Alright, after a full night's sleep, I'm ready to write up an AAR. First, the demographics:

- 19 total players, 12 Imperials, 7 Rebels

- About half of the Imperial players had a Demolisher , but there was not a single DeMSU list (there was one player with five Raiders)

- Sprinkling of Commanders. I can confirm - Vader, Screed, Motti, Rieekan, Dodonna and Ackbar. Not sure on numbers yet.

And my list:

Faction: Galactic Empire

Points: 399/400

Commander: Admiral Motti

Assault Objective: Precision Strike

Defense Objective: Contested Outpost

Navigation Objective: Superior Positions

Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (73 points)

- Flight Controllers ( 6 points)

- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)

Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (73 points)

- Flight Controllers ( 6 points)

- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)

[ flagship ] Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (73 points)

- Admiral Motti ( 24 points)

- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)

1 Dengar ( 20 points)

2 TIE Advanced Squadrons ( 24 points)

4 TIE Bomber Squadrons ( 36 points)

1 IG-88 ( 21 points)

1 "Mauler" Mithel ( 15 points)

1 Major Rhymer ( 16 points)

Round One

Opponent - Aaron

Faction - Imperial

Admiral - Screed

List

- ISD II w/SW-7, Needa, TRC, Advanced Projectors

- VSD I w/Expanded Hangars, Corrupter , Admiral Chiraneau

4 x Firesprays

Dengar

Vader

Rhymer

Aaron had a lower bid and chose to go first. He picked Superior Positions.

We deployed in opposite corners of setup, pointing straight at each other. My flagship is on the far left at Speed Two, the other two Vics at Speed One.

Turn One

Turn one we flung our squadrons forward. He activated his Vic second to fling three Firesprays forward with Chiraneau. I used Mauler and Iggy to start chipping away. On his side Vader, Rhymer and Dengar hung back. One Firespray destroyed.

Round Two and Three

I forgot to take a picture after round two. By the end of round three, the squadron battle was pretty much decided. I continued to spam Squadron commands, and Flight Controllers really helped chew up the enemy. Vader and two more Firesprays died over the course of two turns, and I lost one Advanced squadron in the exchange. His Rhymer rather wisely scooted away from the fighter battle and readied to throw dice into my far-right Vic. My Rhymer and Friends started chipping away at his Vic.

Round Four

His Dengar and the last Firespray died. Rhymer and the Bombers started to throw dice into the rear arc of the VSD, and they started sucking up a lot of flak in the exchange. My squadron blob is blocked in the picture, so I can't remember if I lost two Bombers from flak this turn or over the next two turns. His Vic fired into my flagship, then came into close contact and died from a Red/Black salvo. His ISD turned in to try and finish off one of my Vics.

Round Five

His ISD was now pinned between all three of my Vics, in their front arcs with the Bombers and Dengar racking up Superior Positions tokens against his rear arc. And since you can't really tell from that picture, here's how close my Vic was to ramming him:

Round Six

Again, no picture, but there wasn't much to see. Red/Black salvos from multiple Vics and rear shots from my remaining Bombers picked the ISD apart.

End Result

I lost two Bombers and an Advanced. His fleet was destroyed. I had six tokens from Superior Positions for a score of 490-30. 10-0 victory with 460 MOV.

I edited the fleet information. If you read the entire post, you'll understand what I mean.

Round Two

Opponent - Name withheld, see below

Faction - Imperial

Commander - I think Motti, but I could be wrong here (EDIT - Motti)

List

- ISD I with a few upgrades with Leading Shots and XI-7s (possibly others, I can't remember right now) (EDIT - Relentless, Leading Shots, XI-7s, Gunnery Teams, Electronic Countermeasures [yes, I know, keep reading])

- Raider, no upgrades (EDIT - fielded as Raider-I, Raider-II card on the table)

- Gladiator with Demolisher and Ordnance Experts

Rhymer

Vader

Dengar

IG-88

Soontir Fel

2 x Firesprays

I had the lower bid (his list was 400pts [EDIT - actually 407]) and chose to go second. My opponent chose Precision Strike

Deployment and Round One

Most obstacles were on the left of the board, and my opponent deployed top right, so I deployed a little closer this time, around the middle. Round One was pretty boring, with both of us flinging our squadrons forward.

Rounds Two and Three

Here's where I lost the game. I think I was overconfident over how quickly I mopped up my previous opponent's squadrons, and saw a similar build here. I pushed my squadrons out too far, and my slow moving Vics couldn't catch up to get them back in Boosted Comms range. Worse still, they were clustered perfectly for flak shots from his Raider, who was positioned perfectly to catch my entire cluster. Ordnance Experts re-rolls put two damage on each squadron for two straight rounds. Combined with fire from his squads, pretty much all of my squadrons were dead by round three. My Bombers managed to plink a few shields off of his Raider and Gladiator before dying.

Rounds Four, Five and Six

I was feeling a little defeated at this point, so I forgot to take pictures. His Raider had to maneuver in front of my entire line to avoid ramming the Glad, so I managed to take it out. His Glad managed to skirt around black dice range on my Vics to scoot around the flank. Between his bombers, ISD and Demo, I lost my right-most Vic (the only ship casualty of the day). I managed to force some damage through onto the ISD and get some Precision Strike card flips for tokens, but that was it.

End Result

I lost all of my squadrons and a single Vic, taking only the Raider and I think a few squadrons, but I managed to get a few tokens for points. Feeling especially defeated (I'll explain why in a moment) at this point, I didn't take good notes, so I don't remember what the scores were, but the final MoV was around sixty or so, leading to a 4-6.

Now, I was writing up a whole, long post about a few questionable things that my opponent did which I thought were shady, but could be innocent mistakes. But after digging in a little further, I realized that the guy either cheated his face off, or is the most forgetful player I have ever met. And I'm serious about this. I was kicking myself for missing some big things (like maneuvering my squadrons into a perfect killbox and missing the lack of OE upgrades). I put the onus on myself for missing things. But now I have to wonder if I could have won the round had I been more observant, and whether I lost because of an opponent that may have been cheating. Even worse, he won the tournament.

Here's what I noticed during/after the game:

- He wiggled the ships against the maneuver tool VERY aggressively, flexing it noticeably. I got suspicious when his Raider managed to double-arc Rhymer perfectly two turns in a row, and confirmed at the end of the game when I had to put my finger on the maneuver template to hold it in place, and more than once had to push his ship flush against the maneuver tool.

- He maneuvered his Glad into a perfect double-arc against my dying vic with two clicks on joint one and two clicks on joint two, which is only possible with a Nav dial, a Nav token and Nav Teams, none of which he had.

- You may notice his list included a naked Raider-I (he had the Raider-II card on the table) but my recap specifically mentions OE re-rolls against my squadrons. Yeah. . .I realized that after the game when we were totaling points. I asked the TO, but he said it was impossible to roll the game back that far.

- Just out of curiosity, as I was writing, I thought I'd double-check his points. First off, he spent 407. I couldn't remember his upgrades, but my handy pictures show all of them.

- He had ECMs on his ISD-I. You may note that an ISD-I has no Defensive Retrofit slot. This he definitely used in our game, and he was definitely rolling 3 Red, 2 Blue, 3 Black.

I'm curious to see if the list he turned in to the TO matched the one he actually used in our game.

So I suppose this is a cautionary tale. I'm used to shenanigans from my years of 40k and Warmahordes, but the Armada scene is so laid back and I'm pretty trusting anyway, so I was put off guard. Like the fear mongers say to get you suspicious of your neighbors - if you see something, say something.

Round Three

Opponent - Tom

Faction - Rebels

Commander - Jan Dodonna

Fleet:

- Assault Frigate Mk II B w/Boosted Comms, ECM and something else

- CR90A w/TRC and Dodonna

- CR90B w/SW-7

- MC30c (don't remember the upgrades)

2 x A-wings

2 x YT-2400s

4 x Y-Wings

I believe my opponent had the lower bid and chose to go first (or I did and gave him first). Objective was Precision Strike.

Setup

My opponent placed his CR90B and CR90A on the far left near the station. He told me after the game that he had debated taking Contested Outpost, thought he had, and that's why he placed his first two ships so poorly. So he placed the AF to broadside and his MC30 to cut across and deal some black dice damage. I castled (again), this time bottom right.

Round One

I didn't waste any time engaging the YTs and maneuvering my bombers to light up the MC30. Mauler and Iggy managed to chip away at his 2400s, but the MC30 maneuvered last, so I didn't shoot it yet. His Y-Wings hung back to avoid getting chewed up.

Round Two

He hustled his CR90s to get them into the fight, and they closed quickly. The squadron battle was decisive. Both YTs and one of the A-Wing squadrons were both destroyed. He realized the Y-Wings wouldn't be able to avoid the fight, so maneuvered them up to try and knock out some squadrons.. My bombers opened up on the MC30 and got a point of damage on the hull.

Round Three

The MC30 went down to sustained bombing and some red dice fire. His AF started lighting up my leftmost Vic. The last A-Wing went down. After tossing bombs at the MC30, I maneuvered my bombers behind my battle line because I could see that's where the AF and CR90B were headed.

Round Four

My bleeding Vic broke for open space. It suffered a few Dodonna crits (damage after maneuvering and damage if you don't discard a command dial). All but two of the Y-Wings were dead, and my bombers were ready to cut into the AF.

Rounds Five and Six

I apparently forgot a picture at the end of round six. One of the Y-Wings died and the other broke for open space, and a few Side/Read shots from the Vic in the middle, combined with bombers managed to finish the AF off. Both of his CR90s escaped with no hull damage, try though I might.

End Result

9-1 victory with an MoV around 303. Overall I lost a few squadrons, and my Vic escaped with nine damage on the hull. Thanks, Motti!

So I ended the day with 10-0, 4-6 and 9-1, 23 total points with an MoV of 763. I finished second due to head-to-head, which I was and still am happy with. I performed much better than I expected. Some thoughts:

• I will never badmouth IG-88 or Motti again. Motti saved two Vics on the day. They ended the game with 8+ damage, and thanks to Motti, survived. And Iggy. . .man, Iggy tears stuff apart! He destroyed Dengar in the first game and Soontir the second, not to mentioned eating up those A-Wings without suffering Counter. Combined with Mauler, he can really pick apart Imperial or Rebel Aces, and dive into TIE Interceptors or A-Wings.
• VSDs are tough. I lost a single ship in three games, and that was with my opponents playing pretty aggressively. They didn't barrel at me at speed two/three, but they didn't play for the 5-5.
• If you're going to go with a bomber list, you need a strong anti-squadron contingent, too. The previous iterations of this list had almost all bombers, Rhymer, some Jumpmasters and a pair of Advanceds. So if I didn't position the Jumpmasters just right, the Bombers would get tied down. A dedicated fighter force would tear it apart. And transitioning from that build to this would reduced the anti-ship damage average from around eleven to eight.
• Be aware of your opponent's cards and upgrades. Not only so you avoid issues like the one above, but also so you don't get surprised by things.

Overall, it was a very fun day. I was pleasantly surprised to see almost twenty people turn out, especially given that the biggest store champ I heard about was only ten. My goal was to finish top eight for the dice, and I did just a little bit better than that. I wish I had been more observant, but that didn't ruin my day. The Armada tourney scene is still a great group!

Nice pics and report - looking forward to the rest!

Seriously this game is so easy to cheat: Its not obvious as to what upgrades are capable for ships. I've definitely seen that flexing the maneuver tool is doable. (Though gladly, the people I play here are really casual and honorable about stuff.)

And the whole bid thing. We basically never actually check if its really the case. We really need like a TEXT printout squadron builder thing.

Would Warlords consider making a no-pictures version of their thing? Its really really distracting to those of us who want to see everything on the screen in one go!!!! I can't even see how many points I have yet to spend unless i scroll back up! Hello! Am I doing something wrong? This is crazy!

They actually have some pretty good options. If you are looking at a saved fleet, along the top right there are a few options. "Switch to Text Export" is what I use to copy/paste onto forums, because it lays things out pretty nicely and has bolded text for ships and squadrons. Then there's Print View and Detailed Print View, which are the best to bring to tourneys. The first is just a nice spreadsheet-like layout with all ships, squadrons and upgrades with associated points costs. The second includes the rule text off of the cards.

It saves a lot of ink and, as you mentioned, is less distracting than a regular list that shows all of the cards.

The overall winner wasn't the cheater, I hope...

It was. Again, I can't and wouldn't say it was cheating, but it was a combination of a LOT of mistakes and unsporting play.

Funky maneuvering aside, the ecm and raider push it over the edge. One might happen on accident, twice?

.

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(Completely off topic.... was he wearing a Brady jersey? I tried really, really hard, but couldn't resist...)

We really need like a TEXT printout squadron builder thing.

Would Warlords consider making a no-pictures version of their thing? Its really really distracting to those of us who want to see everything on the screen in one go!!!! I can't even see how many points I have yet to spend unless i scroll back up! Hello! Am I doing something wrong? This is crazy!

http://armada.ryankingston.com

......

Good write up, and nice pictures. I love seeing photos of Armada stuff. Good job.

I'm always amazed when I go to tournaments and see players (the vast majority of players) writing out their lists in the few minutes before start time. One, I don't understand it - surely you should have a good idea of what you are going to play before turning up and have prepared, and Two - it leaves the possibility of mistakes (or worse), like miscalculating costs or adding in incorrect upgrades.

At all the Tournaments I've been to I bring a print out of my fleet for the TO, and another copy to hand to the other player (with Missions removed) as a courtesy.

My devious mind is always thinking of ways I could cheat and be cheated (it's genetics, I tell you....) and I think that this game is open to exploitation in a number of ways - how easy would it be to remove all the "Structural" or "Projector" cards from the damage deck and replace them with something inoccuous? To prevent this impression with others, I have gone through my own damage deck and written the little number bigger with a Niko (Sharpie) so they can easily be spread out and counted. I personally think that the TO should, in each round, choose a player at random and count / sort / check their damage deck for shananigans. Perhaps that's a bit extreme. But at Regionals, Nationals, Worlds?

It was. Again, I can't and wouldn't say it was cheating, but it was a combination of a LOT of mistakes and unsporting play.

I appreciate your being a good sport, but taking illegal upgrades and too many points is cheating.

Props to you for both your play and having your head on straight about things, though. Hopefully we play each other next time we're on the tables at a tournament!

Good report. I love seeing the Vics doing so well. We have been struggling to get them to work in my area but I have long suspected that they now are well positioned as carriers. Sorry you had to deal with a player like that. Grats on #2.

Geeze, for that one round sounds more akin to what I've seen in the X-Wing ranks at times.

Thankful I've never seen that kinda crap here or near by Minnesota involving Armada. While the TO might not have rolled back the match, why the heck didn't they both audit and kick said player out?

No action I find mind boggling!

It would be terrible if TOs have to be doing a rolling paper audit of lists as matches are occurring.

Not sure if it is TO'S job to check lists or anything, but how did no one pick up on isd ecm??? It's pretty much the first thing you learn about the isd... he may or may not be cheating, but that has to be flukey as hell that they handed him the trophy without anyone noticing an illegal list....

Somewhat related, playing on vassal, one of the first things I do is import my opponents list into warlords so I can see all of the cards and what they do, and I've found numerous times that people have unintentionally miscounted their list by a few points... I think going forward, I'm going to do this in live games as well, not just as a way of providing me a handheld tool for seeing what some part of their list is doing without having to walk around table to check cards, but also just good due diligence to prevent this sort of thing from happening to me, however rare an occurrence it might be

Btw, awesome report, great pictures, can't wait for my next live game

I wanna talk about the maneuver tool for a second, in the rules it clearly states :

Ships and squadrons are sometimes moved accidentally or

placed inexactly during the normal course of the game. A small

margin of error is allowed in the position and orientation of

ships in these situations so that the pace of the game is not

unnecessarily affected. Players should not abuse this margin

of error, and they must use the tools included with the game

to be as accurate as possible. Using excessive force when

placing components to intentionally move other components

is expressly forbidden. In the event of a dispute, players should

call a leader for assistance.

The maneuver tool can bend write a few degrees without actually affecting notches... it seems the rules are somewhat ok with this as long as excessive force is not used to bend.... I hold the tool down with one hand and dint really bend it, but am I leaving chips on the table?

So, the guy running 407 points and illegal upgrades was given the trophy and the bye? When was this noticed? Even disregarding shady play, since that can't be proved, winning an event with a flagrantly illegal list should be grounds for disqualification and moving all prizes down a place. You have pictures proving what he was running!

Just a quick response - I noticed it about four hours ago. I'm waiting to hear back from the TO to get his submitted list to see if he submitted one and played another. I'm also waiting to hear back from a friend of mine who played him round one. I hate this cloud of doubt, though.

We really need like a TEXT printout squadron builder thing.

Would Warlords consider making a no-pictures version of their thing? Its really really distracting to those of us who want to see everything on the screen in one go!!!! I can't even see how many points I have yet to spend unless i scroll back up! Hello! Am I doing something wrong? This is crazy!

http://armada.ryankingston.com

......

What did you send this for?

Its still picture selection.

And i still can't see everything when I'm choosing stuff.

We really need like a TEXT printout squadron builder thing.

Would Warlords consider making a no-pictures version of their thing? Its really really distracting to those of us who want to see everything on the screen in one go!!!! I can't even see how many points I have yet to spend unless i scroll back up! Hello! Am I doing something wrong? This is crazy!

http://armada.ryankingston.com

......

What did you send this for?

Its still picture selection.

And i still can't see everything when I'm choosing stuff.

Click the print button

No. When I'm picking things. and making the fleet. Not AFTER I've made the fleet.

No. When I'm picking things. and making the fleet. Not AFTER I've made the fleet.

Its sometimes a little slow, but they should all load.

If you;ve left it open for a while it needs a refresh.

My opening point was that it has a print option which puts it nicely in text on an A4 sheet.

Seriously this game is so easy to cheat: Its not obvious as to what upgrades are capable for ships. I've definitely seen that flexing the maneuver tool is doable. (Though gladly, the people I play here are really casual and honorable about stuff.)

And the whole bid thing. We basically never actually check if its really the case. We really need like a TEXT printout squadron builder thing.

Would Warlords consider making a no-pictures version of their thing? Its really really distracting to those of us who want to see everything on the screen in one go!!!! I can't even see how many points I have yet to spend unless i scroll back up! Hello! Am I doing something wrong? This is crazy!

The ryan kingston one and Fab both provide a text only version like a playsheet

No. When I'm picking things. and making the fleet. Not AFTER I've made the fleet.

http://www.battlescribe.net

Works for pc or Smart phones

Pretty simple interface. Only problem is that it doesn't show the card text so you have to know what they do