Not gonna go full-on battle report here, but do want to share a few (poorly lit, I'm afraid) photos. I'd been dubious of playing Armada at higher point levels for a while now, but with 800pts per side this game looks pretty **** good!
Also wanted to list (somewhat stream-of-consciousness style) a few thoughts that came out of this.
The 2 vs 1 format seems to work fine in terms of game management (the single player is probably more coordinated across the two fleets on the board, but they have less time for admin of their play area, and risk decision fatigue over the course of the game)
Lists should definitely be coordinated before playing. I'd anticipated we might end up with uneven numbers and knew Sector Fleet was an option, so wanted to have two fleets ready in case it came to it. As it did, my two complementary fleets played out pretty well, while my opponents' "put together on the spot" fleets were each fine, but at a bit of a disadvantage as they didn't have the level of synergy I did.
The action starts happening quickly. We were trading meaningful shots and making a serious dent on things by turn 2. By the end of turn 3 an entire Motti ISD was gone as well as several other ships. There are fewer places to hide and more chances to get shots with your ships. It goes from "****, I'll only get to fire this ship a couple times a game" at standard levels to "I've actually got too many targets to choose from here" with everything set up and playing closer together.
The game isn't slow at this level, but it isn't quick either. We took a while to get set up and it was our first run through of Sector Fleet so we were probably a bit slower on some of the decision-making than we would be at 400pts where we're more used to that game state. Probably managed those 3 turns in about 2 hours or so but I can believe that you could fire through 2v2 800pts in 3hrs or so with a bit of familiarity with the system.
800pts fits on a 6x3 pretty well, but I have my concerns over how 1200pts will manage. That could get very messy, with a lot of friendly bumps.
Bring a squad screen. My opponents only had 4 squads, so my Rebel bomber wing chewed through them pretty quickly then just started punishing the ships. Fighter Ambush just meant things were getting silly, 12 tokens in 3 turns and if we'd carried on playing that number would have skyrocketed.
Final thought: we probably got things wrong! Looking forward to having a re-read of the rules now that we've actually got a game under our belts to give it a bit of context.
But yeah, if you're running a single player Ackbar 1200pts that's got potential to get bumpy. Got options though, can use nav commands to basically layer your ships so as they try to get close to the front line of ships there's a second row behind them to add supporting fire?