Last weekend (2015-06-13) Games Hub in Edinburgh, Scotland hosted their Armada tournament. 7 players for this one (4 Empire, 3 Rebel).

My list was:

Name: (300 of 300 pts)

Faction: Rebel Alliance

Flagship: (79 pts)

CR90 Corvette A(44 pts)

Mon Mothma (30 pts)

Jaina's Light (2 pts)

Leia Organa (3 pts)

Fleet Ship 1: (92 pts)

Assault Frigate Mark II B(72 pts)

Ray Antilles (7 pts)

Electronic Counter Measures (7 pts)

Flight Controllers (6 pts)

Fleet Ship 2: (77 pts)

Nebulon-B Escort Frigate(57 pts)

Salvation (7 pts)

XI7 Turbolasers (6 pts)

Intel Officer (7 pts)

Squadrons (52 of 100 pts):

4x X-Wing Squadron (52 pts)

Objectives:

Most Wanted

Hyperspace Assault

Intel Sweep

Game 1 :

Minefields against Screed VSD + GSD (Demolisher)

Both of us were running at 300pts, I won the coin-toss and chose first player, since he was using a Demolisher. Chose his Minefields objective, and setup gave us a diagonal opening across the middle of the field, and a lot of blocked up territory at the edges of the setup zone.

I let my Neb-B joust with the Victory, while my Corvette and AF2 flew down one flank, furthest from the Demolisher. With that positioning the Victory acted as a screen against the Demolisher, it would have to fly all the way around the Victory to get to my AF2 and Corvette and he’d taken Nav Team over Engine Techs.

With first player I was able to activate my Salvation last in turn 2 then first in turn 3, putting a world of hurt into the Victory then using a Navigate token to boost to speed 3 and jump over the Victory, opting to land in a debris field rather than face the front arc of a Vic-I at close range. Having done its damage and survived (though dangerously damaged) the Salvation then coasted away from the fight taking no further part but surviving the game.

The rest of the ships were now circling the squadron furball in the middle, which thanks to Flight Controllers I was staying competitive with despite being outnumbered. The AF2 and Corvette had little trouble outmaneuvering the Victory, taking it out at range, while the Demolisher could only contribute red dice from the outside of the curve.

Win 163-52

Game 2 :

Most Wanted against Gallant Haven AF2, Neb-B, Tantive IV Corvette

Another game where initiative came down to a coin toss, this time my opponent took first player and chose my Most Wanted objective. Targets were my Corvette and his Assault Frigate.

With Galant Haven, Wedge Antilles, and overall a much larger squadron contingent than I’d brought I spent a lot of the game delaying the fighter engagement by hiding my X-Wings behind my AF2 so that he’d have to leave the Gallant Haven bubble to launch bomber runs, then would be countered by my Flight Controlled X-Wings.

His Neb-B was stuck trailing the Gallant Haven through the obstacles, allowing me to take several turns of shooting out of my AF2’s side arcs at the objective ship, which was only in position to answer with its front arc.

As my AF2 moved forward it no longer obstructed front-arc shots from Salvation, which was able to bring a lot more damage onto the Gallant Haven, already low on shields. About this point our squadrons started to engage piecemeal, his superior numbers gave him an advantage but I’d drawn things out enough that he was no longer in range of Gallant Haven and could only get a few activations with Flight Controllers.

Around this time he turned his Neb-B back towards his board edge, where my objective Corvette was headed, but my AF2 was also sweeping that direction and managed to obstruct the Neb-Bs shooting. My Salvation finished off his Gallant Haven, which had collided with its own Corvette rather than land on an asteroid. While his fighters finished off the last of my squadrons I managed to line up a final shot on his Corvette with Salvation at point blank range, which was enough to destroy that too.

Win 222-52 (9-1)

Game 3 :

Most Wanted vs VSD/Demolisher/Gladiator

Third game once again came down to a coin-toss for initiative, my opponent took first player and selected my Most Wanted objective. This time the objective ships were my Corvette and his Demolisher.

His Victory and Gladiator ended up deployed towards the centre of the table while my fleet and his Demolisher faced off near one flank. Even taking on the Demolisher with all 300pts of my fleet was really painful. It made short work of my Corvette (hardly surprising), and actually looked close to escaping through the other side of my fleet until some well-timed bombing runs by my X-Wings left it weakened enough to finish off.

After this his Victory and Gladiator curved round towards my fleet, and while the Assault Frigate was happy to be firing broadsides into them as they closed the Salvation was far less impressed, soaking up a painful amount of damage from the Victory leaving it on a single point of hull. My hope now was to increase speed and escape faster than the Victory could corner, but this wasn’t to be as my Assault Frigate was forced to ram the damaged Salvation rather than running itself off the table. Unfortunately I don’t get any bonus points for killing my own ship either.

However the Assault Frigate now had no trouble moving out of the Victory’s front arc, and the chasing Gladiator that my X-Wings had been stripping of shields ended up in range of my Assault Frigate’s side arc as it tried to chase me, allowing me to destroy it and scrape a close victory.

Win (6-4)

Despite the close final game I’d built enough of a lead in games 1 and 2 to hold onto first place, not a bad achievement given how poorly I flew Rebels at the last tournament I attended. Of course this means I now have a Victory-II alternate art card, so it’s time to start getting the Empire on the table for a while. Hopefully I’ll learn enough from using the Demolisher to come up with a counter-strategy that can stop it.

Can’t remember the exact order everyone placed in, and don’t know the final scores, but it looked something like this:

Rebels (AF2/Salvation Neb-B/Jaina’s Light Corvette)

Empire (VSD/Demolisher)

Empire (VSD/Demolisher/Gladiator)

Rebel (AF2/Corvette/Corvette)

Rebel (Gallant Haven AF2/Neb-B/Tantive IV Corvette)

Empire (VSD/VSD/Gladiator)

Empire (VSD/Demolisher)

Lessons Learned:

1. You don’t need enough fighters to kill all enemy squadrons, just tie them up while your ships do the real work

2. On the subject of squadrons, X-Wings all day

3. I still need to figure out how I’m going to deal with Demolisher, especially as second player

4. When you move around the Empire fleet rather than through it things go a lot better

5. If Salvation isn’t firing from its front arcs it should be running away before someone cuts it in half