Hi everyone! Just drove back from GenCon… things are still surreal, hopefully my podcast interviews don’t sound like gibberish, but I wanted to share my thoughts with you… (I apologize in advance that this is super wordy!).

Met a lot of good peeps and this was the most stressful fun I've had in a while...

DISCLAIMER: I do not claim to be an expert and I don’t think I have an unbeatable list. I think there are many strong builds and many more strong players out there (I played against a lot of them!). Hey, that’s why we play the game… we don’t know the outcome!

However, in a LIMITED sample of 100 players, over 2 days (5 Swiss rounds), I posted a 5-0 record, with 46/50 victory points, and posted an 1165 margin of victory with my final four rounds on the top table.

Furthermore, I will state THEORY where I can. It applies to a lot since I only got to play a handful of games before GenCon.

My background is in WarmaHordes (about 50% competitive win rate) and I was 2013 GenCon Champion in Dropzone Commander, 2014 GenCon Dropzone Commander Runner-Up (this will be relevant to the Armada discussion). FFG has made the Star Wars Trilogy (XWing, IA, Armada) hybrid games (in-between board and tabletop; I hate painting minis) so I’m thankful for this niche - a tremendous balance of time commitment and fun.

ROAD TO GENCON - SQUADRONS:

Thinking squadrons were OPed (they are limited to ⅓ of total fleet points. I tried this list at a store tourney.

Vic 2 with Motti + Flight Controllers + Expanded Hangar Bays

Vic 2

4x Tie Ints

Rhymer + 3x Bombers

Objectives: I think these are the fighter friendly ones. (Precision Strike, Hyperspace Assault, Superior Positions)

Turn 1: Position Fleets.

Turn 2: Alpha strike with 4x Tie Ints. Yay! Air superiority! (I think with Controllers. Each Tie Int has a 31% of dealing 3 damage to another fighter.)

Turn 3: Alpha strike with 4x Bombers. Yay! I’m putting the hurt on!

Turn 4: Uh...oh… one Vic just got boxed.

I pretty much finished at the bottom of the tourney.

WHAT I LEARNED:

1. 200pts of Ships + 100pts of Fighters vs 300pts of Ships. They only need to destroy 200 while you need to destroy 300 for the complete win.

2. With more ship activations, they would usually get to shoot me before I could shoot them.

3. You need the squadron command to do bombing runs, otherwise Speed 3 ships can easily get out of range. I think Ship Speed 2 is the equivalent of Squadron Speed 3 (e.g. X-Wings)

4. Undaunted, I went home and tested (thanks to Vick C. and Maurice K.) on my kitchen table. Gallant Haven and Yavaris builds… cool in concept, but a slow-moving Rebel ship (to keep squadrons in command range) is a dead Rebel ship.

MY CONCLUSION, YMMV:

One reason why I’m sharing my thoughts is that I hope a Bomber Build wins a big tourney. I want to see more builds and I want squadrons for the fluff aspects. Bombers can do damage but your Carriers will be destroyed by Turn 4. :-(

ROAD TO GENCON - ALL SHIP BUILDS: (It’s great that there is so much debate about what is the best ship… I think it talks greatly about the game design.)

1. Let’s face it… I support Law & Order so I was going Empire.

2. Here are my thoughts on ships…

Corvette: I got to play Paul Heaver (yeah, the 2-Time X-Wing World Champion) and he flew circles around me with these things! However, while I think a Corvette Swarm will win games, I don’t believe their damage output is enough to win by a huge margin to score you victory points. THEORY - I’m thinking (Opening Salvo - you’re crazy if you pick this one, Fire Lanes?, and Intel Sweep)? I think the Corvette A is well worth the extra 5 points.

LESSON LEARNED: I needed to block better and I needed ships to block fast ships like the Guppy and Corvette to keep them in my kill zone.

Neb B: The sniper ship. With concentrate fire, it hits as hard as a Vic at long range. So I tried a Sniper Neb-B Swarm… it did a lot of damage but it Glads can broadside it, it’s toast. Yeah, we know about Salvation and how Turbolasers can eat up ships.

Guppy: From what I’ve seen, it’s best at moving at Speed 3 (Gallant Haven slows it down too much). I think Guppy B + Enhanced Armaments is better than Guppy A for the extra point. Concentrate Fire with 5 red dice! THEORY - Gunnery Crew so you can shoot another target with 4 red dice.

Mon Mothma is the best Rebel Admiral at this time. Make someone roll a black dice (hit + crit) again!

Victory: It’s a tank and intimidating! I think Vic-1 is better value than Vic-2. In the above tourney, my two Vic-2 were held off by one Vic-1 with Warlord, Screed and ACMs. I HATE BLUE DICE… for an extra 1.75” range you lose a lot of damage output. I’d rather take ACMs and save 5pts for something else.

Gladiator: This is my favorite ship. I play Khador in Warmahordes… IF I hit something, I want it dead. I love black dice especially with Creed.

Thought Experiment:

Vic 1 (front arc) is 3 Red + 3 Black = 5.25 Damage

Glad 1 (front arc; 2 Red + 2 Black = 3.5 Damage) + (side arc; 4 Black = 4 Damage) = 7.5!

Two attacks which means two defense tokens to mitigate!

GENCON BUILD “SHOTGUN BRAWLERS”:

I’m an average XWing player but I creep on the forums and read about the BBBBZ build. So I decided to make the equivalent for Armada.

Vic1 wScreed (best Imp Admiral) 99

Glad wACM + Demolisher (you need to force them to think about letting you have initiative with this guy) 73

Glad wACM 63

Glad wACM 63

OBJECTIVES:

Advanced Gunnery: Letting my Vic1 shoot twice out of front arc is an awesome advantage!

Fire Lanes: I have NEVER played this objective but I figured that no one would pick it because… that’s potentially 45pts a turn for me (well, probably two rounds = 90… who would risk that?)

Intel Sweep: With my build, I figured I’d be up 75pts.

WIth the above three, it seemed like Advanced Gunnery is the worst of all evils. I mean, just stay out of range of my Vic1’s black and all is good, right?

STRATEGY:

Since Margin of Victory was so crucial to Victory Points…

1. I wanted a build that didn’t surrender points and whose goal was to table my opponent since I am not familiar with all the objectives and tabling (eg the Warmahordes Assassination Run) seemed to be the best way to earn Victory Points.

2. I had an Imperial Assault ticket ready for Saturday because I wasn’t sure I was gonna make it past the first 3 Swiss Rounds. So, if I was gonna get tabled, I wanted my opponent to literally destroy everything.

3. Again, playing Khador in Warmahordes, I wanted to charge up to face and shotgun you. I felt that my build could do a lot of damage. Furthermore, I felt the Glads were fast enough to catch Corvettes and dodge Victories.

4. As we know, this tournaments are stressful (in a fun way)... I did not want to burn out. As pButcher in Warmahordes, if I won, it was through attrition and I would clock my opponent leaving me exhausted for my next matches and I would inevitably would mess up and lose. I was gonna fly in fast and furious and end the match quickly. Win or lose but be rested for the next round.

5. In Warmahordes, we often do trades of warjacks for board position. In my kitchen testing, I always lost one Glad but then everyone else was in range to counterattack.

Given 4 and 5… opening commands.

Glads - Usually Speed 3 and Navigate then Repair (or vice versa).

Vic - Usually Speed 2 (Navigate, then Repair throughout).

Why? I wanted to simplify my game and decision-making. I did not go for many upgrades because I wanted didn’t want to make a mistake by forgetting. I feel Navigate is the most important order for my shotgun approach. Adding one black dice with concentrate was not as useful as getting two arcs for the next attack (see thought experiment). Engineering is always useful as Token or Command Dial. I had to survive the initial volley with my Fast N Furious rush! I figured the Vic was a sitting duck so I needed to just heal up and tank. With 3 Glads incoming, I was hoping to make it hard for my opponents to focus on one.

Round 1 vs Mike(?):

Vic 2 with Motti

Vic 1

Glad

Some Ties

Mike had only played 3 games? I went first and picked Minefields. While I never played against 2 Vics, I was confident if he boxed me to one side with Mines then my Glads could outduel his Vics… remember, my gameplan was to take the first volleys exhausting all tokens if necessary for the next turn double arc shots from the side avoiding front arcs of Vics). I rushed in and tabled him (1-0, 10-0 Victory, 300 Margin)

Round 2 vs Brad (I think he’s an elite XWinger?):

Corvette

Guppy wDodonna

2x Nebs (Salvation + X17?)

I went second and he picked Advanced Gunnery (my Vic, his Guppy). He had a Corvette on the edge of his setup, 2 Nebs anchoring the center and was gonna flank with the Guppy.

I had Glad that looped outside my setup area (I’ve never gone wide before hoping to make him turn his Nebs away from the center.). I had my Vic in the center and then two Glads on the side facing his Guppy.

Brad didn’t get distracted by my Glad and kept his Nebs firing forward… I sent two Glads to the Guppy… they blocked him from getting good broadsides or looping behind my battle line. I somehow avoided the arcs of the Nebs? I expected it to be bloody coming in (that’s what happened in my kitchen vs the Sniper Neb B build).

Brad didn’t make any mistakes but I just overwhelmed him with sheer numbers/force.

(2-0, 20-0, +381 (I got the objective ship)).

Top Table - Round 3 vs James (I think he barely missed the cut to 16 for XWing… how was he not tired from the day before - matches going to midnite?)

Guppy + Enhanced Armaments + Advanced Projectors + Dodonna

2x Corvette + Enhanced Armaments + Advanced Projectors

Some A-Wings

He wanted to go first so he picked Advanced Gunnery (my Vic, his Corvette). He broke off one Corvette to circle round so I sent the Demolisher on its heels. On Turn 2, he had to get the Corvette (Objective ship) outta of danger, passing up a two arc shot with his Guppy on my damaged Glad that swooped in the wing to block his other Corvette and Guppy. He was in a rock and a hard place. I think this was the turning point. He moved the Corvette and I got the block with my Glad ensuring that I could hem in the one Corvette and Guppy.

His A-Wing failed on two shots to kill a Glad with 1 hull left, no shields. :-(

EDIT: THEORY: I wonder if defensive upgrades are worth it. In Warmahordes and X-Wing (at least red vs green dice), aggression always seems to be favored. Of course, I expect someone to come up with a Fat Han + C3PO build.

(3-0, 29-1, +???)

So, under the 10 Point Must System… James dropped from #2 to #13.

I can relate to him… at GenCon 2014 Dropzone Commander… I went 3-0 in the tourney (16 players) and barely won my 3rd match against the other unbeaten. However, someone who was 2-1 (he lost to the guy I was playing in the 3rd round) got more Victory Points and beat me by one Victory Point for the title.

Honestly, I don’t know how to fix this. I James fought hard.

Round 4 was the next day and I couldn’t sleep because my matches with Brad and James were really tough and the scores did not reflect how close the games were until the turning points. I was worried that I would lose both my remaining matches 0-10 and not wind up with anything…

Top Table - Round 4 - vs Francois (#2 after 3 Rounds, 3-0, 28-2)

This was my toughest match.

Vic 1 wScreed

Vic 1

2x Glad 2

He went first and he picked Advanced Gunnery (his non Screed Vic, my Vic). This list along with (3xVic + Glad) scared me the most. My thought was to run away try to box one Glad (he put them on the flanks with Vics in the center) and eek out the win to ensure myself a finish to get some kind of prize support.

As Fast N Furious says, “Ride or Die.” So I decided to just keep being aggressive and try to destroy the objective Vic… the Demolishers kept each other at distance, but I decided to send my Demolisher in for a suicide run (a warjack attrition move from Warmahordes)… I did massive damage to his Screed Vic and finished him with my Vic. He got my Glad + Demolisher… I got his other Vic.

(4-0, 37-3 Victory, ??? Margin)

Francois finished #3 Overall… losing second by 8 Margin of Victory.

Top Table - Round 5 vs Dan (#3 after 3 Rounds, 3-0, 27-3)

Dan was very knowledgeable about the game. He had beaten my buddy Sean who was running my exact list.

Vic2 wScreed

Glad + Engine Techs

Glad + Demolisher + Engine Techs

Some Ties

He had initiative so he let me go first. He had Advanced Gunnery, Fleet Ambush, Superior Positions?

I prefer to go second but if I have to go first, I pick the objective that doesn’t give my opponent points. Fleet Ambush was the most neutral.

Dan started at real slow speeds and my Vic + Glad were speed 1 to start in the ambush zone and the other 2 Glads were at Speed 3 to catch up.

Afterwards, Dan and I chatted and he agreed about making the mistake of leaving his Demolisher in range of my Glad (two arcs). I activated it, shot two arcs and rammed him to take out his Demolisher. His other Glad flew away to mitigate damage. With a Vic and 3 Glads, I easily took down his Vic.

(5-0, 46-4).

Dan finished #4 Overall and he was telling me he couldn’t sleep as well after the first night as well. We both wanted to end up with something.

I apologize if my battle reports don’t make any sense... again, I enjoyed playing against everyone.

http://imgur.com/gallery/Tm2np

UPDATE: Oops! Another thought experiment...

What would you take for more damage?

Tie Bomber at 9 pts.

ACMs at 7 pts.

Thank you very much for the insight. Congratulations on the hard fought win!

Thanks for posting this. As someone who also has a background in competitive warmahordes (and whose armada theorycrafting buddy is the almighty Will Pagani) I appreciate your theory and am happy that it largely matches up with what we've discovered down here in TX. Was a fun read, and I look forward to seeing you at Worlds

Congrats!
-Dursum

@Fel... I met Will Pagani at TempleCon... he was a pretty good guy!

Thanks for the tournament debriefing. An enlightening read.

Great write up! I will try to have that interview edited (background noise) and up this week!

Congratulations, well done and thanks for posting. Definitely worth thinking on.

Australian nationals are in two weeks - I wonder how many extra gladiators will get sold between now and then.....

Thanks for the report, and a major congratulations. The biggest take away was your insight on board control, you used a warma hordes reference but trading pieces for board control reminded me of chess. That and it was interesting to hear about using a a GSD or two as blockers ala xwing.

As for your final thought experiment, assuming screed, the ACMs do 2 dmg the bomber an average of 1. The rest comes from number of times used or area control (harder to account for). In general, based on your results, it definately looks like ACMs are better. Couple things that could shift towards the bombers would be not having Screed and Rhymer's extra range... That and a players ability to get their GSDs into the teeth of the enemy.

Once again congrats.

Edit- was just addressing the final thought not intending to turn this into another fighter debate, got other threads for that.

Thanks for the report, and a major congratulations. The biggest take away was your insight on board control, you used a warma hordes reference but trading pieces for board control reminded me of chess. That and it was interesting to hear about using a a GSD or two as blockers ala xwing.

Yes, getting my butt kicked by better flyers (e.g., Paul) made me realize that I couldn't let faster ships get by me.

I was a HS chess champion... I fully expected to lose one Glad a game as a gambit to ensure that the rest of the team could get into firing range. I feel that I was rewarded in Round 4 for this aggression (sacrificing my Demolisher to get his Vics - it's one of my pics). The only thing I couldn't trade ships with was a Corvette Swarm. I think in a one-on-one match, Corvette Swarm can win against anybody... I just don't know if it can win big enough, consistently enough, in this scoring format.

1) How much of your win is attributed to your list (and knowledge of it) versus using a somewhat novel tactic? I know they're closely related - but like you said, there's lots of newer players.

2) What list/strategy do you feel beats the 4x (Glad/Vic) builds?

3) There's been a lot of focus on initiative on the forums (especially right after wave 1 came out). Do you think having the choice of initiative had a significant impact? Or did you have a strategy to work with it either way so you didn't really care?

1)

In terms of knowledge of my list, I'll say... I simplified to two commands - Navigate or Engineering. I simplified to just Red and mostly Black Dice so I just wanted to up to shotgun range (e.g., rush and hem in the other guy). So I think my list is pretty straightforward to play and I think people had to pick Advanced Gunnery (partly answers question #3) as the least of the three evils. With the meta just beginning to form, I think I did benefit from the surprise factor of mostly kitchen table testing. Thanks to Maurice K. and Vick C. for being sparring partners!

2)

In one-off games, I think a lot of lists/builds can beat my list. However, I think under the current scoring system, if you win, you gotta win big. A 6-4 or 5-5 victory doesn't earn you enough points. My goal was to table my opponent, lose one Glad and still get the 10-0. Over 5 rounds of Swiss, you need to consistently win big. If you look at the Top 4, when we won, it was by about 9-1. I was talking to Dan (4th), and we both thought that 7 or 8 per round would be plenty to get Top 8 and possibly win the whole thing.

3)

The Demolisher makes it hard for someone to give up Initiative to me. If it goes last, gets two arcs and then goes at the top of the turn (with two more arcs), you will likely lose a ship.

However, I think going 2nd is the overall better play (esp if you have more ship activations). You gotta pick ones that make your opponent lose points (exception is Hyperspace Assault) and I think someone is gonna come up with a crazy Dark Horse, if you will, squadron build that will make some noise. Maybe place a bunch of Y-Wing "minefields" and play keep away while taking shots of opportunity? It's gonna be hard with the Engineering command to load up enough damage quickly though? IDK. All in all, your objectives gotta punish your opponent if they have Initiative.

FFG, could always release a new set of Objectives to make squadron play more appealing? They could make upgrades cards that give Bombers heavier ordinance? Sorry, I don't want to have the squadron debate here but it just came to mind...

Tournament thoughts from both 1st and 2nd place. . . Oh. . . I am going to have fun analyzing this. . .

An interesting read!

I think that if people choose Fire Lanes more often the games would have been completely different, guppy lists would possibly of gotten more points. . .

Great write up!

I'm also a Dropzone Commander player and practice with games like that definitely helped me in Armada.

I think that if people choose Fire Lanes more often the games would have been completely different, guppy lists would possibly of gotten more points. . .

personally, I hate tethering my fatties to fire lane tokens

they're just not as happy as they are when they're running around making annoyances of themselves

they're just not as happy as they are when they're running around making annoyances of themselves

Fire lanes work great when you start the guppies out in a conga line at speed 2. Keep a Nav token handy and you can bust out in to speed 3 shenanigans whenever you need.

I think that if people choose Fire Lanes more often the games would have been completely different, guppy lists would possibly of gotten more points. . .

personally, I hate tethering my fatties to fire lane tokens

they're just not as happy as they are when they're running around making annoyances of themselves

I think you hit the nail on the head with a few core points here, in terms of theory for top builds:

• The interaction between ACM and Screed is insane; it's basically a guarantee of 2 extra damage per shot at short range, which is part of why Imperial Bomber builds are inferior (why would you ever pass on that raw damage output unless you gain equivalent damage or durability?).
  • Caveat: Motti + 3xVic 1x Glad? This still seems inferior to Screed as long as the Glads or Vics shoot at short range more than 1 time per game, but could that list tank well enough to take a piece that attempts to trade WITHOUT losing its own piece, so that after the first exchange you are essentially always up one ship? EDIT: How would you feel facing this list with yours in the hands of an equally skilled person?
• The interaction between objectives and squadrons is part of why we don't see them. I broke this down in another thread, but if you were building a squadron heavy list, are there one objective each from red / blue / yellow that make you uncomfortable if you have to pick them as an opponent? I'm not so sure, but there definitely are for all-ship lists like this one.
• I'm not sure Mon Mothma is the best rebel commander... Garm is very strong if you have a list focused around Whales. The one list I am surprised we did not see in the top tables was 3xAF + Garm. It's essentially the counter list to the power rush list as you have three ships that all want to dance but can function as all-around killers on their own, and will move at speed for the whole game. Fire vs. Water, so to speak.
• With that said, I like MM + Corvettes as a list, but I agree that list could suffer from the "win every game, but not by enough margin" problem that some X-Wing spam lists also have, so you end up behind people with worse records winning 10-0 when they win.

@Reinholt - Honestly, I have no idea what would happen against 3VG or 3 Guppy list. Other than kitchen table, my most combat experiences were vs Vic + Glad, or Vic + 2 Glad... I brought extra Glads for insurance! :-)

As stated above, I have never played Fire Lanes objective.

Something like this?

+++ Gram and Guppies (297pts) +++

Assault Frigate Mark IIB (114pts) [Enhanced Armament (10pts), Intel Officer (7pts), •Garm Bel Iblis (25pts)]

Assault Frigate Mark IIB (89pts) [Enhanced Armament (10pts), Intel Officer (7pts)]

Assault Frigate Mark IIB (94pts) [Enhanced Armament (10pts), Intel Officer (7pts), •Paragon (5pts)]

Assault Objective [Advanced Gunnery]

Defense Objective [Fire Lanes]

Navigation Objective [Dangerous Territory]

oh that'd be fun

though I much prefer hyperspace (or, as I call it, "cheating with paragon")

oh that'd be fun

though I much prefer hyperspace (or, as I call it, "cheating with paragon")

I find that combo sooooo satisfying.

It's a 1 shot but having a over lapping gun line control most of the tokens sounds amazing

I think both sides have very distinct ways of winning at this point. Imperials want to destroy everything, they do not want to get into a race and chase situation. While Rebels want to use the objectives and their speed and trickery much more. Right now what we are seeing for Meta is a lot of people using Imps and just going out and destroying everything. Now while this is a solid strategy, the point system from tournament to tournament could change if more people played rebels and were okay winning 6-4 or 7-3. This being because while Rebs aren't getting a lot of points, if they are squeaking out wins against Imps who are all or nothing, they aren't getting the points and the Rebs are. There is a lot of variety in this game, and while I think the easier of the two right now is Imps crush them strategy, I think as this game gains some Vet players, you are going to see Rebel players emerge and 5 10-0 victories won't just not be needed (sorry for the double negative there), but it will be rare.

That is my hope anyway. I love Armada, and I would hate to see it turn into another X-Wing. I like X-Wing too, but the point system and the multiple ways to win is really what makes Armada different and great.

Thoughts?