Corellian conflict, All-out assault, pt. 3 (The Battle)

 

I've got some images from the battle that I'll add for flavor, but to better give an overview of events, I've recreated the battle using Vassal. Showing, in broad strokes, what happened. I think that's a more educational approach. Keep in mind that this report is done from memory. Ship positions etc. are approximations. Same with speeds. I've made no attempt to track damage in detail or show commands. Squadron positions are just an indication of where stuff happened when, and individual squads may have died prior to actually being removed from the simulation.

Imperial battle plan: Since our Motti player wouldn't be attending, we would put his fleet in the middle and share control of it. Since I'm the more experienced player, that pretty much meant I ran it for the better part of the game, or poor Romodi would be completely overwhelmed.

Sloane would set up on one flank, using the Onager and squads to clear the opposition, quickly going to speed 3 and hitting the enemy center from the flank mid-game, hopefully around the time they crushed into Motti and their squads were already tied up.

Romodi would go on the other flank, but not too far away. Indeed, using the whole table was out of the question, as it would make us unable to support one another. Thus, Romodi's Sovereign Cymoon plopped down next to Motti's Chimaera, and between them, they'd keep us fed with IF! and whatever other Fleet Command we might need (we ran ET! turn 2, maybe also 3, then went to STM!). The rest of Romdoi's ships set up to form a screen against the approaching flankers.

TL;DR: Motti would be the Anvil. Sloane the Hammer. And Romodi the sacrificial lamb.

Sloane's ISD-2 started in Hyperspace with Maarek-Jendon, planning to drop out of hyper r2 to herd the rebel ships into squads and Onager ignition arc. Motti put Harrow and Demo into hyper. The VSD would be perfect to launch mid-game where it could bring its offense to bear without being the no. 1 punching bag early on. Demo was the perfect counter to rebel ships dropping in behind our lines (a big worry). Romodi kept the Kuat in hyper, planning to drop it behind Sato's lines as soon as he was heavily engaged.

You know what? We actually stuck to the plan...

SETUP

The approximate position of obstacles and hyperspace tokens. Rebels get 4 tokens to our 3 and have the advantage of dropping in after all assaulting ships. Our right token is for Sloane primarily, the left one for the Kuat. The center one we pulled back a bit, as a way to counter ships coming in behind our lines.

Rebel hyperspace reserves: On the rebel side, Sato started in hyper, as did Agate and her little HH friend + Corran & YT2400. Leia sent both CR90s into hyper.

Right flank (Sloane): The dust cloud pushed me too far to the side, and Salvation made it even worse. Fortunately, Admo wasn't set up to approach from behind the dust field (this will be important later). IMO a very good counter setup (except Admo should be further to the left) to my Sloane, as I was forced further away than planned and ould have to deal with Salvation-Admo to proceed, all the while with a rebel token threatening to spew out an Ordnance Cruiser + HH. So much for planning! 😄

Center: Motti was just holding back and doing nothing much except to support Romodi's Cymoon with squads. But bc Sloane ended up in the far corner, our forces got stretched thin, meaning the Raider and Gozatni and squads would come a bit late to the party. On the plus side, Leia is going REALLY slowly and keeping squads way too close.

Left flank: We refuse to be baited into setting up along the entire board edge. The Cymoon was put just left of the centerline, with the Goz and Arq somewhat further away. Sato was starting slow but quickly speed up. But regardless of that, it'd take a few rounds to reach our lines, and Sato himself started in hyperspace.

Overview of the entire table and all components after setup is done. The EMPIRE WILL PREVAIL!

ROUND 1

Rebels delay, so no good Cat shots. The Onager tries for a lucky acc vs the flotilla, getting a crapton of damage on the initial roll 8figures), but no accs. Rerolling with Vet Gunners, it still gets no accs, so wasted.

End of round 1: We're creeping forward, taking it slow, waiting for the first big ships to come out of hyperspace.

ROUND 2

We have IF! and ET! going. Sloane drops in with Maarek and Jendon, making a little kill box for rebel flankers. MC75 drops in behind the Onager, being unable to find a good blocking position. The HH also pops out. 

Note: The pic isn't 100% the HH should be closer to the Raider and the Gozatni a bit further forward.

MC75 drop wasn't optimal. Onager slips way out of black. A Gozanti dies but manages to block the MC75, dying to a bump. HH mauls raider, but doesn't kill it, and get hurt in return, dropping to speed from a crit (important later). Admo can't quite make it past the ignition arc (more narrowly than shown here). Maarek starts hurting Admo, as does the ISD with 2 obstructed shots.

On the rest of the table, nothing happens. Sato has sped up, but Leia is still very cautious.

ROUND 3

Empire round 3 drop. Not ideal to drop a speed 2 ship all the way out there, but Sloane can't have Salvation in her ass all game. Plus it can then turn to face the MC75 after. 

Note: On the table, Harrow had a double arc into the side at black range.

Rebels put down Jaina, hoping to do some Draven-flak, but Dengar moves away, robbing the terrorists of their bonus dice. Weak rolling doesn't help, which is good, since the MC75, without ship targets, have flaked the generics TIEs almost to death.

Note: I forgot to place Corran and the YT2400 in the recreation, but they came in with the 75 and were wiped out as soon as they dropped by Howl + Friends. Multiple 5 swarmy blues is...

Onager activates and destroys Amdo (1 less damage and it would have lived). Didn't even have to trigger Vader. Using the old evade rules is STRANGE at this point! Onager goes to 3 and speeds towards Leia...ISD does some squad stuff that makes the 75 sad, ties up some rebel squads then speeds after the Onager.

Salvation does some damage but is then sent screaming into the warp by Harrow, which drops to speed 1, and Harrow-turns toward the MC75. Maarek jumps down to finish a speed 0 2-hull HH. Squads shoot at each other - and the MC75, stripping tokens. Mithel dies.

Sato arrives in the big bad wolf. On the left, the MC30 shoots with side into the Arq. Sato does evil Sato things to dice 😅 But evade + EST is king at long range. Satos squads start chewing up Ints and eating at the Arq. RHDs do good work, but the enemy force is too strong.

In the middle, Leia ignores Motti. Of course, she does, leaving him with nada to do, and another part of The Plan goes down the drain. However, even with AFFM!, Leia has been too cautious. Other than killing an Int into RHD, only 2 bombers go to town on Romodi's Cymoon, for a total of...2 damage to the front shield, that will be recovered almost immediately.

ROUND 4

This is where things start to blur a little. We had been playing for quite some time, and my brain was mushy. Anyway. Demo dropped to threaten the MC75. Forgetting about dust fields and getting greedy with CF instead of Nav. Kuat drops double arcing BOTH Peltas. Ezra pops in and tries to screen both ships with the dust cloud. The left Pelta is 100% safe, but the 2nd one is in the front arc. Hint: this becomes important later.

Round 4 is decisive. Cymoon is badly hurt but doesn't die. I SHOULD have died no later than turn 5, but somehow manages to limp through into turn 7. 

The timely intervention of Motti's ISD having a squad command, throws Ciena, Valen, and 2 Ints into the fight, preventing Leia from doing too much bombing. Motti then both blocks and double arcs Leia's carrier. Hint 1: this is not good for an AF that has an angry onager breathing down its neck. Hint 2: Unharmed Motti ISD laughs as AF double arc.

Sato's MC80 mauls the Cymoon, but ends up in an awkward spot. It can only shoot the side into the rear of the ISD next turn - but there is no LoS. So front arc only, which won't be enough. And both ships are speed 1, so no Quads. Hint: the MC80 is already feeling the pressure.

The Kuat pops Leia's Pelta with a single massive front arc shot. One moment there, the next, gone. Gozanti start dying to ram damage, and the Arq is locked in and hammered by MC30 and squads. It will die next round.

Onager pushes forward, doing a little damage to the AF. MC75 mauls Demo then escapes across the dust field. If the MC75 drop wasn't' optimal, my Demo drop was 1000 times worse. However, MC75 has no choice but to continue to tail-chase, eating Maarek-Jendon and various other squads before they move to join the squad furball a few rounds later. Various ships take shots at the MC75, it's literally boxed in, and suddenly it's close to death.

ROUNDS 5 & 6

Rounds 5-6 sees the end of MC75 to Harrow, Agate's last flotilla (also Harrow), and Jaina to Demo. AF poped by Onager + Motti. Sloane squads start hitting the furball turn 6, and by now the flak put out by the Cymoon + Empire squads have severely depleted the Rebels squads. Jan dying to 2 hit + 2 accs, twice, in one ISD activation, didn't help.

Second Pelta dies to Kuat, MC30 absolutely mauls Kuat with a double arc. The last CR90 is picked off after stripping the Cymoon of shields (again). Raider flask some more squads to death then heads towards Foresight. Meanwhile, Motti murders GR-75 with the help of Jonus, who has been chillin' in the back until this moment. While that sounds really cool, the fact is that Jonus was forgotten until the game was almost over 😉

TURN 7

Rebel forces are severely depleted, and Imps are down only 1 Arq and 3 Goz...

Top of turn 7, foresight dies to a MASSIVE blast from the Kuat. Shields stripped and down to 0 hull, in one shot, it never gets to trigger Blast Doors. 

The Cymoon is done to 2 hull, having regained 4 shields for several turns in a row (eng + token  + STM!). Just as Romodi exclaims "I am INVINCIBLE," Leia commands Lando using the final remaining boosted comms flotilla. He tears away from Mithel with Grit and hit the ISD on the nose. Blanking out. He's out of defense tokens. But has an exhausted veteran token. He rerolls both dice...and blanks out again! 

The Cymoon looks like it will survive against all odds. Romodi begins laughing maniacally as he plots to topple the Emperor and claim the throne for himself. 

The flotilla activates the second and last squadron (Leia is gone and it has no tokens)...and a wild Scurrg appears. It floors the ISD with the very last shot of round 7. Ending Romodi's dreams of empire. Booya!!!

SUMMARY

Empire losses: Cymoon, Arq, 3x Goz, Mauler, Soontir, Ciena, all generic squads.

Rebels: All but 2 flotillas and a handful of battered squads.

Massive Imperial victory, but totally Rebels are totally redeemed by that last shot... 😋😋😋

More importantly, everyone thought the campaign was cool, and the final battle epic in scope. Players are talking about what they will do differently the next time even as we pack down our fleets. Such good fun.

The battle took about 8 hours from setup to clearing the table. The next time we do something similar, we'll try to activate in parallel, so each team is basically playing 3 actions at the same time. At least until the board state is such that it's very important who activates in which order. We think that could shave a couple of hours off the playtime.

PHOTOS

Here are some photos of us playing. Some images are grainy. Bad camera, bad lighting, bad photographer.

The guy in the middle owns the house, which is in the middle of a massive renovation 😁 The table is a sheet of plywood, 8 feet wide. That means we were a half-foot short on each end, but no one wanted to go into the end zones, so it wasn't a problem.

SETUP

ROUND 2 

Onager flees, ISD drops in.

Cautious approach

Sato coming around the flank.

ROUND 4

The dumbest Demo drop ever.

Sato in a BAD place. Both Peltas too. Cymoon under rebel squadron attack.

ROUND 5

1 Pelta down, 1 Pelta to go.

Zoomed out.

Brawl!

Rebels down a flotilla. MC75 up next...

That's one sad Assault Frigate...

Cymoon REFUSES to die.

The one HWK that got away...

TURN 6

Cymoon is still doing "fine." No shields and 2 hull ATM.

Pelta about to die. Then Foresight unloads into Kuat. Then on turn 7, the Kuat takes revenge on Foresight. Lando whiffs, then Scurrg lands the final blow. The only one that will be remembered for eternity...