Anyway, I took the following fleet:
Nebulon-B Support Refit
- Commander Sato
- Spinal Armament
- Salvation
Pelta Assault Ship
- Assault Proton Torpedoes
Pelta Assault Ship
- Assault Proton Torpedoes
CR90 Corvette A
- Turbolaser Reroute Circuits
- Jaina's Light
GR-75 Medium Transports
- Boosted Comms
GR-75 Medium Transports
- Boosted Comms
Jan Ors
Shara Bey
Tycho Celechu
Y-Wing X 3
This fleet is a continuation of my exploration into "sacrificial bomber" fleets, with a small squadron investment designed to set up Sato's ability while providing me some ability to deal with opposing squadrons.
The real centerpiece is the tanky MSU of the Salvation with the two Peltas. I love the design of the Pelta, even if the ship isn't that good. After Daniel ran a fleet last year that featured Sato and MC30s, I started thinking about if there were a better centerpiece ship for a Sato fleet. Hammerheads are an obvious choice, but they have an annoying tendency to blow up when faced with enemy ISDs. The MC30s did well, but they were easily focused down at close range. With this in mind, I arrived at the Pelta's, with their fat front arc, 3 shields, 5 health and brace. The cost is that I don't have dice control on them short of a Concentrate Fire token. But...they can be kitted out for the relatively efficient price of 61 points total with just APTs.
In the background is my unending quest to use as many Nebulons as possible, and this fleet featured the niche Salvation set up to swing up to 14 damage in a single glorious attack.
My objectives were Opening Salvo, Contested Outpost, and Solar Corona, and I may need to reconsider the second one. On the one hand, this fleet wants to sit in formation and fight a positional battle over something like the outpost, but given that our battles almost always end up being Empire versus Rebels, this would mean it would have to contend with ISDs. As it happens, Michael brought a fleet that had strong tools against my MSU, a Vader-led Cymoon with two supporting Arquitens, an ExRax Raider, and a Gozanti. Notably, he ran squadronless, but not without some tools to deal with opposing squadrons in the form of EWS on the Cymoon.
He chose to go first and take Contested Outpost, and despite his deployment disadvantage, was effectively able to predict my deployments with the positioning of the outpost. Here is what we ended up with:
Turn one was nothing moving into position, with the first shots fired on turn 2 as we made contact on the far left.
My poor GR-75's were not cut out for a game featuring Vader and red dice, and the left one took a beating from the Arquitens before being finished off by the ISD.
The ISD powered in, but critically remained out of range of the Salvation setting up for an explosive turn 3.
My Corvette was able to wallop the Arquitens on the far left at the bottom of turn 2 with Sato-provided black dice, but came up just a little short of killing it allowing Michael to heal it with RBDs on turn 3. My right Pelta was caught in a bad place and died this turn, surviving two volleys from the ISD before the Arquitens finished it off. It did manage to land a critical on the ISD with APTs though, preventing him from using flipped defensive tokens and limiting the effectiveness of Vader. My squadrons were slowly plinking away at Relentless, but it was slow going.
Salavation scored a god roll against Relentless, even through the obstructed front hull zone, landing an accuracy, hit, and hit + crit x 2 for 7 damage. However, Michael was able to first strike it at the beginning of turn 4.
Critically though, my other Pelta managed to escape the front arc and get into a position to finish off the ISD with help from my squadrons. Meanwhile, Jaina's Light smiped the left Arquitens before it could escape, putting me solidly in the lead. It was not over yet though, with my Pelta at one health remaining as I mopped up the Gozanti.
The Raider had been out of position the entire game, and besides flattening my GR-75, had contributed little. Here, it became a speed 4 guided missile and rammed the escaping Pelta for the kill. However, surrounded by my squadron ball, it quickly suffered the fate of all Raiders - to die with most of its shields still up.
That essentially wrapped up the action. Michael had managed to net two tokens from the contested outpost, but it was just not quite enough.
A very narrow win for me at 329-305.
Michael struggled to get all his ships involved in the battle, even though his Cymoon did very well - using first turn capability to destroy several key ships of mine before they could get their attacks off. EWS was a giant pain in the ass for my combination MSU/MFC but eventually I was able to surround the Cymoon and limit its effectiveness.
This was a very difficult fleet to go against, that being said, I think I positioned my GR-75's poorly. Combined with smart maneuvering from Michael on turn 3, I didn't get as much mileage as I hoped for from my Peltas. The real MVPS of the Rebel team were Jaina's Light and my squadrons, and the bomberless black dice from my A-Wing aces and Jan came up big. I'm not convinced Sato does enough to make Assault Peltas work, but I want to try it again, as I think the notion of a beefy MSU based on ships with braces is sound. I am considering the relative merits of ACM vs APTs though. This fleet desperately wants fleets to come to it and go second, but even the beefiest MSU struggles against Vader Cymoon. Bad test case, but given the meta of our group, always going against ISDs with a strong likelihood of them being Vader Cymoons is not unlikely.
At any rate, GG Michael! I enjoyed this game a lot and it was nice to have an opportunity to play while we are waiting for Hubert to get his SSD.
No comments:
Post a Comment