SpaceCon II was held at Three D6 in Canberra, April 24, 2016. This was the store's championship event, and 14 players took part. Six from the Parramatta Attack Wing made the trek, 7 locals from Canberra, (edit: apparently two of these seven were from Newcastle - my apologies) and your humble correspondent representing Task Force Orange.
My Armada associate and rival, Theo, had planned on going, and had even asked to borrow one of my AF2s so he could run a three-whale Akbar fleet. I therefore planned on a variety of other things, including a Dodonna 3xTRC90, 2xMc30 strike fleet. But with only a few days to go Theo announced that [i]apparently[/i] his son's first birthday took priority, and so I could have my AF2 back.
Quandary!
Ought I continue with my planned alternative, or return to my natural love of Akbar AF2s?
I spent a few days designing and redesigning (when by rights I should have been studying), ended up with a list I though might work, and took [i]only those ships and no others[/i] away with me on holidays.
I then played four games with that list on Vassal against various opponents.
Whoops.
I lost every game.
By a lot.
So, more redesigning, a quick run to the local games shop (I needed another Mc30 anyway), and I had my list for the tournament. Two AF2s with Gunnery Teams and TRCs (one with ECM to protect Akbar), a naked Mc30 Scout, and an upgraded Torpedo Mc30 with Xi7, OE, APT. Two A-Wings rounded out the side, as sacrificial lambs to keep the bombers [i]slightly[/i] at bay. A 14 point bid ought to be enough to guarantee first player in most cases...
Round One was against Tristan, the eventual tournament winner. He was fielding one of the two Rhymer balls of the Tournament, with a Victory I, Demolisher, and a Raider for fun. I chose to go first, picked his contested outpost objective, and deployed.
And that's where things went wrong. In my plan and practice, there was a Mc30 on each side of my deployment to guard the front of my AF2s, regardless of which way they turned. Instead, for reasons passing understanding, I put them both on the left. Tristan had more deployments than me, so Demolisher was not yet on the table.
He put it on my right, away from the Mc30s. Clever, clever. With activation advantage and initiative, I should have been able to make Demolisher move, then park a Mc30 in its face, ready for next turn, before blowing it to bits. That was the plan. Now my Mc30s were out of place, and out of options.
This shot shows the start of turn 2. I'm not sure if I had even yet realised the absolute mess I had made of this battle. I turned my Mc30 towards Demolisher, hoping for a 'hail mary run', but then I made matters worse by turning my battleline [i]towards[/i] Demolisher. Lesson one in the Assault Frigate Captains course should be: Always turn away from Demolisher. Run. Run for the hills.
Tristan has gone to speed 0 on his Victory, which also took me by surprise, and denied my AF2s anything to shoot at for quite a long time. Too long a time.
Of course, Tristan didn't claim the station, which also took my by surprise. His first deployment, the Raider, is headed for the far reaches of the galaxy, planning on surviving the game even if the other ships perished, to give the fighters a chance to wipe out my ships should things turn nasty.
In my head, I'm thinking - "I can't kill those fighters. I have to kill the three ships to end this battle in my favour." As a result, my naked Mc30 Scout has set out to chase down and destroy that Raider, and will follow it to the edge of the map and the end of the game.
Start of the turn 2, and I should have turned the AF2s to the left, and headed for the station, away from Demolisher, and towards the Victory. What do I do instead?
The exact opposite. Start of turn 3. My AF2s have continued their turn, and the front one has been picked apart and destroyed by a combination of enemy fighters and Demolisher. The second one, with Akbar on board, is headed for the same fate.
My Mc30 Scout is still on track to take down the Raider, and my Mc30 Torpedo Frigate is headed on a suicide run straight at the Victory. Sadly, my turn 1 turn to the right means that Mc30 is out of close range of the Victory at the start of turn 3. I suppose I assumed it would speed up a little... but Tristan is very clever, and knows his fleet backwards.
Start of turn 4. My Flagship is still alive, and my Torpedo Frigate has survived a full frontal barrage from the Victory (he "whiffed" it). The Mc30 does very well against the Victory, bringing it to within 1 hull point of destruction - if I had rolled a single accuracy, it would have died, or if my APTs had gone off on the front arc with a reroll from Ordnance Experts - but, if wishes were fishes we'd all be knee deep in mackerel.
Start of turn 5, and the game is effectively over. My flagship and Mc30 are destroyed, and all that is left is for my Mc30 Scout to knock out the raider.
Game ends with bitter tears of remorse for me, and nine tournament points for Tristan.
Oh for a ten-minute time machine, and deploying according to the plan!
This rhymer / demo list was exactly what I had designed to defeat - win initiative, have activation advantage, hit Demolisher hard and move on.
A bad plan stuck to is better than a good plan changed. All credit to Tristan, all blame to me.
Game Two
My 9/1 defeat saw me at the very bottom table, with a young chap from Canberra called Jaidyn. He was on his third or fourth game of Armada total, and was still learning the game. He fielded an ISD, two VSDs, some generic Ties and Interceptors.
Again, I chose to go first, and almost picked "most wanted." I then suddenly changed my mind and went for Minefields. I probably should have gone for most wanted. Anyway...
This is the start of turn 1. Ackbar's flagship has hit a mine, and is headed off to the right. The other AF2 has taken a more moderate course, and is drawing the star destroyers into a trap... perhaps. My torpedo and scout are heading for Motti's flagship, the ISD, planning to bring it down.
The game went quite predictably - my A-Wings did not survive long against the Interceptors, but the Ties did little to no damage against the capital ships. The torpedo frigate swung wide and ended up "Akbaring" the ISD and his neighbouring VSD.
The scout frigate managed to head directly towards the ISD and totally fail to arrange a double arc.
The AF2s fired double broadsides at the various ships, and eventually whittled them down.
The Torpedo frigate did some fantastic sailing, double arcing the ISD and ending turn in a single side arc of the ISD.
It came down to the last turn, but all of the Imperial capital ships were destroyed, at the price of only one AF2.
This is the photo of the start of the last turn, and is upside-down on purpose.
This game ended 9/1 in my favour, and was sufficient to send me from the bottom table back to table 3. I went from 14th in the standings to 6th. Which was nice.
Game Three
The third game was against Luke from Canberra. His fleet was an ISD with two Raiders, and a Rhymerball with Firesprays. There were only two Rhymerballs that I saw at the Tournament, and I faced them both. I also faced three Imperial lists, which was a change for me - typically I face off against fellow Rebels. No Demolisher in sight.
Again, I chose to go first, and happily chose "Fleet Ambush," which can be something of a double-edged sword in my experience.
I had initiative and activation advantage, but not deployment advantage - HOWEVER! Fleet Ambush requires all capital ships to be deployed before squadrons. I managed to get my third AF2 to have arcs and range on two enemy targets from the first turn.
Start of turn 2, and my AF2 in the front is taking the full brunt of the ISD and Rhymerball - but it has done its job, damaging the Raider and putting some hits on the ISD.
I was surprised that Luke has sent his flanking Raider back into the melee - I assumed it would run to allow the Rhymerball to keep operating if the ISD and other Raider went down - and to prevent a tabling.
But the Raider came back in, and took some shots from various ships, while I geared up for a frontal assault on the ISD.
Another upside-down shot, showing the last throes of the battle, with only a Raider and the fighters left. I managed to kill the Raider, and ran with the Torpedo frigate as far as I could. The game continues until the end of the round, so the Firesprays chased the Torpedo boat and shot it to bits.
I won the game, but I'm not sure of the points difference anymore.
The Tournament ended with me sitting prettily in fourth place. After the first round massacre, I thought this was an ok outcome.
Thanks to Three D6 for hosting, and to my many and varied opponents for some good games.
