In San Antonio, we had a smallish tournament in preparation for our upcoming regional on February 11th at Dragon's Lair. Although we were four in number, everyone had at least one prior Top-4 finish in a regional, making for a competitive field. In a moment of boredom in recent days, I took a retooled version of my Rieekan Battleship list (included below). We had the Rieekan Acehole's from the runner-up at world's in attendance, and both Imperial lists featured large Rhymerballs, one built around an ISD, and one with two Interdictors playing shenanigans with objectives.

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 400/400

Commander: General Rieekan

Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Fire Lanes
Navigation Objective: Intel Sweep

[ flagship ] MC80 Assault Cruiser (114 points)
- General Rieekan ( 30 points)
- Defiance ( 5 points)
- Raymus Antilles ( 7 points)
- Engine Techs ( 8 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
- Advanced Projectors ( 6 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 179 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Bright Hope ( 2 points)
- Expanded Hangar Bay ( 5 points)
= 25 total ship cost

CR90 Corvette B (39 points)
- SW 7 Ion Batteries ( 5 points)
= 44 total ship cost

CR90 Corvette B (39 points)
- SW 7 Ion Batteries ( 5 points)
= 44 total ship cost

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
- Jainas Light ( 2 points)
- Turbolaser Reroute Circuits ( 7 points)
= 53 total ship cost

2 A-Wing Squadrons ( 22 points)
1 Tycho Celchu ( 16 points)
1 Shara Bey ( 17 points)

This archetype is well know. Some variation of it has won in a couple of different wave 4 regionals. We should think of Biggs as the pioneer, and I used it to a regional victory last June and at GenCon. I played about 3 or 4 games with the archetype during wave 4, focusing mostly on my Madine Liberty list (I must say it is really weird to change-up between a list that really wants first player all the time versus a list that almost always prefers second player). Ackbar is popular with this archetype, but I've personally liked Rieekan myself. I'd rather fly a bit more directly at the enemy and look to double arc. The MC80 is usually durable enough to hold out, and I think RBD is a superb adjustment in the squadron meta. One can argue about what specific upgrades to put and tweak around the edges. I didn't find the EHB all that useful for example, so that's a tweak. I don't think that given the way this list plays that the MC80 really needed XI7, although a turbolaser would have been nice. The SW-7 Bumper cards are extremely brutal in a Rieekan list, and they're easy for opponent's to underestimate.

Overall, this was a fun event and a good time. The Interdictor list won all three of its games 6-5, which seems consistent with what I've seen out of Interdictors. They do a great job limiting losses and are pretty tough to play against, but they also have a hard time forcing engagement and generating large wins. The other weird curiosity is that I managed a 5-6 against the Interdictor, and a 5-6 against the runner-up player at World's, but managed to win the tournament because I pulled a 10-1 in the first game. With 4 players, we all played each other, so each list had a chance to test itself against the same field over the course of the day. As with our earlier tournament in Austin two weeks ago, I still see the same basic archetypes being very strong. Wave 5 has something for nearly every archetype and I see the next 8 months as an amazingly fun time to be playing Armada.