Quick report on the German Nationals held today (mainly German-speaking countries, but now open to all nationalities).

We had 21 players, rather disappointing for the players and the TO (who is a very nice guy doing a great job), so we only had 3 games and no final cut of two. Location was not a big city, going there takes some effort, I think that played into it. There were more than 30 online sign ups.

The atmosphere was very relaxed, very friendly and collegial (something I really like Armada for), while the level of play was rather high in the opinion of the players I talked to, and I certainly agree. I saw a very healthy variety of lists, but bombers definitly dominated the scene. Only wave three was tourney legal (available in German, a prerequisite rule here, while wave 4 is only available in English right now...I would ditch that rule, btw), so no FCT and such, but flotillas where on many lists to accompany bombers.

Well, as for the winner, some of you might be a bit surprised (admit it): 8 Gozantis commanded by Tarkin, 6 Tie bombers + the good Major, 4 ordinary Ties, one Jump Master and Dengar, clocking in at 399 points.

Second place went to a VSD, 2 Gozantis, a Raider, 10 Tie bombers, a Jumpmaster and Dengar. They faced each other on the top table in round 3. Well done guys.

VP-wise it was close, winner with 25 pts. 9 players were between 25 and 20 points.

Myself I placed 8th, with two initial wins to go to third (good game, guys, none of those wins was easy to get), but then losing to a clever moving player with a fully equipped assault MC80 under Ackbar, an AF, a flotilla and 7 squads (no rogues). I foolishly chose advanced gunnery to avoid contested outpost and superior position, thinking I can manouver my way out of a pickle with a 5 ship activation advantage. I would have, but forgot advanced gunnery and the second assault cruiser ackbar shot got me with exactly the damage needed. Lando did his best to mitigate the first shot. What made it really bad was that I gave advanced gunnery to the destroyed Admonition....losing out double. Could have sneaked into the aft arc of the MC80, but my opponent moved very cleverly, knowing I had to come to him, went to the edge of the map, I could not flank and Admo would have faced multiple turns against Ackbar broadsides from two ships had I gone to the board edge. It was a bit of luck to get Admo, but very strategic thinking overall.

Squads wer almost everywhere, when no bombers then for example 8 A wings or my 4 yt2400+Dash+Tycho. In all my games I had fewer squads than my opponents.

What I did not see was Demolishers. A few played glads, but I dont know if they were Demolishers. In any case not many, but still top two went to Empire, and also third and fith place. Tie bombers are dirt cheap, and with multiple bcc rerolls, you get something out of them.

One negative point: Price support was a shame for a National. 3 Vader cards for everyone, objective tokens, rulers. Not even a second alternate art card for the top 4 or something.

Conclusion: A very nice Armada day, friendly and good players throughout, good TO, thx all!

PS:Sorry for anything I might have remembered wrongly.

Top kek
https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/228551-vader-13-gozantis/

Thanks for the report! Interesting feedback on the state of the game...I'm sure it will be reflected elsewhere as well, at least for the near future.

NebulonB,

Thanks for the report man. Push the hobby my friend!!!

lol and not completely taken aback...I said you don't want to play a wave 3 only meta as we tried it with proxy...this is why. The lists were an average 6 activations. And a 4 Goz, Demo, Fireball won a recent wave 4 tourney. Activation Bomber is pretty strong.

Shame for no Wave 4! Hopefully this will suck more people in.

I am not gonna lie. I cracked a smile at the winning list. I'd never do it, but KUDOS to that player for creating that list and then playing it in a tournament. This is the Armada equivalent of the film "Rudy", except the player doesn't get gang tackled hard core at the end of the game.

Shame about the prize support, but thanks for the report!

The problem was: Wave 3 was released (two weeks ago) but wave 4 is still not (should be in stores next week).

At least in Germany.

So for this National, wave 1, 2 and 3 were legal.

Really sad. Wave 4 is not only interesting for the ship but especially for the upgrades.

The 13 Gozanti list only has a big problem the 8 Gozanti does not have. Admiral Cracken. The bombers don't care for his effect.

Edit:

i little more info about the lists (all from memory, so i might be a missing something).

21 Player. 11 Rebels, 10 Imperials.

Rebel Commanders: 5x Ackbar, 3x Rieekan, 2x Dodonna, 1x Garm.

All but two Imperial lists had at least one ISD (one list had two ISDs).

All but one Imperial lists had Rhymer with 3+ Tie Bombers. The last one had ~7 Agressors.

Two Lists (both Rebel) had no squadrons at all.

There were far more Gozanti compared to rebel transport. Most Imperial lists had 2 Gozanti as support or squadron carrier.

I think Rhymerballs now are too strong with Gozanties + Bomber Command + Dengar.

This combo is just OP. Rhymer breaks the game from the beginning.

If his ability was restricted to up to a limited number of Squadrons or even only applicable to squadrons which are activated by a ships command together with Rhymer this would be much more balanced.

I think Rhymerballs now are too strong with Gozanties + Bomber Command + Dengar.

This combo is just OP. Rhymer breaks the game from the beginning.

If his ability was restricted to up to a limited number of Squadrons or even only applicable to squadrons which are activated by a ships command together with Rhymer this would be much more balanced.

The strength of the Rhymerball and bombers in general is now its downfall. Its justifiable to bring extreme first strike squads builds now. Rhymerballs are only strong as long as they have intel units. First strike squads kill intel fast.

Very inteesting report. Our nationalas will be run 8.10.2016. If I know there is no nationality obstacles so comw on to Warsaw. For now we have 23 players signed but this list wasnt updated from a month and I dont posses FB to confirm the numbers. I was suprised that no one run Rebel transport Ackbar list with tons of 3 red dice attacks.

. I was suprised that no one run Rebel transport Ackbar list with tons of 3 red dice attacks.

Rebel transports do not have side arc dice for which to add Ackbar dice to. You cannot add dice to the attack pool, if you cannot gather the original dice pool with your armament.

. I was suprised that no one run Rebel transport Ackbar list with tons of 3 red dice attacks.

Rebel transports do not have side arc dice for which to add Ackbar dice to. You cannot add dice to the attack pool, if you cannot gather the original dice pool with your armament.

My coleague just ordered 12 of them. have to warn him

I am a german regional winner myself, the reason why i sadly did not attend the nationals, they were held at friday after my big summer vacation. I could not get a day off.

KUDOS to that winning list, makes me even more sad, as i would have taken Home One Ackbar and two guppies with GTs, i see a chance for my list vs the winning list.

I am a german regional winner myself, the reason why i sadly did not attend the nationals, they were held at friday after my big summer vacation. I could not get a day off.

KUDOS to that winning list, makes me even more sad, as i would have taken Home One Ackbar and two guppies with GTs, i see a chance for my list vs the winning list.

I guess you are not the only one who saw a chance for themselves

You probably have a feeling "where do I start". And if I remember correctly, this list did not win at this tourney only, but also locally. In any case the board looked impressive when the formation took off. It wasnt a wild and erratic thing as far as I saw, looked rather orderly. You cannot plough through, you would be thrown back to start and do one damage to one Gozanti. The list surely is not unbeatable, course not, but it presents its own unique challenge to play against.

Do we know if they were the assault gozantis or the all blue ones?

the normal cruisers for 23. I think three bcc, several boosted coms, one expanded hangar bay with Vector.

I think Rhymerballs now are too strong with Gozanties + Bomber Command + Dengar.

This combo is just OP. Rhymer breaks the game from the beginning.

If his ability was restricted to up to a limited number of Squadrons or even only applicable to squadrons which are activated by a ships command together with Rhymer this would be much more balanced.

The strength of the Rhymerball and bombers in general is now its downfall. Its justifiable to bring extreme first strike squads builds now. Rhymerballs are only strong as long as they have intel units. First strike squads kill intel fast.

With a dedicated anti-bomber complement, preferably rogues, you should be good against Rhymer many times. Or non-rogue alphas as Gink suggests. As for the other side, angry bees with a Toryn and bcc reroll arent funny, either. Or a bunch of As with Toryn counters.

But dont get me wrong, oc Rhymer is strong and creates lots of problems. Id rather face him than a last-first Demo, though. Bombers protected by Interceptors with Howl and Dengar, maybe Flight controller, also nasty. Bottom line is that if you dont bring more than a token squad force, the majority of games you will have a tough live. I upgraded from my usual 4 to at least 6 squads, and it went ok in all games. Today I played a fun match before leaving the Nationals, against another very good player, he fielded I think 7 assault aggressors and Dengar. I did damage, but would have lost the squad fight in this game. Luckily, Admo decided the game before that. Oc from now on its wave 4 in the mix, this will again have impact, but squads will be even stronger or more efficiently used, as I am sure all pros out there will agree with to a large extent.

I am a german regional winner myself, the reason why i sadly did not attend the nationals, they were held at friday after my big summer vacation. I could not get a day off.

KUDOS to that winning list, makes me even more sad, as i would have taken Home One Ackbar and two guppies with GTs, i see a chance for my list vs the winning list.

Depend on the squadrons you have. Don't underestiate what 8 bombers can do with the new bomber comand center. 1 round for an assault frigate, 2 rounds for the MC80.

You don’t have to beat every list on the tournament. Only these you are paired against.

There were quite a few lists that were better, and would have beaten me.

I had a lot of luck on the other hand (with the battles and with the opponent).

This is the list:

http://armadawarlords.hivelabs.solutions/view_list.php?token=42440

It was more a fun idea and not a serrious competive list.

First game was a regional bye.

Second game was against an ISD with Motti, gunnery team and H9 Turbolaser (by far the best counter against Flotilla) and 3 Gozanti with 128 points in squadrons (Rhymer + 3 Tie Bomber, 3 Tie Interceptors, Howlrunner, 2 Tie Advanced, 1 Jumpmaster).

I had luck to win the squadron fight, and could take out the non-bombers with minimal damage on my side. And I was able to keep out of range of the ISD for a long time. My bombers were able to take down the ISD in round 4 (after 3 rounds of chain fire on it). Without the ISD it was easy to win.

Third game was against 1 VSD with Tarkin and gunnery team, 1 Raider and 3 Gozanti with Rhymer, 9 Tie Bomber, 1 Jumpmaster, 1 Dengar.

That list won the first two games 10-1 and 9-2. But I was happy to play against this list, because I had the same squadrons in my first try. So I knew the weakness.

He went first and we were playing Superiour Positions.

His only mistake was that he thought that I will go after his VSD. It had engineer commands from Round 3-5.

I could control the bombers quite well with the Tie Fighters and took out his two Intel ships really fast.

It really help as well that I had more ship activations. So I could choose when to engage, and deny him any response.

The raider and gozanti don’t survive a round of 7 bombers. So he lost at least one ship every round, and was not able to activate his bombers anymore. The VSD alone could not take out the gozantis fast enough. In the end I could not take down the VSD (it was at 2 HP), but the victory tokens were more than enough. 15 Victory tokens are quite a lot.

I was as well lucky that he flew one of his gozanti over an asteroid (two times) and one critical was a structural damage. But it would have taken one round to take it down with the bombers. So this unlucky move did not change so much.

This list is far from being unbeatable. I know this myself. But it was an unusual list, and a lot were not prepared for it (a lot said they were luck not having to fight against it).

It will not be in any way a new standard, because the German nationals were special with only wave 1-3. And I would not guarantee that this list would win against, because of other pairings.

But alone the fun faces (WTF is this?) were worth the list.

EIGHT GOZANTIS?!!

That's a strange, audacious, brave and crazy list. Well done to the winner.

Here are a few pictures from the second match.

Start of round 1:

End of round 1:

End of round 3:

End of round 5 (last round):

I was lucky and lost only two Flotilla (and a few squadrons).

Ha, sounds like the German meta is very squadron heavy.

Sure Anti-Squad set-ups become 'suddenly' popular.

Where has the event been advertised? Is there a FB page or something for it?

Didn't hear anything about it and would have considered popping over for it. Maybe next year then.

on the publishers website under "events".

Promo was certainly not well done, and the location also plays a role in low attendance ovall, for all products. A lot can be professionalized for this event, but the atmosphere was good, at least within Armada.