So I had the best intentions of keeping a running battle report of all my matches but honestly, this was my first worlds and I got super swept up in it. Still seems surreal that I was there. For anyone wondering if it is worth it, it absolutely is. I have known one thing since I started playing this game- win or lose, broken or balanced, come what may, I just always seem to have a blast playing Armada and this last week I played 7 incredible games of Armada and when they were all over I was still standing there with my fleet in hand hungry for another game.
Speaking of the fleet, this is what I ran:
ISD-2, Avenger, Gunnery Teams, SW7 Ion Cannon, Dual Turbolaser Turrets, Electronic Counter Measures.
Gozanti Cruiser, Suppressor, Minister Tua, ECM, Coms net
Gozanti Cruiser, Motti, Coms Net
Gozanti Cruiser, Bomber Command Center
Colonel Jendon
Lamba Shuttle
Maarek Stele
Saber Squadron
Valen Rudor
Major Rhymer
Gamma Squadron
Tie Bomber
Jumpmaster
Objectives were Precision Strike, Fire Lanes, and Sensor Net.
Essentially I was low on activations, but happy to go second to mitigate it somewhat. My deployments however allowed me to stall out pretty much everyone I faced to position the ISD right where I wanted it.
End result was I played 17th overall. A fairly strong showing that I am pleased with. I ended up only getting one loss, but if I had played one or two more games with the fleet beforem hand and corrected some of the mistakes with how I played my fleet day 1 I think I could have done better.
I'll keep the bat rep super short (or try to) and just give my general impressions. Feel free to ask questions about anything that seems odd.
The first game was my practice match the night before the tournament started, and honestly, it was the most important one I played. I had not yet played my list on a table, and it was something I was extremely concerned about. I cannot remember the name of who I played, but they weren't in the Armada tournament but were hoping to get in if a spot opened and was from the Virginia/DC area and said his regular crew included @WWPDSteven , who if he has an idea who I played I would love to have the opportunity to thank. At the time I had Advanced Gunnery as my red objective and no Gunnery Teams on Avenger. He instantly chose it and stuck it on a flotilla. He let me know frankly Advanced was a wrong choice and now if he killed the ISD he would win. He was right, Avenger with Advanced was scary but he swarmed it and killed it and I lost. After the game he was gracious, and took some time to help me polish the list just a little. I took his criticism to heart and ended up taking out a Tie Bomber AND Black Squadron in order to fit the Jumpmaster and a small bid and changed the red objective to Precision Strike.
Game 1:
That morning at Armada breakfast I sat with @Dorrin314 , @pt106 , Classic Ben, @Fanfan , and @Naboobo2000 . Breakfast is killer because by the end of it I was fast friends with all those guys for the rest of the tournament. So of course, I get paired against Naboobo first round. It actually made it really nice. Diffused some of the tension of the first game since it felt like playing a friend.
Naboobo had 3 gladiators and a deceptively good fighter ball with Defenders and a bunch of generic ties. 6 of them I think? End of the game was a 6-5 win for me as the ties and defenders ripped into my squads and I managed to kill Demolisher and I think a flotilla. Great game with an even better guy.
Game 2:
If you have ready @Parkdaddy batrep you already you know how this game turned out, 10-1 in Parkdaddys favor. It was my only loss of the entire tournament and honestly I had a plan for Rieekan Aces that had worked in my practices, but simply didn't on the table. The plan was simply to focus all fire on the squadron ball and ignore the ships. I know that is counter to the currwnt forum logic of rushing the ships and hoping to table, but if you watched the final what do you see? Norm killing squadrons while Nathan went for ships (Gallant Haven, because he had no choice) and then getting forced to conceed because he had simply no offense left. Anyway, I still think my strategy was sound. I had a couple bad turns of luck in losing Maarek round 1, followed by a Yavaris double tapped Ten Numb dealing 6 damage on my shieldless 6 hull ISD to finish it before it could blow past the Riekan ball which mostly had 1-2 hull left (except the VCXs **** those things take forever to kill) and let the squadrons finish it up. It was a gamble to focus on the squads because it meant I traded some juicy ship shots to do it, but in the end I lost big and it really hurt.
Game 3:
Played against a guy named Terry with a gorgeuously painted "shadow fleet" that was a monochromatic matte black and grey "one of everything" style Rebel fleet that just looked killer. I picked first against it, which I still don't know why I did. He had more activations, no strategic, and if I had gone second I am almost 100% certain this would have been a 10-1 win for me instead of 6-5 because his ships literally couldn't do anything against my build. He had a Rapid Launch Bay Assault Frigate with flight controllers which he used to drop ten numb onto Rhymer, which was a cool trick that ended in all my bombers off the table, but put all his dangerous but slow bombers far out of range to ever get them onto the ISD. I killed multiple of his ships. We played blockade run, because it is my favorite objective in the game, and ended up split on tokens which I was fine with. Pretty much I played this like a thematic friendly match and it was a blast, but not sweeping a lot of points from a fleet I should have been able to table kept me from having a shot at top 8. Oh well, fun Armada is fun Armada!
Game 4:
The next morning at breakfast I sat with, among many others, a guy named Scott who was running a Mon Mothma fleet with a nasty Admonition and a Christmas tree Assault Frigate. He was also super cool, and we spent most of the morning talking all about the strengths and weaknesses of our fleets, how we wanted to play them, and prettt much showing each other all our carda. Of course, my first round of the day was against him. I am beginning to think FFG is spying on our breakfast and making sure to match us! Anyway, I decided after the previous day where I picked first for some unknown reason that if I won any bids today it would be to go second. I won initiative and picked second, Scott picked precision strike, and I ended the game by tabling him and scoring 10 or 11 precision strike tokens. It was a huge win and just what I needed to start righting the ship after 2 wins but low points and mov the first day.
Game 5:
Played my last game against a guy from France, living in Canada named Charles who was honestly one of the nicest opponents I have ever played in Armada. He was running a nasty Ackbar Gunline with 2 frigates, a nebulon and a cr90 all with "standard" upgrades along with Ackbar on a flotilla in the back. He had Shara, Tycho, and 2 generic A's for squads. I picked second and we played fire lanes. He had no strategic, but I knew I was beat at red range with how much sheer damage he could put out. Obstacles got placed in two lines with the station in the middle and i marched my ISD at speed 1 down the middle over the station. He deployed his frigates to slash accross the opening in the obstacles and then toilet bowl over the station.
Turn 2 his frigates were waiting unactivated and my ISD was going to end up dead to rights in both their arcs. So instead I dropped to 0, let the two frigates past, then coms netted a nav token to bring him up to 2 the next turn and right at the Ackbar flotilla. The game was pretty much over now. His Frigates would plink, but without Ackbar they didn't scare me, and I continued to farm fire lanes tokens. He ended up conceding, which prevented me from racking up the score and probably getting a 9-2 which I was kind of bummed about from a tournament standpoint, but as a human I totally understand not wanted to end your World's tournament by getting pummelled and farmed while you can't do anything. Then totally inadvertently he ended up counting up the score and taking the card up without telling the scorekeeper he conceded which meant they counted me for a 7-4 based on our current points in the final rankings instead of the 8 points I should have gotten for the conceed. He was happy to go up with me and have it corrected, but it didnt effect prize tiers so they wouldn't re-print the standing sheet to reflect my actual position.
And with that my first World's came to an end! 17th got me dice and the setup templates, but the real prize was meeting the forum people and playing all those rounds of Armada!
