Task Force Orange Fleet Ambush Rieekan Seven and Tycho

After a long hiatus of Armada, I managed to get a game on an actual table. I'm playing around with a Rieekan Seven list - 5 TRC90s with ETs, 2 slicer GRs, and Tycho for an even 400 points. The objectives are Most Wanted, Sensor Net, and Fleet Ambush. 

Yes, Fleet Ambush.

Madness, I know.

Fleet Ambush fell out of favour early in Wave 1 with the introduction of Demolisher (and to lesser extend Ackbar AF2s). The ability for the first player to shoot at things in the first round of the match was quickly seen as problematic - "Who is being ambushed here? You or me?"

I'm not convinced Fleet Ambush is a great option, and if my opponent has it I will be strongly tempted to take it.

The thing about Fleet Ambush that might be useful to the 2nd player is the wording that all ships have to be deployed before any squadrons (nice if you have lots of ships and few squadrons).

The other thing is that the Ambushed ships in the ambush zone CANNOT deploy on terrain (nor can squadrons, but this is less of an issue). This second ruling means that with thoughtful deployment of terrain you can really limit where big ships deploy in the ambush zone - pushing them to one side, or to the front or the back of the ambush zone. Then you can deploy to counter this - either by lining lots up to engage, or deploying sideways somewhere else to fly around or flank or do any number of things.

My opponent for this match was Rory who was flying two ISDs (2 and Cymoon) with Thrawn, a mid sized generic squadron ball, and Pryce. Rory decided to take Fleet Ambush, and deployed his Pryced flagship in the Ambush zone. I deployed with four of my TRC corvettes lined up the ISD2, expecting Rory to pick turn 1 for his Pryce - but he chose turn 2. I did question that at the time, and suggested an earlier timing, but he made up his mind. Rieekans flagship is deployed on the left, ready to jump in to the mid / late match.

At the start of turn 2 I know for sure that the Thrawn ISD is going down - I get to activate all of my ships before it can do anything, and that means 5 lots of TRCs chopping it to bits.
Rory's squadrons are not scary enough to destroy any Corvettes to quickly, and although that Cymoon is coming up fast, It's still out of range (and Cymoons without Vader - not that scary IMHO).

Start of turn 3 and the Thrawn ISD is gone - putting it in the Ambush Zone and Pryce'ing for turn 2 was a definite mistake - but live and learn! Without Thrawn, my slicing GRs can keep the squadrons ineffective, and the Corvettes can chop the Cymoon to bits in quite a leisurely manner.

Start of turn 4 and my Rieekan flagship has ended up quite close in the side of the Cymoon (unnecessarily close really) and Rory rolled exactly what he needed to kill it - and I forgot that I had Lando on that ship to keep Rieekan company, so the whole thing might have been avoided.

Rieekan zombified himself, let rip with the TRCs and double ram, and finished the ISD-C. The game was over in round four.

It has been quite a while since either Rory or I have put ships on the table, and I had forgotten so much about effective corvette flying (lining up double arcs, thinking ETs, etc).

Thrawn was well and truly ambushed - a good and quick game to get us back into the swing of things.