
The MC30 goes first with another nav command and one-shots the flotilla before dropping to speed 3 and running off into the the backfield. I was hopeful that I could avoid the retaliation of the rapid launch bay B-Wings that were due to appear by arcing wide.
My opponent does indeed drop the B-Wings and Keyan before continuing to turn toward the MC30 and coving the asteroid fields for objective tokens.
I continue to buy activations with my flotillas. The CR90 unexpectedly flips a squadron command. We made a small error here as my opponent misread his stat card for the CR90 B and thought it had squadron 2. So, using the dial and the command token from Raymus he activated all 3 B-Wings and dropped most of the MC30’s shields. We noticed it a little later on and given it was a practice game my opponent apologised, I said don’t worry about it, and we moved on.
That CR90 B was starting to drift quite close to my squadrons now that the noose was starting to close. So my assault frigate took the chance and dropped 4 bombers on its doorstep, dropping most of its shields. My CR90 continues to arc wide. It’s just too dangerous to go near the squadrons or the Starhawk.
The X-Wings near the MC30 add a few more points of damage to it in the squadron phase.
Turn 3
by
Jamie Perkins
, on Flickr
TURN FOUR
Surveying the battle, my MC30 is in a somewhat precarious position. There are a lot of squadrons near it but most of them are out of range to receive a squadron command. It’s got no shields left but all of it’s tokens for discarding dice through admonition. I reason that it can survive an activation before escaping.
I activate the comms net flotilla to throw yet another squadron token onto the assault frigate.
My opponent elects to go with the CR90 B with another squadron command. This time only activating two due to Raymus Antillies. Two B-Wings put damage onto the MC30 and I burn an evade to avoid a crit.
The CR90 is only going at speed 2 so gets stuck behind the Starhawk and ends up back at its original position.
I activate the MC30, burn my skilled first officer to flip an engineering command which discards a damage card before boosting off at speed 4 down the edge of the table to safety.
The Starhawk goes next, throwing two red dice out of its rear at the MC30 who evades the damage. And two more red dice at the Assault Frigate who absorbs it with braced shields. The Starhawk continues to float towards the bottom right hand corner. Picking up victory tokens as it goes but doing very little else.
The assault frigate activates a squadron command and my bombers finish off the CR90.
At this point the game is done. My opponent’s squadrons are stranded, I can engage them at will with squadron commands and take them apart and the Starhawk is out of the game.
We play turn five, engage the enemy squadrons, destroying an X-Wing and a B-Wing. Taking superficial damage in return due to Biggs and Jan Ors.
We call the game at the end of turn five.
I can see how the Starhawk can be very difficult to deal with if the person running it can force you to engage it. My opponent conceded that he didn’t think it would run great as a carrier but he was curious to try it.
I think the scariest thing for me would be a Starhawk with a bid and more activations, because I can’t just take apart it’s support ships and use the initiative to escape.
I can definitely see that for slower and heavier fleets, your only option is to try to bring down the Starhawk. But that just doesn’t seem the sensible plan for my fleet.
Anyhow. I hope you enjoyed this battle report and I’m looking forward to making more in the future. Particularly when events start up again!
