Fargo Paradox Comics was the location of the first Star Wars Armada Regional tournament of the year for me. A mere 5 hour drive up, but compared to the other participants that drove in, it seemed like a typical commute for the tournament.
The breakdown of the all told 9 players were 8 Imperial and 1 Rebel. Um yeah. This made for an interesting meta which I’ll get to in a bit. Of the 9, 3 had byes from store championships so they left round 1 with 8 points for “free.”
Paradox has their own room dedicated to gaming so no worries at all for them to hold an event, have it go long and have to keep the store open. Tho it was a bit of a bummer not being able to do a little “shopping” while in between games.
The shop did twitch stream the top table and as it turned out, my second game is part of the recording. https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxcnc/v/62347098
For my list, I took a 4 Gladiator list, with Motti as my Admiral. Glad #1 was obviously a Demo setup. Two of my Glads had expanded launchers. Three had engine techs. Two had APT. I took a minimal amount of squadrons, just a Tie Advance, 2 Ties and Howlrunner. I figured I’d give the minimal squadrons meta a go. Much of my list is inspired by Vassal play where the current meta seems to be squadron minimal. At a 391 point bid I figured it would be fairly competitive for being player 1.
Game 1
I played Tony from St Cloud. He was a fairly new player to the game. He ran a dual ISD list with gobs of Tie Advanced squadrons. Def an interesting choice as with Tie Advanced they have 1 black die against ships and 3 blue vs squadrons. Not a bad all purpose choice.
I was Player one, and I choose most wanted as the Objective. I made my Flagship as my objective and one of the ISDs was Tony’s.
I set my fleet such that my Flag was in the “back” of the swirl and the muscle in the front with my squadrons following the inner edge of the circle. In theory it was all about bait and switch.
My challenge was to rush around on the outer flank and press home the attack.
As fate would have it Tony would split his squadrons up a bit so my meager force was able to pick off a few as the fleet executed it’s circle.
Last picture and towards the fateful end. Bait was very hard pressed and went up in flames. However my Glads were able to get into the rear and took out one ISD. Tony sadly would fly off the board with his other ISD so I ended up with a 9-1 victory. (520 vs 177)
Game 2
I ended up on the top table as round 2 would have all of those with Store Championship byes entering into the fray. This resulted in a pretty bunched up bracket at the top of round 2. Ian and I both had done well with our Round 1 wins so we ended up above the byes and thus playing on the top table which was streamed on twitch.
I again was Player 1, as Ian had a 393 point bid. He put his Demo as the only ship in the assault, this left his pile of squadrons and ISD to be on table.
To start the game and get away from the jump point I immediately hit the gas and setup my Flag as the “juicy” target for his Demo to come into my flank. Glad vs Glad would encourage him to close to black range which would mean we’d both be taking advantage of lots of heavy hitting dice, presuming of course he stayed in my arc…..
Well it ended up not quite going as I hoped. Ian’s great flying allow him to move into range, and the engine tech to get out and into my weaker rear arc. Likewise I probably did a very stupid move I split my already meager squadrons to in theory get some shots at Demo. Two did but they only landed one hit. Bad idea as it left half of my squadrons out of the fight and I needed everything I could get to keep Ian’s stuff busy.
So over the next few turns between Ian’s squadrons getting to fire into my Glads and his ISD, my 3 “power” Glads were burned through very quickly. I did manage to take out his ISD but at a lost of my complete fleet.
A 1-9 loss (175-400) and very well played by Ian. It was likewise a very good test of the metas, how well would a squadrons light Imperial vs squadron’s heavy Rhymer ball do?
Game 3
The last game was against Ryan. He had a double ISD list with Motti as his Admiral. It was another Squadron heavy list which given my experiences from the game before, while I had gained some experience, I didn’t have time to reflect on how I’d consider approaching things differently to try and play to my strengths.
I was once again Player 1 as Ryan was built to 400 points. The mission was Dangerous Territory, I figured picking that one would tie up both of our sides going for the 6 15 point objectives before we ultimately would come at each other for the joust. In my mind this could help keep me alive as it would limit the action to the later part of the 6 turn game.
This picture is very late in the game. I was down 2 Gladiators already and had taken out 1 ISD. It was a slight replay as before where the squadrons just went through my Gladiators like a buzzsaw and my own squadron cover just couldn’t do enough to keep his squadrons busy.
Bummer I didn’t take more pictures of this round. :-/
It ended up a loss, 2-8 (219 – 355), and all of 5 points away from “just” being 3-7. Well played by Ryan and frankly I made 1 pretty big tactical error where I presumed I was going to take out one of his ISDs with my flag which then would have allowed for my Demo to then get started on the second ISD and/or do lots of AA shots. I was one … one damage point short and it could have worked. That cost me Demo as I could have gotten him out in such a way that Ryan would have had to think about my other two Glads that were coming in or go over Demo which was not going to be a threat much longer.
The Meta
Before getting to the results, the top two players at the end of the day had squadrons heavy lists. Both had formed Rhymberballs with Tie Bombers and Dengar. Both lists had at least 1 ISD.
Tim and I were both squadrons light. Tim had no squadrons at all, he was running 7 Raiders. It sure seems like those players that when in with well defined squadron lists did well.
My tactics certainly could have a significant portion of the problem too. I can’t complain as far as dice were concerned. They weren’t crazy hot nor cold. Tho Ian might rightfully carp about my anti-squadron rolls.
On the drive back, I really thought this list through. It just doesn’t have in it’s current form enough of an anti-squadron answer. It does have power, I was able to burn through Motti enhanced ISDs over several turns. Guess I have a few weeks to tune.
Results
Overall a pretty fun day. Would have liked better results, but given I’d only played this list once before I can’t complain.
The complete list. 7th over all wasn’t bad. Ian and Ryan were both strong players and having played them both they definitely deserved their position. It’s interesting to see that besides Dong I had the hardest schedule of the day.
Loot from the event was great. Pretty cool to bring home the “special” dice and the new setup and squadron turn marker. I haven’t played Ackbar in a tournament yet so um .. yeah I guess nice to bring fish face home for future use.
Till the next one!