Top lists:

My GCW DeMSU fleet (Clonisher and four APT/OE Raiders, 4 TIEs)

2. Boston1809 - DeMSU Fleet (Clonisher, 2 APT Gladiators and two Raiders. 3 TIE interceptors and IG 88. No OE on his build)

3 WuFame - TRC90 5 ship MM swarm with six YT 2400s

I'll post a more detailed AAR on this when I recover...

Great bunch of guys! I think we had 33 fleets!

Reserved for when I'm not on a phone.

What I will say typing itty bitty is that Boston1809 and I had the most amazing 5-5 game on the final table making the cut game. Boston was done after the grueling day and conceded the final match. I owe him a win at the next level so everyone please oblige.

Just added my AAR below...

Reserved for when I'm not on a phone.

What I will say typing itty bitty is that Boston1809 and I had the most amazing 5-5 game on the final table making the cut game. Boston was done after the grueling day and conceded the final match. I owe him a win at the next level so everyone please oblige.

Don't remember quite enough at he moment about my matches to do a full AAR, but the day was absolutely grueling for all my involved. 4 rounds, AC went out, and a packed shop. Matches started at 10, and ended around 9.

What I will say in AAR fashion, is that my opponents with repetitive builds tended to do better. I.E. Using the same ships with the same upgrades. That made it easier to remember to do things. One guy completely forgot to make two game changing attacks (because he forgot about the gunnery teams on his one AF with Ackbar), and a couple others forgot to use card effects later in the rounds.

Maybe it was the Georgia heat, or the 11 hours we spent there, or some combination of both, but this was definitely a tournament where players were pushed to their mental, and maybe even physical limits. This was a match of both skill and endurance.

No AC in Georgia! I have done that before and I can't imagine the fatigue by the last round.

After a grueling 12 hour day in Marietta, I began my 6 hour drive back to Chapel Hill, getting in around 3:30 AM. Now that I've rested, I'll give my AAR.

Before I start though, I want to say Giga-Bites Cafe was an AWESOME host. Probably the best host of a tournament I've ever been to. The TO was knowledgeable, really cool, and the sandwiches they make at the store were great and kept me fueled when I was about to drop.

Marietta was 33 players which meant we had 4 rounds and then a cut for top 2. Once I found out it was 4 rounds, I decided to use my SC bye to avoid playing the first round, and man, am I glad I did.

Here's my fleet. Believe it or not, with all my Mothma praise, I've actually not flown a full CR90 w/TRCs fleet. I've messed with MC30s and CR90s (and even a few YT2400s) but I'd never fully committed to all CR90As. Literally, Round 2 was my first time playing this fleet on the board (which should be apparent since I was begging for TRCs from the forum Friday night). I had done some experimenting at our local store Thursday night with 3 CR90s, Admonition, and 7 YT2400s and found that I won the games but Admo didn't really do all that much so I was like, hey, screw Admo, let's just fully commit on the CR90 train.

Mothma and her Merry Rogues
Author: wufame

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 383/400

Commander: Mon Mothma

Assault Objective: Most Wanted
Defense Objective: Fire Lanes
Navigation Objective: Superior Positions

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
- Turbolaser Reroute Circuits ( 7 points)

[ flagship ] CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
- Mon Mothma ( 30 points)
- Jainas Light ( 2 points)
- Turbolaser Reroute Circuits ( 7 points)

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
- Turbolaser Reroute Circuits ( 7 points)

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
- Turbolaser Reroute Circuits ( 7 points)

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
- Turbolaser Reroute Circuits ( 7 points)

6 YT-2400s ( 96 points)

First Round - Bye 8-2

Second Round - Win 8-2 - I played a cool guy from SC. We chatted a lot. He had 2 ISDs, 2 Firesprays, 4 Agressors, Dengar. He may have had a raider too, I can't remember. One of his ISDs was decked out with Wing Commander and the other was Motti. I went first and picked his Superior Positions mission. On Round 2, I made the biggest mistake of my day and I think it's a great example for how forgiving this fleet was to mistakes (which I make a lot of). On Round 1 I had put one of my cheap corvettes at point blank range in the front of Motti. I was going to activate it first obviously, get my double arc, and then blow right past.

I did NOT activate it first. I have no idea why I didn't. I just completely slipped my mind that it was in the position. I activated another corvette and while maneuvering realized what a moron I was. Consequently, without ever having fired a shot, the Corvette was obliterated by Motti at the beginning of round 2.

About Round 3 he went after one of my corvettes with the 2 loose firesprays which we later discussed about whether or not it was a good idea. I'm on the fence about it. They were able to deal 3 damage cards to the corvette but it squeaked away and survived the game. This ultimately prevented me from bringing it back into the fight at the end of the game to help burn down Motti, but it left his aggressors to deal with my 2400s alone, which did not go well for them. I burned down the Wing Commander ISD at the beginning of Round 4 I believe, which left me some breathing room in the squadron game. I was able to finish off the aggressors and Dengar with 3-4 2400s left, then I got the Firesprays and started focusing on the ships around round 5. By this time, I had lost 2 corvettes and every other corvette on the board was limping with a minimum of 2 damage cards on them. I spent the rest of the game taking pot shots from range at Motti's butt to get some superior position tokens and increase my margin. The MOV wasn't crazy, I think it was probably around the 150 mark but it kept me at the top table for round 3.

Third Round - Win 5-5 - I'll just go ahead and be honest. I found my opponent in Round 3 to be a bit of a jerk. His demeanor was super serious, like he was Ender Wiggin reborn or something and about to prove it, and I just did not have a fun time playing against him. I kept trying to lighten the mood with him, which maybe was a bad idea since it was a tense game. He also kept checking over my maneuvers and stuff to insure I wasn't cheating. I mean, I get it, we want to play honest, but if I was going to cheat, it'd be a lot more subtle than giving my corvettes extra yaw or lying about Jaina's Light being unobstructable. I don't think I saw him smile to entire game, or even change the inflection in his voice to something not monotone serious. I don't think he's on the forums, but if you are and you read this, lighten up man.

That said, credit where it's due, he played fiercely and I was sweating the entire match. He came to the table with a bid of 47 (IIRC), a full Clonisher, 2 raiders, an ISD, and Screed. He picked my Intel Sweep objective and NAILED it. I was really impressed with how he was able to control it. He went speed three with his ISD and rammed it at the objective before I could outrun him to them. When it became apparent after Round 2 that I was not going to win it, I pulled my objective ship out of the fight. I can't remember if it survived the game or not.

I've found the only effective way to deal with Demo is to feed it something, so that's pretty much what I did. Maybe a list of all Corvettes isn't Demos time to shine either, since I can lose a 51 point ship and still sleep at night. I decided when the game began, I was going to show how much 2400s can do. He rushed Demo forward 3+1 on round 1 and I was able to get all 6 shots for my 2400's on him that round. I missed 1 of them. Demo survived until the end of Round 3 I think, much to my horror. He was only ever to kill that one corvette, but he dealt serious damage to Mon Mothma.

I killed demo and one raider and then had to choose whether or not to focus on the ISD or Screed's raider on opposite sides of the board. I had a mind to split my 2400s and go after both, but I didn't want to end up not killing either. I had to be careful with my remaining CR90s since they were pretty damage. To make a long story short, I killed the ISD, but Screen survived. Screed managed to finish Mon Mothma as well. With his 75 points from Intel Sweep, the margin closed in and we 5-5ed with an MOV of 23 in my favor.

Fourth Round - Win 9-1 - My first game not on the top table. I was on the second to top table. As an aside, I'll say it was fun playing next to CaribbeanNinja the entire day. We were always only 1-2 tables apart from each other and we kept a steady banter going all day.

My opponent was named Kurt and was a really cool guy. He had an ISD 1, Demo, Motti on a Vic, Rhymer, 1 Bomber, 2 Advances, 2 TIES, 2 Interceptors. I went first and picked his Minefields objective. He ended up spreading them out across my entire line leaving no real middle to go through. I blasted 3 Corvettes through them at speed 4 (making a cocked turn at the end to keep their butts distance 1 away, and 2 corvettes I swung far left around them. This gave my corvettes a pincer formation. As usual, I gave Demo a sacrifice of 51 points dealing some damage in return to him. I played a smart squadron game, keeping my fighters engaged with the bombers and the fighters but not the Interceptors. In this way I was able to survive turn after turn picking off his squadrons 1 at a time. I ended up losing 2 2400s to clear the board, but they kept me tied up all game so the 2400s were never able to attack the ships.

My pincer attack was unable to focus fire very well, but I was dealing even damage to both Motti and the ISD, so when Motti went, the ISD went in the same activation.

Final Thoughts

-Thanks to forum user Valca for loaning me a TRC for the day and making my fleet possible. I was going to buy him lunch, but forgot, so I gave him my acrylics since I already had a set from Raleigh.

-TRCs might be a little OP.

-The entire day I only took 1 full force front arc from an ISD, and it was the mistake I made in Round 2 which obliterated one of my corvettes. Still, I'm proud of how well I stayed out of those arcs. Sorry to my opponents for taking so long on some of those maneuvers. I imagine that couldn't have been fun to watch.

-I finished one tournament point behind the two leaders who had 31. My first thought was "Man, if I'd split my 2400s in Game 3 and gone after Screed and the ISD, I'd have had 32 points", but then I realized if I'd done that, I would have probably played CaribbeanNinja in round 4 and been tabled. You can't go back in time and change the outcome of the entire tournament with a decision. Different decisions means different opponents and different results. Caribbean and Boston1809 are great guys who I had been chatting with all day, so it was really great to see them take the lead and I could not have been more smiles with coming in 3rd (my goal was top 8 and at the beginning of the game I was skeptical that even that would happen),

-When I was making the drive down with Caldias, I was actually not that thrilled about the tournament at all. I'd just done the Raleigh regional the saturday previous and a 6 hour drive to play a tournament felt grueling. I'm extremely happy I came though, not just because I made 3rd place, but because I got to meet a lot of great people. The guys from SC were awesome, and I plan to make it down for one of their Store Championships in the future. As well, Giga-bites Cafe was the best host of a tournament I've ever been to. For that, and the chance to maybe play CaribbeanNinja and get my ass kicked, I will make it down to GA again in the future.

It was a hoot!!! Congratulation to CaribbeanNinja for the win!!! It was good to meet folks and put a real avatar to the name. 35 I think was the total. I was able to get up to 14th and while fun, the broke ACs did make a bit more grueling than it should have been. But, thanks to Giga and James for putting on an awesome tourney. I'll post some lessons learned later on.

First, thanks to James and Giga-bytes for putting this on! James did a tremendous job keeping the pace of the tournament going. Well done!

I’m going to just add these thoughts here instead of editing my above posts. Folks, Please point out any mistakes I make. Especially with opponent lists because that gets hard to recall! I’m still exhausted but wanted to put this down before my memory faded any more:

Tournament Takeaways:

Go to the tournaments. Playing Armada is good. If you win, great. If you lose, you learn. The vast majority of games are fun (especially if you make it a point to have fun!) As WuFame pointed out above, meeting folks and having fun is SO great at tournaments. I now have Armada buddies in Pensacola, Huntsville, Chattanooga, Raleigh, South Carolina, Indianapolis, Columbus, holy cow! It is a great thing!

Some skill, lots of luck

Match-ups are so huge in tournaments. Randomization means you may not face the Rhymer-ball you planned on facing so be ready for everything. In order to do well you have to not only fly your fleet well, but have the right match-ups and have the dice break a little in your favor. I got really lucky.

Tourney “Meta”

I want say 2/3 Imperial and 1/3 Rebel. Lots of SWARMS! Wow. Also several VSD bomber lists. A pal from Hunstville even took a 4 VSD Motti list!

Have lower expectations

I know its easy to say (since I came out on top) but I think you have to go into the tournaments knowing that it may not go your way. I went up with my brother (Miferr) and great pal (Moodswing5537) and we just had the idea that we were shooting to get the tokens, MAYBE the dice. As it turned out, they had the bad luck of the day (Miferr rolled like 3 accuracy/blanks on B-wing attacks in a row. Moodswing missed Tokens by one tournament point) and got tough breaks on match-ups and dice. I on the other hand got all the breaks on Saturday. I bought them wings and beers to make up for my ridiculous luck. This should be incorporated into Tournament trips. (So WuFame you owe Caldias several beers.)

Round 1 - Bye (Yay! I can’t believe i even sweated this decision. Yes I “might” have done better or avoided the champions, but the mental grind of four matches in a row is much harder than three.)

Round 2 - 8-2 (415-213) 202 MOV

Britt was running Imperial and I think he had Three Gladiators (Demo, Insidious and Vanilla) and Screed on a Raider with maybe four firesprays (Actually 3x aggressors, 2x firespray, Bossk. Thanks ParkDaddy!). We played his Dangerous Territories. My memory is most sketchy about this game, except for the turning point…THE DICE TRAY.

Britt is an awesome dude that had the absolute coolest dice tray. Britt was gracious and invited me to use this beautiful tray. It was the worst mistake he made. That tray was like magnets for my dice. I rolled the best I could, way over average. All the while Britt was struggling to kill a TIE with Firesprays. No kidding I think he rolled something like three crits/accuracies with those things at least twice. Then when he shot with his gladiators he would struggle to get more than three or four damage.

I pretty much ignored the objective (I grabbed one token, Britt got two). I was able to take out his ships little by little with my monstrous rolls and that really pressed the activation advantage further and further. He was able to finally pop my Demo at the end with two Firesprays.

This was one of those games where luck got the best of Britt and handed me an 8-2. Britt was so gracious about it the whole time and has earned my utmost respect.

Round 3 - 10-0 (400-32) 368 MOV

I played Chris G. Chris was also running Imperial. He had an ISD (Motti), Demo, and a VSD with four Firesprays and a Jumpmaster.

With three activations I knew Chris had a real problem with activation disadvantage. We played his minefields and Chris spread the mines evenly across my side of the board (probably around distance 5? from the edge) I was able to avoid all the mines with the gaps and the awesome Raider maneuvers at speed 2. Chris setup on the left and swept right, with his Demo, ISD, and VSD there from left to right.

Again, my 4 TIEs punched way above their weight and stopped the Firesprays from totally bombing the crap out of Demolisher. I placed them to where the Jumpmaster could only give intel to one TIE. Then a double arced Raider popped the Jumpmaster and all of the Firesprays were locked down until they killed the TIEs.

My demolisher flanked from left to right and began the painful process popping Chris’ Demo in a Triple tap and looping behind the ISD. The VSD was taken down with two or three Raider double Arcs. Then my Demo turned back around and finished off the ISD.

The three activation fleet needed the Firesprays and Jumpmaster to do some serious pain to my Demolisher. They did very little except to take out the TIEs. Because of that my five ships were able to wipe out Chris’ fleet with no casualties on my side. Chris was truly shocked at the punch these little Raiders have. (Remember when there was a thread about how useless they were… )

Round 4 - 5-5 (177-183)

In the final round I played Boston1809 and when he saw my fleet he said “Noooo….” He had played DeMSU fleets the entire day! He had Clonisher (sans OE) and two other Glads (with only APT) and naked Raiders, one with Screed. I had initiative and after really mulling over his objectives I chose Hyperspace Assault. I knew that Demo would make that tough but his other Objectives (Most wanted and Superior Positions) could have been MUCH worse.

Boston was tired. He was a super cool guy but I could tell the day and night had worn him down. And then he had a three hour drive! I felt really bad for him but we had to get on with it.

He spread his HA tokens in the middle of the board. In deployment he turtled on the top left corner with Screed’s Raider pointing right. All his speeds were at one. Since I didn’t know when he would place Demo I just pressed forward keeping my Screed Raider and Demo out of the tokens on the left, and the other three Raiders threatening the tokens.

Boston shut his fleet down to zero on turn 1 to continue his strategy. This forced me to delay the Demo strike and wait. He finally popped his Demo out of hyperspace on turn 3 when the raiders were close. It was a great placement. I knew one Raider would die and one would put the hurt on Demo. That is exactly what happened. I put a world of hurt with one Raider on Demo (he ended up with no shields and 4 hull damage by the end of the game. Demo did what he does to Raiders (Destroy them!) and I was down an activation. At least I took his Demo out of the fight and he had to limp away.

My demo was in a tough spot. A plain Raider on the left, and two Gladiators. I decided to balance the activations and pop the Raider quickly. Unfortunate that left Demo with two Gladiators next to him. What happened next was amazing. Boston’s APTs delivered perfect crits for the situation. First, Life support failure. I had banked a Nav token. That was gone now. Then Comm Noise. Boston wisely changed my next order from a Nav to a Squad command. Uh oh. I was at speed two and VERY close to the edge with an upcoming Squad command. I knew I would lose Demo to the fury of the edge of the board.

Luckily, my Raiders closed in on the APT Gladiators and finished them off. Three survived the amazing battle. It was bloody, it was brutal and we were tired. We added up the scores and were absolutely floored that the MOV was so close. Boston got me by SIX! 183 to 177. Wow what a game. We knew we were each at 31 Tournament points. We waited for the other results to start filtering in and realized that we might make the cut. When it turned out that we would be that final cut match, Boston could not go on. It was unfortunate but totally understandable. We were all so hot and exhausted. Kudos for a superb match Boston!

My list: Shoot N Scoot (392/400)

No, pictures, sorry!

Rieekan

Assault: Most Wanted

Defense: Hyperspace Assault

Navigation: Intel Sweep

Flagship: TRC90-Jainas Light

3x SW7-90s, one with Dodonna's Pride

2x Nebulon Support Refits with Slaved turrets, one with Salvation

Han and Dash

(Edit): I know it was a bold strategy, but I made this list 3 days prior and had never played against anyone but myself with it. I think I did alright. All of my opponents were very pleasurable to compete with, and even the players on the tables next to us were generous by letting us borrow laser liners, confirming questions about rules and other items normally found in the FAQ. (End edit).

First match: against a certain Britt from NC

Screed

Flagship: Raider I-class

3x Glad-I, Demo and Insidious kitted out, all with APTs

3x aggressors, 2x firespray, Bossk

I'm sure anybody can look at this matchup and see that I had not prepared for a rogue swarm. This, you can imagine how it turned out. He won initiative, so we played one of his objectives, Dangerous territory.

I lost it in the deployments. Or, rather, he won with his very strategic placing. He started with the generic Glad right in the middle followed by the rogues all around it. I started placing my SW90 swarm to far to my right, in hopes of presenting a screen for my Jaina's light as she made a run for the tokens. I realized after the second placement that these werent central enough to be able to affect both sides of the field, so I overcompensated by placing my Nebs on the other side. My placements of those and my other ships wound up being too spread out to be able to mass fires on one target at a time. He took advantage of that and placed all his other ships to one side (his right, my left), so as to make a sweeping motion across the board and catch my ships 1 by 1 or 2 by 2, depending on the round. Salvation started the game staring right down the throat of Demo, which sounds great for me, but it really wasn't since Salvation was all alone.

Rounds 1 and 2 were moving into position and collecting objective tokens. Insidious and Demo closing in on Salvation, salvation getting a snipe (poor firing), Screed moved ever so slowly in the background, and my SW90 swarm raced to try and make it to the fight so they could be relevant.

Rounds 2 and 3 are muddled:

Me sniping with salvation, but doing minimal damage to demo (despite 5 reds)... and then Demo doing his thing. More token collecting. SW90s able to move into range of the generic Glad, but being terribly threatened by the rogues. All of them. Han and Dash were positioned right next to Demo, and set to started pounding him, but I couldn't just leave the SW90s there. I rushed to engage. I think Han died round 2, but I forgot Rieekan would have kept him around, which would have kept the firesprays engaged, thus preventing my opponent from taking a couple ship shots. I don't think it made a huge difference in the endgame, but it was a definite "Doh!" moment when I realized it later that day. Dash died at round 3, also forgetting that he sticks around, but not before taking out a couple agressors and a firespray (combined with SW90 flak shots).

Round 4: lots of stuff died, most notably Dodonna's pride, Salvation, the other Neb, and his generic Glad (from the SW90s).having collected 3 tokens, I whipped Jainas light around and started furiously racing to hopefully get a kill shot by round 6. I also faced major target indecision. Demo had no damage, but also no shields and maybe an exhausted defense token or two. The problem was that my SW90s were out of range of him, but not Insidious, who had not taken any hits at all. I realized it was hopeless, so I shot squadrons (except for Bossk) and moved for Screed, still hiding in the background and missing his front shields. But then the rogues got me.

Round 5 and 6: both SW90s disapeared at some point, and I was left with only my flagship to end the game. The match went by rather quickly (my only match that did not go to time). It was an 8-2 loss for me, but at least I kept my record of not getting tabled, especially against a skilled opponent with a DeMSU list, albeit a light one.

I won initiative for the rest of my matches, and I always chose to go second.

My opponents invariably chose Hyperspace Assault. I invariably chose Salvation, Han, and Dash.

All of these went to time, and got progressively harder and harder for either player to gain an edge over the other. The levels of mutual destruction increased exponentially, as did the tough calls.

Match 2: against a fellow named Danny

Ackbar

Flagship: MC80 Assault-Defiance, Raymus, APs, XI7, Leading Shots, ECM

AF.B-XI7, Gunnery Team, (IO?)

TRC90

Dash with X-wing support

He deployed almost in a Conga line, with the AF in the rear, TRC90 in the middle, and all with arcs focused on the center. I say almost because the MC80 was going perpendicular to the line...at the front of the line. It was too obvious for me as to where he was going after the first deployment, given the obstacles and hyperspace tokens, and it was clear that he would be driving his flagship right into the fray. He did, however, catch all of my hyperspace tokens with powerful side arcs, which is what really drove his deployments.

I deployed in 2 groups: SW90 swarm to his rear-ish, and Nebulon with Jaina to his fore. In this manner, I had effectively avoided all side arcs (or range, for the MC80) and would be able to pincer his front and rear arcs after the first maneuver.

Round 1: My opponents biggest mistake, and he made it every round, was his activation order. In his previous match, he had been able to capitalize on activating Defiance last for its bonus die on an enemy ship, but Defiance was at the front of the line. He activated the AF first, then the Corvette, then Defiance. Given the order of the Semi-Conga line, he always had to move to avoid hitting something. Meaning he always only had one path to follow. Meaning I knew what path not to take to avoid the Ackbar arcs. The conga line disintegrated with the first round, and my Hyperspace tokens became safe from Ackbar.

Earlier I stated that I went up his rear with the SW90s, but it was actually up the front of his AF (though still generally to the rear of his formation) I was aiming to take out the Corvette ASAP in order to take away an activation. Neb moved into range of MC80 and Corvette. His AF only had front arcs on me.

Round 2: hyperspaced Salvation right in front of Defiance. Front arcs only. Started at close range. Activated Han to engage his fighters. Danny activated in the same order, and could only take pot shots with the AF and TRC90, moving both into range of my Swarm and generic Neb. I blew up his TRC90 with the combined efforts of a SW90 double arc and Neb, but then I moved (rammed) it right into his MC80, landing with either side hull zone exposed to MC80 and AF side arcs (so you know he's toast). MC80 activates with an engineering command and unloads into the Neb, but rolls pretty terribly. Enough to do damage, but not to kill. Collides with Salvation upon moving and stays put. Salvation unloads into front arc. Pretty terrible roll also, but still eating shields. And rams Defiance for good measure. After his Engineering command, and realizing just how long he can keep that thing afloat with Raymus, APs,and ECMs, I immediately sent part of the SW90 swarm to do what Rieekan Zombies do best... and Dodonna's Pride stayed to mess with the AF.

Round 3: same activation order, but this time was to his benefit. AF unloads into Neb and an SW90 (maybe Dodonna's Pride?), but rolls terribly again for both (the dice were not in his favor this game). He turns inward, moving to keep the swarm generally in his side arc. I activate Jainas light to take potshots and escape out the back door. He activates Defiance, recovers 3 shield, and finally destroys that Neb. But I still get activate it and ram him again, after taking shots of course. I activate Salvation, this time to almost strip him of shields, finally. And another ram (in addition to the previous collision when Defiance activated earlier). The SW90s finish it off and flip around to start a run on the AF. Han and Dash are keeping the fighters busy. Surprisingly still alive.

Round 4 was mostly maneuvering into position. Pride took some hits, but also dealt a crit. I had all arcs on his AF, except for Salvation. He had good arcs on me as well at the end of the round, just not enough dice without Ackbar.

Round 5: He shooted and scooted, mostly out of range for my SW90 guns, but not for Dodonna or my Fiireship tactics. I literally rammed 2 ships worth 14 hull points to death in this game, tabling for a 9-1 win. Time was called about halfway through the final round.

Match 3: a certain Mr Wise, from the local area

Dodonna

Flagship: MC80 Command-Independence, Lando, boosted comms, ECM or AP, XI7s maybe

AF.B-Gunnery teams, XI7, IO

TRC90 with Jainas Light

5x B-wings, 2x X-wings, Han

Similar ships to my previous opponent, so I might have some upgrades mixed up for both of them. But with the assumed squadron commands coming my way, one can easily see that I would be at a severe disadvantage until Han and Dash hyperspaced in.

Deployment: he placed the corvette closer to his left edge than the center, first, and began placing his squadrons right after that. Thus I knew that at least Independence would be somewhere within a range ruler of that. I tried planning accordingly, by starting my SW90s going right in front of that at furious speeds. After the first fighter deployment, I could see what was happening, so I prepped my SW90s to be able to give a bunch of squadron attacks on the second round (poised to fly right at the squadrons). I deployed all of my ships before he deployed his second 2 ships, so I placed the Neb about distance 4 to the left and my flagship the same distance to the right, ready to skirt around and snipe wherever he place his command ship. He placed the AF to my left of the corvette, and the MC80 to the left of that. All of his ships were going at speed 1, all with barely any breathing space between them. My Flagship was threatened by both the MC80 and and the AF, but Mr Wise was consequently turtled up in the corner.

Round 1: it was pretty obvious from the start that I would have to bring the fight to him-he moved everything straight forward, at a slow speed 1 pace. I moved everything at a breakneck speed (which is 1 method to deal with B-wings). My flagship move around the edge of the fight, to in range of the Mc80 front Arc. The Neb moved inward, pointing it's guns at his corvette (but not in range). My SW90 swarm landed in danger range of the B-wings for the next round, but I had all of of his fighters arc by all 3 ships, 3 or 4 of them double arced multiple times.

Round 2: I hyperspaced in Salvation, Han, and Dash forward of the other Neb, flying perfectly perpendicular to his fleet at speed 1(my front arc to their broadsides, like an arrow piercing 3 hearts), and in range of his corvette but not the AF. His Han moves to reduce Dodonna's Pride Shields (and continues to throughout the match). I moved my Han to engage all of his other fighters, and got four hits off the bat (or maybe that was an earlier match). He activated the corvette, took a shot at Salvation and an SW, but was negated both times. Moved forward ever so slowly. My generic Neb moves into range of Corvette. His assault frigate activates a squadron command, and he tries to kill Han, but can't. Can't shoot, and moves in same pattern. Salvation takes his shot at the corvette but gets mostly negated and moves. MC80 squadron command finally kills Han, but Rieekan keeps them all there just a little longer, and MC80, shoots at my flagship. My swarm unloads into his swarm, critically damaging several of the fighters, and move off to the side of the corvette. Dash moves in to finish off a fighter and engage the rest.

Round 3: this was a critical round in the match, where a single mistake may have cost my opponent the game. At this point, Salvation and my flagship are the only ships not in his AF side arcs, several of which are medium range, and I had rammed one of my own ships to get there. He activates the AF with a squadron command, shoots Dash, but forgets to shoot ships before moving his ship. No sooner does the maneuver tool come up off the mat than he realizes the mistake. I was trying to figure out how I would use what should have been a zombie ship to ram the assault frigate, but his maneuver was completed before I looked up. It was truly devastating. The rest of the round saw the destruction of an SW90, Dash (kept all fighters tied up), and his corvette with a couple of fighters. My flagship got around to the backside of both his remaining ships, and both Nebs were poised to strike his frigate.

Round 4: my opponent got his vengeance in this round, still having the generic Neb in the arc. Can't remember if an SW90 was or not, but the B wings finished both off any way. The MC80 was out of the game now, except for squadron commands. The AF was destroyed. We finished the round with his remaining fighters, 2 Bs and Han, right in the middle and at distance 1 of all my remaining ships, SW90, Salvation, and Jainas Light (several more fighters had been destroyed by AS attacks)

Round 5: we started with 5 minutes remaking, so this was a mad dash to make it to the next round. My hope was to finish off his fighters, his to finish off Salvation. I managed to destroy 1 more B, which was perhaps my saving grace at this point. Salvation had no side shields, when we got to squadron phase. With the one B he had left, he scored a crit and brought it down to one hull point. Crit fishing didn't let him get that extra damage. Then time was called, and Han made his move. 1 black die into my unshielded side. Blank. It was the closest match I've had, with a 5-5 win. Several times, Mr Wise should have won that match, but the die were set against him.

Match 4: against a certain Mr Jonathan

This was my favorite match, by far. The others were certainly fun, but the raw carnage of this match, the tooth and nail tactics, the close calls, were all rivals of the nail biting final attack by Han in the previous round.

Ackbar

Flagship: CR90.B- Tantive IV

2x AF.B- XI7, Gunnery Team, IO, ECM

TRC90

Jan and 3x X-wings

Despite this being my favorite match, I don't really remember exactly how it started. But we both started at full steam ahead. Highlights from this match were the excessive fireshipping on my part, the wild chase for Ackbar, and the glorious navigation by my opponent of his AFs. I think he landed every time with at least 2 somethings of mine in his side arcs. It was hard maneuvering for both of us. salvation died early due to a poor judgements call I made, but also due to his precise maneuvering.

We made it to the final round, but barely. Time was called shortly upon startup. The game ended with me flying an SW90 into Ackbar for the final point of damage-on both ships. And it also ended with me flying my flagship into one of his AFs for the final point of damage-on both ships. And it also ended with his final Xwing killing Dash-but also with Dash killing his final X-wing. Jan could have saved it, but she flew away to get out of arcs as she only had a single hull. I swear I rolled at least twice as many wiffs as I need hits to take her out. I ended with only my generic Neb, he with an AF and Jan. They were both relatively good to go for damage, and, wouldn't you know it, headed on a collision course for each other. 6-4 loss for me. Again, it was my favorite match of the night, with the two of us playing hard-ball tactics. Though, from what I hear, the championship game was spectacularly close, and I look forward to reading about it.

Edit: I accidentally hit post before finishing, and punctuation/grammar

20 tourney points. Thanks for getting through all of that!

Awesome AARs everyone and it was really great to meet WuFame, Caribbean and everyone else who I recognized from my forum lurking in person.

I'll try to give just a few details from my experience at GigaBites, which is a fantastic store. I think this is my 3rd or 4th tournament there across a few different games. The staff have always been great, the TOs knowledgable and cool, and the players welcoming and friendly.

I started my day off fairly early, waking up around 5:30am to print out my list and get everything organized (which I should have done the night before), in order to give myself 3 hours to make the drive from Chattanooga down to Marietta. Yes, it's about 90 miles. Yes, it's all interstate. Yes, it can easily take 3 hours on a Saturday morning. I ended up taking a little longer than I thought to get ready, but hey, no problem, I have two hours to make the 9am registration time, and a full hour of time between registration start and tournament start at 10am. No problem!

I ended up being the absolute last person to sign in, probably a minute or two before the TO was closing out and starting pairings. The Chattanooga Ridge cut and the construction on I-75 were the only jerks I had to deal with all day, but man, they were horrible...

Anyway, I had been pretty sure I was going to use my bye anyway, but that certainly sealed the deal. I took the next two hours to meet some of the other people with byes and just generally try to focus back on Armada rather than how pretty much everything on the road between Chattanooga and Atlanta had tried to murder me that morning. My list is below:

DeMSU

Faction: Imperial
Points: 384/400

Commander: Admiral Screed

Assault Objective: Most Wanted
Defense Objective: Hyperspace Assault
Navigation Objective: Superior Positions

Raider I (44 points)

[ flagship ] Raider I (44 points)
- Admiral Screed (26 points)

Gladiator I (56 points)
- Demolisher (10 points)

- Engine Techs (7 points)

- Expanded Launchers (13 points)

- Intel Officer (7 points)

Gladiator I (56 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes (5 points)

Gladiator I (56 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes (5 points)

3 TIE Interceptors (33 points)

IG-88 (21 points)

First Round - Bye - 8 points

Second Round

I played against another DeMSU fan, Matthew, who was also running 3x Glad I, 2x Raider I, and I think 4x TIE Fighters. We were both at 384, and so we flipped for first player, and I won. The day would have definitely gone completely differently if I had lost that toss, as Matthew was a great player and knew his list very well. I picked his Fire Lanes objective, he promptly stacked them all together on his side of the board and I knew I was in trouble. He maneuvered perfectly in rounds 1 and 2, leaving me with no choice but to leap out and take the first Demo strike on his Insidious, his Demo strike hit one of my Glads. I managed to take out Insidious and he killed my Glad I.

I honestly can't remember much else about the game, it felt incredibly close the entire time. I know he ended up with 9 Fire Lanes tokens and I had 6, and probably by a few millimeters we were tied on the final set of three. It was that close. I tend to find that with DeMSU I either lose 1-9 or win 8-2 or 9-1. In this case the dice bounced my way and the ranges were just barely in my favor, and I ended up with the 9-1. It absolutely could have gone the other way in a second, and Matthew was a great player, great sport, and I really enjoyed the game. - 9 points - 17 Total

Third Round

I played against another DeMSU fan, CJ, who was running Demo and I think 3x Raider and 1x Glad, and 2x TIE Fighters? I apologize, my memory is already a little hazy. What I do remember is that CJ was a great opponent and I think he said this was his first tournament. Well, if so I will hope to avoid him in future tournaments, because he played like a pro. Tight rules knowledge, excellent maneuvering and clear knowledge of the Demo strike and when to execute it. I had him underbid, so I took first again, and chose his Minefields.

He deployed the mines very well, limiting the left side of my deployment zone and forcing me to the right, but I was just barely able to slip outside the mines he put in my deployment zone on the first turn. Second turn I took a mine hit on one Glad, but set up to take his Demo strike, with the intent of sacrificing one Glad so the other could get at least one arc, hopefully two, and then my Demo could counter punch. He hit me hard, but I was just barely able to survive and counter.

With his Demo gone and me down a Glad, I was able to use Demo to kill a Raider (I think), which gave me first and last, and after that I just tried to do what Demo does. CJ flew great and took out my non-Screed Raider (or maybe it was a Glad, sorry, I realize this is a pretty crappy AAR), but I rolled really well and was able to take out his last ship before time was called. Again, awesome game which could have gone the other way on a few rolls of the dice. Really fun. - 9 points - 26 Total

Fourth Round

I played against another DeMSU fan, CaribbeanNinja (anyone see a pattern here?), who was running what he described above.

I'm going to pause here and mention that:

1) It was hot in the store, and I was definitely tired, physically and mentally. I hadn't eaten anything all day, and that was probably a mistake.

2) I was kind of bummed that I had only played DeMSU lists, at least partially because my squadron selection basically could have said "Wasted Points", but also I was hoping to see some other lists, as the Chattanooga Armada scene is fairly small.

3) I was pretty much certain I was going to get destroyed in this match. CaribbeanNinja was happy, focused, looked well rested, and clearly a master at flying his list. He also had a 27 point bid, so he was going first. Yikes. Anyway, back to the action:

Caribbean took first player, and selected my Hyperspace Assault objective. I tried to clog up the right side of the board with obstacles, and then deploy my tokens so Demo could hyper in when he crossed the halfway line with his fleet. I almost put my vanilla Raider in Hyperspace, because it is so critical to have Demo on the board, but I took a chance that I could get a good alpha strike in. I deployed my remaining four ships in a tight cluster in the right corner of my deployment zone, with Screed pointing to the left in "Coward Screed" mode. Caribbean set up in a sort of sweeping hook, with Demo positioned just slightly offset from my fleet, and pointing directly at my ships.

On turn 1, I dropped everyone to speed 0. I wish I could say this was some kind of amazing plan, but really I was just too mentally drained after two very demanding DeMSU vs DeMSU games to try to think all the options through. I also needed him to push forward fast so I could get Demo on the board in a good position. Turn two I increased speed back to 1 and moved forward very slowly. Next turn I had to bring in Demo, as I just couldn't wait any longer and even though Caribbean had positioned himself to cover the tokens, I thought I could get a double arc on one Raider and a front arc with the ability to engine techs and right arc another, so I'd make Caribbean decide which one he wanted to save.

Unfortunately, to get this shot, I had to hyper in double arc'd by one of the Raiders. Caribbean activated and hit Demo really hard, but I was able to survive and take out the other Raider. However, this put me in a position where Demo really couldn't get back into the fight without dying to any hit at all. 0 shields and 1 hull point left. So that was rough. Caribbean rolled in on my still tightly grouped fleet, and started dealing out damage. He knocked out my vanilla Raider, and then hit my rightmost Glad very hard.

However, I was able to side arc Demo with first my rightmost Glad with a con fire, and then the one that was just barely to the left, also with a con fire. From these 10 black dice I managed to land first a Life Support Failure (which took out his banked nav token), and then a Comm Noise (which I used to set his top command to Squadron). This perfect storm of crits forced his Demo to fly to the very edge of the map on Turn 5, pointing directly off. His Raiders cleaned up both my Glads, and took out one of my Interceptors, while IG-88 and my other two Interceptors took out all 4 of his TIEs. On turn 6 his Demo flew off the board, while I ran away like a coward with my Demo and Screed (who by now was going speed 4 directly away from the fight).

We totaled points, and Caribbean had lost 183 points of his fleet, and he had killed 177 points of mine. 5-5 on a 6 point MOV. Definitely the best, most exciting, most tense Armada game I have ever played. When we were totaling points, and Caribbean told me his count, I assumed at first he was saying his MOV over me was 183, that's how out of it I was, and how thoroughly Caribbean had dominated the game. The whole time, Caribbean was not only a great sport, but also upbeat and positive and really excited to be playing Armada. Super fun experience, even though I was exhausted and I hope he had as good a time during this game as I did. - 5 points - 31 Total

I had come into this tournament hoping to get some acrylic tokens, and in my best case scenario maybe sneaking in at 8th to get a set of the dice. So making top two was amazing, and I was really happy to be where I was, but also just done. I would like to claim that I was a nice guy and knew I was not going to Nationals or Worlds, and so conceded so we could all get home a little earlier. Honestly I knew there was no chance I could come up with a way to beat Caribbean, he was just too focused and skillful with his list. Also I just really wanted to get home, which I did slightly after midnight (I-75 and the Ridge cut again being the only un-sportsmanlike opponents of the day, delaying me 30 minutes each on my drive home).

So, a great time, against a bunch of great players, in a great venue, playing a great game. Thanks to all involved in organizing the tournament, and thanks to all who travelled a long way to play! I got to meet a bunch of forum members, met the CorSec Engineering team, just generally had a fantastic day.

I ended up being the absolute last person to sign in, probably a minute or two before the TO was closing out and starting pairings. The Chattanooga Ridge cut and the construction on I-75 were the only jerks I had to deal with all day, but man, they were horrible...

Fun fact, the TO had said "Alright, I'm matching the first round now" about 5 seconds before you walked in the door. Super glad you made it, man.

I ended up being the absolute last person to sign in, probably a minute or two before the TO was closing out and starting pairings. The Chattanooga Ridge cut and the construction on I-75 were the only jerks I had to deal with all day, but man, they were horrible...

Fun fact, the TO had said "Alright, I'm matching the first round now" about 5 seconds before you walked in the door. Super glad you made it, man.

That reminds me of my NC experience. After missing my flight I was pretty positive I wouldn't make it.

All right, I also attended this shin-dig so I might as well post my experience here as well. The store was really awesome and even though it felt a little bit like the surface of the sun (no A/C plus Georgia heat equals Mordor) it was a fun time. I ran the same old list I ran in Raleigh, since I was pretty familiar with it and love the ol' MC30s. It is as follows:

MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63 points)
- Foresight ( 8 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- XI7 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63 points)
- Admonition ( 8 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- XI7 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63 points)
- Lando Callriassian ( 4 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- XI7 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
[ flagship ] CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
- Mon Mothma ( 30 points)
- Jainas Light ( 2 points)
- Turbolaser Reroute Circuits ( 7 points)
CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
- Turbolaser Reroute Circuits ( 7 points)

This list is a lot of fun, but I am ready to tear it apart and make some Wave 3 and 4 lists. I am very excited for what the new waves will bring.

Round 1: Bye. I bought a cherry Coke zero.

Round 2: 5-5 loss, 5 MoV.

I was paired up with a guy running Motti with an ISD II, a Vic II, and a Demolisher with fighters and bombers. I picked his Contested Outpost, as it seemed the safest, and went first. I staggered my MC 30s so that after round 2, I had three that were going to get some nasty shots while the CR90s flanked. It worked pretty perfectly. I hit the vic with one double arced MC30, then zoomed him outside of front range, and delayed until he was forced to move his Vic into Lando's black range. Then I unloaded again. I will say for this game the dice were pretty good, and even with his braces I did some significant damage.

Admonition alone was engaging the ISD, but also got his licks in. My choice was to land on an asteroid or take an ISDII front arc, so I figured one crit was less risky. Unfortnately, I pulled Comm Noise and my opponent was kind enough to give me a squadron command instead of the navigate I sorely needed. I tried bringing in CR90s with hopes that he might ram them and stay on the table, but alas, it wasn't the case, and Admonition flew off, untouched.

Now, here's where it got weird. Round 4 I shot his Vic up some more, with what I thought was enough to kill it. 7 damage, brace to 4, and an APT. I thought he already had 5 cards on it, so I was like cool, he's dead (Motti). Then he said APTs aren't bonus damage, and I explained that yes, they were, the crit effect says you get a face-up. He was spending tokens out of turn, but I kind of let that go, so then he dealt his damage cards and was like, ok, my turn. Then I asked him to count his cards. He then finally admitted his Vic was dead. I started to wonder if he wasn't doing the crits right in previous rounds, which might have mattered, but it was too late to dial it back. I was able to set up another double arc on his ISD from behind with an MC30, but he tried to tell me I couldn't draw line of sight cause I crossed my own hull zones. I told him I was allowed to cross my own, and he said no, it was FAQed that I am not allowed to draw line of sight across my own hull zones. I was pretty sure it wasn't, but then he said oh, I think you have line of sight anyway. I ended up killing his ISD and Victory, Demo limping away with 3 cards on him, but he had enough station points to mitigate the rest, after killing Lando.

I would like to say this was a fun game, as 5-5s usually are, but this gentleman either wasn't very familiar with the rules or was trying to pull some shenanigans for a better position. Either way, it is pretty annoying to have to keep track of his things on top of my own. I ran through my list and asked if he knew how APTs worked, which he said he did, but obviously he didn't, or pretended not to.

Round 3: 2-8 Loss

My next opponent ran an MC80 with two AF MkII running Ackbar and 3 X-Wings. I picked his Hyperspace Assualt. This dude was really cool, and had soccer running on his iPad the whole game, which I thought was probably the pinnacle of multitasking. He chose an AF Mk II and his X wings for the hyperspace assault, and set the rest of his stuff sideways, as Ackbar players are wont to do. I set up MC30s for intercept. Round 2 had him come in and I was able to kill his hyperspace assault ship on my 2nd activation. His MC80 then pulled some weirdo move with nav teams, no longer a conga line, which was super smart on his part. I threatened his other Af Mk II with Admonition in the front and Lando on the side.

Stupidly, I decided to go with Admonition first, hoping I could ram and not fly off the table. I miscalcualted, and had a CF instead of a Nav, and I flew him off AGAIN. That hurt. Lando bit it too, as did Foresight, so only Mon Mothma and the CR90 lived. I will say he played that one well and did a great job not keeping to the conga. I was for sure out-played for this one, but had a great time.

Round 4: 3-7 loss

I was hoping to net one win, as losing sucks, especially if you ride 6 hours to do it, but every game is a new opportunity. I played a guy running 2 ISDs and 2 Firesprays with 4 Aggressors and Dengar. This was kind of my nightmare scenario (other than 7 firesprays) and I was a bit worried. I did the whole stagger MC30s so we can attack all at once thing and it worked out pretty well. I killed one ISD and the other was dented. I brought in Mon Mothma and Non Mothma from the flanks and peppered the ISD. Admonition stayed on the table this game. In the end, it came down to whether I had a double arc or not. His ISD needed 3 damage to die, and my opponent thought I only had side. I thought I had double, but then deferred to him as I wasn't super sure. He was able to brace 3 damage and survive with one card away from dead.

He played well, for sure, and Mon Mothma and Lando ended up eating it, as well as Non Mothma.

Takeaways:

I kind of like the luck of the match-up, even though it obviously didn't work out super well for me. I have had much success with this fleet, and love flying it, but its nice that you still don't know what kind of fleets you're going to get matched against.

I knew going into this that this would be the last wave of no squadrons, but for me I think this might be my last time playing without squadrons. Having just a few could've meant I had the few hits I needed to finish of limping ships.

I love MC30s, and I am so excited for Madine and the Liberty. Madine will mean I can stay out of "danger zone" arcs better and the Liberty has the range needed to chase down things limping away.

I love playing Mon Mothma with APTs, but all three games saw my opponent complaining about how badly they were doing (my 2nd opponent less so) and then they beat me. You know what's worse than getting beaten? Listening to someone complain for 2 hours about how you are beating them while they beat you.

Caribbean Ninja is an awesome dude, as is WGNF911. Boston 1809 was also super cool, and I'm glad he made it on time.

I would love to go to GA again and compete with all those fun people again. WuFame and I had a 6 hour drive back, but it was totally worth it.

33 players is awesome. Sounds like a great tourney.

I should have had CN introduce me to all of you. As he said, it just wasn't my day, so I just spent too much time on the losing side tables instead of with you guys. ​ But I had a ton of fun, and got to play with some cool opponents. The nice thing about knowing I was out of the running was that the pressure was totally off, so I just had a relaxed, fun game in round 4.

And next time maybe I shouldn't play a list I've never played before in a tournament. I guess I just love the challenge!

CN is getting too much praise in this thread. Let's all say something we hate about him to even things out.

I heard CaribbeanNinja drives a hummer h2 welded on top of another hummer h2 because he hates the environment.

Caribbean Ninja once ordered a sandwich with extra pesto and then sent it back for having too much pesto.

Third Round[/b] - Win 5-5 - I'll just go ahead and be honest. I found my opponent in Round 3 to be a bit of a jerk. His demeanor was super serious, like he was Ender Wiggin reborn or something and about to prove it, and I just did not have a fun time playing against him. I kept trying to lighten the mood with him, which maybe was a bad idea since it was a tense game. He also kept checking over my maneuvers and stuff to insure I wasn't cheating. I mean, I get it, we want to play honest, but if I was going to cheat, it'd be a lot more subtle than giving my corvettes extra yaw or lying about Jaina's Light being unobstructable. I don't think I saw him smile to entire game, or even change the inflection in his voice to something not monotone serious. I don't think he's on the forums, but if you are and you read this, lighten up man."

Hey I know this guy WuFame. I'll leave him anonymous unless he wants to chime in but he is a cool dude. He was probably super serious for two reasons:

1. He wanted to crush me like he has in all other previous tourneys but had to face you,

2. He despises slow playing jerks from Texas. (he loves nice people from Texas.)

That said, credit where it's due, he played fiercely and I was sweating the entire match.

This is more of my experience with this player.

Also, that sandwich had way too much pesto on it! I got it all over my Hummer 8x8's baby seal floor mats.

That's fair I guess. Hopefully I don't get in his way in the future.

Third Round[/b] - Win 5-5 - I'll just go ahead and be honest. I found my opponent in Round 3 to be a bit of a jerk. His demeanor was super serious, like he was Ender Wiggin reborn or something and about to prove it, and I just did not have a fun time playing against him. I kept trying to lighten the mood with him, which maybe was a bad idea since it was a tense game. He also kept checking over my maneuvers and stuff to insure I wasn't cheating. I mean, I get it, we want to play honest, but if I was going to cheat, it'd be a lot more subtle than giving my corvettes extra yaw or lying about Jaina's Light being unobstructable. I don't think I saw him smile to entire game, or even change the inflection in his voice to something not monotone serious. I don't think he's on the forums, but if you are and you read this, lighten up man."

Hey I know this guy WuFame. I'll leave him anonymous unless he wants to chime in but he is a cool dude. He was probably super serious for two reasons:

1. He wanted to crush me like he has in all other previous tourneys but had to face you,

2. He despises slow playing jerks from Texas. (he loves nice people from Texas.).

I'll say as an AAR that I was really blown away with how casual and friendly the tournament felt (at my low-to-mid level tables) while still being at the regional level. I spent a lot of time up in NY/CN, and the players at my store all insisted that regional level tournaments were vicious and cutthroat. As this was my first regional, that is what I was expecting. I was almost shaking going into my first match with Britt, but he was so pleasant and cool about the whole thing that it really made the rest of the day fun. We still adhered to the rules, allowing small take-backs like spending an engineering token after a ship had fired, and got progressively more strict as the matches proceeded.

I realized I left something out of my post. I need to give a big thank you to the Chattanooga Armada community. It's not enormous, but I think it's growing, and definitely has great competitors and great people in general. We also have great support from the game stores in town.

A personal thank you to the 3 people who took time out of their schedules to play games against my really annoying DeMSU list the week before the regionals, getting me some valuable practice. I'll make sure to publicize Chattanooga events here on the forums, I'd love to see a 20 player tournament in Chattanooga next season!

I think the bham crew would definitely help support a Chattanooga tourney. Be sure to post it in the Facebook Southeast Armada events list when you get it going, and we will make the effort to get there.

I would also like to say that over all this community is awesome. Quote of the day goes to Boston1809 (please let me know if I am misremembering):

Me: I noticed that Armada players, even at tournaments, are way more relaxed than 40k players playing a casual game.

Boston1809: Yeah, well there are serial killers out there more relaxed than most 40k players.

Third Round[/b] - Win 5-5 - I'll just go ahead and be honest. I found my opponent in Round 3 to be a bit of a jerk. His demeanor was super serious, like he was Ender Wiggin reborn or something and about to prove it, and I just did not have a fun time playing against him. I kept trying to lighten the mood with him, which maybe was a bad idea since it was a tense game. He also kept checking over my maneuvers and stuff to insure I wasn't cheating. I mean, I get it, we want to play honest, but if I was going to cheat, it'd be a lot more subtle than giving my corvettes extra yaw or lying about Jaina's Light being unobstructable. I don't think I saw him smile to entire game, or even change the inflection in his voice to something not monotone serious. I don't think he's on the forums, but if you are and you read this, lighten up man."

Hey I know this guy WuFame. I'll leave him anonymous unless he wants to chime in but he is a cool dude. He was probably super serious for two reasons:

1. He wanted to crush me like he has in all other previous tourneys but had to face you,

2. He despises slow playing jerks from Texas. (he loves nice people from Texas.).

I'll say as an AAR that I was really blown away with how casual and friendly the tournament felt (at my low-to-mid level tables) while still being at the regional level. I spent a lot of time up in NY/CN, and the players at my store all insisted that regional level tournaments were vicious and cutthroat. As this was my first regional, that is what I was expecting. I was almost shaking going into my first match with Britt, but he was so pleasant and cool about the whole thing that it really made the rest of the day fun. We still adhered to the rules, allowing small take-backs like spending an engineering token after a ship had fired, and got progressively more strict as the matches proceeded.

This is mostly how everyone I've ever played against plays the game, so maybe I was too hard on Mr. Round 3. Maybe he just caught me by surprise because his demeanor was way different from everything I'd ever encountered in the game. It's easy to mistake seriousness or deep thought for aloof unfriendlyness.

We both forgot to take our Intel Sweep tokens at the beginning of our turns and took them after. Whatever. You're trying to process so much information while the game is going on that little mistakes like this is to be expected. At the end of the day, I don't want my opponent to look back at the game and be like "Man, I could have won that game but WuFame wouldn't allow me to take the Intel Sweep token after I'd already attacked."

That's not being competitive, that's being a ****.

I was going into this with one goal, and it was a sad one, really. I just wanted 20 tourney points. I reached my goal and am really proud of how I played, for a change. I made very few mistakes, and I can honestly say, when I lost I got flat out out-played. Truly the best tourney I've been to. My best recollection of my day:

My list