Armada: Vassal Tournament - Game 2

Throwing dice from both sides.

Holiday Vassal Tournament - Game 2
Objective: Contested Outpost

HERO
Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 391/400
Commander: Admiral Ackbar

[ flagship ] MC80 Command Cruiser (106 points)
-  Admiral Ackbar  ( 38  points)
-  Home One  ( 7  points)
-  Intel Officer  ( 7  points)
-  Engine Techs  ( 8  points)
-  Electronic Countermeasures  ( 7  points)
-  XI7 Turbolasers  ( 6  points)
-  Leading Shots  ( 4  points)

Assault Frigate Mark II B (72 points)
-  Intel Officer  ( 7  points)
-  Gunnery Team  ( 7  points)
-  Electronic Countermeasures  ( 7  points)
-  XI7 Turbolasers  ( 6  points)

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
-  Jaina's Light  ( 2  points)
-  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points)

1 Dash Rendar ( 24 points)
2 YT-2400s ( 32 points)

Vs.

audere1882
Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 398/400
Commander: Admiral Motti

[ flagship ] Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer (120 points)
-  Admiral Motti  ( 24  points)
-  Gunnery Team  ( 7  points)
-  Electronic Countermeasures  ( 7  points)
-  XI7 Turbolasers  ( 6  points)
-  Leading Shots  ( 4  points)

Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)
-  Leading Shots  ( 4  points)

Gladiator I-Class Star Destroyer (56 points)
-  Demolisher  ( 10  points)
-  Ordnance Experts  ( 4  points)

1 "Howlrunner" ( 16 points)
2 TIE Interceptor Squadrons ( 22 points)
1 TIE Fighter Squadron ( 8 points)


Pre-game thoughts:
Going into this, I knew I was probably going to see Contested Outposts as one of the missions.  After all, my opponent is playing double ISD with Motti and there's nothing that says come at me bro more than CO.  That was a risk I was going to take because playing Minefields with Rebel large ships is a nightmare, and there's no way I'm going to let him get Advanced Gunnery.  When it was time to pick missions, surely enough, Contested Outposts was right there and it was instantly chosen by me.  I knew that I had a pretty good chance going in as long as I'm able to keep my guns pointed at the same target and just let all the damage sink in.  My ships are designed for combat and control and that's what I was going to hand out.  Large ships like the ISD are difficult to maneuver if they're too close to each other, my idea was to just dance around the side and let them hamper each other's movement; hopefully messing up their activation order.  If they deploy side by side, at least one of them will be taking the damage while the other one plays keep up.  The game plan going into the game was to bleed out as much shields as possible before going in for the kill.  With significantly less hull than my opponent, I just need to stay in the game long enough for the game plan to play out.

Deployment - Imperial outpost surrounded by rocks.  Shocking.

Then deployment came and everything started to suck.  This is exactly why going second works in your favor sometimes, and that's because they can setup exactly like this.  Three roids blocking any hope I have of contesting quickly and assaulting the outpost more aggressively, so I'm basically forced to find another way in.  Sure, why not, let's try deploying on an angle this way and dance along the edges.  Let's see the ISDs give chase.

End of 1 - Alright, let's try to bait out this Gladiator.

Nope, not very aggressive at all.  My opponent takes it really slow and creeps forward.  His Gladiator moves up aggressively on the left and so does my Raider.  I know we're heading into engagement range next round, but my idea is to lure the Gladiator out so I can hopefully slash him with my MC80 next turn.  If he turns into the MC80, I have enough angle with the MC80 to get him within target site regardless.  The rest of the fleet skits around the edges and plays the long range game, not letting any shots come in.  Meanwhile, Dash and the YTs move up to threaten his main ships with black anti-ship dice.  His fighters say nope and get in the fight.

End of 2 - Ackbar is ready to unleash justice.

Jaina's Light shoots at the Gladiator and moves slightly.  I was able to put a good amount of damage into it, but he takes the bait and is able to get up close with Demolisher and take a shot at the CR90.  I hold my breath because no ACMs or APTs so I'm expecting reduced damage here.  No damage is done even with Ordnance Experts which is fine by me.  The ISD-I plays aggressively and moves up, squadron commands see him roll a billion blue dice, no exaggeration, killing off and severely maiming the YTs.  I return fire with MKII into the front of the ISD-I and Intel his Brace.  He braces through it regardless and I'm happy with the result.  The MC80 burns engines and moves into slash position onto the ISD-II and Gladiator, but he plays it very slow with Motti's flagship.  Dash comes back and kills an Interceptor.

End of 3 - The Demolisher gets wasted and we start circling.

The MC80 activates and annihilates the Gladiator while it moves softly behind the debris.  Tokens are being banked by now and the game slows for a bit because neither MKII or ISD-I is doing too much damage to each other.  Engineering on dials are keeping both ships pretty healthy, so we basically play let's chase each other around the rocks while dodging each other's arcs.  Dash is the only guy left but his ISD-II lands on a couple of them and I put Howlrunner way back on the flagship while Dash goes to town on the other fighters without Howl's bonus.  I promptly kill the TIE Fighter dead.

End of 4 - Swooty swooty, I'm coming for that booty.

Another slow turn here as we use basic exchanges in damage and I'm peeling through the ISD-II's shields.  The MC80 turns and burns with navigate and sets up closer to Motti's flagship while dash continues to pressure from the rock.  By now, the CR90 wants to get into the action and at least contribute a couple of points of damage with the TRCs and Home One's accuracy.  Too bad I couldn't make any other turns here without blocking Home One's fat ass, so I had to go for a speed-4 all-in.  There was simply no other alternative.

End of 5 - The damage starts to ramp up on Motti's flagship.

The CR90 basically makes a suicide run into the ISD-II by throwing solid dice with TRCs but fails to make it out of harm's way.  Return fire from both ISDs bring it down obviously, but I was able to do enough damage to strip off some more shields from the front.  By this point, I'm happy with the result because it forced enough tokens to go exhausted, so my MKII and MC80 laid into the ship hard this turn for big damage.  Return fire was minimal on the ships that matter, so I can't say I'm completely sad at the loss of Jaina's Light.  She did her job just fine.  I get my first objective token of the game thanks to the range and angle provided to me via Engine Techs from the nav token.  Dash tries to throw a black on Motti's front, I get a hit but get ballsy and re-roll looking for doubles.  I get a blank instead.  Such is the price of greed!

End of 6 - The destruction of the ISD-II is complete.

So on this turn, something big happened..

KABOOM!

Home One activates first and blows away the ISD-II with some massive rolls and Leading Shots to guide a few more hits in.  Accuracies and Intel Officer is completely worthless now as he's looking to throw brace no matter what.  Doesn't matter though, the damage is overwhelming and he even flips a Structural Damage before the MKII gets to shoot.  Motti goes up in flames and the game pretty much ends here.  Return fire from the ISD-I doesn't do anything after the MKII heals it up and runs away, and I get another objective token from the outpost.  Rebels take the game 7-3 with 119 MoV!  GG audere!

Post-game thoughts:
OK, so this game kinda went how I thought it was going to go.  Putting the CR90 out really early was kinda ballsy, and not navigating on that round for CF was a little foolish of me.  However, she did do her job in luring the Gladiator out and allowing Ackbar to smash the ship next round through activation advantage.  The ISD-I chasing the MKII around was pretty funny, but that's what I was trying to do since my opponent was cunning and didn't let me use Gunnery Teams a single time that game.  I never had more than one target to shoot at, but it didn't really matter because 2 ships focusing on the ISD-II was more than enough to take it down, even with Motti providing 3 extra hull points.  My initial strategy of isolate and destroy paid off for sure.  Lastly, I want to say that turns 4-6 of setting up the MC80 to do massive damage without taking any damage and scoring the objective wouldn't be possible without Engine Techs.  Praise the techies.

Hope you liked the battle report!