Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Summer Vassal Pre-Action Report - "Boring Conversation Fleet"

I HAVE THE BEST IDEAS!
Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 397/400
Commander: Garm Bel Iblis

Like all the best ideas, it started in a committee.  "Biggs is a really good squadron" it was said.  "He keeps fighters alive a long time by spreading the damage around between them."

"Can we do the same thing for ships?"





Maybe?  We have ways of keeping ships alive against punishing hits, and ways of moving damage between them.  Other excellent ideas were brought in by the committee, such as "It should have Garm as its Commander" and "It should only have 2 big ships!"  But eventually, we created one of the great list concepts of our generation, ready for a road trial:

The List


[ flagship ] MC80 Assault Cruiser (114 points)
-  Garm Bel Iblis  ( 25  points)
-  Home One  ( 7  points)
-  Asoka Tano ( 2 points)
-  Projection Experts  ( 6  points)
-  Advanced Projectors  ( 6  points)
-  Reinforced Blast Doors  ( 5  points)
-  Leading Shots  ( 4  points)
= 169 total ship cost

MC80 Star Cruiser (96 points)
-  Endeavor  ( 4  points)
-  Major Derlin  ( 7  points)
-  Quad Turbolaser Cannons  ( 10  points)
-  XI7 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
-  Leading Shots  ( 4  points)
= 127 total ship cost

Modified Pelta-class Assault Ship (56 points)
-  Lando Calrissian  ( 4  points)
-  Projection Experts  ( 6  points)
-  Shields to Maximum! ( 6 points)
= 72 total ship cost

1 Shara Bey ( 17 points)
1 Gold Squadron ( 12 points)

Objectives:
Advanced Gunnery / Contested Outpost / Solar Corona


Strategic Thoughts


In a certain sense, there is no single lynchpin for this fleet.  Every ship is important, though some are less important than others.  Of all of them, Garm's Flagship is the most crucial to the list.  It contains the most points at 169, making it almost half the points on the table.  It cannot be lost without some serious consequences and trades being made in the exchange.  It accomplishes a lot of this by being the beefiest ship the Rebels have, and being built for long range fighting, and support of the other two ships in the fleet.

For offense, it only adds Leading Shots to make its 4 Red broadsides count.  But this is a list built around support and defense, and it has these in spades.  Advanced Projectors protect it from all but the worst XI7 hits, and make use of the ship's 15 shields, while Reinforced Blast Doors helps keep the 8 hull intact.  Home One and Projection Experts let it contribute to the fight even before it can bring its side arc to bear.  Asoka Tano sits in the officer's slot to ensure the correct token in ready at the right time.

Endeavor is the next on our list of important ships.  For most games, I should be able to lose him to a trade, but the goal will be to make that a painful proposition for my opponent.  With Home One and Quad Lasers, I'm guaranteed 2 accuracies, and if unneeded, they can be rerolled with any other blanks through Leading Shots.  Major Derlin is an almost auto-include on this ship, as I expect it to take fire continually and often.

Finally, we have the Pelta Assault, which is here to give us extra shields.  This is by far the least valuable ship in the fleet, but it does have a half-way decent anti-squadron flak.  Lando gives it one chance to get out of a bad situation, but for the most part it will be Engineering shields through "Shields to Maximum!" and projection experts onto something that is being attacked.

Squadrons are a bit lacking.  Shara Bey is my Speed 5 interceptor, hopefully to catch half of a bomber wing napping and split enemy forces.  She's tough, but there's just one of her.  Gold Squadron is glorified extra hull - just there to stop 2-3 squadron attacks before he shuffles off the board.  Still, he is the most cost effective bit of hull for his points.  Each one is their own task force.


Objectives:  Advanced Gunnery lets me dial up my Home One into a murder machine.  It is possible I run into someone that would make me regret having this objective in, but the upside is just too much worth it.  I already can't afford to lose Home One, why not make it scary?

Contested Outpost is perfect for my 3 Command slow moving ships that need to be close to one another.  It also controls where my opponent will reasonably be able to deploy to contest the objective, which is important with only 4 deployments.

Solar Corona removes any issue with deployment.  Why wouldn't I pick this one for Navigation?  A fast fleet may be able to turn it into a hindrance, by getting around me and with me having large side arcs, but one lost accuracy isn't the end of the world.  This is almost purely for the deployment.

4 comments:

  1. I think you're really going to like the HOME ONE + QUAD TURBOLASERS combo... great for picking off lifeboats

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    1. Having played the first game with it, yes I do like it quite a bit.

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  2. How has it been working out for you? I keep trying to find a way to get Shields to Max! to work and i'm interested in how its doing for you.

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    Replies
    1. Well, it is not doing AMAZING. It's a fun little list to play, and it involves a lot of careful thinking and token usage and management. It has won some games, but I think one of my regular gaming buddies has it figured out, or I've just got a bad matchup against him.

      We'll see how it fares against a Clonisher style fleet in Vassal Round 2!

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