thereisnotry defeats NoffyD on Starport District, 281-229 (2-1)
I won the map roll and Anthony set up on the right. Gnost Dural had no CEs to steal since all of the enemy CEs were for sub-factions, not factions (I'll forever be kicking myself for not recognizing that problem while I designed him), so his measly +2 Attack CE was functional for this match. All of Anthony's pieces had Cunning/Opportunist, as well as MaulSavage's CE, which came to +8/+20 on top of all of their regular buffs.
Round 1: We both moved our people forward, but there was no attacking. Anthony made me nervous by moving one of his cloaked Hunters down to the bottom door by the Loading Dock area, which gave him a long LOS all the way into the Flight Control room, which is where my people wanted to gather. That forced me to leave that small door closed because otherwise I'd start losing pieces quickly. However, I did move Atton up beside the big ship in the middle of the room, preparing for some tricky maneuvers in the coming rounds.
Round 2: Anthony went first and moved a mouse. I activated ABM and moved Atton up to try to shoot at the Hunter who was staring menacingly in my direction. However, that Hunter had Stealth, and if I wanted to move forward far enough to attack I would've left him way out of position, so it wasn't worth it; instead, Atton shot the mouse droid and hid behind the ship again, locking the big door in gambit. We spun some fodder. Anthony's Hunter felt vulnerable so she retreated back to join her friends. Daka was preventing his squad from being disrupted by ABM, but it still had an impact, since anyone further than 6 squares from Daka was disrupted (no Cloaked, no dmg boosts, etc). There was more advancing people up, but not really any offense on either side yet. At the end of the round I advanced both Carth and Revan far into the big room so that I could try some nasty tricks in the following round, hoping to get some shots through the bottom door, near the place where the Nightsisters were gathering.
Round 3: Anthony won init and let me go first. Carth used Surprise Move to tuck into a safe-ish position behind a wall. [I had been hoping to win init so that I could've made Anthony go first, because then I could've used SM to put Carth in position where he could get a pile of shots on Talzin since she doesn't have Cloaked and most of his other people do. But since Anthony made me go first, I had to scrap that plan.] I moved my Uggie. Anthony spun some fodder. Now I put my secondary plan into action: I ran my Mouse forward to open the small door, then I moved Atton up to draw a nasty LOS on the XT-6 and then Talzin...with ABM on, he's shooting for some sweet 40dmg shots. It worked, but Talzin used Bubble twice, so she was only down to 50. But still, the threat was initiated and combat had begun. Atton locked the door that his Mouse had opened. A Zombie used Taka's CE to charge in and kill my Uggie, which created another Zombie. Now I used another sneaky plan (you can't claim that I was passive in this game!) to open the big door at the bottom of the map with Jace, and then Carth spent a FP to move 8 squares to shoot an un-activated Merrin, at +17s for 40dmg...I just need to not roll a 1. Yep, I rolled a 1! This was the first of several times this game that I missed the killing shot on a key piece. So Merrin lived with 40hp. That allowed her to retaliate against Carth and kill him (with Talzin's cannon shot CE for the final hit). More fodder moves by Anthony. Then I tried yet another sneaky trick: I used T3 (who had locked the door on the west of the gambit room) to flame both of the Zombies that were near Satele, and then open a different door. This opened the door next to Satele, who could use Force Dash to charge in and make 4 attacks against a helpless Silri. I needed 4s to hit, and I naturally rolled a 2 on my first attack, so Silri only took 30dmg, and then I poured the other 2 attacks (both 4s) into the Hunter, who was also beside her. Satele then died helplessly to hits from Silri's 40dmg whip, and then a 30dmg punch from a Zombie. Talia used the Invis Potion on Asajj. Now I tried my last nasty trick of the round: I opened the big door at the bottom of the gambit room, then I ran Revan up 12 squares (taking 30dmg on an aoo from MaulSavage), to hit the remaining Hunter and then Repulse just about everything. Merrin, the Hunter, and two Zombies died, while good damage was done to MaulSavage, Daka, Silri, and Talzin. Revan was now standing in the middle of the Nightsisters with nothing but 4 fp and a hope. Rebellions are built on hope...but this was not that faction. Revan died at the end of the round after valiantly failing his LS defense saves to Asajj's 50dmg hits. 117-83 for Anthony.
Round 4: I won init, so Atton moved 8 to try to kill both Daka and Talzin. [Was this too aggressive? Perhaps. But I was down and I honestly thought I was going to lose, so I had to play aggressively if I wanted to have a hope of coming back.] He did kill Daka, but Talzin survived at 20hp with more Bubbles of life. Asajj then eliminated Atton (failed Avoid Defeat roll). I turned on ABM again and spun a piece. On my next turn I tried another nasty trick, using Master Speed with Gnost Dural to try to kill the Sith Witch, who was blocking my shots to Talzin. Naturally, I rolled a hit and then missed the twin and the fprr, so Jace had to finish off the Witch. The witch went down and the first hit on Talzin worked (Bubbled so only 10dmg on her) and then yep...you guessed it...he missed the killing shot...Talzin survived yet again, this time at 10hp. MaulSavage made Gnost Dural pay, bring him to 50hp (but taking 50dmg back from a Djem So crit). Silri then tried Drain Life but Gnost was lucky...and then he was more lucky when she missed both of her attacks. I moved more of my people forward, to prepare for my next nasty trick. Talia used Invis Potion, which would've allowed her and Asajj to get in on Gnost Dural, but I ran T3 down there to use Targeting on MaulSavage and lock the door in their face. [No Invisibility Soup tricks for you!] All of this was to set up a nice 40dmg cannon shot for Jace who still needed a 10 to hit, but yeah...he rolled a 6. 153-141 for Anthony, but at least I got gambit with the Exile.
Round 5: I won init and used Jace to take 3 shots (for the kill??) on Silri...he hit the first and then missed both of his chances for the killing shot. I sacc'ed my XT-6 droid to give him a cannon shot. Same result! Demoted. Court-martialed! Sent to the BIN OF ETERNAL DARKNESS!! Talzin zapped both Gnost Dural and Jace. Asajj moved in to kill Gnost Dural, and he died (nothing on the Djem So). T3 said "Enough of this!" and moved up to flame a whole pile of people: Silri (finally dead!), Talzin (finally dead...no fp left for Bubbles of life), Asajj to 90, MaulSavage to 110, and 20 on himself. He then locked the door in front of him so that he would hopefully live a bit longer. It was not looking good: MaulSavage at 110, Asajj at 90, Talia at 60, vs my minor attackers. Talia opened some doors so that Maul could push Jace to 10hp. I moved Bastilla into gambit, along with most of the rest of my squad. I finally had the lead now, 230-181, but he still had a lot of beef left on the board.
Round 6: Anthony won init and killed T3 with MaulSavage, then pushed Jace to death (I was still up, 230-215). I was still in gambit and he wasn't, and I calculated that he didn't have the ability to kill any more of my pieces other than Kana Terrid, so I tried to hide her safely in gambit behind my Senator and the Exile...but Asajj just ran right past my Diplomat (d'oh!) and then failed her Pheromones save (whew!). Bastilla hit Asajj with a crit...failed Parry save...she tried to fprr, but the Exile used Force Defense, so it landed. Then Bastilla hit again, bringing her to 10hp. I really wanted the kill on Asajj, so I then used the Exile to use Repulse 3, which killed my Senator and put 30 on both Bastilla and Kana, but it also guaranteed the kill on Asajj and put 30dmg on Talia. After gambit, that brought me to victory, 281-229.
Wow, this match was insane! I was behind and losing until Round 5, when I was finally able to secure some significant kills--Daka, Talzin, Silri--all of whom just wouldn't die before that. The Nightsisters' damage output (+8/+20), along with their other tricks (charging, cloaked, etc) were extremely intimidating to play against. And to make matters worse, the dice failed me just about every time I tried to use a smooth nasty tactic to score a key kill! If we played this match a few more times I'm pretty sure that Anthony would win most of those other games. But I got lucky this time [despite being very
unlucky with those #$#@!! vassal dice!] and barely squeaked out the win. Thanks for the game, Anthony!