Nordics 2018 - After action report part 2, THRAWN 2-SHIP OF DOOM

Before I start with the list, I have to tell a fun story from X-wing. It's Armada-related, I promise!

You know that Armada command dials you place your selected command in the little opening on the wheel? X-wing is completely the opposite. The opening in the wheel is for your thumb, while the actual maneuver is on the top.

Try to guess how hard it's to unlearn what you have learned? That's right, very difficult. So I keep checking and rechecking to make sure I haven't goofed up. 

But then, in my 5th game against a Norwegian called Leif, I DID goof up.

I was going to go 3 ahead, but put that command down in the "gap". So when I revealed the dial i had to do a right 1-bank with Wedge instead, which turned out to be the PERFECT maneuver lol!

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Enough X-wing.

Here is the list:

It's pretty close to the one I ran at SC in Østersund a few weeks ago.

Changes include swapping Gamma for Valen, bc I felt more anti-squad would be needed, especially against nasty rebelses/generics and counter nonsense. Turned out to be a GREAT swap - Valen did so much good work, while my bombers mostly miss anyway :-P

I took out Expanded Hangars. With more experience, I didn't really need them anymore. If u go back and read my original reasoning for adding them, that still holds true. But they are no longer essential, so out they went.

This had the added benefit of increasing my bid to 7 (from 4). Not a huge difference, but knowing the Nordic meta (whatever that means) I was pretty sure I'd get first at least 3 out of 4. 

For a little while I had DCaps on the Quasar, and it was a great little addition. However, it pushed me back to 396, and wasn't really essential, just nice to have. Also, it made me more aggro with the Quasar, which isn't a good idea. So ditching it was for the better.

Objectives got an overhaul. With 7 pts bid and good idea what list MIGHT outbid me, I went the route of CRIS, PIC and SP. So basically I gave up on scoring for objectives that make me safer and give pts (CRIS) or more firepower (PIC). 

Don't be fooled by CRIS... those dust coulds will make ur life miserable, and I will get points. Not very many maybe 50-60, but its still a nice bonus. And your chance of scoring pts is very small indeed. PIC is deadly when combined with heavy squads and the ISD front arc. It becomes like a 3rd ship u can't get away from or kill.

Finally I did swap out my beloved XI7 for some Quads. I love XI7. They give me the ability to drill through shields, should my bombers be otherwise engaged. It doesn't trigger often, but when it does it can be game changing.

However, so can QBT. And man did they prove handy. Although I don't think I got a single extra blue die, the Quads had an incredible impact on several games, making enemy ships slow down rather than risk the extra dice. One. Blue. Dice. Guys, sometimes you just have to accept that and eat it, rather than slow down and die!

Name: NORDICS Thrawn 2-ship
Faction: Imperial
Commander: Grand Admiral Thrawn

Assault: Close-Range Intel Scan
Defense: Planetary Ion Cannon
Navigation: Superior Positions

Imperial II (120)
• Grand Admiral Thrawn (32)
• Governor Pryce (7)
• Gunnery Team (7)
• Electronic Countermeasures (7)
• Leading Shots (4)
• Quad Battery Turrets (5)
• Avenger (5)
= 187 Points

Quasar Fire I (54)
• Captain Brunson (5)
• Flight Controllers (6)
• Boosted Comms (4)
• Squall (3)
= 72 Points

Squadrons:
• Colonel Jendon (20)
• Maarek Stele (21)
• TIE Defender Squadron (16)
• Dengar (20)
• Mauler Mithel (15)
• Tempest Squadron (13)
• Captain Jonus (16)
• Valen Rudor (13)
= 134 Points

Total Points: 393

Full credits to Brobafett for giving me the idea to run Thrawn 2-ship. He just showed me the concept a while back and BOOM was I in love.

I made some modifications myself, but the more I play, the close I come to Broba's list lol. ATM the only difference is me having PIC and I have only 1 Defender, Tempest and Valen vs his 2 Defenders and Black.

It's not the "perfect" list or any kind of OP or anything, but its a good, strong list. And in skilled hands it has the potential to be really good. It's also different than the norm and just plain FUN to fly.

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This was not, however, the list I was really going to fly... that list was this Raddus list. Do you remember Mats from the SC? They guy I almost played (again), until someone called out the correct scoring rules for being tabled and having a higher MoV?

He told me he was running pretty much the same list as in Østersund. So that sealed it. In that hopes we'd meet, i brought pretty much the same list myself!

Without further ado, here is what I almost flew at Nordics:

Name: NORDICS Raddus
Faction: Rebel
Commander: Admiral Raddus

Assault: Most Wanted
Defense: Planetary Ion Cannon
Navigation: Solar Corona

MC75 Ordnance Cruiser (100)
• Strategic Adviser (4)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• Electronic Countermeasures (7)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
• External Racks (3)
• Profundity (7)
= 130 Points

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• External Racks (3)
= 43 Points

MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
• H9 Turbolasers (8)
• Admonition (8)
= 88 Points

CR90 Corvette A (44)
• Admiral Raddus (26)
• Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (7)
• Jaina's Light (2)
= 79 Points

GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Slicer Tools (7)
• Bright Hope (2)
= 27 Points

GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Slicer Tools (7)
• Quantum Storm (1)
= 26 Points

Squadrons:
= 0 Points

Total Points: 393

I also had a couple of other lists up for consideration: Ackbar AC + high activation, Rieekan AC + high activation, Rieekan MSU + Rogues, and more. I'll share some of them with you later, because they turned out all right, but I didn't have time to practice enoguh with any of them.

Nordics 2018 - After action report part 1, THE X-WING MENACE

I'm back from Nordics - and it was even better than last year!

I ALMOST managed to become the Armada champ again, but alas, despite going 4-0 there was another guy I didn't play that was ahead in points. I'm surprised I'm not disappointed, but I guess I feel I did as well as I could and that the rest was out of my hands. Plus I did both win my games and have great opponents, so there is no source of salt to be found.

Anyway. Well done Thomas - but I would have totally tabled you if we met :-P Next time!

Before I get down and dirty with the batreps, let's talk about X-wing. I got into X-wing when 2.0 was released, never played it before (except one intro game back in 2012). So I can't really comment on the quality of 1.0, but 2.0 is a BLAST. Really good game. It scratches a very different itch from Armada - one I didn't even know I had.

Nordics 2018 is the reason I wanted to try X-wing. Flying down to Stockholm for just the 4 games of Armada felt a bit empty. I did that last year for Nordics, and this time I just wanted more play time compared to travel time/expenses.

Plus we lack a strong Armada community locally. I basically have to drive for 3 hours to attend tourneys in Østersund, Sweden. For everything else I have to take a plane. But there is a nice group of X-wing here, so if I started with X-wing I could get to play like real games!

So I ordered a Core, 1 X-wing and 1 Y-wing, plus the Rebel Conversion kit (no ships to convert, but I needed some upgrades to start with). That allowed me to field a simple Rebel list of Luke, Wedge and Dutch. I loaded them with some thematic upgrades, torpedoes and droids, shields and talents. Too many really, but I didn't know that then.

Then I went online.

I used to dev the Armada module, so I was familiar with Vassal, but not the X-wing module)

I had 9 games on Vassal, enough to know the rules, make a more reasonable list and not be a total baby seal. My first win came in my 5th game, and although I only won 1 more game after that, I felt I was starting to know what I was doing.

Tweaking. The first thing I noticed was that Dutch was considered a low target priority, so he was left for last - and then he lacked the ability to kill anything on his own. So I ditched him in favor of an ARC, selecting Garven for his focus-passing ability and giving Wedge Swarm. It was a better list.

Then I got into my car (or actually a rental as my brakes decided to get shifty) and drove 3 hours to Østersund. This was my first Store Champ. My first time with real minis - I actually unpacked my fleet right before that first RL game :-D

I went 2-3 at that tourney, which was very good by my standards (also won the Armada SC the day after). I learned a LOT, and got some new ideas for tweaking list. The Garven/Swarm thing hadn't really worked much. Either he didn't get to focus or he simply didn't roll any eyes, so the number of times he passed a focus token... very low indeed.

I was going to do more Vassal games in between the SC and Nordics, but it turned out my Armada-fu was... a bit rusty, so I had to prioritize that. Plus Armada was... really fun again. In no small part thanks to Broba's Thrawn 2-ship. But more about that later.

So... for Nordics I ran Wedge w/R3 & Protons, Luke with IA & Protons and ARC-Norra with Intimidation/Zeb & Tail Gunner. A simple, yet flexible list, and not too punishing vs mistakes. 

Nordics 2018 R3 (200)

Wedge Antilles — T-65 X-Wing 52

Proton Torpedoes 9

R3 Astromech 3

Servomotor S-foils 0

Ship Total: 64

 

Luke Skywalker — T-65 X-Wing 62

Instinctive Aim 2

Proton Torpedoes 9

Servomotor S-foils 0

Ship Total: 73

 

Norra Wexley — ARC-170 Starfighter 55

Intimidation 3

“Zeb” Orrelios 1

Veteran Tail Gunner 4

Ship Total: 63

The list has a strong opening, which IMO is important to a newbie with poor dogfighting skills. So basically my list, my setup and my opening moves are aimed at doing a lot more damage to you at long range than u do to me. No bid, bc I don't know what to do with it...

When we get close, I'm ahead and your ships start dying before mine and it snowballs to victory. Also, if u try that clever shit with blocking and bumping that I don't fully master, Norra is in the middle of it, with bonus Evades and the ability to shoot back and front, even at range 0. You die.

I'm not going to claim prodigal status, but this is me after a total of 8 real life X-wing games (plus 9 simulated). I'm in 2nd place after 3 rounds at Nordics. I'm sure luck was involved. Pairings. Dice. Whatever. But I must have done something right...

In my 4th game I met a veteran Polish player (the guy just below me in r3). He went on to win the Swiss, 6-0 with a good MoV, and our game was the closes he came to a loss. I did the same as in the other games, and lo and behold, his Guri and Old Teroch are both dead, and I have 3 ships left.

But that's when the skill disparity kicked in: he was in close, 2nd player and I6, dodging all my good shots. Wedge and Luke went down without me being able to focus Fenn Rau down.

Then we had 1 ship left each, and chased back and forth between the asteroids, but Norra can't really catch Fenn Rau, and my increasingly desperate attempts at scoring half points on Rau came to nothing. And Fenn cost 8 more than Norra, so loss.

The best game of the 6. I was on my toes for 75 minutes straight. Man was my coffee cold after! :-D

Last two games were wins also. So 5-1 for me, and 5th in Swiss of about 100 players. Highest ranking Norwegian, only one to make the cut actually. Not too shabby for a baby seal! 

And yeah, I'm pretty pleased with that achievement. No, I'm totally blown away. I almost can't believe it. Wow!

Tempting as it was to play the Top 16 Cut on Sunday, my hearts is with Armada, so I had to drop. It kind of sucked, but it didn't. Maybe if I didn't have a title to defend I might have done it? But... I think not. Four guaranteed games of Armada over maybe (big maybe) more than 1 game of X-wing?

Fun fact: I know the guy who came 17th, so by dropping he got into the cut. He was very happy with that. He also paired against the Polish buy who beat me... and defeated him. VENGEANCE! :D he went on to reach the top 4 before being knocked out. I'm pretty sure I would have lost a second game against my "nemesis", so everything worked out fine I think.

But too bad there was an overlap at all. It would have been so cool to see if I could make top 8... top 4... top 2... top ;-) Maybe next year? :-P

How does this relate to Armada? Not a lot, but a little. X-wing is guaranteed hard to master, but the rules are simple to learn, and the game itself much less complex than Armada. A LOT less complex. There are usually 3-4 ships to a side (more with swarms, but they are moving as one), no turn limit, no objectives, no command stacks. There are (as of wave 1) not too many ship types or upgrades or OP combos.

For Armada players that's nothing. We juggle so many more variables and our early decisions echo deep into our games. In that regard X-wing is a bit more forgiving. So even if the games are not much alike, I do think my experience with Armada helped me learn very quickly and to juggle variables easily and plan ahead several turns. I also found a good setup and flexible opening gambit, which are so important also in Armada.

I will play more X-wing. It doesn't mean less Armada, it just means more gaming in general :-)

Trials of Konstantine: Round 2

King K brings home another win!

This time a win by tabling, but losing my Dictor flagship in the process, for a 8-3 MoV 147.

My opponent was NairoD, who ran Motti VSD, Quasar, 2xGoz, and a horrible ball of 11 bombers and Dengar!

He was at 400 vs my 396, so I opted for first, potentially giving me last-first with my Strat Adv. I chose his Contested Outpost (other picks were Precicison Strike and Sup Positions). Sure, I'd give away 3-4 tokens, but that's  nothing compared to what PS and SP could give him. Plus CO means I know where he'll be, improving the chances of tabling dramatically.

His fleet is rather unusual: a Vic and a Quasar, both built around Ruthless, and a Rhymerball like u haven't seen in ages. Between Dengar AND Chirraneau tying down those bombers just isn't happening. And there is nothing in Armada that can survive 12 black dice, 11 of them bomber dice with BCC rerolls. 

That doesn't mean his fleet is perfect. Anyone who has played a bit of squads in Armada knows that obstruction kills any flak a 1 die ship might have. So both the Vic and the Quasar are foiled by a single intervening obstacle or ship. Or Ciena, who creates her own obstruction. Also, flak, combined with damage from enemy squads, plus self-harm through RS quickly mounts up in my experience.

Anyway, its not the ship-bombing or anti-squad capabilities that are the problem. The problem is the complete lack of ship-based firepower. Unless someone parks in front of the VSD and you get lucky with the dice, the VSD isn't going to be doing all that mush damage. Not even H9 and Warlord will help all that much. Plus, without ECM, Brunson or whatever, the VSD&Quasar are both pretty soft targets. Lots of hull with Motti to be sure, but ultimately soft.

And with only 2 activations, the enemy has one way to handle this fleet: table it before it eats too many ships.

NairoD

[ flagship ] Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (73 points) -  Admiral Motti ( 24 points)  -  Warlord ( 8 points)  -  Agent Kallus ( 3 points)  -  Ruthless Strategists ( 4 points)  -  Quad Laser Turrets ( 5 points)  -  H9 Turbolasers ( 8 points)  -  Ordnance Pods ( 3 points)  = 128 total ship cost   

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points) -  Boosted Comms ( 4 points)  -  Bomber Command Center ( 8 points)  = 35 total ship cost   

Quasar Fire II-class Cruiser-Carrier (61 points) -  Pursuant ( 2 points)  -  Admiral Chiraneau ( 10 points)  -  Ruthless Strategists ( 4 points)  -  Boosted Comms ( 4 points)  = 81 total ship cost   

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points) -  Comms Net ( 2 points)  = 25 total ship cost   

8 TIE Bomber Squadrons ( 72 points)  

1 Major Rhymer ( 16 points)  

1 Dengar ( 20 points)  

1 Tempest Squadron ( 13 points)  

1 Gamma Squadron ( 10 points)  = 131 total squadron cost

NairoD spread out his obstacles, like any sane man would vs Grav Shift. It's usually NOT good to castle behind rocks when facing Grav Shift! So the station ended up in a corner, with only 2 obstacles within shift range. 

The rest of the setup was pretty straightforward. I set up with the Dictor as bait/blocker, as it tanks bombers better than the ISD with Brunson. Also, it has way less firepower, so if it dies it doesn't subtract that much from my offensive power. I made sure no massive bomber attacks could hit me r1, so no rushing the station!

Start of round 2 had both fleets closing, with NairoD easily controlling the station.

Round 2 I opened up with Suppressor and a squad command, doing some good damage and slicing the Vic (with the added benefit of acting as a speed bump for my ISD). My other ships started forward. Nairo started bombing the Dictor, doing little damage, as his BCC flotilla was out of range for the most part.

Round 3 started with the Dictor mostly OK, and with repairs and Brunson and Scramblers etc I was expecting it to weather the storm. But round 3 saw my Dictor eat a lot of bomber dice. There were so many HIT/CRITS rolled I don't think I've ever seen anything like it before. It's too tough to die ouright, but it took way more damage than expected. Still, it was keeping the enemy from moving away, triggering Konstantine at the end of the round, speeding up the Gozanti to 3 and slowing down the rest. That's the most important part.

Round 4 was intense. I had to do the Dictor first to repair and make sure it got to shoot. But then the black dice madness continued, and it finally crumpled. Goodbye little Dictor (Konstantine boarded a shuttle before this unfortunate incident).

My ISD then activated, blowing away the Quasar who was unable to escape blue range due to speed 1 and reducing the VSD from 10 to 2 hull. Had it not been for a lousy 2 damage over 7 red dice round 2 and 3, the VSD would have died here. But the end result would not have been much different, except for poor Mithel, who got blown away by Warlord/H9/Kallus/RS :-D

Round 5 was the last round. ISD activated, blew away the Vic and the BCC flotilla, leaving him with 1 Gozanti and a bunch of squads tied up by Ciena. Game.

I lost Dictor, which was my flagship, and Suppressor. Plus poor Mithel. NairoD got tabled. Four tokens for him, 1 for me. Mov 147, 8-3.

Stuff that actually worked for me this game: Slicer Tools, Grav Shift, Tractor Beams, Ion Cannons, DCaps, Titus, and ADMIRAL KONSTANTINE. Honorable mention to my two squads that did pretty great vs TWELVE enemy squads lol!

I'm now at 16 points after 2 games, which is pretty good. There is one match still unplayed that could give one player 16 pts with a 10-1, but most likely I'm in the top 4.

Also most likely is I'll play vs Broba and his Thrawn 2-ship. It's an opponent and I fleet I know well, so I guess that's a plus. Unfortunately it's a very good fleet (better than mine) and Broba is a good player. 

I guess I'll just have to table him :-)

The Rules Lawyer: Thrawn dials and clearing raid tokens

UPDATE: DOOM AND GLOOM!

Seems we all missed this little baby from the recent FAQ:

Q: Do abilities or card effects that resolve when a ship reveals its command dial resolve when a command dial placed on an upgrade card equipped to that ship is revealed?

A: No. Effects that resolve when a ship reveals its command dial only resolve when a ship reveals a command dial from the stack assigned to its ship card as part of its activation.

That basically kills my entire line of reasoning. I was too caught up in the FAQ entry for Thrawn --> the surprising ruling you could tokenize the Thrawn dial.

Turns out tokenization is a SPECIFIC EXCEPTION TO THE RULE, rather than a precedent to make further rulings based on it.

So move along, these are not the rulings you're looking for!

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We had an interesting rules discussion over on the Discord, regarding Thrawn dials and what you can and cannot do with them.

To begin with some people had missed the FAQ ruling that you CAN spend the Thrawn dial for a token. 

"When a friendly ship gains a command dial as part of Grand Admiral Thrawn’s effect, that ship can spend that dial to gain a matching command token."

This ruling is important, since it sets a mild precedence for getting rid of: Raid tokens.

The actual discussion was related to Raid tokens, and whether or not you can discard the Thrawn dial to discard all raid tokens.

It seemed consensus was NO, because of the wording on raid:

"While a ship has a raid token, it cannot resolve the command matching that raid token. When a ship with a raid token reveals a command dial, it may discard that dial to discard all of its raid tokens, or it may discard a command token to discard matching raid token. A ship cannot have more than one raid token of each type."

It was argued that since you don't REVEAL the Thrawn dial, but GAIN it, there is no trigger for clearing tokens:

"After deploying fleets, place 3 facedown command dials on this card. At the start of each Ship Phase, you may reveal and discard 1 of those dials. If you do, until the end of the round, before each friendly ship activates, it gains 1 additional dial matching that discarded dial."

This seemed very odd to me, as the timing for gaining a command token from a dial is EXACTLY THE SAME:

"When a ship’s command dial is revealed, that dial can be spent to assign the corresponding command token to that ship. Command tokens can be spent at the appropriate time to resolve the lesser effect of that command."

My conclusion is that we cannot 100% KNOW that you can discard the Thrawn dial to clear raid tokens, but it would be DAMN ODD if you can't, based on the OK to tokenize Thrawn dials in the FAQ.

The question is mostly academic: you can tokenize the Thrawn and clear a matching raid token, or spend the ship's dial to clear all raid tokens. But it COULD come up, and then I would strongly suggest TOs allow a Thrawn dial to be spent to clear raid.

Preppring for Nordics 2018 - With a little help from your friends...

Short update:

I now have way more good ideas for lists than I could possibly test. So I've taken a few of them and done some theorycrafting of my own, then actually tested a couple of them. With mixed results I might add - although that was more due to lack of skill on my part than flaws in the lists.

Haven't quite decided what to bring yet, but the search is narrowing down. There are a couple of Rebel candidates and a couple of Empire candidates still in the running. It's a mix of tried and true and "dark horse" builds. There is especially one dark horse I'm quite fond of, but I question my ability to fly it properly.

I love to try new and experimental stuff, but I also like to go to tourneys knowing that A) the fleet is good in and of itself, B) that I've played it enough times to know it - which is about 5 times, and C) used past experience to make those final little tweaks.

In the end I'll probably bring 1 Rebel and 1 Imp with me to Stockholm, then decide at the very last moment which list to actually run. That's what I did in Østersund. Nothing like beating yourself up over what to run until the morning of the tourney :D

Trials of Konstantine: Round 1

Who has the manlier facial hair?

My first game is done, and it was a solid win for King K! 

8-3, MoV 213, so just 7 pts shy of a 9-2. Not quite the 10-1 King K demands, but it'll do for now :P

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My opponent was West Coast US-based emfrank. His list is 5 activations of pure long-range killing power: 1 MC30 scout and 4 TRC vettes, with 2 YTs and Dash for good measure. MM commanding. Haven't seen her in a while, but she's always hard to kill. It's a pretty good list, but I think 1 less vette and some flotillas (sad to say this really) would make it even better: 5 activations just isn't enough. U need 6, at least.

Autumn Rebel Fleet option 
Author: emfrank72

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 390/400 
Commander: Mon Mothma

[ flagship ] MC30c Scout Frigate (69 points) -  Mon Mothma  ( 30  points)  -  Major Derlin  ( 7  points)  -  Caitken and Shollan  ( 6  points)  -  Advanced Projectors  ( 6  points)  -  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points)  -  Assault Proton Torpedoes  ( 5  points)  = 130 total ship cost 

CR90 Corvette A (44 points) -  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points)  = 51 total ship cost 

CR90 Corvette A (44 points) -  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points)  = 51 total ship cost 

CR90 Corvette A (44 points) -  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points)  = 51 total ship cost 

CR90 Corvette A (44 points) -  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points)  = 51 total ship cost

1 Dash Rendar ( 24 points)

2 YT-2400s ( 32 points)  = 56 total squadron cost

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Report:

He went 1st and took my Dangerous Territory. I know most players consider DT a pretty weak objective for 2nd player. I could not disagree more. You get all the obstacles in the middle section of the board (min distance 5 from edge), you get points AND you can use obstacles jaina style to hide on/behind AND you can use them to hurt enemy movement. With Grav Shift it becomes a LOT stronger: you can make a barrier of obstacles, touching even. And points: either u come to me and kill my fleet, or you lose. Do you take some damage to grab tokens? Fine with me. Do you, like emfrank, detach a ship to gather points? Also fine. So yeah, it's not Superior Positions strong, but I like it more than say Solar Corona.

I did some grav shift trickery and started with 5 obstacles in front of my fleet, screening it and offering me good token grabs. He set up opposite me,  coming in hot, with 1 CR90 on the flank, intended to pick up the 6th token before flanking me.

I maneuvered aggressively, and looking at this image from start round 2 you see I managed to block his movement with all my ships, the obstacles and ISD front arc. Corvettes end up in bad places.

My 1st activation r2 my Gozanti activates my squads, taking down 1 YT-2400 and doing Mithel damage to the rest. The Gozanti moves forward, taking 2 tokens in 1 move (thanks Grav Shift) and using the rocks for cover. I then slice one of the CRs to squad, and is perfectly poised for Suppressor shenanigans. All in just 1 flotilla activation. You may now applaud my excellence!

From top of r3. His flanking CR90 can't make it to the fight in time, and the MC30 is also late to the party. I'm a little careless with the Dictor, plus emfrank rolls really well (single reds from side arcs always get a dbl, even wo TRC), so at this point I'm afraid he might charge and kill the Dictor. But if he does, I'll have a good chance to table.

Round 4. If my Dictor hadn't taken an insane amount of double arcs and HIT/HITs, I might have been able to turn hard into the approaching flankers, but as it were my Admiral had to disengage. The ISD got a late game CR90 kill, but 1 CR90 and Mothma escaped since I couldn't use Konstantine's ability.

Round 5. My fleet is disengaging, except the ISD who turns hard and speeds up. The light rebel ships are clustered, and cannot all get away. The ISD is undamaged at this point, having repaired the little dmg it took, and can't die over so few rounds.

Start of r6. Only one CR90 can posisbly get away. I blow up the other, swinging points for a 9-2 to me. But Dash got the acc he needed to kill 1 Hp Ciena, swinging the MoV out of 9-2 and back into 8-3. Bummer :D

End state was 3 CR90s dead, 2 YTs, and 5 tokens for me. He got both my squads and 1 token.

Logfile dl

My fleet worked pretty well. Titus and Grav shift created small advantages at start. Ion batteries shed tokens and did shld dmg. ET was useful. DCaps too. Brunson+Dictor ate so many double reds. Dictor would be dead without her. ISD did ISD things. I tractored and used King Ks ability.

I'm looking forward to my next game, vs VSD+Quasar+Goz+GOz and no less than 11 bombers and Dengar. I'll be sure to take some pics!

Preppring for Nordics 2018

Nordics 2018 are held in Stockholm, Sweden on Sunday 28th October. That's just under 4 weeks to make a list, preferably a good one, and practice a little bit. That's not a lot of time. 

Last year at this time, I had already settled on a concept and had already run numerous test games, slowly honing the list itself and perfecting my technique with it.

This year will be different. I have returned to play Armada again, that is true, but I've had a long break and skills are still a bit rusty. I also struggle with listbuilding. I want to do NEW and EXITING, but still GOOD. But the truth is there isn't anything new under the sun, so I'm getting frustrated.

Frustrated to the point where taking my Vassal tourney list with KONSTANTINE is starting to look like a good option. Well, maybe not that bad. But I don't want to just repeat what I've already done. 

I could do Thrawn again, I suppose, he feels new and exiting still, but it would have to be a different list. I already ran the 2-ship in Østersund, and its a good one, and different, but I can't really see how I can improve upon it, so it feels a bit dead ATM.

Raddus is a strong admiral right now, so I could perhaps do a Raddus list. But it would have to be different from my Raddus Regionals list. But different how? Everybody and their grandmother is doing Raddus ATM, and I don't just want to copy something. 

Speaking of Raddus. I find the whole Raddus ability to be kind of a game breaker for many lists ATM. I find myself drawing up many concepts, only to delete them after trying to mentally match them against a Raddus fleet or two. While it's good that we got a good shakeup of activations and deployments, maybe Raddus was one step too far.

So what other admirals might I take? Vader has always appealed to me, and I guess I could build something around him, but I haven't really managed to make something that sings of greatness and fun combined.

Sigh. I NEED HELP!

Anyone have a great idea --> post it in the comment field plz!

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.

Østersund SC 2018, part 1 (the list)

Me on the left, Mickael (r3) on the right

I'm back from lovely Östersund, Sweden and a great weekend of SC for X-wing 2.0 and Armada! There were also SC events for Destiny and Imp Assault, plus some side events, so a really big event.

I was totally going to do more blog posts about my prepping, but truth be told said prepping (and writing about it) got overshadowed by... X-wing 2.0!

For a while now there has been very little IRL Armada action locally, so I was tempted to jump on the 2.0 bandwagon (there is an active X-wing community here). I finally did, ordering a Core, 1 X-wing, 1 Y-wing, and a Rebel conversion kit (for cards - don't own any old ships - yet) from Rolf Hilleberg at Escapade Gaming And Gear (who also hosted the entire event).

Website: http://escapadegaminggear.com/ 

Then I tried some listbuilding, deciding to run Wedge, Luke, and Dutch. Sicne I didn't even know half the rules I installed the X-wing Vassal module and got some test games in. Man was that a steep learning curve. I had a vague notion of not flying too fast, keep in formation and focus fire on the enemy. In reality it was much harder, as them rocks kept getting in my way. Also, not fully knowing the rules, nor any of the cards and combos outside my own list, made it even harder :-D

But I perservered, and rapidly got better, so that actually won a game and didn't feel like a complete looser after getting 8 games in. My list also improved gradually. I stayed with Luke and Wedge, but Dutch got the boot and was replaced by an ARC. I had two versions of that list in my bag: 1 with Garven and 1 with Norra. I took Garven, which I got to regret all 5 games :-P

I got 2 wins, 3 losses. 1 big win, 1 big loss (to Micael, whom I've played Armada against many times), but the last 3 games were close. Could have been wins, could have been losses. End result was way above my pay grade. But I really like it, and will play more. It's fast and furious, with lots of action, and short play time (big plus there). I like Armada way more, but X-wing ain't bad!

But enough X-wing. Sunday was Armada SC, 3 rounds. I took a Thrawn 2-ship list, ISD+Quasar and a crapload of mean squads. I'd like to thank Broba and Sam on the forums/Discord/Vassal for showing me the archetype. As you might remember I took a long break after regionals, and when I wanted to prepp for SC I had no clue where to begin.

I made some tweaks of my own, changing the squad composition a bit, taking Exp hangars on the Quasar and XI7 on the ISD, but otherwise it's very close to Boba's vision. Without further ado:

Name: Thrawn 2-ship Østersund SC18
Faction: Imperial
Commander: Grand Admiral Thrawn

Assault: Precision Strike
Defense: Fighter Ambush
Navigation: Superior Positions

Imperial II (120)
• Grand Admiral Thrawn (32)
• Governor Pryce (7)
• Gunnery Team (7)
• Electronic Countermeasures (7)
• Leading Shots (4)
• XI7 Turbolasers (6)
• Avenger (5)
= 188 Points

Quasar Fire I (54)
• Captain Brunson (5)
• Flight Controllers (6)
• Boosted Comms (4)
• Expanded Hangar Bay (5)
• Squall (3)
= 77 Points

Squadrons:
• Colonel Jendon (20)
• Maarek Stele (21)
• TIE Defender Squadron (16)
• Dengar (20)
• Mauler Mithel (15)
• Tempest Squadron (13)
• Captain Jonus (16)
• Gamma Squadron (10)
= 131 Points

Total Points: 396

Let's look at some of the list's key features:

It's a list that loves going first - and loves going second. I absolutely will not build any list that relies on first player.

I'm aware that Precision Strike can be very dangerous to me. It's high risk, high gain. A flipped Comms Noise... look at my 2nd game below and u see what I mean. Close-Range Intel Sweep (with Jonus you WILL get points, just not as many) is a great replacement, with less risk, slightly fewer points, and the benefit of Dust Clouds.

Fighter Ambush takes away my deployments, but it's OK. If ur squad heavy, it doesn't matter too much, as I can handle your squads. If you're not squad heavy, your first little ship dies in round 1 and then I get 10+ tokens.

Superior Positions makes the Quasar entirely safe, and my ISD nigh unkillable (but see r3 below). it does not, however, usually provide me with that much net gain in tokens. But that's not the point either

The addition of Pryce is a vital component of the list. Not necessarily to go last/first with the ISD (although that IS of course nice), but because setting Pryce to 2 (or VERY RARELY 3 if the board state is passive at setup) delays the enemy's approach. Opponent WILL NOT fly into your front arc so u can bomb and Gunnery Team their ships. This means it's not until round 3 they can actually start their attack runs, and stuff that needs to get into black to setup runs won't be doing much until r4, rather than maybe r2 or 3. If u don't get how this works u should try it out, as it's essential knowledge if you meet Pryce (or Bail).

XI7 over QBT. Both are strong, but I like to have options. And yes, I know bombers and XI7 don't actually mesh that well. But sometimes the bombers aren't available, and you really need the drilling capability of XI7. Besides, I'm usually flying speed 2 or 3, so QBT would not trigger often (but against my r3 opponent QBT would have been great - speed 4 raiders hate them).

Exp Hangars. Is it a waste of points? With it I can command 9 squadrons, more than I have. But I think it's a very good addition. Often my ISD will be out of command range of main squad blob, but between Squall and Jendon the ISD can always reach THREE squads (Jendon + 2 bombers relayed to). So 5+3=8, so perfect. It also gives the Quasar a better Alpha, with 5 (or even 6 if I do a double squad dial). 5 (or 6 with Jendon) is all my anti-squad capability in one strike. 5 (or 6) bombers drilling a flotilla, CR90 or Raider will often kill it, whereas only 4 won't. If I took it out I would have a better bid, 9 pts, but against the really high bidders it won't help at all. 

The rest of the upgrades are pretty self-explanatory. Squall is pure gold in a Thrawn fleet. Usually u want to have Pursuant as slicer protection or extra flexibility, but with Thrawn u can take Squall. Squall lets Defender+Maarekx2 tap on any ship r1, regardless of how they set up. If u want to. And its great for shifting around unengaged shit, to make sure everything is commandable.

Squads are a nice mix of anti-squad and anti-ship. I had several other versions, one in particular where Defender + Tempest were replaced by Vader and Black Squad (at +1 pt), but in the end it was the bomber keyword that was prioritized (the all-ship meta has reached these parts too). I am sure there are squad balls out there than can take my squads, but if I meet something like that I will be more cautious and play really well, and they will lose anyway ;-)

I got in a few test games with this fleet (Vassal), but not very many, and I felt pretty rusty after my break. But like I said X-wing distracted me. Nevertheless I was pretty confident. I know Empire squads well, the ISD-2 is never a wrong pick, and the Quasar is super hard to kill (and nearly worthless in points) in this fleet. Thrawn was fresh and fun - and says a big FUCK YOU to slicers (I think it's a lame upgrade, that really hurts the game, to the point where I won't play squad hvy wo Thrawn at this point).

Next post will have some AAR.

Squadrons in Armada vs X-wing 2.0

Unfortunately my local Armada scene is pretty dead. We used to be quite a few people, but no one seems to really want to play anymore. There is talk of playing, but no real... play. So my IRL Armada is limited to going to tourneys anywhere but locally. Which involves AT LEAST 3h in a car - or even a plane trip. So I guess I'm going to have to rely on Vassal even more in the future.

But Vassal doesn't satisfy the need to push plastic around. So I've gone ahead and invested in the next best thing: X-wing 2.0! It's only been out a week, so listbuilding and play experience still quite limited. But it's a blast thus far. So quick and fun. Listbuilding is fast (though I'm still learning the cards and ships), setup is fast, play is fast. Although similar to Armada in some regards, the overall experience is very different.

Anyway. This is an Armada blog, so I'm not going to talk too much about X-wing. The point of this blog post is to compare some of the squads from X-wing with how they've turned out in Armada. After all, both games are made by the same company, and Armada is kind of descended from X-wing (or at least it came later).

One of the really weird ones is how they made the X-wing so slow compared to the TIE Fighter. In X-wing a TIE has a slight edge in speed, but the X-wing can boost (I guess it couldn't in the 1.0 version) and effectively achieve the same speed. It also has an arguably better maneuver dial.

So when I fly X-wings and Y-wings, it feels weird, because the X-wing is MUCH faster and more agile than the Y-wing, yet in Armada they are the same speed. And that bugged me BEFORE I ever played X-wing. If they ever make Armada 2.0 the X-wing should be speed 4.

The B-wing is another weird one. In X-wing is does indeed move like slug. It can barely even reach speed 4, and only if it takes stress. That is true for the Y-wing as well, but at least it can bank at speed 3 without stress and hard turn with stress. B-wing is pretty much locked to speed 2, although they do have access to stuff like Advanced Sensors or even Afterburners, which can make them more agile.

So I guess the Speed 2 in Armada is warranted. But I must say it feels incredibly contrived to have a fighter-bomber that's slower and less maneuverable than a dinky YT-1300 (and from Rebels we known that the B-wing prototype is a speed demon lol). Speed 2 for a squad in Armada is just lame btw. Just look at all the crap they made so they could go faster: AFFM and FCT in particular. Sigh. At the very least, if the B-wing MUST go speed 2, give it the amount of hull it deserves. It's even tougher than a Y-wing, because it has more shields and the same amount of hull/shields.

Speaking of squadron hull points: in X-wing TIEs are very fragile, this is true. But they have great agility and access to evade (and focus oc). Y-wings on the other hand are VERY easy to hit, so although they are tough, they get hit a LOT more. I guess Heavy in Armada, and the fact that there is no 1-1 conversion of hull/shields does explain some of it. But the fact is the TIE (and other squads like it) should have either a defensive buff or more hull. On the other hand TIEs get more offense, so maybe the designers figured it evens out. It does, however, make TIEs hopeless vs flak.

Ah well, rant over. Time to start work.