Your Best/Most Memorable Battles

[thdhted]

I know how important first posts are on any forum, so here's to wasting it.

First off, big fan of the mod, been playing it for several months, even introduced some friends to it.

Anyhoo, I'm actually kinda surprised that there isn't a thread on this already, so I'd like to pose the question of.......

What are your most memorable battles, whether it be space or land. You can include single/multiplayer, as well as those from the base game of EAW/FOC.  Ones that are particularly amazing and/or cheesy/silly.

For me, one of the most memorable has to be a really silly one. I was playing the Shadow Hand GC as the NR, and the IR had already lost palpatine to me due to him never leaving Byss. However, the IR was still producing Executors and I was sick of them coming in on a planet only to leave almost immediately afterwards, so I devised a simple trap for the AI(unsurprisingly, the AI walked right into it) by building a large fleet of disposable frigates because I was sick of losing MC90's. What did I use, you may ask? 45 Marauder cruisers and an interdictor I had captured. The interdictor never got used, mostly because the Marauders did all of the work. I left a planet open with a single light frigate shipyard, and waited. Predictably, the Executor-Class SSD shows up and blows up the shipyard. I send in the fleet immediately afterwards and begin fighting. To make a long story short, 40 X-Wings and a lot of "tactical repositioning"(ie moving the Marauders behind the SSD every time it tried to move) the SSD eventually went down. the cost of the battle? 3 of the original 40 Marauders, and half of the accompanying X-Wings. I then went on to take over the space of three other planets with the fleet before running into actual resistance.


So please, feel free to share your own stories.

[GreyStar]

I had the IR AI in Thrawn Campgain in a rout, Mon Calamiri and Kuat directly under my control, they took heavy losses in a battle over Coruscant. I had Ackbar lead the charge after losing Iblis. I was facing off against several smaller ships, those mini-Star Destroyer I forget the name of. Zero anti-fighter defense. I hyperspace Ackbar in to bring his full fire power against them... and Position him a bit too close and lose my general. If all in Rouge Squadron panicking after bringing the rest of the fleet in... Several battles later a TIE Defender took out the Rouges, and slowly I lost all my space heroes.

[Revanchist]

My most memorable moments in the game are pretty much anything from Reunification as the IR. Probably one of my favorites was when a fleet of MC-90s escorted by Ackbar decided to make a run against Kessel with 2 Golans . . . And lost them all.

Other memorable moments include when I wiped an Imperial assault force attacking my planet, comprised of (among other things) XR-85s, AT-ATs, E-web troopers, and IDTs with 3 squads of Phalanx Commandos and a barracks. The micro-ing was intense.

[Ordinarygamer96]

One time the AI was about to wipe out my shipyard and win the battle with an overwhelming fleet but they all turned around and ended up fighting close range with a raid fleet and allowing my hypervelocity guns to kill them all off. Another time was when the the AI sacrificed about 5 SSDs against me in one battle to kill just 1 of mine

[Lord Xizer]

This is easy

The space battle of Bilbringi in Final Imperial Push as the IR. This was back when all the EotH hero bonuses overlapped and gave insane perks as they all stacked, and this hero heavy fleet had just annihilated the main NR hero fleet and conqured much of the Core then turned to IR space(It was like the Vong War...but with the EotH playing the Vong's part) The EotH had a fleet of 14 Phalanx Destroyers, 12 Chiss destroyers, 24 Chafs, and around 38 corvettes, carriers and frigates, 20 squadrons of clawcraft with EVERY one of their heroes. I had 8 ISDIIs,  6 VSDIIs, 4 Dreadnought cruisers, 8 strike cruisers, 2 lancers, 2 Golan IIIs and 2 Golan IIs, Pellaeon and Steele with two Hyper Velocity guns on the surface and the reinforcement Lancers and carracks from the shipyard.

This was hands down the hardest fought battle of any campaign in TR I have ever been in and lasted nearly an hour. I brought all my forces close around the Golans overlapping defense and fields of fire while having my lancers back up my TIEs which were no match for clawcraft. I had to take out each hero before I could deal with the fleet. I was gradually pushed back losing ships and ground golan by golan as the EotH swarmed over their own dead and mine while my HypVel Guns fired as fast as they could reload until I was fighting on the other side of the capital shipyard using their shooting it to fire at their remaining ships with some impunity. Finally backed into a corner with just a badly damaged Chimaera, 2 moderately damaged ISDIIs and a victory that was just engines and a single battery the last wave of Chafs closed in and due to miraculous path finding and slowing down to stay in formation with the crippled Chiss destroyer I was able to whittle them to nothing and the battle was won. It was nuts, i gotta see if I still have the replay saved.

[DarthRevansRevenge]

if you do, we HAVE to see it

I've never played the game, but i've watched some pretty wild battles. however, NONE compare to what lord Xizer has shared

[Lord Xizer]

if you do, we HAVE to see it

I've never played the game, but i've watched some pretty wild battles. however, NONE compare to what lord Xizer has shared

Well good and bad news, I do have the recording after I checked, the bad news is it is from a previous version before patches and updates so when i try and load it up now it crashes

[Pali]

Art of War campaign as the NR with fleet cap at 60, had just killed Thrawn over Coruscant and had my main fleet under Ackbar's command push toward Byss.  There we found just about the entire remaining IR fleet in space, including the Eclipse, all IR era 3 heroes, an Executor, about a half-dozen ISDIIs, an equal number of VSDs, dozens of smaller ships, two Golan 3s, two Golan 2s, a Golan 1 and the level 3 shipyard.  The planet also had two hypervelocity guns.

I started by dropping in half a dozen Corellian gunships and having them run up the right side of the map, hoping the Eclipse would turn to follow - it did, and superlasered one, while four more were killed by ships and the HVGs along the way; only one gunship actually made it to the corner.  After the superlaser fired, I dropped Wedge behind the Eclipse, along with ten or so Dreadnaughts using Lusankya for cover, which resulted in Lusankya lighting up the map as it was soon shooting at an SSD on each side.  I brought Ackbar and a half-dozen MC80bs in alongside the Executor to help fight it as the Eclipse's shields went down under fire from the Lusankya's forces, and the Executor started pulling back towards the Golans.  Eclipse finally died just before the superlaser recharged, taking most of the Dreadnaughts with it, and the HVGs were savaging Ackbar's MC80s, but Lusankya's shields were still up, the Executor was in retreat and had just lost shields while taking only a couple Mon Cals out, and I felt the battle was going well.

Then the Praetor hero and four ISD2s drop in at the perfect angle to start savaging Ackbar's group, as they had gotten a bit ahead of Lusankya while chasing the Executor, which started turning back to the fight.  A pair of HVGs tear through Ackbar's MC90, and the combat effectiveness of my ships drops by about 25% in an instant - in a minute I lose another four MC80bs, while the IR loses a single ISD in return.  I decide to try to retreat to save Lusankya, and an Interdictor activates well behind the Golan line - we're trapped.  I send six Assault Frigates on a suicide mission at the Interdictor, which saves Lusankya as the entire IR fleet turned to face the threat; long range unanswered broadsides from Lucy tear the Praetor apart from behind as it turns away at the wrong angle, and I decide to go all-in.  I have six un-deployed capital ships left, and as the Assault Frigates die without managing to take out the gravity well, I drop in my own two ISD2s and last four MC80bs right behind the Executor.  It turns exactly the wrong way to try and fight them and they mostly manage to stay behind it as they take it apart.  Meanwhile Lusankya destroyed at least six ISDs and VSDs with the help of swarms of X- and Y-wings, as by this point all the Dreadnaughts were dead and my remaining fleet cap was soaked by rotating in new Quasar carriers as the old ones died.  The SSD turns toward the Golan line, which was still untouched, and began blasting both Golan 3s while my capital ship group engaged the Golan 2s and their escorts.  The HVGs had by now started hitting Lucy, and damage was piling up even though she somehow still had shields, so I decided to push hard for the shipyard to end it - lost another MC80b breaking through the Golans, but managed to win while Lusankya was still intact.  The IR called retreat right as the great lady's shields finally fell as she was dueling the last Golan 3.

In the end, my 150+ pop fleet was reduced to about 40 by that battle.

[DarthRevansRevenge]

what a battle. wish i could see that one too

[kucsidave]

My best moment was when  defeated an Executor with only a heavy frigate yard and 2 golans IIs. Not even a HV gun

[JMDurron]

My personal best so far was playing as the IR on Admiral against the PA, when one of my border planets was jumped by both Kaine and Jerec (AI actually using him in space), with only a moderately-sized battle fleet on station for defense, early in the game in Fractured Empire.  I had only built 1 out of 2 HVCs, so I was just barely able to take out the escorting ships before escaping the initial battle.  I then had to play the longest game of "hide the lancer frigate" possible, while slowly whittling down first Kaine, then Jerec with my HVC.  I had lost both of my Lancers, 4 Carrack's, and all 3 of my Escort carriers by the time I had finally run out of options besides jumping in what ISDs I had to try to batter down Jerec from behind, after Kaine had been killed.  It wasn't the most intense battle ever, but since Kaine/Jerec had just been smashing the NR on the far side of the galaxy shortly prior to that pair of battles, I was caught flat-footed when the entire PA hero stack showed up over one of my planets.  Therefore, improvising such a "slow and steady wins the race" battle that secured my northern flank for the rest of the campaign and just barely having enough small ships to pull it off was highly satisfying. 

[DarthRevansRevenge]

are you sure you aren't a rebel tactician? that sounds amazing

[JMDurron]

I think it might have been playing through every scenario as the NR before ever playing as the IR that influenced my approach. 

The most agonizing part was the decision to send my fleet back to the planet to initiate the 2nd space battle with my 2nd HVG at ~93% completion, because I was too weak on the ground to hold the planet from a ground assault. 

[Aeradom]

I saw this post earlier but didn't really have a particularly memorable battle to think of as I'm fairly new to the mod. In fact, I've yet to actually beat a scenario. Granted this is only my second scenario and the reason I stopped the other one was that after conquering a full 2/3's of the available planets, it was more out of boredom from playing Art of War on Captain Difficulty than an actual challenge. So I decided to drop that scenario and go for one that was a bit tighter (To the Stars as NR) and bump it up to Admiral difficulty now that I had time to acquaint myself with the game and its mechanics. As I have a flare for creative writing, I decided to write from the perspective of an Admiral writing about the battle (with some artistic license).

It's week 30 in the campaign of the New Republic mission to secure the galaxy and wipe out the remaining Imperial forces. While it was hairy at the start trying to establish a route from Mon Calamari to the offensive in the south, we quickly marshaled our forces and secured Denon, the main staging point for their assault into NR held planets in the Southeast quadrant. Ever since the raid on Kuat the crippled their capital ship production capabilities, we never really faced a threat that we didn't overwhelmingly outmatch. The main battle fleet, under the command of Luke Skywalker and Admiral Ackbar, never even lost a capital ship (even after having engaged 2 SSD). Thus after facing little resistance from the Imperial Remnants, the New Republic now controlled a direct trade lane from Coruscant to Mon Calamari and all but a couple of outlying systems in the south.

All was going smoothly and perhaps too much so. When the alert came that intelligence had picked up an enemy fleet approaching Mon Calamari, we arrogantly ignored it. Very little concern was paid to the notification as the planet was heavily guarded by a full battle fleet consisting of 4 MC80b cruisers plus an additional 3 mon calamari cruisers for the planned third fleet. So confident were we that there was a task force of 20+ strike craft defending Bimmisari that could have easily made its way north to reinforce the existing defenses. But really, what fleet could stand up to 7 MC cruisers plus 2 Golan III defense stations?

While the Imperial Remnant was unable to field a fleet of any significant size during the campaign to liberate the core worlds, the Pentastar Alignment didn't have such issues. It was a full two battle fleets that had been merged into one super fleet consisted of 3 Praetor Battlecruisers and an additional half dozen Star Destroyers. There was now serious doubt if Mon Calamari could be held. As Mon Calamari was vital to the production of MC battlecruisers, the loss of the planet would be a devastating blow to the New Republic... one that it may not ever recover from particularly if we also lost all the available heavy cruisers.

The battle plan was to launch the bombers out to take out the shields of the heavy ships so that when it reached the picket line of defense stations our heavies would then engage them. If we could knock out their ion cannons, then the MC cruisers  (with their reinforced shields) should be able to take down the enemy fleet before they could do significant damage. Meanwhile, the corvettes and frigates would stay back and hold off any strike craft that got through the fighters. It was assumed that the number of strike craft from both sides would be even (from the experiences battling the Imperial Remnant). It should thus be a simple task to hold off the enemy fighters while the bombers went about their work.

Once again, we underestimated the enemy. There must have been at least fifty strike craft of various types within the battle space. So many that it filled the minimap and you could hardly make out any of the natural blue usually there. If the strike force were to advance, not only would they surely perish but also the support fleet as well. A choice had to made whether or not to leave the fleet vulnerable without fighter cover, or proceed with the plan and probably lose most of the support fleet and most of the fighters and bombers as well. It was ultimately decided that this was the best chance to save Mon Calamari and most of the heavy cruisers. Having not had to lose many ships during the campaign up to this point, that was not an easy decision to make.

And thus the strike craft hurled itself directly into the very heart of the enemy fleet. As I watched them go forth, I couldn't help but remember a few lines from my favorite poem:

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
 Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
 Rode the six hundred.

The strike force was indeed completely wiped out, but not before disabling the shield generators on half a dozen enemy ships including two of the Praetor Battlecruisers. And while the fleet suffered heavy losses (including a near total destruction of the support ships), the NR did manage to save 4 out of the 7 MC cruisers. This will form the core of a new fleet under the command of Luke Skywalker, who will take the fight to the Pentastar Allignment. While officially the fleet will be referred to as the 2nd fleet, to the men aboard the ships that survived battle, it will always been known to them as the "Ships of the Light".


After Action Report

New Republic Losses
x2 Corellian Corvette
x4 Corellian Gunships
Golan III
x2 MC40a
x3 MC80b
x2 Nebulon B-2 Frigate
x2 Quasar Fire

Pentastar Allignment Losses
x2 Acclamator Assault Ship
Enforcer
x3 Imperial Star Destroyers
x5 Munificent Star Frigate
x3 Praetor Battlecruisers
x5 Vindicator Star Destroyers
Victory Star Destroyer

[DarthRevansRevenge]

very nice writing

[joebob1337]

I was playing in admiral diffuculty as the empire of the hand on the custom GC tap hat comes with the improved Dushkan League mod. It was roughly 50 weeks in and I had expanded mostly north and south because the my brain can't handle all the hyperspace lanes in the core, so the remnant is still alive.

At the moment I had all my forces conquering the north and south and defending choke points, except Bilbringi. There is something strange about the capital shipyards there, they can call in any ship that you can build for super cheep during a battle like reinforcements, just for that battle, and you could phalanxes with this at era one for around 1000 credits, again just in the battle. So I usually leave it undefended because of this.

Then it happened.

A gigantic remnant fleet appeared, around a dozen ISDIIs, two dozen VSDII, who knows how many smaller ships, two Executors, a Soverign, and Palpatine himself. I had Bilbringi fully defended two Visvias and two Brasks, and of course the magical capital shipyard that can produce battlecruisers out of thin air.

The battle started. One of the interesting things about the magical shipyard is that even if you have no ships there, in the reinforcemeets there is one of every ship you produce with the shipyard mid battle. So I started by starting the production of phalanxes and warped in the one I had in reserves behind the enemy line, except it died before the it warped in fully. Then with the phalanxes that followed I warped them behind the defensive stations and prepared for defense. Usually as the hand I have fighter superiority but they brought in so mans star destroyers that is didn't.
Like I said, first came in a huge mix of stuff, a few star destroyers, victories, and lots of smaller ships. It started of well, my ships and stations we taking out ships left and right (because phalanxes are really strong). Then the SSDs came in to the mix.

The first one that was warped in was one the executor, it had killed the four defensive stations I had and most of my phalanxes before I took it out. Then the next executor, this was a little tougher but I had kept produced phalanxes so I had warped some in behind it and made quick work of it. Then Palpatine. The eclipse class dreadnought was a different story, I had warped some phalanxes behind him. Then it hit me, literally. The super laser could shoot directly BEHIND him, I sure got a jump out of that. Then he sniped my shipyard with the laser so I could no longer produce phalanxes. So with the eight phalanxes I had on field. After loosing two more phalanxes I had killed Palpatine. Finally the only thing left was the eclipse, same deal the super laser could shoot backwards, so after loosing three more phalanxes I had finally grinded down all the hard points in the eclipse, therefor ending the failed imperial attack on Bilbringi.

For clarification I could produce phalanxes mid battle from the shipyard like upgrades on any other shipyards.

[DarthRevansRevenge]

yeah i noticed that about bilbrigi. is that intentional?

[joebob1337]

I have no idea it's the only planet that does that.

Also, completely off topic, could yo be so kind as to make a signature banner like yours, except with Thrawn and a phalanx destroyer (if you couldent the tell, I love phalanxes). Or some tips on how to make one?

[Corey]

Not intentional; it's actually the Survival stuff, which leaked into the other GCs but we didn't catch it before release.

As for the signatures, Joebob, you can find them here:
http://thrawnsrevenge.com/forums/index.php?topic=5584.0

If you want a different one, I can make it, but post it in that thread (I'm a little busy at the moment, so I can't do it right away, but if it's in that thread I'll get around to it as soon as I can).

[Ordo]

I remember doing Art of War as IR and just as I finished off EotH I start attacking PA and suddenly a fleet of 72 Praetors appears above Bilbringi. I think that battle cost me around 100+ star destroyer variants.