Battle for Endor 2025 – Round 3 Pre-battle analysis

Opponent Overview

Daniel (“Smizzy”) brings his unique take on a classic Dodonna bomber fleet — an Assault Frigate carrier, light ship support, and a mean squadron wing. At first glance, the ships don’t look scary: one AFII-B “potato,” a CR90B, a Hammerhead, and two flotillas. But once you look past the hulls, it’s clear the squadrons are the real hammer.

Squadrons: Luke, Lando, Shara, Tycho, Green, Gold, plus two Scurrgs. That’s a mix of durable aces, nasty anti-ship punch, and enough cover to tie down enemy fighters. Flight Controllers + Expanded Hangar + BCC makes the ball hit hard and accurately.

Ships:

• AFII-B (Dodonna flagship): Carrier build with ECMs and XX-9s. It’s the anchor, and if it survives, his fleet still functions.

• CR90B Dodonna’s Pride: Crit delivery platform, synergizing perfectly with Dodonna.

• HH Garel’s Honor: Suicide ram threat.

• 2x GR-75: Classic support — Comms/Ahsoka for token shenanigans and BCC/Bright Hope for bomber reliability.

Threat Assessment

• Primary Threat: The squadron wing. Left unchecked, it will chew through medium ships by turn 3–4.

• Secondary Threats:

  • Dodonna’s Pride can punish with crits if it sneaks into range. It has SW7s if pure damage is preferable. Cunning.

  • Garel’s Honor is a credible ram that forces positional respect.

  • The potato itself doesn’t kill quickly, but it’s a solid carrier with defensive tech, and if it strips your shields, those XX-9 are nasty af with Dodonna.

Match Context

We both need a big win (9-2 or better) to have a long shot at Gold. Playing safe for a 6-5 or 7-4 almost guarantees Silver/Chocolate. That means both players must gamble, but in different ways:

• Daniel has to press his squadron advantage and get damage rolling early. If his bombers don’t land, he probably won’t table me fast enough.

• I need to crack ships quickly before the bomber ball reaches full efficiency.

Win Conditions

• For him: Use squadrons efficiently, avoid my ships, and let bombers grind me down.

• For me: Push through the squadrons, and either kill the small ships, then collapse on the AFII, or take out the AF directly. Unfortunately, he has three combat ships (again quite cunning), so tabling is quite difficult for me to achieve.

Strategic Dilemma

This game is about risk calibration:

• Too much aggression → I get eaten by squads by turn 3.

• Too much caution → I don’t score enough points for advancement.

• Somewhere in the middle lies the path to an 8-3 or better.

My Takeaway

I stand by my initial impression: the squads are the greater threat. The ships synergize with Dodonna, sure, but if they shoot me, I’m shooting them back. Squadrons don’t play by that rule — they bomb, and they keep scoring while the ships hide.

But — and this is the key — if Daniel relies only on squadrons, he can’t realistically hit the 9-2/10-1 win he needs. This is basically what Spike did in the first match. He expertly disengaged his ships to avoid losses, but in doing so, he let me farm the station AND never threatened more than one of my capital ships. For a very modest 7-4 win.

So this will likely come down to how aggressively each of us pushes ships forward, and whether the squadrons arrive in time to swing it.

Whatever happens, it should be a fun, pew-pew filled game.