But seriously, you guys. I'm on Round 2 of my local campaign, and it is super good. It's the next evolution of how to play Armada. Context to your games? Got it. Balanced competition? Got it. Hard decisions, thematic play, narrative, considerations outside the scope of your battle, new pressures forcing fresh list building decisions... Yep.

My team (rebels, of course) came into the game planning to use me as Hyperlane *****, to fuel the team with resources while they dominated the sector. I found myself in a pitched battle with the Imps in what was one of the coolest encounters I've had yet in Armada.

My MC30 swarm planning a hit-and-run on my opponent's Arquitens swarm felt so Star Wars, even though it featured very few iconic ships and exactly zero squadrons from the movies. I was completely prepared to tank the game in order to secure those resources for my team, which is such a very Rebel Alliance perspective.

And it played out just like you'd imagine.

--

Motti's light escort cruisers shepherded their Gozantis carrying a valuable cargo of raw durasteel toward Tralus when suddenly a ragtag fleet of Rebel torpedo frigates and cargo transports dropped out of hyperspace, insurgent leader Mon Mothma at the helm. Torpedoes and illegally-refit H9 turbolasers flying, the frigates charged the token escort force while troop-laden rebel transports moved in for a daring boarding attack on the cargo vessels. Mon Mothma directed the operation from the rear, but imperial intelligence was two steps ahead, somehow knowing exactly which transport she was on! Two Arquitens and a Raider increased thrust, dodging torpedo fire and bearing down on the hero of the alliance.

Faced with the choice of completing her raid or preserving herself, Mothma boldly stared down her closing demise long enough for the boarding operation to finish. As the bridge fell on the last cargo-laden Arquitens and the Rebel raiding party began the calculations for the jump to lightspeed, turbolaser fire rained around Mothma's command transport. She waited at 1/3 impulse, knowing her survival depended on timing the escape right.

Just as death by collision with the imperial cruisers seemed unavoidable for the senator, an MC30 searing well above the max speed in her specifications flung itself between an Arquitens and the senator's transport, throwing salvo upon salvo into the imperial ship. Unable to avert in time, the Arquitens tore through the paper-thin hull of the frigate, inflicting heavy damage. Unfortunately for the imperial captain, the collision destabilized his own containment fields, detonating his heavily damaged ventral thruster bank and scarring his ship horribly.

Taking advantage of the momentary sensor disruption, Mothma's heroic pilot threw the thrusters wide open, cutting just below Motti's own flagship and using it to shield the transport while she completed her calculations for the jump to hyperspace. Two Decimator-class patrol craft followed hot on her tail, opening up their heavy ion batteries and forcing Mothma's pilot to burn out out her maneuvering thrusters in scattering before the shots. The Raider closed in, proton torpedo tubes sliding open for the killing shot...

Mothma's GR-75 flickered and leapt to hyperspace, leaving behind the disabled, scarred remains of multiple Imperial vessels, not to mention numerous troop transports and one particular asteroid that looked very much like the medical module of an MC30.

--

The outcome of this battle was 100 resources for the rebels, but it was very nearly 40, with a major deficit in points lost. Not only did the one-upgrade constraint dramatically change the fleets we were running, but I flew the mission much more aggressively than I would otherwise have done, prepared to take some losses as long my opponent's were worse, after accounting for all the resources I picked up from the battle. Meanwhile, one of my teammates was defending against an imperial show of force. If either one of us had failed, we would have cancelled out the other's heroic efforts.

This campaign is so good.

...

Holy crap am i excited for my group's campaign to start.

Well done write up and I agree, I am quite anxious to try the campaign out. I missed this go around at my FLGS, so I will have to wait to put ships on the table for a bit.

Looking forward to my own local game...

Yeah i cant wait to start it. Unfortunately we still need to get people armada is a budding thing around here.

Going to be started mine soon also, just the list building is so different and in a good way!!!!

That campaign series sounds awesome.

Great write up!

Nice, very nice. I too like the change up in Fleet builds.

very well written AAR, only some photos could have made it any better. Looking forward to your AAR of next round.

I'm stoked to play! We're starting up a campaign up at our local store.

Well you got the worlds runner up on your team and your about equal in skill to him. Of course you're gonna have fun

Great storytelling mate! Sounds awesome

****! I'm totally gonna have to get back into this game. The CC box sounds like a must buy.

Great read, Ard' thank you. I'm pumped.

When I get CC, can you come narrate my games please Ard?

Lol, glad you guys enjoyed it, I wasn't actually intending to do a bat rep when I started the post, just got all excited about it in the telling.

I am impressed with the unique squadrons in the pack.

My current favourite is:

Gozanti (Vector), Boosted comms, bomber command

Tempest squadron, Gamma Squadron

(60 points total)

There is something about a flotilla carrying speed 5 'bomber' TIE advanced escorting non-heavy TIE bombers that feels so.... covert ops. Like they tooled up their ships for the mission.

Got our first game tonight and i'm hyped. We have a few new players but thats fine as i think the old vets getting all excited will pull them headlong into the game.

I havent played rebels since wave 2 and somehow as the Rebel vet ended up with Ackbar.

The new missions are great and looking forward to trying them out.

Been busy scanning and printing an A4 sized version of the map that we can send via the watsap group for updates. the map is slightly larger than 2x A3 so took 3 scans to fit in.

I think CC is what I always wanted out of Armada. It has a great feel... we just hit our first end of round management phase, and refitting the fleets was as much fun as playing the matches. It was a little "lessons learned" session where we were figuring out how to minimize our weaknesses while still paying to refit the right ships.

I know the Rebels are heading into the second round with some scarred up fighter wings and a ship or two in danger. That being said, we did manage to cripple the ISD in a Screed fleet... so did they invest heavily in refitting it or did they divert resources to kitting out Screed's pet Demolisher???

Regardless of what route they take, we *think* we now have a good idea of who we would like to match our punchiest fleet up against!