Stockholm Primes 2020! Tournament Report

Went to Stockholm, (the capital of Sweden, not the one in Wisconsin USA. I would be amazed if they had a Primes there.)

I guess nobody plays Armada here...

12 eager participants traveled from far and near to put plastic pieces on large tables and roll copious amounts of dice, having a good time. I'll try to cover a before, during and after the tournament in this post.

Onager Generic Upgrade Card Spoiler - Hot Takes

And so did someone in Germany get their hands on the Onager expansion, with due release date when the stars align, the time is right, and the 7th son of the 7th son has a daughter that will make the kingdom once more prosper... 

They where kind enought to share a spoiler of the upgrade cards with the Internet, and im taking a nose dive into what they might bring to the game!

When figuring out how to best utilize new upgrades, have a bottle of gin ready

And now is the part where I stick my weather vane out and tries to scry the best uses for each and every upgrade. My german is on the novice scale of proficiency so there is a risk of some things being lost in translation. NOTE: I will not be held responsible if anything I have written in this post will ruin a game experience for you :^).

Generic Upgrades

Three upgrades can be taken by both factions, and the are covered first.

ZONE MIT SCHWEREM BESCHUSS - Heavy Fire Zone

This Turbolaser upgrade sounds more like a tactic than an actual weapon. Regardless, it makes the blue anti squad dice into red, and working at red range. But only against squadrons that are not engaged with friendly squadrons.

Where this will work is on ships that has at least one blue anti squadron dice and a Turbolaser slot, but even better on those with 2 blue, and first the Nebulon Escort comes to mind, and the ISD 2, which of course will have to give up its valuable turbolaser slot for this. The never used Assault Frigate mkII A can make this work too but you are paying 9 points for a different assault frigate. One ship that definitley can make use of this upgrade is the SSD Assault Prototype. Since it has two Turbolaser slots it can be a really evil threat against Unique squadrons with H9 and Kallus.

How usefull will this be?
First you give up a Turbolaser slot, and some ships like to run with their usual gear like the ISD 2. And this does not help at all against ships so being matched against an all ship list will moot this upgrade, which puts it in a tricky category of how useful it will be. I can see this one go on a Vanguard or Yavaris but it competes with Linked Turbolaser Towers from RITR. For the Empire it is a bit harder to pinpoint the ship that will really make this card good, besides the SSD Assault Prototoype and ISD 2 for the abilty of throwing 2 red dice at squadrons.

FLAGGSHIFF-BRÜCKE - Flaggship Bridge

Have you ever, as an Imperial admiral, been envious of all the cheap ways the rebels can bring Fleet Commands with. Probably not since the Cymoon is a very solid platform, but it makes building lists kind of uninteresting when it is only 2 ways of bringing a Fleet Command, The Cymoon or Chimaera title. And all for the cheap price of a Offensive retrofit slot and 0 points. Down side is that you can't use a token to activate the Fleet Command. KEINEN KOMMANDOMARKER AUSGEBEN! Very similar to the Liberator title, but cheaper and as a modification and only on a medium or large ship. The Quasar, Victory Star destroyer, ISD and Onager can take this.

This upgrade works for the Rebels also, but with the Liberator title that can go on a 39 pts platform, I see few reasons for using it other than there is no CR90 is in the list. The MC75, Assault Frigates and Starhawks can make use of this.

How useful will it be?
This upgrade can make some interesting combinations with the Fleet Commands, but few gamebreaking ones. There is in one Fleet Command that benefits from being used once, and that is All Fighters Follow Me!. The others wants to be activated as many rounds as possible to gain the most benefit out of them. AFFM! might not need more than one turn of speed bumping the Squadrons.

LOKALES FEUERLEITSYSTEM - Local firesupport system

And now, the most interesting and maybe most useful of all three generic upgrades. The Weapons-Team that will make the Salvo defense token possible for more ships than the Onager and the Starhawk.

Straight forward, upon deployment, the ship with this upgrade MUST, no ifs or buts, replace one defense token with a Salvo token, for a cheap cost also.

How useful will this be?
Very. The only requirement is that the rear-arc has some dice, so no Hammerhead, and a Weapons-Team. Depending on how much a ship wants Gunnery Team, this can be a very good choice if the Salvo Token is good to have.


Rebels
Assault Frigate - A good choice for any list with an Assault Frigate, depending on what it is going to do. The slot is usually tied fot Gunnery Team (Ackbar) or Flight Controller (squadron heavy list) but this can help the ship put out more damage as the rear on the A-version is as good as a starhawks or the B-version has at least 2 reds. This makes the Assault Frigate a little more suspectible to damage, as the Evade token is probably the least helpfull.

MC30c - No or Maybe. Not the best choice unless, again, Ackbar is the admiral and the MC30c is not supposed to go into close range, then maybe one red dice can be something, but its not something that will deter a ship to fire at the MC30c.

MC75 - Might be a good choice, since the Defense tokens this ship has is somewhat lacking. The Ordnance will probably still favor the Ordnance Experts. The Armored Cruiser will say YES to a Salvo. Replacing one of the Contains is a no brainer. The downside for the salvo is that the rear is either Black/Black or Blue/Black, so close range is prefered to get any effekt out of it. Other Close range ships might think twice before going in close with the MC75.

LMC80 - Well. This will probably want Gunnery Team more as the front arc is so heavy with dice. And this ship badly needs both its double Brace and the Redirect to stay alive. Blue/Blue or Reb/Blue can be something but again. Gunnery Team is better since this ship is not built to stay in any outdrawn slugging engagement.

Vanguard - Yes. Anything shooting Vanguard will take 2 Reds back. And with Linked Turbolaser Towers that brings a reroll the damage. The tricky part is what to make of the defense tokens. What is in front of the Vanguard should be an indication. Lots of squadrons? Switch a Brace, keep the Evade until deployment and switch that for a Salvo. Many heavy ships? Do nothing and switch the Evade for a Salvo when deploying Vanguard. Some teststing will be needed to find the sweet spot for this upgrade.

Empire
ISD-2 - Maybe leaning no. The Gunnery Team is still the go to here

ISD-1 - Maybe leaning yes. The rear is the same as the ISD-2 but Gunnery Team is slightly less good on the ISD-1.

Cymoon - No. The front arc is where the moneys at. Gunnery Team for days.

Kuat - Ordnance Experts go on this triangle.

Gladiator - No. Stick to Ordnance Experts

Onager - It already have a Salvo so one more seems redundant.

Quasar - What? No.

Raider - No

Victory - Maybe yes. This can make use of the Salvo. It has just as good dice pool as the Starhawk at long range so it is a contender. It's just a matter how well can it behave without Gunnery Team...

The curious case of the dead Hammerheads

Every now and then I feel like its time to dust off the Hammerheads and give them a spin, and instantly afterwards regret it. They are hard to use to say the least. Different manoeuvring than a CR90, oddly fragile despite being hull 5 (side eyes the token suite). A game where 1 out of 3 survives is in my experience, a good game.

Picture shows a Hammerhead being used right

Nordics (Denmark) 2019: The Aftermath

The dust has settled, the ships are resting in their foamtrays, but the aftermath of Nordics 2019 still rings (somewhat) clear in the mind. Its time to go over it all again, but with 20/20 hindsight :).

Tuborg has nothing to do with this blog, but its still good beer

Preparing for Nordics 2019

Getting back on track after Euros in Krakow, its time to take out a list for Nordics, the tournament that the rest of the (US) Armada community, knows the least about.

Even though the distance is so short (spoiler: its not) from Norway to Iceland, I doubt we will see any players from Iceland in Denmark

Denmark, while being known for their Beer, their love for Elfsborgs Fortification outside Gothenburg during the 1600-1800 and generally enjoying life, have from what I have heard many good players.

The typical Dane.

This year Nordics is hosted in Denmark, Helsingör. This is super nice, as I have high hopes of there being beer at or close the event :)

This blog does not stand for or endorse excessive alcoholic consumption

But before there can be beer and Armada, there must be a list...

European Championship 2019 Kraków

Now that Euros in Kraków is over, its time I put my writing hat on and start to put some thoughts and recollections into writing, and too much time has past since. Sit back and indulge in some pictures [a huge crapload] as I go through what was the FFG European Championship of 2019 for Armada.

This place doesn't look that promising in this photo, but shes got it where it counts. To be more specific, inside

Also that we had a nuclear(?) power plant next to the Expo made it slightly more exciting :)

Rebellion in the Rim: Upgrade cards

Someone over at Echo Base posted spoliers for the upcoming Rebellion in the Rim Campaign and a big thank you to Mike Doench over there is in order. During the time of writing this, Cannotgetyourshipout Armada blog posted better pictures. These I re posted are good enough and perfectly readable so I wont change them at this time. The waiting has been long but it is soon coming to an end! This expansion holds more promise of rearranging the meta than the Wave 8 ships!

I want to take a nosedive right into the cards and try to prophecies if they will be of use or wasted points. So much fun things will happen with the game when this expansion comes out!

Sorry, I couldnt find a better pic to put here, so have Vader with a dove...

New Ships! Part 2

New Ships and Cards: The Empire edition

And so we arrive at the Imperials new Ship. The Onager, and the commander that follows with it, General Romodi.

I only smile when I shoot something behind something

New Ships! Part 1

New Ships and Cards: Rebel Edition

It finally happened. Over a year of waiting and new ships are finally announced!

I am just has happy as these people.

After a long time of silence from FFG with news and announcements for the game, FFG revealed during GenCon 2019 two new ships. The Nadiri Starhawk and the Onager Stardestroyer, both completely unfamilliar to me...

This post will deal with the Starhawk and the Onager will get its own post in due time.

European championship 2019: Pre tournament

Having been in a long lull from the game since the Battle at Gothcon [link] where Ackbars Exodus Fleet ran the gauntlet and emerged victorious. Now it's time to prepare for the next big tournament. This time the Euros will be held in Krakow and I got the green light from the Fleet Commander (my wife) to attend this time, which I am eternally gratefull for. And here are my woes...


Having done some playtesting with a Rieekan Ace fleet that I now judge "not good enough" due to time constraints. Learning how the fleet behaves and to make suitable adjustments with it before putting it down on the table against a stiff and serious competition simply is not possible. My goal is to score better than how it went in Birmingham with my Rieekan MSU back in 2017 where it got completely movn' down nd i landed on place 42. Things learned from that trip was:

• MSU is difficult to play. You have many movable parts that needs to come in at the right time and the advantage with having the superior number of activations dwindles the more you start to loose ships. Also with more moving parts comes the possibilities of more mistakes being made when fatigue starts to set in.

• Its easy to lose small base ships in this day and meta with Kuat's being a thing and average damage being higher than in eralier waves. Loosing 2 ships/turn is not uncommon. 

• I managed to beat my own list after the tournament with an imperial hodgepodge consisting of Motti on a VSDII, demolisher, 2 Gozantis and a lot of TIE-fighters and IG-88.

The Rieekan list I conjured in my mind was as following:

*Assault Frigate MK2B
Rieekan, Boosted Comms, Electronic Countermeasure, Flight Controller, Adar Tallon.

*Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette
External Racks

*Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette
External Racks

*GR-75 Medium Transport
Toryn Farr, Comms Net, Bright Hope,

*GR-75 Medium Transport
Bomber Command Center, Boosted Comms,

*Squadrons
Luke
Wedge
Biggs
Dutch
Nym
Gold Squadron
Dagger Squadron
HWK-290

It all comes down to 400pts, with a maxed out squadron wing of 134pts.

Some photos where taken from the games.

Game 1

Rieekans opposing list were "the good one", with an ISD, GSD Demolisher, 2 Gozantis and a Arquitens. No Squadrons so a walk in the park you might think.

Setup

Setup was solid, but mistakes were made :)

Round 2

Only sending one squadron after Demolisher is not a great idea while the rest mill about among the rocks

Game 2

This game went better, but it was the "In-my-mind-bad-list" list.

The plan with the hammerheads is that they shield the more important parts of the fleet and when they die they get zombied by Rieekan. This, I realized, in hindsight is a bad way of constructing a list. It's generally a bad idea to include things that have the role of simply being a meatshield, ie. give points to the opponent, and that don't use the hammerheads to their full potential.
Also this list likes being second. And that is also anathema to what a torpedo hammerhead wants.
Only testing a list 2 times does not show the true potential of the list, but as I mentioned above, time to waste is now a luxury I can not afford due to being a parent.

My squadron game has not been on edge and this time it was abysmal at best so I'll spare my brain the headache of having to trudge through possibly 5 games all in one day with having to think about the optimal positioning for Biggs or if its worth sacrificing Jan just to get Nym to land one more hit into a ISD and how to spread out your squadrons so Mauler can't get to all of them.

So in short. This list gets shelved untill I can pick up the squadron game again.

"Bring what you know how to fly" are important wisdom regarding this game. I have seen people netlist and loose badly, not having the knowledge of the lists strenghts and weaknesses and how to fly with it. What comes naturally is the Ackbar list from GothCon. But with a few adjustments from last time. That is a list I have a clear idea of how to fly. Just needs to make some suitable changes to it.

Tournament summary: Gothcon 2019

Every year a game convention is held in central parts of Gothenburg with participants from all over Sweden. It's been going for 43 years now, and it just gets bigger. All board games imaginable and unimaginable are played for 4 days. It's crazy fun.

Sadly the practical things aren't up to the events size. The queue for the food they serve is painstakingly slow and even if you prepaid and booked your tickets in advance prepare for a long line and waiting time, so being there in time is of utmost importance if your games are scheduled early.

But it is still a very good convention. Friendly people, fun games and fresh accommodations for a reasonable price. It's more family friendly than I remember but that might be because I now have a kid that I notice these things.

Enough blabbering and straight to the tournament report!

Had a hard time keeping my marbles together