Thursday, September 1, 2016

Experimental After Action Report - Vader's Gozanti Wolfpack

Decided to try something that had been kicking around the back of my head for a bit - Gozanti Assault Carriers can get 2 Red Dice with a Concentrate Fire dial down field for cheaper than anything else.  Could I make a list that takes advantage of their benefits?

Well... kind of?




The aftermath

I was flying the following abomination unto the lord:

Vader's Wolfpack
396 / 400

Gozanti Cruiser - 59 points
- Darth Vader

Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer - 133 points
- Intel Officer
- Gunnery Team
- Spinal Armaments

Gladiator I-Class Star Destroyer - 86 points
- Demolisher
- Intel Officer
- Expanded Launchers

Gozanti Assault Carrier - 30 points
- Jamming Field

Gozanti Assault Carrier - 28 points

Gozanti Assault Carrier - 28 points

TIE Fighter x 4 - 32 points

Opening Salvo
Hyperspace Assault
Minefields

8 deployments, 6 (!) activations, and a small bid to keep folks honest.  My thought was that Vader gives everyone a reroll, so who needs reroll upgrades?  Particularly, the three Assault Carriers can put 6 rerollable reds down field each turn, which is an 86 point version of an Ackbar Broadside MC80.  Clonisher style Gladiator doesn't need criticals to hit like a sack of bricks.  And an ISD is a lot of pain as well.

Basically I took the best of PT106's dual ISD list, tinkered with it a bit, and increased the activations.

That being said, it was going to be tight flying.


My opponent would be Dab Darklighter, who was bringing in a Liberty Garm party.

Dab's Garm Party
397/400

MC-80 Star Cruiser
- Garm Bel Iblis
- Skilled First Officer
- Leading Shots

Nebulon B Support Refit
- Salvation
- Turbolaser Reroute Circuit

Nebulon B Escort
- Yavaris
- Fighter Coordination Teams

GR-75
- Bright Hope
- Bomber Command Center

GR-75
- Quantum Storm
- Slicer Tools

X-Wing x4
B-Wing x2

At least this is what I remember - if I got any added up wrong, that was because I forgot an upgrade or something.  He had 8 deployments as well, and "only" 5 activations.  My thought was initially that Demolisher would be better served as a heavy hitter by getting the first / last triple tap, so I chose First Player, and his Precision Strikes.


I deployed my rocks far and out of the way, to facilitate the movement of my Assault Carriers, while he tried to cluster his around the middle of the field, on my side and shaded a bit to the left.  My first deployment was a generic Assault Carrier at about mid-field and speed 1, while he placed Quantum Storm far to one side.  I put down 2 TIE Fighters, and he placed Bright Hope on the other corner.  I finished up TIE Fighters as he put down two X-Wings, one per Transport.  From there we saw my flotilla go down in a line from center to right, while he put down Yavaris and the rest of his squadrons on my right flank.  I placed Demolisher angled in through the rocks and coming fast up the left flank of my Wolfpack.  He placed Salvation directly across from Demolisher.  I placed the ISD to come in and eat Salvation.  And the MC-80 Cruiser came in.  At first he was going to put it left of Salvation to directly engage my ISD and Demo, but he decided to put it next to Yavaris and angle it in to intercept.

The first round was bloodless, as was the second.  The third round had the first engagement.  Quantum Storm got itself right in the ISD's rear arc at close range, and ate a double / crit / hit / accuracy.  Salvation also got a small scratch.  But the MC-80 had moved into the fight, at long range of Demolisher, who crashed forward, pouncing on the Salvation.

Unfortunately my positioning with Demolisher meant that if I activated it first, I had nowhere to go but into the maw of the MC-80.  But I figured I could tank a single round of fire from both Salvation and the MC-80 (full hull after all) and keep on trucking.  My TIE Fighters and Jamming Field were holding up Yavaris's fighter support, and things were looking okay.

Here I made a mistake, as Salvation poured 7 hits onto Demolisher from the front, and another 3 from the side.  Then another 3 from the MC-80.  Between brace and redirects, I was alive.  3 hull left, no shields, no redirect, doing fine.  I figured I could activate Demolisher last, finish off Salvation, hit the MC80 once, and set up for a double tap next turn.  Yavaris ripped through my remaining TIE squadrons with a single squadron activation left to put a B-Wing on the Demolisher.  Not a problem - I survive with 1 hull.  And then die to the Yavaris front arc.

Demolisher dies without attacking that turn.

In the end, this is what sealed the loss, but the Gozanti long range attacks were also not particularly spectacular in any way against even a weak side arc Nebulon B in Yavaris.  In the end, the most damage they did was to the remaining fighters.  I had a difficult time getting enough of the Wolfpack in range, or pointed the right way, to shoot at a Speed 3 Nebulon.  Even with long range, I wasn't able to commit the Concentrate Fire commands that I wanted to, and evade tokens spoiled several attacks.

In the end, he took a slight lead in objective tokens, as we both took advantage of flipping cards from ramming effects.  (8-7) and while I bagged his Salvation, Quantum Storm, 3 X-Wings and a B-Wing, he was able to grab one of my two naked Assault Carriers, and Demolisher, as well as the 4 TIE Squadrons, for a 266 - 249 loss for me.


The takeaway from this game is that yes, Assault Carriers, Concentrate Fire, and Darth Vader for rerolls is a thing that you can put on the table.  But it is difficult to fly properly to get all of the guns where you need them to be.  Furthermore, it is a trick that is designed to work against a big ship with no evades - any smaller ship sporting an evade token will just laugh at the attempt.

Finally, this was my first attempt at using Jamming Field, and it did let me stretch how far my TIE Fighters could go.  Honestly, losing a die with their Swarm meant they were still doing 1-2 damage per attack, which was enough to drop one X-Wing and injure another before Yavaris and the squadrons had free reign.  And honestly that was almost enough, Demolisher not withstanding.

I think I'm going to put the extra Gozanti's on the shelf for now - I may try them again as a Wolfpack with Tarkin and a Vanilla Rhymerball.  But for now, back to Rebels.  I've got a lot more things I want to try with the new upgrades.

7 comments:

  1. Another Great article. I too thought lots of gonzati's for loads of activation. Seems like quality of each activation is a thing. -Raleigh

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. May be better to stick to squadron activations with them.

      Delete
    2. Thanks for trying out this combo - thought it might be interesting to see the Gozanti used in that way. I think one combat version might work, but generally they are a definite support ship!

      Love some of the new abilities like Slicer Tools and Vector though.

      Did the scatter help keep them alive?

      Delete
  2. Look in the forums for the German national AAR, their winner had only Gozantis, with Vader. But they were restricted to only Wave 3.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I tried Assault Gozantis with Vader at NOVA and found them to be solid performers as long as they have a role that is more then throwing 2 reds at the enemy (I used them with Comm Net as token feeders switching to CF if situation warranted it).

    ReplyDelete
  4. This makes me wonder how a TRC90+GR75 swarm with Ackbar and would do

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sadly the GR-75s would not contribute that much, as they have no side arc to shoot.

      Delete