I haven't had as much time for updating the blog as I would like, but I was able to get in a couple of more games of Armada this week at the FLGS. This gave me another chance to keep practicing with Mon Mothma and some MC-30s.
I had really enjoyed the fleet I had played last week, so I decided to give it another run, although I did make a couple of modifications. I dropped the Assault Proton Torpedoes from the Torpedo Frigate and added some Ordnance Experts to the Scout Frigate. While the extra damage was nice from the APTs, I figured the re-rolls would be better to have on both MC-30s.
I also modified my squadron compliment. With only access to minimal squadron commands I decided that Rogues would be best. I only have one R&V pack though, so I was limited to a YT-2400 and Han Solo backed up by a couple of A-Wings. I'd prefer to have 4 YT-2400s, but that will have to wait. I'd also like to trade the Neb for another CR-90a with TRCs, but lack the model as well. (If you look closely at the photos, you'll see that one of my CR-90s had broken off at the peg during the trip to the store)
My first game of the evening was a chance to play the fleet against some Rebels. My opponent had 3 ships including an MC-80 w/Defiance, Garm, and other upgrades, Salvation, a CR-90b w/ Overload Pulse, and a swarm of Ace squadrons. He opted to go first and chose the Most Wanted objective. I picked his MC-80 and my Neb as the objective ships.
He deployed the Defiance in the middle of the table angled across, with the smaller ships to either side. I deployed ahead of him, with the Neb off on my right flank. My goal for the game was to see how well I could do at getting into the MC-80s front arc. This wasn't an Ackbar conga line, but I decided to treat it like it was and dodge the broadsides for all I was worth.
Turn 1 saw both of us advancing slowly. He turned the MC-80 parallel to the table edge, which would make my job trickier. I moved up in a cluster, but held my squadrons back so they didn't get jumped too early.
He began turn 2 by moving up aggressively with his CR-90b. I responded by hitting it with my CR-90b and then slagging it with the Torpedo Frigate. Wow, do MC-30s bring the pain! His Salvation was able to do a little damage at long range, but ended up set to get hit the next turn. He positioned his HWK to use Intel on my squads and some light damage was traded in the squadron phase.
I forgot to have Han go first at the start of the turn. I might have killed the HWK as it was already damaged. Instead, he activated Defiance with a Squadron command and used Dutch to shut Han down for the turn. Oops. The rest of his squads and the Defiance combined fire to destroy my CR-90b. I activated the Torpedo Frigate to pound Salvation and then move to Defiance's front arc. The Salvation shot up the Scout Frigate, but the combination of Foresight and Mon Monthma meant I took minimal damage to some shields. Foresight then finished off the Salvation, thanks to Ordnance Experts, before also running for the Defiance's front arc. The Neb and Jaina's Light took some long range shots at Defiance as well before moving to hide.
In the squadron phase, Han and an A-Wing killed off Dutch with the YT-2400 hit the HWK. I'd also been doing some solid damage with anti-squadron fire.
At the start of turn 4 we found that I had overshot by an 1/8th of an inch or so and put the CR-90a into Defiance's far broadside. Oops. It went splat pretty quick. Then the two MC-30s unloaded double arc shots in to the front of the Defiance and that was the end of the game. Not too shabby. I made some flying errors, but was better than first outing. I felt like the change in squadrons worked out really well.
Next up was an Imperial opponent with 2 ISDs, Demolisher, and 3 TIEs led by Admiral Ozzel. I chose to go first and decided we would play an Intel Sweep. I deployed directly across from him, with the plan to sweep to my left and try to jam up his ships.
He moved forward at speed 1 with all 3 of his ships, while we each moved to grab an objective in turn 2. I started angling towards the left and set where I felt like I would have some good shots setup next turn. I was also able to move up with the YT-2400 and take out a TIE squadron. My other squadrons I set to act like a minefield.
In turn I used my CR-90a first to grab an objective and move up just out of shooting range. He then surprised me by using Ozzel and Engine Techs to effectively switch his Demolisher from speed 1 to speed 4!! This let him jump right up and nuke my CR-90b. Now it was a bit of a lucky roll, and my evade re-roll came up a double hit again, but it was an effective surprise to say the least. While my ships started pounding the Demolisher, he also then used Ozzel to rush forward his ISD-II, which jammed me up. I wasn't ready for that as well and now had 2 of my ships in the front arc of his ISD! I came really close to killing the Demolisher with squadron fire at the end of the turn.
I was left in a tough position. I knew one of the MC-30s was going to take a tough hit from the ISD. I opted to preserve my flagship and had it kill Demolisher before flying around to safety. The ISD then managed to kill the Torpedo frigate with shooting followed by a ram to finish the job. My firepower was severely depleted and I needed to kill an ISD to get the win! The other ships in my fleet started chipping away at the ISDs.
With the relative position of the ships I switched and started concentrating my firepower on the rear ISD. The Foresight was able to smack it pretty hard before scooting around to the side arc. The other ships and squadrons hit it as well, but I flubbed the movement of my CR-90a and ended up out of position to grab an objective. My squadrons were trying to chip in some damage, but rolled a lot of blanks.
I kept trying to pound away at the ISD. The TRCs were really contributing to my damage out put, but I kept just missing getting double arc shots with the Neb. The Neb was taking a beating, but an Engineering command kept it going well enough. The CR-90a and Foresight were getting in each other's way enough that I couldn't get in range of an objective again!
Down to the final turn and I had to get 5 more damage to kill that ISD. The TRCs from Jaina's Light kicked in a couple and the Neb did 2 more. That left the game to the YT-2400, which moved in for the last damage, which earned me the win!
I really made some mistakes and my opponent played really well this game. The surprise rush from Ozzel really caught me off guard and cost me 2 of my ships. I then screwed up by not making the objective enough of a priority and failed to get a second token. We ended up with one token each. I was able to pull out the win thanks to my squadrons as his TIE screen was not enough to keep my squadrons away.
Some other thoughts:
- The Rogue squadrons did really well and were a nice compliment to the list. I think regular squadrons are probably better if you have the carriers to order them around, but for this fleet the rogues are great.
- The switch from Assault Torpedoes to another Ordnance Experts was a good one. The extra re-rolls on the Scout Frigate were really helpful.
- TRCs is definitely one of the top upgrades in the game I did so much more damage with them then I might have otherwise.
- Ozzel is fantastic. I can't wait to use him myself.
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