Star Wars: Armada - fleet building input please

Started by Silent Disapproval Robot, September 29, 2015, 04:34:41 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Silent Disapproval Robot

Anyone play?  I've gone and paid $20 to enroll myself in a tournament this Saturday despite the fact that I've got very little experience playing the game (4-5 games total).  Here's the tournament blurb.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/8/25/the-massing-at-sullust/

There are 8 players in the tournament and I know 5 of them.  They all pretty much live and breathe Armada so I suspect I've got my work cut out for myself.  I've been struggling to come up with a decent fleet build but can't seem to find the right balance.

Reading the forums from various tournaments indicates that the fleets that tend to win are those who eschew fighter and bomber squadrons in favour of 3 heavily beefed up capital ships.  I know that the favourite to win is bringing his fleet of 4 Gladiator class destroyers.  He tends to charge straight in and lob a mess of concussion missiles into your face.

Here's his fleet pummeling a Star Destroyer to bits.




The second top contender will most likely throw a mass wave of cheap, unmodified Rebel Corellian Corvettes into the fray and use their numbers and speed to cut behind and plink away at the vulnerable rear of ships.




The third guy (who cheats BTW) likes to build a fleet based wholly on defence.  He hides behind asteroids and tries to win on points by making you come to him and running out the turns. 




So here's what I'm thinking.  I don't have enough miniatures in my collection to field a decent fleet of capital ships only so I've decided to take a page out of the WWII Pacific battles and build a carrier fleet.

I'm thinking of going with this build:

-Victory I class Star Destroyer
      -Admiral Chireneau
      -Extended Hangar Bays
      -Flight Controller
      -Corrupter

-Victory II class Star Destroyer (flagship)
       -Admiral Motti
       -Leading Shots
       -Enhanced Armaments
       -Warlord

3x TIE bomber squadrons (2 regular and 1 led by Major Rhymer)
2x TIE advanced squadrons (1 regular and 1 led by Vader)


The idea is that the Victory I will activate first and try to hang back a little and throw the bombers and TIE advanced against a single ship at a time.  With the extended hangar bays, the ship can activate 4 squads per turn.  Adm Chireneau's ability allows the bombers to slip past any enemy fighter escorts without becoming engaged while Corrupter gives the bombers extra speed. The flight controllers give the TIE advanced extra attack dice against any enemy fighters that might show up.  With Major Rhymer, I can attack capital ships at up to medium range with black dice so what I'm hoping is that the bombers will slip past any fighters while the advanced TIEs tie them up.  They can then attack at medium range with 3 black dice (or more if the TIE advanced aren't tangling with fighters) and knock down the enemy's shields and eat up their defence tokens.

The Victory II will follow up by activating second and then hopefully hammering the now shieldless ship into dust with a combination of Leading Shots (spend 1 blue attack die to reroll all other dice), Enhanced Armaments (left and right batteries get 1 extra red attack die), and Warlord (change a focus to a hit on any one die).


My worry is that with only two slow, unmaneuverable capital ships, I'm going to be on the back foot almost immediately and will be vulnerable to a swarm attack.

Any thoughts?

LongBlade

I have played once and it took a great deal of restraint not to drop several hundred dollars on the game.

The models alone are worth the cost.

Unfortunately I don't have enough experience with the game to offer much in the way of strategy. Sorry.
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

Nefaro

QuoteRandal Graves: [talking about the second Death Star] A construction job of that magnitude would require a helluva lot more manpower than the Imperial army had to offer. I'll bet there were independent contractors working on that thing: plumbers, aluminum siders, roofers.

Dante Hicks: Not just Imperials, is what you're getting at...

Randal Graves: Exactly. In order to get it built quickly and quietly they'd hire anybody who could do the job. Do you think the average storm trooper knows how to install a toilet main? All they know is killing and white uniforms.

Silent Disapproval Robot

#3
Well, the tournament's over. It took 7.5 hours to finish and it was pretty fun but I have to admit to being burnt out by the end.  I tweaked my list a bit but went with the bomber carrier idea.  It worked out well in the first round.  I spent less on my fleet than my first opponent so I had the choice of either taking initiative or ceding to him but forcing him to select from my 3 possible objective cards.  I went with the second option and he ended up choosing the mine fields objective.  This basically let my cover one half of the map with obstacles and mines.  I was hoping to funnel him into a narrow corridor where he'd be subject to the forward firepower of my 2 Star Destroyers.  Didn't quite work out that way.  He had 2 corvettes and an assault frigate with some A-wing squads as escort. 

My fighters quickly tore his A-wings apart but he tried to navigate the mines so we didn't come to grips until the 5th turn.  I was able to get one of his corvettes down to one hull point but couldn't finish him off before the turn limit was reached.  He shot down two TIE bomber squadrons with AA guns.  The match ended in a low scoring tie.

My second opponent had the same idea as me and came at me with 2 rebel frigates and 7 Y-wing squads backed up by 3 A-wings.  We ended up with minefields again.   He kept his frigates well back and just threw his bombers forward.  The sheer number of rebel fighters overwhelmed my fighters and bombers and I lost all 5 of my squads in exchange for 1 squad of Y wings and 1 of A wings.  Again, I got one of his frigates down to 1 hull point but I couldn't finish him off as his frigates were faster than my Star Destroyers and I couldn't catch him.

Another close game with me losing slightly on points.  I misunderstood how rankings we calculated before the tourney started and this ended up costing me.  Standings were determined by comparing the point differential of ships lost in each match.  As both of my matches were within 20 points, this counted as a tie and each player received 5 points so with 2 ties, I was right in the middle of the pack with 10 points after two rounds.  I thought these points would determine final standing but I was mistaken and they just determined who you would face in the next match.  Final standings would be based on build value of enemy units destroyed.  As I'd been in two very low scoring matches, I was in last place.  Therefore, for my final match I needed to inflict some massive damage to have any chance of breaking into the top 5 and winning a prize.  Unfortunately I came up against my first Imperial fleet which consisted of one Star Destroyer and two Gladiators.  The Gladiators are glass cannons.  They're fragile, but if they can get to close range, they're absolutely devastating.  We ended up with mine fields again.  I tried to throw my bombers out front to knock the shields of the Gladiators down but I forgot how fast they are and they blitzed past my screen in a single round.  I got a few hits into one but not enough to do any serious damage.  They closed the distance in two turns and ripped me apart.  I had some bad luck in dice rolls (3 misses in a row in dice with a 75% chance of hitting) but mostly I just badly misjudged speeds and distances and I lost both of my Star Destroyers by turn 4.  All I managed to kill in return was a single squad of TIE fighters.  Losing all your capital ships counts as an automatic loss so I ended up losing all 300 points. 

I came last and also ended up bumping my opponent into 4th place overall thanks to such a lopsided point differential.

Learned some new tactics and got to see the new wave 2 ships in action.  That new Mon Calimari capital ship is a killer!  It ripped the new Imperial Star a Destroyer to pieces in two turns.

Here are some of the new ships in action.  The top 5 players each got to take on the the new miniatures home.  I got a participation pin and some rocks thrown at me.










Silent Disapproval Robot

Crap.  Turns out I had the scoring correct and it was the tournament organized who screwed up.  I should have been in 4th place and had I known that, I wouldn't have blitzed forward in the final match.  Oh well...

mirth

Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on October 04, 2015, 12:28:15 AM
Crap.  Turns out I had the scoring correct and it was the tournament organized who screwed up.  I should have been in 4th place and had I known that, I wouldn't have blitzed forward in the final match.  Oh well...

That's a pissah!
"45 minutes of pooping Tribbles being juggled by a drunken Horta would be better than Season 1 of TNG." - SirAndrewD

"you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire" - Bawb

"Can't 'un' until you 'pre', son." - Gus

LongBlade

Dang. I really love this game but don't have the funds to drop on a big fleet.

Sorry you lost, SDR, but it still sounds like a blast.
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.