Armada - 12/30 Sector Wars Report

So, Danielle and I spent the New Year in Little Rock to catch up with friends and play board games. This last Monday featured another Armada Sector Wars game featuring me, Hubert, Michael, and David - a Little Rock local who plays Legion with Hubert, Daniel and Fish a lot.

We originally were entertaining the idea of a 3v3, eventually ending up with a 2v2 of the above players based on availability. Hubert and I were easily the two most experienced players present, and we really wanted to team up for once. However, we recognized that it would be patently unfair to Michael and David. With that in mind, we offered a deal: Hubert and I would team up as Rebels but at a 100 point deficit (1200 points to 1100 points). David and Michael accepted and we had our teams for the game.

I called Hubert a few days before the game and we began hashing out what fleets we would want to take. It seemed obvious Michael would take the biggest, fattest SSD, so we needed an SSD counter.

Let's bring up our SSD counter list...

1. Cham/Slicer Tools
2. Squadrons
3. Crits

We weren't keen on banking on the first one, as Cham had been instrumental in me and Daniel's sector wars win over Hubert, and we thought it unlikely Michael would forget Defense Liason. After the squad heavy last game of Sector Wars, we were also both a little reluctant to kit out a bomber spam. So, this left us with crits - easily countered by DCO - but I fooled myself into thinking there would be no way Michael would remember to take DCO.

At any rate, we decided my fleet would seek to counter the SSD, while Hubert would field our main battle line. We would make our decision on whether or not to attempt to destroy the SSD once we saw their fleets. After briefly entertaining the idea of Kanan + Rex and raids, we decided to go for Sato flinging APT crits, and I came up with the following fleet.

Name: Sato Fleet
Faction: Rebel
Commander: Commander Sato

MC30c Scout Frigate (69)
• Expert Shield Tech (5)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
= 83 Points

MC30c Scout Frigate (69)
• Expert Shield Tech (5)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
= 83 Points

MC30c Scout Frigate (69)
• Expert Shield Tech (5)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
• Admonition (8)
= 91 Points

Pelta Assault Ship (56)
• Commander Sato (32)
• Intensify Firepower! (6)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
= 99 Points

Pelta Assault Ship (56)
• Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
= 61 Points

GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Comms Net (2)
= 20 Points

GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Boosted Comms (4)
= 22 Points

Squadrons:
• Malee Hurra (26)
• Han Solo (26)
• 2 x X-wing Squadron (26)
= 78 Points

Total Points: 537

We have five ships here that throw APT crits. I was really interested in trying out EST on the MC30's as a cost efficient way to make them tankier. We have our requisite IF, and a SFC with Malee Hurra to try out in conjunction with Sato. Hubert developed a fleet with 3 Christmas-Tree'd LMC80 Battlecruisers, 2 Flotillas, and a small fighter cap as well. We were concerned we didn't have enough DPS to kill an SSD, but our Sato fleet offered a tool to crit it into worthlessness in lieu of actually being able to kill it. 

Michael ended up taking the Executor-II, a flotilla, Kallus Raider, and very skinny fighter cap. Critically, he took a very defensive officer suite on the SSD: The Senate, EST, DL, and DCO. 

Oof. 

We could still potentially overwhelm the SSD in a single turn with crits, but this was still a big blow.

Hubert only owns 2 Arquitens and Raiders, and for this reason we rarely see anything resembling an Imperial MSU in our play group. Thus, it was a bit of a surprise when David brought one: 1 Cymoon, 4 Arquitens, 1 HIE raider, a Gozanti, and a SFC of aces.

Seeing the fleet, Hubert and I decided we were going to largely ignore the SSD, and just try to crit it to half health, while focusing on killing David's fleet. APT's would be quite effective against the DCO-less ISD, and Hubert's Gunnery Team Battlecruisers would be able to swat the MSU out of the sky.

We surprisingly had bid and took first player, selecting their Con-O.

We had 13 activations to their 11, and 16 deployments to their 14. We had an edge in both departments despite being 100 points down and fighting an MSU, which we really shouldn't have enjoyed. Indeed, David and Michael's decision to not take more Gozantis (only 2/6 they could bring) or Strat Advisor meant that the Palp's SSD was once again in the awkward situation of being severely out activated.

Deployments didn't really go well for them either.

The SSD is crammed into the corner, surrounded on either side by ships of the MSU, with little room to maneuver. However, on our side we made the mistake of placing the Battlecruisers too far apart to benefit from MCEF. 

Our left flank (compete with a custom sculpt standing in for our final battlecruiser because I left the ship in Joplin), is approaching the Imperial line at flank speed, aiming to nuke the ISD out of existence. Our right is slow rolling, trying to force the SSD to turn to the right before drifting into range. We began firing the first shots towards the end of round two. 

Entrapment Formation came up big in allowing Michael and David to extricate themselves from their poor deployment with only a couple collisions. 

I was particularly proud of this bit of maneuvering, slotting Admonition into a gap in the Imperial line for the bottom of Turn 2. We opened up the following turn with Han engaging the SSD and Admonition  dumping its broadside into the SSD and starting to flip the SSD's contains. 

While we were able to nuke their HIE raider early when it overextended, Admonition fell to counter-fire and I was only table to get one crit through to the SSD before the end of the turn. We got the jump on David and Michael's squadrons, and were able to eliminate a couple TIEs right off the bat and leave Malee alone to do her thing. This was probably their biggest failure as a team this game, as they NEVER commanded their squadrons, and their decent anti-squadron ball never cleaned up ours in the way it could have. 

However, we were in trouble by the bottom of round three. The Cymoon pulled a huge double-accuracy roll versus our flagship, putting it shieldless and on four health. On the right, the SSD was similarly positioned to potentially kill two Battlecruisers in one turn, although it would take a lot to do it on one. We were forked, in both the Chess and Good Place senses of the word. Our BC's just had the wrong commands up at the wrong time and it was looking increasingly like all three might go down on Turn 4. Worse still, Hubert Ezra Bridger'd, but Michael dodged the obstacle with a clever turn to port while Hubert actually ended up hitting his own asteroid. Oof. 

However, at the top of turn 4, we had a little bit of luck break our way and they chose a weird activation order. We decided we had to open with the flagship before it died. Piling shields onto the front with a rare well-timed engineering command we narrowly missed killing the Arquitens on that side but did put a lot of damage into the Cymoon. However, instead of going with the SSD next and trying to one-hit kill our rightmost Battlecruiser, they went with one of the Arquitens on that side of the map. We ran with this and used that self-same Battlecruiser to annihilate both the Arquitens in its front arc. 

There was still an off chance they could first strike a Battlecruiser, but they then chose to go with the ISD. Whereas the ISD came up huge on its previous roll versus Hubert's flagship, here it could not produce either accuracy it needed, and the flagship lived through both that barrage and from a follow-up shot from the Arquitens. The Battlecruiser we thought most likely to die that turn would instead be the only one that survived!

Michael finished off the right-most Battlecruiser, and the next turn we first-struck the ISD and the last Arquitens on that side, and suddenly the board was a lot more open. 

Michael will go on to kill the center Battlecruiser and right MC30, while Hubert and I cleaned up both flotillas and the Kallus raider, but at this point the battle was winding down. 

Here were the final positions as turn 6 concluded. 

It was a tight game, made moreso by the 120 Con-O points David and Michael had. However, David's fleet was completely gone while me and Hubert's still had large intact elements. The final score ended up being 698 to 651, a 47 point MOV. 

The battle hinged mostly on a few things breaking our way at the top of Turn 4, as Hubert and I were convinced we had lost at the bottom of turn 3. We were able to play through our handicap and win a narrow victory though it was much more a result of Hubert's fleet than mine. 

The Battlecruisers with gunnery teams hard-countered David's MSU, and were the primary killers of the Arquitens and Raiders. Meanwhile, my whole strat had been countered by Michael remembering to take DCO, and while I was able to land solid crits on the ISD and put decent damage on the SSD, it was not close to half. As a whole, Sato punched way below his weight. 

This game has really chilled any lingering desire Hubert and I have to use Sato anytime soon, as even in the 1200 point game format he came up short. Malee was a good combo with him however, and if we see him on the table again any time in the near future I wager it will be with her. 

Otherwise, good game to Michael and David - a memorable and fun game and a great way to send out 2019!