Taking Gallant Haven to Game Night

I took my Gallant Haven based list in to Game Night at the FLGS and got in a couple of games.  Take a look at the list here.  Then, read below for the battle reports.


My opponent had 2 heavily upgraded ISD-IIs, with ECMs, Gunnery Teams, XI7s, and Overload Pulse.  One had the Avenger title and Screed on board.  He also had Rhymer, Vader and 3 TIE Bombers.  I had the lower point total and opted to go first, deciding that we would play Precision Strike.

I setup to fly from left to right across the board, with my squadrons clustered around the Gallant Haven.  He setup across from me looking for an early clash.

I felt pretty good about my positioning in this one.  I had the advantage in ships and squadron numbers, although the firepower on his ISDs definitely outweighed mine.  The 1st turn saw both of us move up, with his Rhymer ball moving off towards the Yavaris.  I kept my squadrons between us, but still in range of the Gallant Haven.

Turn 2 saw the action get started.  I moved up Yavaris, even though the Gallant Haven had a long range shot.  He activated the Avenger, which was in the lead of his 2 ISDs, and shot me at long range, while having the Rhymer ball hit the Yavaris.  He put some hurt on the Yavaris, but it survived.  The Gallant Haven then activated and with its squadron command hit the Avenger pretty hard.  The Scurrg was effective here and I was able to reset it with Adar Tallon for another hit later.  Defiance chipped in some damage as well.  In the squadron phase I was able to tie up the Rhymer ball with some X-Wings.

The top of turn 3 saw the Gallant Haven activate first and kill off the Avenger with some squadrons, before hitting the other ISD at long range.  It then moved up after firing back.  The defiance was able to keep the Haven's shields topped off before smacking the ISD with its own guns, while the Yavaris enabled the X-wings to start double tapping the Rhymer ball, with Vader being the first to die.

The Yavaris went first in Round 4, before being finished off by the ISD.  The Assault Frigate and MC-80 then combined to kill off his last ship securing the win.

The Gallant Haven title didn't come up much in this game, but the Projector Experts were useful at keeping it alive anyways.  I was really pleased with the performance of the Scurrg.  Good firepower and much easier to use than a B-Wing.

Game 2 - My next game ended up as a near mirror match!  My opponent had an MC-80 with Garm and Projector Experts, an Assault Frigate with Gallant Haven and Adar Tallon, and Jan Ors plus other squadrons!  The biggest difference was my inclusion of Yavaris, while he had many other upgrades.

He had the lower point total, but opted to have me go first.  I again chose Precision Strike as our objective.

I deployed my self in to a line with the Yavaris to the inside of my formation.  He deployed slightly more spread out to my left.  I decided that my strategy was to steer my line towards the back corner of his Assault Frigate.  I knew that I wanted to be patient with my squadrons and keep them near my Gallant Haven until we were at extremely close range.

He followed a similar strategy with his squadrons and we closed with each other fairly slowly.  I opted to mostly ignore my squadron orders as I didn't want to move them too early.

Turn 3 finally saw us in range of each other for some long range shots.  We both stripped some shields from the Assault Frigates, although my activation advantage meant I was able to use Projection Experts to restore mine.  The turn ended with our squadrons huddling near the protection of the Gallant Havens.

Turn 4 finally saw the beginning of the squadron clash.  Both Jan Ors were busy reducing the damage and nothing too serious was done.  Long range fire from the ships was stripping away some shields and finally some hull damage to his Gallant Haven.  His MC-80 was out of position to do anything too serious, while my Defiance was able to chip in some damage and keep everyone's shields topped off. 

At the top of 5 I was able to activate Yavaris first and use Jan Ors to hit his Gallant Haven with her, the Scurrg, and Dutch dropping it's shields and hitting for a crit.  The Yavaris was then able to do the final points of damage killing it.  My other ships were out of range of his MC-80, so they unloaded on his squadrons, which without his Gallant Haven's protection I was able to start mopping up.

The Defiance was able to use Projection Experts to keep Yavaris alive, even if he nearly killed it with his MC-80.  In the end I was able to get most of his squadrons while only losing one X-wing.

So, all in all I was pretty happy with the list.  The core idea was to have the X-wings act as Escorts, while Jan and Gallant Haven kept them alive.  Then the MC-80 was there to use Projection Experts to keep Gallant Have alive.  And it actually worked pretty well!  I feel like the list can play more aggressively than a traditional battle line.  Also, if someone tried to get in front of me and block my line, the squadrons should tear them up!

Other thoughts:

• Jan Ors is amazing.  The combination of handing out Brace tokens and the Intel ability is just fantastic.  She even rolls a Black die against ships!  She definitely figured into some key moments in that second game.

• Jan also gives me a reason to play generic X-Wings, which is great as I haven't used them much.

• The Scurrg was really, really good.  There were several instances between the 2 games where it was able to make an attack run that would have been out of range of a B-Wing.  The fact that it can keep up with X-Wings and Jan is gravy.  I'm not sure if I'd rather have 2 Scurrgs or 3 Y-Wings.

• Garm was a good fit with this list, but I did miss Ackbar's extra dice at times.  I may try to re-work it as an Ackbar list.

• Defiance was good, but I still prefer Home One.

• I could also see dropping the MC-80 for 2 Nebs with Projection Experts.