Massing at Dice Age

After winning an ISD last night I was ready for another day of Armada.  I opted to play the same list as last night.  I've learned from enough tournaments that showing up with an unpracticed list often leads to frustration.  Also, I was really happy with the maneuver I had  figured out with the Salvation.  I wanted to see if I could make it work well enough to be worthy of a name.  

This tournament had 8 players with an even split between Rebels and Imperials. My first round was against Joe, who was playing a 2 ship imperial list consisting of a Victory and Gladiator led by Screed.  He chose to go first and chose Dangerous Territory as our objective.  He split his two ships up and I placed my battle line to fly between them.  The Salvation was set to the same side as the Victory.  

He played very aggressively and plowed over a couple of obstacles to grab the objectives.  On the second turn I was able to hit his Gladiator with the A-Wings and both assault frigates, killing it.  Then it was a matter of picking apart his VSD, eventually killing it with the Salvation.  I was able to earn a 10-0 victory in the first round.  

In the second round I was up against my friend Jim who was using the list I played with at GenCon.  He doesn't get to play very often and has been sticking with that list for awhile.  He chose to go second, so I chose the Dangerous Territory objective.  I set my battle line to the center and he stacked his ships in the corner to my right. 

He sent his CR-90 out to grab objectives and managed to get 3, but put the corvette far enough out in front that my Assault Frigates were able to blow it up.

Our battle lines passed far enough from each other that not a lot of damage was done.  Again though, the Salvation saved the day. It swept in and with some help from Tycho was able to take out his lead Assault Frigate.  I ended up securing an 8-2 victory.  

In the third round I played Chris, my third round opponent from yesterday's tournament.  Rather than 3 Gladiators, this time he had a Gladiator and VSD supported by Rhymer and other squadrons.  He chose to go second, so I went first and opted for Advanced Gunnery.

We deployed a little further apart than is typical for me, so the real shooting didn't start for a bit.  

I chose to split up my battle line some by slowing down the rear assault frigate.  I maneuvered Salvation to eventually fly between them.  I engaged his Demolisher, but couldn't quite kill it.  

I had to choose to shoot first with either the Salvation or the Assault Frigate knowing that if I didn't kill Demolisher I would lose the other.  I opted to fire with Salvation as it had the best chance of getting the kill.  It didn't.  So I lost the Assault Frigate, but killed Demolisher later in the turn with a ram.  As it was his objective ship, the double points for the kill earned me a win.  

So, once again I was undefeated and in the top 2 and this time we opted to play out the final round.   I'm going to make that match into its own post.