This past Tuesday night I had the pleasure of playing a game of Armada with one of my regular opponents, and I've got to say, it was my favorite game I had played in a LOOOOONG time. I had been getting quite burned out from the game, as it is going more and more towards the squadron game which I find excruciatingly tedious. This match reminded me of why I got into Armada in the first place, and that is that I get to be the Admiral of a fleet of capital ships involved in a space naval battle. Massive ships maneuvering around each other before trading volleys of turbolasers, ripping into each others hulls. I did NOT choose armada to push around a bunch of piddly little squadrons that somehow are able to out-gun capital ships. But I digress...

I was excited about this match from before it even began, giddy like a kid on Christmas morning at the carnage that was about to unfold between these two fleets. Below are the fleets of myself and my opponent. Notice that there is not a single squadron between the two of them. Mmmmmmmmmmmm delicious.....


Opponents Fleet
Fleet Summary Page (397 of 400 pts)
Faction: Rebel Alliance
Commander: Admiral Ackbar (38 pts)
Flagship: (161 pts)
MC80 Assault Cruiser (114 pts)
Home One (7 pts)
Ray Antilles (7 pts)
Engine Techs (8 pts)
Electronic Counter Measures (7 pts)
Advanced Projectors (6 pts)
H9 Turbolasers (8 pts)
Leading Shots (4 pts)
Fleet Ship 1: (99 pts)
Assault Frigate Mark II B (72 pts)
Intel Officer (7 pts)
Gunnery Team (7 pts)
Electronic Counter Measures (7 pts)
XI7 Turbolasers (6 pts)
Fleet Ship 2: (99 pts)
Assault Frigate Mark II B (72 pts)
Intel Officer (7 pts)
Gunnery Team (7 pts)
Electronic Counter Measures (7 pts)
XI7 Turbolasers (6 pts)

My Fleet
Fleet Summary Page (399 of 400 pts)
Faction: The Empire
Commander: Admiral Ozzel (20 pts)
Flagship: (137 pts)
Imperial II-class Star Destroyer (120 pts)
Electronic Counter Measures (7 pts)
XI7 Turbolasers (6 pts)
Leading Shots (4 pts)
Fleet Ship 1: (121 pts)
Imperial I-class Star Destroyer (110 pts)
Intel Officer (7 pts)
Ordnance Experts (4 pts)
Fleet Ship 2: (121 pts)
Imperial I-class Star Destroyer (110 pts)
Intel Officer (7 pts)
Ordnance Experts (4 pts)

Next post will be where the action begins.

This is how we deployed. No tricks, just lining up for a good old fashion brawl. He chose my Advanced Gunnery, and put it on his MC80, while I put it onto my flagship. His front ship was the first to go down, followed by my flagship, then his MC80 and my Thing 1 (Stripy), and lastly his trail ship followed by Thing 2 (far left).

"We have them in our sights sir"

Turn 1

Ozzel opened and dropped to speed one in order to cut off access to behind my other Star Destroyers. Thing 1 and Thing 2 both jumped up to speed three, eager to get into the fight. No shots were fired this round.

Turn 2

I committed an egregious error with my first activation this turn, which could have lost the game (potentially) for me. I chose my flagship as my first activation, and had my opponent chosen to activate the MC80 as his second ship instead of his third, I would not have been able to block him and could have been picked apart by his AG enhanced Ackbar cruiser had it gotten behind me. Instead, he activated his second AF and gave me back my missed opportunity, upon which I pounced. Thing 1 jumped ahead into the front arc of the MC80, where it remained pinned through the remainder of the battle. Thing one dropped to speed two and set up for an attack on the rear assault frigate on the next turn.

Turn 3

This turn began with my opponent activating his far right Assault Frigate in an attempt to avoid my front arc, which was unsuccessful. Thing 1 then blasted 10 damage into the front of the MC80, who chose to not use the brace I had targeted with my Intel Officer, instead utilizing advanced projectors to spread the damage to all hull zones. Ackbar then activated, firing from his front arc to my front arc. The ISD had no troubles handling two red dice and a blue… Thing 2 then unloaded a devastating front arc shot into the side of his Assault Frigate, crippling it by putting 4 damage cards onto it, including a depowered armament that prevented it from taking another shot for the duration of the match. After it’s shot, Thing 2 moved into position for shots on the trapped MC80. My opponent then had no choice but to move his Assault Frigate into the waiting maw of my Advanced Gunnery Flagship. Ozzel then activated, pumping two front arc shots into the side of his Assault Frigate, which he was able to survive (just barely!), with one hull point remaining.

Turn 4

The final round was filled with absolute carnage. He activated his doomed assault frigate first, swinging around to the side of Ozzel, avoiding another front arc volley. I then activated Thing 2, because at this point he only had two hull points remaining, and I had a feeling that he would not be surviving through this round. He blasted 8 damage into the side of the MC80, which was braced to four, but all four hits found their way onto the hull as the Cruiser’s shields had been completely stripped the turn before. Ackbar then activated, blowing apart Thing 2 with a massive side arc shot before double ramming Thing 1 in a Kamikaze fashion. The flagship was the last to activate, finishing off the wounded Assault Frigate with it’s double side arc shot. Upon it’s destruction, my opponent conceded and the game was over.

All in all this is the most fun I have had playing armada in months. Big ships, fistfuls of dice, and high levels of mayhem and destruction. God I love this game…

Told you. Ozzel.

Anyone want to teach me how to insert pictures into these posts? I've got a bunch of good ones for the report...

Only really works on PC, go to More Reply Options and there are buttons to insert photos etc.

[ img ] http//:www.imgur.com/MyPrettyPhotos [ \ img ]

Anyone want to teach me how to insert pictures into these posts? I've got a bunch of good ones for the report...

Only really works on PC, go to More Reply Options and there are buttons to insert photos etc.

On a Mac right now. Can I do anything off of my downloaded pics or do I have to upload them to imgur first?

Anyone want to teach me how to insert pictures into these posts? I've got a bunch of good ones for the report...

Only really works on PC, go to More Reply Options and there are buttons to insert photos etc.

On a Mac right now. Can I do anything off of my downloaded pics or do I have to upload them to imgur first?

Only in the painting sub forum can you upload them straight. And even then we have very small allowances for photo storage per user.

So yeah photo hosting site is the best bet.

Same. I love big ships and I cannot lie.

(Small ships are ok too. They're ships. *shrug)

Told you. Ozzel.

Ozzel came up clutch in this game. The ability to hit any speed on my chart with a single nav dial was huge

I find that Ozzel is in his own way the best defensive upgrade in the game, letting you engage for maximum firepower while limiting return fire. he basically turns every ship into a version of Demolisher shooting into range and booking it back out after delivering the pain.

Clearly this was the mission that got him the job on the Executor. Man was a victim of his own success.