CAPA Cup 2019 Recap and CIS Thoughts

800/800 (9 activations)

Commanders:

 – General Grievous (175): Strict Orders (5), Aggressive Tactics (10), Tenacity (4), DT-57 “Annihilator” (12) = 206

Corps:

 – 2× Battle Droids (36): E-60R Trooper (20), Battle Droid (6), HQ Uplink (10) = 144

 – 4× Battle Droids (36): E-5C Trooper (18), Battle Droid (6) = 240

Supports:

– 2× Droidekas (100): Linked Targeting Array (5) = 210

I briefly covered this last week, but the basic premise of this list is that it functions as a Grievous delivery system. Strict orders keeps all the units moving along, tenacity ensures Grievous hits as hard as possible, and aggressive tactics (AT) and his gun are stapled to him. Considering this is a core box list, each B1 has an extra body to help with attrition rates and the droidekas come equipped with Linked Targeting Array to help add aims to their suppressive shots. I made great use of the LTA on about two turns a game, definitely earning their five points back.

Game 1

Game 1 Major Offensive / Limited Visibility / Breakthrough Opponents List: Veers, ATST, 2 Snipers, 2 Storms, 1 Snow, 1 Shore, 1 Mortar

As you can probably tell from the picture, the first table was…interesting. After deployment, my opponent (Jarrod) and I were informed that the sandcrawler’s top was impassable, changing my plan of scaling Grievous over the top into his corps. We both ended up forming two flanks to oppose each other at either end of the crawler, with his snipers, shores, and ATST moving to my left side, and some snows and storms moving to my right flank. I ended up sending one droideka and 3 B1s to deal with the snows and storms, and Grievous and the other half of the army to the left flank.

We traded fire for the next two turns, with Jarrod reducing 2 B1 squads to half health and the ATST wiping a droideka, while I was able to kill 2 sniper teams and the snow troopers. Once the ATST came around the corner, I decided to dive bomb Grievous into the opponents heart on round four and wiped out Veers, and suppressed three other units. Once this happened, we spent the rest of the game moving towards each other’s deployment zones. And then, on round six, I made a huge error. After Grievous fell, I promoted a B1 to my new commander, and on turn five had moved them into melee about a quarter inch outside of the enemy deployment zone. I dropped Standing Orders….and forgot to give the commander an order, as I made a mental mistake and thought that promoting the unit removed AI: Attack. Spoiler, it doesn’t. I had to punch instead of withdrawing, and at that point lost the game 1-0. I want to give a huge amount of credit to Jarrod, he’s an awesome opponent to play against, and he ended up placing first overall. 

Game 2

Major Offensive / Clear Conditions / Intercept Transmissions

Opponents List: Veers, Generic, 3 Storms, 2 Bikes, 1 Sniper, Boba

I had the opportunity to face off against a pretty “fast” list in game two, and I definitely took some casualties early. His Veers dropped maximum firepower into a B1 turn one, dealing 4 casualties and sniping a heavy weapon, and his bikes came around the top and wiped another half squad. At the end of the round, I moved Grievous twice towards the middle building and baited his Boba into charge range. On turn two, I played Grievous’s 2 pip vs the Boba flamethrower, lost the roll, and immediately lost 7 of 8 droid models. However, I was able to aim – shoot Boba with a full B1 before charging Grievous in, and wiping him out. 

On turn three, I charged Grievous into the center objective and hit five units with his 1 pip whirlwind. After eliminating the units in melee with Grievous, I was able to take some aimed B1 and Droideka shots into his now suppressed units around the middle objective, and eliminate all but one. Funnily enough, this one unit was Veers, and he was able to smack Grievous for two wounds. Our game actually ended on turn four. My opponent was also the TO and Judge for the tournament, so we frequently had to pause, and ran up to the time limit towards the end of turn four. We ended the turn scoring 3-3 and myself winning on points destroyed.

Game 3

Battle Lines / Hostile Environment / Recover Supplies

Opponents List: Han, Chewie, Sabine, 2 Z6, 1 Vet, 1 Tauntaun, 1 Rotary RT, 1 Sniper

My final game was against a rebel heroes list. I was able to take a suppressive shot from the dekas and a full B1 shot into the Tauntauns round one after an unlucky pull, and spent the rest of the first two turns picking off the rebel troopers on the right hand side and claiming three of the boxes. By turn three I was hunting down Sabine with Grievous, and we ended on round four.

As you can see from the photos, I had a significant advantage from the outset of deployment. I was able to keep my army in a Range three band of itself, and focus upon three of the boxes from the very beginning. Being able to suppress the Tauntaun from the outset, and move shooting with the droid rocket trooper to suppress the Z6s on the right hand side allowed me to move shoot with my other units without fear of reprisal and create a wall around my claimed objectives.

First Impressions and Final Thoughts

I’d like to quickly go over some first impressions of the CIS. In my opinion, the droids love Major Offensive. As you can see from the first two game photos, MO lets the CIS spread out their chain and create a wall that moves towards the opponent in a wave. The perfect order control is fantastic, and I was able to maintain a “no bag” status for 12 of the 14 rounds I played, losing it only for the final two turns when Grievous died in the first match. Having eight man squads feels great, as losing three or four models feels like nothing, and ensures that you can keep the coordinate chain firing. Grievous is an absolute monster, as he single handedly eliminated 7 activations over the course of the day without assistance. The droidekas also proved their worth, as having an aim, a surge, and a suppressive weapon that reaches out to range three proves to be a nasty combination. Finally, being able to ignore the suppression action loss is priceless, and proves to be extremely effective for corp units. 

On the downside, the variance the B1 shooting offers is wild, and expecting more than a hit or two is brimming with optimism. Their defense dice are atrocious as expected, and flamethrowers absolutely annihilate them. Managing the courage two value of Grievous can be difficult, and I did have to dive him into my opponent’s army earlier than I wanted to because of the suppression he had taken. Finally, and this one is slightly obvious, the droids suffer from a lack of options currently, as they don’t have much variety or any tools beyond Grievous killing everything. 

At the end of the day, it was great to put a fully painted droid army on the table for real, and to meet some new Legion players. I got to make the trip out with one of my local players, and play on some interesting looking tables. I’m still not sure which faction I want to take to Adepticon, but CAPA did nothing to dissuade me from bring my CIS, and the impending arrival of Dooku will do nothing to dampen that. I hope you enjoyed this quick recap for CAPA 2019, and if you have any feedback or questions regarding the droids performance, feel free to reach out!

-Mike