First Game With Wave 3 & 4 Ships

I'm home from GenCon and have mostly gotten my loot unpacked.  I decided to head down to the FLGS for the Armada night to try out the Wave 3 & 4 ships.




I decided to use a slight variation of the fleet that I had entered into FFGs fleet design contest.  I swapped out a Gunnery Team to upgrade a squadron to Luke.  Having just gotten a new promo Luke at GenCon, I figured I would give him a try.

MC-80 Star Cruiser
Liberty
Skilled First Officer
Leading Shots
Nav Team

Assault Frigate MKIIb

Garm bel Ibis
Paragon

Nebulon-b Escort Frigate
Yavaris
Fighter Coordinator
Fighter Support Team

GR-75 Transports
Bright Hope
Toryn Farr
Bomber Command Center

Jan Ors
Luke
2x X-Wing
2x Y-Wing

I played Chris, who was fresh off a 3rd place finish at GenCon and also trying out some new Imperials.  He had something like:

ISD II
Admiral Konstantine
ECM
Veteran Gunners
XI7s
Tractor Beams
Relentless

Interdictor Combat
Interdictor
Tractor Beams
G8 Grav

Gozantis
Slicer Teams
Title?

Dengar
Mithel
Soontir
2x TIE Advanced

I chose to go first and picked Contested Outpost.  I figured I would see how the Liberty could do rushing the outpost while supported by the other ship0s in the fleet.  He placed the Outpost in a corner, which really restricted the game to a tight space.

I setup with Liberty on one side, Paragon the other, and the small ships and squadrons in the middle.  I figured to have the larger ships rush up each flank in a pincer, while the squadrons came up the middle.

I used to play Garm all the time, but hadn't used him in a game in a very long time.  It was fun to have him as Admiral and start the game by loading up on tokens.

Chris ran the ISD as his point and was trying to use the Interdictor and Gozanti to support it.

I was able to close in on the ISD from both flanks, although both of my larger ships were taking a pounding.  The squadron battle was going really well for me.  Toryn Farr got me several more damage throughout the game with re-rolls and Yavaris had the X-Wings double tapping to take out his squadrons pretty quickly.  I did misplay Luke and got him killed with out ever doing anything.

The ability to shoot with the Nebulon's anti-squadron fire (that was boosted by Toryn Farr) before rearranging the X-Wings with FCT, and unleashing Yavaris was a great combination.

Eventually I beat down enough of his squadrons that the Y-Wings took some shots at the ISD.  The Bomber Command Center turned a blank in to a hit/crit.  Brilliant!

The combined fire of Paragon and Liberty were able to take down the ISD before eventually killing the Interdictor as well.  Liberty did go down at the end, but really hit hard on the way out.

A couple of thoughts:

• I liked the Liberty a lot.  It makes great use of Garm's tokens.  It has a good combination of firepower and speed, but really shouldn't be charging the enemy fleet head on.  It hit's hard at medium range, but not as well at long.  It can take a couple of big punches, but seemed more susceptible to being ground down than the Home One.

• I hadn't used Paragon in a long time.  It worked great when it wasn't the biggest threat on the table.

• Yavaris+Fighter Coordinators+FCT will be a common combo.  It's just amazingly effective for both anti-ship and anti-squadron work.

• Toryn Farr was outstanding.  I expected great things from her and was not disappointed.

• The Bomber Command Center was also good, although I didn't do a ton of bombing.  It's a great insurance policy though.

• Chris brought a ton of speed manipulation.  He was just trying it out, so it wasn't super effective.  It definitely needs to be used with a plan and not just for the sake of having it.  Objective selection will really be important with that kind of tech.
• I really like the Interdictor as a gunship.  4 dice per arc will make from some strong double arc potential.  My first few games will likely focus on getting the most out of it in combat before moving on to the fun upgrades.
• I already think that a Vader-Interdictor-Arquitens fleet will be awesome when Wave 5 hits.