Last night at FFG, there was a new experiment in Armada tournaments.
A traditional 3 round Armada tournament especially during the week is pretty crazy, given the typical length of a round. Basically it’s impossible. Frankly compared to X-Wing with it’s short rounds, you’ve got to wonder if it doesn’t impact Armada participation since it pushes Armada towards a tournament format that only fits on a weekend or holiday.
Obviously that’s no fun, but never fear, with some inventive rules, we played a 3 round tournament on a week night at the Fantasy Flight Game Center and there were all of 16 in attendance.
There was a summer kit and the pieces of I think some spring kits so there was goodies aplenty. The winner above the kit prizes also was to receive (when it) one of the new release ships.
So the rules were :
200 points. No 1/3 point limit on squadrons. 75 minute rounds. An Admiral is optional. No large sized ships. 3×3 map. Use all obstacles. No objectives. Unique squadrons when resulting in 1 dmg, reward the attacker with 1 10pt victory token. When a unique squadron is hit by another squadron, (in non-counter attack) again the attacker is rewarded with 1 10 pt victory token. Player 2 has the added ability to designate one of his squadrons as having the “same” abilities as IG, that is ignores counter and ignores escort.
So first some thoughts on the format and then a bit of an AAR.
Overall, it was a crazy fun time. As in really fun. It’s a 90 minute drive one way, and I’d totally do it again, even on a weeknight.
Confronted with the challenge of having to put together a fleet to optimize for the known objective and in fewer points was a great mental exercise.
Going to a 3×3 map with this smaller point format was more a challenge then you’d think it’d be. Between having to watch out due to packing in more obstacles onto that space as well as having to be more mindful of speed to plan Nav orders to prevent flying off the board it was a great challenge for one’s flying skills. Didn’t see a single engine tech in use and really on the smaller distance if someone had had it, it’s effect would have been amplified. The other thing that was pretty dramatic was squadrons were way more effective in that they could cover the map much easier and flow where you wanted them while ships couldn’t just fly past at speed 4 and forget about them. Even Rhymer’s ability is amped up on the smaller map.
While wave 3 isn’t out yet so flotillas weren’t an option but still, parking the ISD/MC80 for the night wasn’t a loss.
With the lower points, upgrade cards on ships were even more sparingly used. Single TRCs, or just ORD and things like that were pretty common. I didn’t see a single Demolisher all night.
I don’t think anyone spent the points for an Admiral. There was some table talk here and there to the tune of … well I thought about Motti, or Ackbar or … and no one could justify the cost for the ability. Now that everyone has played their lists, you’ve got to wonder what will opinions have evolved?
Due to the victory token rules for unique squadrons this obviously resulted in many players going pretty squadron heavy but the lists were still quiet varied. Squadron play was essential but likewise just having a bunch of squadrons wasn’t an assurance of victory.
Ian scored the tournament based on points destroyed, so no traditional MoV or tournament points. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, the reward was dangling there for the successful use of named squadrons. Hit, DING! Hit, DING! There wasn’t so much a reward for the opposite side of the spectrum going squadron light and playing to take out ships or using say a Raider + Ord and going AA happy.
Not having objectives was another interesting choice for the tournament. With the unique squadron interplay for victory tokens, it certainly did lesson the need for an objective OTOH it also does take away one of the motivation to tune your fleet. Minefields on a 3×3? … muhahahaha! Seriously I could see keeping objectives even in this format, but with the trade off, that Player 1 has to choose between 3 objectives that Player 2 offers or the tournament mission for unique squadrons. This is something to think about and a very minor nit.
AAR
Over all I placed 7th which wasn’t a bad showing. I was 2-1 on the night and my fleet performed pretty well. I didn’t field a single unique squadron, thus giving no points, and went ship heavy thus providing point opportunities. My plan was centered on the idea that most would field pretty light ships and thus I’d go for taking them out, while having minimal squadrons to score a few tokens, and hold their squadrons off for a turn or two.
My fleet was 2 Glad Is each with ORDs, 1 naked Raider I, and 4 TIEs. That’s it …. so clean, so sparse, there’s a certain kinda zen in that.
First game against Ben, he had a Yavaris, another Neb and 3 X-Wings. Both of his Nebs had expanded armament and a few other additions. Early on I was super lucky with my squadrons, taking out all 3 X-wings and then the two Nebs fell one by one.
Ben, like me, not having any unique squadrons, resulted in neither of us giving or taken any victory tokens. I won 200-0.
The second game was against Terry who was flying Dash, Han, Dutch, and Wedge with a CR90 and Yavaris Neb.
With both scored a few victory tokens off each other. His squadrons pummeling my ships, and my TIEs putting a bunch of hits into Han before getting destroyed. Turn 2, I took out his CR90 and then another turn or two latter I took out his Neb.
The end result was a win, something like 240 – 90? Wish I had taken a picture or two.
The last game was against … umm … errr … name … ummm … errr look it was getting late ok?!? But the fellow I played against was really nice guy and I just can’t … sigh. Dude, I owe you a beer for my name fail. Anyway.
He brought an Imperial all star set of squadrons. Vader, Boba, Dengar, Mauler, IG, and Rhymer. He had a fairly naked VSD. On this 3×3 table, that VSD was pure awesome sauce, and with a great paint job too.
We deployed more or less in opposite corners. I figured I’d run my glads for the flanks and the raider in the middle and let it float in which ever direction the squadrons would go. This caused a great rise in the game tension as we were both trying to force choices on each other.
The other fun part was with the obstacles, and having to fly the length of the table, weaving in and out of the junk was important not to mention part of the strategy to take cover to get that -1 die for obstructed fire.
So how this one went down, I managed 5 victory tokens. The Imperial all stars would float towards the Glad on the right in the picture. Both my Glads hit the gas to try and rush in to hopefully get onto the VSD at the same time.
Didn’t work too well in the end. I made two critical errors. While my Glad that faced his squadrons did make it to the rear of the VSD is was hurting pretty bad. Meanwhile the Glad coming in on the front did get into black range but I didn’t get a double arc in so that cost me a lot of damage potential. For our last turn I also activated my ships in the wrong order, I should have done my Raider, than the Glad on the VSD which would have given the opportunity for 2 RAMs and a good bow arc shot from the Raider at Black range, but instead I did my Glad that was on the bow of the VSD first, then the VSD activated and promptly blew the piss out of the Raider so it didn’t get to shoot that round.
So losing the opportunity for 2 Reds + 2 Blacks, and a 1 Blue + 2 Blacks bow (it was obstructed), left plenty on the table. Would it have mattered? Hard to say, it’s why we roll dice after all! I ended up losing this one like 50 – 240?
The unnamed fellow, he took 3rd and definitely well earned.
EDIT: Brent(!), that’s his name. Sorry and thanks for speaking up in the land of book-faces.
It was a very very fun night, I’d happily do it again!