This was a recent match I played as part of the X-Wing Vassal League, a free-to-join league for online X-Wing play involving over hundreds players from around the world.
My list
https://raithos.github.io/?f=Separatist%20Alliance&d=v6!h=200!334:204,,,,,,,216,:;272:204,,,,,,,,:;305:,,207,229:&sn=Unnamed%20Squadron&obs=I’d flown this a couple times before this match, going back and forth between Impervium Plating on Grievous and Hull Upgrades on the Scimitars, so this match was part of that ongoing experiment. Maul’s double taps and Dooku’s cloaking hijinks are both pretty strong, and Grievous is generally pretty useful and occasionally resilient with the modification. I’m still trying to get a stronger feel for Dooku in particular, as well as how aggressively I can safely play Maul and Grievous; my prior match to this involved a one turn kill on Grievous that made me want to play a bit safer with him here.
Opponent's list
https://raithos.github.io/?f=Rebel%20Alliance&d=v6!s=200!33:,,46,61,,140:;32:,,61,,,140:;73:,,,,,:;5:132,,,,142:&sn=Unnamed%20Squadron&obs=Not quite a standard Rebel beef list. Like many Rebel beef players, my opponent has added at least one named B-Wing to the list, supporting Braylen with Cassian to keep Braylen’s dial and actions open. Swarm Tactics Wedge is fairly common and usually fairly annoying; in many situations, this shuts off the opportunity for a key initiative kill, which means managing more incoming damage and possibly taxing tokens a bit more. The second U-Wing is more unusual; this list opts for two U-Wings, both with Tactical Officer for free action sharing, and Leia on Heff Tobber. The list is 200 points, but I don’t think the bid is particularly necessary for Wedge.
Opening strategy
Without Wedge and Braylen, the rest of this list doesn’t hit particularly hard and is manageable maneuver-wise by my ships, so my target priority is definitely on those two. I decide beforehand that I’ll tentatively prioritise Braylen first, but in hindsight this is almost certainly wrong; against my 1 agility ships, the damage output between these two is very comparable, and Braylen is tankier even without his rerolls (which in most cases should be assumed to always be live). Killing Wedge first shuts down Swarm Tactics, keeps Grievous a bit safer, and gives Maul more breathing room, with the biggest downside being that committing to Wedge might mean wasted turns from being arc dodged (bringing his survivability up again). Heff is my third priority target, but I’m not terribly scared of being punished by Leia once one of the heavy hitters is gone, so he is strictly a target of opportunity for me. Cassian is low priority in this match.Deployment
I give him first player, which is mostly relevant at initiative 4. Grievous isn't the world's best arc dodger but it certainly is nice when he can pull it off.
Normally I corner my obstacles with this list, but after he sets his first rock against one edge but a bit further up field (1), I follow suit on the other side (2). I like this a bit better against Rebel beef and similar lists as it makes their list have to either move further up the board to turn in to the middle unless they decide to run along their starting edge. I corner my next obstacle (4), and then opt to place my last one near centre (6), again mostly to disrupt the Rebels if they choose to turn into the middle, as well as provide a relatively safe place for my Scimitars to turn around.
He sets up in the corner along the more open side of the board. I would have liked this side myself because it's a bit more open past the gas cloud in my corner, but this isn't too bad. I set up using the basic opening I've developed for this list, which allows me to slow roll with Maul and Grievous while allowing Dooku to be responsive to the opponent's opening and force confrontation.
You'll note that my opponent also deployed his lower initiative pilots closer to the outside and his higher initiative inside. This is typically somewhat to very problematic and you should probably avoid doing this unless you have a specific opening designed around it. If you've ever flown a TIE Swarm and put your Academy in the back corner and Howlrunner on the inside corner, you have probably learned this lesson already!
I'm pretty satisfied with Turn Zero here. I'm anticipating my opponent to run along the top of the board, which means I'll be hanging Dooku back while sprinting Maul and Grievous along the bottom and then up the opponent's starting edge to get behind them and at least force a Leia turn before the engagement, ideally eliminating the Leia advantage on the follow-up turn to the opening engage.
None of this comes to pass.
Turn 1
I decloak toward the bottom, and he turns into the middle with his first two ships, suggesting a plan to come up the middle through the obstacles. I consider whether this might actually mean a plan to come down his side of the board, but decide that if this was his plan, he would have Leia'd and 90 degree turned the U-Wings to keep them near the board edge. He's going to brave the obstacles, which is a surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one. I don't see a need to deviate from my slow opening, so Dooku recloaks and Grievous blocks Maul as the rest of his ships confirm his intent to drive up the middle.
Of note, I could have decloaked towards the top to try to set up a flank, but I really want him to have to deal with Dooku before interacting with my other ships. I'm generally happy taking some early damage on Dooku in order to encourage the opponent to continue to commit to him later.
Turn 2
His ships continue into the middle; given their positioning, I see that his approach is off and he's going to have problems. Ah, the simple joys of flying mixed base sizes on different initiative counts through an obstacle field! I see the opportunity to get some damage on his ships before he can engage with everyone (Wedge is really clogged up by rocks and U-Wings and I don't anticipate him getting into the fray), so I decide that next turn I can be more aggressive than originally planned. I'd already abandoned the idea of running Maul and Grievous along the bottom in favour of the right board edge, anticipating the above issues, but now I start to plan for a more aggressive Grievous play the following turn.
Turn 3
I decloak Dooku right. I'd love to leave him cloaked, but I think he just won't get shot at (nor will he get to shoot), and since I think he won't be shot at by too many other ships, I'm happy to take a shot or two here uncloaked.
No Leia, but Heff still closes the wings and turns south while Cassian banks down toward Dooku. I'd love to lock Braylen here but he's too far, so I settle for the 1 agility Heff instead. I advance Grievous and try to eyeball the range; I'm not sure I'm shooting and boost up with focus. Being conservative might have been preferable but I didn't want to offer up too many free shots on Dooku. This does leave Grievous with somewhat awkward options for next turn, but my thinking is that even if I can't press against Braylen, pursuing Wedge might become viable.
Maul is too far back to do much but lock a gas cloud; 3 banking might have gotten him a shot, but it would have bumped Grievous had he not boosted, and I wasn't sure Grievous was going to be doing that boost or not. This is unfortunate but by no means a big deal. Wedge bumps for the third turn in a row but has incidentally gotten himself back to a near 45 degree angle with a few viable options for next turn (specifically, 2+ forward or 1 bank left).
Braylen opts to shoot Dooku and gets 2 shields, while Grievous shoots back and also scores 2 shields from the B-Wing. Cassian shoots Dooku, who natties out of any damage, and Dooku takes down Heff's shields; I spend my lock to do so, assuming that I'll perhaps be locking something else next turn anyway.
Turn 4
Now that we're out of the opening and into the midgame, I'm not 100% on my opponent's plan this turn. Heff seems like he'll be turning in or banking into Cassian's rear end to clear stress; my thoughts are that he'll do the former so that Cassian can 1 bank into the middle. Wedge I anticipate either going fast forward or doing the bank, and my sense is that he'll bank to follow Braylen. Braylen I'm uncertain on; I would love to see the 2K here but I can't see him doing that, so I basically just decide to bring Grievous and Maul forward and assume one of them will bump.
I leave Dooku cloaked. I'm not sure if he's taken enough damage for my opponent to feel committed enough to shoot him while cloaked yet, but I worry about where the reposition+move will leave me given Wedge's position. A decloak left + forward is going to hit a gas cloud, and if I don't also bump a U-Wing, that's 2 to 3 shots coming into Dooku uncloaked.
Heff decides to keep stress and turn in, with Cassian going straight and coordinating focus to Braylen. I'm pretty happy with this, as Cassian's position for next turn is not ideal (and even this turn is not great for him). I bank into Heff with Dooku, denying one incoming shot. Seeing the lay of the land at this point, I anticipate that Wedge will be going 1 forward, smashing Dooku but allowing me a shot back into Cassian. Not ideal, but not awful.
I 2 forward with Grievous and decide to boost left, guaranteeing a shot on Heff and threatening Wedge. I also link a focus; this will be costly for next turn's options, but I want the damage badly, as a lucky break here could kill Heff. Braylen goes 4 forward with stress; I imagine he'll be clearing that stress with Cassian and Tallon rolling next turn. Maul goes 1 forward, doesn't bump, and locks Braylen. I consider locking Heff but decide to stick to my original plan. Getting half points on Braylen here seems fine either way. Wedge 1 forwards and focuses with no reposition, which makes Grievous' plan on who to attack straightforward!
Cassian shoots at I6 thanks to Swarm Tactics, opting to shoot at Maul, and I roll another double evade to avoid any pain. Wedge passes his shot; the Dooku cloak has worked out quite nicely.
Maul has a range 1 on Braylen and a range 3 on Heff. I start with Braylen, rolling a crit and three blanks. Spending the lock gives me Crit-hit-hit, and saves me any dilemmas on spending force. Braylen's reroll gets him an evade, but he's now at half points. Maul double taps into Heff and spends his third force on that attack to convert an eyeball for three hits total, resulting in 2 more damage to Heff (who is now at 3 hull). Braylen shoots back at Maul, knocking down 2 shields and giving Maul two force back.
Had Heff taken all 3 damage and been at 2 hull, I may have been tempted to shoot him with Grievous this turn. The shot is obstructed and I'm confident I'm in Heff's arc, which makes doing 3 damage a long shot (roughly 1-in-10 odds). I'll settle with smashing Wedge at range 2 (sporting a 92% chance of doing at least one damage). Unfortunately, my rerolls fail me and Wedge natties out (payback for all of my previous natural evades!), and I do no damage. Alas! Heff then shoots at Maul and costs me a force but no damage.
Turn 5
All things considered, the opening has been favourable to my side. I've taken relatively little damage (just 2 shields off of both Scimitars) while getting half points on both the B-Wing and Heff. My Scimitars are both in decent position, although Grievous' stress is inconvenient. I just need to avoid making any major errors now!Looking at the positions, I decide that this will be the Leia turn. I figure Heff will be rotating 180 degrees to shoot at Dooku's K-Turn. There's a possibility he goes 4 forward and hopes to fit in between Dooku and Braylen (in order to open up space for Wedge to advance), but I don't think I'm confident he can fit and so assume he isn't either. Cassian I expect to rotate 180 degrees. Braylen will presumably be Tallon rolling to his right or getting a coordinated barrel roll and K-Turning. Wedge is a mystery to me; he might go forward to try to occupy Dooku's current space, he might K-Turn into that same position, he might hard turn to the right to catch Dooku's K-Turn, or he might hard turn left and hope not to hit that rock. I'm not sure that he can do the latter.
Given the above, I decide to be fairly conservative. The Dooku K-Turn will leave me taking shots from at least two U-Wings, but only one will be modded. Wedge shooting Dooku would be unfortunate, but the cloak will hopefully keep him from getting too burned. Grievous should be safe to 2 bank in, hopefully smashing Heff's flank with a kill shot (and perhaps boosting in for a shot elsewhere if things don't go as predicted). I go back and forth on Dooku between the K-Turn and slooping right, but worry that Wedge hard turns and blocks the K-Turn; bumping on a red maneuver like that is disastrous for the Scimitars. I opt for the sloop as it looks to be basically unblockable.
Things do not go according to plan.
Activation begins with no Leia. This is alarming. Heff banks left 3, scraping by the asteroid with no damage, and now I panic, as he's parked right on top of the landing site for my unblockable Maul sloop. It's a disaster, largely caused by putting a bit too much certainty on my predictions for the turn. Cassian banks left, which I also wasn't expecting but am not terribly concerned about. It does, however, put a gas cloud between him and Dooku, and his position is now much less hampered by the obstacles.
Dooku K-Turns safely (that one was unblockable, at least), and Braylen does the K-Turn. I hadn't thought it would fit, but it's not a huge deal at any rate. I bank in with Grievous, leaving him right in front of Wedge. It would block a 1 forward, but I don't think he's going to do that, so I boost left, which blocks a few of Wedge's potential moves to pursue Dooku as well as sets him up nicely for next turn.
Maul bumps with stress, which is as disastrous as I feared, leaving him being shot at by at least the B-Wing and doomed to be irrelevant for the next few turns, if not the rest of his life. I catch a break as Wedge 4 forwards, just barely clipping the gas cloud.
It turns out that only Braylen shoots, and he rolls very poorly. Maul spends a force but takes no damage. Numbers-wise, I'm no worse off, but positionally I have all but lost my heaviest hitter.
Turn 6
Maul's entire plan has now changed. The goal is no longer to deal damage en masse, it is now to waste as many opponent attacks as possible before dying. Grievous and Dooku will need to play a bit more aggressively in order to secure some kills before I lose Maul for good and the opponent snowballs.Predicting this turn is generally straightforward; I assume that basically all three non-Heff ships are going to chase Maul in some capacity. Heff is the real question mark; I would love to be able to at least get a target lock this turn so that if Maul is intact next turn, he can do some damage before he goes. Once again, the question is whether or not this will be a Leia turn, and whether or not Heff will try to clear stress. I'm really uncertain about any of it, so I dial a 3 forward for Maul and hope that it at least gets some distance from Cassian to mitigate at least one shooter. As for my other ships, I've got limited options unless Dooku decloaks to swerve out of the way of Grievous, so I plan for that, looking to turn them both toward the centre of the board and kill some ships (or at least retake a more dominant board position).
I decloak right with Dooku (jamming Cassian with the title) and go one forward; I would have gone faster but I wasn't sure if the decloak would put me far enough south to hit that asteroid, so I'd dialled safe. Heff banks left, and for the second time I'm caught a bit flatfooted from the U-Wing (although I really have no excuse this time). Cassian hard turns into Maul and clears the jam, while Dooku moves one forward and locks. I'm not entirely certain where Braylen will be going, but the gas cloud will prevent Wedge from having any actions, so I know he'll be in Dooku's arc, and so he gets the target lock.
Braylen advances 3 forward and focuses, and I once again kick myself for my poor Maul dial; the 2 bank right would have been far better, even though ultimately it would have bumped too! Grievous hard turns toward the board centre with a focus, and Maul bumps into Heff (we both forget to give Heff an action here, although I'm not certain he had anyone close enough to coordinate, so it costs him perhaps a target lock). Wedge then does a 2 hard left, bumping into Cassian.
Braylen shoots Maul at I6, just barely catching the Scimitar in arc, stripping the rest of Maul's shields. Wedge adds a crit, leaving Maul with a Weapons Failure; my thought is that getting Maul another shot alone is a problem, let alone getting full dice.
Grievous has range 2 shots on all three ships, and here I decide to shoot Braylen. I strongly consider shooting Wedge, given his lack of tokens, but the follow-up shot from Dooku would be obstructed by the gas cloud, so I opt to focus down Braylen and hopefully finish him this turn, although given the reerolls, it's a long shot.
Grievous gets 2 damage in on Braylen. Cassian shoots at Maul and deals 2 more there, leaving the Scimitar at 3 hull. Dooku shoots at Braylen at R3 and ends up doing no damage, so Braylen survives with 2 hull. I begin to seriously revisit my pregame strategy of taking down Braylen first!
Turn 7
Maul is basically doomed, unless I can really catch the opponent off guard here. I have to assume that Heff is either banking left to block my sloop right and perhaps my K-Turn (which I'm pretty sure wouldn't fit anyway), and the other sloop leaves Maul really vulnerable and unable to take a meaningful last shot, thanks to the Weapons Failure. The best I can do here is to dial something lousy enough not to bother blocking/pursuing and hope to regroup and get one more shot in this game.Grievous and Dooku are in a slightly awkward position. I once again just generally assume that Braylen, Wedge, and Cassian will be advancing to finish Maul, and decide to have them both bank in (3 bank left for Grievous, 2 bank left for Dooku). Dooku will lose an action, but I'm locked on Wedge, so that's pretty much fine. There's a possibility that this is a Leia turn and those ships turn to shoot at Dooku/Grievous, but I decide this is an acceptable risk, and given my maneuvers, I'll likely be bumping enough that the fire will be split and it will be a relatively even exchange if it does happen.
Heff does a 2 hard left, removing one Maul attacker, and Cassian bumps to go nowhere. Dooku banks in, landing in front of the rock and almost bumping Wedge (not that this would have changed anything). Braylen advances 3 forward takes a focus, and barrel rolls left; my opponent was anticipating Maul to sloop left or hard turn left? My hope for Maul's survival begins to climb, with an unmodded Cassian shot the sole threat so far.
Grievous 3 banks in, clipping the gas cloud by a pixel and losing his action. Maul hard turns right, repairing the Weapons Failure in a moment of optimism. Wedge performs a 2 hard left, bumping Cassian. This is a disastrous error for Wedge; had Grievous been able to focus, there would have been a very real chance of Wedge dying (35%), but even as it stands, Wedge has a 17% chance of getting one-turn killed.
Cassian shoots at I6, dealing a single crit, a Fuel Leak. It's a fatal draw for me; Wedge follows up with another single crit getting through, which pops the fuel leak and does exactly fatal damage to Maul. A single bumped sloop has indeed doomed Maul to die without ever shooting again!
Grievous attacks Wedge at range 1, rolling a crit and three eyeballs; the gas cloud has cost me badly. I reroll into a final roll of hit-crit, which both go through to strip Wedge's shields. Dooku follows up with 2 more hits and a crit, but it's a Disabled Power Regulator, and so Wedge survives with one hull remaining. I hem and haw on whether to spend a force to take an action with Dooku after this shot, but that would be my last remaining force, and I don't want to be on zero force next turn (although in hindsight, the anticipated init 6 attacks would have fixed that problem next turn). I strongly considered cloaking to set up my next turn, but ultimately chose not to.
Turn 8
Losing Maul has undone a lot of the early advantage I had from the favourable opening; where I might have been able to snowball early, I'm now needing to kill ships quickly in order to stabilise and move to a winnable endgame. An annoying trait of this list is that none of the ships are particularly ideal endgame ships. Maul is close, at I5, but he's also most likely to be dead. Grievous 1v1's fairly well and Dooku can close things out, depending on the initiative of his opponent, but both of these ships have weaknesses that can be exploited. In 1v1's versus more maneuverable ships, they will struggle to find a way to win.Fortunately, in this game, there are no hyper-maneuverable ships in play. At this point, my priorities are essentially to kill Wedge this turn (before he can really start putting the damage on), and get Braylen either this turn or soon after for the same reason. If I can make it to an end game of Grievous and Dooku versus one or two U-Wings, it should be a straightforward finish from there. If I lose one of these two ships before getting rid of both Braylen and Wedge, the game is probably lost.
After 8 turns and a few incorrect guesses, this is the turn that I am absolutely betting on seeing Leia. I predict a Wedge K-Turn, and work backward from there; Cassian likely sits and rotates (probably to face west, possibly to face north), Braylen hard turns into the middle of the board (or Tallon rolls to his right), and Heff either parks and rotates or hard turns to the left. Working with the above assumptions (and considering a few variants of them), my Grievous decision is relatively straightforward: I'll 3 sloop right and likely be in only Wedge's arc. Dooku's options are more limited, but to get the angle I want, I decide that I'll need to just bump Grievous and stay where I am. This might mean shots from all four opponent ships (depending on Heff and Braylen). It's not ideal, but I don't see better options.
Finally, Leia is activated! As anticipated, Heff stops and turns, as does Cassian. Dooku bumps. Braylen does the hard turn, focuses, and fails a barrel roll right; the Tallon Roll would have been better for him, and as it stands, this not only keeps me safe from Braylen for a turn but possibly opens up a chance for Grievous to shoot if I call an audible on his target. Grievous sloops, and Wedge K-Turns and focuses. I'm a few die rolls from either losing this game outright or climbing back into the driver's seat.
Swarm Tactics'd up to I6, Cassian shoots at Dooku at R1 to begin. I catch a break as he rolls blanks on two dice, and Dooku ends up down to 1 shield, spending and regaining one of his two force. A further lucky break, as Wedge shoots at Dooku and rolls two blanks and an eyeball, saving his focus for defence.
Grievous now has two options: take a range 2 shot at Wedge that will probably kill him, or leave Wedge for Dooku and take a swing at Braylen, probably doing 1 damage and possibly killing him. I decide to play for the big turn and shoot at Braylen. My 3 hits run into two natural evades (although with his dice mods, this was very likely anyway), bringing Braylen down to 1 hull. Dooku fires at Wedge, rolling 2 hits; Wedge rolls only one evade, and dies! Dooku spends a force for a celebratory cloak token, but still takes two damage from the subsequent Cassian attack, dropping Dooku to 5 hull (and spending a force to get rid of the stress from cloaking).
Turn 9
With Wedge gone, I can breathe a little (but only a little). Barring a misplay, I'm looking to kill Braylen this turn (but I'll settle for Heff). I'm not sure that either Heff or Cassian will be moving this turn; I predict both will be opening their wings and parking, although I'm more certain about that with Cassian than I am with Heff. A Braylen hard turn in seems likely as well.It's a turn where, if I'm not careful, I could lose Dooku very quickly, so I choose to leave him cloaked and dare the opponent to either shoot me and let me fire back or let me target lock and prepare for a more favourable engagement. In the meantime, Grievous can do some work with some sense of safety. With full shields and both Impervium Plating charges, I don't see these three ships annihilating him in one turn.
Leaving Dooku parked, and anticipating a Braylen turn in, I decide to do a hard turn of my own to hopefully block Braylen and deny him an action (as well as a shot on Dooku).
Heff opts to 1 bank left toward Grievous and focus, while Cassian does indeed open his wings and park. I do a hard 2 left with Dooku, missing the asteroid by a hair. I grab a lock, going back and forth on who to lock before settling on Braylen and accepting that it might not get used before Braylen dies. Braylen does 1 bank to the right. He and Heff were maybe trying to catch Dooku on a 5K? He focuses and punts on a barrel roll to get stress. Grievous tries to execute a 2 bank to the right. I'd suspected it would be a bump, but I needed to clear stress and didn't fancy going to straight and sitting in front of a parked Cassian, so this is acceptable.
Braylen shoots first, firing at Grievous from range 2 and taking out the Belbullab's shields (but spending his focus in the process). I return fire and get a the outcome I needed, a hit and crit result to finish off Braylen (after 9 long turns of trying!). Heff and Cassian both do no damage on their attacks (Dooku spends a force in the process), and the momentum has swung wildly in my direction.
Turn 10
My opponent is in real trouble now. He'll need to get a few lucky attacks in order to kill one of my ships, and even then, his U-Wings are not well suited to closing. As long as I play cautiously and take my time, I should be able to close things out.This is a regrouping turn for me as I've sacrificed board position to kill Wedge and Braylen. I'm not confident that I can fit a 2 sloop to the right with Dooku (I check after, it's close but would have indeed been a collision), so he'll hard turn left to set up for a sloop or K-Turn the following turn. I'm a bit more aggressive with Grievous, dialling a hard 1 to the right. It's absolutely safe from Cassian, and if he decides to park and rotate with Heff, it's a kill shot. If he parks and leaves his wings open, it's still an exchange of fire I'm happy with, given the rest of the board and our health totals. If he moves ahead, it's a bump, and I'm good to sloop the following turn.
Heff does indeed go 1 forward with a focus, and Cassian does a 1 bank right, bumping into Dooku. Dooku 3 hard's to the left, not quite getting behind the asteroid, which is unfortunate but fine. I grab a target lock on Cassian, operating under the assumption that Grievous will finish Heff soon. Grievous's hard turn does bump Heff (who coordinates a focus on Cassian), which leaves Grievous with a range 1 shot on Cassian.
Grievous takes two shields off of Cassian, Cassian does no damage to Dooku, and the turn ends otherwise uneventfully.
Turn 11
Things are getting pretty straightforward now as the we move into the endgame. With my lock and full force (and some unexpected shield damage from last turn), I'm ready to decloak and start shooting with Dooku again. Grievous's 3 sloop to the right is also relatively safe, and I should be able to get an ability-modded shot on one of the U-Wings, unless they Leia and rotate to get Grievous. If they do, Grievous is in a bit of danger. It's probably a bit riskier than I need to be, given the board state.
I decloak left with Dooku. Opponent activates Leia and rotates both U-Wings; fortunately for Grievous, he opts to rotate them to cover both of my attackers, and Heff is pointed toward the middle of the board, setting up a modded shot for Grievous after his sloop. I'll take it! Dooku sloops as well.
Grievous proceeds to completely whiff on his shot to Heff, doing no damage. Fortunately, Cassian whiffs as well. Dooku fares a bit better, rolling a natural 2 hits and a crit, saving me from having to worry about spending the lock. This results in a crit going through: a Weapons Failure for Cassian, who is now at half points.
Turn 12
With Leia down and Cassian sporting a crit, I'm hoping to kill a U-Wing this turn. Dooku's 2 forward is a pretty simple decision; if he catches something in his arc, he'll be hoping to kill or seriously wound it. Grievous doesn't have wonderful options, so I just dial in a 2 bank to the left. Best case, I'm sitting behind Heff with a kill shot, but more likely I'm bumping a U-Wing. With two U-Wings and one Grievous, I'm happy to be at range 0 of one of them regardless, as there's no need for me to expedite this game at this point.
Heff does a 2 bank right with focus, while Cassian does a 1 forward and focuses. It's a setup turn that I wasn't quite anticipating. It also works out perfectly for me. Dooku advances 2 forward and focuses, for lack of a better action (an annoying Scimitar problem sometimes). Grievous's 2 bank just barely bumps, resulting in the anticipated range 0, but with an unexpected bonus: I'm now at range one of Heff, and out of his arc!
Grievous's range 1 shot rolls well, but not quite well enough for the kill, leaving Heff at one hull. Similarly, Dooku's obstructed shot from downtown pings off a single hull from Cassian, leaving him at 3. Both U-Wings are now in very real danger of dying on any given turn.
Turn 13
None of the U-Wings decisions on turn really impact my choices: if they flee, I'll react to that on the next turn, and if they turn around, they'll be at 1 agility and doomed. Dooku's 3 bank left is forced by the large asteroid near him, and his final position then forces Grievous to sloop left.
Both U-Wings close wings and rotate. It's a desperation move, but there really are no other winning options for the Rebel player.
Grievous shoots Heff, rolling exactly one hit, but it's enough; the U-Wing blanks on his green and Heff is gone. Cassian smokes Dooku with a hit and a crit (costing me half points on Dooku at the end), but the Crit is inconsequential as Dooku responds with a double modded shot. It's three hits and a crit, and Cassian follows Heff to the grave. I win, 200 to 102.
Closing Thoughts and Lessons Learned
I've previously held a high opinion of U-Wings; on paper they read as outclassing the B-Wing in almost every way. However, in practise, they're awfully clumsy, difficult to fly in multiples, and feel like sitting ducks far too often. I'm not sure I'm convinced that the presence of a second Tactical Officer is worth bringing a second U-Wing over something more functional (unless perhaps it's my favourite sleeper U-Wing, Bodhi Rook!).This is (rather embarrassingly) not the first time I've bumped on a sloop or K-Turn with the Scimitar, and both times it's been an absolute disaster that has basically obliterated any relevance the ship had for the rest of that game. The moment it happens, your Scimitar becomes an outflanked Upsilon shuttle, and all the force in the world doesn't change the fact that you're only rolling one green die. It's a common enough danger, given the size of the Scimitar (and would probably be even more of a problem if I wasn't taking gas clouds to at least leave some options open).
So, the sloop was bad, and it was a good reminder to consider the whole dial of the opponent, even if a ship is stressed and even if the maneuvers will go through obstacles.
I definitely think my target priority would be Wedge before Braylen, having seen both in action. Both are very dangerous, but Wedge dies a little easier, and he's also much more self-reliant in and endgame (should he survive that long) compared to Braylen.
Finally, I probably played a touch more aggressively than I needed to in the end. I was eager to close out the game and probably gave up unnecessary MOV on Dooku in the process.
Also, I'm not sold on this list. There's no convincing endgame closer, but there also isn't always enough critical mass to just bludgeon the way to a victory. If the early game goes poorly, it's very difficult to claw back into the game. I think it's a playable list but I'm not sure if I'm convinced with its consistency, and I think it has exploitable weaknesses.
It's awful fun, though!
Thanks for reading, please feel free to share your thoughts and observations in the comments below! Did I make a horrible blunder? What would you have done differently? Let me know!
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