Armada - Store Tournament Report (9/15)

My continuing quest to find people to play Armada against in my new locale led me today to just south of Kansas City in Shawnee, a 2 1/3 hour drive I don't plan on making a habit of. The Geekery, a game store in Shawnee, still has an active Armada community, and with the release of the SSD had started a series of monthly 600 point store tournaments.

I almost went to the August tournament, backing out at last minute because of work commitments. However, I cleared out my schedule and made the time to go today, taking a list I developed on the drive home from LR last month to take advantage of the 600-point format and my shiny new MC80. 

Shawnee Fleet, “Home One”

Faction: Rebel
Commander: General Dodonna

Assault: Advanced Gunnery
Defense: Capture the VIP
Navigation: Dangerous Territory

MC80 Assault Cruiser (114)
• General Dodonna (20)
• Strategic Adviser (4)
• Electronic Countermeasures (7)
• Reinforced Blast Doors (5)
• Leading Shots (4)
• Home One (7)
= 161 Points

Pelta Command Ship (60)
• Raymus Antilles (7)
• Intensify Firepower! (6)
= 73 Points

CR90 Corvette A (44)
• Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (7)
• Jaina's Light (2)
= 53 Points

Hammerhead Scout Corvette (41)
• Slaved Turrets (6)
• Task Force Organa (1)
= 48 Points

Hammerhead Scout Corvette (41)
• Slaved Turrets (6)
• Task Force Organa (1)
= 48 Points

Hammerhead Scout Corvette (41)
• Slaved Turrets (6)
• Task Force Organa (1)
= 48 Points

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36)
• Hondo Ohnaka (2)
• Cham Syndulla (5)
• External Racks (3)
• Task Force Organa (1)
= 47 Points

GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Ahsoka Tano (2)
= 20 Points

Squadrons:
• Jan Ors (19)
• Dutch Vander (16)
• Biggs Darklighter (19)
• 2 x X-wing Squadron (26)
• Z-95 Headhunter Squadron (7)
= 87 Points

Total Points: 585

The core of this fleet is maximizing the potential of Home One, a title that is typically underwhelming in 400-point games. Between it and IF, I have a lot of dice control over my three Slave Turreted Scout Hammerheads, the main damage dealers. Add on a generic squadron ball, some ships to command them, and Cham Syndulla to deal with omnipresent SSDs, and I finally had myself a 600 point build I was happy with. As a Rebel Off-MSU, it takes me back to my roots.

There were five* other players in the tournament today. All Imperial. Two were running Executor-II SSD lists - no surprises there. One had a ball of Imperial Aces and was commanded by Piett, the other had two Gozantis (including a Slicer Tools Suppressor), Jonus, and was commanded by JJ. Both SSDs had similar suites of upgrades, DCO, Brunson, QBTs, Overload Pulse, Palpatine. One was Annihilator, the other Ravager. Neither, however, had Defense Liason.

Of the other three players, two were running lists with double ISDs and Demolisher. One had Sloane, Squall and a suite of (subpar imho) Imperial Aces. The other took three Gozantis and 6 TIE Defenders.

The last Imperial fleet was 4 VSD-Is and 3 Arquitens, all minimally upgraded and commanded by Vader.

My first game ended up against what I thought was the superior of the two SSD lists - the one with an ace ball.

Game 1

It's only been a few hours but I can't remember the name of my opponent. He was really nice and a pretty solid player. I really didn't want this match up for my first game (would have preferred the other SSD list at the very least), as my list was built with an SSD in mind but didn't fully seek to counter one. Critically, I was really worried about my squads and about Ravager swatting my Hammerheads at long range. 

I had bid, chose first player, and took his Station Assault. He deployed both in the middle of the map. I had 11 deployments to his 4 and 9 activations to his 2, so I got to place my units exactly where I wanted. Combat began in bottom of round one when he flung his aces forward to engage my squads.

He mis-positioned his opening assault, and I was able to pick Soontir Fel right off the bat. That was about the only good thing I did in the squadron game. This was a messy game on my part on the whole, for example forgetting on turn 2 that I could (and definitely should have) targeted the right station with my Hammerheads as I approached his ship.

While I got a good initial engage on his fighters on T2, tapping Mithel with Dutch, they were too much for even a Tar Pit to handle.

RIP my squads. Took out Soontir then perished to the man by the top of turn 3. He was using Piett and Wulff to cheat out full squad commands every round and obliterated me.

However, at the top of round 1 I led off with Cham Syndulla boarding the SSD, swapping his commands over to navigates and squads. Without DL, he was stuck with this for the rest of the game. Even better, he came up two damage short of killing the Torp HH (yay for being in a single SSD side arc), and I was able to get another couple attacks out of it on round 4 before ramming the Executor-II like the hero it was.  

Home One was never going to be super helpful this game, as HH's were unlikely to be able to produce two accuracies needed to do something interesting against the SSD at long range - so in my deployment I dispensed with trying to group them all together and once again opted for splitting on either side of the SSD. 

This was my first time using Slaved Turret Scout hammerheads, and they hit like motherfucking trucks. Spamming out Concentrate Fire commands as they drifted at speed 1 towards the port side of the SSD, with IF and TFO giving them dice control, they routinely produced 4-7 damage. He would kill all of them and the Pelta by the end of the game, but they did their part.

I didn't do a good job double-arcing with Home One this game, but I did maneuver Jaina's Light perfectly. In the above picture it has one health left, but is on the way out, on top of an asteroid that is obstructing the potentially killing shot from the SSD. 

His squads did a decent job helping him mop up my ships after tearing through my squads, but as they were imperial squads, it was very hit and miss. My attention was completely consumed with the SSD. At the top of round 6, it had 8 health left. My last Scout Hammerhead landed a massive 7 damage hit that he needed to burn his last brace on. A broadside from Home One and Jaina's Light later, I had myself a dead Executor-II

Of the four SSD games at the tournament, it won three, only getting crippled in one of those three. This was the only kill, and it came as quite a surprise to the insufferable Christopher (who did not know how to win gracefully and additionally kept referring to his SSD as "his lovely lady"). His eyes bugged out of his head when he saw that an Executor II had gone down, and suffice it to say after what a sexist asshole he had been the entire tournament I was ready to give him what for if I had the chance. I had him pegged as one of the better players but fielding the worse SSD list (again, without DL). He had managed to stomp his opponent in game one however, (4 VSD guy), and I was saddened to discover that despite tabling my opponent, my 8-3 win (organizers were using 400 point instead of 600 point margins) was actually the smallest margin of victory in the first round of the tournament.

Game 2 

Being the "Worst" of the winners had its advantages however, it meant I would get to go against someone who lost their first round match. I was at first really disappointed to discover that my opponent (4 VSD guy), had dropped and gone to watch the Chief's game - as I thought I would fare well against his fleet. But then I saw his replacement - a last minute entry who brought the only other Rebel Fleet of the day.

Jordan was a good-natured guy who claimed to have competed in multiple official tournaments but to me seemed to have more money than game sense (he was bragging about owning two SSDs the entire event). His fleet against me was FIVE Torpedo Frigates, each one sporting H9s, APs, APTS, and OEs. His flagship was Mon Karren with Dodonna. 

Critically, he had no squads, no slicer tools (I shudder to think of what he would have done against a bomber build), and he also had NO BID. Five ships that want to go first and no way to make sure that happens.

I looked over his objectives and saw opening salvo. It was almost too easy.

All those MC30s are hurtling in at speed three. This game, you can see I deployed to take advantage of Home One versus TFO, as the accuracies would be more important for making damage stick to ships with multiple evades. 

Jordan got off one shot this game before surrendering. Being out-activated, he would roll up an MC30 into range of my Scout Hammerhead gun line, and it would take a shot with the three dice of its front battery, a die for slaved turrets, a die for con fire, and two for opening salvo for a grand total of seven dice from a 48 point ship, then use IF and Home One to manipulate those dice into the max amount of damage. His MC30s went down about two shots per pop. 

Over the course of round 2, I shot down four of them. And at the bottom, he declared he was done and that he would surrender.

Considering I was first player and was going to first strike that last MC30, it was likely I was on my way to tabling him by the end of round 3 - although he might have nailed one of my HH's with the Liberty.

This game was frankly the easiest I have ever played and was gross, I felt really bad for Jordan but his list was simply awful. He claimed he had built it specifically to take down an SSD under the assumption he would face one today, but quite frankly I think he might have struggled against that too given that once the crawfish came into close range, they were easy pickings. MC30s without Admonition are just weak in CQC.

However! Now it was time for the problems to start. The tournament was being run by someone who didn't play Armada, who said that according to the ruleset a concession with over a 140 point margin would result in its final margin being entered into the tournament record. I was not having this, because this was clearly a 10-1 in the making. Jordan agreed this was dumb, but also didn't want to play out the 15 more minutes it would have taken me to table him. After some haggling and discussion, we agreed to record it to the organizers as a 10-1, 551 point margin to me. 

How imprecisely these store tournaments are run, played, and how willing players are to dodge out the minute the outcome is obvious never fails to astound and disappoint me.

I will freely acknowledge though that playing against Jordan was a coup for me. As with most games, success in Armada Tournament seems to be more about pulling the patsy as your opponent rather than being the best player in the event. My first round opponent gave as good as he got until I tabled him, but Jordan was a pushover, and while my first round game had been the longest of the three (2 3/4 hours), this one was the shortest.

So, with two tablings, and feeling pretty good about myself, I went and watched the other games.

Christopher (m'lady SSD) was clearly outclassed as a player by his opponent, but he scored a massively lucky roll early in the match and killed Demolisher before it fired a shot, and coasted off that to an 8-3 victory. I would have really liked to see him lose. Still, his opponent avoided being tabled, which meant even though we both won both our games I had 18 tournament points to his 16. First place! Although both first and second place got $25...

Which was effectively $15 because of the $10 entry fee...

Still, a win is a win!

I splurged and used my store credit to get a second Liberty to round out a fleet build I've been working on.

My experience in store tournaments continues to be lots of people with immaculate storage solutions and expensive peripherals who suck at Armada, specifically list-building. If I go to this tournament again, I'll be curious to see what the competition is like next time around. I definitely didn't get to play the most skilled player at the tournament, and I would have loved to Cham Syndulla Christopher's SSD.

I'm very happy with how my fleet performed, although it definitely needs to honing for maximum efficiency. I really want to revisit the squad ball if nothing else.

I feel like I have down pretty well how to kill an SSD at this point (thanks Hubert for allowing me to practice against an Exec-II before this tournament). I think right now they have a higher win rate because they present such a challenge that players aren't always ready to deal with. Thankfully I had the tools for the job.

On a final note, having played two SSDs with Palpatine aboard at this point, I think he's a pretty bad officer pick for it unless you have a lot of activations, otherwise your opponent just waits until you go then attacks you with impunity. He does seem decent against Sloane ace builds though.

At any rate, a fun Sunday. Time to return to the real world.