So I co-ran a tournament at Asgard Games in Houston TX today and ran the store's twitch stream, Road to War http://www.twitchtv.com/roadtowarwhile we streamed two games from the event. My first and second games were streamed. More info and coverage on the event HERE including lists and results: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/180119-watch-us-stream-our-armada-tournament-on-road-to-war/

I was fortunate enough to win my third Armada tournament with 26 points. This was my list:

VSD2

Gunnery Teams

H9

Intel Officer

Warlord

Motti

VSD2

Gunnery Teams

H9

Wulf

Dominator

TIE x5

Adv Gunnery, Contested Outpost, Minefields

Total: 298

GAME 1- Royce - Win 10-0

Game one had me in a semi mirror match against two other VSDs. Royce's list:

VSD1

Screed

Vet Capt

Gunnery Team

Exp Hangar Bay

Exp Launcher

XX9

VSD1

Chiraneau

Gunnery Team

Exp Hangar Bay

Exp Launcher

XX9

Howlrunner

Mauler

TIE x 3

I chose to be first player and chose Advanced Gunnery. In hindsight, this didn't really benefit me at all since all our of ships already had gunnery teams. I knew the fighter would be irrelevant to the outcome of the game, so wasn't worried about his TIEs. I deployed the VSD about 8" apart from one another facing forwards. We ended up jousting in the middle, and my superior ranged firepower with Warlord let me thin down his shields as he advanced. Once we closed in, Dominator took out Screed with a lucky crit to speed 0 but was severely crippled in the process, with one hull left. Warlord and the other VSD ended up in a ram deadlock, where I came out ahead due to Motti's increased health and Warlord/H9 combo denying braces. I won 10-0.

GAME 2 - Darren - Win 7-3

CR90 A

Mon Mothma
Jaina's Light

Enh Arm

CR90 A

Enh Arm

CR90 A

Enh Arm

CR90 A

Enh Arm

CR90 B

Overload Pulse

As soon as I saw Darren's list at the end of Round 1 I knew I would have trouble if I played against him. I was seriously sweating the matchup having lost to his Corvette spam on a regular basis. He chose second player and we played Superior Positions. I deployed as far in the corner as possible at speed one. Not wanting a joust, he deployed at an angle around the middle of the board. I slowly moved into the middle of the board, turning right to be parallel to both long edges. This made it extra hard for him to avoid the front arcs on the VSDs, and speed 1 bought me a few turns. I knew that my only shot at winning was to kill one or two corvettes without losing a VSD, and basically running down the clock by not giving him enough turns to kill me. We didn't engage until turn 3. I shot down one Corvette on the initial pass, and grabbed another as they swung behind the VSDs. I grossly misplayed the start of the match, having mixed up the dials for Warlord and Dominator (Warlord is all CF, Dominator all Repair) which hurt my initial damage output until I could recover on turns 4-5. Darren racked up four objective tokens to my one, killing TIEs and severely damaging Warlord. Time was on my side though, and I accelerated to speed 2 and began to fly out of range on turn 5. In a misplay, I was able to destroy another Corvette who should have disengaged instead of pursuing the VSDs. I ended up winning 7-3, and we immediately resolved to play the same matchup 4-5 more times for practice.

GAME 3 - Juan - Win 9-1

VSD1
Screed

Glad1

Glad1

Glad1
Demolisher
Wulf
ACM
Engine Techs

I was confident going into the last game since I'm super familiar with how Demolisher works and since I know that other Gladiators are nowhere near as scary. Screed on the VSD1 wasn't really scary either since I outranged him. We played Minefields and I was second player. Demolisher took a crit from the mine which would do a damage every time he moved, which slowly killed him. He did significant damage to Warlord, but was left with one hull after attacks from Warlord's side and died from the crit after moving again. Two Gladiators came at Dominator, who proceeded to eat it to the face and then one shot them both like a boss. I was spamming Repair token Wulf + Repair dial to regain 3 shields every turn, which was more than enough against the weak Gladiator range threat. Dominator and Screed closed, with Screed taking heavy damage. Dominator had already eaten two Gladiators by this point and went down to damage from being ram deadlocked. Warlord cleaned up shop and led me to a 9-1 victory.



I threw the list together at the last minute, and this weekend was the first time I had played it. I had played against it before earlier in the week when Darren tried something similar against me, though without Dominator. The combination of the two is an incredibly deadly combo that is hard to beat in the damage race, and Wulf and Motti give the VSDs some desperately needed survivability.


I hope you enjoyed the report and check out our stream at http://www.twitchtv.com/roadtowar! We stream every other Tuesday starting at 6PM CST. Our next stream will be 6/23. In the meantime you can always view our past broadcasts on our channel. I hope you enjoyed the read!

Very well written up.

Insightful!

Thanks

Thanks DarthBadger! You can actually watch games 1 and 2 on past broadcasts.

Good analysis and writeup.

Your list was optimised for ship killing and faced mostly other ship-heavy lists. I wonder how a matchup against a full squadron/ bomber list would have gone?

Intel Agent + Warlord + H9 is quite a deadly combination. You can prevent all three tokens quite reliably.

What's Gunnery Team for though?

Oh God. I hope a Rebel fleet wins a tourney at some point. I am starting to get worried.

Oh God. I hope a Rebel fleet wins a tourney at some point. I am starting to get worried.

I am noticing two trends with this:

One, I haven't seen a rebel fleet win a tournament yet. If anyone can point me to one, however, I would appreciate it.

Two, most rebel lists I see played have obvious flaws compared to many of the Imperial ones. Around here, the strongest rebel lists we see start with two assault frigates, and I haven't seen many of those in play... I also feel like that corvette list was very poorly designed above but still should have won that matchup!

he played against one rebel list (Corv spam), which is hardly enough of a sample size to be a cause for concern

I know my area is particularly saturated with imperials (dem star destroyers), so if they end up winning the upcoming tournie it's because they're basically assured to by sheer numbers

I would say rebels are only harder to use because their well-rounded ships mandate playing around the very clearly defined strengths of the imperials, and because it seems some of the forums here is obsessed with ship heavy builds and overlooking the power of rebel squadrons

that's just at a glance/guess, mind

14 player tournament in London last week was won by a rebel list...

1st Place - Mon Mothma, 3 Nebulon Support Refit, 2 Corvette A's and 2 A-Wing Squadrons.

2nd place - Vic 1 with Sensor Team and Warlord, Glad 1 with ACM, Glad 1 with Demolisher, Techs and ACM, Screed and r Tie Fighter Squadrons.

3rd Place - Neblon with Yavaris and Raymus, AFII with Dodonna, Galant Haven, Adar Talon, Expanded Hangars, ECM and Flight Controllers, Luke Skywalker, X-Wing Squadron, Farlander, B-Wing Squadron, 3 A-Wing Squadrons.

he played against one rebel list (Corv spam), which is hardly enough of a sample size to be a cause for concern

I know my area is particularly saturated with imperials (dem star destroyers), so if they end up winning the upcoming tournie it's because they're basically assured to by sheer numbers

I would say rebels are only harder to use because their well-rounded ships mandate playing around the very clearly defined strengths of the imperials, and because it seems some of the forums here is obsessed with ship heavy builds and overlooking the power of rebel squadrons

that's just at a glance/guess, mind

^ THIS. 200% this. After reading these boards I'm pretty convinced that the majority of Rebel players on here don't know how to use squadrons correctly. Rebels are also outnumbered locally by Imperials about 2:1.

Two, most rebel lists I see played have obvious flaws compared to many of the Imperial ones. Around here, the strongest rebel lists we see start with two assault frigates, and I haven't seen many of those in play... I also feel like that corvette list was very poorly designed above but still should have won that matchup!

The Corvette list is arguably one of the best lists in the game, I'm having a rematch against it several times since he wanted one. 9/10 times he has won with that build in our practice games. It shreds ships, doesn't care about squadrons, and is strong with the tournament scoring system.

In contrast, we've found through extensive play testing that 2 Assault Frigates is pretty meh, your points are better spent on other things.

Grats bro. like the list. May try it to break up all the demolisher and shake up the meta a bit.

Thanks for posting. We recently held a 300-point, six-player tournament that was dominated by ship-heavy, no-squadron Imperials. My vanilla Motti-led 3 Vic-Is and 1 Glad-I fleet scored 8-2, 7-3 (we only had time for two rounds). The other Imp fleets were 2 VSDs / 2 GSDs and 2 VSDs / 1 GSD. The Rebel fleets were light on fighters, which pretty much nullified them (the fighters) as they weren't numerous enough to inflict much pain, and they had no opposing TIEs when facing Imperials.

It was interesting seeing that many SDs on the table, but a little disheartening for the Reb players. I'll be fielding a Rebel fleet next time, but it'll have to be something capable of taking down numerous heavy Imperial ships...in six turns...and survive...

Oh God. I hope a Rebel fleet wins a tourney at some point. I am starting to get worried.

I am noticing two trends with this:

One, I haven't seen a rebel fleet win a tournament yet. If anyone can point me to one, however, I would appreciate it.

Two, most rebel lists I see played have obvious flaws compared to many of the Imperial ones. Around here, the strongest rebel lists we see start with two assault frigates, and I haven't seen many of those in play... I also feel like that corvette list was very poorly designed above but still should have won that matchup!

I pulled off a win with Rebels in a tournament here at the weekend (details here), so it can be done!

Huzzah! We're a rag tag fleet after all...

Thanks for posting. We recently held a 300-point, six-player tournament that was dominated by ship-heavy, no-squadron Imperials. My vanilla Motti-led 3 Vic-Is and 1 Glad-I fleet scored 8-2, 7-3 (we only had time for two rounds). The other Imp fleets were 2 VSDs / 2 GSDs and 2 VSDs / 1 GSD. The Rebel fleets were light on fighters, which pretty much nullified them (the fighters) as they weren't numerous enough to inflict much pain, and they had no opposing TIEs when facing Imperials.

It was interesting seeing that many SDs on the table, but a little disheartening for the Reb players. I'll be fielding a Rebel fleet next time, but it'll have to be something capable of taking down numerous heavy Imperial ships...in six turns...and survive...

I'll say it again, Rebels rely either on their squadrons or their CR-90's for efficient damage. The CR-90 is stupid points efficient (3 corvettes = 1 VSD usually) and Farlander with Yavaris and Talon is a complete monster. Gallant Haven + Aces is a list that these boards rag on that IMO is possibly the best in the game, it's just very hard to play and very unforgiving.

seconding above, though I'm sure we have other effective configurations for rebels

Currently, squadrons just represent the most bang for your buck. A 3 squadron command with B-wings gets you beyond VSD levels of damage, and with Yavaris it's just disgusting.

Then we have CR-90s, which are just dice spam for the cheapest possible points.

Our other two ships don't have the CR-90s damage efficiency nor the imperial's ability to damage spike outside the two titles. If you want the neb or the AFmk2 to absolutely wow you with their damage, you're going to want either a.) Salvation b.) Paragon (and to be very good at setting it up) c.) to be able to support squadrons (escort frigates, Yavaris, Haven). Don't expect Salvation or Paragon to carry your fleet, but they will output some significant damage.

Again, not that they are horrible ships or that they can't be used in various ways, but if you're intimidated by the offensive burst of imperial ships or want to bunker-bust even a VSD, then those are basically the ways you can output similar levels of damage:

1.) Squadrons (Yavaris, Haven)

2.) CR-90 efficiency

3.) Salvation

4.) Paragon

When Wave 2 hits, you'll get both Mon Cal ships to augment that list

Thanks for posting. We recently held a 300-point, six-player tournament that was dominated by ship-heavy, no-squadron Imperials. My vanilla Motti-led 3 Vic-Is and 1 Glad-I fleet scored 8-2, 7-3 (we only had time for two rounds). The other Imp fleets were 2 VSDs / 2 GSDs and 2 VSDs / 1 GSD. The Rebel fleets were light on fighters, which pretty much nullified them (the fighters) as they weren't numerous enough to inflict much pain, and they had no opposing TIEs when facing Imperials.

It was interesting seeing that many SDs on the table, but a little disheartening for the Reb players. I'll be fielding a Rebel fleet next time, but it'll have to be something capable of taking down numerous heavy Imperial ships...in six turns...and survive...

I'll say it again, Rebels rely either on their squadrons or their CR-90's for efficient damage. The CR-90 is stupid points efficient (3 corvettes = 1 VSD usually) and Farlander with Yavaris and Talon is a complete monster. Gallant Haven + Aces is a list that these boards rag on that IMO is possibly the best in the game, it's just very hard to play and very unforgiving.

Painting a VERY broad brush: I think there are three phases to the game. We fly in and get some long range shots, we start our turns and get into each other then we may move past each other and have to come around. Understanding what your fleet prefers and then making the assessment of what your opponents fleet could be trying will help figure out the strategic level problems you have and your opponent has.

If I put down 12 Red Dice as Rebels and you put down 8 Red Dice as Imperials I am fairly sure I want to ensure that our long range shots happen over as many turns as I can manage, and then once we get in each other faces I get past the worst of it as fast as posible. The fun part is you want to joist the Star Destroyer, but you want to walk in slowly while you do. A little trick is to go speed two and go left one click on the first yaw and right 1 click on the second yaw, so you go sideways as much as forwards. (This also helps when you do the dash past the front arc, you can easily get up to speed 3/4, run past and have a 45 degree head start on the "U" turn.

If I put down 15 Blue dice and you have 8 Red / 8 Blue then maybe joisting isn't a desirable tactic.

I think there is one major difference between the two fleets. The imperials are there to shoot and damage stuff over 6 turns, they have a nice level of consistent damage. The Rebels are more burst damage, if they can get 150 points of stuff ahead of the Imperials what should they do with the last 2 turns?

Consider your missions and play order. Some missions can open up the VP quite fast and have just one ship put you 150 points up. Precision Strike, Fire Lanes, Superior Positions can get some of the 150 points for the correct Rebel Build.

The one aspect I suspect Rebel players have the most trouble with is to ensure they are patient and play the score VP game.