Eric and I gather for a rare weeknight game to play a game of Star Wars Armada. Given this was our very first real game of it, we didn’t bother with objectives and instead concentrated on trying to blast each other out of the sky to get up to speed on game mechanics. We also didn’t gear up on extras where you can add abilities to ships for some amount of points.
As dyed in the wool war gamers, modern or futuristic fairer is a big move for us but darn it, this game is totally fun.
We both picked 300 points for our fleets. I played Empire and Eric the Rebels. For my force, I picked a Star Destroyer (victory class 1), the Gladiator and then a number of squadrons, 2 Tie, 1 tie bomber, 1 advanced tie fighter, 1 more super advanced tie fighter and then the hero bask.
Eric geared up with an MC 30 frigate, a corellian cruiser, Luke Skywalker, Hans Solo in the Millennium Falcon, 1 Y-Wing squadron, 1 B-Wing and an X-Wing squadron.
We placed several asteroids out and the space station and set our ships, one per side back and forth.
Here is the Imperial line, ready to apprehend those Rebels, a fine catch for Lord Vader.
On our left flank a quick scrum developed. The advanced TIE fighter squadrons trying to score on the Corellian Cruiser. The TIE fighter squadron faced with Luke and the Falcon quickly was destroyed, easily outmatched. The captain of the Gladiator steered to far to the left and thus out of position to bring lasers to bear.
On the Imperial left flank sensing a great opportunity, the Star Destroyer, TIE fighters, bombers and bask, sense an the MC30 and its escort easy prey. Now to get them in weapons range.
The MC30 however has a great speed advantage. The Star Destroyer can’t turn on a dime either. Having taken the bait, no target presents itself. The command staff starts to scramble as another TIE fighter squadron disintegrated.
The unthinkable (to the Empire) begins to happen, with Y-Wings and B-wings, able to make an attack run, the two Rebel main ships able to get behind the Star Destroyer. The Gladiator is so far away it is unable to help.
Pretty close to the final turn, the Imperial fleet in tatters, starts to quickly make the calculations to jump to light speed. No prizes for Lord Vader today. On whose shoulders will it fall to deliver the bad news. Least no capital ships were lost….
In the end, Luke Skywalker was one away from being a casualty. The Imperial Star Destroyer in the end had lost shields and was taking hull hits, another turn of damage and it would likely be gone. Bask was pretty badly damaged so he needed to run. The Imperial Gladiator was untouched but so far out of it, it wouldn’t get back in the battle. On the Rebel side, their capital ships were done shields so they could star taking hull hits but the Empire would need a concentrated volley to take one out. Not to be.
Can’t wait to play again!