Rebellion in the Rim skirmish/practice

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The Fleets

My usual opponent and I are done with Primes for a bit until the next wave of them starts in January/February, so we decided to start playing around with Rebellion in the Rim sized fleets.  Specifically, just how they feel in the beginning and start throwing ideas out there and see if we can find good combos.  Or maybe things that aren't good in a 400 pt match but suddenly become better with a smaller board and smaller fleets.  We each picked a starting admiral ability as well.  So basically a practice Round 1 fight and the Rebels had the initiative each time. 

My Imperial starter fleet was a stab at something random without too much thought put into it.  It is a Kuat with Leading shots and a Quasar I paired with Marrek and a generic bomber to start.  The plan would be to fill the Kuat a bit, Racks and ECM and an officer and then build up a respectable fighter ball for the Quasar to push/chase down other ships.  

Eventually this could be something good


My opponent brought a very similar fleet but in style but with a bulked up fighter presence to start.  He had a Gunnery Team Liberty with a standard Comms Net GR-75.  Then Ten Numb, Corran Horn, and 3 squads of A-wings.  He had the Coordinator I for extra hate with his squadron token.  

Squadron Ball of pain
We both talked for a bit on how it seems a large with a big squadron presence could be a really strong impact on the smaller board, so this game would be a good test of that.  We also decided to play Pilot Defection since it was new and we would see how it worked out.  I think we did bad math but a TIE defender (a traitor, I'm sure) and two generic TIE bombers joined my team.

New things!


Setup

After tossing down some obstacles I deployed in the corner by the station and the Liberty deployed in the opposite corner.  With that large squadron ball I was pretty sure my bombers were just going to get chewed up but maybe Maarek could do some damage and eventually flak and black dice could kill the traitor to stop the points swing.  Otherwise, I was going to try to get my Kuat in position to assassinate something and then run.  My opponent told me afterwords, he wasn't even going to try for the Kuat, since he figured he couldn't kill it.  If only I had known earlier.


Round 1

My Kuat accelerated to speed 3 as did the Liberty. We both grabbed tokens and the fighter screens moved in to get some blows into each other next round.
Prepare to fire all batteries!

Round 2

The GR-75 shuffled some squadrons around and got a Defector TIE bomber down to 1 health. Seeing as my Quasar didn't want to shuffle into range I activated the Kuat and swept it around the edge of the obstacle fields.  I tried to make the zone in front of the Quasar unappealing for the Liberty and also threaten the GR-75. 

Next the Liberty launched a fighter strike and lunged forward to close the gap for the next round.  The two Defector TIE bombers got hit hard, one died and the other was left with two health.  The rebel flagship maneuvered to be just out of close range of the Kuat and setup to catch my Speed 1 Quasar practically anywhere it decided to go.

So the Quasar retaliated and managed to kill off an A-wing with it's fighters and put a couple shots into the Liberty. but I really only took two shields off. Then unsurprisingly, the TIE defender defector decided to change his team.

Unshielded weak ships do well in the front arc of a Liberty?.....Right.....?


Round 3

Unsurprisingly, the Liberty activated first and after burning his squadron token to strip the Quasar's front shields, unloaded his entire battery into the Quasar doing just enough damage to kill it outright.  Then the Liberty deftly swept through some asteroids and landed near the station.  I forget the damage card but it was nothing substantial.  

My Admiral was so angry about his Quasar and the defector that he took it all out on a poor pair of transports.  The salvo had the requisite accuracy and some 8 damage, so needless to say at least the Empire killed something.

The fighter scrum to kill the defector then took off.  Maarek punished an A-wing but didn't manage to kill it when the rest of rebel ball moved in and started to overload him.
Now we both kill what we can

Round 4

With the carrier lost, the sole remaining goal was to stop the defector.  Both capital ships took some flak shots and moved towards relative safety.  Then the remaining TIE bomber drug the defector down to 1 health and Maarek was killed.  Then the defector ran and I knew I couldn;t stop him anymore.

We called it after this round.  I traded essentially my entire squadron wing and carrier for an A-wing and a transport.  So not a great victory for the Empire.

Final End game state


Lessons Learned

It was a fun and very quick game!  Especially with only 4 ships total on the board, it took us about an hour and we played in zero rush.  The new objective was a lot of fun and I can easily see how it leads to a great narrative type campaign.  Also, those 25 points mean a lot more to a win when they represent an eighth of your total fleet.  

While having a large ship is great and almost invincible at the start, but it takes some careful flying to get it into a good range to inflict it's attack.  Since you maybe only have a single target or two it NEEDS to be able to shoot at them or else you really haven't gained anything or used it's power in the actual shooting part of the game.

Another lesson it seems is that squadrons are going to be key.  It seems a small screen is going to be essential to at least keep the bombers off, since there are less targets for the enemy bomber cloud to target.  And with less ships on the board, if they blow up your ISD then you're most likely done.

I will definitely need to look again at this fleets entire idea, come up with something a little more viable it seems.  But testing it all part of the process anyway.

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