Playtest, Reb vs Imp 300, pics, strategies, summary

[willismaximus 104]

Introduction

So I ran two fleets against each other and decided to share the results for any one interested.   Both are fleets that I made from a single copy of core and each expansion.  Both are fleets that I created on my own.  The rebel fleet I've actually posted before.  These fleets were not designed specifically to fight each other, as may be the case in reality.  I should also mention that I played vs myself.  However, I played with zero bias towards one fleet or the other. The fleet lists are as follows:

 

 

Strategies/Goals

Rebels 

This fleet is obviously fighter based.  The idea to to hang back with the squadrons until the AF is able to punch a hole into a target with its X17 lasers.  Paragon protects fighters.  Escort frigate with Yavaris helps with fighter/bomber rush with the whole two attacks if no movement.   Frigate stays out of the fight altogether if possible, staying close to the AF.  Once a hole is revealed in the enemy ships, fighter commands come out.  A-wings tie up the TIES, bwing and farlander bomb bare hull, X-wings help whoever needs it more, and Dodonna picks a critical that screws you the most.

 

Empire

This fleet is ship based.  The VSDII and GSDII are heavily upgraded.  Engine techs and demolisher allow the GSD to move twice and attack basically.  Intel officer negates a defense token if needed.  VSDII is just straight brawn.  Nothing really ground breaking.  Isard gives intel on opponents commands (yes I realize I played vs myself, but I had so much going on, there was no way I could even remember what the rebels had coming up until I actually revealed, lol . .)   Originally the VSD had X17, but with only one copy, I used XX9 instead.  Thought I would try out leading shots and Warlord to see how they fare.

 

 

Round 1

 

So, rebels won the bid by one point, so Imperials went first.  The objective chosen was Most Wanted.  The GSD was chosen, since it posed the earliest threat.  The Escort Frigate was chosen to be the objective for the rebel side.  The idea was the keep the frigate away from the fight altogether.  That didn't happen . . . so yeah, that was a mistake.

 

Rebels

AF tried to skirt along the outside.  Frigate started at speed 1, but was bottle necked by the obstacles and was staring right at the imperial fleet.  Basically said screw it and went right up the middle speed 1.  Being most wanted, thought it could at least distract the imperials while the AF got into position with the fighters.

 

Empire

The GSD cruised up the middle speed 2.  Didn't want to get too far ahead of the VSD.  The fighter screen stayed around the GSD for protection.  VSDII is cruising up the side speed 2 to try and flank 

 

 

Round 2

 

VSD went first and inched his way up.  No shot yet.  Frigate went and did a lazy left bank.  Could not figure out what to do with him.  Then GSD went and showed how incredibly mobile it can be with engine techs.  After revealing a navigation command it moves up at speed 2, then does a speed one bank to line up his guns, then vomits black dice all over the Nebulon.  However, the escort frigate did a good job mitigating most the damage with defence tokens.  Finally, the AF takes some shots into the side of the GSD doing decent dmg to his side arcs.  Fighters on both sides are getting into quite the furball now.  

 

 

Round 3

 

So the GSD goes first and blasts the neb b clear off the table in one attack.  No surprise there.  He then banks left into the debris field and takes two DMG in the process, applied to the now unimportant right shields.  The AF pounds the side of the GSD again, Doing decent hull damage and critical in the process.  VSD still out of range, flies through the asteroids (because what's one crit to a VSD, right?)  Well, dodonna picks one that removes all the shields from one facing.  VSD applies this to the right facing.

 

Squadrons engage.  The TIES are having a really rough time.  So far just an Xwing tabled.  The rebels turn around and beat the hell out of the TIES, freeing up farlander in the process.  Torpedoes away, and boom, down goes the GSD.  Rebels way up on pts now.

 

 

Round 4 - 6

 

So for brevity's sake, the last three rounds are pretty much summed up by a joust between the VSD and the AF.  The imperial fighters don't last long, so the rebels enjoyed space superiority for the last two rounds.  The victory was having a hard time doing appreciable damage to the AF, whereas the AF and fighters did a great job knocking out the VSD.  By round 6,  the two ships have parted ways, and the VSD makes a run for it.  However, the rebel fighters manage to take out those last couple hull pts to add insult to injury.  

 

 

 

Conclusions

 

Mistakes were made on both sides, from start to finish.  The rebels should not have picked the Neb B for most wanted, and the imperials should have used the GSD as a flanker rather than the VSD.  The MVP would go to the bwings for the rebels, and the GSD for the imps.  I admit I was surprised how well the bwings did despite their slow speed.  

 

AFMKII

Very effective long range fighter.  To take this thing down, the Imperials need to go for the throat right away.  Don't trade shots at long range.  A GSD would do well against it.  ECM saw no action, but that was just because no accuracies landed on him all game.  Flight controllers were kinda useful.  Not sure if totally worth it though.   Haven definitely was worth it.  X17's are critical to make a hole in opposing ships, especially the VSD with its two redirects.  Overall, it did it's job quite well.

 

Neb B

Oh man, this guy.  If setup had been more favorable he may have had an impact.  However, he was still useful in that the GSD went for him rather than the AF.  If the AF was most wanted, the game would have played out very differently.  Yavaris had no effect this game.  A corvette would probably be a better pairing, or (if I had one) another bare bones AFMKII.

 

Rebel fighters

Again, they did their job perfectly.  Once the GSD's hull was exposed, the bwings pounced making mince meat of out him.  TIES got shredded all game, and rebels took minimal fighter losses.

 

GSDII

So, this thing is scary.  Real scary.  It looks like it's pretty far away, next thing you know, it's right up in your chili.  However, I forget it's a small, and doesn't have the greatest tanking ability.  This game, it was a one-trick pony.  After it alpha'd the Neb off the board with expanded launchers, screed etc, it was quickly overwhelmed by the AF and fighters.  Targets need to be chosen more carefully.

 

VSDII

Almost zero impact on the game.  By the time it got to the fight, the game was basically over.  I should have swapped positions with the GSD, sending the VSD up the middle tanking fire, and flank with the GSD.  Leading shots never came into play, nor did Warlord (as I mentioned earlier, no accuracies all game from the VSD) and XX9 was never used since he never even hit hull.  Starting position and strategy is what killed this guy though, not load out.  I still think the load out is good enough to warrant another try.

 

Imperial fighters

Very poor performance. Even with Howlrunner, six squads managed to table one xwing and that's it.  Haven had a little to do with this, but mainly it was just the utter inferiority of imperial fighters.   Each fleet had 6 squadrons, so pound for pound, obviously the rebels should win that.  I was hoping they would have lasted longer than they did though.  Interceptors are just as fragile as their TIE fighter counterparts.  Maybe better luck would have been had with TIE advanced.  A bit more HP there to tank rebels with.  

 

Overall, I think both fleets are good in their own rights.  Versus a ship heavy rebel fleet, I think the imps would have fared much better.

 

 

 

So that's it.  I had fun making this.  Let me know what you guys think about the fleets themselves, or whatever question you might have.  Thanks!

Edited May 22, 2015 by willismaximus

[TallGiraffe 3,447]

I personally think taking Wedge over Luke is better. Drop Flight controllers  and ECM for Tycho imo. A-wings are great with the Black dice for ships.

[jak7890 10]

Couple of things:

1). Engine Tech extra move only works with a Nav command (not a Squadron command)

2). I could be mistaken, but I believe that obstacle damage is hull damage, not shield damage.

Those two things distracted me from the rest.

[willismaximus 104]

Couple of things:

1). Engine Tech extra move only works with a Nav command (not a Squadron command)

2). I could be mistaken, but I believe that obstacle damage is hull damage, not shield damage.

Those two things distracted me from the rest.

 

Regarding the nav command, yeah I know.  I must have mis-spoke when I said squadron command that round.  Wrote that from memory basically.  I'll edit.

 

Also, debris is 2 damage, so yes it hits shields.  Asteroids is what does draws a faceup dmg card.

[willismaximus 104]

I personally think taking Wedge over Luke is better. Drop Flight controllers  and ECM for Tycho imo. A-wings are great with the Black dice for ships.

 

Regarding Wedge, my x-wings are multi-role in this fleet.  They generally don't need help vs fighters, so that's why I brought Luke.    Actually, was thinking about swapping Luke for just a regular x-wing, then maybe get tycho or spend the pts elsewhere.  I agree somewhat with the flight controllers.  Not particularly helpful.  TIES got shredded with or without.  ECM I think is still worth it though.  It can easily be the difference between being able to brace or not, or whatever the case may be.

 

The black dice on a-wings isn't really that great since they don't have bomber.  If they don't have any more fighters to hunt down, then sure, but that's not their primary job.

[ficklegreendice 34,362]

the escort frig is apparently a support ship (currently cheapest source of 2 dice anti-squadron batteries, plus some incredible titles). I'm not sure it works really well in tandem with a single Afmk2, because while they're chuncky they simply don't have the "don't you dare come over here" presence of a Victory, which leaves the enemy free to approach the neb with relative impunity

 

of course, rebel squadrons do provide that victory level fear as you put to great use against that uppity gladiator, so in sense the neb did it's job perfectly

 

 

I've been flying double whales, and I don't believe a naked whale is particularly any good. It'll last longer, for sure, but it is offensively inefficient compare to an equivalent points of any other ship. Throw in stuff like paragon, however

 

From my experience with the Paragon + Haven list (Not nearly as much room for squadrons, but enough for 6 X-wings), it plays a lot differently than the game above. Basically, the two fatties go for a jolly side-winding cruise blowing the hell out of enemies from long range and using gallant as a flotilla to launch squadrons at whatever gets close. I don't think they'd fare nearly as well as your list in a joust like that (the points you spent on intimidating squadrons are instead relocated on making the space whales punch harder)

Edited May 22, 2015 by ficklegreendice

[Stricknine 0]

I'm still trying to fathom the leading shots being paired with the warlord. If you want to re-roll dice with leading shots, it is better to take the demolished (as it has extra blue dice to spare).

Honestly, the warlord is great at transferring red dice into double hits. For a better combo with that, it is better to include H9 Turbolasers or Sensors team (matters which slot you aren't using). Afterwards, add an ion cannon battery instead of leading shots and enjoy the fact that with admiral screed you will always be getting yo remove a defense token from an opponent (except if they use an evade).

Plus director isard is wonderful and all, bit since you can only have one officer on a ship, I would much rather see a liason fill that spot (preferably defense). This way your Vicky spends time building up tokens and you can instead only concentrate on performing 2 manuevers (since 2 of them are now an option to switch to if times get tough).

[willismaximus 104]

I'm still trying to fathom the leading shots being paired with the warlord. If you want to re-roll dice with leading shots, it is better to take the demolished (as it has extra blue dice to spare).

Honestly, the warlord is great at transferring red dice into double hits. For a better combo with that, it is better to include H9 Turbolasers or Sensors team (matters which slot you aren't using). Afterwards, add an ion cannon battery instead of leading shots and enjoy the fact that with admiral screed you will always be getting yo remove a defense token from an opponent (except if they use an evade).

Plus director isard is wonderful and all, bit since you can only have one officer on a ship, I would much rather see a liason fill that spot (preferably defense). This way your Vicky spends time building up tokens and you can instead only concentrate on performing 2 manuevers (since 2 of them are now an option to switch to if times get tough).

 

 

Points were being kept in mind, as Warlord + leading shots was the same price as Dominator (I'm assuming this is what you meant) by itself.  I also feel like Dominator was way better in 180 pts than it is now in 300.  It's often too much of a double edged sword, with too much damage being thrown around now from your opponent.  That's not to say it isn't still good is used right, but you can easily end up screwing yourself over with it.

 

I haven't tried a Liason yet.  Maybe next time I"ll give it a shot.

 

And what do you mean focus on performing two maneuvers with my Victory?

[ficklegreendice 34,362]

I think dominator remains more effective against capital ships than warlord (but WL + h9 = guaranteed 1 damage against squadrons; making it more flexible)

I'm thinking dominator just needs spammed commands + token to offset the cost of the upgrade, plus little things like not putting your commander on it. Considering it's about the only vsd that can slug it out with fatties not caught in its front arc, I'd say it's worth the risk.

If I ever find a reb opponent, I'd like to try it out with pulse. Given the dream shot (side arc then front arc) you're basically guaranteed to at least cripple any ship in one volley.

Or maybe pulse is redundant with all the acc on blue dice and the points would be better spent on wulf (spam engineering tokens!)

[Stricknine 0]

Concentrating on only 2 maneuvers is thanks to the defense liason. Since you can have three tokens banked on the vsd (some not as important as others), you can spend one of them to always convert your dial to a repair or navigate. This is important because it leaves you free to constantly spam either the squadron command (to maneuver your ties more effectively) or take concentrate fire (get that extra dice!). If you need to swap to a navigate or repair, toss the less useful token and execute the dial immediately. This makes having to look ahead 3 maneuvers with dials easier since you can change the dial on the fly.