Eric's Adepticon wrap-up

Adepticon had a Thursday and a Saturday tournament this year, both 3 rounds. I attended both events. Adepticon is always fun and there's so much to see and do, I highly recommend going if you can. This year was the Legion launch party, so FFG was there in force and Legion was selling like hotcakes. This isn't a Legion blog, however, so let's cover the 2018 Adepticon Armada tournaments!

Preparing for Adepticon/wave 7
It became clear to me fairly early on in wave 7 that the type of builds I was seeing locally and online would be rough on my standard competitive fleet archetype (Ozzel with 6+ activations, featuring Raider-Is). Bids, especially on the Imperial side, were going up pretty drastically as players were competing to see who could successfully use Governor Pryce to last+first the other player. That's not an absolute problem for the Ozzel fleet, but I would prefer to go first most of the time; with bids shooting up into the realm of 20+ points in some cases, that was getting unreliable and making further cuts to increase my bid was unpalatable. To further complicate matters, long-ranged double-large-ship fleets with commanders like Vader and Ackbar were coming back into vogue; light ships like Raiders can usually survive attacks using 6-7 red dice, but it's tough to pin your hopes on a "usually" when you're trying to push a large ship over as quickly as possible and need every hand on deck.

To make a long story short, the Ozzel fleet could cut it in the new meta against its scariest matchup - Vader double Cymoons - but it was always very close games and it couldn't take out two large ships and survive to get the victory margins I would need to place well. Plus any mistake is punished very hard against large ships, which means it needed to be run perfectly. I experimented a lot and ended up settling on a Sloane fleet that eventually replaced the standard Avenger ISD-II with the much-weirder Interdictor option, which freed up some points (edit: I need to add, I heard about a similar build online which was originally fielded by Jeremy G.). Sloane right now has the benefit of being good against big ships as well as doing fairly well against other squad-heavy fleets setting out to bomb those big ships. I feel she's weak to a well-run MSU/swarm fleet, but those are scarce at the moment for the reasons I gave already. The Thursday fleet I ran was:

Commander: Admiral Sloane
Assault: Most Wanted
Defense: Contested Outpost
Navigation: Superior Positions

Interdictor Suppression Refit (90)
• Admiral Sloane (24)
• Captain Brunson (5)
• Engine Techs (8)
• Disposable Capacitors (3)
• Targeting Scrambler (5)
• Grav Shift Reroute (2)
• Heavy Ion Emplacements (9)
• Interdictor (3)
= 149 Points

Gozanti Cruisers (23)
• Vector (2)
= 25 Points

Gozanti Cruisers (23)
• Comms Net (2)
= 25 Points

Gozanti Cruisers (23)
• Comms Net (2)
= 25 Points

Gozanti Cruisers (23)
• Minister Tua (2)
• Expanded Hangar Bay (5)
• Suppressor (4)
• Electronic Countermeasures (7)
= 41 Points

Squadrons:
• Ciena Ree (17)
• Colonel Jendon (20)
• Dengar (20)
• Mauler Mithel (15)
• Howlrunner (16)
• Maarek Stele (21)
• Saber Squadron (12)
• Valen Rudor (13)
= 134 Points
Total Points: 399

Now you may say "wait a hot second, didn't Eric write that article about how flotilla spam and Relay abuse needed a nerfing?" I sure did, and I haven't changed my mind about that. When it comes to competitive events, however, you use what you think is strongest because you better believe that's what everyone else is doing too. I'll also admit to being a bit spiteful that my good ol' Ozzel swarm had been put on the shelf for a while and set out to punish the big ships responsible 😁.

The basic idea was fairly simple: Against big ships, gang up on one at a time with the squadrons and Interdictor while the Gozantis run around, abusing Relay so they can stay safe. Against fleets with a decent squadron investment, get the Gozantis in there for flak and shooting support. Thankfully for me being able to live with myself, I faced all fleets using a decent investment in squadrons on Thursday so there was very little "running away all game" nonsense going on with my Gozantis.

The Suppressor Gozanti ideally gives Sloane a head start on blowing up defense tokens for good and is annoying to kill (bordering on impossible in the right circumstances) by a single large salvo. I was expecting a lot of large ships with few individual attacks, so that seemed fine to me.

The Interdictor is very difficult to kill and can quickly strip shields using its HIEs. Against a target without braces (whether naturally or because the squadrons ate it), it'll chew through that ship more quickly than you'd think, and it otherwise can usually drop shields for the squadrons to go after no-shields hull zones quickly in return (usually producing 2 or more of them, making Early Warning System less powerful, but it's still the best defensive retrofit against this fleet). It also offers some tech benefits with Grav Shift Reroute and Targeting Scramblers that come in handy. Not relying too much on defense tokens to save its bacon (instead focusing more on dice shenanigans) is welcome in a meta with a lot of defense token screwage (accuracy generation, Intel Officer, Avenger).

Thursday
So how did all that playing and planning go? I had 3 rounds to figure it out.

Round 1 versus Armand Meza

• Advanced Gunnery, Contested Outpost, Superior Positions
• Armored MC75
• Garm, Strategic Adviser, Caitken and Shollan, Early Warning System, External Racks, Enhanced Armament, Aspiration
• Assault Frigate MKIIB
• Lando, Flight Controllers, Electronic Countermeasures, Gallant Haven
• GR75
• Toryn, Bright Hope
• GR75
• Ahsoka, Comms Net
• Biggs, Jan, 4 X-Wings

(Apparently Armand made a math error because this fleet is slightly over 400 points, whoops)

Armand had a bigger bid (turns out that's not true, but that's fine) than I did and he thought about it for a little while and chose to give me first player. I think his reasoning was that none of my flotillas individually can command that many squadrons first thing and the Interdictor doesn't seem too scary offensively and he assumed my objectives wouldn't be fun for him, especially with Grav Shift Reroute. I chose his Contested Outpos. I deployed on my righthand side and he deployed to meet me with the Interdictor and MC75 steaming towards the station.

In short, the Interdictor and MC75 met over the station and beat on each other, with the Interdictor getting the better end of it due to staying out of double-arcs and keeping the MC75 in its own double-arc (and Brunson and Scramblers too, of course). The Interdictor's Engine Techs allowed it to double-ram the MC75 while keeping most of the return attacks on its shields (and repairing like crazy), which added up very quickly against the MC75. The squadron mini-game went in my favor but not as quickly as I'd like due to the Biggs Ball and Gallant Haven. I was able to quickly dispatch some squads that got outside of the Gallant Haven bubble earlier but after that it was mostly a slog, with a few squadrons (particularly Maarek and Jendon, as I recall) getting in hits on ships.

By the end of the game, I had lost about half my squadrons and I believe one Gozanti but Armand only had one GR-75 left (as I recall, it's getting a bit hazy). A 9-2 win for me.

Round 2 versus Nick Griffiths

• Precision Strike, Fighter Ambush, Superior Positions
• ISD-II
• Jerrjerod, Intel Officer, Gunnery Team, ECM, Leading Shots, XI7
• Quasar II
• Squall, Kallus, Ruthless, Flight Controllers, Boosted Comms
• Vader, Zertik, Maarek, Mauler, Morna, Boba

Nick got second place at Gencon last year running a similar fleet (double ISD-Is with light upgrades) and he had a 20 point bid, choosing to go first. We played my Superior Positions and he set up at speed 3 just charging straight ahead. I underestimated the flak potency of that Quasar-II, especially against my Sloane aces, so he blew me out of the squadron mini-game. I took most of his squads down with me, but the ISD-II was able to get the jump on the Interdictor and the dice gods did not favor me with my Interdictor struggling to trigger its Heavy Ions and my Targeting Scrambler not reducing incoming damage, the Interdictor was taken out more quickly than I anticipated. To the Interdictor's credit, the ISD was brought down to half health with nearly no shields remaining, but unfortunately it made a clean getaway.

My Gozantis were able to box in his Quasar and nibble it down to one hull remaining and zero shields. When it realized it couldn't escape the rabid chihuahua mob, he used Jerjerrod's ability to destroy it to deny the chihuahuas their hard-earned meal and prevent me from getting any more Superior Positions points (I clocked in... 2 or 3 total during the game, but they did help!).

Nick won with a 3-8 split. The points I was able to pick up helped keep the loss from being a complete rout, but ouch that hurt. Good game, Nick.

Round 3 versus Marcus Benson

• Most Wanted, Planetary Ion Cannon, Superior Positions
• ISD-II
• Sloane, Avenger, Boarding Troopers, Captain Brunson, Early Warning System, Leading Shots
• Quasar 1
• Pursuant, Flight Controllers, Boosted Comms, Expanded Hang Bays
• Gozanti Cruisers
• Comms Net
• Jendon, Maarek, 3 Defenders, Saber Squadron, Darth Vader, Black Squadron

Marcus beat my bid but gave me first, presumably for the same reasons as Armand. I chose his Superior Positions and set up conservatively at speed 1 on everything. He set up more aggressively, looking to get the fight going on round 2. I mostly took navigate tokens on the first round and got the Interdictor set up to tango with the ISD near some favorable Grav-Shift-moved obstacles, but was able to jump his ISD with Maarek and Jendon and Ciena bottom of round one with the Suppressor issuing a squadron command, which stripped the ISD's brace. Oof, not a good round one for Marcus.

My squadron rolls went very well and Marcus' Defenders were having issues getting the accuracy results they needed to put my aces in the ground (space ground?). The Interdictor stripped the ISD's shields and the Boarding Troopers Avenger super activation mostly just fizzled due to Scramblers and Brunson removing enough damage for it to barely get through the front shields. After that, it was just mopping up the ISD, his remaining squads, and ships with as many rear shots as I could get (the Gozantis once again went after a rival Quasar and took a decent chunk out of it acting as a pack!). At the end of the game, he had destroyed a few squadrons and a Gozanti or two and I had 505 points from tabling him and 7 Superior Positions tokens. Sorry, Marcus. You were a nice guy and your dice really didn't do you any favors. I hope you otherwise enjoyed yourself at Adepticon. It was a 10-1 for me.

Turns out that with 22 tournament points and a bit over 600 points for margin of victory got me second place, behind Nick who beat me round 2. Weird, but that's how it turned out and I was happy to take home the "best Imperial" medal and swag (FFG gave out rewards for "best overall"/first place and then the remaining players who weren't in first were in competition for "best Imperial" and "best Rebel"). Nice!

Shiny Adepticon medal #3!

So what did we learn, kids?
I had a few takeaways from my games on Thursday as well as what I saw at the tournament overall:

• Large ships were everywhere. Of the 16 players on Thursday, my fleet was the only one without a large ship (or two!).
• Squadron coverage tended to be very all or (nearly) nothing. The ships with squadrons went heavy on them generally, with several fleets using none at all or only two.
• I couldn't get over how great the Interdictor did (and I still can't, right now I love the thing and it's so weird to come around on it so quickly, but waves 6 and 7 did a lot for it).
• When I came up against other fleets that were serious about squadrons and had dedicated carriers, the Gozanti swarm struggled to really deliver the knockout squadron blows I really wanted.
• The Suppressor Gozanti was delightfully tough to kill, but getting Suppressor to work with squadrons to remove tokens was a tricky thing and inconsistent. Given its cost, I wasn't really keen on keeping it around if a better use of points could be found.
• The choice of Sloane overall for this event seemed to have borne out given how many large ships I was seeing and the squadron situation - Sloane is happy going against no/very minimal squads (to hit the ships ASAP) and she's happy going against heavier squads (to win the squad minigame ASAP).

With those observations, I resolved to get a Quasar into my fleet and accept a lower number of activations. A better bid could also be circumstantially useful, but I wasn't willing to put in a huge number of points on it to beat out the high-teens and 20+ point bids. I came up with:

Commander: Admiral Sloane
Assault: Most Wanted
Defense: Contested Outpost
Navigation: Superior Positions

Interdictor Suppression Refit (90)
• Admiral Sloane (24)
• Captain Brunson (5)
• Engine Techs (8)
• Disposable Capacitors (3)
• Targeting Scrambler (5)
• Grav Shift Reroute (2)
• Heavy Ion Emplacements (9)
• Interdictor (3)
= 149 Points

Gozanti Cruisers (23)
• Hondo Ohnaka (2)
• Comms Net (2)
= 27 Points

Quasar Fire I (54)
• Governor Pryce (7)
• Flight Controllers (6)
• Expanded Hangar Bay (5)
• Boosted Comms (4)
• Pursuant (2)
= 78 Points

Squadrons:
• Ciena Ree (17)
• Colonel Jendon (20)
• Dengar (20)
• Howlrunner (16)
• Maarek Stele (21)
• Mauler Mithel (15)
• Saber Squadron (12)
• Valen Rudor (13)
= 134 Points
Total Points: 388

So basically I dropped all but one Comms Net Gozanti, added Hondo to it, and used those points on a pretty robust Quasar with Governor Pryce. I ended up with a considerable but not insurmountable 12 point bid. I was a little nervous about taking an untested fleet to Adepticon on Saturday, but I felt like I'd already proven myself well enough on Thursday with second place, so if I didn't do so hot I'd still have a good time and not be too worried.

Saturday
Round 1 versus Mike Bohlmann

• Advanced Gunnery, Hyperspace Assault, Superior Positions
• MC75 Armored
• Bail, Fire Control Team, Electronic Countermeasures, Assault Concussion Missiles, Leading Shots, XX9 Turbolasers, Aspiration
• MC30 Scout
• Sato, Lando, Ordnance Experts, Assault Concussion Missiles, Admonition
• GR75 
• Comms Net
• Gr75 
• Comms Net
• Hera, Luke, Biggs, 2 Lancers

Mike and I have been going to a lot of the same big competitive events in the Midwest for at least a year and a half and we'd chatted but never played each other before. He'd given John a slapping on Thursday and walked away with the Best Rebel medal for his efforts (at 4th place, congrats to Mike!), so he knows what he's about. He had some unconventional choices on Saturday (the 2 Lancers and the ACM+XX9 combination come to mind), but otherwise it was looking pretty solid.

I won the bid and decided to go first. I wasa little scared of Bail given he's effectively something of a counter to Pryce and that MC75 could, in the right circumstances, just crush my Quasar. I chose Superior Positions and set up fairly centrally (where Grav Shift Reroute could mess around with 4 different obstacles) and at speed 1. Mike deployed hard on my right hand side at high speed, trying to outflank me. I chose round 3 for Pryce and Mike chose round 4 for Bail.

I actually remembered to take a picture!

The picture above shows the situation midway into the first round and demonstrates that tightly packed right flank deployment I mentioned.

Anyways, the short version is while Mike was able to take out a few squadrons, the Sloane squadron ball of doom was able to take out most of his squadrons by the end of round 3. That's a rough situation for Sato. Mike was able to also destroy my Gozanti, which wandered into a too-hot area of the battlefield before Hondo could be used 😞. Otherwise, the MC30 made a run on the Interdictor, but neither ship was able to meaningfully do much to the other (I have found this to often be the case with Interdictor versus Admonition - they're just not well-suited to seriously hurting the other, but Admonition needs to beat it before it eventually gets overwhelmed) and the MC75 unfortunately for Mike took a route too circuitous to really use Bail well on round 4. In Mike's defense, he was trying to avoid sailing into the squadron+Interdictor kill zone as well as to avoid overlapping his MC30, so there weren't a lot of good options there. This led to it going up against the Interdictor and a mob of squadrons seeking to attack its rear hull zone as much as possible come round 4 and on to rack up Superior Positions points. In the end, Mike's Admonition and one of his GR-75s survived, but with the Superior Positions points, it was a 10-1 victory for me with a margin of victory just over 300.

Speaking with Mike afterwards, we weren't really sure how things would've gone if he had rushed the Quasar instead of playing it more safe. It certainly would've been worth a try and I'd be interested in seeing how a rematch would go.

Round 2 versus Jaroslaw (Jerry) Skrzypek

• Station Assault, Contested Outpost, Superior Positions
• CR90A
• Jaina's Light, Turbolaser Reroute Circuits
• GR-75
• Comms Net
• GR-75 
• Bomber Command Center
• Nebulon-B Escort Frigate
• Flight Commander, Fighter Coordination Team, Yavaris
• LMC80 Star Cruiser
• Dodonna, Strategic Adviser, Gunnery Team, Leading Shots
• 2 X-Wings,Gold Squadron, Jan Ors, 2 B-Wings

Jerry is one of our Fair Game regulars and he's done very well in past Regionals (he won the Milwaukee Regional a year and a half ago and he came in third recently at the Indianapolis Regional). Jerry tends to like running Dodonna with 2 Liberties or Ackbar with Assault Frigates and sometimes an HMC80, and his list above is a bit unusual for him in that he's going heavier squadron. I assume it's in response to what he saw on Thursday when he brought double ISDs, double Gozantis, and a light squad coverage with Motti.

Jerry outbid me (Jerry has always loved big bids, even before it became popular in early wave 7) and chose to go first. He picked my Most Wanted. He deployed a bit left of my center and I deployed a bit right of center overall. I put Most Wanted on his LMC80 and on my Gozanti. I moved some obstacles and chose round 2 for Governor Pryce. I, of course, forgot to take a picture. Womp.

Jerry was understandably concerned about the Quasar activating tons of squads at the bottom of round 2 and when it became clear he couldn't get the jump on my squads but I could get the jump on his, he used squadron commands and Fighter Coordination Team to pull his exposed squads back. This had the upside of saving his squadrons for dogfighting with mine more later but the downside of exposing his LMC80, which received the brunt of all those squadrons on the bottom of round 2, burning through most of its front shields (it's all the squads could reach) and discarding his redirect. Come round 3 the game pretty much proceeded without too many surprises with the LMC80 and Interdictor squaring off and Yavaris doing everything it could to bring down some of my squadrons (succeeding in destroying 2-3 of them, as I recall, and by the end of the game I had I believe 3 or 4 remaining). The LMC80 and CR90 were brought down by the squadrons and Interdictor and all of his squadrons were destroyed. Yavaris and the flotillas got away. A 10-1 win for me.

Round 3 versus Nick Litrenta

• Blockade Run, Contested Outpost, Solar Corona
• Gozanti
• Comms Net
• Gozanti 
• Comms Net
• Cymoon
• Vader, Relentless, Early Warning System, Gunnery Team Intensify Firepower, Hardened Bulkheads, Minister Tua, H9 Turbolasers, Quad Turbolaser Cannons
• Cymoon
• Avenger, Shields to Maximum, Strategic Adviser, Spinal Armament, XI7 Turbolasers, Gunnery Team, Hardened Bulkheads

Nick had no bid at all, so I took first player and and I chose Contested Outpost. Nick had also gone 10-1 twice so far Saturday (two games where his opponents chose Blockade Run and regretted being stuck fighting in a hallway against a guy with two machine guns) and while I was glad he had done so well I was sad that I had to play against another Fair Game player at the top table because it meant quite likely one of us would be taking the top spot from the other 😟.

Nick deployed many of the obstacles on the right-hand side and then surprise-deployed the Contested Outpost in the back left (my perspective) corner. Grav Shift Reroute was used to pull the station a bit closer to me and off to the left and put an asteroid in the way of one of the Cymoons while giving my Interdictor a clear Brunson-happy path between the Abraham Lincoln asteroids and the bean bag chair asteroids. I chose round 2 for Pryce and otherwise deployment worked as you can see below:

I remembered to take a picture and only the obstacles moved so far!

That Grav Shift Reroute station pull would prove to be decisive. His leftmost (my POV) ISD was unable to both hit the station and turn inwards to threaten my ships, so his leftmost Gozanti had to go for it and it was out of range round 1. By game's end, my own leftmost Gozanti put me at 2 victory tokens over Nick on camping the station, with no big ships bothering to even try.

The big ships were busy fighting it out near that bean bag asteroid in the top middle left. The two Cymoons wheeled in to try to focus their front arcs on my ships and the Interdictor positioned itself to double-arc the Vader flagship (the Chimaera-pattern ISD in the picture).

I was hoping the Interdictor could sneak away after its attacks but it just barely couldn't, meaning it was effectively doomed to keep getting stuck on the outermost ISD and eating attacks. The upside to this situation was that ISD had to keep landing on asteroids and the Quasar was free to make a run-around. With help from some frenzied repair commands, the Interdictor was able to make it through 4 Cymoon front arc shots (half of those at short-medium range) before it was finally taken down by the 5th. Yes, it's that tanky. In return, the squadrons were able to finally eat up that Vader flagship ISD and then everything else made a break for it. The Quasar was taken down by a Vaderless Hail Mary shot from the final Cymoon at long range, but with all my squadrons but Saber Squadron still alive as well as my Gozanti and with a 2 victory token lead on the Contested Outpost, I squeaked out a 6-5 win with a 22 point lead. Phew! Very very close. Good game, Nick, I remain terrified of Vader double Cymoons (even if the squadronless nature of the fleet came back to bite Nick a bit).

So with all that said, there was plenty of good news: I won first place and Nick still took second with Best Imperial. Fellow Fair-Gamer Mike P took 4th with Best Rebel and it was a Fair-Game-dominated medal circle at the end. John also went undefeated with a Leia MSU fleet (even beat Mike P in the final round, just didn't have the tournament points to take the medal), which he discussed in his post and is a laudable feat.

Shiny Adepticon medal #4!

Nick, me, Mike (from left to right)

So overall a very fun Adepticon and I was glad I went. Not just because I did so well, but also for all the camaraderie of hanging out with my Fair Game bros and meeting online people in real life. I definitely plan to return again next year.