Miniature War Gaming

Saturday May 28th was the Star Wars Armada Regional tournament at the Fantasy Flight Game Center in Roseville MN. All about (about) 35 people showed up for the affair, some from Canada, Nebraska, New York, great to pull in people from far and wide. I was kinda surprised that more of the locals weren’t around, as I figured it would be a 50+ turnout but I guess when you put “Regional” in the title, that might keep a few from coming.

Nothing like a day of gaming up at the mother ship, specially when given the numbers it wasn’t going to be 3 rounds, but 4. More gaming …. w00t!

My Fleet

I put together an Ozzul, ISD, Demo (with EL, ORD, ET), Raider (ORD, Instigator) list with 3 firesprays, Rhymer and 2 Aggressors. Didn’t have really any list regret through the day tho I had seriously been thinking I was going to play my triple Glad list about a week ago. (Next time!)

Round 1

I played against Kaleb, he had an Ackbar, MC80, twin Assault Frigate list with fairly minimal squadrons. I had the point bid, so I picked player one and then then my first tactical blunder of the day picking fire lanes as the objective.

Kaleb and I had faced off earlier in the year at FFG I think at my first tournament. I seem to recall he pretty soundly greeble hauled me. Great guy, taught me a lot the first time we’d played each other now for the rematch!

He setup his conga line and I setup for the natural counter, cork the bottle and seal the bottom with Demolisher. I put my Rhymer ball sort of in the middle with my Raider  to give a bit of a dagger thrust and if they could get in, soften up the line for Demolisher.

About turn 3 or so here, with my plan generally working well except for one thing…. With Fire lanes you gotta, you just gotta pay attention to the victory tokens and you have either disrupt or pick some up or you pay for it when the tally is made at the end of the game.

Still the bottom was sealed, and the end Assault Frigate was also dropping out of line with the MC80 in the middle not having much to do.

So by about turn 3 the squadrons battle was nearly done. Between my Aggressors, Firesprays and all it was more than his fleet could handle. It was also giving time for what was the end Assault Frigate to make Demo have to consider the choice of going after the MC80 or staying on target to get the Assault Frigate.

My ISD meanwhile took out the lead Assault Frigate. It was Demo and the ISD against the MC80 and my squadrons nipping at the heals of the Assault Frigate. The damage cards were piling up and sadly my Raider blew up approx turn 3.

Turn 6 was completely crazy. It went something like this. The MC80 blows up the ISD. Demo tries to blow up the MC80 and fails taking it down to 1 Hull. The Assault Frigate is down to 2 Hull and blows up Demo … game over right? Nope, remember now days if you lose all your ships you play to the end of the round. So my squadrons go to work and end up taking out both the AF and the MC80.

400-400 tie right? Er. No.

Those my friends are victory tokens and why you must pay attention to the mission objectives. So while I still had a ~100 points of squadrons on the table, it’s a 400-400 + victory tokens or 400-625 (1-9) loss.

Round 2

I played Tim who is from my local gaming group. We both had a rough first round so there we were on the bottom table but having a fun time of it. He was running his 6 Raider list which I hadn’t faced yet so it was a real treat. I once again had the low bid and choose player 1 and Minefields as our objective.

Tim set the mines and obstacles in the typical 3 channel pattern so I had to make a choice and decided I’d go max up the left side and leave my squadrons to cover my rear and have them stay within the minefield sniping.

The made for a fairly fast game since trying to catch speed 4 raiders with equally the same speed Raider and Demo is kind of hard.

Here you can see the swirl in action as of turn 4. My squadrons were doing all the work. They were taking out a Raider about every other turn and since they were all Rogues with the exception of Rhymer they can park their butts outside of Black range, fire or fire and then scoot.

Demo did as it turn out manage to catch up with one and take a Raider out. So in the end a 9-1 (238-0) victory to me.

Round 3

Back to the middle tables (where I would stay for the rest of the day), I played Bill who was from Detroit. Awesome guy, and very much a match to my fly casual, have fun, style of play.

He was playing a 3 CR90 and MC80 list with a boatload of A-Wings with Reikan as his Admiral. I was once again Player 1 with the low bid and once again, Minefields was my choice.

Bill did a lateral (as you can see) deployment of the field. I deployed left and he keep his fleet more center. This allowed me to keep my force fairly centralized so while it wasn’t quite a turtle, it delayed having to make choices as far as what I’d go after.

This was a very very tough squadrons game. Those A-wings are real beasts.

The first “catch” of the day was a CR90, you can see it to the right of my Star Destroyer, tho I lost my Raider very early on before it could help out on with the squadron game which it really really needed to do.

While i was loosing squadrons pretty badly, least my ISD got to help out a bit and that kept it from being a total route there.

Last picture just as we ended it. (I had picked up Demo, he didn’t die in this one) I managed to get another CR90 with Demo but couldn’t managed to score the last CR90 due to not being able to make the turn and not wanting to get absolutely creamed by the MC80 broadside.

With the final tally it was a 5-5 (154-134 or was it 134-154?) with only 20 points to separate us.

Round 4

Played the one, the only, the awesome, Drunktarkin of IFF fame. Dano was likewise playing Tim on the table right behind me so all that greatness nearby … what’s better than that?

So Drunktarkin was playing a dual ISD list with Demo and squadrons light. I once again had the low bid and this time my objective choice was Intel Sweep. I figured with my speed 4 Raider I might have a chance to scoop up 3 presuming he tried to go for destroying my fleet on points which with 2 ISDs and Demo agains 1 ISD and Demo I was fully expecting.

This is from about turn 2 but you can see the setup. I played my Raider far right so it could scoop away and Drunktarkin, setup his fleet across from mine with his Demo going after my Raider.

He turned his fleet away from mine which then set the tone for the rest of the game with me at the chase. Given the game mechanics of fire, then move, only Demo and squadrons really can effectively give chase, unless activations get crazy. Still with my ISD behind it wasn’t exactly going to catch up quickly.

Here we are, turn 3, and my ISD is JUST starting it’s engines but given the damage cards you can see on the opposite side of the table, my Demo was starting to land damage.

Likewise his Demo caught up with my Raider. Thankfully given a little less than great die rolling and a decision on my part to burn my first activation to save his butt, I managed to park him in such a way that it was a bit harder to get off an effective shot. Bugger barely survived and by rights shouldn’t have but still, given how the flying was going, I wasn’t going to pick up the 75 points from the objective. So, this put on the pressure to make it up with destruction. More Pew Pew Boys!

Last picture from this match. Demo was landing hits but 14 is a lot of hull to make up for and Demo had 3 damage on him so he had to turn away. My squadrons had taken out all of Drunktarkin’s squadrons but they were too far away to be able to catch up and really do anything. So once again a low scoring affair that translated to a 4-6 (109-53) loss due to the 75 point swing on the objective requirements going to Drunktarkin.

These are the nearly final results. The top two players then matched off for the very last game to decide who the Regional champion would be.

They started their game like around 9:45pm! We had started the tournament a bit late like around 11:30am so it was a long day for all.

Seriously wanted to get some beers and hang out with the out of towners but lamer I would be and started out on my long drive home, was about 11:45pm when I rolled in. Heck of a day and can’t wait to do it again.

Thanks again to the Fantasy Flight Crew and especially Ian for being the judge.

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!