Vassal Corellian Conflict: Campaign blog, part 3 (Battle of Forvand)

Not so independent anymore...

Round 1 is on! Follow the progress in the Campaign Manager sheet (fleets not filled out du to lack of wave 6+7).

Last night me and Dr Alex kicked off the campaign with a battle over Forvand. Or actually this is a space station, so no planets were involved. The Rebels were hoping to gain control over the station, but Lord Vader's spies (not bothans, but real, reusable spies) had warned the Empire and the Fleet was ready for the rebels.

Alex was the assaulter, so that automatically made him 1st player. Forvand only has two objective choices: the Independent Station or the Nebula. Alex went with the station, not wanting me to get -1 command dials on every ship and +1 on his. I don't think the Nebula would have hurt him much - he was 90% navigating anyway.

For some reason I make small ships very dodgy!

Faction: Rebel Alliance

Points: 400/400

Commander: Mon Mothma

[ flagship ] MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63 points)

-  Mon Mothma  ( 30  points) 

-  Ordnance Experts  ( 4  points) 

= 97 total ship cost

MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63 points)

-  Ordnance Experts  ( 4  points) 

= 67 total ship cost

MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63 points)

-  Ordnance Experts  ( 4  points) 

= 67 total ship cost

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)

-  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points) 

= 51 total ship cost

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)

-  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points) 

= 51 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)

-  Expanded Hangar Bay  ( 5  points) 

= 23 total ship cost

2 VCX-100 Freighters ( 30 points)
2 Z-95 Headhunter Squadrons ( 14 points)

Vs

Faction: Imperial

Commander: Darth Vader

ISD Cymoon 1 Refit (112)

• Darth Vader (36)

• Gunnery Team (7)

= 155 Points

Gladiator II (62)

• Demolisher (10)

= 72 Points

Raider II (48)

• Heavy Ion Emplacements (9)

= 57 Points

Raider I (44)

• External Racks (3)

= 47 Points

Gozanti Cruisers (23)

• Comms Net (2)

= 25 Points

Squadrons:

• Lambda Shuttle (15)

• Captain Jonus (16)

• Valen Rudor (13)

= 44 Points

Total Points: 400

So both fleets are at 400, and capped at 1 upgrade per ship, plus the admiral, as per the CC rules.

Alex has the (big) advantage of 1st player and 1 more activation than me. Something that's very brutal with multiple MC30, backed by TRC spam. The CR90 are already at peak performance with just 1 upgrade, whereas the MC30 would like APT but can do fine without. MM makes everyone stay alive. It's a pretty meta fleet actually, one you could take to a tourney and do fairly well with (maybe with a tweak or 3). 

My own fleet is pretty rubbish by comparison. Raiders are not great 2nd player ships, and my Raider 2 has no DCaps. What I have is Demo and Gunnery Teams, and hope that Vader's rerolls will do go. In all I'm not very optimistic. It's a horrible matchup. I decide to go slow, stay within gunnery range of the station, and flee into hyper once my losses reach the refit limit (45 points).

Yes kids, that's a big chance in mentality from regular play. This is just the 1st of many battles. Sure, I want to hurt the enemy, but I don't want to limit my ability to grow my fleet into the next round. And all CC battles are win or lose. There is no MoV. So if I can't win, and get the ability to build a base, I might as well flee.

Setup

We set up, then jockey for position. My raiders are pretty exposed, but they will keep the enemy occupied in the ISDs front arc - I hope. Demo goes wide, both to fend off (and maybe kill) the CR90, but also to avoid pesky MC30 in ISD side arc. Even wo APT and H9 I REALLY don't want a MC30 double side-arcing my ISD.

Start of round 3, nasty double arc on the raider

And so it begins. Raider takes a perfect double arc - and lives with 1 hull. 

MC30 as it ram-kills my Raider-I

Here Alex makes a mistake, I think. He rammed the wounded raider dead, parking in front of both my other raider and ISD. That will eventually mean a dead MC30.

My Raider-2 in a bad place

My Raider 2 is in a bad place (after also failing to trigger Heavy Ions), BUT my Demo is now forking the CR90 on top. The MC30 has to go first, giving my Demo the chance to kill the fleeing corvette (success).

Bunching up in ISD w/Gunnery Team front arc!

Round 5. Alex is a bit timid with his MC30s, effectively giving up any chance of taking down the ISD. I become fairly confident of the win, for the first time of the game. I risk dropping the ISD to speed 0, to avoid 2 rounds of double arcs from the MC30

Start of round 6

The gamble pays of. I must eat a side volley wo any defense tokens, but its totally worth it. The flagship scoots, I kill the CR90 with help of Jonus, then bag some squads.

End round 6

Overall a good game. My own losses were limited to 2 raiders, that will cost 24+22=46 points to refit. I have 45 refit, so that's just 1 resource more needed, out of about 55 for me. I can just leave the Labda scarred. If I decide to buy a base I'm at 39 points for expansions, 54 if not. That's not bad at all.

I was also able to get veterancy for both the ISD and Demo. VERY nice. And also for both Valen AND Jonus (I totally farmed that VCX in round 6 to get this).

Alex lost some more, but nothing crippling. 2 x corvette at 22+22, and a 63/2=32 refit MC30. And 2 Z95 (4 each) and the VCX (8). That's 92 total. Which is a lot so early. BUT he can just keep 1 CR90 scarred, use it for activation spam (and/or lifeboat), and the same with the generic squads. Then he needs only 22+32=54 to refit 1 CR90 and 1 MC30.

His only kills were ram-kills, so no veterancy for him.

So a good win for Empire, despite bad odds (it turned out this was Alex FIRST run with MC30s, like ever, so he didn't feel that way!). But nothing the Rebels can't come back from. Which is important - we want to play many games, not kill the crap out of each other until one side has no fun at all.

Vassal log is broken into 2 due to a disconnect:

Part 1
Part 2