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...



And this is where the problems arise. With minimal time to play and practise before the event makes list building problematic and it is easy to come up with a crazy idea that seems very cool and great on paper, until you put it down before your opponent and realise that it has several inbuilt flaws and you tournament experience turns into a shitshow for you.

For example, I wanted to bring a list that draws inspiration from the winning GenCon list. Garm is one of my favourite admirals and I have had some success with him before. But I realised after some play testing that this is a list that requires very much of its player. With so many moving parts,

1. Squadrons that wants to be pushed by the pelta
2. Get IF! going with the pelta
3. Keeping the Liberty alive without Engine Techs

that require good deployment and equally good flying, I quickly dropped this list simply due to no time to practise. At best I have achieved a 6/5 during play testing, against a dubious list with a Victory Star destroyer, the "best" Star destroyer.

It was a mutual, fun slugfest. This Garm list will maybe win big if your opponent is a baby seal.

Instead, there is Madine.

Liberty MC80

 Had the luck with finding an MC80 "Liberty" while in Kraków, the only rebel ship I did not have. That all the cards are in polish is just extra spice. So there are almost no reasons not to take this ship and do something fun with it.
It does not turn well, don't fancy squadrons that much, and will start to crumble under pressure its sides and rear are under fire or if your opponent has ways of generating accuracies to lock down that lone redirect.

BUT: it has a very good front arc. Right in the middle between a Victory and an ISD. And two Brace defence tokens. Both versions want to do the same thing, kill things in front of them. The upgrades they want to use is what differentiates them.

Some brainstorming later and this came out around the Lib':

•  Strategic Adviser is sadly, a staple if a Large base is included, unless there is another officer that fits the list better. So many lists include it just to give an edge in activations and if none is taken, Pryce is left in the binder or the MSU you run don't have enough activations, the shit is floating slightly closer to the fan. Intel Officer could have gone here.

• Gunnery Team should also be on the Liberty, just like the ISD or Victory. The more so for the Battle Cruiser since it threatens a larger area with more dice. But here the Star Cruiser is the ship of choice to contribute for a bid for first. And also keep it somewhat light on upgrades. The gunnery team prevents squadrons from being in the same arc as a ship is and this, eliminates the decision of flaking or shooting a ship.

• Engine Techs. The only large base ship that can go "fake" speed 4. It is hard to say no to that.

• SW-7 Ion batteries are very niche. The ship it is on wants a whole lot of blue dice but it is making those dice deal 100% damage, unless the ship is shooting into the Solar Corona edge. I am taking this because why not.

• Mon Karen. What a great title. In effect it is half an Intel Officer and half an XI7 Turbolaser. Almost no other upgrades are necessary with this title, aside of maybe XX-9's and Spinal Armament or Quad Battery Turrets, but the doctrine I'm following here is "keep it cheap".

The Friends

Just a Liberty don't make a complete list. It need a bunch of friends to make the party complete. To keep the punch up and the cost (somewhat) down, the MC30c Torpedo frigate fits nicely along side the Liberty with its angry side arc.

 The MC30c "shrimp" is kind of cheap when seeing all the dice it has, but when it comes to survivability, it is sadly lacking. One can wish for a similar Captain Brownsauce for the rebels for Christmas, but there is something called "asymmetrical balance" that this game is subject of so it will probably never happen. Be happy that Major Derlin is a thing.
This is a lot of points invested in a 4 hull ship, so care needs to be taken with, deployment, activation and nasty unfriendly squadrons that wants to put holes in this ship.

• Walex Blissex makes Adminition work overtime. He is nice, specifically against Sloane, with bringing one defence token back as soon as the ship activates.

• Ordnance Experts need no explanation,. They are experts in their craft. Namely delivering ordnance where it needs to be the most.

• Early Warning System can be debatable if it has a spot on the MC30 or not. It is expensive, and will not do much when squadrons get too close and can choose which side they want to shoot at that is not being protected by the Chaff-token. But it provides with one less dice into one arc. And that makes exposing yourself at long range more manageable with double evade tokens. It is of course doing more under Mon Mothma and with Major Derlin for effectively no damage from 3 dice or if 2 accuracies and a double hit from the reds are presented, one damage. But that is another ship for another list and that is Foresight.

• Assault Proton Torpedoes. Damage straight to the hull. Too good to pass up on.

• Admonition. The most survivable of MC30c's at close range. Cancel dice is nice.

A CR90B lifeboat. The MC80 has a tendency of crumbling under pressure, and that makes it unsuitable as a flagship. The CR90B, while still lacking Engine Techs, is better suited at keeping the Admiral alive. And with this loadout it can provide some support for the other ships. MS-1 is not the best Ion slot upgrade, but it is cheap while also annoying.

Run-of-the-mill Comms Net Transport. Nothing needs to be said about it.

As for Squadrons...

These are simply here for 3 reasons.

1. if the other player has a lot of squadrons, its to delay bombing of the capital ships and keep the other player honest. 
2. if the other players has weak or no squadrons, its to help with bringing ships down.
3. I hate to leave my home without some squadrons.

simple as that. Rogues, while expensive, are easy to manage when a ship can't activate them. The YT-2400 provides a lot of support with 6 hull, speed 4 and a black anti-ship dice. 3/4 rolls will end up with a hit.

Dash even brings his own Bomber Command Center and Toryn Far. For 8 points more than a generic YT-2400 that is sometimes good to have.

Ketsu has 2 blue anti-ship dice and the Bomber Keyword. She has an interesting special ability that is a soft counter to intel, but that is not the reason for her participation. It is her Scatter defence token. With that she is harder to kill with anti-squadron shots unless the ship she fires at has blue/black anti-squadron dice and h9.

While this ball is expensive, it can still provide a crucial turn of tying down a dedicated squadron ball for at least one turn.

Playtesting

A couple of games, two to be specific, to test the list was all the time I could manage to get familiar with the MC80 and MC30. And let me tell you, I am rusty with the MC30. It got off one side arc during one game but that did not matter since it was a Flotilla that was on the receiving end. And of course the accuracies where not present.

Game 1

Choosing Superior Positions makes your setup look like a fan.

 The game ran like this. My 4 rogues and the CR90B tried to take down Sloane on the lifeboat raider. MC80 + MC30 tried to catch both the Arquitens and the Quasar.

In hindsight there where some errors made on my part.

1. Ketsu tried to make some "easy" butt-points off the Gozanti that was with Sloane. Failed 2 turns of bombing with no accuracies. Had I instead went for the Raider it would be dead by round 6. And Dash failed both his rolls with 2 blank black dice. X_X how is that even possible... (Spoiler: It happened game 2 also.)
2. The MC30 went too fast, turned too close and blocked my MC80 when trying to go up for a shot at the Arquitens. Arquitens just jumped over and Engine Tech'd away the same round.
3. The squadrons went the "wrong" way, since that amounted to nothing but a Raider with 1 hull remaining.

The only good way to end a turn for a Liberty is with no defence tokens, no shields and 1 hull and being first player.

This game ended with a dead Liberty and a dead MC30 for me and a dead Quasar for my opponent. Lost 2/9 due to the sheer number of tokens my opponent had racked up and the fact that I was almost tabled.

Game 2

This game went better. Again Superior Positions and again the fan deployment. This time, Sloane wasn't as exposed as the previous game, but the squadrons where instead all over the place.

Deployment

Not much else to do than deploy in the middle and hope for the best.

During round 2

Madine tried to use MS-1 on the Centicore to exhaust either the Engine Techs or Brownsauce. Succeeded partly since Brunson got used to cancel one blue crit.
The liberty stares down the squadrons that hide among the rocks and then went from speed 2 to speed 3+1, straight for the Quasar.
GR-75 does its thing and passes engineering tokens to the lib.
MC30 eats a lot of damage (3) from Maarek/Jendon. One defence token is used to cancel one crit dice.
Ketsu goes up alone to try to slow down the squadrons by the rock, but she goes down this round, having managed what she could. Dash and the 2 YT-2400 shoots at Maarek but rolls crap and leaves him at 3 hull.

Start round 3

The round begins with the Lib giving the Quasar the treatment of seven dice to the rear, and then ends up ramming the Quasar 2 times, leaving it with 1 hull total.
The Arquitens, CR90 and Admo just mess around a rock and accomplishes nothing but maybe one rear shot.
Squads gather in the rear of the Lib and scores points.Since Jendon/Maarek where elsewhere the Liberty manged pretty well.

Round 4-5 ish

The start of the turn sees the Quasar going up in flames, the liberty then disengages from battle and turns up toward the board edge. Here I should have pushed on, and tried my hand at getting the Gozanti and, though very unlikely, Sloanes Raider. Not doing that cost me the victory.
The Arquitens speeds up and tries to get closer to the other squadrons to help with Centicore relay. Maarek had earlier turns visited the station and regained some hull after barely surviving Dash and the 2 YT's attempted murder. He then edged in between the GR-75 and the rear of the Liberty. The following last 2 turns sees him flaked to death.

Closing thoughts

This is not a super good list. But it is fun. Madine provides those sick Tokyo-Drift handbrakes as long as Navigate is the main Command. That makes setting the dial stacks easier and save some headaches.

Both the MC80 and the MC30 are fragile and does not like long drawn out sluging matches. Madine and Engine Techs helps with the arc dodging. It lacks in activations and that is where it suffers the most. Overall I say this is a pretty fun all rounded list. The most important part whit this game is to have fun.

As for how to fly this thing during competetive play, trial and error will be the light that guides this list in the dark.