Yesterday I sat down for my third POD game in the Battle for Endor 2025 online tournament, squaring off against Daniel (Smizzy). We logged into TTS and, as always, I was looking forward to seeing how my fleet would hold up. A fun surprise: turns out Daniel will also be at Stirling on October 25th for the Scottish Championship. Small galaxy!
The Fleets
It’s a lean 400 points, built around an Onager Testbed with Vader, Intel Officer, Varnillian, Veteran Gunners, XI7s and OBPCs. The Cymoon is its running mate, packing Intensify Firepower, Spinals, XI7s and Devastator. Two Gozantis and a pair of TIE Fighters round things out.
Bjørn Blom Sørgjerd (Green Knight)
Somehow, Vader Returned with an Onager – Empire, Darth Vader
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Onager Testbed w/ Vader, Intel Officer, Varnillian, Vet Gunners, XI7s, OBPCs
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ISD Cymoon I w/ Intel Officer, Gunnery Team, IF!, Spinals, XI7s, Devastator
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2x Gozantis (Hondo + Comms Net)
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2x TIE Fighters
= 400 pts
Daniel (Smizzy)
Endor Fleet – Rebels, General Dodonna
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AFII-B w/ Dodonna, Raymus, Flight Controllers, Expanded Hangar, ECM, XX-9s
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CR90B w/ SW-7s, Dodonna’s Pride
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HH Torp w/ ExRacks, Garel’s Honor
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2x GR-75s (Ahsoka + Comms Net / BCC + Bright Hope)
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Gold, Green, Luke, Lando, Shara, Tycho, 2x Scurrgs
= 394 pts
The Matchup
Daniel had the bid and wisely chose first player. He went with Most Wanted. I marked my Hondo Gozanti and his flagship Assault Frigate. Pretty standard. Last round this exact objective had handed me a comfortable win, so I was quietly optimistic.
That optimism didn’t last long.
This was the third game in a row where I ended up second player. My list can live with that role, but in truth it wants to be first. Two long-range bruisers work best when they can punch something off the board before it answers back. But I’d already accepted that risk by going in at 400 points clean. No bid is part of my Armada philosophy: I’d rather build the exact list I want than play the cut-throat bid game. That choice has consequences, and this game underlined them.
The Early Game
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| Setup, stupid Onager pointing straight up lol |
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| Setup, Rebel perspective |
The real trouble started in deployment. I had a plan in mind, something like what I’d done in POD round 2, but when I put my ships down, it ended up looking more like round 1 – the game where I’d learned some hard lessons. Instead of angling the Onager to cover the edge of the board, I told myself it would be “fine” pointing it straight. It wasn’t fine. Just like in my game vs Spike, this left a wide path for Daniel to creep around and force me into awkward pivots.
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| Start r2, fine - for now, but note the angle of the Onager and the rock |
By round 2, I’d already spent my pass token. Unlike my previous opponent, Daniel had kept his ships tight to one side while spreading them out enough that I couldn’t meaningfully threaten multiple targets at once. It was really well done – a subtle but very effective deployment. Meanwhile, my Cymoon had nothing to shoot at. That was survivable for now, but it foreshadowed the problems to come.
I felt I had no choice but to push the Onager forward. Hanging back would have ceded too much space, and I needed to force some pressure onto his ships. For a moment it looked like it might pay off: I forked his flagship Assault Frigate and Dodonna’s Pride. The threat was real.
The Decisive Moment
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| Start r3, pressure is on by Cymoon is on the back foot |
Round 3 was the hinge. The Onager had a shot at the Assault Frigate – extreme range, obstructed behind a rock, but still a solid swing with Vader and all the toys. I landed a structural, but crucially the AF held onto its defense tokens. That single fact changed the whole flow of the game. If the AF had lost its tokens, it would have been doomed. With tokens intact, it could shrug and live to fight another turn.
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| Start r4, I could keep the Cymoon on target, but it is pointless since AF has all tokens |
From that point the script flipped. My plan depended on the Onager punching through and escaping – possible, since Daniel didn’t have long-range squadron control. But “possible” was always a stretch. Once Dodonna’s bombers closed, it became impossible. The crits rolled in, including the brutal “you can’t ready defense tokens.” That was a death sentence.
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| R5, side is obstructed and AF has all tokens, so it's safe |
The follow-up plan had been for the Cymoon to finish off the crippled AF. But of course, it wasn’t crippled. And with the Onager dying and terrain (damn you, space rocks!) complicating the angle, the Cymoon’s shots never lined up. I chose to disengage rather than feed more points into the grinder.
By the time it ended, Daniel had claimed the Onager and my Most Wanted flotilla. 243 plus 23, nothing in return.
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| We called it here |
Reflections
On paper it looks terrible: I killed nothing, lost big, 9–2, MOV 266. But in practice it didn’t feel that way. This wasn’t a rout, nor a dice-driven disaster. Dice were average to decent both ways. It was about small mistakes compounding into bigger ones, while Daniel played a very clean, disciplined game.
His deployment was excellent. His ships stayed spread but cohesive, avoiding overcommitment. His squadron game was efficient, striking where it hurt but never overextending (extra points for efficiently commanding squads without a single Boosted Comms). And when the moment came to disengage, he did it, pocketing the win without chasing for greedy points. That’s good Armada.
For my part, splitting the Onager and Cymoon was fatal. Those two ships need to act in concert, or else one ends up stranded. That happened here. It’s the sort of game you lose, but walk away thinking “yes, that was earned.” And in its own way, that’s satisfying.
The Standings
With the win, Daniel climbs to 21 TP and is very much in the hunt for Gold League. I wish him luck – show the galaxy Dodonna still has bite!
I sit at 14 TP after three rounds. That locks me into the bottom half and likely into Chocolate League, which, if I’m honest, is exactly what I predicted (and maybe even wanted). I had a moment’s dream of Silver or even Gold, but reality has a way of reasserting itself.
The next question is what I bring to the table in Chocolate. Do I keep running Somehow, Vader Returned? Do I tweak it, reflecting the lessons learned here? Or do I take advantage of the Chocolate perk and try something wild with Legacy Wave 0?
Stay tuned. We’ll find out together.
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