Battle two at SpaceCon was right in the middle of the pack - it's a tricky place to be, because you're either fighting average players who came close to a draw (like me), or you're facing quite capable players who were beaten in their first game.
That was my opponent, Luke K from Parramatta Attack Wing.
This time I won the bid, elected to go second, and Luke chose "Fleet Ambush" - ie, his force would be the one getting ambushed. As it turned out, however, I was the one getting the rude shock...
Ambush requires the odd-number deployments to start in the centre of the board, and Luke started by putting down his Star Destroyer. I responded by putting down a NEB-B just out of the Destroyer's long range, and planning on having his ISD approach me. He put down a little ship in his normal zone, and I added another NEB-B. Then he put down a Gladiator - Demolisher - right in front of my NEBs, and I panicked. Demolisher is a pain, but I should be used to it by now. Instead of ignoring it and placing my Frigates along my plans of "hit 'em on the ends" I decided to go "box of death" and deployed my Frigates to protect the NEBs. The problem with "box of death" is that it is not clear who is doing the dying. The photo above shows the start of turn 1, with me putting everything right in the path of the Star Destroyer and his friends.
I said to Luke at this point: "One way or another this battle is not going to last long." Truer words hath ne'er been spaked.
Our fighters began the game already engaged, which was a new experience for me. All of my ships spammed "Concentrate Fire" and I did my best to smash that Gladiator to bits on turn 1. Sadly, it endured all of my fire and arrived to shoot up the Paragon with a few hits remaining.
Start of turn 2: My lovely long range Frigates are in a bar-room brawl with a Gladiator and a Star Destroyer. Whoops!
In turn 2 the Paragon was destroyed by Demolisher, before I finally destroyed it with a few well aimed shots from the Corvette.
The other ships remained to do battle with the ISD, as the Imperial Raiders came roaring in.
This is the start of turn 3. My Frigate is copping a pounding from the ISD, and being rammed by the raiders. Tycho Celchu has decided to run away, and the Corvette is gearing up to run as far as possible.
It doesn't look much better at close range...
Start of turn 4, and the full horror of the situation is revealed. One of the Raiders is gone, but so is a NEB and the last assault frigate. Leia and Garm are running way in the Corvette, while the last NEB is left to buy them some time in a futile confrontation with destiny.
Start of turn 5, and the Corvette is running, taking occasional pot-shots at distant targets.
The start of turn six is a re-enactment of the first scene of that fairly popular movie franchise - Corvette running a full speed from ISD - fortunately there are no tractor beams here...
The outcome was 8/2 in Luke's favour. I lost everything but the Corvette, Admiral Garm, and Leia.
Luke lost Demolosher and a raider.
Deployment was the killer here. I thought (wrongly) that I could smash the Gladiator in turn 1, then concentrate on the ISD before the raiders arrived.
The Empire aren't really that cheesy - Luke had some things that let him reroll black dice and that kind of thing. I just let myself get suckered into playing his game, rather than playing my game
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