I'm prone to making errors when I play games while lacking sleep, so I adjusted my expectations accordingly. As with everyone else, my goal was to finish in the top 4 and win a wave 2 prize. But, given my mental state and the fact I haven't played much the past couple of weeks, I was feeling okay if this event was just a warmup for the other 2 Massing events I would play in this weekend.
I had decided to play a variant of the list I took to GenCon. I dropped a couple of upgrades from the Assault Frigates to replace the CR-90 with a Salvation. I wanted a ship that would add a little more firepower to my fleet. The plan was to use the 2 Assault Frugates as a battle line and keep the Salvation away from the fight as a reserve. I would move the Salvation in behind my line to hopefully help finish off any ships that were wounded by my battle line.
My first opponent, Damian, had brought a fleet with 2 Assault Frigates supported by 6 squadrons. He chose to go first and selected the Dangerous Territory objective. I tried to bunch up the objectives to make it easiest to take advantage of. He setup to my middle right and I deployed my battle line in the middle with the Salvation to the left in position to grab some objectives and then get into the fight.
Both of our lead frigates took the brunt of the shooting, but by going second, I was able to get the first shot. We traded broadsides while his fighters got some shots in as well. Eventually, I was able to batter one of his Assault frigates to death, while mine escaped his fighter cloud with heavy damage. Some other shots were traded, but in the end only one ship and seven squadrons were killed. The Salvation arrived as planned, but there wasn't a good target for it to engage. I earned an 8-2 win, which had me off to a great start.
The second game my opponent, Michelle, had brought 3 Assault Frigates. She deployed in a line abreast to the corner in my left side. I set up to skirt around her line to the middle with my Assault Frigates, while Salvation was set to my right to come in later in the game.
She chose to be second player and I selected advanced gunnery as our objective. The game started off with my plan working out. I was able to fire at her nearest ship with both of mine, while limiting return fire. The Awings made an early attack run and stripped some shields, but then otherwise avoided getting shot down and giving up points.
Her furthest left Assault Frigate was effectively blocked out by her other ships and never fired a shot in the game. Eventually I was able to kill her nearest ship, while having my beaten objective ship escape to repair. The Salvation arrived as planned, but without any wounded targets to attack. .
Nothing else was near enough dead and so we simply disengaged the last two turns and no combat occurred. I ended up with a 7-3 win. Even though Salvation hadn't fired a meaningful shot yet, I still felt good about my overall p,an.
My final round was against Chris, the only Imperial player at the event. He had brought along a fleet consisting of 3 Gladiators. Rather than Screed with ACMs, his fleet was led by Tarkin and had 2 ships with Expanded Launchers, Sensor Teams, Intel Officers, and Engine Techs one of which was Demolisher. I chose to go first and picked Advanced Gunnery again. He positioned to my right in the corner and I setup my battle line towards the middle, with the Salvation to my left. He used his Engine Techs to rush in on me on the second turn. My lead Assault Frigate took a beating, was able to escape. My return fire was mostly ineffective as I was rolling too many accuracies. One roll saw 4 out of 6 dice come up accuracy!
His aggressiveness was getting him some good shots on me, but also got his ships pretty jammed up. He ended up doing some bumping. He was able to get some solid hits on and eventually kill my flagship! This is where the Salvation lived up to its name and my tactic payed off. After he killed my ship he was left with 2 Gladiators parked directly in front of the Salvation. I even had him double arced. By shooting at the end of one round and the beginning of the next, the Salvation easily cleaned up the damaged ships. I even used an intentional ram to keep his ships in front of me. My tactic paid off and I pulled out a 7-3 win. This was a great close game.
So, that left me with 22 tournament points, which tied for the lead with my second round opponent. I was pretty exhausted and knew that she wanted the MC-80, while I wanted the ISD. We opted to handshake the 4th round and call it a night.
All in all, it was a great time and I was looking forward to the next Massing at Sullust event the following day.
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