I was running http://armadawarlords.hivelabs.solutions/view_list.php?token=131807&key=dc7f4c618303706715e3a95d069e8918 :

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 398/400

Commander: General Madine

Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Planetary Ion Cannon
Navigation Objective: Salvage Run

[ flagship ] MC80 Battle Cruiser (103 points)
- General Madine ( 30 points)
- Endeavor ( 4 points)
- Raymus Antilles ( 7 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Engine Techs ( 8 points)
- Spinal Armament ( 9 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 172 total ship cost

MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63 points)
- Admonition ( 8 points)
- Lando Calrissian ( 4 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- H9 Turbolasers ( 8 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
= 92 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Bright Hope ( 2 points)
- Toryn Farr ( 7 points)
= 27 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
= 18 total ship cost

1 Shara Bey ( 17 points)
2 E-Wing Squadrons ( 30 points)
1 X-Wing Squadron ( 13 points)
1 Rogue Squadron ( 14 points)
1 VCX-100 Freighter ( 15 points)

No photos from my first game, but my opponent was at his first tournament ever and ran Madine on a Command Cruiser with Wing Commander and Boosted Comms, and an MC80L with Nav Commander and Xi7s. He had a smattering of aces including Nym, Norra, and I forget what else. We played his solar corona and he deployed his two ships in such a way that his command cruiser couldn't avoid a collision on round 1 and his corona objective was on the wrong side of the board from where I deployed. That was a 400-17 win for me, the only thing I lost was Shara Bey.

Game 2 I faced Daniel Nowak, winner of the Steele Open. He ran Ackbar MC80 Defiance, 2 GR75's with titles, comms net, Leia, TRC Jaina's Light, Shara, 3 awing, 2 Xwing, 2 VCX, and we played his Planetary Ion Cannons. He put the 3 tokens in a horizontal line across the middle of the field. Dan forgot to set his dial for Jaina's Light, and without the nav command I was in blue range at the start of round 2, killing it. Round 3 I activated Admonition first and killed one flotilla out the port side, but only had a front arc shot at Bright Hope. I managed to get 2 damage through with the APT crit and foolishly opted to land on it to kill it instead of setting up a shot for the next turn. This left me barely within range of Defiance's side arc, and I ate a solid shot. This is the first time I forgot about Lando, despite thinking about him while Dan was rolling dice. I jumped the gun and got too ancy with using my evades and Admo ability. This cost me a tourney point after it happened again in Rd 6 and I forgot a 2nd time, letting him kill Admonition in the last round. I ended up with a 6 point win, having killed everything except Defiance.

Game 3 was against Jonathan Kwak with his usual 2 ISD 1 Moff Jerjerrod list. I think he had JJ on Relentless with Leading Shots and Boarding Troopers and a Skilled First Officer, and Avenger with Boarding Troopers, Leading Shots, and XX9s, 2 Gozantis, and Marek Steele, 2 Defenders and Valen Rudor. He chose my Salvage Run objective. I lost both flotillas but managed to get all 4 tokens. Because I failed to state that I was claiming a token when I activated one flotilla he called it a missed opportunity and I had to work a bit to get my VCX in range to flip it out to Endeavor. It was a bit jarring and disrupted my thoughts. By scrambling to do that I ended up losing all my squadrons and the squadron battle, ending up with only the 4 tokens and one Defender killed. End result was a 5-6 loss. This is the 2nd time I've faced this list in as many weeks, and I need to figure out how to get Admo in close range and not fear the Boarding Troopers, it's the only way to actually kill one. JJ and speed 3 ISDs are a good counter to Madine.

Game 4 I faced Lex and the first Sloan list of the day. He had an ISD 2 with Boarding Troopers and Avenger as his flagship. I think it was also kitted out to run squadrons, can't remember though. His Quasar had Pursuant with Flight controllers, Boosted Comms, Expanded Hangar Bays, and Flight Commander. His Gozanti only had comms net, and his squadrons included Dengar, Howlrunner, Valen Rudor, 2 or 3 TIEs and a handful of INTs. I think he had the bid and chose to go 2nd. I chose Solar Corona but we both forgot about the effect until after the game. I don't think I rolled any accuracies anyway. I managed to scare him with my E-wings, and killed two Ints off the bat, but lost Shara Bey to a single activation. He then threw his entire squadron ball into the middle so I got a good bit of flack out of it. I had to use Toryn Farr on almost every shot from my MC30, but it allowed me to throw a damage on almost everything he had there. Round 2 I had to put Admo facing away from his ISD because that was the only path to not collide and end up in the front arc. It did put me in position to slaughter his Pursuant, and I ended up with a 7 point win by mopping up everything but the ISD.

Game 5 ended with me facing Josh and his 6 Hammerhead Cracken swarm. All TFO and external racks except the flagship. He also had 3 2400s, Corran, Rogue, Han, and Dash. I chose Fighter Ambush since MW was flat out and Superior Positions looked worse. This is where mental fatigue really hit. Looking at the first shot of the last game you can see how badly I misdeployed by putting all of my squadrons in the center and then throwing the Endeavor down on the far left. I had one solid shot on a HH and got all but 1 damage on it. His rogues tore up my shields and got a token to end round 1. Fearing the rogues I rammed Cracken (leftmost HH) but ended up behind his line of battle. Admonition died at Round 2 and gave him 2 more tokens. The last rogue shot killed it, and any hope of my winning. Round 3 I finally got Shara Bey in to tie up Rogue, a 2400, and Dash. That only lasted for 2 turns though, and he managed to wipe out my squadrons as well. I managed to run around and land on the nearly dead Hammerhead to kill it and end my Turn 6, his 3 remaining rogues couldn't get any more tokens to finish, and he earned an 8-3 win.

I ended up in 8th place out of 25, and I believe only 6 of those 25 were Rebels. I think I had the only MC80L as well.

Thanks for the write up. Congrats on 8th place in a tough field.

5 rounds in one day is rough, they didn't do that at the European Championship. 7 rounds over 2 days was much better.

What do you think was the key factor in mental fatigue? Hunger / dehydration or just the brain grinding of 5 rounds of Armada?

Also, I'm sorry but... calling a salvage run token a missed opportunity is a bit poor in my opinion. It's a game we want to win but you can still be gentlemanly.

Oh, I totally thought it was a **** move. And just the grind of that many matches. Meal breaks don't quite line up properly. Ended up getting dinner at 430ish, etc.

Nice write up and report.

Was this your first time running Madine and a Liberty?

Glad to hear at least two fleets brought Liberty 's; thanks for the writeup, it's great to hear feedback from big tournaments like this one.

Yeah, the other guy I saw with a Liberty was really having a bad day of it. Don't know much more than that he was running it with Leia, and he has the misfortune of being a Giants fan.

8 hours ago, Mundo said:

Also, I'm sorry but... calling a salvage run token a missed opportunity is a bit poor in my opinion. It's a game we want to win but you can still be gentlemanly.

Kwak is a by the book kind of guy. He'll deny you a token if you don't have it on your ship base.

...

Good stuff. Some thoughts from games I've played with Madine, the Liberty, and Admo with similar load-outs.

Game 1: Sounds solid.

Game 2: You're right, Lando is big saver here. I've played with a Landmonition on and off, and he's pretty integral to my flying possibilities, so I rarely forget him. Was this a fairly early run-through of the list? I don't know quite what all else he had, and I know you're short an activation compared to what I normally run, but tabling that kind of a list is definitely possible.

Game 3: Getting Landmonition into position. You were second in the match-up, which means Landmonition gets to go last. So that means you don't have to place it last. And even if he Avenger exhausts all your tokens, you can still reroll with Lando and then pitch with the Admonition title. I find that Lando starts to be worth 3-4 damage points on a really big hit, which is what Avenger is often built to do, and then you Admonition any double hits or hit/crits remaining. The end result should really be about 4 total damage, which means even if he rams you, you live. I realize I'll sometimes lose Admo and the game, but that's going to be a risk that I accept, because about 80% of the time there isn't a kill, and then Admo can return fire. Get some Liberty follow-up shots and its a dead ISD. Lando is the key to flexible positioning with Admonition, and he's really second-player insurance, where it gets much harder to place Admonition without eating at least one shot. IN any event, you played well enough for a 5-6, and against a good player, you definitely should be proud of those results.

Game 4: Looks solid here. Definitely in the spirit of how I play the squadron game.

Game 5: I cannot imagine the exhaustion you were facing at this point. I can make some pretty tough mistakes at the end of a three round tournament, and I made a major error at Worlds that cost me 6th place there (24th instead) in my final game, supposedly after sleeping the night before. I know you mentioned MW as being completely out, but is it. I've played enough games with my list to know that if the opponent's squadron make-up is bad, then Fighter Ambush can be as bad as Superior Positions. In my list, my squadrons are there to buy time to kill the ships, and it is going to be a bit of time before those rogues finish the squads and free themselves to hit ships, so the Liberty needs to knock out as many HH as it can and then just be so far gone that the speed-4 Corran/YT2400 cannot catch up. It is one of those cases where it is almost counter-intuitive, but going right down his throat into the squadron mess and then out the other side might just be for the best. On Most Wanted, what I think makes it playable here is that allow he does get extra dice, he's still got to be in a position where he can make those shots, and with first player and a ship that kills enemy small ships extremely well, you're more primed to take him out than he is you. And in a worst case scenario, there's probably some deployment pattern and flying pattern that means the Liberty leaves.

I am curious what the bids were at, because I've been working with dropping my bid (I took 387 or 388 to Worlds with pretty much wanting first) and looking to take first if the opportunity is there, but try to take second and force people off of bad objectives in a lot of cases, which especially at the end, would help with the Most Wanted/Fighter Ambush/Superior Positions problem in that last match-up. Its really a fine art, because I'd prefer to go first if at all possible, but against lists with really high bids, I want to spend as close to 400 as I can. But then against lists that want to be second, I want enough of a bid that I can force them off and into my objectives. So its turned into a weird mid-390s on the bid to see if I can work that out. What were you seeing most games?

Game 2: No, I've been playing it for quite a while now, just haven't gotten in nearly as many games as I would like. It was just anticipation. Thought process went something along the lines of "Okay, large attack here, Lando it and then use your tokens." to "Oh man, let's see evade that one and toss out that die." right after seeing the shot.

Game 3: I lack experience taking MC30s against Avenger BT (and against ISDs mostly, my more frequent opponents have gone to mostly small ships) so it was just playing too cautiously. I'm more used to playing risky with the Endeavor than Admonition.

Game 5: Talking after the game his main worry was that I'd use my squadrons to farm tokens off of his ships. I think you're right regarding the MW, I need to test it more. I dislike it mostly because I only have two ships that can do anything with the objective, and I know how fragile Endeavor is. I jumped at Fighter Ambush since he had such a massive deployment advantage and I knew that would counter it. I cannot tell you why I squadron delayed and then dropped my flagship so far from any squad cover AND next to an obstacle. Just a total lack of thought at all.

Bids are mostly near 397/8 except for those who want to go first badly, and they're fairly rare and around 387 or so. I would like to be nearer to 394 to avoid those lists that want to claim second.