Vassal Corellian Conflict: Campaign blog, part 10 (round 4 battle and results)

Start of r5... Imperial presence in Corellia is waning...

I was finally able to get in my r4 gave vs Tokra's Ackbar fleet. Actually it was on Thursday. Today is Monday, so this report was slow in the making. I have been rather busy of late, but also I find my motivation to play Armada waning. That's directly related to me not going to Worlds (can't afford to this year, so I released my spot). Typically, without new releases on the horizons and no major tournaments, I find other things to occupy my time. The urge to play will return, it always does, but for now I'm light on Armada.

Anyway. For once I was the attacker, aiming for Corfai. The idea was that if we lost our Corellian base, that target of the only rebel assault this round, we'd be able to grab a system that would provide us with a good chunk of resources.

To recap, my fleet go tweaked slightly from last round. We decided to allow discarding upgrades, since it makes little sense to be able to discard a whole ship WITH upgrades (plus shift upgrades between ships) and not be able to get rid of an upgrade that isn't really working.

I refitted my ISD and Demo (both got scarred), plus all my squads, except the TIE, which I scrapped instead. I had too little command and control of my squads, so I figured that even if I ave up 1 deployment (I now have an odd number of squads), the addition of Expanded hangars on the Gozanti would make up for it.

Speaking of the Gozanti, I dropped Comms Net, which was seeing very little use. My combat ships are all Veterans now, so they have enough tokens. The raiders can only hold 1 a piece at any one time). Even the Cymoon can generate enough tokens to trigger the Fleet command like 4 times in a game, even wo/Comms.

Fleet Command got turned into Entrapment Formation! STM! wasn't a bad choice, but I've had so much fun with EF! in Monster Truck Mania, that I wanted to play some more with it.

Instigator got added to the Raider-1. Between Jamming Field and this title, I figured my squads would actually be worthwhile if I kept them between the Gozanti and Instigator.

Name: VCC New Vader r4
Faction: Imperial
Commander: Darth Vader

Assault: Most Wanted
Defense: Contested Outpost
Navigation: Dangerous Territory

ISD Cymoon 1 Refit (112)
• Darth Vader (36)
• Minister Tua (2)
• Entrapment Formation! (5)
• Gunnery Team (7)
• Quad Battery Turrets (5)
• XI7 Turbolasers (6)
• Devastator (10)
• Electronic Countermeasures (7)
= 190 Points

Gladiator II (62)
• Captain Brunson (5)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• Engine Techs (8)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
• Demolisher (10)
= 94 Points

Raider II (48)
• Disposable Capacitors (3)
• Heavy Ion Emplacements (9)
= 60 Points

Raider I (44)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• External Racks (3)
• Instigator (4)
= 55 Points

Gozanti Cruisers (23)
• Jamming Field (2)
• Expanded Hangar Bay (5)
= 30 Points

Squadrons:
• Lambda Shuttle (15)
• Captain Jonus (16)
• Valen Rudor (13)
• Zertik Strom (15)
• Saber Squadron (12)
= 71 Points

Total Points: 500

The Ackbar fleet is pretty much the same as when I met it previously, but with a few more upgrades. In particular Strat Adviser on Home One seemed significant, as it gave Tokra a 6 to 5 in activations over me. Couple with 2nd player, he'd be able to get both H1 and the MC30 to go after all my ships had gone. Or he could delay his squadron-pushing flotilla, and together with Rogue squadrons go after all my squadron activations.

CC Ackbar R3 

Author: Tokra

Faction: Rebel Alliance

Points: 500/500

 

Commander: Admiral Ackbar

Assault Objective: Close-Range Intel Scan

Defense Objective: Contested Outpost

Navigation Objective: Dangerous Territory

[ flagship ] MC80 Command Cruiser (106 points)

-  Admiral Ackbar  ( 38  points) 

-  Home One  ( 7  points) 

-  Strategic Adviser  ( 4  points) 

-  Electronic Countermeasures  ( 7  points) 

-  Quad Battery Turrets  ( 5  points) 

-  Leading Shots  ( 4  points) 

= 171 total ship cost

MC30c Scout Frigate (69 points)

-  Intel Officer ( 7 points) 

-  Caitken and Shollan ( 6 points) 

-  External Racks ( 3 points) 

= 85 total ship cost

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)

-  Jainas Light  ( 2  points) 

-  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points) 

= 53 total ship cost

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)

-  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points) 

= 51 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)

= 18 total ship cost

1 Shara Bey ( 17 points) 

1 Corran Horn ( 22 points) 

1 Jan Ors ( 19 points) 

4 YT-2400s ( 64 points) 

= 122 total squadron cost

I was the assaulter and picked his Close-Range Intel Scan. Sure, he's farm some points, but it didn't give him any huge tactical advantages. Dangerous Territory was another option, but I've been playing 2nd player DT all campaign, so I wanted something different.

I forgot to start a log or take early images, but to summarize I setup on top, Admiral Snackbar on the bottom. He had Jaina's Light on the left, Home One and GR-75 centrally, MC30 and other CR90 to the right. I set up to the right hand side, with squads and Gozanti and Raider-1 and squads in the center, ISD slightly to the side so it could turn into the table, and Demo and the Raider-2 as flank security/activation padding.

Home One slow-rolled towards the sation, Jaina's Light sped up and curved in to flank me (in the image you can see her do her only shot of the game, towards my speed 0 raider's ass), the GR-75 sped up and then escaped into the void, far from any fighting. Meanwhile the other CR90 and the MC30 intercepted my ISD. They are not in the image, because they are already dead...

The CR90 had to block my Demo, to avoid it making a run on the MC30. But CR90s don't block as well as flotillas do, and it popped (but did prevent a side arc shot and forced Demo to do a double ram). 

After that things got awkward because of a dust field blocking the exchange of fire between the ISD and the MC30. I was able to keep in place with deliberate ramming, Tokra was forced to come over the dust becuase he'd dialed up a CF instead of a Nav (which would have seen him jump across to safety). And so the poor MC30 ate a full Vader front arc with XI7 at point-blank range.

Jaina tried to get away, but it had an awkward approach angle. A combination of rear External Racks shot from the Raider and a side arc from the Cymoon (boosted by Quad Batteries) sealed it's fate. Note how I've used EF! to drop my Raider-1 to speed 0. Ricky - but kept it out of Home One range. I also got good mileage out of my squads his game: they still died, but they kept the enemy squads occupied and allowed my to flak 2 YTs to death and nearly kill several more.

The final piece of action was my Raider-1 just surviving a parting shot from H1, jumping onto the station to heal back up, before stupid Corran Horn rogue bombed it in the ass for a nice Naturalist Damage and poof!

We called it there, as H1 went to hyper and the GR-75 was out of range (we play by the only rules, not the recent FAQ). Valen might have died, and a 2400 too, but we were both happy to just call it there.

I was pleased with the result. My setup and maneuver plan worked ok, as did the changes to my fleet and my use of squadrons to delay Tokra's nasty rogues. I was worried about his activation advantage, but was able to get the upper hand. A little bit of skill and a little bit of luck there (Tokra's CF dial at the wrong time). And also, MC30s with no Admo or Lando are quite fragile, so that definitely helped. 

Elsewhere in the sector: Sloane won her battle. Another bloodless affair. But we lost Corellia. MoV of like 5 or something, so very close. Also a bloodless affair. So I build a base at Corfai to compensate. Current score is Rebels 7 to imps 6.

Every fleet is now at 500 and players have money in the bank. Normally a team can't declare an all-out assault until it has 8 points, but we're talking about maybe doing the final assault next round. It seems kind of pointless to play another standard round. Nothing much will happen. But we haven't decided yet. But the assault will definitely happen very soon!