Read the full batrep: http://www.outpostzero.net/2015/06/armada-300point-wave-i-tournament-at.html

Just a few days ago, I had the pleasure of doing something very odd! I attended an honest-to-god miniature wargaming tournament in Richmond VA! It's odd because in all my years of miniature wargaming tournaments, I've never had the luxury of being home by dinner! The tournament in question was a 300 point Star Wars: Armadaevent hosted by Dragon's Den. Up until the day of the tournament, the only Wave I game I had played wound up being a bit of a disaster... so I went into it a bit nervous! Plus, I had to represent the Intensify Forward Firepowerdudes, and I didn't want to be force choked by Darth Dano.

I enjoyed your batrep. How much would you say having 3 capitol ships contributed to your victory? Im still trying to decide if maxing out on ships is the way to go. As much as I love building squadron lists, I have a real worry that adding them at the expense of a second gladiator or even a VSD might be costing more than it's adding.

I think it contributed tremendously. The 3rd Glad with just ACMs didn't do a ton of work, but when it mattered it got shots off, and the shots it fired were always devastating.

Congrats on the win!

those fleets are in a state of complete disarray

and it is wonderful

I enjoyed your batrep. How much would you say having 3 capitol ships contributed to your victory? Im still trying to decide if maxing out on ships is the way to go. As much as I love building squadron lists, I have a real worry that adding them at the expense of a second gladiator or even a VSD might be costing more than it's adding.

3 Ship + Weak Fighters

Full Squadrons ----------------------------------------No Squadrons

2 Ship + Strong Fighters

There's no correct way. Full Squadron builds with bombers are good against No Squadron build lists, etc. If you like playing squadron lists, run them. You're better against some builds and worse against others. On average more extreme lists tend to have full wins against matchups they're good against and full losses against bad matchups, while balanced builds have less extreme point skews but smaller losses.

I enjoyed your batrep. How much would you say having 3 capitol ships contributed to your victory? Im still trying to decide if maxing out on ships is the way to go. As much as I love building squadron lists, I have a real worry that adding them at the expense of a second gladiator or even a VSD might be costing more than it's adding.

3 Ship + Weak Fighters

Full Squadrons ----------------------------------------No Squadrons

2 Ship + Strong Fighters

There's no correct way. Full Squadron builds with bombers are good against No Squadron build lists, etc. If you like playing squadron lists, run them. You're better against some builds and worse against others. On average more extreme lists tend to have full wins against matchups they're good against and full losses against bad matchups, while balanced builds have less extreme point skews but smaller losses.

This is a great analysis and I 100% agree but keep in mind there are lots of iterations of these. I personally run 3 Ships (with minimal upgrades) and Strong Squadrons to great success.

I enjoyed your batrep. How much would you say having 3 capitol ships contributed to your victory? Im still trying to decide if maxing out on ships is the way to go. As much as I love building squadron lists, I have a real worry that adding them at the expense of a second gladiator or even a VSD might be costing more than it's adding.

3 Ship + Weak Fighters

Full Squadrons ----------------------------------------No Squadrons

2 Ship + Strong Fighters

There's no correct way. Full Squadron builds with bombers are good against No Squadron build lists, etc. If you like playing squadron lists, run them. You're better against some builds and worse against others. On average more extreme lists tend to have full wins against matchups they're good against and full losses against bad matchups, while balanced builds have less extreme point skews but smaller losses.

This is a great analysis and I 100% agree but keep in mind there are lots of iterations of these. I personally run 3 Ships (with minimal upgrades) and Strong Squadrons to great success.

Agreed. I think many who don't use squadrons often tend to rush them in, but there is a lot of strategy with squadrons, and with Yarvis and Adar Tallon you can really do a lot of damage. But again, I think there are really two mind sets right now. The kind that don't understand squads and the kind that do. That's not knocking the folks who don't, but from what I have seen from my plays and reading there are just a lot of different mind sets in this game, Which is nice, because Armada caters to that where as X-Wing doesn't as much.

I enjoyed your batrep. How much would you say having 3 capitol ships contributed to your victory? Im still trying to decide if maxing out on ships is the way to go. As much as I love building squadron lists, I have a real worry that adding them at the expense of a second gladiator or even a VSD might be costing more than it's adding.

3 Ship + Weak Fighters

Full Squadrons ----------------------------------------No Squadrons

2 Ship + Strong Fighters

There's no correct way. Full Squadron builds with bombers are good against No Squadron build lists, etc. If you like playing squadron lists, run them. You're better against some builds and worse against others. On average more extreme lists tend to have full wins against matchups they're good against and full losses against bad matchups, while balanced builds have less extreme point skews but smaller losses.

This is a great analysis and I 100% agree but keep in mind there are lots of iterations of these. I personally run 3 Ships (with minimal upgrades) and Strong Squadrons to great success.

Agreed. I think many who don't use squadrons often tend to rush them in, but there is a lot of strategy with squadrons, and with Yarvis and Adar Tallon you can really do a lot of damage. But again, I think there are really two mind sets right now. The kind that don't understand squads and the kind that do. That's not knocking the folks who don't, but from what I have seen from my plays and reading there are just a lot of different mind sets in this game, Which is nice, because Armada caters to that where as X-Wing doesn't as much.

It's funny you should say that, because I was just pondering alternative uses for fighters after looking at Steven's picture above and his list.

Something about his list got me pondering using fighters as paper tigers, placing them in important firing lanes and giving the opponent reason to question if he should be shooting the fighters or the cap ship behind them.

Particularly if I give those paper tigers teeth.

Congratulations on your win. I'm curious, are there no Gallant Haven players in your meta? I think that would have been a very very difficult matchup for you.

Thanks for the report, battle reports are always interesting!

If you were thinking in a particularly brutal manner would you say the victory was worth it? It seemed to hover on the periphery of most of your games (controlling space no doubt since no one wants to face those forward guns).

Normally a victory like this could be using squadron commands each turn with relatively little fear of reprisal (didn’t seem like it was being attacked too much), but in your list you only have a minimal fighter component, and as you say on the podcast their job is to snarl up the enemy bombers and die slow miserable deaths one by one alone in space.

Basically, do you think the victory needs some gunnery upgrades, or some bombers to command in order to really pull its weight? It just seemed like a quarter of your force didn’t do much more than throw a few red dice about each game while the opponents got eaten by the two gladiators (except in the last game where it sounds like it managed the epic challenge of actually catching an enemy victory…..)

Hey Boothy! In general, yes, I think the Victory was worth it. I'd trade a limb to make it a VSD II though... the black dice rarely got used. The reds were frequently just enough to follow up on a Gladiator missile bombardment though.

Do I wish the list was 3 Glads instead? Maybe... I like the "anchoring" of the VSD. Dropping to a glad might provide some more fighters... on the other hand having that extra fire support at range is just so nice.

But that’s the thing, the victory only has one more red dice at long range (assuming the increased manuverability of the gladiator lets it keep its front guns on target). Would a gladiator + 2 bombers (one point more than the victory-I) not provide as much or more long range support? Obviously bombers are only pseudo long range support since they can be engaged, require squadron commands etc, but they also bring more dice, and more painful dice at that.

I’m being a bit of a devil’s advocate here since I like having a victory as well……but I have only used the victory-1 with some sort of upgrade (H9 + warlord, dominator + Wulff, gunnery team, enhanced armament, a bomber wing +/- expanded hangers…….just something that it can do a bit better than the gladiator).

I guess if the victory has a couple of arcs with a target, and its commanding your fighters then it would be holding its own.

Steve, didn't you simply rick-roll this thing with Gladiators? Best ship in wave 1, hands down.

(Imperial scum.....)

@Boothy- really good questions! I wanted the VSD not just for the red dice though. It's a monster that can take some serious punishment, and cannot be ignored. Glads, for all their amazing strengths, are still fundamentally glass cannons. All that being said, I really wish I had a VSD II- I was often in medium range, but out of close range, so missed out on my black dice on all but maybe 2 rounds of shooting with the thing!

@GrandMoffMatt I don't know if I rick rolled it- I wasn't willing to promise that I wasn't going to give them up or let them down. BUT the Demolisher was quite an eye opener.... it can really bring the pain. BUT I will say this: it doesn't drive itself. It does take a bit more forethought than "drive forward and kill!"

True. I played against a dual Gladiator list last weekend. I actually couldn't keep up with their movement. Probably didn't help that I was moving my Nebs wrong as well....

I agree. The victory can be thrown out saying 'deal with me'.

To squeeze up to a victory-II you could demote howl to pleb level and drop the missiles of the basic gladiator and have a stronger bid at the end. Its a tough call.....will you get more work out of the blue dice of the victory or the rarer glorious missile attacks of the second gladiator.

Demoting howl could also get enhanced armament or a gunnery team/Intel agent on the victory.....again, a tough choice. I'd imagine that the scatter and brace of howl helps her bog down enemy squadrons a lot more....having said that i have used 5 basic fighters as sacrificial lambs and they do okay.

Congratulations on your win. I'm curious, are there no Gallant Haven players in your meta? I think that would have been a very very difficult matchup for you.

I play with Steven in our area but we have yet to face each other but I suspect next time we will. But to answer your question, no, none of the rebel players, myself included, play Gallant Haven in our area. I find it too restrictive and not needed the way I fly my squadrons. I can usually rip through enemy squadrons without it.

Ironically the day of the tournament that me and Steven played at I did what I always chastise other people for doing and I fielded an untested build and paid for it. Next time I will be playing a build that I have played and won 95% of my games with and see how it fares against him. I like the group we have in our area, there are a lot of really good players, and they all have scary builds.

Did the rebel player find it intimidating playing over the Death Star?

Is WWPD exploring the universe, or is everything still flames to the hilt and your branching out?

Your second round opponent choosing Advanced Gunnery seems like a huge misplay in my view.

He gets very little from having one of his Gladiators be able to fire twice from the same arc on seperate targets, while you gain a large advantage with your VSD.

I'd be interested in his reasons for surrendering that type of advantage to you.

@Novista perhaps you haven't seen our growing wealth of articles over at http://www.outpostzero.net!

@Scottie- yeah that worked to my advantage for sure. Of course, he wasn't excited about having his fleet ambushed and/or playing Dangerous territory either!

Congratulations on your win. I'm curious, are there no Gallant Haven players in your meta? I think that would have been a very very difficult matchup for you.

I play with Steven in our area but we have yet to face each other but I suspect next time we will. But to answer your question, no, none of the rebel players, myself included, play Gallant Haven in our area. I find it too restrictive and not needed the way I fly my squadrons. I can usually rip through enemy squadrons without it.

Ironically the day of the tournament that me and Steven played at I did what I always chastise other people for doing and I fielded an untested build and paid for it. Next time I will be playing a build that I have played and won 95% of my games with and see how it fares against him. I like the group we have in our area, there are a lot of really good players, and they all have scary builds.

Gallant Haven isn't for killing squadrons, it's a delivery system for Farlander and friends to wreck your face.

Congratulations on your win. I'm curious, are there no Gallant Haven players in your meta? I think that would have been a very very difficult matchup for you.

I play with Steven in our area but we have yet to face each other but I suspect next time we will. But to answer your question, no, none of the rebel players, myself included, play Gallant Haven in our area. I find it too restrictive and not needed the way I fly my squadrons. I can usually rip through enemy squadrons without it.

Ironically the day of the tournament that me and Steven played at I did what I always chastise other people for doing and I fielded an untested build and paid for it. Next time I will be playing a build that I have played and won 95% of my games with and see how it fares against him. I like the group we have in our area, there are a lot of really good players, and they all have scary builds.

Gallant Haven isn't for killing squadrons, it's a delivery system for Farlander and friends to wreck your face.

I guess I wasnt clear. I meant that because my squadrons are usually outside of that pathetically small range of Gallant Haven killing other squadrons I dont feel the need to use it and if I am hovering my squadrons within distance 1 of my AF they are not doing their jobs.

I just played my first tournament today...I rocked a Victory 1 with screed, hangars, controllers and weapon liason. My glad-1 had decimator, engine techs, wulff, and ACM. I had 3 ties, howl, 2 squints, an advanced, bomber, and ryhmer.

To the uselessness of Vic-1s...zone of control. That's all there is to it. Mine is more squadron enabling, but even without I play with two ships where my bigger "scarier" ship doesn't even care about shooting. He just makes sure I threaten an area. My opponent HAS to deal with it, and often allows me to hammer them with demolisher.

I also Rock a 300pt list as i prefer second player for my own objectives: P.Strike, fleet ambush, sup positions. I use my many options to set up situations in order to decimate my opponent on what he thinks are his terms.

2/3 games were sup positions: one game netted me 150bonus points the other about 60-80.

This is because, as people have said, squadrons are shunned or played poorly. My last game was against Vic and 2 glads with zero fighters, and netted me those 10 tokens because my fighters could do whatever they want.

In short, options are good. Vic-1s are amazing at zone of control, and squadrons win games.

Oh ya, I tabled all three opponents by round 4

I just played my first tournament today...I rocked a Victory 1 with screed, hangars, controllers and weapon liason. My glad-1 had decimator, engine techs, wulff, and ACM. I had 3 ties, howl, 2 squints, an advanced, bomber, and ryhmer.

To the uselessness of Vic-1s...zone of control. That's all there is to it. Mine is more squadron enabling, but even without I play with two ships where my bigger "scarier" ship doesn't even care about shooting. He just makes sure I threaten an area. My opponent HAS to deal with it, and often allows me to hammer them with demolisher.

I also Rock a 300pt list as i prefer second player for my own objectives: P.Strike, fleet ambush, sup positions. I use my many options to set up situations in order to decimate my opponent on what he thinks are his terms.

2/3 games were sup positions: one game netted me 150bonus points the other about 60-80.

This is because, as people have said, squadrons are shunned or played poorly. My last game was against Vic and 2 glads with zero fighters, and netted me those 10 tokens because my fighters could do whatever they want.

In short, options are good. Vic-1s are amazing at zone of control, and squadrons win games.

Oh ya, I tabled all three opponents by round 4

I disagree with you on the whole using the VSD as an "area control piece". The problem IMO with the VSD in general is that it gets worse the better your opponent is. You HAVE to point the VSD at them for it to be any real threat, so a skilled opponent just flies around it ignoring it while killing your Demolisher and then doing objectives for the rest of the game. It does control an area, but that area is it's front arc. A Corvette with Enhanced Arm. is way cheaper and puts out the same amount of dice as the VSD sides but in three different arcs, and is fast enough to grab objectives.

I completely agree with you on squadrons being under utilized and poorly played. Based on reports it's still evident that some metas are behind the curve on this, IE no squadron lists are seen as viable when they aren't. I'm somewhat dumbfounded that Gallant Haven isn't dominating everywhere at the moment.