So first off great time at the tournament, had a good showing of people from a few hours away. There were 3 Rebel players and 5 Imperial I believe.

First Round: 8-2, MOV:196

I was versing a Rebel MC80, and 2 AFM2-B with Wedge and 4 A-Wings with Akbar and various upgrades including Gunnery Teams, Turbo Laser Reroutes, and Home One. He had initiative and gave me first I chose Opening Salvo. We deployed terrain bunched up on one side of the board making him move his conga line toward a very short edge from the middle. From this battle I confirmed AFM2-B with Akbar boast more than enough firepower to remove Raiders whole sale if they get or are given an accuracy. Between my advantage in placements and activation's and the pure charge of the list i managed to get all 3 Glads to his front and block him from moving most of his ships mean while the raiders closed from the side rear. Game ended round 4 with all the rebel ships being destroyed. The score was MOV of 298 due to me losing 2 Raiders, or so I thought until I actually read the mission card that gives him half points on all damaged ships. All my ships other than Demolisher were destroyed or damaged giving him 203.5 vs 400 for a MOV of 196 for a 8-2.

Second Round: 9-1, MOV:253

I was pitted against an Imperial running an ISD2 with a lot of upgrades and Tarkin, Demolisher with Shield projectors, and a Raider 1 with Expanded Launchers, Rymer, Tie Advanced, and 2 Fire Spray. Again my opponent had Initiative and gave me first. I selected Contested Outpost which was deployed as close to the corner of his side behind terrain as possible. I Squeezed all of my ships in a rigged forward line just wide enough to fit 4 of them with my Screed Glad following and the third Raider on the other side of debris. I card as fast as possible managing to weather most of his counter Demolisher before destroying it and surrounding his Speed one ISD on the objective with 5 of my ships having short range for the following turn with no where for him to move. This turn he destroyed Demolisher with full health and defenses and a second Glad in one round of shooting. The second thing I learned about wave 2 be ware the front of a cornered ISD2. He was a good sport and turn his Raider back toward the fight for one last Hoo-Rah~ in a gamble to take down Screed and ended to close to one of my Raiders fronts which launched its proto nukes. Game ended with 1 token for him 3 for me, a total of 207 vs 460 for a MOV of 253 a 9-1.

Third Round: 5-5, MOV:4

This round my opponent was using Screed on a VSD1 with ACMs, Demolisher with ACMs, and 2 Raider 1s, 6 Fire Sprays, and 2 Jump Masters. We were short on time with less than an hour to fight it out we both were speed rolling and moving. My opponent again had initiative and chose to go first taking Fleet Ambush and deploying his Raiders horizontally running across his side of the board. I charged right for him knocking out his VSD1 but losing 2 Raiders to the Fire Sprays which had taken a good deal of flak over the 3 turns. The game was called for time at this point making it a 106 to 102 for a 5-5. Had the game continued my opponent would have won at least an 8-2 as his Demolisher while hurt, was running away across my back field and my ships were all very damaged and locked in his deadly bomber game my only hope was booking my wounded raider away from the fight to prevent being tabled. As it stood my opponent placed First with a 10, 8, and 5 and I placed Second with 8, 9, and 5.

Things Learned:

~Akbar, gunnery teams, home one are alot of dice that hurt...

~ISDs really can lay the pain train down in front

~Fire Spray swarm is something to be feared

All and all the tournament was fun and an awesome learning experience and I look forward to playing everyone again in future tournaments and seeing what new crazy ideas come to the meta from wave 2. To all that participated good luck and may the force be with you.

The list I was running is here: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/194970-tourny-list-400pt-empire-6-ship/

Shouldn't you have won? You won 3 games, he won two. Mov is for seeding and ties.

Shouldn't you have won? You won 3 games, he won two. Mov is for seeding and ties.

Wins are not the primary. Its Tournament Points, which are based on MoV.

MoV is then the Tie Breaker.

Normally when I hear Buffalo Take Away, it means we're ordering out for wings!

Good lessons, great to read about Wave 2 tournaments and to see where the meta's going. Sounds like Akbar isn't as unkillable as he seems. My nerves about Raiders look justified.

You have snow yet? I miss having weather, bay area is boring.

Shouldn't you have won? You won 3 games, he won two. Mov is for seeding and ties.

You would think being the only undefeated would mean a tournament win. Welcome to FFG, where dice matter, play and wins don't.

it sounds likke you lost 2-8 and 1-9. is that what you meant?

Eh, no system is perfect. I've had tournaments where (for a different game) I went into the final round neck-and-neck with my arch nemesis*, both of us had perfect scores up until that point. I got my pants, shirt and tie handed to me that game, ended up placing fifth. We're all playing the same system, only those who can't dance blame the floor.

I do like to think that it's a good sign when the game comes down to dice - the players were evenly matched. Much better than a rout.

* actually a very good friend that I never managed to beat. Always had a good game.

Seems like bidding to ensure second player is the norm...or at least always taking second when you have the option.

Seems like bidding to ensure second player is the norm...or at least always taking second when you have the option.

Exactly the opposite in my meta, players almost always take initiative when they can. Local metas are so wonderful like that - many different ways to play the game.

I was opponent #2

@Forged you were absolutely right about the rules dispute and I heartily apologize. I'm big enough to admit that after i took a good calm read of the thing in question that i was 100% wrong. The thing that had me tilted is that I forgot you can't take a token if at the end of your rolls you don't add the CF die, which balances the rule back out and makes it not be broken.

My takeaways from the tourney:

1. Never take an experimental (Especially in theory) build to a tournament.

2. Always make sure your opponent has a legal list (also @Forged, when I checked your math it was because my first opponent was accidentally running 420pts) BEFORE you start playing

3. A heavy-upgrade ISD can 1-shot a gladiator, but don't rely on this (I would have killed the first one you sent in too, if you recall the first one ate both firesprays and rhymer and Tie Advanced die and was shieldless in front of my ISD and the same arc that was able to 1-shot your demolisher did not kill the weakened glad...even after leading shots reroll. RNG FTL).

4. I already knew this but failed to play it because I was so focused on the "theory" of my list: Don't bring a big-points ISD if you don't mean to support it! In our match I failed miserably at this.

5. I need to buy more firesprays (up to 5 now lol)

6. I learned a lot about running raiders from playing you, so thanks for that. I still need TONS of practice if I am to use them, they just aren't natural to my style.

7. If border guards think you are a huge nerd they basically wave you right through

1. Never take an experimental (Especially in theory) build to a tournament.

7. If border guards think you are a huge nerd they basically wave you right through

These are the ones i need to remember.

Had alot of fun at the tourney even though i came in last. But i got alot of great ideas on how to tweak my list and make it much better.

it was great meeting all of you guys

Shouldn't you have won? You won 3 games, he won two. Mov is for seeding and ties.

You would think being the only undefeated would mean a tournament win. Welcome to FFG, where dice matter, play and wins don't.

While I'm still not 100% sold on tournament points, an MOV of 4 is essentially a tie- Treating it as such is a good decision on FFG's part, in my opinion. Which means the deciding factor was who had the more decisive wins, which went to F0RGED's opponent.

I am all for mov being a tie breaker, it would be an elegant solution. I am not okay with mov being more important than the win cause sometimes your dice just don't show up.

A scenario if you'll indulge me. You are paired against someone in round one. You are better than he is. After all you have been playing since day one and he just picked the game up last week. You understand the game and how it works, spatial relations and how they change, the objective and how to play to it, your fleets strengths and his weaknesses. You start playing and proceed to fluff 90% of your dice rolls.

Now, you outplayed him and managed to eck out a win based on objective points. Next round same deal, you miss a few important rolls and get another close win. Meanwhile new guy finds his big boy pants and gets a table cause he never rolls a blank.

Suddenly you are 2-0 and behind the dude you just beat

I am all for mov being a tie breaker, it would be an elegant solution. I am not okay with mov being more important than the win cause sometimes your dice just don't show up.

A scenario if you'll indulge me. You are paired against someone in round one. You are better than he is. After all you have been playing since day one and he just picked the game up last week. You understand the game and how it works, spatial relations and how they change, the objective and how to play to it, your fleets strengths and his weaknesses. You start playing and proceed to fluff 90% of your dice rolls.

Now, you outplayed him and managed to eck out a win based on objective points. Next round same deal, you miss a few important rolls and get another close win. Meanwhile new guy finds his big boy pants and gets a table cause he never rolls a blank.

Suddenly you are 2-0 and behind the dude you just beat

Sure but since when are any sort of competitions supposed to be a definitive and error-less empirical test of "who is better"?

You see it all the time in the highest levels of sport and competition, a run of bad luck, dominate an entire game and hit nothing but posts and lose 1-0 etc. etc.

Sure you can run crap dice, hell even at this tourney I rolled some real howlers including a 4-blank black dice demolisher side arc, a single hit out of 4 black dice, a CF 9 die front arc on my ISD that I think barely managed 5 damage after a leading shots reroll, another leading shots reroll where the THREE dice I rerolled ALL came up as accuracies giving me a total of 5 accuracies (even after the blue die I sacrificed was an accuracy), I had a terrrrrrible night with rolls but I didn't walk away from a single game thinking "i'm losing because of my rolling" I walked away thinking "I could have positioned that raider better" or "gee it was a big mistake to set those obstacles there" or "WTF was I thinking trying this garbage list I came up with at 1:30am last night" RNG is part of the game and its up to the player to mitigate it and roll with the punches. If you are willing to take wins that were helped along by some above average rolling you have to take losses and ties from crappier rolling but neither are ever the main determining factor IMO.

You mitigate dice by playing tight and to the objective, ei, playing for the win. But the win doesn't matter, so you can't mitigate dice. Which is the point

I'm not sure I'm following your logic.

The way games are scored encourages smart aggressive play. The larger your margin of victory the more tournament points you get. This is a known quantity going into a tournament, or it should be. Fleet design and play style should take this into account to maximize your chances of winning the tournament.

Dice are, well dice, and the bane of my existence. The only way to avoid them in games is to play games that don't use them, and this game ain't one of them. In fact, it seems rather large quantities of dice get thrown in this game. Mitigate them through fleet design and smart play all you want (and you should), but they will still find a way to screw you some of the time. The only full proof armor against them is never to throw them, but where's the fun in that?

7. If border guards think you are a huge nerd they basically wave you right through

Eh-yup.

Guard: Purpose of visit?

Me: Miniatures gaming tournament.

Guard: I don't even know what that is.

Me: We move plastic Star Wars ships around the table and shoot at each other by rolling dice.

Guard: Ok.

Nowdays I just say "gaming tournament." Also helps that my crossing is remote enough that they have started to recognize me (that guy again).

7. If border guards think you are a huge nerd they basically wave you right through

Eh-yup.

Guard: Purpose of visit?

Me: Miniatures gaming tournament.

Guard: I don't even know what that is.

Me: We move plastic Star Wars ships around the table and shoot at each other by rolling dice.

Guard: Ok.

Nowdays I just say "gaming tournament." Also helps that my crossing is remote enough that they have started to recognize me (that guy again).

Almost a verbatim of the border conversation....

I'm not sure I'm following your logic.

The way games are scored encourages smart aggressive play. The larger your margin of victory the more tournament points you get. This is a known quantity going into a tournament, or it should be. Fleet design and play style should take this into account to maximize your chances of winning the tournament.

Dice are, well dice, and the bane of my existence. The only way to avoid them in games is to play games that don't use them, and this game ain't one of them. In fact, it seems rather large quantities of dice get thrown in this game. Mitigate them through fleet design and smart play all you want (and you should), but they will still find a way to screw you some of the time. The only full proof armor against them is never to throw them, but where's the fun in that?

I'm sorry, please don't take this the wrong way, but that is complete nonsense. Full proof armor against dice IS smart play. If I brought the tools necessary(my fleet list) and have the ability to out fly you then even with bad dice Getting a 6-2 isn't outside the realm of possibility.

How does that logic not work? I out play you, I win, but not as much as the guy with the hot dice who didn't play as well. Made mistakes, wasn't punished for them and never rolled a blank and as far as the system is concerned he is the better player. When in reality he is the better die roller. But since that isn't a skill he is actually just the luckier of the two. Not good design. Again, just so everyone is clear, when I say design I refer to the tournament system. Not the game system.

Getting a 6-2 isn't outside the realm of possibility.

In a 10-point system, a 6-2 is well out of the possibility realm (I'll assume you meant 8-2).

You seem to be going at this with the angle of a tournament always choosing the "best" player as a victor, and that's just not realistic in any game with chance involved. It happens, you roll with the punches and enjoy the game. If you can't enjoy tournaments under a given system, don't go to them, simple as that. Lots of players in this community are open to experimentation, run your own tournament! Make mistakes, get messy!

6-4 actually.

How is a 2-1 beating out a 3-0 realistic again? I am not saying the MoV is bad, I am saying it should be the tie breaker. Tournaments do pick the best player, typically anyway. In every other tournament system I have played in, and there have been a lot of them, the person with the most wins won, go figure. If two or more were tied for 1st for whatever reason then it went to a tiebreaker system (what the MoV should be).

I'm starting to feel like I am failing to explain this in an understandable way or something. I am not saying there shouldn't be chance, I'm not saying chance shouldn't play a roll in winning or losing. What I am saying is, the way the MoV system works it is entirely possible to win all day an lose to someone who didn't. It happened to me, I went 3-0, I was the only 3-0 for the day. A 2-1 won the tournament. I beat him game one. And he took the cake.

Just to be clear, this isn't me getting upset at not winning. I lose plenty and take what I can from the losses and work to improve my gameplay. If I go to a tournament and get my rear handed to me fine. I can still enjoy myself, take my lumps, learn from it and in general have a good time. If I go to a tournament, have poor dice all day, managed three decent wins from objectives (out playing the other guy) and lose to someone I beat right out the gate then there is no fun there. You might as well not even pull out models. Just sit everyone down with a note pad and a pen and have everyone roll a series of dice. The person with the most hits wins.

If I'm reading your system right, it's akin to first past the post? In other words, I could win three games by 1 MOV and beat someone who tabled their opponent twice and lost by 1 MOV, so that the "winner" had MOV of 3 and second place had MOV of 799?

Because a 4 point difference in MoV is essentially a draw, and it is very much treated as such. It should just be called a draw as to not give some illusion that it is more then that. If you and your opponent score the same points out of a round it isn't anything but a draw.

Armada is not a game that lends itself to the traditional binary win/lose counting. The degree to which you win matters a great deal because match length necessitates a relatively low number of rounds. And why should all wins be equivalent? Doing so abstracts more than Armada's MoV. Pure wins means someone could flounder their way to the top spot with nothing but 6-4 results and beat the guy who had all 10-0s and one very tough 5-5 fight.

To think of it another way, how many ships does an admiral need to lose before he is better/worse than another? If I win two battles and lose a ship each time, am I better than the admiral who won one, lost one and suffered a single ship destroyed? That might be a bit ambiguous, but what about after five battles? Ten? Does having 100% victories with ten destroyed ships make me better than the guy who "only" won 90% of the time while losing but a single vessel?

Because a 4 point difference in MoV is essentially a draw, and it is very much treated as such. It should just be called a draw as to not give some illusion that it is more then that. If you and your opponent score the same points out of a round it isn't anything but a draw.

What? No? If we play a really close game and, for instance, we both have terrible dice but I am able to pick up 3 more objectives than you do then there isn't anything drawish about that. I played the objective better than you.

Now, if we get the same number of objectives and neither of us kill more than a stand or two of squadrons than yes. That is a draw, absolutely.

Armada is not a game that lends itself to the traditional binary win/lose counting. The degree to which you win matters a great deal because match length necessitates a relatively low number of rounds. And why should all wins be equivalent? Doing so abstracts more than Armada's MoV. Pure wins means someone could flounder their way to the top spot with nothing but 6-4 results and beat the guy who had all 10-0s and one very tough 5-5 fight.

To think of it another way, how many ships does an admiral need to lose before he is better/worse than another? If I win two battles and lose a ship each time, am I better than the admiral who won one, lost one and suffered a single ship destroyed? That might be a bit ambiguous, but what about after five battles? Ten? Does having 100% victories with ten destroyed ships make me better than the guy who "only" won 90% of the time while losing but a single vessel?

Sure it is, it is a game that has clearly defined values for winning and losing. Which means you can clearly state what a win is and isn't.

If I'm reading your system right, it's akin to first past the post? In other words, I could win three games by 1 MOV and beat someone who tabled their opponent twice and lost by 1 MOV, so that the "winner" had MOV of 3 and second place had MOV of 799?

Basically yes. Right now you have to play for the table, which is 100% based on rolling buckets of hits and boiling all of the strategy in the game down do "are you in my arc oh good pewpewpew". So that guy that had those 3 wins, by any definition, has 3 wins. Wins WINS. As in, to win. The other guy has 2 wins and one loss, LOSS. As in, didn't win. By how much he didn't win by is irrelevant.

Again, if two people are 3-0, and 4 people are 2-1, and two thousand people are 1-2 then we can look at the MOV. So those two 3-0s get their final standing by MoV, so MoV gives us a 1st place and 2nd place. Those four 2-1s MoVs give us a 3rd-6th place. And those two thousand 1-2 give us 7th-2000th place.

In this way MoV would still matter when it was needed to break ties but ultimately winning the most means you win. If I were a less lazy man I would link Charlie Sheen here.