We had our 4th Store Championship in the Phoenix AZ Metro Area this past Saturday at Imperial Outpost in North Phoenix and had our best turnout so far with 10 players, 7 Rebel and 3 Imperial. Imperial Outpost is a great store that is also hosting the Arizona Regional later in May. In addition to the normal Store Championship prizes they are giving out a custom painted ISD with their logo on it out to first place so the stakes were high!
I had managed to claim the first 2 Store Championships with different Imperial lists consisting of 2 ISD's and the other being 2 Gladiators and 3 Raiders. This time I wanted to make an ISD1 work with Demo and 2 Raiders so I ran the following.
Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 389/400
Commander: Admiral Screed
Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Dangerous Territory
Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Intel Officer ( 7 points)
- XI7 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points)
- Instigator ( 4 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
Gladiator I-Class Star Destroyer (56 points)
- Demolisher ( 10 points)
- Intel Officer ( 7 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Engine Techs ( 8 points)
- Expanded Launchers ( 13 points)
[ flagship ] Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points)
- Admiral Screed ( 26 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
4 TIE Fighter Squadrons ( 32 points)
My first game was against John H who was a very nice player who had about 6 games of Armada under his belt. He was running Mon Mothma with 1 MC-80, 1 Torpedo MC30, and 2 CR90A's, 1 with TRC's. His fighter screen was 4 A-Wings, an X-Wing, and a YT-2400. I chose first player as he was around 396ish I believe and picked Advanced Gunnery from his objectives instead of Fire Lanes or Minefields. I figured I would be able to take out his MC80 before he could get a chance to double tap me and my ISD1 without Gunnery Teams would really benefit. So we deployed as you see below minus my first move and his first move. He put down his CR90's first to the left so I deployed my 2 Raiders to cover my left flank and my ISD1 across from his MC30. He hadn't deployed his MC-80 yet but I figured it had to be out front so I put Demo at speed 3 on my right flanking planning to engage at the end of turn 2.
Turn 1 figured I would need to start to bank my 2 Raiders to the left to cover my flank and I wasn't worried about his fighters so there was no need to use Instigator to tie them up. I knew Demo would be able to block his MC-80 and triple tap it to likely bring it down. End of Turn 1:
Turn 2 I used my ISD1 to soften up the shields of the MC-80 by firing at her front and side arcs spreading about 4 damage around her shields. He fired at Instigator doing some damage but then moved right in front of her with his CR-90 and I managed to double arc the CR-90 and blew her up. His second CR-90 placed itself right behind Instigator just out of close range of Screed's Raider. My last move was Demo running up the right flank and placing itself right in front of the MC-80 and dealt a rather low roll of 7 damage out of my front arc. My opponent used the brace and lost it to intel officer. His MC-30 was too far behind to support his MC-80 that was now dead to rights.
I forgot to take a picture at the end of round 2 but this is what it looked like after activating Demo at the beginning of round 3.
As you can see the MC-80 is no more. I got around an 11 damage roll with a concentrate fire command and he was unable to brace it and had no remaining shields so Mon Mothma went up in smoke. I tried to maneuver Demo into close range of his MC-30 but was just outside so no second shot. He then activated his CR-90 and managed to due just enough damage to finish of Instigator and then ran to the left of the board. I activated my ISD after he moved his MC-30 into medium range and managed to get a good roll almost finish her off.
Turn 4 I finished off the MC-30 and then had his last CR-90 trapped running into a wall.
With the CR-90 dead I secured a 506-81 win for a 10-0 425 MOV. There was one other 10-0 winner and two 9-1 winners. I faced off against John O who is a very good player and had just won 10-0 playing 4 Assault Frigates and Ackbar all equipped with XI7's, ECM, and 3 with Intel Officers. We had faced off in the 2 prior Store Championships and has been my toughest opponent. I forgot to take pictures of this game after round 2-5 because it was one of the most stressful games I've played yet but this is how we deployed after I selected to go first and his Contested Outpost.
He deployed in a very close formation of 2 lines and I deployed my ISD and Demo to cut off their line of advance. I had Demo set for speed 3 to come around the right and hopefully park itself in front of the lead Guppy. John used his formation to great effect and used Ackbar in the rear to cover his lead guppy and split the other 2 off to the side. This is how the beginning of turn 2 looked.
I activated my Raiders first. John continued to drive his 2 left Guppies to the left and then had Ackbar in the rear covering. I activated my ISD and charged in to the middle hoping to block his advance and split his forces. I was hoping that Demo could come in last and blow up his middle Guppy if I could get close enough to create the hole. After about 5 minutes of measuring with Demo to try and avoid a side arc and get close enough I moved Demo just to find out I overlapped my ISD's shield dial and had to stop outside of close range to even the closest Guppy on the right wasting my activation and my shots. I thought this would be a critical mistake and I just lost the match. I chose to activate my ISD 1 first at the start of round 3 and I unloaded a huge broadside to his Guppy that was on the top right instead of the middle Guppy. 12 damage was enough to blow it up before it could activate and my ISD crashed into the middle Guppy staying in place. He activated Ackbar and fired at my Demo leaving it with just 1 hull left and then crashed into his middle Guppy leaving Ackbar in place. Demo activated and got off its Demo shot at Ackbar taking out almost all of its shields and dealing 1 additional hull damage. His next Guppy finished off Demo and moved closer to my Raiders laying in wait. My Raiders were still just out of close range so I had to move them forward for next turn. My ISD was hurting bad and I knew it would likely go down next turn.
Turn 4 I activated my ISD first and managed to kill another Guppy but she then went down to Ackbar. I had 2 raiders vs 2 Guppies but his lead ship was know in close range of Instigator and APT's did their damage.
Turn 5 I activated Instigator and finished off his lead Guppy but Instigator died to a very nice shot by Ackbar. Screed maneuvered in behind the damaged Mon Cal flagship to activate first in round 6 and finish off Ackbar.
My opponent had collected 4 Contested Outpost Tokens to my 1. I forgot the exact MOV but I just managed to secure a 6-4 with around 60 MOV.
So I sat in first at 16 Points with second at 15, and two others at 14 and 13 so I knew I needed a decisive victory in round 3 to guaranty a victory and claim the ISD prize! I was facing Ira G who had won the Store Championship I was unable to attend last week. He was running Motti with an ISD 1 fitted out as a carrier, 2 Glad's with Ordinance Experts and ACM's, and a large fighter force consisting of 3 Firesprays, 3 Interceptors, and Howlrunner. I selected to go first again and decided to select Most Wanted over Contested Outpost and Minefields. I wanted him to select my ISD as my most wanted ship and he did. He selected his Gladiator on the Right as his Most Wanted ship.
I figured that if I banked my ISD 1 hard right at his most wanted Gladiator I would bait his ISD 1 into going right after her and Demo would be able one shot his left Glad and then come in and destroy Motti in the ISD from the rear. The plan worked out but I wasn't able to double arc his Gladiator on the left so It managed to survive my opening shots and I was unable to get Demo around. My activation advantage did manage to let me wait for his ISD to activate first and then sailing at speed 2 it parked right infront of me double arced at close range. My ISD unloading almost killing it. At the start of round 3 I activated my ISD1 first and finished off Motti. He moved his left Gladiator infront of my Raider and I finished it off and his Most wanted Gladiator was now trapped infront of my ISD and he called the game for a 10-0 456-16 440 MOV win to secure first place!
This was a very well run tournament with the store offering up an additional grand prize and ordering us all pizza that was included in our $10 tournament fee. We had a lot of very nice people and I think Armada is starting to gain some presence in an area where X-Wing is very very popular. The custom painted Black ISD was added to the fleet and sailed home to fleet headquarters!
