Hey all,

My friends and I are going to be going to a total of six tournaments in the next couple of weeks, and I've decided to document it all on my blog as we go, which you can see here:

Angry Space Triangles: Six Tournaments in a Fortnight

The first post is already up, covering the make-up of our fleets, and I'll hopefully be able to get the results of the first Tourney up tomorrow evening. I'll update on these forums periodically with new articles as they go up.

Wish us luck! Hopefully we will return triumphant!

This sounds like fun jhox, looking forward to seeing how it goes!

So jealous...

Interested to see how you guy's go, Looks like none of you are running squadrons at all which says heaps about your Meta.

I'm still trying to make squadrons work but there seems an increasing push against them in our local area.

Interested to see how you guy's go, Looks like none of you are running squadrons at all which says heaps about your Meta.

I'm still trying to make squadrons work but there seems an increasing push against them in our local area.

So, none of us are really part of any Meta - in fact, the last time I played Armada was weeks ago, and that was in my house. The stores we're going to are the ones with dates we can make, but we're having to travel around quite a bit - it's like an ultra-nerdy road trip. So, the Meta could be anything when we arrive, and we could well be facing four different Metas.

The reason we have so few fighters is more to do with how we like to play the game. I can't speak for Sam, but James and I have both discussed how we feel that fighters are... not a bad part of the game, exactly, but not the part of the game we enjoy the most. You can't do Star Wars space battles without fighter squadrons, but the whole reason we enjoy the game is because of the capital ships.

Whether our prejudice will have an impact on our success remains to be seen...

I'm still trying to make squadrons work but there seems an increasing push against them in our local area.

Sounds like you could make a Bomber-heavy fleet very competitive in a meta with very few squadrons.

Hey guys, the results from the first day are up. Hopefully will make for interesting reading - I'm trying to avoid too many technical details at the moment, focusing more on qualitative descriptions. That, and I forgot to take notes. Oh well.

Lichfield tomorrow! Woo!

Shadow Games - The First Test

So, just came first in the second tournament today, and won a lovely pewter medal for my troubles.

Blog post arriving tomorrow, once I'm not shattered and once my mate has sorted out the photos. However, I wanted to stop by here and say that my little Raider is an absolute beast - it died in two out of three games today, but the utility of such a fast, nimble ship cannot be understated.

Also, Assault Concussion Missiles continue to rock my socks off.

Also, I need to stop getting excited and forgetting to do things - like firing a second time out of my ISD's front arc when I have Gunnery Teams. I also need to remember that turning into an ISD's front arc with my Raider is a really quick way to hand 52 points to my enemy for no f**cking reason.

Well, here's Event two - another great day and this time, a win for yours truly.

Next week is Store Championships in Stevenage. Will keep you all posted.

Would love to get your impression on ACMs vs APTs, I've taken APTs as a universal rule (+1 crit can be deadly).

Sounds like my Store Championship this weekend. I missed 1st by 1 tournament point. I did however spoil the leader going into the 3rd round. He went from first to 3rd. Because of one hull point left on my VSD. 3rd place spoiled my upset with enough to claim the overall win.

Really tight tournament point listings was the name of the day. But no tiebreakers were required.

Would love to get your impression on ACMs vs APTs, I've taken APTs as a universal rule (+1 crit can be deadly).

ACMs every frickin' day. The reason is consistency.

Throughout the whole two tournaments, with a lot of exchange of fire, the only face-up damage card I received, or dealt out, was when I intentionally landed on an asteroid, and got the worst possible result for the first turn in a game - dropping my strongest (front) shields down to 0 on a Gladiator. Had I got that result in the middle of a fight, I would likely not have cared, since by the time I'm taking critical damage, I'm probably already pretty low on shields. When I did get nasty, persistent critical effects, I repaired them away - I would be repairing anyway, so may as well repair the face-up, right?

On the other hand, being able to drop two extra damage reliably with every short-range attack is absolutely deadly. For one, it flattens enemy shields, reducing their ability to Redirect significantly - and this will have an effect on the same attack, too. At worst, your reduce your opponent's defensive options, which is crucial, and at best, you're putting two extra damage cards onto their hull. The fact they're face-down is irrelevant, because what's important is that resisting or repairing that damage every turn is nigh-on impossible.

The effect of the APTs could be crucial and game-winning, but it's so random - it might have no effect on the game at all. With ACMs, you always know what you're going to get - an extra damage on either side. Consequently, you can plan around it and co-ordinate your attacks. If you send one GSD against the front arc of an MC80, smash it, do a point of damage on the sides, and then it it in the side with another GSD, that MC80 is taking a damage card this round, more or less guaranteed, and it's not going to have many shields left, either. Then, next turn, if you're first player, you can hit it again, and this time, you're spreading damage over unshielded hull zones, and it ought to be close to death.

In truth, you should play with what you enjoy most, but I have to put my money down on ACMs. APTs are flashier, and cheaper, but ACMs diminish your opponent's options awfully bloody rapidly.

You may just have convinced me to switch. I always thought that the extra damage > splashing on shields but it sounds like I wasn't weighting the splashing enough. The extra 2pts hurts in a list I'm trying to make cheaper but I'll try 'em out next time I play.

The extra 2pts hurts in a list I'm trying to make cheaper but I'll try 'em out next time I play.

If it makes the decision any easier, you will absolutely get their points worth out of them, as long as they're on the right ship. Just make sure it's something that can get into range quickly enough. I would argue that they're much less useful on a Victory-class, since it won't spend enough of the battle at short range.

Oh, one more thing - they're the only Critical effect that I can think of that boosts the same attack on which you resolve the Critical - because your opponent knows that one point is coming off the adjacent hull zones, his Redirect is already limited. I can't think of another critical effect that benefits its own attack in this way.

EDIT: Durrr, yes I can, I even started a thread about them - Ion Cannon Batteries. Ignore me.

A guest article from my friend Sam, on his first Tournament experience as a rookie.

I'm still trying to make squadrons work but there seems an increasing push against them in our local area.

Sounds like you could make a Bomber-heavy fleet very competitive in a meta with very few squadrons.

Mikael did just that. . . then I brought my Dengar with Mithel and had a blast.

ACM's are great, but I still prefer APT's. Think of it this way, for every two APT's you buy instead of ACM's, we'll give you a free ordinance expert. Also crits can be game changers. Especially if I'm running them in conjunction with big hitter like an ISD running xi7's.

I did run acms on a shrimp/cr90 swarm where everything was popping TRC's, because I figured by the time close range occured my opponent would have already burned out much of their side shields and the two damage going to hull was better than one.

ACM's are great, but I still prefer APT's. Think of it this way, for every two APT's you buy instead of ACM's, we'll give you a free ordinance expert. Also crits can be game changers. Especially if I'm running them in conjunction with big hitter like an ISD running xi7's.

All I can really comment on is my own experience, which is that ACMs arguably won me four games over the weekend, and kept both of my defeats narrow - whilst only one game was meaningfully affected by a face-up damage card, and that was mostly due to the timing of it.

"Unfortunately there’s a catch. I live in the middle of butt**** nowhere, as in REALLY the middle of buttfuck nowhere. Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire are a big black hole in the miniatures gaming world."

Not sure exactly where Sam lives but we have a club that meets regularly on a Tuesday night in Northampton where Armada is taking off. There are also a few players in Daventry that play (get him to Google 'Battlefield Hobbies) on a Wednesday. And there is also the North Oxfordshire Wargamers who meet in Banbury. Not sure what day but I recently went to a very well run X-Wing tournament they held and the venue is nice and I believe the guy said they were pushing Armada too!

Not sure exactly where Sam lives but ...

OOooooooohhh, this is relevant to me, too. Do you have any links to Facebook groups or websites?

ACM's are great, but I still prefer APT's. Think of it this way, for every two APT's you buy instead of ACM's, we'll give you a free ordinance expert. Also crits can be game changers. Especially if I'm running them in conjunction with big hitter like an ISD running xi7's.

All I can really comment on is my own experience, which is that ACMs arguably won me four games over the weekend, and kept both of my defeats narrow - whilst only one game was meaningfully affected by a face-up damage card, and that was mostly due to the timing of it.

To be fair, if you are running ACM's on most of your fleet, and no bombers, how many face ups are you going to see anyway?

To be fair, if you are running ACM's on most of your fleet, and no bombers, how many face ups are you going to see anyway?

Quite a few on my own ships...

The other thing going for ACMs, in my opinion, is the diminishing of your opponent's defences. I've already covered this earlier in the thread, but one thing that ACMs do really well is negate the target vessel's Redirects. They don't completely negate them, obviously, but they're sort-of like a pseudo X17 Turbolaser in that regard, except that other ships without ACMs shooting afterwards still benefit from the weakened Redirects. In essence, they act as a force-multiplier for your fleet.

I think I've mentioned this in other threads, but if you're pulling a classic pincer movement on your enemy - attacking with Gladiators on one side, an Imperial-class on another, then ACMs on the Gladiators really come into their own - the Gladiators lay down the hurt on one side, but it splashes over to the adjacent hull zones, meaning your ISD can swoop in and hit hull zones that are pretty much stripped already.

'Ere you go jhox!

North Oxfordshire Wargamers Face Book page

Northants Wargamers Face Book page

Battlefield Hobbies Face Book page (this is the new gaming store in Daventry)

Daventry Vaulters Forum (these are the guys who meet on a Wednesday at Battlefield Hobbies in Daventry... They're named after the old Daventry Vault games store!)

I'm based in Northampton so I'm a member of Northants Wargamers, but have been a Daventry Vaulter before and recently attended an X-Wing tournament run by the guys at North Oxfordshire and can recommend them all! Also depending on where you are there is also Shadow Games in Rugby who run Store Champs and Summer/Winter tournaments for X-Wing, Armada and Imperial Assault. Great little store and their tournies are very well run.