So, much to my surprise, there was a store championship in my neck of the woods! Go 4 Games in Metairie, LA had a SC, and although we only had 3 attendees, it was still a lot of fun!
I brought a slight variation of the list I ran at World's (badly), because I figured I should just play something I had played at least once, rather than my usual trick of bringing something I hacked together the day before.
Name: Store Champs 2018
Faction: Imperial
Commander: Admiral Screed
Assault: Most Wanted
Defense: Planetary Ion Cannon
Navigation: Solar Corona
ISD Kuat Refit (112)
• Admiral Screed (26)
• Strategic Adviser (4)
• Boarding Troopers (3)
• Early Warning System (7)
• Leading Shots (4)
• External Racks (3)
• Avenger (5)
= 164 Points
Gladiator I (56)
• Intel Officer (7)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• Engine Techs (8)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
• Demolisher (10)
= 90 Points
Raider II (48)
• Disposable Capacitors (3)
• Heavy Ion Emplacements (9)
= 60 Points
Gozanti Cruisers (23)
= 23 Points
Gozanti Cruisers (23)
= 23 Points
Squadrons:
• 2 x TIE Fighter Squadron (16)
= 16 Points
Total Points: 376
Not much to say about this, in my mind kind of standard BTA, Screed's the only Admiral I remember to use, and I gotta have Demolisher.
With only three people we were going to play two games each, and everyone would get a bye, so it worked out ok. I tried to convince some guys playing Firestorm Armada to play as well, I figured they already had the "Armada" part of the game, it wasn't that much of a stretch. But no luck.
I had the first bye, and so got to watch Joey and Ricky (I'm 99% sure it was Joey, if not I apologize!) duke it out. Ricky had played some high level Armada in the past, and was running what he called a "JJ/Yik/Nathan Combo List":
Name: Ricky's Fleet
Faction: Rebel
Commander: General Rieekan
Assault: Advanced Gunnery
Defense: Fighter Ambush
Navigation: Superior Positions
MC75 Armored Cruiser (104)
• General Rieekan (30)
• Strategic Adviser (4)
• Boosted Comms (4)
• SW-7 Ion Batteries (5)
= 147 Points
Nebulon-B Escort Frigate (57)
• Adar Tallon (10)
• Yavaris (5)
= 72 Points
GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Toryn Farr (7)
• Bright Hope (2)
= 27 Points
GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Comms Net (2)
= 20 Points
Squadrons:
• Corran Horn (22)
• Dutch Vander (16)
• Gold Squadron (12)
• Norra Wexley (17)
• Rogue Squadron (14)
• Ten Numb (19)
• 2 x VCX-100 Freighter (30)
= 130 Points
Total Points: 396
Or something close to that...
And Joey was running a fleet near and dear to my heart, an Imperial Glad-I swarm, but supported by a ton of fighters (I can't remember his actual list, but this is close, although he was also at 396, so I'm missing something:
Name: Joey's Fleet
Faction: Imperial
Commander: Admiral Screed
Assault: Blockade Run
Defense: Contested Outpost
Navigation: Intel Sweep
Gladiator I (56)
• Admiral Screed (26)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• Demolisher (10)
= 96 Points
Gladiator I (56)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
= 61 Points
Gladiator I (56)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
= 61 Points
Raider I (44)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• Rapid Reload (8)
= 56 Points
Squadrons:
• Saber Squadron (12)
• 2 x TIE Defender Squadron (32)
• 5 x TIE Fighter Squadron (40)
• 2 x TIE Phantom Squadron (28)
= 112 Points
Total Points: 386
Ricky was able to wipe out most of Joey's fighters in their game, and I think ended up with a 9-2. So I played Ricky in Round 2.
I apologize for no pictures, I was just so excited to play some Armada again (and meet local players!) that I forgot...
I took first, and we played Ricky's Advanced Gunnery, with my BTA and his MC75 as the objective ships. We set up pretty much across from each other in the center of the table, but with his deployment advantage, he was able to set the MC75 up with a nice angle to hook around the right side of my fleet.
I played much more aggressively than usual with my Demo and Raider II, ran them hard at the GR-75s on Ricky's right flank, while BTA slow rolled the middle. Ricky set his fighters up to attack the BTA, but then when he saw how aggressive I was with Demo, he split about half of them off to try to take it out. Turn 2, I got Demo into black range of the Bright Hope, and IO'ed the Scatter away. Demo took a beating, but was still alive with 3 hull left. Turn 3, I killed Bright Hope with my right side arc, and Ricky used Rieekan. Which made sense. Except I then, at speed 3, was able to hop over Bright Hope, and got into black range on his other GR75 with my front arc. ACC and Blank on the reds, Hit/Crit Hit on the blacks... very unlucky for Ricky, as that GR75 was needed to pad his activation and move his fighters... His MC75 couldn't slow down (it had a squadron command), and ended up JUST in short range of BTA. E-racks, no useable defense tokens resulted in 8 damage to the hull, and a BTA ram finished it off. Still, Yavaris (and the Zombie Bright Hope) commanded enough bombers to drop all of BTA's shields, and put 6 or 7 damage on the hull. Turn 4 I was able to catch Yavaris in a cross fire, but this was WAY closer than it sounds. Without that perfect Demo roll, I would have lost Demo, and likely lost BTA as well. But, the dice were kind to me, and I got the 10-1.
In round 3, I desperately wanted to play Joey's Blockade Run, but the logistics of the table set up would have made that almost impossible. I just thought that sounded like a fun Objective. Instead we played Intel Sweep, with his Raider and one of my Gozanti's tasked with collecting tokens.
I deployed my Gozanti and 2 of the Intel tokens to the far right of the board, figuring I'd need to grab at least two to stay even on the objective, but intending to just fling firepower at the Raider and hopefully knock it out before it got 3. Joey put a Glad-I to contest the tokens on my right side, and the rest of his fleet on my left. He split his fighters as well, with his TIEs facing the Gozanti, and the rest of the squadrons on my left.
This game was interesting because I think if Joey had put the Glad-I that he used to contest the Intel Sweep Gozanti with his other two Glads and the Raider, it would have gone far worse for me. I'd set my Raider on the right side of my board to support the Gozanti, so it would have been out of position. As it was, my Raider could harass the Glad-I for two turns, and then run away. By which time Demo and BTA had cleaned up the other two Glads, and I had just enough time to get Demo onto the final Gladiator, while BTA shot up Joey's Raider. Again, BTA ended up with 6 or 7 hull damage from squadron attacks (I think I overestimated the utility of EWS, and Joey and Ricky both played around it really well). But I was fortunate and got a 10-1 here as well.
So, good to play some Armada close to home, and meet some really cool local players. Both had watched the World's streams so we got to talk about the strategies and such, and it was lots of fun. Hopefully we'll get to play some more games in the future. Big thanks to Go 4 Games for hosting, everyone was very welcoming and the staff did a great job juggling a few events that were happening simultaneously.