TIE swarm battle: 2x T/F, 2x T/I, 2x T/B

By Millennium Falsehood, in X-Wing Battle Reports

A few nights ago I had a pretty good battle against, honestly, a less skilled pilot than myself, and I think I did pretty well. My forces consisted of the following ships:

Backstabber (16)
Dark Curse (16)
Alpha Squadron Pilot (18)
Saber Squadron Pilot (21) + Push The Limit (3)
Gamma Squadron Pilot (18)
Gamma Squadron Pilot (18)

Total: 110

Yes, this is more than allowed in a standard 100 pt game, but he told me he was okay with me using more than 100 points because it game him initiative. Fine by me. His squad was as follows:

Rookie Pilot (21) + Proton Torpedoes (4)

Rookie Pilot (21) + Proton Torpedoes (4)

Green Squadron Pilot (19) + Cluster Missiles (4)

Arvel Crynyd (23) + Cluster Missiles (4)

Total: 100

I would have warned him against spending so many points on missile weapons, but last time he just ignored my advice so I just let him take the torpedoes and missiles.

I had the advantage in points, but he still could have alpha-striked me if he wanted. It didn't turn out that way.

We set up the map with asteroids, then took turns placing our ships. I put my TIE Bombers in the left corner at a 45* angle pointing toward the center, with my TIE Interceptors in the middle and the TIE Fighters on the right corner pointing forward. My T/I element was going to be my primary attack force, with the T/F element serving to mop up the rest. The bombers would be decoys, admittedly not the best use of 36 points, but I figured he'd fall for it seeing as how he's inexperienced. He set up his X-wings on the corners with the A-wings in the middle.

The battle began innocuously, with the bombers swooping in and turning toward the X-wing on the left, with the interceptors plowing straight up the middle. The fighters flew in lazily at speed 3, biding their time until I needed them. One of his A-wings and the right-hand X-wing shot forth and got a long-range firing solution on my Alpha Squadron pilot. I figured he wouldn't get more than one damage, two if he were lucky, because I had two asteroids between us which gave me five defense dice against the three attack dice of his X-wing.

Imagine my shock when his X-wing rolled three hits and I came up with all blanks. :o

Now it was getting interesting; the first exchange of the game and I lose an entire ship in one shot. Lucky for me it was the vanilla Interceptor. It could have been much worse. Still, it was a bit of a system shock.

The next thing to happen was his Green Squadron Pilot and Rookie on the left ganged up on my bombers. My Saber Squadron pilot was just out of range, but the bombers both managed to survive the initial barrage of cluster missiles long enough to severely damage the A-wing. My mistake was in not destroying his X-wing, but this isn't something I was particularly worried about.

The next round was a major hairball, with all of his ships maneuvering in and getting in my way. My remaining Interceptor however managed to get within half a ship length of his GSP, and still had both of his actions! Yay, practiced maneuvering! :D I unloaded all my canons on him and blew him out of the sky.

The last few turns involved chasing down his X-wings. This was made easier by the fact that I had spent the last couple of turns flying in my TIE Fighters. Backstabber got in a really good hit from long range, stripping one of the X-wings of his shields. Dark Curse was right behind him and was, unfortunately, out of range.

I got the X-wings within two rounds, both still carrying their torpedoes, then decided to concentrate on Arvel. Needless to say, he went down very easily thanks to the fact that I still had my TIE Interceptor and got on his tail several times.

All in all, it was a good battle, with a major victory for the Empire.

Final tally:

Rebels: all ships destroyed.

Empire: One T/F with one damage point, one T/B with four damage points, and one T/B with five damage points.

Victor: Galactic Empire

10 points difference at 100 points game is a lot! Almost a complete ship... with him being "less skilled" as you call it its even worse. Imagine your force with 2 regular Academy pilots instead of the named ones and no Ptl for the Saber - that would be 99 points then...