To celebrate both Star Wars Day and Tabletop Gamig Day, I and a fellow clubmember of WoW/Keepers in Vienna deciced to play an epic mirrormatch in X-Wing. As both players wanted to field their Imperial forces (well, due to my limitation to the glorious Empire, I didn’t have much of an option this way), we decided that this would be a training match for the brave Imperial navy. Under the watchful eye of Darth Vader, Admiral Chiraneau would have to proof his worth in commanding the Assault Carrier, also knwon as Gozanti.
400 points of Imperial glory. 😀
My fleet contained several units I have also fielded in other battles – around the Gozanti, Cowalls Cowards (mentioned in the last post), a Bomber Squad containing Major Rhymer, Captain Jonus and a Punisher, an unreliable Bounty Hunter and a classic 8-Tie-Swarm supported the main ship. Agent Kallus in his Lambda shuttle would overwatch the outcome of this training battle.
On the other side of the battlefield, a ferocious Raider corvette was flanked by two Decimators, Lord Vader himself (in his private Tie-Advanced) and some smaller vessels (2 Tie-Fighters, a second Tie-Advanced and a Tie-Phantom). Also, Mara Jade was seated in her Shuttle for supervising purposes.
The first two rounds were not really worth mentioning – both parties flew more or less directly towards each other. In round three, things started to get interesting. The combined power of the Tie Swarm and the Bounty Hunter managed to get me rid of one of the Decimators (unfortunately, I suffered three damage to my Tie-Fighters while passing a small asteroid. Stupid, but I absolutely wanted to keep the Tie formation as intact as possible as long as possible). Also, I was able to avoid my Shuttle getting crushed by the Raider, thanks to the Engine Upgrade I spent her.
I bumped my Shuttle into Mara Jades Shuttle, which jumped in return with a 3-turn left over my Shuttle. Very moveable 😉
Thanks to this manoeuvre, I was able to smash the enemies Shuttle with a 2-turn to the right side with my ramming Gozanti. Very satisfying. The Bounty Hunter bumped into one of the Decimators, so the Tie Swarm was able to finish him off. Sadly, I didn’t use the Bomber Squad and the Tie/EO’s of Cowalls Cowards apting to their full potential, so I subsequently missed some very nice possibilities for shooting Torpedos or missiles.
To my personal disappointment, I didn’t see that the Lambda’s  manoeuvre that kept the Shuttle out of the Raiders ramming range also was a limitation for the Bounty hunter in the next turn – due to a very stupid manoeuvre with the ship, the Bounty Hunter saw the tip of his backside reaching over the table edge – perhaps the mercenary piloting the ship decided that killing one Decimator was enough to justify his day’s payment and that it was a proper time to leave the battle 
Anyway, both battleships finally pased each other, but didn’t do much harm to each other – instead, it was far more fruitful to engage the smaller vessels. The Raider smashed one of the Ties while advancing, while the Tie/EOs were wasted in their positions – due to some stupid moving decisions of mine, they mostly had no good shooting positions.
Vader proofed to be the most cunning pilot of the battle, as he flew easily in between the Raider and Gozanti. As a little gratification, one of the Tie/EOs shot him down after his glamorous tunnel stunt. 🙂 Sadly, this happened just after the Gozanti burst into flames after a combined gunfire of Raider, Vader, another Tie-Advanced and a Tie-Phantom. The combined attack was so fast, I wasn’t even able to do any repairing attempts with my Repair Droids.
The final count was a not-so close 129:189, a nice victory for the other side. While it looked pretty good at the beginning, some serious and foolish manoeuvre mistakes mounted up and led to this defeat. Both I and my opponent were rather new to the Epic Format, we also forgot some options we could have used (a rather stupid mistake was not to buy Major Rhymer the Push-the-Limit Upgrade – with it, he maybe could have attacked the Raider’s flank with a Advanced Proton Torpedo). Well, next time we’ll know more.
A special thanks and congratulations to my fair and patient opponent. The force truly was with him that day.
austrohammer 