Imperial Assault Battle Report: An Attempt on the Emperor's life

It has been months since I've gotten a chance to play some skirmish for IA.  Other games and FFG's silence has made folks uneasy here, and the community wasn't strong to begin with.  But our FLGS is hosting a tournament at the end of the month, and I knew I wanted to go.  So I put together a list that wasn't one of the Palp-Vader lists that's been fairly dominant. 

Palp's Bodyguards (15/15/40)
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[8] Emperor Palpatine
[7] Elite Jet Trooper
[7] Elite Jet Trooper
[5] Riot Trooper
[1] Zillo Technique
[2] Imperial Officer
[10] Elite Sentry Droid
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[3] Grenadier
[2] Call the Vanguard

[2] Comm Disruption
[2] Overrun
[2] Squad Swarm

[1] Shared Experience
[1] Tough Luck

[1] Brace for Impact
[1] Concentrated Fire
[0] Urgency
[0] Take Initiative
[0] Rally
[0] Planning
[0] Element of Surprise
[0] Disorient

I had originally had the ATDP instead of the eSentries to provide firepower and synergy with the jets for the vehicle trait.  However, sveral folks on the forums convnced me the eSentries were the way to go with their decent range, trooper synergy, and that several cards with the Droid trait also work with vehicles.  I'm running a Comms Disruption instead of Negation because a friend of mine is going to try out the tournament as well, and so he is borrowing Negation. 

My opponent this weekend took an IG88/Onar/2xeWeequays list that focused on hunter cards and just pure damage output. We decided to play hte Mos Eisley Back Allyes mission A

I took the red deployment zone and had initiative first.  The first round proceeded slowly, as I moved up the Riots and a set of Jets down my long hallway to control that crate, the second set to near the center doorway on my side (leaving it closed), and the Sentrys and Palp to the other crate.   He moved Onar up to control the center two crates, and moved IG to take a long shot at one of the Sentries, doing 3 damage.  The Weequays hid behind the door, and the other set moved up and opened their door closest to my long hallway.  I had Call the vanguard and Take Initiative in my opening car draw, so I had wanted to see where he moved to before deciding on over committing.  ALso knowing that door in the middle would open end of round made it for appealing to wait there to go get a call the vanguard, then Take Initative to possibly kill Onar. I tried that, but then he negated my Take Initiative.  I still I thought had to call the vanguard, to try and pile on damage on Onar.  I had also drawn Shared Experience, so I knew one of the Jets would get a good shot during their activation on him.  Call the Vanguard did a few damage, and then Onar rushed one of the troopers and shot him, dealing 5 total damage.  That left Onar exposed though, and I took full advantage with the Jets to kill Onar at that moment and moved them back a bit to force the Weequays out.  IG88 then moved up and took a shot at the Sentry again, doing another 4 damage thanks to Brace for Impact on my part.  He played a little cautiously with IG and pulled him back to behind cover.  My Sentries then went, the wounded one hiding behind Palpatine, and the healthy one taking a long range potshot at the middle Weequays and doing a single damage.  His Far Weequays activated, shooting at my Jet and then Hiding to get the -2 accuracy.

Checking line of sight

My Jets fired back doing a damage to one and missing on the other while keeping their distance.  His last set of Weequays moved up and fired on the Sentry droid, ending up with 7 damage and forcing me to discard Overrun for Zillo.  Palpatine moved up to force lightning, and I was unable to get a shot off with my Sentry.  I should have shifted it a little more into the hallway to start with, so I could get full effect of the Emperor ability.  My Riots then moved up and got into the face of the Weequays on that far side. 

The next round my opponent took the initiative, and popped up with one Weequay to kill the very wounded Sentry droid.  The other one then put 4 damage onto Palpatine. He was able to use shoot the messenger to discard Planning, Comm Disruption and Concentrate Fire.  I also made the mistake of forgetting to re-draw Shared Experience, which is a great Zillo effect card here if I don't want to spend the movement.  Palpatine was forced to go next, used tempt to kill the one Weequay and then zapped the other one before retreating.  IG 88 moved up and killed the other Sentry (again forgetting to draw Shared Experience) and then moved back to a safe distance from my remaining Jets over there.  Those Jets then did move up and finish the remaining Pirate and move into position to go after IG the next turn. The other Weequays attacked the Riot troopers, killing one of them.  With little else to do, the Riots went and did a little damage, followed by his Gideon missing a shot.  My Jets killed one Weequay, and then jumped over the other one to kill 3P0. 

ENtering the final round, I had drawn Squad Swarm and had initiative.  This let me use both Jets to jump in and kill IG, ending the match.  It was a good thing as well, since he had just draw Blaze of Glory and had Assassinate in hand still.It ended at 40-24, and was a good match. 

Overall I like this list.  It has a few quirks that I need to practice with, and I think Next time I would swap the postiion of my Jets and Snetries to hopefully get more usage out of Palpatine.