What’s up Star Wars Armada Maniacs! Today we’re going Inside the Mind of a Tournament gamer with an exciting new series of Armada Battle reports here!
This tournament was held at gamers armory in Cary, North Carolina in January 2016. This was the first opportunity for us to get in on this. We got a lot of practice in, I had a fairly tuned list, while a lot of players might not have been able to get that time in.
Game 1, Versus Ryan Chenoweth,
Great guy with a broad spectrum kind of build, he had an ISD, 3 gladitors, and a mini Rymer ball. But at 400 points he kind of ran out of upgrades for the ships themselves so he put stock into his squadrons; so I knew I had to focus on his squadrons or they’d rip my fleet apart.
I was running the “Kardashians” three Mark 2 B’s with quite a few upgrades: ECM, Gunnary team, X17 turbo lasers, and Ackbar kicking in the rear and doing the Coup de gras from behind.
I was really confident in my build, but now I’m going more enhance armament for two of the whales and cop de gras people in the back with the x-17. I brought, Tycho, Dash, Dutch, and Wedge to lock em down and deal the damage ( it’s great for taking out characters).
First off, you can see by the central deployment here, he will have to turn to come to me, but I can turn left or right. Obviously, if I go left I’ll run out of space, so I decide just to go straight ahead and see what he’s going to do. However, one thing to note are the asteroids. These things are BRUTAL in Armada, so he might be thinking I’m going to stay away from those, so I’m going to use that to full effect. What my opponent might not realize is that assault frigates are very maneuverable.
He also moved very cautiously on his turn moving up just two with his ISD and Gladiators.
Next turn I opted to continue to move cautiously but to offer up a red herring by turning one of my Mark II directly towards him to get him to think I’m going to try and broadside him on the port side (That’s the left side for you Non-Sailors) but I can still go to the starboard or keep on going forward and then go to port to come around behind him.
For the Imperials, to do damage, he has to keep coming at me, which is good for me because my list is more maneuverable and it does more work from the side arcs; Ackbar adds more dice which makes this list brutal up close.
I’m putting my squadrons in place to counter his squadrons but while still trying to keep them away from the bombers who would really tear them up.
First catch of the day, he moves into his gladiator into range which allows me to activate and fire on him first. He moved his closest ship and I moved my closet ship which allows me to not fire exchange back.
Then he moves up his rear ship and I can attack up on him.
The brutality of Ackbar gives each ship’s broadsides three red, one blue, and TWO more reds from Ackbar. I rolled hot on the accuracy and it was a brutal volley on something which has limited hull points. He forced me to reroll, with his evade, one which was great because it rerolled into accuracy. He takes three shields to the front, redirects one, and takes a critical right off that bat. We know that’s No Beuno for Mr. Gladiator.
He keeps moving his ships up and I keep moving mine up which is putting me in a great spot to deal a lot of damage.
Yes, he’s getting his gladiators up, which he wants, but I damaged one to the point it can’t fire. The critical effects of the Mark II is going to limit his salvos.
In the squadron game I’m just trying to creep up, do a bit of extra damage to the lead gladiator, that renders it not to fire. Then I make a big dash with Tycho and lock down 4 big bombers moving up with his speed 5. That makes them out of range to make them ineffective against my battle line. I know I’m going to get him but I’m going to be able to move up and around him because of how he’s engaging.
Next, he continues to come at me, which maneuver wise is bad because he hits an asteroid and takes even more damage. I use up my squadron token to take a pot shot, with dash, that is whittling down before I even get to the Mark II’s fire.
I roll up 6 hits, when he doesn’t have that many hull points means it’s not going to be a good time. After we count it up, his first gladiator isn’t going to make it to Bad Boyz III. Then the gunnery team getting a fresh set shots on the second gladiator. He’s taking a lot of damage and losing lots of shields; it’s on it’s last legs.
The order of battle is set, he’s maneuvering his stuff up, kind of in the wrong order, but now I’m in a conundrum because I might get too close to his Star Destoryer. I activate the middle ship, take some shots at Gladiator #3 and #2, it’s a lot of dice.
He does fire back at me, some shields go down, but no big deal. Then he gets all up in my grill and I take a damage from collision. Then I’m going to activate the Ackbar ship. It doesn’t do a lot but it does do two accuracy which I can exploit to get some damage through and take the gladiator out.
Granted, he didn’t have a lot of upgrades in which I understand because he had a lot of different things in his list.
Wherein I built in a lot of redundancy to absorb that damage. I don’t think Ryan should feel bad it’s just that I had so many redundancies built in which means he’s running out of options.
The squadrons are tied up, the destroy activates but can’t get into the sweet spots at me so I’m going to force him to move up into me and I’m going to get some shots back up.
Then I move the Lead Mark II, and I want to point out that I got REALLY lucky with my maneuvering because I was JUST outside his front arc.
Now we’re really into it, trading volleys, it’s attrition at this point. We know it’s only a matter of time before I get all the points on here so he has to keep going at me. Unfortunately, he maneuvered into my squadrons and they get into the ISD and then Ackbar finishes off the ISD.
It’s coming down to the wire, I have one last gladiator to take care of. He makes me re-roll the final point of damage because of evade, and it still comes up a hit. The last Gladiator has been dispatched…
Honestly didn’t play the game badly, he just feed me the gladiators a little too willingly. Thats a tough one to master because they want to be close to deal their damage, but there is a happy medium there for sure. I think with a few less ships, focus fire, and some more upgrades, or maybe with a raider being able to jam up my maneuvering lines it would have been a huge boon for Ryan for sure.
Tactically, Armada is amazing, and the best game I’ve ever played in my gaming career hands down.
If you want to see the whole game span out, some of the dice rolls and the super speed film highlighting all the maneuvering check out the video below!
Ackbar Vs Screed – Star Wars Armada Battle Report
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About the Author: Rob Baer
Rob Baer
Job Title: Managing Editor
Founded Spikey Bits in 2009
Socials: Rob Baer on Facebook and @catdaddymbg on X
About Rob Baer: Founder, Publisher, & Managing Editor of Spikey Bits, the leading tabletop gaming news website focused on the hobby side of wargaming and miniatures.
Rob also co-founded and currently hosts the Long War Podcast, which has over 350 episodes and focuses on tabletop miniatures gaming, specializing in Warhammer 40k. and spent six years writing for Bell of Lost Souls.
Every year, along with his co-hosts, he helps host the Long War 40k Doubles Tournament at Adepticon and the Long War 40k Doubles at Las Vegas Open, which attracts over 350 players from around the world.
Rob has won many Warhammer 40k Tournaments over the years, including multiple first-place finishes in Warhammer 40k Grand Tournaments over the years and even winning 1st place at the Adepticon 40k Team Tournament.
With over 30 years of experience in retail and distribution, Rob knows all the products and exactly which ones are the best. As a member of GAMA (Game Manufacturers Association), he advocates for gaming stores and manufacturers in these difficult times, always looking for the next big thing to feature for the miniatures hobby, helping everyone to provide the value consumers want.
While he’s played every edition of Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy (since 5th Edition) and has been hobbying on miniatures since the 1980s, Titans of all sizes will always be his favorite! It’s even rumored that his hobby vault rivals the Solemnance Galleries, containing rulebooks filled with lore from editions long past, ancient packs of black-bordered Magic Cards, and models made of both pewter and resin.
