Wave 3 & 4 Regionals Analysis

The past weekend marked a break in current Regionals season.  When it picks back up in January, Wave 5 and the Corellian Conflict will be legal.  Which makes it a good time to look at the Regionals data where it sits right now.

The Echelon

It's time for another video about tactics and formations.  This time I move on to talking about the Echelon formation, which works great for Star Destroyers and other ships with strong front arcs.

The Impact of Flotillas

There have been a few posts over on the FFG forums about changes in the game with Waves 3 & 4 and how squadrons are becoming a much more important part of the game.  I think around this time last year I was writing on here about how squadronless fleets weren't the only way to win.  Yay internet!

Anyways, I originally posted this as a response on the FFG forums, but wanted to share it here as well.  I am really liking the impact of flotillas on the game although at first I was dubious.  Read on to see what I had to say:

Arquitens Preview

With the release coming soon FFG posted their preview for the upcoming Arquitens Class Light Cruiser.  While it doesn't introduce any new mechanics like the Pelta did, this little ship is going to have a really big impact on your games of Armada.

Capping the "T"

This post is the first in what I hope will be a series of tactics videos here on the blog.  While it is pretty easy to type about upgrades, admirals, and fleet lists I have struggled to communicate some of the tactical ideas I have wanted to talk about.  I am planning to use the videos to discuss maneuver, deployments, and formations in games of Armada.

Also, as another way to know when I have made a new post here you can follow me on Twitter @MrShmitty.  

Keep reading to see my first video:

My First Wave 5 Fleet

Someday, hopefully soon, Armada Wave 5 will be released.  I've pretty much known since it was announced the fleet I would want to play as it soon was available: Phoenix Squadron!  I am a huge fan of the Rebels tv show and the chance to recreate a fleet from that show is too much fun to pass up.

100th Post - The Pelta!

Today FFG unleashed their preview of the Phoenix Home expansion and the Pelta with its Fleet Command Upgrades.  I have been eagerly awaiting this preview since seeing the Pelta model at GenCon.  The preview did not disappoint.

It also happened to coincide with my 100th post here at Concentrate Fire.  I had been planning something else for my 100th post, but that will have to wait.  I really want to talk about the new ship.  

But first, a big thanks to all of you that read this blog.  I really appreciate anyone who takes the time to read through my ramblings on Armada.  Thanks for all of the encouragement you have given me along the way.  Now, let's talk about those new upgrades...

Command Tokens and Tactical Flexibility - An Ode to Garm Bel Iblis

My last battle report featured the two token generating admirals Garm and Tarkin.  The game got me thinking about command token use.  With Garm I tend to use the tokens for flexibility and 'burst' turns.  My opponent was using Tarkin to stack with his squadron commands and boost his primary tactic.  I think that both tactics are valid, but tend to see people using command tokens more with stacking in mind for super-commands.  I prefer using them for flexibility and thought I would share some of my reasoning.

Command Token Battle Royale

Another Monday evening at the FLGS meant a chance to get in another game of Armada.  I brought a modified version of the fleet I played in the last battle report and went up against a Tarkin-led, squadron-heavy Imperial fleet.  It would be a battle of Armada's respective "King's of the Command Token".  Read on to see which token-loving admiral would come out on top!

Garm vs Dodonna

I got to play a game!

It had been awhile, but I actually made it into the FLGS for a game of Armada last night.  My opponent was Will, who had a Dodonna based fleet with Mon Karren supported by some Nebs, a GR-75, and some fighters.

I brought the fleet I described in yesterday's post.  

Return of the Trailer

While I haven't been playing much lately, I have been brainstorming lists.  So, knowing I was going to make it to Armada night at the FLGS this week I had a bunch of ideas I wanted to try.

Rather than trying out fleet builds, I started thinking in terms of formations I wanted to try.  So, I went back to my 'Trailer' fleet builds that I used for the Massing at Sullust events and gave it an update to Wave 3/4 ships.

New Objectives!!

One of the most exciting features of the Corellian Conflict was finally pre-viewed today.  The new objectives that come with the campaign, but that will be usable in any game of Armada from tournament to casual play.  Looking over my previous post on objectives, it says that I like objectives that give a strong advantage to the second player and allow for lots of bonus points to be scored.  That sounds like it is still true.  So, let's take a quick look at these new objectives through that same lens.

2016-17 Regionals Data

Earlier in the year I worked with members of the FFG forums to collect fleet list data from Regional tournaments all around the world.  It ended up being a really interesting project and you can see the results here:

2016 Regionals Data 

Well, the new season kicked off last weekend and we already have 3 Regionals completed.  Once again, members of the FFG forums are stepping up to collect fleet list data and I am hoping to make the results even more thorough this time around.

Here's the new link:

2016-17 Regionals Data

I'm working on making things a little easier to read this time around.  I'm also adding in collection of data on objectives and squadron use.  As of writing this the squadron and objective use data isn't being sorted yet, but I expect to have that working later this week.

I'm also not currently categorizing fleets in to archetypes yet.  I want to wait a couple of weeks and see which patterns emerge.

Let me know what you think!

Vancouver, WA Regional

For the second time this year I will be running an Armada Regional at Dice Age Games in Vancouver, WA.  Based on pre-registration it looks like we should have a pretty solid turnout for the event.

I always enjoy TO'ing events, but reading all of the recent reports from Worlds has me wish I was playing in this one.  Of course, I've been so busy with life lately that I haven't had much time for games so I am woefully out of practice.

I will post some pictures and updates from the tournament here and will also be starting up collecting data from the regionals season and getting that posted as well.

Targeting Scrambler vs APTs

One of my regular opponents is getting ready to head to FFG's World Championships in a couple of weeks.  He brought over a fleet he is trying out for a test game.  He had 4x Gladiators with APTs and an Interdictor Combat Refit.  He was looking for a tough matchup, so I put my own Interdictor fleet against him to see if the Targeting Scramblers could do a good job of shutting down the APTs.

More Corellian Conflict Info

We hadn't heard much about the Corellian Conflict expansion since GenCon.  Thankfully FFG put out a new preview to help whet our appetites today.  LINK  While it didn't tell us everything, it certainly gave us enough information to get an idea of the campaign will flow.

A game at the new house

We are slowly getting settled in to our new house.  Fortunately, it has a generous space in the basement for me to set up my game table and shelves.

A good friend of mine has been wanting to learn Armada, so we took the time to get in a game last evening.  I'm actually not fully done with the move yet, so the game was briefly interrupted so we could run over to my old house and load a truck for a trip to the dump.

So, that interruption did keep me from writing up a full battle report.  I did have a couple of thoughts after the game:

• Grav Shift Reroute continues to be amazing.  My friend was 1st player with the Imperials and was able to move the contested outpost to the middle of the table completely nulifying the second player advantage.
• Ion Cannon Batteries on the Interdictor continue to impress me.  They were consistently working.  I need to try it with NK-7s at some point.
• Toryn Farr was great and got me an impressive number of re-rolls throughout the game.  I often focus on her ability in the anti-squadron game and forget to use her to fish for crits or accuracies.

Hopefully I will be getting back to my regular writing schedule soon as the we get settled in the new place.

Moving...

For the next few weeks updates here will be pretty sparse.  I am currently in the process of moving and fixing up our current house to convert it to a rental.  This will definitely eat into my time that's available for playing games.  

Hopefully when I am all setup to get playing again we should be seeing the Corellian Campaign nearing release!

Interdicting a Tournament

I got the chance to play in a Summer Kit tournament with the Interdictor fleet that I had been testing over the weekend.  I had a great time and was really pleased with the fleet overall.  I think Interdictors will definitely be effective in highly competitive tournaments.  PLus, they are a blast to play with!  Read on for some quick battle reports.

Interdictor Battle Reports

I've managed to get in a couple of games with the fleet I built to test out the Interdictor in the last post.  I've enjoyed playing it so much that I'm figuring on running it at an upcoming tournament.  Read on for a couple of battle reports and some thoughts on how the Interdictor worked.

Trying out the Interdictor

After playing a bunch of games with Rebels in the lead up to GenCon, I was actually looking forward to playing some games with the Interdictor.  After the last two posts theorizing how to get the most out of the Interdictor it was time to build a fleet.

Interdicting Objectives

The Interdictor provides some truly unique options with its Experimental Retrofit upgrades.  As I went over in my last post the Interdictor isn't the most points efficient combat platform, so getting the most out of the Experimental Retrofits will be really important.  I thought I would take a run through the various objectives that we have right now and see if the Interdictor's bag of tricks might be useful with any of them.

Playing the Interdictor without Experimental Retrofits?

After my first game with the Wave 3 & 4 ships on Monday I was left really pleased with the play of the new Liberty and GR-75 ships that I used.  I felt like they will be pretty easy to integrate into our fleets and start to learn their tricks.  

I was also paying pretty close attention to the performance of the new Imperial ships as well.  I could start to see the potential of the Interdictor's new Experimental Retrofits in the game.  My opponent though had really focused on those and didn't really get the Interdictor in the best position to just be a ship.  While I think the early question for most people will be how to use the Interdictor to manipulate the game with the Retrofits, I think maybe a better question is how to get the most out of them when they aren't up to their experimental tricks.

So, let's look at how the Interdictor plays without any of it's crazy tech.

First Game With Wave 3 & 4 Ships

I'm home from GenCon and have mostly gotten my loot unpacked.  I decided to head down to the FLGS for the Armada night to try out the Wave 3 & 4 ships.

The State of Armada

I had a really good time at GenCon this year.  The con itself is always a blast and it's just fun to see so many games going on all at once.  I started this blog just after GenCon last year as a place to kind of "think out loud" about Armada.  I've been kind of surprised and pleased that anyone has cared enough to follow along.

The blog gave me the chance to go back to GenCon this year with a Press Badge.  For whatever reason I found this really amusing.  So, I decided to take it seriously and see if I could do some press-like things and get some interviews or do some reporting.  That turned out to be a lot of fun and was in some ways the most memorable part of this year's con for me.

In my interviews I really tried to stay away from spoilery questions and focus on getting the big picture.  The spoilers will come eventually anyways, but there isn't always a lot of context on Armada in internet discussions.  So, the purpose of this post is to give an un-official "State of Armada" report based on what I learned at GenCon.

NA Championships - Final Day

I headed in to the final day of the NA Championships with a 2-1 record, 23 tournament points, and 4th place overall.  I was certainly surprised to be in that spot after my first round loss.

Corellian Conflict Info

It's an exciting time to be a Star Wars: Armada player.  The release of Waves 3 & 4 are sure to shake up your games and today's announcement of Wave 5 promises more options in the not-distant future.  Even with all of that I'm still the most excited for the Corellian Conflict campaign expansion that's coming soon.

To that end one of the first things I did after getting to GenCon was head to the FFG booth.  There I found Anton, who is one of FFG's main spokepersons.  He was really hesitant to say much of anything about it as unreleased product, but did mention that Alex Davy was the lead designer and had played in their in-house campaign.  He noted that the box they had was just a mockup.  The box itself was surprisingly small, but that likely helps the low pricepoint for the expansion.

So, I tracked down Alex later on in the day between rounds of the tournament.  We had a fairly long talk about the Corellian Conflict, my Regionals data, and Armada in general.  Here are my notes on our conversation about the campaign pack.  Again, I kept the questions really general and avoided asking for specific spoilers.  That way they tell me what they can rather than me having to guess what topics they can talk about.

• My first question was "Stickers?"  Yes, they are intended to be stuck to the campaign board.  He felt that they should be really easy to use in an alternative fashion that doesn't stick to the board permanently.  Think counters or something.  But we both agreed that the stickers should make for a fun effect to look at when the campaign is over.  The low price point of the expansion should allow a group to buy one together to use the stickers on.  He also anticipated many players ion a group will likely own it.

• He also talked about why the expansion was created.  He felt that the Armada player community was the right one for this expansion.  They never felt something like this would work for X-Wing, but liked the idea more for Armada.

• Their in-house campaign was reportedly a lot of fun.  He said it lasted 8-9 rounds, but felt that might have been on the longer side.

• Death of a unique in the game can mean they are out of the campaign, but not necessarily.  He said that if you put your "resources" into building up your uniques they are better able to survive.

• The campaign has a loose structure and allows freedom for the players to make it work for them.  Each game definitely impacts the next and builds to the whole campaign, but you aren't forced into specific games.

• Map position impacts the objectives that get played.  You also aren't limited to attacking only neighboring map positions.  Hyperspace will get you anywhere.

• Fleets "build" with time.  He didn't elaborate what that meant, but said it a few times.  He also said that even a fleet that loses several games will still build enough to stay competitive.

• The addition of the unique squadrons was for a few reasons.  Partially it was due to the fact that uniques are limited per side and they wanted lots of options available.

• He said that most of the games will be relatively standard, with just some minor rules modifications.

• He like the expansion as a way to revitalize the original Wave 1 squadrons and give them new options.  He mentioned the similarity to the X-Wing Aces packs.  (I may have written something about that)

• He doesn't know if another campaign would get made, but if so it would be a way to get new titles/upgrades to older ships.  It is something they have discussed.

• If there isn't another campaign, he sounded interested in having some avenue of releasing content for older waves.

• The lack of plastic will allow it to have a hopefully short production cycle.  (my guess is players will be able to by it at Worlds)

  So, there is your very non-spoilery Corellian Conflict preview.  I am even more excited after learning what I did.  I would expect us to see more spoilery previews maybe in September.  I asked about an early copy to review on the blog and was told that probably wouldn't happen for licensing reasons...oh well.  Had to ask.

More on my conversations with Alex later.