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 :)

 Kraków

We arrived very, very early two days before the championship started, so we had a lot of time to explore Kraków and drink beer! That is one of the best part with Armada, is that it is, in reasonable amounts, beer-compatible. After getting off the plane, and a short train ride later we ended up in the central parts of the city. From there we started to search for gaming stores that could host us. After some searching we found a store that had the spare room for such games. While we where there we encountered by chance a player that knocked down one of our acquaintances several places during Euros in Birmingham 2018. He is a very good player. We had a game, some chats and some beers, then went to the hotel.

While being in Poland, what was very obvious was that the Poles are very hospitable. I will definitely go back to Kraków some day in the future not Armada-related.

Second day we met up with more Swedish players, heading to the tournament. But first we did some sightseeing.

St. Paul is a very, if not the most, famous Pokestop in Krakow.

 We met up at a non-FFG affiliated X-Wing tournament in a beer hall (what is not to like in that sentence) and had another game. I brought enough ships for 3 different lists, including this spoofy double Victory SD list with 3 Firesprays, Corruptor and Admiral Chiraneau. Moff Jerjerrod where the head at the helm. I played against a Ackbar SSD-list that was the brainchild of Greenknight and another player. It had 3 CR90A with TRC and Ackbar on an Assault Cruiser, so it was shooty. I can say I lost. But half the game is doing something fun and have a laugh at it.

Famous last words "I can not be tabled."

The beer was good and the game was fun. It was pear flavoured.
After that it was home to bed and sleep.

The Tournament 

As the day for the tournament finally arrived, expectations went up. Would we have to wait 1 hour until anything happened as in Birmingham? 71 Players had bought tickets, 64 showed up. And the field looked like this. We were playing a total of 5 games during one day. From what I took with me from Birmingham last year was that a simple list is better than a combo-wombo technical list where placement is a matter of life and death. So The list I took was the last version of the Ackbar Exodus fleet. My thought was "this is original and no-one is going to run Exodus Fleet. It will be glorious" but I was not alone...

One can theorize why no one ran Garm or Mon Mothma but I wont.

 The diversity among the Imperial lists still outshines the Rebels, but Sloane is still the go-to for many players. The fact that Ackbar was now more popular than Raddus made me more and more regret my decision to bring my list.

Only one SSD where attending

 Sadly there was only one SSD in the Tournament. I had hoped for more now that a new ship finally has arrived. And it would be a blast to face one.

Game 1

 First game was against Javiér. He had double Motti and an Interdictor with Projection Experts. Motti sat on an Avenger BT Kuat and An almost naked Cymoon had Spinal Armament and Strategic Adviser. He had the higher bid so he choose to go first and played Advanced Gunnery. His Advanced Gunnery ship was the Cymoon and mine the HMC80.

We deployed slightly off from the centre and started to joust for better placement. 

This is the famous glove. We were both impressed.

 My GR-75's start to speed up to get out of range from the Cymoon on the leftmost flank.

 The MC75 starts to wiggle around the asteroids to gain a better angle for the Ackbar sidearc, And his Cymoon has shots at my GR-75, which he lucks out badly with and only manage to get one damage to stick, even with spinals, a concentrate fire and two shots.

I am a little too happy with the gas pedal on the MC75 and forget to change a dial command with Leia for the 75 and instead give the MC80 a Concentrate fire. This will prove disastrous for me during the next round...

 Where did the MC75 go? Off course! By a hairs width, it was of the board according to my opponent, and I decided that it was not the time for arguments. Had I been more careful with the movement, it might had stayed on. But I called it too early. Shit happens. 

 From there it went kind of bad. The Interdictor funnels shields to the Avenger, that made it survive the double Ackbar sides, and the BT Avenger went speed 3 with 2 hull out of reach from the MC80. Loss 4-7.

Game 2

After that demoralising experience, it was time to learn how to Sensor Net with a very friendly man from Austria, his list was not friendly. He flew a Rieekan Aces list with only 3 ships, MC80 assault, Yavaris and a GR-75 with Bomber Command, Boosted Comms and Adar Talon. He had an angry Squadron ball with Wedge, Numb, Gold Squadron, 2 VCX and Luke and a regular Y-Wing. He had a bigger bid than me and choose to go Second. He had exactly my Objective Cards, Advanced Gunnery, Fire Lanes and Sensor Net. I choose you, Sensor Net! (In hindsight, I should have chosen Fire Lanes)

We deployed from across each other and went off with the token farming. I kept an even pace in the beginning but would soon realise that this was a game I could not beat him in.

MC75 wanted to have a word with Yavaris and set off at speed 3. MC80 went after it and tried to keep pace, pinning for the fjords. Here is where his fighter Coordination Teams and VCX's started to juggle tokens like crazy. Even after activating they still placed the tokens right where they needed to be. This should be illegal.

Suddenly, a swarm of double tapping angry squadrons where in the grill of the MC75. It weathered the storm pretty well but when the MC80 fired a double arc into it, the pain was starting to be felt. MC75 got off a double arc from the side and the front into Yavaris and it goes down to 2 hull. Exodus Fleet Enginnering Commands keeps it alive a while longer.
Ackbar MC80 fires a sidearc into Rieekan MC80 and nothing spectacular happens.

More token farming and squadrons shooting at the, barely alive, MC75 the goal from my part now was to simply try to reduce my losses. I had walked into a trap that had no way out of. MC75 Finishes Yavaris and it gets Rieekan'd. Also the poor GR-75 in the front of the MC75 gets rammed to death. I loose the MC75 and that is that. Another loss 4-7.

Game 3

During this game I become aware of the state the Swedes are in. Every Swede has at this point or during a prior game, faced off against another Swede. And somewhere in the bottom rankings. And here I am facing my regular opponent  from home and His Sloane Ball, which I know this list can't beat. He goes First, and chooses Sensor Net, which he knows how to shut down quick. I deploy in a defencive conga line.

We deploy from across and start off.

My VCX's tries to move the tokens where they need to be. I send one of my GR-75 away to get past the Quasar in one piece and go for an off-photo Sensor Net token, as all the squadrons are either going to nipp away at the MC80 or kill the VCX's.

Both VCX's gets either tied down or killed. The MC80 looses its Brace from a Jendon/Maarek strafe. MC75 does a hard turn. Flaking from both the GR-75 and MC80 does some damage to squadrons

Somewhere here around round 5 we decided that this game was over. He couldn't put enough hurt into my MC80 to kill it as it could still sail out of harms way, and the Quasar did not want to go into the arc of the MC75 so it turned away from the fight, and out of reach from the squadrons. My GR-75 had picked up a token at the edge of the mat and that made me the winner by 1 MoV. 6-5 Win.

Game 4

Going into game 4 I had hopes for an interesting matchup, but alas, I jinxed myself in the previous game. I face off against a similar list that I had, but with a few exceptions. He had Defiance instead of the Exodus Fleet spiel I was running and Ackbar. A bigger bid to ensure he was going to go Second. Out of his Objectives I choose Planetary Ion Cannon. Me having more VCX's than him made it easier to go around the problems they would cause.

Since we both had defencive lists, none of us wanted to fully commit. The arcs and the size of large ships makes it quite hard to get all the guns pointing at the right target.

Both my VCX's start to Juggle away those tokens so my ships can come through. His ships slug along slowly at speed 1.

Fast forward to the last round. Nothing exciting happened besides his exposed flotilla got a front arc from the MC75 the turn prior to this. Win 6-5.

Game 5

Last game and this is where it got exciting! I was also getting super tired, as was my opponent. Here I met a Dane who ran Thrawn 3-ship with a lot of bombers. A LOT. I think he had 7 TIE Bombers with Rhymer. Finally something I don't play against often. He wanted to go first, and choose Fire Lanes.

We set up straight from across each other. He fanned out the tokens from their initial point.

My VCX's gather together 2 of the tokens and keeps them in Arc for my big ships. His Cymoon with Thrawn on goes speed 3 forward.

Turn 3 the obvious mistake of not giving my MC80 enough room to manoeuvre becomes obvious. Had I simply parked it at a slight angle this would have been avoided, but my head was starting to show signs of shutting down.

Eventually Ackbar goes down. Not even EWS can help it when Thrawn parks a Cymoon in the front of a MC80. Rookie mistake. I manage to gather enough tokens to reduce my loss to a 5-6.

Closing (and redeeming) thoughts 

My predictions that the competition was going to be stiff turned out to be true, but I severely underestimated some of the sub-par decisions I would make during the games. I can blame the matchups all the way and back to heck, but it wont make any difference that I played badly. As always in Armada, it is the player who makes the least mistakes that will usually win.

Now for some more upbeat notes. The POD's the day after where terrific. Seemed like I hadn't had enough armada so I took part in one and tried flying a Liberty for the first time, with a list I built on the fly. Managed to win a game with a 3-ship rebel/rogue soup. It felt refreshing flying the Liberty, but it is really a bigger Nebulon. That glassjaw cracks so easily. Madine is also a fun Admiral to fly, but not a common sight. Also a big shout out to all the people I met at the tournament, both old and new. The trip and event wouldn't have been as great as it where in the end without all the friendly people. This is what makes this community so great.

How it went down for Team Sweden is another interesting detail. We had one player who were completely new to the game and decided that it would be a good idea to learn playing against good players. I can only approve of that bravery of going to a official tournament where grown men move around plastic on a table for early morning until the security ran us out of the building. Another tale is that game 2-4 Swedes where facing off against each other in different constellations in the lower rankings. The famous words of "we could just have had our own Euros in Stockholm and not having to travel so far" is one of the memories I will take with me from this tournament.

Highest ranking Swede reached 12 which is a great feat. Even as we played each other in game 3, he managed to table 2 of his opponents and secure a position among the Top 16 players. Congratulations! 

I ranked the worst due to one of my winning matched not counted to my total score. Even after speaking with the judge and counting the scores again nothing could be done to give me the right amount of points. Not that it would matter much but, at least I scored better than in Birmingham. I will just shrug it off and move on to the next big thing. Nordics in Helsingør, Denmark at the end of September. Time to prepare a new fleet and shelve Ackbar...