Come the second-to-last weekend of October, I’ll be packing my bags for Scotland. My brother lives in Edinburgh, so I’ll fly over, visit him and his family, and then we’ll both drive to Stirling on Saturday, October 25th, to take part in the Armada Scottish Championship at Common Ground Games.
I haven’t settled on a fleet yet — there are too many tempting choices! Empire is my first love, but I’ve also got Rebel and CIS ideas bouncing around. (GAR… not so much.) Ideally, I’ll nail something down, use this event as a test run, and then refine it for the European Championships in Gdańsk this November.
The event itself looks great:
Date: Saturday, October 25
Location: Common Ground Games, 40 Cowane Street, FK8 1JR Stirling, UK
Format: 4 rounds, 135 minutes each — no cut, just a full day of big-ship action
Daniel (“Smizzy”) brings his unique take on a classic Dodonna bomber fleet — an Assault Frigate carrier, light ship support, and a mean squadron wing. At first glance, the ships don’t look scary: one AFII-B “potato,” a CR90B, a Hammerhead, and two flotillas. But once you look past the hulls, it’s clear the squadrons are the real hammer.
Squadrons: Luke, Lando, Shara, Tycho, Green, Gold, plus two Scurrgs. That’s a mix of durable aces, nasty anti-ship punch, and enough cover to tie down enemy fighters. Flight Controllers + Expanded Hangar + BCC makes the ball hit hard and accurately.
Ships:
AFII-B (Dodonna flagship): Carrier build with ECMs and XX-9s. It’s the anchor, and if it survives, his fleet still functions.
CR90B Dodonna’s Pride: Crit delivery platform, synergizing perfectly with Dodonna.
HH Garel’s Honor: Suicide ram threat.
2x GR-75: Classic support — Comms/Ahsoka for token shenanigans and BCC/Bright Hope for bomber reliability.
Threat Assessment
Primary Threat: The squadron wing. Left unchecked, it will chew through medium ships by turn 3–4.
Secondary Threats:
Dodonna’s Pride can punish with crits if it sneaks into range. It has SW7s if pure damage is preferable. Cunning.
Garel’s Honor is a credible ram that forces positional respect.
The potato itself doesn’t kill quickly, but it’s a solid carrier with defensive tech, and if it strips your shields, those XX-9 are nasty af with Dodonna.
Match Context
We both need a big win (9-2 or better) to have a long shot at Gold. Playing safe for a 6-5 or 7-4 almost guarantees Silver/Chocolate. That means both players must gamble, but in different ways:
Daniel has to press his squadron advantage and get damage rolling early. If his bombers don’t land, he probably won’t table me fast enough.
I need to crack ships quickly before the bomber ball reaches full efficiency.
Win Conditions
For him: Use squadrons efficiently, avoid my ships, and let bombers grind me down.
For me: Push through the squadrons, and either kill the small ships, then collapse on the AFII, or take out the AF directly. Unfortunately, he has three combat ships (again quite cunning), so tabling is quite difficult for me to achieve.
Strategic Dilemma
This game is about risk calibration:
Too much aggression → I get eaten by squads by turn 3.
Too much caution → I don’t score enough points for advancement.
Somewhere in the middle lies the path to an 8-3 or better.
My Takeaway
I stand by my initial impression: the squads are the greater threat. The ships synergize with Dodonna, sure, but if they shoot me, I’m shooting them back. Squadrons don’t play by that rule — they bomb, and they keep scoring while the ships hide.
But — and this is the key — if Daniel relies only on squadrons, he can’t realistically hit the 9-2/10-1 win he needs. This is basically what Spike did in the first match. He expertly disengaged his ships to avoid losses, but in doing so, he let me farm the station AND never threatened more than one of my capital ships. For a very modest 7-4 win.
So this will likely come down to how aggressively each of us pushes ships forward, and whether the squadrons arrive in time to swing it.
Whatever happens, it should be a fun, pew-pew filled game.
We both brought 400, he won the toss and—correctly—chose first player, taking my Most Wanted. I would have done the same (go first, that is). I managed to herd most obstacles off to one side and set up center-right, this time keeping my flotillas active and screening, while the Cymoon pushed speed early to stay relevant. Onager angled to cover the flank (lesson learned from Round 1).
Early Turns
Start r1
Round 2: I spent my pass token to force Admonition to play cagey. That worked: it stayed at long, but between MW + Vader + IO/own contain I landed a Structural Damage on its hull—foreshadowing things to come.
Slightly into r2
Luck favored me in the squad game: two TIEs combined to delete Rogue Squadron early, and my last TIE didn’t die until the very end. This plus pressure on the GR-75 kept the A-wings from swarming unchecked.
My Hondo Gozanti (red one) stayed well out of harm’s way the entire game.
Start r3
Midgame
The Onager pulled its weight, pinning both CR90s against the board edge. One limped away, the other was reduced to 1 hull and then ram-killed.
Round 4
Admo tried to sneak wide around my flank but ate a brutal sequence:
Cymoon side arc (MW + CF)
Cymoon rear arc (Spinals + MW)
Onager side shot
Even with Madine’s dancing, that was too much: Admo evaporated.
Round 5
Rebel Counterplay
It wasn’t all one-way traffic. Admo had earlier put significant hull damage into the Cymoon, and Foresight was in prime position to threaten. But with Admo dead and one CR90 gone, my opponent pivoted smartly: stop the bleeding, avoid losing Foresight or the last CR90, and instead pick off my Comms Net Gozanti and the final TIE. Given how low his ships’ shields were, that was the correct call.
Start of r6
Key Decisions & Dice
Turning Point: Spending the pass early and turning the Cymoon away from my fleet to chase Admo. Exactly what I had promised myself not to do after Round 1. Risky, but it worked: constant pressure forced Admo into bad positions. Had it escaped on 1 hull, it would have looked like hubris instead of genius.
Dice: Mine were generally solid—rerolls and mitigation tech gave me the accs and crits I needed. The highlight was two TIEs erasing Rogue in one activation. His dice were decent too, though maybe a touch light on accuracy from the blues when he needed them most.
Result
End state
Final score: 8–3 win, 180 MoV (including the MW bonus).
A tense but very enjoyable game. Big thanks to Mr. Frisky for the match—best of luck for the rest of the tournament!
With 1 round of POD play left, I'm currently in the middle of the pack. So this could go a number of ways. I don't think reaching the top 3 (and the Gold League) is realistic, but I could end up in Silver if I win, or down in Chocolate (where I arguably belong) if I lose. We'll see. Stay tuned!
My POD is already well into round 2, with 2 of 6 games already played (excuse the hand edits, I made it fast and dirty).
Anyway.
My round 2 opponent is UK-based Mr Frisky. I've appended his list and my previous quick anlysis for your convenience.
What I wrote before still holds true: These are some really slippery pigs.
Fleet contains five small speed 4 (the transport has QS) ships, so if he doesn't want to fight, I can TRY to exert pressure, but catching any number of his ships that try to run is effectively pointless. If I'm first player (we're tied for points, so could happen) that'll help a little bit, but not a whole lot.
So what will this match look like? It's largely up to my opponent. Regardless of who is first player, if he wants, he can try to go for a small win by bagging a flotilla or sniping my squadrons. Maybe go for a cautious 6-5 or 7-4.
But for what?
I'm at 4 TP, he's at 3, so if we just split the points, we end up near the bottom of the ladder regardless of who wins!
So ideally, one of us (preferable me) should win 10-1.
But can the Slippery Pigs table me without losses? It's possible but not likely.
They can, however, accomplish it with light losses for a 9-2 which would also be good. The MC30s have a lot of firepower and if handled correctly, with CR90s moving into range at the right time, can take down an Onager + ISD combo. But it has to be expertly flow or losses on his side could quickly mount, and then the balance might swing in my favor.
Beyond this general assessment, there isn't too much to say as a lot of the decissions lie with the faster fleet. We could both win, big or small, depending on how Mr Frisky wants to approach the game.
Mr Frisky
Slippery Pigs... what an apt name. Catching twin CR90s and MC30s under Madine is HARD! Ships are decently hard-hitting, but they will need to maneuver very well, not only to stay alive but to deal concentrated fire upon enemy ships to bring them down. Squads are mostly for screening, but the A-wings do have speed 5 and black dice, so they cannot be discounted in the AS role.
This is a challenging list to catch for anyone, including my own fleet. If, and that's a big if, I can catch a ship, I can kill it, but yeah, that's the trick, isn't it?
The Battle for Endor 2025 campaign is underway! We’re still in the POD phase, sorting twelve players into Swiss groups before the top three advance to Gold, the next three to Silver, and the rest of us tumble into Chocolate (where, wonderfully, you get to rebuild your fleet and even dip into Legacy Wave 0).
I’ve been sorted into the Western Europe POD – or, as I like to call it, the Carolingian Empire. My first match was against my good friend Spike. Since we are both civilized gentlemen, we naturally chose the platform of a more civilized age: VASSAL. Nothing wrong with TTS, of course, but there’s something deeply satisfying about the crisp clarity of top-down Armada.
We logged on Wednesday at 19:00 local time. It’s been over two years since I last played on VASSAL, so I was a bit rusty, but even at 2.5 hours, the game was still faster than TTS would have been!
The Fleets
My List – “Somehow, Vader Returned with an Onager” (Empire)
MC30 Torpedo (flagship) with Draven, Foresight, EST, Ordnance Experts, ECMs, H9s, External Racks
GR-75 with Adar Tallon & Boosted Comms (Bright Hope)
GR-75 with Slicer Tools (Quantum Storm)
Squadrons: Luke, Kanan, Jan, Blount, six Z-95s
Spike had the bid and quite sensibly chose to go first. He picked my Contested Outpost, which meant my game plan was straightforward: sit on the station, farm points, and let him come into range.
The Game
Setup was decent for me, though I made an early misstep by not nesting the Onager behind Hondo’s flotilla. That left it too exposed and too far from the Cymoon, giving Spike’s MC30 an easier flank route than I would have liked. Not a fatal error, but one he definitely exploited.
Start of round 2, Onager should be down and to the left
My first ignition shot was also over-complicated. I fiddled too much with dice mods when I should have just focused on raw damage output to get rid of the brace. Later, I passed on the chance to kill his Slicer GR-75 when I had a double Cymoon arc and Intel Officer lined up. Instead, it limped away alive, costing me the 6th Outpost token in round 6 by slicing away a key Nav on the Comms flotilla.
Those mistakes compounded: I kept the Cymoon sitting on the station longer than I really needed to, which stretched my fleet out and denied me the concentrated fire I needed to actually bag the MC30. The Assault Frigate (the “potato”) also got away, heavily damaged and braceless, but still alive. When the Onager went down, I had nothing left positioned to finish either big ship.
Start r5: Onager is gone, Potto heading for the sunset
Spike, meanwhile, played an excellent game. His squadrons worked overtime with Draven handing out raids, Adar repeatedly refreshing Luke, and Kanan providing just enough disruption. Luke even rolled an early crit that prevented me from having command tokens on the Onager, and later my poor flagship got another crit that limited its ship shots at a key moment – huge swing.
The MC30 mostly loomed as a threat rather than diving in, but that was still effective: it forced me to respect its presence, and later picked up a flotilla kill thanks to an H9 salvo (enabled by that pesky Slicer I had failed to finish earlier). Adar’s flotilla eventually went down once it lost scatter, but only after it had already done plenty of Luke double-taps.
End state
The Result
Score: 243–141 in Spike’s favor
MoV: 102
Result: 7–4 win to Spike
I farmed five Outpost tokens, which kept the score respectable despite losing the Onager and being too spread out to score the kills I needed.
Reflections
My overall plan was sound, but execution faltered. The Onager placement mistake was recoverable, but the Cymoon mismanagement and over-focus on station control doomed my chances to capitalize on Spike’s vulnerabilities.
In hindsight, the Assault Frigate should have died, and the MC30 could have been in serious jeopardy as well. But I spread my firepower, let the Slicer slip away, and lost cohesion. Spike capitalized with clean squadron play, timely raids, and careful positioning.
Could he have pressed harder and gone for a tabling? Maybe. If the potato had pushed into my Cymoon and the MC30 had lined up a last/first double arc, he might have pulled it off. But he would have risked being tabled himself if the dice went my way, so his more measured approach was probably the correct call.
Either way, it was a fun, tactical game and a pleasure to be back in the VASSAL cockpit after two years away. Hats off to Spike for the win – and best of luck to him in the next rounds.
I went to the Open World Qualifier in Copenhagen (or just outside the city, in Taastrup) in November. It's the same place I won Nordics FIVE years ago (2017). It was a surprise when this event popped up on Facebook but a welcome one, especially since I couldn't go to Poland the week before. A lot of the same guys are still playing down there, so I couldn't miss the opportunity to meet up. Not when the last time we met was back in 2018 (Nordics Stockholm, which was the last time I played an IRL Armada tourney thanks to f-ing COVID). My regular Armada buddy from Trondheim also made it, as did Rolf from Østersund.
I went down, and had a great time on Saturday, going 2/2, getting knocked out, going 3/0, and winning the side event on Sunday.
This was my list for Saturday:
I wanted to run the Liberty in honor of Alessandro/Aresius, but wanted to put my own spin on it, so I experimented a bit and settled on the AF + Heraball. And before you say that's not very competitive, I must say that the AF overperformed 4 out of 4 games, and the squads did quite well in 3 of 4 games. My losing 2 games came mostly down to a lack of experience with the Liberty and a general lack of playtime.
Name: ZZ Games OWQ22 - Bjørn B. Sørgjerd Faction: Rebel Commander: Kyrsta Agate
Assault: Advanced Gunnery Defense: Asteroid Tactics Navigation: Infested Fields
1st game: 7-4 win vs PF TF w/4Hardcells. He had 5 raid sources which caused a lot of stress. AF and squad did the work, Lib did OKish but was poorly handled.
2nd game: 6-5 vs Agate AF2A/Foreskin and the usual rogues. AF and squads overperformed and Lib did well in screening Foresight out of the fight. BUT instead of turning to kill Agate AF, I decided to chase down Foresight for the kill. Which I got, but my AF died, and his did not. Very bad decision in an otherwise good game.
3rd game: 3-8 loss vs Prov/PF/Muni/HC Mar Tuuk. Fatigue-induced brainfart caused 5 damage (all the shlds) off my Lib and let his PF live for too long. So Lib basically had to run after that. Got his PF and HC, and it looked good until turn 6 when his dice caught fire and burned everything down. But it wasn't the dice but the poor Liberty play that cost me this game.
4th game: 4-7 loss vs Ozzel Duonager. Hard to attack 2 Onagers with Liberty, but I tried to trade my AF for his flag, but it survived on 2 hull on turn 6, which was sad. I also did poorly with the squads vs his screen.
All in all, I'm pleased with the way my list worked and how I flew, except that some mistakes were made and dice happened 😅😅
My friend (Craken MSU and rogues) made the cut after a played dropped, so that was super cool. While he played 3 rounds Swiss top 8 on Sunday, I played the side event using this Duonager fleet. Not too creative but ET Onagers operating in pairs... with Maaredon as a finisher. Quite killy.
Name: ZZ Games OWQ22 - Bjørn B. Sørgjerd Faction: Imperial Commander: General Romodi
Assault: Surprise Attack Defense: Asteroid Tactics Navigation: Infested Fields
Onager Testbed (96) • General Romodi (20) • Minister Tua (2) • Ordnance Experts (4) • Veteran Gunners (5) • Engine Techs (8) • Orbital Bombardment Particle Cannons (5) • Electronic Countermeasures (7) = 147 Points
1st game: 8-3 vs Assault SSD/Goz. Traded my Ozzel Onager for the table.
2nd game: 8-3 vs Rieekan TRC90s and rogues. He didn't want to play the slug objectives, so went for Surprise attack, but he didn't have Hondo... so I started with mega-dice and just blew Rieekan up in round 1. So despite a potentially bad matchup, I ended up trading my flag for the table.
3rd game: 10-1 vs Piett Onager/Dictor objective play combo. We played his Ambadoned Mining, and I managed to trick him into thinking I'd go for some mining at setup. Which I did not. Instead, my 2 Onagers killed his one Onager, then cut down the rest of his fleet. He had a raider limp away at 1 hull, so no table...
And that's it really. Sooo much fun playing Armada for 2 whole days. Hope I get to do it again!
Signup deadline: Sunday, 27th February. Sing up HERE.
This is the place where we explore the what-ifs and could-have-beens of Armada. The place where we play with new versions of old ships and squadrons - and introduce completely new ones such as the Separatist Lucrehulk and Sith Infiltrator, the Republic Stealth Ship and Naboo N-1.
It's also where you'll find existing upgrades - with a twist - alongside entirely new cards. Even the objectives have been tweaked to make more of them useful to a variety of fleet archetypes (without shifting the advantage too strongly towards the 2nd player). Last, but not least, we're even experimenting with a few rules changes...
Important external links
Fantasy League RRG: Download the pdf here (latest version is 1.02)
VASSAL: Module download (latest version is 4.7.0fl)
TTS: Currently only implemented in the Development version which you can get here. You also need the custom database for the Fantasy League.
Card collection: All cards are available as a pdf here.
Where?
It's primarily a digital event on VASSAL and TTS (with support from @Valadian) but if you want you can easily print all the cards you need from KDYards and play on the tabletop!
Why?
Why not?
The changes are big enough that everything will feel fresh and uncertain, but not so big as to make it another game entirely. It's also an unique opportunity: AFAIK no one has ever attempted to host a world-spanning custom event for Armada.
Virtual plastic spaceships will go pew pew, mistakes will be made, dice will happen. It's going to be fun - don't miss out!
Phases and What to Make of Them
The Fantasy League isn't just ONE event. Every few months, a new Phase is initiated. Each phase adds new stuff to the game. In fact, phases are pretty much like new waves.
In Phase 1, only Empire/Rebel factions are playable, and the selection of ships, squadrons, and upgrades is limited.
In Phase 2, Republic/Separatist are added, and the first large base ships appear.
In Phase 3 there will be rogues & villains for all four factions - and more.
Phase 4+ is still on the drawing board.
Each Phase is a separate league event; scores are reset to zero. So even if you didn't win Phase 1 there is no reason why you couldn't be the Phase 2 champion!
What's new?
Let me give you some examples of what to expect:
Rules: The rules are largely the same, with a few big changes and a bunch of minor ones. If you want to know more about the various rules changes, check out the Rules Reference Guide, the YouTube videos below, or chat with me on Discord (links below).
Here is an example of a big change (highlighted in red): You can spend readied (green) defense tokens targeted by accuracy icons. But if you do, you have to discard that token.
Objectives: We're using the objectives that you're used to. But they have been tweaked with the aim of making more of them playable with the right fleet. Second player is pretty strong ATM so the tweaks aren't necessarily buffs; some objectives got nerfed.
Fleet Ambush is a good example: It's almost the same, but there is a restriction of deploying squadrons and the first player has to pass his first activation round 1. There is also a bit about deploying overlapping obstacles; that's because the rules now forbid this for all ships, not just Huge ships.
Ships: The ships in the first phase are tweaked versions of existing ships. Later new ships - both variations of existing ones and completely news ships - will be added.
This Vic is no joke: It can turn reasonably well, has goodish flak, a black die in the front, a salvo token, and an amazing upgrade bar. For a mere 79 points. Still a speed 2 ship that can easily turn into a point piñata.
Squadrons: Existing squadrons get tweaks and points changes, and new uniques are added. We'll eventually see new squadron types, including some multi-faction squads. Hondo and Gauntlets for all four factions. V-wings, N-1s, Eta2s, and LATT/i gunships for the republic. U-wings. More TIE variants. Dooku, Maul, and Ventress. It's quite the list.
This is Thane. He's dangerous and cheap. And he has colorful dice and a squadron evade. S-foils is a new keyword for B-wings and X-wings that let them get +1 speed if they remove a die.
Upgrades: We got some old upgrades that have been modded and a few entirely new cards. The cost of some cards has changed.
Ion Missiles are new, same with the Audacious Arquitens title. Lando is the same old, but with an additional effect.
More info
YouTube video of me talking about the Fantasy League format:
Another YouTube video, this one gives an overview of Phase 1 content:
Event format
The Fantasy League is a... league event 😅
Rounds: There is only 1 "round" which lasts for the duration of the phase. Each player can play and register any number of games during this round, but you don't sore points equally for all of them (see below).
Opponents: Players are expected to arrange their own games; there are no TO-controlled pairings.
That said, you're encouraged to play a variety of opponents, not just your IRL buddy over and over. A few games against the same guy is OK (not going to set a hard cap) especially if you use different lists, but if you play vs 1 or 2 people only you're doing something wrong.
Lists: You can use the same list for every game, iterations of the same list, or wildly different lists. It's up to you.
Scoring: Scoring works a little differently. We use the standard MoV/TP table.
The following restrictions apply:
You have to play a minimum of 4 games.
If you play 6 games, only your best 4 games will count towards your score.
Example: You go 9-2, 8-3, 4-7, 2-9, 10-1, 6-5. The 4-7 and 2-9 are ignored for scoring purposes, so your score is 10+9+8+6=33.
For each game beyond 6 you play, you score 1 additional tournament point, regardless of your score. If you play more than 6 games, only the 6 first games count towards scoring. So you can't play 20 games and cherry pick the best 4.
Continuing the above example, if you played 10 games, you have 33+4=37 TPs.
Schedule
Signup deadline: Sunday, 27th February.
The event starts Monday, 28th February.
The event ends Sunday, 24th April.
Phase 2 will begin shortly after phase 1 ends. It adds CW factions and large ships to the game. Phase 3 will start this summer. Details to follow.
AAR: You only have to include your list; the rest of the questions are optional but do please make the effort as the feedback will directly impact future Fantasy League phases.
VASSAL info
To play in the Fantasy League, run this module version and you'll see the new cards. When you want a standard game, just run the standard version.
You can use Shrimpbot to generate setup vlogs. Get the text export of your fleet, paste it into a text editor and remove any custom cards (new upgrades and squadrons).
Use !vassal to generate a vlog, load the vlog as normal, then add the custom pieces by dragging them from the Pieces menu. It's not 100% but still saves time and effort.
TTS info
First you have to load the module (currently only the Development version has support for custom databases). Then you need to additively load the Fantasy League database.
If you've correctly used additive load on the Fantasy League database the fleet spawner will spawn all custom cards without issue!
The only thing that isn't fully implemented is scoring: the crippled rule isn't in effect and non-VP token scoring isn't implemented. So you'll have to manually calculate scores.
It's time to find out who is the ultimate Vassal Armada 3-round Swiss Champion of 2022!
We did the same thing last year, and with over 30 players it turned out to be a great event. The only difference this year is that the CW factions are fully revealed and integrated into he game.
Lists are invisible to other players until the event starts. Do NOT include your objectives unless you want everyone to see them.
Format
For this 1-day event, there is a single Swiss group across all time zones!
Standard 400-points
3 round Swiss
Each Swiss round runs for 2h 15min and then ends IMMEDIATELY.
You CANNOT start a new round if the timer has passed the 2h mark.
The current round is NOT played to completion when the time is called. Finish the current activation (ship or squadron), then hard stop and tally the score.
Report the result to the TO in the appropriate tourney channel or as a PM (Green Knight#5600) on Discord so pairings for the next round can be done in a timely fashion.
Schedule
Signup deadline: Sunday, 20th March.
Fleet submission deadline: 30 mins before the tournament starts, 10:00 am EST/14:00 GMT
The event takes place Sunday, 20th March.
Start round 1: 10:30 am EST/14:30 GMT
"Lunch" break: 1:00 pm EST/17:00 GMT
Start round 2: 1:30 pm EST/17:30 GMT
Start round 3: 4:00 pm EST/20:00 GMT
Times adjusted for daylight savings (from the 13th in the US but not until the 27th in Europe).
Every effort has been made to ensure that people from all across the globe can play. West Coast players have to get up real early. CET players have to stay up a bit late. These are the best times I could find 😅
The current score (player score + list score) is as follows:
Roald is in the lead, followed closely by Spike. Lots of EURO sector players in the top but this is MADNESS and scores change fast and change big. Anything is possible!
Round 1 (of 4) of the Midsummer Madness tournament is over. Don't know what MM is? Read all about it here.
The current score (player score + list score) is as follows:
Paul is in the lead with a 10 - 1 in his game and a list that bagged a 7-4. Followed by realveers and medalofairness whose lists have done really well but who haven't played that convincingly themselves 😅 Next followers three players who have gotten 9-10 points but whose lists haven't done THAT well.
I'm excited to see the results for round 2 (deadline 11th or 14th with extension). Remember that players are paired in 2 groups playing Swiss, but lists are in a common round-robin pool (no playing the same list twice or with or against your own list).
