Last weekend (2015-05-31) Common Ground in Stirling, Scotland hosted their first Armada event. We had six players and an even split of Rebels and Imperials so played out that each Rebel played each Imperial once over three rounds.

My list was:

Name: (297 of 300 pts)

Faction: Rebel Alliance

Flagship: (142 pts)

Assault Frigate Mark II A(81 pts)

Mon Mothma (30 pts)

Ray Antilles (7 pts)

Electronic Counter Measures (7 pts)

Enhanced Armament (10 pts)

Gunnery Team (7 pts)

Fleet Ship 1: (82 pts)

Nebulon-B Escort Frigate(57 pts)

Intel Officer (7 pts)

XI7 Turbolasers (6 pts)

Salvation (7 pts)

Engineering Team (5 pts)

Squadrons (73 of 99 pts):

1x Tycho Celchu A-Wing Squadron (16 pts)

1x A-Wing Squadron (11 pts)

2x X-Wing Squadron (26 pts)

2x Y-Wing Squadron (20 pts)

Objectives:

Advanced Gunnery

Fleet Ambush

Minefields

Game 1 :

Intel Sweep against Screed VSD + GSD (Demolisher)

Chose to go first, took opponent’s Intel Sweep since the VSD would be too slow and it keeps the (terrifying) GSD out the fight for a few turns.

The Assault Frigate got two objectives on the way to engage the Victory, while the Gladiator worked its way across the board picking up the other three. By the time the Gladiator got across the table I’d put a world of hurt onto the Victory at the cost of some shielding on the Assault Frigate, which had begun to put some range between itself and the Star Destroyer. However the Gladiator was easily the match for the Assault Frigate on speed, and showed up to wreck a lot of the remaining shields and start to land hits on the hull. At this point the Salvation was at point blank range on the front arc of the Victory, leaving me with a choice. Whichever ship I activated the other would almost certainly be destroyed, so I was forced to sacrifice the Assault Frigate so that the Salvation could destroy the Victory. The Gladiator, as expected, made quick work of what was left of the Assault Frigate, but it’s speed left it staring right at the edge of the board, lined up perfectly to fly off next turn! However a well-timed Squadron command dial let him activate Howlrunner first, the only squad in range, and she landed a hit on an unshielded arc of the Nebulon B taking off it’s last hit so wiping me out.

Loss 375-167 (9-1)

Game 2 :

Fleet Ambush against Screed VSD + GSD (Demolisher)

Opponent took First Player, chose my Fleet Ambush to give his VSD a head-start as the GSD can easily catch up and pass it

We ended up with an alley of obstacles, with the VSD deploying first coming down one edge of the alley. For some reason I decided that racing straight towards it would be tactical genius, and we ended up only using about 1ft wide of the board. Part of my hope had been that running the Assault Frigate at speed 3 would let me hop over the Gladiator and take some heavy side-arc shots into the rear of the Victory. Instead of hopping over it though I ended up with no option except to ram it, which allowed the Gladiator to activate, put some hurt on the Assault Frigate, then activate again first next turn to finish it off. Salvation put some good hurt on the VSD but it wasn’t enough, and was quickly destroyed when the Gladiator got to it next turn.

This was against a guy I play against frequently, I normally struggle to beat his Demolisher anyway, but it’s typically a lot closer than this. Seriously, all I killed was a single TIE Advanced squad!

Win 300-12 (10-0)

Game 3 :

Advanced Gunnery vs Motti 2xVSD

Opponent took First Player, chose Advanced Gunnery (assuming he didn’t want to split the VSDs in Ambush and didn’t like the idea of navigating Minefields with two big VSDs)

Obstacles were deployed spread out over a fair area of the board, but managed to get a group of them at an angle and used that to flank both AF and NB at full speed on the same side as flagship/objective/VSDII leaving the shorter-ranged VSDI trying to move around the VSDII to bring any weapons into range. We only actually engaged in turn 5 but with Advanced Gunnery on Salvation and Enhanced Armament on AF was able to kill Motti in turn 6 for minimal damage received thanks to mostly avoiding the front arcs of the Star Destroyers.

Win 247-39 (9-1)

VSD + GSD: 24

VSD + GSD: 24

2 x VSD: 21

AF + NB: 10

AF/NB/Crv: 6

AF/NB/Crv: 5

Fourth place wasn't quite where I'd wanted to end up. However I still got to walk away with loot, the store owner was running the 2xVSD list and didn't want to walk away from his own tournament winning prizes. So I'm treating that as "best Rebel player" award!

Lessons Learned:

1. Put Mon Mothma on the Salvation, not the Assault Frigate. The AF2 is bigger, tougher, and better shielded so looks like an obvious choice on paper to hide your commander on. But all of those stats and the big side arcs mean it likes to go get stuck into the fight, while the Salvation wants to stay somewhere safe.

2. Watch out for Imperial anti-fighter builds. Both of the VSD/GSD lists made heavy use of strong anti-fighter squadrons (flight controllers, Howlrunner, Interceptors, etc) that I underestimated.

3. Y-Wings are budget for a reason. 6 hull never lasted as long as I’d expected it to, two blue dice don’t do enough damage to matter, and in the rare occasions they did slip through and throw a black dice against a ship it’s not really a big hit.

4. Gladiator with Demolisher = pain. Still haven’t found the right way to counter these type of builds, it’s nimble, powerful, and isn’t exactly fragile (at least when compared to Rebel ships). I’m going to figure this ship out eventually, but I’m still not there yet.

5. Don’t hit the Empire head-on. They’re tougher, and bring enough dice to win a straight-up fight. With the exception of the Demolisher most Empire ships will struggle to get into position to land much hurt on you unless you let them. Use speed to your advantage and hit them in the flank and on the rear. Rebels need to play like guerrillas!