Østersund Regionals AAR: A Raddus Story, part 1 (listbuilding)

I went to regionals in Østersund yesterday and had a really great time! Thanks to Rolf Hilleberg and Escapade Gaming and Gear for yet another great Armada (and other SW games) event! The hotel deal was sweet and the venue top notch. I would definitely go there again.

A total of 15 people showed up for Armada, with people driving in from Norway and remote locations in Sweden (I think some might have flown in actually). That's a VERY GOOD number for the frozen wastes of Hoth, in the mountain wastes of the 6th Marker. Going home we just missed a landslide of ice, frozen earth and rocks, so yeah, it's pretty much Hoth :-D

Like I discussed in a previous post a couple of weeks ago, I had no idea what I would bring to regionals. I just could not come up with a fleet idea that was appealing. And to me appealing means A) it's fun to play and B) it's effective enough to be competitive.

I've run Sloane quite enough thank you, and while Vader is my fav admiral, I'm sick and tired of flotillas at this point. So I rejected Sloane, even some very different w7 Sloane builds. I also dismissed a w7 version of my Vader World Cup fleet.

That pretty much ruled out Imperials. But could I still play rebels? I hand't touched them competitively since Ackbar in wave 2! Well, why not. I had wanted toplay more Rebel for a while, and this seemed like an opportunity to shed my Empire addiction.

I considered 3 commanders: Ackbar, Sato and Raddus.

An Ackbar MC75+2xTRC30s fleet, with Mon Cal Exodus seemed a viable option. But it felt wrong to kind of pick up Rebels where I left off: at Ackbar. So I dismissed this fleet.

Next was Sato. Sato MC75 and Wide-Area Barrage on an Ordnance Cruiser. As usual fitting in enough ships AND squadrons proved very difficult indeed. Using Sato at 400 is still not an easy thing to do. I ended up with a corner case build with an MC75, Salvation, Yavaris, and a host of VCXs and Rogues. It was a fun list that I'll discuss in a later post. But ultimately it wasn't tournament viable. Too bad, since it can throw an INSANE amount of black dice from a variety of sources.

Which left me with Raddus. But what kind of Raddus? JJ proved that the Profundity Hammerhead trick is quite powerful, especially in a 1st player build. But also that Raddus and a couple of VCXs could play a very effective 2nd player game on objectives.

I didn't want to just copy what JJ did, so I looked around for other options. And my piercing blue eyes saw... Bail. Bail Organa, which has the potential to let to play head games with your opponent as 2nd player. I had tried him a little bit on Vassal before, 2 or 3 games (which I think I lost), and he had grown on me for each playtest.

But what to put him on? The AF2 is a joke, so not that one. And I wanted a fast, agile ship with Gunnery Teams that could really set up some murderous forks in conjunction with Bail and the MC75. Yeah, of course there would be an MC75 coming out of Raddus-space... why else would you take Admiral Blue-Face!? ;-)

So I ended up with the much-maligned MC80 Battle Cruiser. Not sure why this isn't a more widely used ship. Yes, it has some serious drawbacks, but it has such massive offensive options and can go pseudo-speed 4 with Engine Techs. That makes it very unpredictable, which pairs so well with Raddus and Bail. For me it also helps that it is a LOT like an ISD (I know my ISDs) in employment, only a bit more fragile.

So all this theory-crafting led to this, my regionals-winning Raddus list:

Name: Raddus Bail BC+OC

Faction: Rebel
Commander: Admiral Raddus

Assault: Most Wanted
Defense: Planetary Ion Cannon
Navigation: Intel Sweep

MC80 Battle Cruiser (103)
• Admiral Raddus (26)
• Bail Organa (7)
• Gunnery Team (7)
• Engine Techs (8)
• Leading Shots (4)
• Quad Battery Turrets (5)
• XI7 Turbolasers (6)
= 166 Points

MC75 Ordnance Cruiser (100)
• Damage Control Officer (5)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• Electronic Countermeasures (7)
• External Racks (3)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
• Aspiration (3)
= 127 Points

GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Comms Net (2)
• Bright Hope (2)
= 22 Points

GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Hondo Ohnaka (2)
• Quantum Storm (1)
= 21 Points

Squadrons:
• Shara Bey (17)
• Tycho Celchu (16)
• 2 x VCX-100 Freighter (30)
= 63 Points

Total Points: 399

I wasn't 100% sure about some of the upgrades:

Quad Battery Turrets are very nice with Engine Techs, if you can keep you speed down. You can get long range Leading Shot rerolls, overall more accuracy, a boost to the side arcs too. Spinals was the alternative, but I always do those so I picked Quads just to try them out.

Damage Control Officer or Lando? I think maybe Lando is the better option, even on a 2-contain ship, but I figured I might run into some Heavy Ions or something, and wanted to give DCO a shot (it's a card I keep coming back to, wanting it to be good, but it usually lets me down).

Aspiration? Or not? Being able to boost shields with Aspiration can be a good defensive boost - but it can also backfire if you do it wrong. But in the end I did pick it, partly because I had the points, and partly because you don't HAVE to use Aspiration. Or you can use it, and only weaken one hull zone, so it's pretty flexible.

I did consider 2 Exodus Fleet cards, but even if I dropped Aspiration and the DCO, I only had 9 points, but needed 10. And I didn't want to take out any of my other stuff.

So that was my list. Based on a little bit of playtesting of Bail and Raddus in other configurations, of games played AGAINST Raddus, and a desire to try something new.

As it turned out, I wasn't the only one to want to try Raddus...he was THE most popular admiral. But the other two Raddus fleets did Profundity + Hammerhead, so it was cool to have a different list.

Rebels: 9
Raddus 3
Ackbar 2
Dodonna 1
Riekan 1
Madine 1
Leia 1

Empire: 6
Motti 2
Ozzel 1
Sloane 1
Thrawn 1
Jerjerrod 1

Stay turned for the battle reports!