After slugging it out in a rather one-sided Corellian Conflict campaign between 6 players here , the Imperial fleet launched an All Out Assault. In the Imperial Blue corner we had:

Grand Admiral Thrawn's Double Pizza Slices: Double Cymoon ISDs with fleet commands and the offensive works. Double gozantis for squadron support, and an ace-ball.

Admiral Motti's Rock Candy: A Kuat ISD leading two Vic IIs into battle, alongside some heavy squadrons.

Admiral 'Thousand Cuts' Sloane: A ISD II with Q7 Tractors, Chiraneau, Gunnery Teams, Avenger, X17s and so on, Interdictor with G-8 + Title + Targeting Scrambler. All the squadrons, including Soontir, Dengar, Ciena, Howlrunner, Mauler, Jonus, 2 TIE Advanced Squadrons and 4 TIEs.

In the nervous corner:

Grand Admiral Raddus' Bombastic Minis: Profundity, Garel's Honour and A MC-80 with Rapid Launch bays. Many, many A-wings.

Admiral Ackbar's Cereal: Pickles - winged and de-winged. GR-75 baby pickle. Many, many X-wings.

Commander Sato And His Green Fleet: Potato, Pickle and Phoenix Home. Many, many X-wings.

Top of Turn 1:

Avenger, 2 VIC IIs and one Cymoon in hyperspace, with squadrons to boot. Raddus' Entire Fleet in hyperspace, alongside and MC-80 and Phoenix. Imperials are on the left, Rebels not on the left. No shots yet, surprisingly.

Top of Turn 2:

A slow engagement, speed 2 for everything you see except gozantis. Imperials change speed to keep all front arcs on target, Rebels feel nervous. The squadrons move to be ready to engage next round. No hyperspace forces yet.

Turn 3 (No Photo!):

Avenger dropped out of hyperspace alongside one VIC II. Rebels counterdeployed with a MC-80 and Phoenix. Raddus detonated his bomb (all three ships on the left), but at an inexplicable speed II, so he began to fall behind almost immediately. Avenger killed an MC-80 in two shots before it could ever do anything. VIC II took soe pounding; protecting the Avenger's flank. Ships moved into engagement range, ready for next turn.

Top of Turn 4:

Imperials counter deployed against Raddus; no more hyperspace reserves for each side. Imperial ships promptly wreck, losing only the top-right VIC II. Imperials are heavily favoured in all squadron battles. All gozantis have now been swallowed whole by the ISD.

Turn 5:

Rebels lose an MC-75, and rapidly lose squadrons. Imperials chuckle over a glass of mineral water. Avenger still hasn't taken damage...

Top of Turn 6:

The battle is very one-sided at this point. nearly all rebel squadrons are dead. Rebel ships continue to take damage, while Imperials suffer minimal losses. MC-75 on the left is slowed by the ISD, putting it in the absolute worst position.

End of turn 7:

Imperials almost make a clean sweep. 2 X-win squadrons and Phoenix Home remain. All else is lost. Imperials lost a total of 1 VIC II and about 130 points of squadrons, plus 1 gozanti that was flown off the board. MoV is very, very nice.

Conclusions and Tactics :

ISDs were MVP at every point. Save for bumping damage, nothing ever got close enough to penetrate the shields. hyperspace reserves are crucial, and the Rebels simply didn't counterdeploy enough against the Avenger, which ended up destroying 4 ships (2 flotillas) and shredding numerous squadrons with squad commands and AA fire.

On the whole, a massive and massively enjoyable battle, but one in which an already winning team (very much Imperials here) has a solid advantage.

What's your take on the first/second player advantage?

16 hours ago, ManInTheBox said:

What's your take on the first/second player advantage?

Throughout the whole campaign, the first (attacking) players almost universally has the advantage. That flips for the AoA though, where the second team has a very distinct advantage.

Hyperspace reserves can be half a player's fleet or more, and the ability to put them exactly where you want them is unparalleled. As second player, that team gets to react to their opponents plays every turn before making their own. In other words, any ships the first player deploys are instantly counter-played by the opposing team.

In our game this was largely offset by the Avenger, which delighted in moving first, blowing up ships left, right and centre. But with two teams that are evenly matched, the second player team should win the battle every time based on this advantage.

Were the teams balanced in playing experience?

On 6/20/2018 at 2:41 PM, Fallenwolf15 said:

Were the teams balanced in playing experience?

Nominally, yes. We had one player on each team that had played for several months, one each that had got into the game a few weeks prior and had only a couple of games under their belt, and one each that hadn't really moved past 300 point games yet.

In actuality, nowhere close. On the Imperial side, Thrawn and myself just had a natural aptitude for the kind of strategy and tactics required of Armada, whereas our Rebel equivalents were much more the "learn by experience" type of players, leaving them at a bit disadvantage.

It also didn't help that Imperial triangles are much more forgiving for new players than the squishier Rebel ships, so mistakes cost the rebellion an awful lot more.

We'll likely be starting another campaign in early July - 4 to a side. We'll be splitting the players a lot more evenly, hopefully, and it should lead to more interesting games.