I played the starter scenario in the learn to play book twice. The one I'm talking about is at the very beginning, with no commanders or upgrades, the good versions of all the ships, 6 TIEs, and 4 X-Wings. The Imperials got dismantled both times.

I checked the point values, and while the Rebels get 153 points worth of stuff, the Imps only get 133 points.

I plan to do fleet building next, but I was curious if anyone else had any experience with the Learn to Play scenario where the Imps won. Can it be done?

Yes, though you do need more luck as an Imperial. At mid range a VSD can one-shot a Corvette, but only if you roll the right results. And the wide arc of the VSD means you'll be shooting only once per round for quite a few turns (I can see the gunnery team becoming a mandatory upgrade for VSD's, as it allows you to use the six dice front arc twice in a turn).

The squadron and repair commands are very important, as X-wings have more firepower and HP than TIE's and you can be reasonably sure you'll lose at least one or two TIE's a round when fighter combat starts. Getting those early hits in to take out as many X-wings as possible before they shoot back is very important, while the repair command is going to be vital in getting those horribly terrifying crits out of the way (seriously, unlike in X-wing where most crits are meh, almost all crits in Armada are terrifying and a single crit can utterly cripple your ship).

I got trounced on playing Rebels. Imperial commander running Squadron Command and alot of luck on dice decimated my X-Wings...

Most of the learn to play scenarios see the ships not really harming one another. The only kills were fighters.

I really think the way to win is to focus on the nebulon-B, and not bother with the corvette. If you're doing your moves right it'll only be trying to peck you to death in the later turns. Bank a speed for a future turn and head for the Nebulon. You'll want to try either punching through the side arc or forcing him to move sideways to expose those very vulnerable sides.

Use the speed token to decrease down to 1, so that the Nebulon is going to have problems trying to get by you so you can either 1. Ram it or 2. Expose the flanks to your forward guns. The nebulon doesn't have the CR-90's ridiculous speed, so it has less of a chance of dodging the Victory and is the more vulnerable of the two, IMO.

Your TIE Fighters are there to keep the X-Wings occupied. But throwing a starfighter command in there won't be bad, since it means you can activate the fighters and they can shoot before the X-Wings if your opponent isn't also spending commands for his fighters. If your opponent is foolish enough to split his X-Wings you just concentrate fire to knock down one squadron at a time.

Speaking of the Nebulon, if possible make sure your squadrons stay the hell away from it. 2 anti-squadron dice thrown against every squadron in an arc can cripple your entire swarm down to 1 HP in one go, making them even easier pickings for the X-wings.

I've played three times (on the L2P Scenario) using the Imperials. The key seems to be to slow down your Vengeance so that they come to you and allow yourself to open up with your front arc guns. It really doesn't matter what facing you hit it will rip into them. Use your Tie Fighters as counter assault and never send in one. I almost use them as bullies by waiting for the Rebel X-Wings to split up and then when 3 Ties all engage one X-Wing it does down fast. My initial dial for the Vengeance is Navigate, Repair, Squadron. I almost never use concentrate fire. I do agree to pick off the Nebulan first if you can and never use your Tie Fighters to attack the Ships.

Ultimately just remember, neither the Nebulan or the CR-90 can stand up to a Vengeance by themselves. If you are lucky they will try to flank you so you are getting shots from multiple arcs to maximize your shields and your own firing. And finally, if you can get a Short-Medium shot with your front arc, you are living the dream.

By the way, I have no idea why I've been calling them Vengeance Class Star Destroys when they are Victory.

I played the starter scenario in the learn to play book twice. The one I'm talking about is at the very beginning, with no commanders or upgrades, the good versions of all the ships, 6 TIEs, and 4 X-Wings. The Imperials got dismantled both times.

I checked the point values, and while the Rebels get 153 points worth of stuff, the Imps only get 133 points.

I plan to do fleet building next, but I was curious if anyone else had any experience with the Learn to Play scenario where the Imps won. Can it be done?

Same experience here, but I've said it other treads: don't sweat it. As you say yourself the point balance is off, and so is the 2 v 1 Ship situation. And the LtP is not meant to be balanced or very sophisticated; it is what the name says, simply meant as a mean to "Learn to Play" and experience the battle situations, learn the rules, mechanics etc. Just the fact that the Ships are "speeding" and facing each other combined with the point difference is making sure that stuff WILL happen quickly. In a normal/real game you get to decide positions, speeds, armamanet etc.

So it is meant to be tough. And I've only witnessed 1-2 Imp wins in 10'ish LtP games

I think a lot of it comes down to a few critical rolls. I have had three proper games, but Imperials won them all. They were all pretty close and it came down to one or two attacks, or a disabling Crit card. In two games Rebels were winning until a Crit effect basically screwed them over. Makes you see the power in Dodonna/Dodonna's Pride!

I agree with Servvs in that its better to slow the vic down to speed 1 and make the rebs come to you, keep your TIE's back and try and swarm one or two x-wings to take them out. I only did the LTP twice but the imps squeaked out marginal victories both times. Things change a lot once you add in the rest of the rules and objectives. I would only do the LTP enough so you get the basic rules down and then move on to the fleet building, onjectives etc... otherwise you get the wrong idea how most Armada games will flow...

Remember to use navigate commands to prevent rebels form outmanouvering you (you gain 1 aditional click on the manouver tool). If you can kill 1 enemy ship early on you will be fine.

Also avoid enemy ships with your ties and focus on keeping xwings away from your victory.

I ran a bunch of demos on Friday, playing as rebels and letting the learner play as imperials. I never won once, just cause all it takes is one good concentrate fire command and you'll likely have an almost dead nebulon. Also as weird as it sounds, going behind the Vic is a trap, since his side shots are stronger than yours, and his rear attack is not that awful. The other thing I noticed was the corvette could get behind the Vic, but unless you have a navigate token and command to go down 2 speeds, you can't really stay behind it. I saw one guy flying the corvette behind the Vic, the shoot way past it into the front arc at speed 4, and get one shotted.

The L2P Scenario is fairly rough on the Rebels since you can't start you ships, particularly your Corvette, at higher speeds.

I ran a bunch of demos on Friday, playing as rebels and letting the learner play as imperials. I never won once, just cause all it takes is one good concentrate fire command and you'll likely have an almost dead nebulon. Also as weird as it sounds, going behind the Vic is a trap, since his side shots are stronger than yours, and his rear attack is not that awful. The other thing I noticed was the corvette could get behind the Vic, but unless you have a navigate token and command to go down 2 speeds, you can't really stay behind it. I saw one guy flying the corvette behind the Vic, the shoot way past it into the front arc at speed 4, and get one shotted.

Additionally siding up broadside style Neb B vs Victory isn't smart tactically for the reasons you've mentioned. You need to look to approach the side arc from an angle so that it is your front on his side.

I will say that just with Core contents the VSD is far more forgiving then the Rebel ships as it has the staying power to last through a mistake. Neither the Frigate nor Corvette can afford to be in the wrong place for even a round.

Fibonacci: have you tried playing with Objectives? I am planning to have the Rebel (first player) select from those chosen by the Imp player.

Nope. Tactical ramming solves all problems.

I played the L2P scenario twice with my buddy. First 2 games we've played.

I won both games, Rebels the first time, Imps the second. Both were 'fleet points' wins.

My tactic for the Rebel win was to kill off the Tie fighters and get the X-Wings in position on the VSD to take it out. It didn't fully realize, I don't think I ever landed a hull hit on the VSD, but: I didn't lose either ship. Killing off the ties and keeping my ships alive pulled the win out for me.

For the Imp win, the goal was just to kill one of the ships. Point wise, as soon as you kill either the Corvette or the Frigate, the Rebels have to kill the VSD to win. I found it helped to use a navigate for the VSD in the first few turns to keep as much of the playing area in the Front firing arc. I caught his Corvette in turn 2 with a sqaudron command coupled with 6 die front arc barrage. 3 tie squadrons took down shields and the VSD landed **** close to max damage.

First ever game, me and my friend played all ships as is, no upgrades or commanders. He was Rebels, I was Imperial. He was very aggressive with his positioning, getting his CR90 into my Vic's rear arc, but also putting his Neb-B into a death spiral with my Vic.

Both our ships were speed two and could perform no legal manuever that wouldn't overlap each other (including reducing speed), so we rammed into each other a few times with no alternatives, and eventually my Black Dice got lucky enough to destroy his Neb. The Cr90 meanwhile had taken some damage from the rear guns of the Vic and eventually succumbed as well.

My TIE screen aggressively moved forward and engaged his X-Wings, with the help of a Squadron Command, and looked to have an initial advantage. Over the next two turns I lost every single TIE and killed only a single X-Wing.

I won by destroying his last Cap on turn 6.

If you want to take away anything from this, it should be:

1) TIEs die fast. Super fricken fast.

2) Vic's cannot do a single thing to remove anything from it's rear arc. Even at speed 1 with a Navigation Command the Vic has an awful turn radius.

3) Rebel's love range, the Neb-B getting into close range spelled its death.

4) This game is super fun

I played the Imperials for my first game, and although we got a couple of rules wrong (spending command dials, some confusion with defence tokens and some squadron rules) I did fine. While my TIE Fighters got wiped out by the X's easily and I didn't do a **** thing to the X-Wings in return, I managed to hit the Frigate with enough guns at mid and close range to take it out by turn four, even while flanked on both sides. By turn six I was running from the Rebels, only one damage card on me, while the Corvette had only one hull value left. I did fine and the two of us were no stranger to miniature combat games. Although it is somewhat more in favor of the Rebel forces, keeping either of the two ships in that front arc is -really- hard! They're so fast that they can broadside or backstab you pretty easily. However I will say I never felt overwhelmed at any point even if we did play slightly wonky. Even with knowing the rules more properly I still feel it's kinda balanced, with maybe giving the Imps either Howlrunner or a crew card or perhaps both.

Fibonacci: have you tried playing with Objectives? I am planning to have the Rebel (first player) select from those chosen by the Imp player.

I haven't! I'm going to try that out this week =D Combined with commanders and upgrades, it should make for a very different game.

Objectives change it all. However, in the learn to play scenario I find the Empire has to expend their ties to keep the X-wings at a distance as early as possible. The Victory can survive the long range weapons of the rebel capital ships very well, even with only a single turn invested in repair commands

Objectives change it all. However, in the learn to play scenario I find the Empire has to expend their ties to keep the X-wings at a distance as early as possible. The Victory can survive the long range weapons of the rebel capital ships very well, even with only a single turn invested in repair commands

Very well is an understatement.