Østersund SC 2018, part 2 (AAR)

And now the actual battles:

Round 1

First game was against Anders. I've seen him before, but I don't think we have played. He ran 3 VSD-I with 7th Fleet, light on upgrades and a good 100+ pts in squads. I was 1st player and picked his Intel Sweep. 

Since tokens go down before ships, I had a good idea where he would set up. He had 3+3=6 drops to my 2+4=6, so he could put a VSD on my flank, but he didn't. My Quasar is in the middle of the board, almost parallel to the edge. Squads as far forward as possible. Quasar was my objective ship (his is the VSD on the far left). Plan is to pick up 2 tokens, then loop around and into the back. That gives me 2 tokens, and should let me kill his objective ship before he can pick a 3rd token. My ISD point into the table, forward, speed 2, Pryce to 2. 

I got the jump on his squads r1, using Squall. So my squads quickly took care of Morna and began work on another Decimator. My opponent then sped his other squads to the rescue, killing Maarek with Saber and Interceptor, but the damage was done. The squad fight snowballed, and despite lots of damage from squads and flak, I was able to jump to the station to heal.

With Pryce and aggressive navigation I got the ISD around the flank of the VSDs. It took a bunch of shots, but was only lightly damaged at the end of the game. Quasar flew around in a circle as planned, taking only a few long range shots. I was just able to bring down all three VSDs in round 6, for a 10-1 400 MoV.

I'm not a big fan of VSDs to begin with, and 3 VSD-I in one fleet is too much. 7th Fleet is actually good, but when you face fast bombers and get flanked by an ISD the title doesn't help much.

Round 2

Second game was vs Rolf, the owner of Escapade Gaming and Gear and the organizer of many great X-wing, Armada, IA and Destiny events. We've played a number of times before. Rolf is good, but I always seem to gain the upper hand.

He ran dual Motti ISD, Kuat and Cymoon, with a Vader Raider and 2 Comms Net Goz. SAdv for 6 activations, and a moderate bid. He was 1st player and agonized over my objectives, eventually landing on Precision Strike. I set up a lot like in my 1st game, but with the ISD a bit further to the right. I'm not particularly afraid of dual ISD, but with Motti it takes a lot of shot to kill one, so you gotta be careful. So I was confident, but determined to be cautious.

I quickly took out a Gozanti with squads. Then his Vader raider took out my Boosted Comms, which really crippled my Quasar. Most of the game it was only moving a couple of squads each round. And my Gozanti kill left Jendon out of the battle for 2 rounds.

The raider then flew of the table, saving me the need to kill it. This is where I figured that, without Boosted Comms, and two angry ISD coming for me, I would be unlikely to kill either ISD. So I decided to circle and kill the last Gozanti (it was moving speed 1 into the center, so it was always going to end up in front of my ISD), while farming for PS tokens. 

The Kuat has ONE damage card. ONE! I flip it and... COMMS NOISE. Speed down to 1. Next bomber flips it again. Speed 0. Next bomber changes top dial to CF. The Kuat its stuck at speed 0 and can't do anything but die while I get tokens. It must be the luckiest break in all of Armada history. Not just 1 crippling Comms Noise, but THREE in a row. Not fun for Rolf, who had done nothing to deserve such a devastating loss.

Fun fact: When Maarek killed the first Gozanti he pulled two Projector Missaligned...

Cymoon ran down my Quasar in the end, but it was still a 9-2 for me, in what would have been a 6-5 (7-4 with tokens) for me.

If you disregard the lucky crit, Pryce worked really well this game too. She made the ISD + a few bombers into something my opponent didn't want to turn into. That allowed me to jump forward and turn around his flank. Go PRYCE!

I was now at 19 pts after 2 rounds.

Round 3

Was against Mats. FINALLY! We've played in several tournaments together, and he always gets 2nd place, but we never meet! He ran Rieekan MC80, Yavaris, 2 flots and an innovative (but good) squadron ball. I was 1st player and picked his Fighter Ambush and...

No, wait. Stop. That's not right. 

Mats was tabled in r2. He got 461 vs 400 MoV, but as Micke, who had actually read the regs, pointed out, you get a LOSS if you are tabled. So Mats got 5 pts, rather than 7, which meant that my correct opponent was Micke and his Raider swarm! When last I played Micke's raiders it was regionals. He had Maarek+Jendon then, but now he had 1 more Raider and double slicers. It was a 10-1 for me then, with Raddus, but this was completely different.

After reshuffling tables we proceeded. Micke had a 25 pt bid and picked my Sup Positions. Although that let me set up really well, it was the right choice I think. His fast, small ships I have to shoot to the front and then they just zip past and I can't afford to chase them down if I don't kill them in the first pass. So the token farming options is limited. 

On the other hand he was then in no position to win 9-2 over me, which he needed to win the tourney. Maybe Fighter Ambush, high risk, high gain? Chances are it would have backfired on him. Badly. A dead raider is 3-4 tokens. A Gozanti 2-3. Even if he tabled me, I would have so many tokens that 9-2 would be impossible.

My Quasar started on the inside of the ISD, but here we are round 2, it has bombed the hell out of a Gozanti and a Raider, then moved up and to the side. The ISD is now in PRYCE MODE, and covering every approach to the Quasar. Micke can't really rush forward with his nasty little ExRacks...

I blow up a lot of shit... then I get greedy. My ISD repairs 3 shields, is ALMOST full health, and slows to 2 and turns into the table. There is no REAL chance that the remaining ExRack raider and Demo can bring it down. I'm just making sure I win big and spectacular. Maybe I was instinctively craving revenge for my rushing X-wing defeat the day before? lol

So of course my greed backfires: hot dice and the final double ram takes away my last hull. I have also been overconfident/overspending my Thrawn dials, so on the final round my Quasar is sliced, and I can't kill Demo. Great comeback from Micke there.

End r6 he had 1 Gozanti, 1 Raider with 1 Hull, and 1 Demo with 2 Hull and no Brace/Redir. I had the Quasar and 6 squads remaining. 3 tokens for me, 2 to him.

It ended 6-5 to me with just a few pts of MoV. I could have won big. And Micke could have won if he'd not gotten greedy with an ExRack (or maybe he just forgot?), as my Defender was on 1 hull. If he'd flaked that down he'd gotten the win. Or if my Quasar hadn't gotten an acc/hit on the rear of the Gozanti r6 thanks to the PS CF token. There are so many variables in Armada. Gotta love it!

In the end I got 25 pts and won the SC.

Lessons learned

Don't. Get. Greedy. If you have killed half the enemy fleet, and can run away while bombing the rest of it, DO NOT TURN INTO THE FIGHT THINKING U CAN OUTLIVE A LAST/FIRST DEMO. I knew that already. Now I've been reminded.

I REALLY need to color my Thrawn dials. This was the first time I've used Thrawn anywhere but Vassal, and I had not thought about how messy it could get. 

When a ship finished activating, I would again and again remove the wrong dial, only to realize and put it back. Also against Rolf I'm 100% sure my r3 command for the ISD should be a (wasted) squad (Nav/Nav/Squad from start in every game), but it came up a nav, so I offered to just toss it. He said keep it. It didn't matter either way, but still. Against Micke I suddenly saw my ISD had only 2 commands after the command phase, bc I had put a new command at the bottom of my Thrawn stack. That was quickly fixed, but it was embarrassing. 

Writing this I realize I need not/should not keep the Thrawn dials in a stack at all, but looking at them is faster when they are in a stack. But yeah, I'm coloring my Thrawn dials. It would fix all of the above issues, even when fatigue sets in.

Technicalities aside Thrawn is really good if you use him right. He's perfect for this fleet. It may seem strange to use him in a list with just 2 ships, no? Surely the more ships the more extra dial the better, right? That may be true, but in this list, where you pack all 400 points into just 2 activations you need those ships to be the best they can be. And nothing beats having 2 dials.

He's also perfect against slicers. Just don't spend your Thrawn dials like a drunk sailor spends his money. I did that against Micke - and I also went 2 squad, 1 nav when I should have gone 3 squad. Ah, the benefits of hindsight. Other squad lists can be hurt badly by slicers. At the very least they need multiple squad command platforms. My list has only 2, so Thrawn is the only viable option.

Playing Empire squad heavy again was lovely. I've tried to revive Sloane, but she's dead in the current meta. Thrawn makes squads viable again. He could even be Nationals material. Not 100% sure about that yet, but I would not be afraid/ashamed to take this fleet to Nordics. Since I spoiled the list here, I would have to A) improve the list and B) practice a lot :-) But I have some other ideas as well, so we'll see.

Vader (boarding team) is just great. And it belongs on a raider, with or without ex racks. If u have a raider, take Vader.

Thanks to all my great opponents for excellent opposition, Broba/Sam for great list making tips, and Rolf for hosting a great event.

My next event (X-wing and Armada) is Nordics in Stockholm 27-28 October.