So my FLGS has secured the rights to hold one of the Australian Regionals early next year, which has me excited - this shall be my first event larger than a small store championship.
What do I need to know about Regionals? What should I expect? And do I want to get a second Interdictor, channel my inner Dras, and fly a nose-punch fleet?
Whatever fleet you run, know it inside and out. Practice with it as much as you can. I personally like playing a fun list, as 4-5 rounds can be grueling.
Drink lots of water.
I'd bet @Snipafist and I can write an article or two pretty soon about attending one of these....
(Dibs dibs dibs! Unless we did it already?)
2 minutes ago, geek19 said:I'd bet @Snipafist and I can write an article or two pretty soon about attending one of these....
(Dibs dibs dibs! Unless we did it already?)
I wrote an article about how the Armada tournament rules work a while back. They haven't changed any, so it's still fresh.
I added a "tournament preparation article" to my list of things to do, as I'm usually the one hollering at our crew about things to do prior to tournaments, haha. We've done a few articles about post-tournament wrapups (I did two on Adepticon as I recall, you had a longer one on the store tournament/championship, I had a shorter one for the Pastimes store champs), but they're not in any indexes anywhere. You kind of need to just search them out.
15 minutes ago, Snipafist said:I wrote an article about how the Armada tournament rules work a while back. They haven't changed any, so it's still fresh.
I added a "tournament preparation article" to my list of things to do, as I'm usually the one hollering at our crew about things to do prior to tournaments, haha. We've done a few articles about post-tournament wrapups (I did two on Adepticon as I recall, you had a longer one on the store tournament/championship, I had a shorter one for the Pastimes store champs), but they're not in any indexes anywhere. You kind of need to just search them out.
Nah, I meant tourney prep. Much like @CaribbeanNinja said above, only longer and more rambling if I'm writing it. With terrible puns and Muppets jokes.
Know your fleet. Unless you are one of the few who really thrive on grueling events, don’t have it be based around a difficult gimmick. You will start whiffing in the gimmick later in the day.
1 hour ago, CaribbeanNinja said:Whatever fleet you run, know it inside and out. Practice with it as much as you can. I personally like playing a fun list, as 4-5 rounds can be grueling.
Drink lots of water.
And Advil/Tylenol. About round 3 I get headaches from thinking so hard.
1 hour ago, CaribbeanNinja said:Whatever fleet you run, know it inside and out. Practice with it as much as you can. I personally like playing a fun list, as 4-5 rounds can be grueling.
Drink lots of water.
This. Fun fleets are good for morale, but know it like the back of your hand. Even if you end up with a poor matchup, if you know your list well, you might still outfly the other guy, which can be enough to keep you going.
Being aware of food and beverage availability is also wise. E.g. Giga-Bites, as the name suggests moonlights as a cafe with a fairly large spread of options given the kitchen they work with. By contrast, Hobbytown (which doesn't have a Regional but did have a Store Championship) requires you to leave the store and raid the strip mall it's a part of. Knowing this beforehand can help a lot.
6 hours ago, CaribbeanNinja said:Drink lots of water.
I think you meant beer......
6 minutes ago, jamie nasmyth said:I think you meant beer......
I did that before nationals.
Worked pretty well.
If you're like me, don't underestimate quality snacks and water. Proteins and good carbs and water keep you fresh.
Most importantly, HAVE FUN! It's a slog but it's good times.
*edit: also, sit down!!! Standing for 10 hours sucks.
Edited by Viktor TanekYou're generally better picking one key concept and sticking with it for a while. It is one thing to want to play different fleets, but if you want your game to rise to the top, then you've got to have a good concept that you play enough games with against a variety of fleets so that you can get a sense of what you need to do against different fleet types.
For as much as is made about which fleets are excelling at given events, I'm convinced that once a fleet reaches a certain level, the rest mostly comes down to player skill and match-ups.
If you want a good overview of a fleet-building process, look up my regional reports and worlds reports from last year. I did goof around a little bit between regionals and especially in the lag time from my last regional until worlds, but I basically stuck with variations of the same fleet archetype that I then rigorously reevaluated and updated based on my results.
Pick something you can have fun with. Realize that you have the right to determine what fun means to you. In my case, I managed to win a regional two seasons ago, but I was a newb to the game and I borrowed a fleet that I saw win elsewhere from a player that I knew was skilled, and the total of my tweaking was a single upgrade. For the second time around, I wanted to take a ship that was in the negative at the time on the forums, with a commander who was in the negative at the time (Liberty+Madine), and then try to make them work as best as I could. Fun for me went carving out a place for myself in the landscape of players by doing something that no one else was doing.
A couple of key observations I have after having been in this game from Wave-2 to the present:
1. Most of the key archetypes remain the same from wave to wave. A Death pickle is still a death pickle, for example. You might update it with strategic squads or expand it with flotillas, but the core of the archetype has persisted from wave 2 to the present. You can also build on most key archetypes in a number of different ways.
2. Generally speaking, there's a limited amount of stuff that works very well, and most of it is pretty well known. So if you want to be competitive, you definitely have to look at what was winning, and then do your best to understand why it was competitive and why it won. And then the hard part is thinking about all of the different competitive builds, their strengths, weaknesses, and general match-ups against each other. Almost all builds have something extreme about them that they do extremely effectively and which makes them particularly tough to match up against. I'm not at all convinced that balance is the right perspective to apply here. Instead, you're better off thinking of the possible fleet archetypes as questions for which your own fleet needs an answer. Your fleet will almost certainly have a weakness to something out there. How can you minimize that weakness either in your design or in your flying?
My two cents based on four regionals, one GenCon, and a Worlds.
Hm, for me preparation works like this:
That's pretty much all I have time for in terms of prep.
Bring some deodorant. I know I need a freshening up after standing there playing for a few hours.
Wait...never mind...these are the rules from Zombieland...
I tend to think that snacks and water are pretty important while standing at a table for 7+ hours. Knowing the fleet...makes sense. If you are trying to be good at something, practice it. This is common knowledge.
Regional specific, I would make sure you understand the metas. you will get the loan wayward traveler with a goofy "never-seen-before" combo, but usually, the locals and the outlyers define what you will see. In your case, the research might be harder since in the past the Aussies have "gone walk-about" from miles away in order to get games in so you may have more travelers than we are used to in the states.
Extreme weather conditioning. You need to expose yourself to the elements while doing Calculus III homework in the middle of the night with no calculator in order to build up your mental capacity under duress.
This came in handy during the Gigabytes Summer regional of 2016 when the AC went out in the middle of a hot Georgia day. My opponents were losing their minds, but I had the fortitude and clarity of mind to order my last corvette and flagship to ram Ackbar’s Frigate for the final points of damage, resulting in a fireball of death for all involved. Twas a glorious scene as Rieekan screamed Ackbar’s name from the grave.
However, you should note that I only just barely place in the top half, so more extreme measures are highly recommended to further increase your endurance. 20 nights on cold ice, minimum
13 hours ago, jamie nasmyth said:I think you meant beer......
That's my key to tounament success right there. Keeps you calm, also helps alleviate the pain of defeat. Wich becomes more likely when you've depleted over 50% of your supply. But as long as your having fun that's what is the most important thing.
Basically I'm saying mental state is the most important. Without being in a good one, you can tail spin and not recover. Possibly for the rest of the tournament. A bad mood begets bad decisions.
Eh, But what do I know. I'm just some guy.
2 minutes ago, Noosh said:That's my key to
tounament successlife right there.
FTFY
14 minutes ago, Megatronrex said:FTFY
Such a glaring error on my part I'm ashamed of myself.
18 minutes ago, Noosh said:That's my key to tounament success right there. Keeps you calm, also helps alleviate the pain of defeat. Wich becomes more likely when you've depleted over 50% of your supply. But as long as your having fun that's what is the most important thing.
Basically I'm saying mental state is the most important. Without being in a good one, you can tail spin and not recover. Possibly for the rest of the tournament. A bad mood begets bad decisions.
Eh, But what do I know. I'm just some guy.
This!!
I am probably one of the most competitive guys here and even I enjoy the game and it’s players more than I enjoy winning.
Difference between winners and losers is that winners don’t know they are in a race, they just run because they love it!
This game has done a fairly good job at keeping it balance thus far and it is because of this that it has brought in a good player base. There are always bad apples of course, but almost anywhere I go I have a great time just hanging out with the players during and afterwards. I have actually developed some long distance friends because of this game who I regularly stay in touch with. And I am often more excited at the chance at hanging out with them then the competition itself now.
Not that I don’t want to win, but it is more important to me to win with grace, and I appreciate the challenges good players bring to the table.
If you learn to live in the moment you will find that winning usually comes with it by itself.
4 minutes ago, Brikhause said:This!!
I am probably one of the most competitive guys here and even I enjoy the game and it’s players more than I enjoy winning.
Difference between winners and losers is that winners don’t know they are in a race, they just run because they love it!
This game has done a fairly good job at keeping it balance thus far and it is because of this that it has brought in a good player base. There are always bad apples of course, but almost anywhere I go I have a great time just hanging out with the players during and afterwards. I have actually developed some long distance friends because of this game who I regularly stay in touch with. And I am often more excited at the chance at hanging out with them then the competition itself now.
Not that I don’t want to win, but it is more important to me to win with grace, and I appreciate the challenges good players bring to the table.
If you learn to live in the moment you will find that winning usually comes with it by itself.
This pretty much sums up how I feel about Armada and the overwhelming majority of the people I've met who play it. Well said.
5 hours ago, Mikael Hasselstein said:Hm, for me preparation works like this:
- Butter up wife.
Kinky! Will margarine work too? Will have to ask mine this way. 
As someone who sometimes stands all day in the OR, bringing a cushioned mat to stand on (yoga mat or such) has surprisingly nice effects on your mental alertness over a long day...
16 hours ago, jamie nasmyth said:I think you meant beer......
It can really take the edge off of a long day gaming.
I'm a big proponent of having some good food in between rounds. I usually have my cargo pockets stuffed with some fruit and granola bars, and keep a water bottle handy for the tourney.
Otherwise, as others have said, it comes down to just playing what's fun, and keeping things light-hearted
Edit: Oh! And wear good shoes! I got some old-guy shoes with super thick soles on them and they make tourney days far less painful.
Edited by Alzer6 hours ago, Maturin said:As someone who sometimes stands all day in the OR, bringing a cushioned mat to stand on (yoga mat or such) has surprisingly nice effects on your mental alertness over a long day...
Friend of mine actually has an old director's chair from many many moons ago he uses. It's an idea I plan to steal for December.
Edited by GiledPallaeon52 minutes ago, GiledPallaeon said:Friend of mine actually has an old director's chair from many many moons ago he uses. It's an idea I plan to steal for December.
You should get this chair
http://www.regalrobot.com/shop/star-wars-furniture-art-decor/empire-strikes-back-directors-chairs/
Or better yet find a cheap chair and just get this
http://www.regalrobot.com/shop/star-wars-furniture-art-decor/star-wars-esb-directors-chairs-covers/
But you'd be the most pimp with this
http://www.regalrobot.com/shop/star-wars-furniture-art-decor/custom-dewback-loveseat/
And then you could play on this
http://www.regalrobot.com/shop/star-wars-furniture-art-decor/han-solo-carbonite-desk/
Edited by Megatronrex