So, this week's game is against a local player who only started playing once we came out of lockdown. He signed up for our league and has said has learnt a lot but even though we have talked about list building and tactics not managed to play each other yet. I was looking forward to finally playing Matthew. I also didn't want to smash him into the ground with my Ion list. Since I would still be helping Matthew with choices and mistakes potentially, I wanted something a little bit fun and interesting to play with. Something that I would not normally use, to try and see if it now has some legs.
My List
Choices
I believe Kallus is a hidden gem and not just in a Vader list to help him have all his good command cards. I just never get the practice with him, so he was my first pick in this list. Veers came down in points recently and is pure support giving out them aims. His 3 pip is the only command card worth taking, with his 1 pip as a contingency if I want to use it. When I put effort into thinking about veers upgrades, I'm not sure they are worth it at the moment. The command cards don't give the most orders out. I'm only generating dodges on 1 turn to be kept but only way to be certain is to try it.
I wanted to try something other than shores and mortars which work with aggressive tactics a lot better. I put in 2 of each of the new heavies. I love the RT-97c with such a big dice pool with precise and veers giving them aims feels good rolling 8 dice from 1 attack. The T-21 is good verse things in heavy cover or armour due to the critical and if I come across armour this is their job. The snow troopers are the thing I want to keep alive and run up the field as fast as I can. The officer makes the unit more expensive but helps get them double moves or actions each turn. I think if people are still taking snows it could be a good idea to take droid poppers as good anti-tank and droid counters.
The Imperial Royal Guard (IRG) are here to help escort snows and scout troopers up the field and will die from guardian most likely which is why there is no heavy option. Now onto the hidden gems of this list hopefully! Two full bomb squads. Scout 3 should enable them to get into a good position for turn 1 to move and throw a bomb onto the centre objective. They have duck and cover because it allows them to always be in light cover and with the new low profile changes means heavy cover still. They can also pop smoke grenades to then make that cover 3 essentially. Light cover from the smoke grenade, suppression increases cover by 1 so that is now heavy and then the new low profile gives them cover 3. I feel they should be tanky enough with white saves to be able to walk up the field throw some bombs and if they also get to shoot the full squad is 10 black dice with sharpshooter 1. Not that I expect a full squad to get a full shot off.
Now the interesting part about this list in my whole opinion was when I went to gather it up and put in my case. I've recently just purchased a Magnarack so started gathering the units together. But I couldn't find my Saboteurs. It turns out I've never used these upgrades or a full squad of scouts since they were in my garage packed away with all my spare legion bits. So the fact the points and rule changes are making me use units I've never used before ever! This has to be a good thing.
Matthews list
Before we started the game, we had to tweak Matthews list. He is still learning list building, for instance he gave Sabine electrobinoculars and had overwatch on the rebel commandos. So did a few changes last minute by dropping these upgrades which are not needed and explained why and squeezed in the heavy on the veterans. The list is not mega competitive but still a great list with lots of things to help him continue to learn the rebel faction.
The last time I played against Jyn was against Jack at the London GT and he won that game and then went on to win the entire event. Even with the lists being nothing alike I was still aware of the problems Jyn could cause me.
Sabine against my gun was going to cause me issues if she gets her bombs off but the melee side of things Kallus could deal with her.
The only other big threats for me to worry about was the Tauntuan's and Pathfinders. The fact he only has one unit of Tauntaun's helps me since I can hopefully shoot it some before it gets to charge. If they do make it and it's not at the same time as Sabine, then Kallus or my IRG can help counter. I've found Bistan pathfinders to do one of two things. Kill lots with the big dice pool and refuse to die in return. Or the attack dice whiff and the defence dice do as well. So I will have to keep an eye on his dice to see how fast I need to try and kill the Pathfinders
Turn 0
Went top down with the battle cards
Matthew had the bid but made me be blue. I think this was more of to make me use my battle deck since I had it to hand rather than his. So wouldn't read into his bid or him choosing to be red.
With him having Sabine, Pathfinders and Jyn I did not want to play recover the supplies so that was my first choice to ban. Matthew didn't like the look of Hemmed in so that was his first ban.
For my second ban I don't mind playing payload but vs rebels I can survive longer due to my red saves so playing intercept seemed more favourable for me. With him having R2 and Tauntuan's I preferred not to play danger close. So chose to ban Rapid Reinforcements. Matthew chose to pass happy with the objective and deployment.
So we played War Weary, Intercept the transmissions, Major Offensive.
Turn 1
Standing Orders vs Standing Orders
With both of us deploying conservative and with neither of us wanting to move first turn 1 was going to be a positioning game. I made the mistakes of moving up with my RT-97c squad too early thinking I would in range. Instead I decided to just double move to the centre objective. What I should have done this with my T-21 squads due to the difference in range. I had my full scout bomb squads on each of my flanks who moved and armed a bomb each. Ready to blow up if Tauntaun's or Sabine decided to start to dive towards me. While the rest of my army advanced towards the middle hogging the wall and crater to keep them in cover. Matthew moved his troopers up behind the building ready to run to the middle objective on any of the scoring rounds. He pulled Sabine quite early and double moved and hid her from the bulk of my army. My snows where able to move and get a shot on her doing 0 damage. Kallus on the other hand did the same and got a wound on Sabine. His Tautuan's went last so managed to move into a position ready to charge next turn.
Turn 2
Explosions vs Ruthless Tactics
Matthew seeing the opportunity of me moving my units together as a great chance to make things explode! after her first move I decided to explore my sabs bombs to at least put some damage on her in return. Unfortunately, I hit her once and she saved while he hit me with my own bomb for 2 and failed both saves so Sabine had already killed 2 before she threw her bombs down! Sabine then threw her bombs hitting 5 units twice and backing off away not to get hit herself. My scouts were left with just the leader, the snowtroopers untouched with just some suppression then 3 more storm troopers fell from the other two squads for total of 5 casualties with a wound on Kallus and 9 suppression since one of the bomb attacks blanked out.
With Sabine not able to hide behind the building with the speed 1 move I spent the whole turn shooting her taking all my army to kill her with the snows getting the final blow.
While my army was dealing with Sabine Matthew's army shot at my unit of scout troopers trying to flank his back objective and wiped them off the board.
Bistan and the pathfinders moved out from the building and scored 8 hits on the royal guard in the open for me to take 5 wounds! I had already guardian a hit so that was another unit removed. Matthew then managed to move a unit of naked troopers and the Tauntaun's charging my unit on the middle objective for him to take the early lead of 2-1.
Turn 3
Assult vs Face me
Matthew decided since the bombs had done a wound to Kallus now was a good turn to play my flaw card. I needed to kill the Tauntan to allow my storms to shoot and kill the rebels making it difficult for him to score in the late game I still chose to play the 1 pip. I didn't wait and double moved and charged the Tauntaun's leaving Kallus in the middle of the field waiting to be shot with two dodges.
Matthews took a shot with the veterans and his rebel troopers backed off the middle objective, so Kallus only took 2 more wounds but did now have 5 suppression.
There was a choice for the path finders to move and shoot but without Bistans dice pool decided to recover and shoot some storm troopers who moved out into the open hoping to repeat what happened to the royal guard. Matthew had some success but not as good since I still had the heavy and the leader left this time.
R2 and C-3PO had been using the distraction of Sabine to move along the same direction and tried to hide inside the building heading for the deployment. I sent my snow troopers to go and deal with the pesky droid and with some grenades and flamer ignoring his heavy cover managed only 2 wounds after saves!
Turn 4
Rebellious vs ISB Investigation
With Jyn moving up at the end of last turn and shooting the remaining two storms the pathfinders didn't kill she was heading to contest the middle objective and Matthew wanted to try and contest so went first moving and shooting the storms in the open and killing two. I decided to go with veers first knowing that pretty much everyone was going to trigger her 1 pip ability so just accept it. She charged into melee and did a wound while I gave out some aims and punched back to do a wound back. She was contesting the middle, but I also had Kallus and two units of storms to help score the middle I just had to keep his rebels from running up to try and contest. So my units just doubled down and aim shot anything they could to either kill or suppress his units. Kallus managed to roll off 1 suppression to make it so he didn't panic but only had 1 action so just stood in the middle and shot some rebels killing 1. I managed to pull my snows before R2 moved so took and aim and move to finish R2 off.
With the naked troopers being shot off the board and Jyn being the only one to contest I outnumber her 3-1 on the middle so now the score was 3-3
Turn 5-6
With us talking lots and talking through unit decisions the store was closing soon so we talked over what was probably going to happen over the next few turns. We come to the conclusion with me having 6 units on the board and Matthew having 5 units left that it would be close and maybe even a draw when it came to scoring on the final turn, but he would most likely lose on points destroyed but without rolling the dice we didn't think it was a solid win for either of us.
Summary
From list match up I thought this would have been easier than it was. I made the mistake of moving the wrong storm trooper units forward when I should have kept them back. I didn't get any use out of my bomb squads which is a shame I had high hopes, but I will put them on the table again and hopefully with more success next time. I feel Matthew played a good game and him explaining why he picked his command cards each turn showed he has been learning lots since I agreed with his decisions at the time. He managed to play Sabines bomb at a great time catching me out as well unfortunately red dice saved it from being even more devastating.
I think Kallus is still good and has potential other than with Vader but not so sure about with Veers next time I'll look at a Kallus and Krennic list.
