Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27029853-20170129150901/@comment-454133-20170608071541

Hrm, my 3rd post in a row in the same day. Sorry all, I don't mean to spam!

Today I played two games with Dragoon's Backdraft+Vessery+Deathfire fleet and had a good time with it. It's a fun setup, very well-designed.

I just want to start by saying, it felt great to fly a TIE Defender again. I avoided them when they were dominant because I was so tired of them in every game. Now that things have cooled down, I'm enjoying fighting them again, and I'm delighted to fly them. Maybe someday I'll even fly Jumpmasters again. ;)

In my first game, I fought Colonel Vessery with TIE/D plus Tractor Beam and Expertise; Captain Jonus with system + fleet officer  +  Wired + TIE Shuttle; and Zertik Strom with Crack Shot + prockets + Guidance Chips + TIE/x1 + ATC.

He chose initiative. We started out on opposing corners, and I flew deathfire through the middle-right of the 'roids as a lure (and to be in a good position for bombs), while cruising the other two in the far right to get them into a flanking position. This didn't work great for Deathfire. The dice did not go well for me at the start of the battle. Oonce my opponent caught up with Deathfire (who had curved toward the right side of the board by that time, and then gotten tractored onto a rock) he landed a ton of hits on him all at once despite the range. Deathfire died before he could lay his remaining mines or fire his missiles, so it was a bad loss. In the mean time he was evading a lot of my blows.

But I did manage to ion his Vessery, setting him up to cruise right into at least one cluster mine. He hit exactly one next round, and rolled blanks. Hrm... At this point I was down one ship, but Vessery was doing okay and I don't think Backdraft had taken any shots yet. His Zertik peeled north to avoid a rock, Vessery was below that same rock, facing my Vessery. Jonus was close behind him.

I lined up some good shots with both onto Vessery, and really laid some hurt down. He was at 1 HP by the end of the round, and my vessery was set up for a good k-turn to thread through the roids. Backdraft had managed to avoid shots from Zertik especially, who was having arc troubles as he got turned around (my opponent lamented not having engine upgrade). I figured if I slow-rolled Backdraft, I'd either have Zertik in arc or vessery, or both.

Next round his Vessery 3-turned north around the rock, Zertik shuffled south as backdraft did the same (avoiding his arc), and my Vessery k-turned. Jonus decided to curve southward, avoiding the bombs but not having any targets in arc. I believe this is the round where I lit up Jonus and got him off the table, despite backdraft bumping. However, the range 3 Vessery-on-Vessery fight amounted to nothing.

Now my Vessery 3-banked in for the kill, and his Vessery and Zertik curved in on Vessery. All this time Zertik's ability had been a problem for Backdraft, but with my rear arc, I was getting that added crit anyway, letting me reduce his shields at least. Sadly, next round Zertik ended Backdraft with the long-awaited procket + crack shot nuke. It was now my mostly-fine Vessery vs near-death Vessery and mostly-fine Zertik. (I think no one had shields left, but no damage cards).

I did manage the final hit on Vessery, and then I began chasing south Zertik with Vess, curving around the bottom-right corner of the map. For several rounds, I launched shots at him unopposed, because he couldn't get his arc on me. When I managed to ion him, I misjudged distance and bumped, wasting the chance. Finally I k-turned and ended up facing him eye to eye, so he got a pretty nasty hit on me, but I returned fire and did heavy damage. Still barely alive with 1 hull left, he continued to run, but I banked in behind him and delivered the kill.

It was a close match, but the dice finally stopped rolling low for me, and I got lucky a number of times, compensating for my bad flying. And I did fly well much of the time, staying out of arc and shedding a lot of potential shots.

That first round had me yearning for Tractor Beam on Vessery, because I was fighting these small ships in confined areas with so many rocks. And his Vessery had great success with the tractoring. But next round taught me why Ion Cannon is awesome.

I was against Dengar with Expertise + Plasma Torpedoes + K4 Security Droid + R4 Agromech (I think?) + title + probably Guidance Chips; and Fenn Rau with Expertise + APT + Guidance Chips + title. He was at 96 points or something for a guaranteed initiative bid, which didn't matter against my fleet.

This time I decided to drop bombs proactively, so I sent deathfire through the center and dropped mines first between the two asteroids near me, then flew forward more and dropped mines there. This created a bit of a wide horizontal lane through the center of the map, and though none of those bombs were touched, I suspect they forced my opponent to make careful choices about approaching this area.

I repeated my strategy of rushing Backdraft and Vessery along the right edge, to make my opponent come through the rocks. He did so, and took a not terribly threatening shot at deathfire (hit and crit, which was major hull breach; of course I forgot to turn this face down, but the following crit in a later round wasn't bad). I turned my aces inward and met him in the middle of the map, inside deathfire's wide lane, and got a potshot off on Dengar, giving him one ion token. This would prove significant.

There were two asteroids of particular interest near his ships (and before the mine tunnel, actually forming the mouth into it). These two unassuming pebbles caused Fenn and Dengar real problems... with the way we were approaching, he had a difficult choice to make. He didn't know if I would rush forward, fill the gap and force a bump, or hang back a bit and light him up at range 1 & 2. So, he chose his maneuvers to bump himself. With both ships at PS 9 he could choose activation order and who would bump who after seeing what I did. (at least, that's what I believe he was planning, based on what I saw)

It turns out I moved moderately conservatively, with Vessery sitting at the opening of the asteroid bottleneck and Backdraft not far behind. He decided to move Fenn first to get him at range 1 for the kill, and have Dengar move in behind him and bump. He chose this because if he moved Dengar first, he'd bump Vessery and not get a shot. He'd picked a sound strategy, one that would let both ships fire (and Fenn would ream me with a massive attack at range 1). Unfortunately for him, there was one little snag: bumping there made Dengar land on the north asteroid. He would not be attacking this turn.

And this changed everything. Backdraft lit up Fenn (since that's where he had his lock, and he had him at range 2) and landed 2 hits on him. Fenn's attack hadn't landed terribly hard, and Vessery unloaded on Dengar at range 1, first hitting with his cannon, then landing a hard primary weapon hit. Dengar was ionized, and his angle and ion move would make him land now on the south rock. Fenn wasn't positioned to force a bump and save him (if he moved Dengar first, he'd bump and stay on the current rock, and Fenn couldn't get into any position to bump him later in the move). It was going to be a rough next round for him. That is a lot of lost attack potential for two rounds!

I k-turned Vessery into the perfect position behind where Dengar would land, and inched Backdraft forward to do the same on the other side. Deathfire was still getting turned around thanks to rocks not making a k-turn a good idea, and Fenn shot forward to make sure to finish him off. He did so with his torp, landing a metric ton of damage against a blank defense roll (Backdraft rolled terribly all day long). But it was not a good day for Dengar, who didn't survive the round.

Tasting blood in the water, I inched Backdraft forward again and moved Vessery in for the kill, and the dice were with me. Fenn went down quickly.

My opponent lamented that he does this every time he fights me; he makes some critical error during a positioning dilemma that throws the match for him. I do feel empathy for him, that hurts... but admittedly it also felt awesome taking down Dengar like that. It was so evil, I'm still kinda giddy it worked out so deviously.

Overall I really like this fleet. I need to fly Deathfire differently, as his homing missile never came into play and it really should be used. But his mines were useful for the fear factor, and I love Backdraft and Vessery.

It's interesting how afraid I am of Dengar. He can be a real problem, having a great ability and PS in an amazing ship (I won today with asteroids being on my side). And this is post-nerf. I think back to when Zuckuss (Crew) and Manaroo were at their full power... and wow.