I wrote about the run-up to this tournament, my first Prime.

Oh no it’s MSU

My first opponent, Jon from Corvallis, had a multiple small units (MSU) list with Rieekan and medium squads:

  • Admonition (flagship)
  • Jaina’s Light with Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (TRCs)
  • CR90B with Heavy Ion Emplacements (HIEs)
  • A couple flotillas, one with Slicer Tools
  • Corran, Dash, Gold Squadron, Hera, Wedge, and Dutch

So glad I’d practiced against Thomas! This looked like a chance to try again at catching fast small ships.

Deployment. Everyone but my flotilla at speed 2.

Jon had the bid and gave me second player, a good choice for enabling the ol’ last-first, where one of his ships hits me after I’ve activated, then hits me again at the top of the next turn. He chose my Asteroid Tactics objective, so I arrayed the asteroids closer to his edge, where they’d interfere with his approach and give me places to land safely later, maybe even to recover a defense token if I timed it right.

Right away I decided to go after his flagship. I jumped Profundity up to speed three and dashed into the debris field, with a repair queued up for turn two. Both drop ships went down top of turn two.

This was my best drop of the tournament

Jaina’s Light got off a shot on my MC75, but landed too close–at black range. I rolled very well and knocked the first CR90 off the board, I believe by pulling a Structural Damage crit.

Almost a perfect roll

Meanwhile, squads were not much in the fight. Jon’s Hera and the evil Dutch/Wedge twins were on the far right, while my own Dutch/Wedge combo loitered patiently behind my MC75, ready to pounce on bombers who got too close. My VCX was valiantly doing its job on the side of the Profundity, occupying Dash and Corran thanks to Advanced Transponder Net (ATN). My generic Y-wing queued up close to my flotilla, waiting its turn to be a bomber shield.

End of turn 2. Mon Karren lies in wait.

Turn three, Admo opened up on the Profundity and wiped out a lot of shields (I think with External Racks), but wasn’t lined up for the double arc. Now that we had equal activations, I could wait out the rest of his fleet. After his last activation, the HIE CR90 ended up awful close to the 75, so I had another full barrage to unleash and delivered another almost-perfect roll. One hull left on the CR90B. It would get one last shot next turn.

I think the 75 got jostled into Admo’s side arc after the fact!

Admo went first in turn four and hammered the 75 again, taking ram damage in the process. My memory is fuzzy, but some combination of shots from the dying Profundity and its buddies wiped out both Admo and the last CR90. Thanks to Rieekan, the CR90 lived on in zombie mode for the rest of the turn, but at this point the game was decided. I’d tabled his fleet, having destroyed all the non-flotilla ships. This was a first for me, even in a casual game–to win with this way so many enemy units still on the board.

The end

Jon mopped up my Y-wing for ten more points, which can matter in a tournament like this. The total margin-of-victory (MOV) points you accumulate in your matches are the tiebreaker. In the end, it was a 9-2 victory for me. I could hardly believe it! But I quickly realized when Matt called me to table three for the next match that I would be facing one of the top players. Maybe not ideal to win your first match so decisively?

Learning

Looking back, I think Jon’s squads could have made a difference if he’d been able to get them closer to the action faster. Keeping his CR90B away from the big ships also might have been a better choice once Admo was trapped, so that he could reduce the chance of being tabled, while his squads went to work.

I got some very good rolls against both his CR90s. I can’t always count on that, in particular given I have no way to fix dice other than my blacks on the MC75. I was also pretty lucky not to get double-arced by Admonition.

ATN did its job this game, keeping bombers off the Profundity and probably buying it a turn. Ordnance Pods was ok. It did some damage to Corran and Dash, and maybe deterred Gold Squadron. But in the end killing ships was the decisive factor and the Pods didn’t help with that, whereas External Racks might’ve brought Admo down sooner.