The Kenner Blockade Runner is quite a popular proxy
We finished up our return match last night (dipped in and out of it over the past few days) and I have to say it was a corker. Much like the first game (where I played Rebels), the Tantive was a massive points sink and didnt leave much room for other fighters.
I stuck to my original plan for the Convoy Hunters list, and went with fewer elite Imperial Pilots in my half of the fleet. Major Rhymer tooled up with ordnance, Engine Upgrade to control position and Opportunist (Tantive has no tokens) - supported by a pair of my Interceptors. Lis played the other half of the fleet with a tooled-up Krassis and Marek Steele (card text would be a nice boost against the Tantive once we got through the shields). Dave played Rebels and tool the Tantive along with Horton in a Y and Ibtiisam in her B.
First few turns were spent focus-firing on the Y to take it out first, which we did. The two halfs of our fleet then split - Lis focusing on the remaining B, and my guys zipped off just outside the Tantive's range to get in behind for an attack run. It took a few turns to get in to position, by which point we'd lost Marek and Soontir Fel (damn asteroid taking his last hull point), but thankfully it worked - it is possible to take the Tantive out with sheer weight of fire and stacking as many dice as possible into one section. Big lesson learned though is to work out where the blind spots are and keep your fighters tight into them. Lis moved Krassis in front and managed to ride the edge of the main weapons minimum range making full use of the rear fire-arc. Focusing fire on the aft early on really does cripple the ship . We pulled some nasty damage cards that pretty much wiped out the energy gain. From there it was all downhill for the damaged ship. Admittedly I lost the remaining Interceptor and Rhymer to the main gun, but from there on it was a joust between Krassis and Ibtisam. Another lesson here for us was keep B Wings in the Asteroids as much as possible to control their movement. With Advanced Sensors, Engine Upgrade and Push the Limit they really can turn on a six pence (and running advanced sensors to PTL then move keeps Ibtisam's card text in play which is a nice bonus).
All in all, I really like the Tantive. I've had chance now to play with and against it and it does really add to the game.
We're going to play through the Tantive Campaign and see how that fairs, but we've decided to try out the Epic Team format as 2v2 is how a lot of our gaming runs these days (that and there's rumour of an Epic Tourney at our local at some point in the future). I'll try and do a more structured batrep with pics of our next big game.
#endofessay