At my local store I'm sort of the leader of the Armada group. I organize events with the store owner and typically run the demo when folks walk by and say they'd love to learn to play. I've probably run the demo at that store 12-15 times, and we snagged a few new players because of it. Recently the player who I learned the game with and have been playing since wave 1 told me his girlfriend expressed an interest in the game, and he asked me to run the demo.
I decided I wanted to try something other than a vsd vs a nebulon and a corvette.
I built two 250 point fleets, with one upgrade on each ship and a commander and added 6 generic squads to each.
The imperial:
IMP TEST1
Faction:
Galactic Empire
Points:
248/250
Commander: Admiral Screed
[ flagship ]
Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer
(120 points)
- Admiral Screed ( 26 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
=
150
total ship cost
Gozanti-class Cruisers
(23 points)
- Jamming Field ( 2 points)
=
25
total ship cost
Gozanti-class Cruisers
(23 points)
- Comms Net ( 2 points)
=
25
total ship cost
6
TIE Fighter Squadrons
( 48 points)
The Rebel:
REB TEST1
Faction:
Rebel Alliance
Points:
232/250
Commander: Admiral Ackbar
[ flagship ]
Assault Frigate Mark II B
(72 points)
- Admiral Ackbar ( 38 points)
- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
=
117
total ship cost
GR-75 Medium Transports
(18 points)
- Bomber Command Center ( 8 points)
=
26
total ship cost
GR-75 Medium Transports
(18 points)
- Jamming Field ( 2 points)
=
20
total ship cost
3
X-Wing Squadrons
( 39 points)
3
Y-Wing Squadrons
( 30 points)
I printed out the steps to activation that are here on the forum and simplified them to 3 pages as a resource for her.
I asked her which style of play she preferred, a direct approach, more inclined towards engaging ships directly with a gunboat, or an evasive approach that involved using maneuverability and fleet synergy as well as long range shooting. She was pretty quick to choose direct, so she got to play using the flying pizza wedge of doom.
We set up on a 3x3 no obstacles no objectives.
The first round we went over the game objective, how rounds were structured, what each command and token did, how to deploy as well as certain easy deployment tactics like delaying with squadrons and the basics of maneuvering. She was quick to catch on.
She continued to practice those in round 2 and fired her first shots at long range. We covered attack dice and what each icon did, defense tokens and what they do, and which order the activate in.
By round three I had used a couple of x-wings to tie up her ties and as she moved her destroyer in for a medium range blast softened it up with 3 or 4 bombers. We talked about the dangers of bomber squadrons and the effectiveness of squadrons activated by ships, giving her advice to use the ties to engage my bombers before they could harm the ISD.
I managed to keep the Assault frigate at long range until round 4 where she got a fairly good blast off on it. At this point I explained upgrades that allow for rerolls, how accuracy icons work and how important they are, as well as how effective having a defensive upgrade can be. Her fighters began picking mine off.
Round 5 The assault frigate was at 3 hull remaining and only 2 shields to redirect to, the ISD was out of shields and had 3 hull remaining using her advantage as first player she sank my Assault frigate effectively ending the game as my bombers were all heavily weakened, tied up, and out of range to be activated, winning my learners scenario.
She said she had an absolute blast learning to play, and has since been talking mad smack about how she's gonna be good enough to beat her boyfriend soon. He's been telling me she's been building fleets all weekend.
I was thinking of doing a second tutorial around the same fleet cost, maybe up to 300 points, that used obstacles and covered the importance of objectives as well as showcasing aces and special squadrons like intel or relay .
Anyways, I think it was a complete success, she seems hooked. Anyone else have similar successes or have ideas to improve this?
