I have been asked to write an article on how to utilise a single squadron, Tycho, to dodge enemy bomber attacks. Crucial to being able to do this, is the fleet in which Tycho sits, my vassal tourney winning Ackbar Star Destroyers fleet.

-MC30 Scout Frigate – Admiral Ackbar, Foresight

-MC30 Torpedo Frigate – Lando Calrissian, Sensor Teams, Enhanced Armaments

-MC30 Torpedo Frigate – Admonition, Sensor Teams, Enhanced Armaments

-CR90A – Jaina’s Light, Turbolaser Reroute Circuits

-GR75 Medium transport – Bright Hope, Slicer Tools, Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams

This fleet was specifically designed to deal with Demolisher and Rhymer fleets. Able to control Demo with Bright Hope and then one shot (sometimes) with the MC30s. Able to dodge Rhymer whilst tabling the carriers fast.

Admittedly, since the introduction of fighter coordination teams, flight commander and bomber command centres, I am no longer so confident in this lists ability to keep up.

Fleet Point No. 1 – Blocking squadron attack angles

A couple of well placed squadrons can block distance 1 from your ships so that the enemy cannot land bomber attacks. In the picture above you can see three bombers unable to attack the MC30 due to those lovely guardian YT1300s sitting in the perfect spot!

(As an aside, this is a wonderful tactic with fighter coordination teams on an Interdictor with a pair of Tie Advanced…)

There is one, or should I say pair of major drawbacks with this method of defence. Rhymer and Intel units. However, to deal with those, you either need to scale up quite considerably, or build a considerable alpha strike into your list, neither of which is particularly applicable to a low squadron build list.

Fleet Point No. 2 – Obstacles are a squadron avoider’s best friend

Which brings us nicely onto lesson two! Whats better than a squadron to block bomber attacks? Obstruction!

There are three things which can cause obstruction, enemy ships, friendly ships and obstacles, use them. If you have a choice between getting hit by an entire bomber wing, or landing on an asteroid field, is the asteroid field really worth avoiding?

Can a wonderfully defensive ship, such as Admo or Bright Hope, get in the way? Take the hits where you choose, on those two! However, games are never perfect, which is why we still need Tycho to cover the odd spots.

Fleet Point No. 3 – Bait the hook

Admonition is a special ship, it doesn’t mind getting shot by squadrons. Unlike other ships in the rebel fleet, Admonition isn’t susceptible to death by a thousand cuts.

So lets use it to bait the enemy squads. In the photo above you will see that Jaina and a second MC30 are swooping in on the right, but just out of reach of the bombers. (Shame). However, look at Admonition sitting there all alone, so lonely…. Predictably, the bombers choose to close on admonition and throw their pitiful single dice at him.

Think ahead a turn for a second. Admo has shrugged of the bombers and gone zooming off at speed 4 to take a burst shot on the VSD. The bombers are now out of range of Jaina and the second MC30, woefully misplaced to achieve anything in the following turn

Fleet Point No. 4 – Tika Taka Armada

In the current meta of Armada, having first activation is a very powerful. However, only one ship each turn can have the honour and responsibility of first activation, so it is important to maximise it. We’ve all seen Demolishers enjoy going first too many times, problem with that ship is it likes to do it alternate turns, which then leaves a fleet lacking on the other turns.

Instead, build a fleet with multiple potent threats so that there is always a ship ready to take ownership of the first activation. Pass possession of the first activation around. Always know at the start of the turn which ship will be first activation next turn.

Think of the ISD as the ball, at the start of each turn one ship offloads a full broadside/doublearc into the ISD. That will tend to bring it down.

Tika Taka – The art of the bursts

Fleet Point No. 5 –Deployment without deployment advantage

There is a rule of thumb in Armada, have at least 8 deployments in your list. The reason for this rule of thumb is because of the importance of a good deployment for many lists to be able to control the game.

So how do you get a good deployment without lots of deployments? You don’t.

There is nothing special about that, the secret is to deploy in such a way as to allow yourself to reorganise very quickly very early. We all know that fast squadrons can be moved round 1 to be wherever they are needed. Why is it different with ships?

Here is a typical deployment:

First Jaina’s Light deploys facing the obstacles. My obstacles have been placed so they cover the middle of the table giving ample opportunity for my ships to hide and cause manoeuvre difficulties for my opponent. Jaina can deploy without risk of being targeted immediately by my opponent’s ship, as very few ships want to go and play in the obstacles with Jaina.

Opponent follows up with a single ship. Doesn’t matter whether it is a raider or an ISD, they have signalled where the battle will commence. (For more details on the power curve of deployment, talk to Ardaehel)

So with the battle zone defined, Admonition and Lando deploy so that they can hit the expected zone on turns 2 and 3 ready to take ownership of the first activation and deliver a full Ackbar sensor team broadside. Bright Hope and Foresight deploy to shepherd the enemy ships into the kill zone, or turn in later in the game to take their turn leading the line.

With Admo and Lando nicely far apart, it doesn’t actually matter where the battle zone is. No matter where the battle happens, they can be manoeuvred such that they hit the fight a turn apart. Try it, shift the battle circle about, is there anywhere which is difficult to adjust to? (The answer is the far left, but unfortunately that would leave the ISD all alone)

Armada Action Report vs Caribbean Ninja

Special thanks to Carribean Ninja for running a patsy fleet against my list so that I could capture screenshots from a real game.

CNinj’s fleet (Requested as typical of the fleets I used to face regularly)

-ISD II – Admiral Motti, Gunnery Teams, Leading Shots, Electronic Countermeasures

-Glad I – Demolisher, Intel Officer, Ordnance Experts, Engine Techs, Assault Proton Torpedos

-Raider I – Ordnance Experts, Assault Proton Torpedos

-Major Rhymer, Dengar, Tie Advanced, 5x Tie Bomber

Deployment:

I chose Contested Outpost to control the location of the fight and make it easy to plan my swooping attacks. The obstacles deployed to give me freedom of movement in the middle of the table as no one else will dare venture into the obstacle field.

Jaina deployed first facing an obstacle, with a lovely three obstacle hopping manoeuvres available should she need to dodge attacks. The ISD deployed as expected facing the outpost. Admo to the right nearest the squads, expecting to be first attack on the ISD, Lando far to the left to swoop in slightly later. Foresight and bright hope in the middle ready to shepherd as needed.

End of Turn 1 (Speed shown - Green signifies stored nav token, blue signifies no nav token stored)

And now you can see where Demo and raider have appeared, in this case changing the attack timing of Lando and Admo. Now Lando is the first attack ship, zooming to take out Demolisher, whilst Admo takes a more cautious approach.

The only other thing to note here is that Jaina is sitting on a debris field to prevent those pesky bombers getting shots in. Admo is sitting nicely at distance 4 of the bombers, should they be tempted to alpha strike far away from their carrier support…..

End of Turn 2

Notable Events –

Foresight activated first to delay closing on Demo, and thus basically left the fight for now.

Demolisher closed fast with engine techs on Jaina and put in a salvo at close range, resulting in 1 hull remaining and a Damaged Controls Crit! That’s basically death to Jaina when you think about. Fortunately, Jaina was able to respond with a bit of damage and then use nav dial and token to jump all the way over Demo and avoid the debris field….

Sadly when the ISD activated it chucked a couple of bombers at Jaina. However, if we go back to our fleet points above, what would have happened without the damaged controls crit? Jaina would be sitting pretty on the debris field, impervious to single black dice bombers…. As it was the bombers found the smallest gap, and a single blank would have been enough to save her.

Lando takes possession of first activation. Admo trails. Bright Hope takes away Demolishers nav token and nav command.

Lando’s Activation

End of Turn 3

So after Lando’s heroics, the ISD chucked some dice at the two MC30s, and the horrible imperials squads stole Tycho’s scatter token and took 2 of his hull! Admo responded with some blue range damage on the ISD.

And finally Tycho made his troll move of the game. The ISD doesn’t have boosted comms, so Dengar is out of range of activation and out of range of Tycho….

Possession of the first activation has passed to Admo, and this is where it remained for the rest of the short game. Tycho died to the bombers. The ISD died MC30 hell over the following two rounds, with the imperial fleet tabled turn 5. Rebel losses restricted to Jaina’s light and Tycho, both mainly due to their roles as bait.

9-2

I found this hard to write as the list has become so comfortable for me that I dont readily see what made it so special. I hope it helps in any small way.

I'll add this too. I took a wave II version to UK nationals, with a bid of 392 and bombed badly. I didnt face squads all day and went second far too many times. The list is flexible in how it plays out on the table, but it has flaws. It hates second player and it absolutely detests electronic countermeasures.

Excellent write up. You did a great job explaining your tactics and goals for the fleet. The vassal pictures and test game also were perfect in demonstrating your tactics. We need more posts like this. Great job!

Great article, as good if not better than any FFG could do!...

... ya know, if they did them anymore...

One of the best most informative forum posts in weeks.

Very nice write up indeed, it is a shame we will never see each other across the field of battle.

Thanks Ginkapo! This is awesome

This battle report is completely awesome! The details, the maps, everything was great. It looks like it took a while, but I'd love to see more of these in the future.

Great article Gink. Thanks for putting it up!

Excellent article, Ginkapo!

I really wish you guys would stop spreading around this kind of knowledge. Figuring out this kind of stuff is what has allowed me to beat all my opponents at the last 5 tournies.

(My tongue is only slightly in my cheek here)

Excellent article Ginkapo. Terrific illustrations.

Thanks.

Gold standard article! Great and thanks!

I really wish you guys would stop spreading around this kind of knowledge. Figuring out this kind of stuff is what has allowed me to beat all my opponents at the last 5 tournies.

(My tongue is only slightly in my cheek here)

I havent told anyone how to turn this into a second player fleet.....

I know, keeping stoom.

Love the article. The meta-discussion about deployment and obstacles was particularly useful.

Have one question about something you said. You mentioned that Admonition isn't afraid of death by a thousand cuts by squadrons. Why is that? Seems that 8-10 bombers attacking Admonition would still wreck it. Is there some trick to the title?

Thanks!

Love the article. The meta-discussion about deployment and obstacles was particularly useful.

Have one question about something you said. You mentioned that Admonition isn't afraid of death by a thousand cuts by squadrons. Why is that? Seems that 8-10 bombers attacking Admonition would still wreck it. Is there some trick to the title?

Thanks!

2 hits redirected

2 hits taken on the facing shield

4 hits discarded by admo effect

Result zero defence tokens left, but you are hopefully going speed 4 of into the sunset so who cares!

Have one question about something you said. You mentioned that Admonition isn't afraid of death by a thousand cuts by squadrons. Why is that? Seems that 8-10 bombers attacking Admonition would still wreck it. Is there some trick to the title?

I would say that absolutely NOTHING will survive 8-10 unfettered bombers. However Admonition's shields, two redirects and its stupid ability does make it more difficult to pop. But it will still pop if you can go after it.

Ah!

1) Ablative Admonition.

2) Abscond

Astonishing!

Thanks, G!

I would say that absolutely NOTHING except Motti ISD will survive 8-10 unfettered bombers.

FTFY

I would say that absolutely NOTHING except Motti ISD will survive 8-10 unfettered bombers.

FTFY

Not even that over 6 rounds is my point.

Whereas Admo will take it one turn, then have moved distance 8 before the second salvo!

So, why sensor teams? I have always found them to be an exceptionally underwhelming upgrade. It costs you two dice to get one accuracy one time that turn, so it's egregiously inefficient to double arc with, and seriously cuts down on your damage output. It seems like an awful lot of points and effort just to negate the dice that Ackbar is giving you and do another point of damage or so on average. Unless the plan is to only use STs at close range, at which point I'm still wondering if you wouldn't rather buy Ordinance Techs to maximize Black Dice damage.

So, what is it that I'm missing here, because I have a ton of Sensor Teams collecting dust here and I'd like to know if I could actually use them.

So, why sensor teams? I have always found them to be an exceptionally underwhelming upgrade. It costs you two dice to get one accuracy one time that turn, so it's egregiously inefficient to double arc with, and seriously cuts down on your damage output. It seems like an awful lot of points and effort just to negate the dice that Ackbar is giving you and do another point of damage or so on average. Unless the plan is to only use STs at close range, at which point I'm still wondering if you wouldn't rather buy Ordinance Techs to maximize Black Dice damage.

So, what is it that I'm missing here, because I have a ton of Sensor Teams collecting dust here and I'd like to know if I could actually use them.

They let me one shot the raider with a particularly dodgy roll, leaving the second shot free to cripple/kill demo.

Is there any other combo that lets you do that for cheap?

Look at the lando shot diagram.

I would say that absolutely NOTHING except Motti ISD will survive 8-10 unfettered bombers.

FTFY

Not even that over 6 rounds is my point.

Motti+Overlord+Quad Laser Turrets+H9's helps, though.

I would say that absolutely NOTHING except Motti ISD will survive 8-10 unfettered bombers.

FTFY

Not even that over 6 rounds is my point.

You won't realistically get 6 rounds of shooting. 2-4 rounds is more real (afterwards the ship will be out of range/bombers will be uncontrolled etc)