My round 3 game was vs Sebastian and his Sloane aces fleet.
A potentially very difficult matchup, as 122 pts of Sloane is more than able to handle my 134 pts of Thrawn squads. Moreover, with hi having more activations than me AND Pryce, I would not have much advantage in the activation game, quite the contrary. Any round I use Pryce on, he can could set his Pryce after me, to the same round, thereby negating my advantage.
His squad selection was very good. He has almost the squads I used to run with Sloane, but oc doesn't have room for the full 134 pt Green Squad, so he's dropped Saber and Ciena for Black and a TIE. It's not as good oc, but it's good enough.
The only surprise here is Darth Vader. Most would take just take Boarding Troopers. I would, however, point out that Vader + XI7 (or Sloane squads) does much the same. If Vader takes out ECM, the ISD-2 is more or less guaranteed to take out your Brace - if you haven't already lost it. And between Sloane squads and XI7 and Avenger... with Pryce Sebastian's ISD is is a mega-capable drill.
With the lack of Gunnery Team, a bold choice in and of itself, comes Advanced Gunnery. High risk, but also high gain. IF I were to take AG, and I'm not saying I will, this is the kind of list where it actually fits. Fun fact: I ALWAYS toy around with fitting AG in my ISD fleets, but ALWAYS bail out (no pun intended), bc the chances of me being 2nd player AND getting to really leverage AG is too small to warrant the high risk of this objective.
Faction: Imperial
Commander: Admiral Sloane
Assault: Advanced Gunnery
Defense: Fighter Ambush
Navigation: Superior Positions
Imperial II (120)
• Admiral Sloane (24)
• Governor Pryce (7)
• Darth Vader (3)
• Electronic Countermeasures (7)
• Leading Shots (4)
• XI7 Turbolasers (6)
• Avenger (5)
= 176 Points
Quasar Fire I (54)
• Captain Brunson (5)
• Flight Controllers (6)
• Boosted Comms (4)
• Pursuant (2)
= 71 Points
Gozanti Cruisers (23)
• Hondo Ohnaka (2)
• Comms Net (2)
= 27 Points
Squadrons:
• Black Squadron (9)
• Colonel Jendon (20)
• Maarek Stele (21)
• Dengar (20)
• Howlrunner (16)
• Valen Rudor (13)
• TIE Fighter Squadron (8)
• Mauler Mithel (15)
= 122 Points
Total Points: 396
My only real advantage was my double dials - and a bigger bid. So I opted for 1st and went with Fighter Ambush. When 2 fleets like this meet, there is a big chance few tokens will be scored. But I do, however, get to deny him the advantage of using squads for deployment advantage. The risk to me is low - no way he'll deploy far forward and risk an early strike. That's what you can do versus squad inferior lists. But not to a list like mine..
I set up like I have in many other games, with the Quasar parallel and facing towards the center, to one side, and the ISD centrally located. Sebastian deployed at low speed in a corner. We both set Pryce for 2. I didn't expect to get much use out of her. And that held true.
Nothing happened for 2 rounds, except ships gliding forward. Squads were kept carefully back, w/o using squadron activations. I got a good approach for my ISD, and it seemed Sebastian was a little too concerned with my Quad Batteries.
Then, at the very end of r2, in the squad phase, Sebastian made a single, small error. He forgot my Mauler hidden in the shadow of my ISD - unactivated. And so me moved his squads slightly forward, to what would be a good position for next round.
Then my Mithel hit 6 of his squads with splash damage. Only his Mithel and Maarek escaped /they were on an obstacle). Top of r3 Dengar Squalled towards the action, activated and freed Mauler... and splash again. When the Quasar was done, half of his squads were down, without any real damage to mine. The squad game, and hence the game itself, was decided by the Mithel double.
My ISD proceeded to double arc his ISD, with no good ways out. He slowed to 1 to avoid QBT and took out my ECM, but it was too late. His ISD was still double arced and I wasn't, so it died. His Goz died and all his squads died. I lost Tempest and Dengar. I got in a measly 2 tokens, none for him. The Quasar fled, but it was still 10-1.
It would be wrong to call it bad play on his part. He expertly moved his squads around in the early game. Just one little mistake and the snowball started rolling. It's a good example of how ridiculous game design Mithel.
Unfortunately I forgot to take any pics.
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