ACT Regionals - Like a Bossk! - Part Three

The success of the second game saw me rise through the ranks to the third table - I think I was fifth highest in the standings at this point.

My opponent was a Novocastrian, flying a true Rieekan Corvette Swarm.

Seven Corvette Bs with SW7, and one (with Rieekan) Corvette A with TRCs.

It was a sight to behold.

He said to me, "Well, you are one of the fleets I did not want to face."

I must say that the feeling was entirely mutual.

With thirteen activations between us, it was quite a long game, and we were still playing a good half an hour after the rest of the round had finished.

I had initiative again, and chose to go first - if I was going to be swamped by Zombie Corvettes, then at least I wanted the chance to decide where to shoot first.

The missions to choose from included Most Wanted, Fire Lanes, and Dangerous Territory. I did not want Most Wanted, since I would likely lose the targeted vessel handing over more points, whereas the second players ship would simply hide and run, denying me any recourse. I did not want fire lanes, since 8 ships with 3 front dice each would easily control them, so Dangerous Territory seemed the best choice, especially as I had Jaina's Light, which does not mind smashing into asteroids so much.

Strangely (I thought) he did not deploy the station first, giving me the opportunity to gain an additional victory token at no real cost. I deployed my three terrain to one side, he deployed his to the other side.

If I had my time over, I would set up on more of an angle, and at speed 3. As it was, speed 2 and straight ahead. All of Jason's ships deployed at speed 4, except the two tasked to claim his tokens, including Rieekan.

I should probably have deployed one of the torpedo boats further back and at speed 1 in order to have a second punch. I decided to throw a corvette at a debris field, figuring I could afford to take 2 shields in exchange for 15 points.

Start of turn 2 - I have three tokens, Jason has only one. Victory!

I have also rushed my left-most torpedo boat forward into range of THREE enemy corvettes. The frigate fired both broadsides, badly damaging both ships, but not killing either. Then the frigate ran through the line, arcing to the right.

Yavaris activated next, shooting double B-Wings and an X-Wing at neighbouring vessels, finishing one of the heavily damaged vessels, and damaging another, before shooting away. Yavaris did not have the speed to break the line.

The other vessels shot in turn, and Dodonna was destroyed from a whole host of back and side blue arcs. Perhaps Dodonna should have run further and not turned, but such is life.

Start of turn 3 - my ships are on the other side of the table, Jason's on this side. At the end of turn 2 I moved my unactivated X-Wing into range of the heavily damaged Corvette, and still in Medium range of Yavaris. First activation, and I needed two hits from those fickle red dice to kill the corvette - and got them! One more Zombie flying.

The rest of the turn went without much incident, except Jason made a mistake flying a Corvette into range of an unactivated Torpedo boat (he forgot which one had been activated), and received a sizeable blast to the front.

 Start of turn 4, Yavaris' B-Wings finish off the damaged corvette before running away. Everything else is about avoiding contact, and taking pot-shots with TRCs.

Start of turn 6 - the photo from turn 5 is missing. I managed to take out another Corvette with my TRCs at close range (it had been damaged by B-Wings).
In turn 6 I flew my CR90 away from Rieekan's TRCs, and managed to hide behind my torpedo frigate.

End of the game - we decided nothing else was going to die, and everyone else was waiting for us to finish, so we didn't bother with all the final moves.

Jason had scored 118 points, 73 from from losing Dodonna, and 45 from tokens.

I had 265 points, from killing 5 44 point Corvettes, and 45 points from tokens.

I won by 147 points, which was an 8/2.

This was not a great victory, but I did much better than I thought I would against a Rieekan swarm. It was always going to be impossible for me to table Jason, and on reflection, quite difficult for him to table me. Neither of us were going to walk away with a 10/0, but it wouldn't have won us the tournament anyway - Nick was well ahead on 28 points, compared to my 22 finishing position. Second had 26.

After three victories (even if the first had been quite marginal) I ended up third in the tournament. My goal was complete - my red shirt had interrupted the Parramatta Attack Wing Podium Photo!

It was a great tournament, and tremendous fun. The three and a half hour drive home was filled with listening to election results, so all in all, a great day!