Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27029853-20170703223814/@comment-454133-20170824071648

Today I raised some eyebrows by taking 3 auzitucks to a store tournament. I managed to take first place!

Wookiee Liberator with Expertise + C-3PO + Breach Specialist (34)

2x Wookiee Liberator with Expertise + Tactician + Breach Specialist (33)

This fleet comes as a recommendation from the FFG community in this thread, where I asked if anyone had flown 3 tactician auzitucks and whether they liked them. I'm really pleased with the suggestions I got (including the 2 auzituck + yt-2400 fleet I flew casually last week). It's a durable fleet, and Tactician is brutal on such a wide arc. A lot of ships respond very poorly to being chronically stressed. Including mine, as I found out. ^_^

First battle was against Ketsu Onyo with Shadow Caster  +  Rigged Cargo Chute and I forget what else. He was escourted by a Heavy Quinn Jast with some sort of missile or torp (I forget which; I think she never got it off) and a Heavy Genesis Red with a Mangler Cannon. I forgot everyone's elites... could have been Expertise on Ketsu? Sorry, that first battle is a blur.

I managed to win solidly. I closed the distance on Quinn and shut her down, then turned around and finished her off. Then I ignored Genesis and focused on Ketsu, since his tractor beams were such a problem (actually this was a taste of what was to come). He went down reasonably quick. His cargo token did cause me some grief momentarily, but my team still shattered him.

As an aside, I rolled a lot of crits on debris clouds today! Just my luck. ;)

After that it was a question of whether Genesis would kill someone before dying, and he didn't quite manage it.

 100 - 0

This opponent let me use his Expertise (I bought another U-Wing after this match so I could provide all three of my own cards, but it was really awesome of him to help me out like that). He also was very patient with me setting up my fleet after arriving at the tournament with not quite enough time to get everything ready (work kept me late), and he reminded me of Tactician, was patient with my being flustered and kind of stupid at first, and played a very friendly and clean game. Top-notch fellow! I really hope I was equally respectful to him; he set the tone for the whole night and everyone was just awesome today.

Next fight was 2x Bounty Hunter + Tractor Beam, and Lieutenant Dormitz + Hyperwave Comm Scanner. This was a surprisingly effective strategy, since the two firesprays could be placed very far forward thanks to Dormitz, given a focus thanks to Hyperwave, and then jump forward and engage in combat with both locks and focuses on the first round. Then next round they could move past their victims and continue ravaging with their rear arcs. However, I did quite well against this fleet.

Initial combat did me some harm, but I focused down his galaxy-painted firespray and eventually managed to kill it. There was a lot of tussling and bumping in the following rounds, and sometimes I'd fail to have a ship positioned to get any shots. Also it's really hard to decide whether to reinforce the front or back... will they be in my arc or not? He made some good bumping decisions, deliberately keeping himself behind my ships when he could, and eventually claimed a wookie life.

However, I managed to off his 2nd firespray, and had half points on Dormitz. Now it was 2 auzitucks vs a double-stressed, damaged, and not very mobile Upsilon Shuttle, and the advantage was all mine. It was a matter though of how many points he'd score. My ships were both heavily damaged, and the remaining tactician ship was ahead of Dormitz. I shot it away with a 3 bank and got behind a debris cloud to maximize its survival chances, reinforcing the back and hoping I'd be obstructed at range 3. It had only two life left, and that wasn't good odds against Dormitz's 4 attack power! The other ship (I think the C-3PO boat?) was to the northeast of the upsilon, and behind it, comfortably confident it wouldn't take fire. I turned it inward and prepared for a killer shot. Dormitz moved forward a smidge, and fired on the hiding auzituck, but range and obstruction and reinforcement all consipired to reduce his damage to just 1, not enough to kill it! Then the rear auzituck fired and finished the match.

100 - 33

I liked his fleet. It's a cool idea to come rushing in with locks and focuses, especially if your opponent wants to slow-roll to build up tokens on Rey or to line up his ships. He apparently did quite well on other matches. Plus I love Upsilons and Dual Firespray fleets. ^_^  Cool and friendly opponent, and my gods, his galaxy firespray is gorgeous! I will attemp to attach pictures, but they're too beautiful... I fear they may damage wikia's webservers. Standby...





Sorry for the squashing on the smaller pics... wikia apparently thinks all pictures are square.

The camera does not do this ship justice... it's just so beautiful... it felt wrong to fire at it!

Final round was against Inaldra with Light Scyk; and A Score To Settle, and 2x Jakku Gunrunner with Intelligence Agent + Pattern Analyzer + Spacetug Tractor Array; and Asajj Ventress + Expertise + Shadow Caster + Dengar. This fleet scared me when I first saw it, and for good reason. As luck would have it, I ended up fighting it, and the combo of tractor beams and stress was amazingly threatening. It's an excellently-constructed fleet, and it was flown by a really effective player.

He figured Asajj would have a hard time against my tacticians since she needed her actions and expertise modifications, so he started her out in the northwest corner, away from my ships deployed in the southeast corner. I made a mistake and charged toward the quadjumpers and inaldra, who where in the middle of the map. I should have turned left instead and met with Asajj early on. The tiny ships were not the best target; asajj was! She was worth the most points, and was the easiest target to score points off of (half points, poor agility, large base). And she was the greatest threat due to her title and pilot ability, nevermind the shenanigans the quadjumpers would pull (to great effect). So my first round of combat was spent inconveniencing them, in return for more damange than I would have happily accepted. I then turned southward toward Asajj, who was sweeping into the center of the map, putting the quadjumpers at my back.

Thankfully I'd stressed a jumper so it couldn't tractor me, and the other didn't do too much harm (at least at first). But I spent a lot of time on asteroids during this match. Those spacetugs and Shadow Caster are just brutal to small ships.

Since quadjumpers and Shadow Caster kept throwing my ships onto asteroids, I frequently only got one or two shots off in a round. Worse was the stress, which was constantly disabling my Expertise and Reinforce tokens. But I kept pouring damage into asajj and occasionally stressing her.

At one point I drew Damaged Engine on a ship that had just managed to clear stress and reinforce itself; thank heaven, I was able to Breach Specialist that devastating crit away. That wookiee took other shots that round and missed having that reinforce token, but it was worth it! Damage is better than red turns on an auzituck!

At one point close to the end, I had the choice between trying to kill asajj, who had 4 hull left, or trying to kill a quadjumper that had landed on an asteroid and had its agility reduced by a crit. I agonized over it, and then realized the quadjumpers are 20 points a pop and very vulnerable; I just needed 4 damage, and he was at range 1. I took the shot and got the damage in! But I did lose one auzituck (one of the Tactician wookiees), granting him 33 points.

Right at the end when time had been called (we had to finish the round), he laid in a barely lethal hit into one of my quadjumpers. I was resigned to losing the match, but then I realized it was obstructed! I rolled the extra die and got the crucial evade! Saved by the dice!

Time was called and I got 44 points, while he got 33. *SUCH* slim margins! I will say I owe this victory to luck. He fought a fantastic battle and really gave me a run for my money, and the win hinged entirely on that last shot that I evaded by obstruction. This tiny MOV was apparently enough to put me into first place in the tourney!

44 - 33

Prizes:

I got a very pretty premium Crack Shot and an equally pretty "Omega Leader", and I could choose one ship as my prize. I chose the auzituck (of which I have 3 already) but then tried to trade it up to a Imperial Aces (hoping to pay the $12 difference, which most game stores allow). Unfortunately their computer apparently can't do that, so I had to put that back. I was hoping to add to my TIE Interceptor collection, since they're so fun in Epic. :(  Instead I traded it for a T-70 X-Wing to get another copy of Integrated Astromech, and hey, another T-70.  ^_^

I also spent a lot of money at the store today ($36), buying the third Auzituck I needed for the tournament, and also a 2nd U-Wing for the 2x Inspiring Recruit and 2x Expertise... I panicked when I realized I didn't have enough Expertise, and figured I'd need them in future tournies. I usually don't buy new for a game, instead building fleets around what I have. And my first opponent very kindly offered to let me borrow an Expertise. But I guess I wanted the extra copies so I wouldn't run into this again in the future. And also I love the U-Wing... I really hope Rebels get some good crew options in the future, cuz now I have 2 U-Wings. :)

What I Learned:

I'd say the greatest weakness of the fleet is it kinda falls apart if it keeps bumping or stays stressed. As long as you're not down to one Auzituck you can scatter and reposition to have at least one arc on targets, eventually closing in to have all 3 arcs trained on victims. But stress denies both Reinforce and Expertise, and the threat of Damaged Engine is very, very real! Bumps can mess it up a lot too, denying Reinforce and also putting the ships in a bad spot, so you've gotta scatter and plan ahead 2 or more turns (and scatter, don't just sit and hope for your opponent to pass you).

With only one agility die, at 9 health can disappear fast. You have to keep reinforcing, and don't get tractor beamed!

How I would improve the fleet:

This fleet is really solid, props to Wampa948 for suggesting it. I do think I would put Tactician on all three auzitucks though; it's just too useful to give up, and stacking stress is terrifying for some ships. C-3PO is possibly worth keeping, maybe replacing Breach Specialist? Though Breach Specialist helped me out a lot too. Tough choice... I'll have to give it some thought.

Good night everybody!