Every year a game convention is held in central parts of Gothenburg with participants from all over Sweden. It's been going for 43 years now, and it just gets bigger. All board games imaginable and unimaginable are played for 4 days. It's crazy fun.
Sadly the practical things aren't up to the events size. The queue for the food they serve is painstakingly slow and even if you prepaid and booked your tickets in advance prepare for a long line and waiting time, so being there in time is of utmost importance if your games are scheduled early.
But it is still a very good convention. Friendly people, fun games and fresh accommodations for a reasonable price. It's more family friendly than I remember but that might be because I now have a kid that I notice these things.
Enough blabbering and straight to the tournament report!
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| Had a hard time keeping my marbles together |
Forewords
Initially I had concern that we would only be 4 players. And of course someone would drop or don't show up and then the tournament wouldn't be completed. But I was surprised to see the number double. Players crept out of the woodwork for 3 matches of armada. Great fun!The list I brought
The list that I flew was the same that I had flewn for the weeks or months in advance (maybe 4-5 games) and it looked like this:Name: Ackbar Double Dragon v3.0
Faction: Rebel
Commander: Admiral Ackbar
Assault: Advanced Gunnery
Defense: Fire Lanes
Navigation: Sensor Net
MC75 Armored Cruiser (104)
• General Draven (3) • Quad Laser Turrets (5) • Electronic Countermeasures (7) • Flechette Torpedoes (3) • Leading Shots (4) • XI7 Turbolasers (6) • Mon Calamari Exodus Fleet (5)
= 137 Points
MC80 Assault Cruiser (114)
• Admiral Ackbar (38) • Strategic Adviser (4) • Projection Experts (6) • Early Warning System (7) • Electronic Countermeasures (7) • Leading Shots (4) • Quad Battery Turrets (5) • Mon Calamari Exodus Fleet (5)
= 190 Points
GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Comms Net (2)
= 20 Points
GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Leia Organa (3) • Comms Net (2)
= 23 Points
Squadrons:
• 2 x VCX-100 Freighter (30)
= 30 Points
Total Points: 400
Fore- and afterthoughts about the list
The list evolved from an experiment where I tested to see if a Rebel 2-ship list would be as effective as a Imperial 2-ship, but with a token screen of squadrons that would only last a round or two against more dedicated squadron lists, and thus feed the opponent points. So those squadrons, besides the most crucial, where gutted and converted into upgrades and Transports. In version three of the list it became clear that the two big ships wants to do alot of things, just being two ships they want to do all the important things. The Reb's lack of a valid Thrawn counterpart (spoiler:Did it work? Yes and no. Some parts that worked.
- My favourite part would be Mon Calamari Exodus Fleet. It turns a engineering token into a dial, a dial into a dial and a token, and a dial and a token to effectively 2 dials on a Enginnering 4 ship. That 8 engineering points. 4 shields is most sides of the MC80 or MC75 or its 2 hull damage and a shield. The ships when spamming Engineer dials gets crazy tanky. I suspect most would opt for Defiance and Aspiration. I get the idea with both of them and they are probably better since they make the ships you have be more shooty and more adaptable and probably kill the other players ships faster so you dont loose yours. But those lists has already been made, and I wanted to see how this title held up. I can say that I was happy with using them every time I had a Token + Dial ready to refill all the shields on a sidearc and even more so. Sure it got very easy to predict what dials I had chosen for turn 4-6.
- Projection Experts makes the MC75 more durable, and in combination with a engineering dial the following turn on the MC75 there is suddenly alot of hull and shields back.
- The VCX-100's. They where there for objective reasons. They did die often. They were still worth it. More than once they simply beeing in the list made my opponent choose Advance Gunnery. In my book they did their job regardless of the outcome.
- The MC75. The brawler of the list. With Ackbar it kind of under-achieves compared to the MC80 in raw damage output from the side-arcs. When double-arcing it is suddenly a very dangerous foe. My only regrett with it was that I could have flewn it more offensively since that ship is the most expendable of the two.
What part didn't work then?
- When facing Sloane Squadrons or heavy squadron lists, this list has a steep uphill. The death of a thousand cuts is a very real problem this list faces. Even when engineering like there is no tomorrow, Jendon will still make Maarek do his thing twice and then the rest of the squadron ball comes and ruins the Brace/Redirects and then its easier for the ISD to mop things up. If more dedicated Squadron lists would have been present on the tournament, this list would be in the gutter.
- General Draven, Quad Laser Turrets and Flechettes where very occasionally good (one time with QLT when killing Maarek wanted to shoot at the MC75, and Maarek had only one hull left on turn six to be specific), but in the rearview mirror they could have stayed at home. The Flechette/Draven combo works best when being first player, otherwise Ordnace Pods is the go-to upgrade for the MC75 when dealing with Squadrons. Flechette contributed nothing at all during the whole tournament, mostly because my first opponent was wise enought to activate squadrons before I did. The easiset work around for QLT is simply not engaging, and go for the more passive targets.
- The lack of Gunnery Teams on the MC75 made choosing targets out of one side difficult, and more than once I regretted not having it. The Draven/QLT combo could easily have been replaced by Gunnery Teams. At least QLT and Flechettes...
A small glance at the lists present
- One 3 ship Sloane squadron blob.
- 2 variants of double ISD. One being with Motti as the admiral. The other I'm unsure of.
- A Raddus Liberty with a herd of Trc90.
- Mon Mothma hammerheads and Trc90 (probably).
- A Motti Cymoon/Demolisher/Arquitens/Gozanti.
- Ackbar 3 Assault Frigates with complementary squadrons.
- Ackbar MC80 and MC75 Exodus Fleet (me, the author :) )
What stuck out was the lack of Squadrons. Only a token
screen where present in most lists and in 2 or 3 cases the lists was completely
without them. Only the Sloane list had a full complementary ball of
thousand cuts with angry hetero-bros-4-life Jendon/Maarek. It's another
tale what those two make me feel so here are the matchups!
Game 1
Vs. Sloane and Squadrons.
Ackbar second - Fire Lanes
Ackbar second - Fire Lanes
First matchup is the worst possible, and the player I had tested my list against alot in it's earlier versions. Great. He had a good grasp about what my shtick was so I could only try my best to minimize the losses. He did a minor error (according to himself) in choosing Fire Lanes. That was my one and only saving grace, as I had the guns pointed at them to milk alot of points. Had he went with any of the other two objectives my losses would have been greater.
My VCX's had exactly one turn to do their thing and then they went away from the board, so I went with that, then the squadrons started to work the MC80. This is one of the lists weaknesses. The MC80 won't have the support of Projection Experts like the MC75 has. And EWS can be worked around. I didn't have my math with me as I misscalculated the amount of Hull the MC80 needed to have to be alive until the end of turn six and went with shields instead when repairing. I also undersestiamated the range of Maarek and Cienna. Good thing that Maarek wanted to shoot the MC75 that had soared past the ISD on turn six so I could end him thanks to Quad Laser Turrets (that made them worth their value in points the rest of the tournament).
My VCX's had exactly one turn to do their thing and then they went away from the board, so I went with that, then the squadrons started to work the MC80. This is one of the lists weaknesses. The MC80 won't have the support of Projection Experts like the MC75 has. And EWS can be worked around. I didn't have my math with me as I misscalculated the amount of Hull the MC80 needed to have to be alive until the end of turn six and went with shields instead when repairing. I also undersestiamated the range of Maarek and Cienna. Good thing that Maarek wanted to shoot the MC75 that had soared past the ISD on turn six so I could end him thanks to Quad Laser Turrets (that made them worth their value in points the rest of the tournament).
4-7 loss to Ackbar.
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| Turn 3 second game |
Game 2
Ackbar second - Advanced Gunnery
This is where it starts to go better. After the debacle with Sloane I was at the bottom of the tournament in points. The starting field had been very even with more than 2 games ending in 6-5.
I'm facing a slew of different ships the Empire has to offer, all difficult to kill with Motti. If they don't end up in the broadsides of an Ackbar fleet that is.
Around round 3 the Gladiator gets too close to the sidearcs of both MC's and gets popped, but not without dealing a good blow to the MC75's front-arc. The following activation that turn sees the demise of said Gladiator from a double broadside from the MC80. The Cymoon had then gotten close enough for a double arc from the MC75 thanks to Strategic Adviser and the GR-75's dealing tokens all around them. Even Leia got useful and changed a engineering dial to a Concentrate Fire on the MC75. On a sidenote I rolled like the devil in this game. The red dices showed doubles and crits like never before and both me and my opponent (to his dismay) where baffled. Eventually the Cymoon goes down round 4 by virtue of accuracies and it not having Electronic Countermeasure. Remember to always bring your ECM kids.
10-1 win to Ackbar.
I'm facing a slew of different ships the Empire has to offer, all difficult to kill with Motti. If they don't end up in the broadsides of an Ackbar fleet that is.
Around round 3 the Gladiator gets too close to the sidearcs of both MC's and gets popped, but not without dealing a good blow to the MC75's front-arc. The following activation that turn sees the demise of said Gladiator from a double broadside from the MC80. The Cymoon had then gotten close enough for a double arc from the MC75 thanks to Strategic Adviser and the GR-75's dealing tokens all around them. Even Leia got useful and changed a engineering dial to a Concentrate Fire on the MC75. On a sidenote I rolled like the devil in this game. The red dices showed doubles and crits like never before and both me and my opponent (to his dismay) where baffled. Eventually the Cymoon goes down round 4 by virtue of accuracies and it not having Electronic Countermeasure. Remember to always bring your ECM kids.
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| Never leave home without this or you'll hold your hat like in this picture. |
Game 3
Vs. Raddus Liberty.
Ackbar second - Advanced Gunnery
Suddenly I was at the top table. This matchup made me quite uneasy. The unpredictability that Raddus makes is mindnumbing. My opponent had a larger bid than me and selected first player. After some thinking he finally selected Advanced Gunnery and one of his CR90 as the objective ship. My plan for the setup was to use Imperial tactics™© to try to limit the manuverability of the agile CR90's by deploying into a corner. I won't claim that it worked since the CR90 on the far right still got behind both ships. My GR-75's deployed at speed 2 and MC80 speed 1 and MC75 speed 2. My opponent, a skilled player had deployed most ships at maximum speed, and all CR90's having Engine techs, they were set for trying to find dead angles for my ships for the Liberty to exploit.
Round 1-2 saw not many shots fired and alot of positioning. Round 3 my GR-75's where leading the fleet into 2 of the corvettes. They were taking shots but manage to hold their beans together thanks to their Scatter tokens. Having them in the lead might have been one of my more questionable decisions since they both died.
Round 4 (I think?) the Raddus drop came. My VCX's had managed to create an unfavorable positioning in the rear of the big ships for the Liberty so it would have to deploy into either ones arc and outside of effective shooting range of both big ships before the Liberty would get to activate. The drop then came closer to both GR-75's, since they were the easiest targets present. Unfortunatley for his Raddus CR90, it came too close to the MC80's side arc and could not engine-tech out of it. The following activation the MC80 ended Raddus with a double Ackbar sidearc. From that point the game was a win for me as the Liberty and the rest of the CR90's could not manage to destroy one of the MC's with all the Engineer commands I had stacked. This game was more close than what seemed and the nerve wracking threat of a Liberty suddenly jump out from Hyperspace with all the bells and whistles, into the rear of you Command ship is a scary prospect.
The only way I had of threatening back was with trying to create kill-zones, that if anything comes near, its 3-4 (with Advanced Gunnery) shots from angry sidearcs. The Liberty is not though enought to handle 2 big ships at the same time. Also one thing about Raddus I noticed is, that he is better against Imperial front heavy ships. The ISD and VSD (the few that gets to see use these days) have a lot of a harder time handling ships to the sides than what most rebel ships do. But when facing 2 side-arc ships, that don't fly in a conga-line but side-by-side, lending cover to each other, things get harder.
8-3 win to Ackbar.
Suddenly I was at the top table. This matchup made me quite uneasy. The unpredictability that Raddus makes is mindnumbing. My opponent had a larger bid than me and selected first player. After some thinking he finally selected Advanced Gunnery and one of his CR90 as the objective ship. My plan for the setup was to use Imperial tactics™© to try to limit the manuverability of the agile CR90's by deploying into a corner. I won't claim that it worked since the CR90 on the far right still got behind both ships. My GR-75's deployed at speed 2 and MC80 speed 1 and MC75 speed 2. My opponent, a skilled player had deployed most ships at maximum speed, and all CR90's having Engine techs, they were set for trying to find dead angles for my ships for the Liberty to exploit.
Round 1-2 saw not many shots fired and alot of positioning. Round 3 my GR-75's where leading the fleet into 2 of the corvettes. They were taking shots but manage to hold their beans together thanks to their Scatter tokens. Having them in the lead might have been one of my more questionable decisions since they both died.
Round 4 (I think?) the Raddus drop came. My VCX's had managed to create an unfavorable positioning in the rear of the big ships for the Liberty so it would have to deploy into either ones arc and outside of effective shooting range of both big ships before the Liberty would get to activate. The drop then came closer to both GR-75's, since they were the easiest targets present. Unfortunatley for his Raddus CR90, it came too close to the MC80's side arc and could not engine-tech out of it. The following activation the MC80 ended Raddus with a double Ackbar sidearc. From that point the game was a win for me as the Liberty and the rest of the CR90's could not manage to destroy one of the MC's with all the Engineer commands I had stacked. This game was more close than what seemed and the nerve wracking threat of a Liberty suddenly jump out from Hyperspace with all the bells and whistles, into the rear of you Command ship is a scary prospect.
The only way I had of threatening back was with trying to create kill-zones, that if anything comes near, its 3-4 (with Advanced Gunnery) shots from angry sidearcs. The Liberty is not though enought to handle 2 big ships at the same time. Also one thing about Raddus I noticed is, that he is better against Imperial front heavy ships. The ISD and VSD (the few that gets to see use these days) have a lot of a harder time handling ships to the sides than what most rebel ships do. But when facing 2 side-arc ships, that don't fly in a conga-line but side-by-side, lending cover to each other, things get harder.
8-3 win to Ackbar.
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