Hello All,

I may not be the best player but I thought I should throw out a tournament report from what I saw yesterday at the shop. I play at this shop every Thursday, although I alternate between Armada and X-wing. The last 4 weeks I've been concentrating on Armada for the MaS event. I really liked the Gladiator and the Assault Frigate so I was mixed on the faction I would play. I read the post about the Gencon Special and it made a lot of sense to me. Be fast agressive and get big 9-1 and 10-0 wins by killing ships before bombers can even become a factor. I forget the username of the gentleman who won at gencon, but I think it's IceQube or something like that (my appologies). But all credit to him for hand holding me to a decision. I practiced a bit on Vassal and a bit in the store and found decision making and aggression were key to winning with this list. The bane of this list I found to be Luke and bombers.

We started at noon had two hour rounds and a ten minute break in between rounds. 11 people showed up leaving us with a dreaded 2 hour bye.

Round 1: Jim the Armada God

I got drawn against my buddy Jim, who I haven't beaten since the first time I met him, so I knew it was going to be a brutal start to my tournament day. He plays much more than I do and is really a fantastic player. He ran a Neb with Yavaris and F**KING Raymus Antillies, an AF with Dodonna, and advanced projectors, and a Dodonna's pride Corvette with 3(2?)Ywings 2 Xwings and Luke Skywalker. This match was brutal, due to my error we played Superior Positions. My priorities were: kill the carrier, kill the commander, mop up.

The game started out well for me, by turn 2 I had my VSD bearing down against his AF2 and Corvette, and My 3 Gladiators boxing in his Neb. I think he turned to his friend at this point and said he was in a bad situation. His bombers ended up melting my Gladiator that was preventing his forward movement and then he used F**KING Raymus Antillies and his nav command to go from speed 1 to 3 and get out of dodge.

Now all my ships are out of posiiton except my VSD, which is all alone and now made vulnerable by the fact that his bombers have a carrier. He also intermittently uses his AF as a carrier, but not killing Yavaris really hurt. After that is was all over but the crying, only demolisher survived and his bombers pegged me in the rear arc so bad I almost quit the tournament.

Result: Loss 0-10 MOV: -413

Round 2: Bye

I got a chance to eat, collect my thoughts and walk off the worst loss of my Armada career (at the biggest tournament I played at). I walked around and looked at what others were playing and saw their strategies of how they played their list. The other finalist Brandon played a VVG list with limited fighters. I only saw one other no fighter list, but it was a rebel 2AF CR90 list. I mainly watched my friend Ward play a variation of a list I built for him that played to his 2 AF carrier strengths. He modified it a bit and added a Bwing and Tyco. He had great success against my friend Frankies 2 Vic list.

Result: Bye win 8-2 MOV: +61 totals: 8-12 MOV: -352

Round 3: Josh

Third round I came up against my buddy Josh. He was running a VV Rymer ball, which I immediately thought was going to give me fits, just like Jim's list. I also knew I needed the table to get back into having any shot at the prizes. We played Advanced gunnery and I chose my Vic I, he chose his Vic II. First round was amazing for me. I went with my VSD first, then he moved his VSD II speed 2 to the middle of the board. Demolisher got a 2 red dice shot off and scored 4 hits! He braced and redirected. Then I moved Demolisher in to his front arc with my front/side line right down the middle broadsided him to melt his shields away and be ready to take him next turn. He moved in from the corner with his VSD I and I cornered him with my other 2 GSDs, making sure I had 2 shots each. He went with the Rymer ball and rolled average, My Demolisher survived thankfully. My turn I went with my Demolisher first, he had no brace and no shields so his redirects couldn't help him. He had 2 damage from the previous turn and Demolisher did 10 more damage cards to him thanks to ACMs and Screed, so a bit of overkill, then Demolisher ran for his life against the Rymer ball. His non objective VSD Shot side to back at my 2nd gladiator and front to side at my third. I had to finish him this round so his bombers couldn't go. My 2nd Glad having side and back facing him went back first, got a black crit for ACMs and an accuracy to block his brace and melted his back, and front shields and left him with 1 side shield. Then I broad sided him, screeded for ACMs and did 6 cards of damage to him. My last Gladiator went then and did front to front, and I all I needed to do was screed to win, but we played it out and I did exactly that, rolled front to front got ACMs to do 1 damage card and he braced over all 3 damage except the one card from ACMs. so he's 7 of 8 with no were to brace to and side to side form a gladiator to come. It went as expected and I got the ACMs to go off again w/o Screed and it was over in round 3.

Result: Win 10-0 MOV: +373

Total for the day: 18-12 MOV +21 4th place. Raider as a prize.

Overall I was happy, even though I was a pissy baby after getting it handed to me by Jim. If you read this Jim, I do apologize for that, and will be getting a face to face apology on Thursday.

Around the Table in Lynnwood, Wa did a great job. They even split up the rouges and villians so everyone got to go home with some kind of ship for a prize with the ISD cards. Thanks to Tim and Nick, the owners for putting this tournament on!

Hope you all enjoyed reading this.