This is Game 2 of 2 Scum Wolfpack vs Imperials.

(NB; the visuals used are not pinpoint accurate and are merely a visual aid)

ManOfMonkey is in regular type…. This match will be slightly different from the first in that I’m going to take a back seat on the writing, effectively letting Cpt JB take you through his thoughts of how to overcome what just beat him. (If you missed the first game click HERE)

My list as before:

Flying: Scum and Villainy 97pts

Jump master 500- Contracted Scout, Plasma Torpedos, extra munitions, Overclocked R4, Deadeye, Guidance chips.

Jump master 500- Contracted Scout, Plasma Torpedos, extra munitions, Overclocked R4, Deadeye, Guidance chips.

Jump master 500- Contracted Scout, Proton Torpedos, R4 Agromech, Bobba Fett, Deadeye, Guidance chips.

Captain Jacks Butts (Cpt JB) is Italicised.

Flying: Imperial 100pts

Tie Phantom- Whisper, Advanced Clocking Device, Veteran instincts, Fire Control system, Rebel Captive.

Tie Interceptor- Soontir Fell, Push The Limit, Royal Guard Title, Targeting computer, Autothrusters.

Tie fighter- academy pilot.

Tie fighter- academy pilot.

Start of game: ManOfMonkey takes initiative.

Game two

Rock placement and deployment

ManOfMonkey: I was keen to change tactics in game 2 and would therefore be going for the alpha strike approach. I tried to space the rocks out down one side of the board but Cpt JB managed to counter this and we ended up with a staggered diagonal asteroid field running bottom left to top right. I toyed with setting up the left U-boat facing right to tuck in behind the other two with a view to stagger my firing but in the end I set up the U-boats to my right of the board line astern hoping to slow roll and kill off whatever came into the open space.

Cpt JB: This time I put my game face on and made sure that a central approach was not on with rocks as Monkey put his three at range two of each corner. I placed the Tie fighters as before although gave myself room to at least do a two hard turn in if desired. The three contracted scouts placed down facing the Ties in a row. On the opposite flank I placed Whisper and Soontir together facing the Scout’s deployment edge.

I wanted to give myself the option of either flaking with both Whisper and Soontir or peeling off early an move across board.

Turn one

Cpt JB: The two tie fighters moved speed five straight towards the middle whilst the scouts moved forwards with one peeling off to attempt a hard two next turn to sneak through the rocks in the centre to pop shot at anything trying to circle down the flanks.

Whisper and Soontir both moved two straight forwards to allow options with Whisper cloaking. I had the option to use the de-cloak to either de-cloak straight in the following turn with say a three bank to target the lone Loo boat or a left de-cloak with a bank to target the same ship but out of arc. This could leave me vulnerable to one of the other two loo boats if they were to three bank towards the middle.

Turn two

Cpt JB: Time to get clever with the tie fighters so I hard one turned the closest Tie Fighter towards the scouts and barrel rolled left and hard three and barrel rolled with the other to line up potential blocks in the centre for the next turn. The Scouts all moved as I predicted and I had de-cloaked off to the left with Whisper and followed up with a two bank left. I toyed with barrel rolling to my right to take me out of range of the proton scout but this would leave me vulnerable to a plasma torpedo from the flanking one. Having been in this position before I opted to evade.

Soontir did a straight five forwards and then barrel rolled right towards the board edge to get out of range of the flanking scout. I could have target locked to check range but I had a feeling that I would be in range and didn’t want to be restricted to a hard two manoeuvre to turn back in towards the scout.

Shooting was relatively uneventful as I rolled all of one hit with Whisper but this time when the proton torpedo came my way I rolled three evades to the four incoming hits. The ties both striped a shield off the proton scout.

Turn three

Cpt JB: The two scouts on my left had only one route through the rocks so I decided to block it all up with Tie fighters and let Whisper and Soontir attack the one tippy toeing through the middle. Whisper de-cloaked forwards to slip between a couple of rocks whilst the closest tie Fighter to Whisper did a three bank and a barrel roll left to block up the path for the proton Boba scout. The other Tie fighter did a straight 4 and focused.

This caused the loo boats to clatter into the first Tie fighter whilst the flanking one did a straight one and focused. Whisper did a hard one right behind it and for a moment I thought about going offensive and focusing but decided to play it safe and evade. Soontir did a hard one towards it. I had contemplated a hard two but wanted to play it safe on the off chance that he did something a bit unpredictable like an S-loop.

This meant I was currently in the dead zone of the scout’s arc and I was not sure if a straight one boost would get me into range one safety. I barrel rolled left and then did a one bank boost inwards the scout. My back edge of the base still hung out in it’s fire arc so no auto thrusters. Whisper shot first scoring three hits whilst Soontir rolled a hit and two focus so I reluctantly spent that and dropped the scout to four hull.

In return the other two scouts shot at Whisper from range with their primary weapons to no avail whilst the scout at range one of Soontir got two hits and I rolled two evades. one of my Tie fighters shot the rear most scout at range one scoring three hits.

Turn four

Cpt JB: I wanted to finish the wounded scout off so continued to use the two academies as mobile asteroids. I de-cloaked Whisper to the right between the rocks to the nswing back in and either get range on the wounded scout or possibly a shot on the Proton torpedo one. The tie fighter on my left did a three straight and evaded to block the rear most scout from attacking Whisper whilst the Tie Fighter in the middle did a hard one right and evade to cover the Proton Scout.

This worked perfectly as the both bumped into the Tie fighters whilst the badly mauled one on four hull S-looped to its left.

Whisper did a hard one right and evaded. Soontir did a hard two right and bumped into the scout. I had contemplated doing a two bank but felt that the hard two would be a close run thing for bumping and at least stopped me from getting shot if I did. Whisper opened up at the damaged scout at range three and dropped it down to one hull. I took a plasma torpedo back and I had already spent my focus on dodging a primary attack from one of the other jump masters but he rolled poorly with only three hits and I managed two evades and spent the evade token.

Turn five

Cpt JB: I had jammed the scouts up nicely and just needed to apply the coup de gras to the isolated one. To keep the other two jump masters at arm’s length the Tie on the left did a hard one right and focused. The central Tie fighter did a tie hard one left then barrel rolled backwards left. This covered the Proton scout from either two banking between the rocks towards the conflict as well as if he did a straight manoeuvre across the board. Whisper could only de-cloak straight forwards which left me pondering whether to pull a K turn if the floundering scout decided to S-loop and get a range on kill shot or a safe hard one left which covered any other options.

If he did S-Loop I would bump but I would either be at range three or have rocks between me and the other scouts. As it was he S-looped and Whisper bumped.

This was not a problem as I covered my options by having Soontir do a hard one right, followed by a 1 bank boost and finally a target lock, plus the focus at range one of the stricken scout. I then rolled four natural hits, boom!

The remaining jump masters tried some primary pot shots at Whisper but the volume of defence dice and unmodified primary attacks amounted to nothing. Man of Monkey called it there with all my ships undamaged and his woefully out of position.

Conclusion

Cpt JB: This time I played it much better with everything from rock placement to the moving barricades of the academy Tie Fighters. In hindsight I felt that a better move for me on turn four with Whisper would have been to peel off in the other direction and get behind the scout on the far left being blocked by one of the tie fighters. I still could have chipped away at the other scout I was nobbling with Soontir and the Tie fighters, whilst they gummed up the other two scouts. This would then have left Whisper to do his or her work at the other end and avoid the plasma torpedo even though it amounted to nothing.

As it was I was still in a good position after I destroyed the first scout to re-set Soontir and Whisper and knock out a Scout at a time. Utilising the blocking ability of the tie fighters really paid dividends. It is a longer, slower process but when done accurately and with a bit of practice it is effective. I remember when speaking to James Dowdall of the 186th podcast after our quarter final match at Basingstoke that he said that he found scouts are vulnerable to low Pilot Skill blockers. They also mention a bit about dealing with scouts in Episode 8, (https://soundcloud.com/186th-squadron-podcast/episode-8). Recorded prior to the tournament at Basingstoke.

One of the options I have been toying with recently is bringing back Echo with Veteran instincts. I feel against jumpmasters as well as crack swarm Echo would be stronger in the arc dodging department. The only issue I feel is against other Imperial ace lists running at pilot skill 9 or more and that Whisper is more survivable if it has landed a shot for a free focus. I would also consider going for some kind of initiative bid if running Echo. The benefit of running both Soontir and Whisper as well as the two academy tie fighters is that the initiative choice is not an issue. If the opponent has a PS 9 too like possibly a Soontir Fel they then get stuck between a rock and a hard place about initiative choice, it also allows flexibility with the order of their moves.

Blocking ships work really well and I was recently listening to episode 49 of Nova Squadron radio, (http://novasquadronradio.com/) and around the two hour mark Major Juggler was lamenting the lack of generic ships in the game, excluding Contracted Scouts and black squadron Tie Fighters. Possibly the contracted scout has re-opened the use of generic ships in the meta as much as it has shut down the Twin laser Turrets. Best options available to each faction are:

Rebels:

Prototype A wing 15pts

Bandit squadron Z 95 12 points

Blue squadron novice X Wing T70 24points, (I’ve seen it put to good effect)

VCX 100 with enhanced scopes.

Imperials:

Academy Tie Fighter 12 points

Epsilon squadron pilot Tie/Fo 15 points

Sienar test pilot tie advanced prototype 16 points

Lambda Shuttle, either the basic PS2 or the named ships with enhanced scopes.

Scum and Villainy

Binayre pirate Z 95 12 points, (I would probably stick feedback array on for dealing with Imperials)

M3-A interceptor 14 points, (seriously, it does have a barrel roll to help get a good block in)

Star Viper black sun enforcer 25 points

Contracted Scout with adaptability decrease and intel agent.

Being able to cut down their lanes of travel and effective fire decreases the contracted scout’s effectiveness considerably. This also applies to any ship without actions and putting some lower PS skill generic fighters back into squads could be a useful tool to deal with scouts and other lists trending at the moment.