This Sunday at Gamez and More in Byron we played a pre-worlds Star Wars Armada tournament. Perfect timing as a few of us are going to worlds and wanted to getting a little flying time in.
Thanks to Chad the owner at Gamez and More for being open on a Sunday as well as extending the hours to make it work for 3 rounds.
We had 5 tables set and we were ready to set a few more if needed. I figured we’d get about 8-10, ended up with 6 all total. Four locals and 2 down from the cities.
With the lure of acrylic engineering tokens on the line, I mean, dude, seriously, why would not make make every effort to score some of those?
Results:
- Nathan 25pts 706 MoV
- Tom 23 pts 554 MoV
- Will 17 pts 253 MoV
- Terry 14 pts 37 MoV
- Tim 11 pts 140 MoV
- Ian 6 pts 0 MoV
For my first match I was paired up against Ian. He was like me running Imperials, with a big ol ISD, Insidious, and a Raider. He was pretty squadron light, while I was running two VSDs with Motti, 2 Gozanties, and mega Imperial aces. (Silly hat included)
We were doing the scanning beacons (or however it’s called) and basically I slow rolled into the tokens. Ian had his Raider pop in first, with Insidious on the flank and the ISD big, bad and mean in the middle. My squadrons jumped his off the get go and munched through them quickly while I held off my defenders to work with my brawler VSD to go after the Raider hoping for the quick kill.
Fate was to be with me.
Raider down, my fighters and both VSDs could go after the ISD, which then quickly fell followed by Insidious and it was an 10-1 result.
Down at the other end Nathan likewise won a 10-1 against Tim so second round we were paired up against each other. With both of us running heavy squadrons, a very brutal fight ensued.
Nathan put his MC30 on my right flank. I kicked out the defenders to start to strip shields and used my remaining fighters to engage his and try to hold on as long as possible. I needed to get up close and knock out Yavaris with my VSDs and then hopefully use the fighters to get after the MC30 along with weak fire from the Gozantis and defenders.
I should mention we were playing targeting beacons and I was player 2. So the order of destruction was something like, Motti, the MC30, Yavaris and then my other VSD which left just a squadron battle and transport battle. Thankfully my defenders were still viable but we were both limited by squadron activation ranges tho my shuttle was still flying to help with that.
As fate would have it, since Nathan’s admiral and a few other items tallied up was worth more points than what I had left, he picked up the well deserved win, a 5-6 result but most importantly I think a very good preview of what I’ll see for some Rebel lists at worlds.
For my last game of the day, Terry and I played a Blockade run. He deferred and let me be player one. I setup strong on my right flank with fighters to flow. Terry was running 4 activations but fairly squadron light Sato.
He immediately took advantage of his better flying abilities of his ships as compared to VSDs to flow to my left. The CR90 met head on with the squadron ball and over the course of 2 turns melted away.
Terry was pretty devilish in his setup leaving a lane to feign if he wanted to depending on what I did. With the poor turning of the VSDs I should have immediately been spamming Nav orders, in retrospect that was a poor decision on my part.
None the less, Sato’s Guppy and Motti’s VSD were trading short range effective shots landing lots of damage. Both ships would fall. While my squadrons where finishing off Terry’s squadrons as well as trying to best to shop his ships from getting away.
Left with one Gozonti, lots of squadrons and my brawler VSD, I eeked out the win in this very cinematic game and the last game of the day.
Very fun time, next tournament at Gamez and More in Bryon for Armada is under discussion. The prize kit is in for the store championship so a number of us are really excited to get another weekend tournament going.