I am fortunate enough to have 5 Massing at Sullust events taking place within easy driving distance. I am hoping to play in 3 of them, one each day of the weekend. So, that means at least 9 and potentially 12 games of Armada in one weekend! With that in mind, here is some advice to help get you prepped for your own Massing at Sullust games:
- Find a core list and practice with it like crazy. You don't have to know each little upgrade you will take, but settle on the ships, admiral, and how you will fly them and then get in as many games as you can. I will well served at Nationals by the amount of practice games that I had leading into the tournament. If you can't find a regular opponent, you can still gain by practicing against your self. Vary some upgrades here and there, to get a feel for what works best for you. Most of the top finishing players at Nationals had practiced with the list they brought extensively.
- Play something you really enjoy. You're going to be playing at least 3 games in a day for the tournament and more if you practice. Don't worry about whether your list is competitive by the standards of the current meta. You will be playing it repeatedly, it better be something you like playing.
- Having more ships is an advantage. It helps with activations and being able to bring lots of firepower onto a target.
- Read all the objectives carefully. Once you have a list that you like consider how your fleet would do with each of the objectives. While you will be selecting 3, you can't always know that those are what you will play. Knowing what works and doesn't for your fleet will help you make good choices. Some objectives, like Fire Lanes or Intel Sweep, can be really hard on the 1st player and give you a large VP hole to climb out of.
Good luck to you at your Massing at Sullust events. I'm hoping to post reports here for each of the events that I participate in. Can't wait!
Sound advice, agree with all these points. I corollary to the practice and objective advice above is to have a plan for most situations, to ensure you don't get any surprises. Practice helps identify those problems in advance!
ReplyDeleteNot to tempt fate (hopefully), but I have also been pre-thinking some potential lists for the final round if I am lucky enough to get there. There are some nice card and fleet combinations which the previews have allowed us to see. By making a price assumption for the rogues, it is possible to build the Imperial fleet.
Sadly I can only make one event, but plan to prepare as much as possible!
I've thought ahead some to the final round, but more in the sense of how to add the Wave 2 ships to the fleet I am already taking. I'm not too worried about it. I figure if I am doing that well, I am guaranteed to win something cool.
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