Battle Report

Location: Rebel Base near the Sullust Sector

First Player = Me

Objective = Hyperspace Assault

My Imperial Fleet (399 pts)

Victory-I, Admiral Screed, Expanded Launchers, Sensor Team
Victory-II, Gunnery Team, Overload Pulse
Gladiator-I, Demolisher, Engine Techs, ACMs, Veteran Captain
Gladiator-I, Insidious, ACMs
4 x TIE fighter

Rebel Fleet (399 pts)

Assault Frigate MkII-B, Dodonna, Enhanced Armaments, Gunnery Team, Adar Tallon
Nebulon-B Escort Frigate, Yavaris
Nebulon-B Support Frigate, Salvation, XI7 turbolasers
Corvette A, Leia Organa
Luke Skywalker
3 x X-wing
2 x A-wing
2 x Y-wing

Deployment

The Rebels placed the objective markers on the edge of my deployment zone, in the left, centre and right hand side of the board.  Yavaris, Luke and the 2 Y-wings went into reserve.

Deployment

I deployed the Victory class ships in the middle of the board, facing toward the gap in the debris which led to the space station.  Demolisher deployed on my left to cover the centre objective marker, and Insidious on the right to cover the right objective marker.  The idea being to give the Rebels a hard time if they dropped out of hyperspace in those areas.

The Rebels deployed with Salvation on my far left, the Space Whale in the middle of the board facing to my left to line up broadsides, with the Corvette, X-wings and A-wings between the other ships.

Turn 1

My Victorys advanced at speed 2 in the middle.  I realised here I made a mistake, as Screed's flagship was a bit far ahead of the Vic-II which I had intended to lead the echelon formation.  The Gladiators moved to cover their respective objective markers to prevent a Rebel assault.  The Rebels advanced cautiously at speed 2.

The Imperial fleet makes an implacable advance

Turn 2

The Victorys continued their advance, turning past the first set of asteroids but still out of engagement range.  Demolisher was able to cover the centre objective, but Insidious was too far away to cover the right objective with its broadsides.  A gap was left for the Rebel fleet!  The Rebels continued their cautious advance, with a lone X-wing coming out to play who was pounced on by TIEs - but still had one health.  The A-wings moved to start plinking at my flagship, taking down a lot of shields along with some long range Rebel sharpshooting.

The fighters begin the engagement, and the flagship loses many shields

Turn 3

The Rebel reinforcements now landed in the gap in my firing arcs, threatening the flagship!  My first choice of activation was therefore Screed's Vic-I, flying him forward at speed 2 and turning to move out of range of Yavaris in his rear.  The flagship proceeded to take a pounding from the Rebels' red dice, losing all of his shields on the right and front arcs and taking a Dodonna's crit (crew panic).  The Vic-II put some damage on the AF which was redirected to the far side.  Demolisher flew up and put some pain on the corvette, but it survived with just a few HP left.  Insidious then parked next to Yavaris in my rear to get a double arc the next turn, and in return a Y-wing and Yavaris damaged Insidious.

Yavaris arrives to ambush the Imperial forces!

While Demolisher fails to kill the Corvette

Turn 4

Top of turn 4: I decided to try and Demolish the Corvette and Salvation

I now had a tough choice of activation.  The flagship had repair, but was going to have to repair the crit or keep getting damage each turn - which meant no shields back up.  I therefore flew Demolisher forward, after hosing down the corvette for first blood with a broadside - which initially had 4 blanks!!  I used my concentrate firepower token, but that was redirected, and so grudgingly used my Screed ability to get the kill.  Demolisher then sped forward to land two hits on Salvation's side arc - neatly moving Demolisher out of Salvation's front arc and the Whale's side arc.

Yavaris put further damage on Insidious, along with another hit/crit from the Y-wing.  My lone TIE fighter squadron bogged down the other Y-wing.  Insidious then fired back with a double arc into the Neb's side.  When the smoke cleared, Yavaris was no more and Insidious dialled up the speed to get clear of the Rebel bombers.  However, the flagship was now in serious trouble with another crit preventing use of exhausted defence tokens and 4 HP left.  The X-wings took a few more HPs, then the Whale opened up and blew apart Screed's flagship.  Meanwhile, my token complement of TIE fighters had been pretty much wiped out.  Was this a decisive swing for the Rebels?

The Imperial flagship is gone, but Demolisher sets up retaliation

Turn 5

My Vic-II opened up on the Whale taking down some shields, and cleared out Salvation's front three shields.  At this point, I totally forgot about overload pulse as Screed had gone.  I then turned aggressively and collided with the Neb - leaving me in place.  Salvation then activated, landing on his own X-wings which I moved safely away and putting minimal damage on the remaining Vic.  Demolisher concentrated firepower into the front shields of the Whale, gobbling up all 4 shields and putting damage on the hull with ACMs.  The Whale now had almost no shields, but was able to skip past the speeding Demolisher (who couldn't get a second shot - I forgot to use my Veteran Captain to slow down and do a tight turn with engine techs.  Dammit!)

The Whale escapes Demolisher, while the Vic-II and Insidious close for the kill

Insidious continued to fly forward, putting some light damage on Salvation and getting into broadside range for the last turn.

Turn 6

At this point, I felt happy with my lead - although the flagship was down, my other ships were in good health and the Rebels had a wounded Salvation and Whale with no shields left.  Time to go for the wipeout.  I then had a brainwave, activated Insidious first to get the broadside off - bang went Salvation.  Then I flew the Gladiator forwards into the path of the Whale, hoping to trigger a collision and bag an extra HP on him and lock him in place for my Vic-II.

As it happened, this was a completely moronic idea.  Insidious wasn't able to block his ship, and instead presented the Rebels' only remaining ship with a juicy double arc shot - which he took, and blasted the Gladiator apart with the second volley.  The Whale flew forward, took some light damage from my Vic-II while Demolisher was already far away from the game.

The Whale escapes after blowing Insidious apart with its last volley!

The Rebels remaining forces included a heavily damaged Whale (2 hp and no shields left!) and most of his fighters.  I had lost Screed’s flagship, Insidious, and all my TIEs (as expected).  The final round was decisive, and it was a well-deserved win for the Rebels!

Final score:

Empire: Yavaris, Salvation, Corvette A, A-wing = 184 pts

Rebels: Victory-I, Screed, Insidious, 4 x TIE fighters = 215 pts

MOV = 31 pts (6-4)

Post-Match Analysis:

This was a fun game.  Felt very close all the way through, and could have gone either way with some better rolls at key points on either side.  My opponent played well, using Yavaris to unbalance my formation.  I also made a couple of big errors in this game, which I think made all the difference to the result in the end.

·       Putting the flagship in the front of my echelon (by accident) – I definitely should have put the Vic-II here as I planned, as it would have been able to get much greater use of its blue dice in this position (including overload pulse).  Next time, recognise who will get hit hardest and repair sooner.

·       Upgrades: some of the upgrades I paid for didn’t get used to best effect.  I never got a single shot off with my front arc 3 red 5 black dice on Screed’s flagship, forgot about overload pulse and the veteran captain on Demolisher.  Need to take my time a bit more rather than rushing on with the turn!

·       The aggressive first move with Insidious on turn 6.  If I hadn’t activated him first, he would have been at long range and evaded/braced any damage.  I was too keen to go for the aggressive move at the end!

I also think the squadrons were really effective for the Rebels – although my TIEs bogged them down, I lost 32 pts in the process and they were able to inflict damage on my ships at key moments.  Need to bring some more squadrons in the next list!

I am not a big fan of overload pulse.  Every time I think it will be really useful in a game, it just doesn’t really add a lot.  For the points, upgrades like intel officer or XI7 are much more useful.  However, I think it will work on an escort ship for the ISD Avenger when we get wave 2.

That’s all for now, I plan to add some thoughts on tactics in the next post.