+1

Let's go Grievous. Spry's got his out. Let's do this!

Challenge accepted. Come at me bro!

Separatist Orders have been sent to all but Cerous, Anyone have contact with him to check if he's still in and if so which side?
If there are units you do not plan to use then let me know as soon as possible via encrypted bloomail so I can reallocate them elsewhere. Mas Amedda for example haha.

Strength and honor and crush the Republic dogs

Opposite that, Verjal serves captain America on your side

Captain Corellia, huh? Okay guys, don't be intimidated by the shield. It was made on Corellia. Probably made out of cardboard or cheap plastic or something like that.

Have you messaged him too? I sent him one a few days ago and no word back. I'll send another too

Ouch! Devasting 1st round loss for the Imperials. Hopefully this is not a sign of how this campaign is going to go..........................

Lieutenant Glasdren, reporting from Mos Eisley.

Utter disaster. The Imperials seemed to anticipate our specific plan of attack. Waiting for us in the marketplace were none other than Darth Vader and the 501st Legion of Stormtroopers. They took up positions behind a storage shed, with Vader waiting ahead in a small shelter. Lightning Squad could not safely advance on the Stormtrooper's position without leaving themselves open to Darth Vader's brutal assaults, but focusing on Vader would leave them vulnerable to assault from the 501st. A portion of Lightning Squad tried to flank the enemy around the north side of the marketplace, but defective ammunition resulted in these assaults failing miserably. Someone on the Imperial's command crew used the Force to counter the ARF stealth training, and the disciplined training of the 501st enabled them to take down the AT-RTs much quicker than I at first thought. Sniper fire from Aurra Sing only made the situation worse. After losing two walkers, about half of our infantry, and much of our support crews, Windu ordered Lightning Squad to retreat.

* * *

I ran this:

--"ARF, ARF!" - Guard Dog #17 - Campaign Round 1--
50 Mace Windu, Lightning Squad Leader
105 AT-RT x3
13 Human Engineer
33 ARF Trooper x3
9 Clone Trooper Pilot
8 R7 Astromech Droid
5 Rodian Diplomat
5 Spaarti Clone Trooper Demolitionist

(228pts. 12 activations)

Lafcadio ran:

--Operation Sandstorm (aka: Stormtroopers with force points... what could possibly go wrong?)--
45 Darth Vader of Lothal
33 Aurra Sing, Assassin
25 Imperial Sovereign Protector
66 501st Legion Stormtrooper x6
11 Darth Sidious Hologram
20 Stormtrooper x4
6 Mouse Droid x2

(206pts. 16 activations)

Referencing his squad title, the apparent answer is "Nothing." Lafcadio won 65-105, no Uniques lost. We played on Mos Eisley Marketplace.

Fail #1: I built my squad without looking for the map, then I looked at the wrong map. When I finally realized what map we were on, I realized my squad was mostly fine - except I brought way too much tech. I had an R7 and a Spaarti that did absolutely nothing, and a Rodian Diplomat that couldn't do much effective blocking due to positioning.

Fail #2: I won setup roll, and chose the left side... which enabled Lafcadio to use Battle Ready to get all the Stormies into good cover behind a storage shed.

After the first round, Vader was in protected gambit. I couldn't advance into gambit without Vader destroying me, I couldn't take down Vader without leaving myself open to the 501st, and I just didn't have the sheer number of attacks to deal with the number of Stormies.

Fail #3: I used Charging Fire a lot, but never used Mobile. My advantage was in speed and heavy hits; my heavy hits were meaningless against 20 HP grunts and a Vader with MotF and Shien, and I failed to make use of Mobile/Speed 8 to keep them out of harm's way.

I missed just about every attack in the first round and a half (usually needing a 10 or 12 to hit, sometimes less), but combining fire allowed Laf to hit my guys more often than not. ARF's lost Stealth to Force Sense, and 501st Stormies can drop an AT-RT with two attacks. I eventually thought "Hey, this Windu won't be missed much in the campaign - it would be much more worth my time, even in a loss, to take Vader of Lothal down with me." I started this process, but then realized that I had actually started making dents in the stormies, and had dropped enough 501st for them to lose Squad. So insteada of having Windu run in and fight Vader, I had him sit and Double Attack the stormies. He hit one, missed another, and missed on the reroll - which, by the way, I needed to roll a SIX to hit.

It was then I realized that even though I was finally making progress, I wasn't making it fast enough, and we were down to like 30 mins. I changed tactics again - desperately throwing the useless tech in front of Mace to protect him while I moved the Pilot into position to try and put 60 on Vader with an AT-RT. Well, I put the Pilot in the wrong spot (Vader's hiding spot was the little nook in the bottom part of Gambit - turns out there's a wall on two sides of that square), nullifying that idea, so I rushed Laf through the remainder of his activations and had Windu run off the board with 30 seconds left.

I had a bad matchup and some bad luck, but overall I totally played right into Laf's hands, and he played pretty much perfectly. If I went for Vader first, he would tear me up while the 501st ate me alive. If I went with a Mobile war against the 501st, Vader would have so many Force Points he could Shien the AT-RT's 'til Episode 8 comes out.

As a side note, is the Empire really as short on Uniques as we thought?

this win for the Empire will always have an * next to it

Jak, Darth Vader finds your lack of faith disturbing... And has declared a rivalry with you...

Totally joking! Yes, as CorellianComedian said, we could absolutely replay the match if it would make everyone feel better (along with causing an absence of "*"s and ""s) and would mean we can continue this war in peace. But if do replay, could I request permission to play/turn in the play report for that game late? I have a pretty busy week coming up...