Australian Armada Nationals

Last weekend (24 & 25 September) I participated in the Australian Armada Nationals. There were 34 players gathered in Sunny Queensland, with about a dozen making the trip from interstate.

ROUND ONE - NICK'S ACKBAR LIST

This is the setup from the first game - I am flying my "Tora Tora Tora!" list, with 2 Mc30c Torpedo Frigates with OE, APT, and H9s. One is Admonition. I also have 2 CR90As with TRCs, one carrying Dodonna. There are two nekid Flotillas, commanding 3 X-Wings, and one Jan Ors. I've been flying a variant of this list for a while now, typically on VASSAL, but also against my regular sparring associate, Theo.

My list has a 16 point bid, which was enough to get me initiative in all my games (with some good luck in game two...).

My opponent in Round One was Nick W, about whom I have had blog reports in the past. Nick won a number of regional competitions (I think NSW, ACT, and VIC), On this occasion he was flying 3 AF2Bs with ECM and GTs, one with Xi7, another with Enhanced Armament, and the third with TRCs. Ackbar was on the lone Flotilla Bright Hope, with four A-Wings.

I chose Nick's Dangerous Territory.

End of turn 1, and Nick has turned one frigate to my left, and two to the right. My ships are racing towards the front of the mini-conga, with Admonition dashing forward for an early turn 2 strike - unfortunately my side arc was just out of black range - I should have taken a last section yaw click to turn a little.

End of turn 2, and Admonition, having fired its front arc only, is now in a great position with double arcs on the front Frigate. The other Mc30c is lining up waiting for targets to fly into torpedo range. My far right Corvette is avoiding side arcs and is heading back to the centre of the map.

A slightly zoomed in section.

End of turn 3 - one of Nick's firgates is gone, the other damaged from the torpedo frigate, and double arced by Dodonna's ride. I'm working hard to get viable arcs on Ackbar's Flotilla, but it is hard work.

 End of turn 4 - the middle frigate is still alive, but will soon succumb to the incoming TRC90. Dodonna has Bright Hope in front arc, but will fail to get the necessary accuracy. Amazingly, Nick's A-Wings are cutting down the Jan Ors supported X-Wings, due to some awful anti-squadron fire.

End of turn 5 - one of my flotillas is chasing Bright Hope planning to ram it to death - but it was too little too late.

I didn't take an end of turn 6 photo - I lost my X-Wings and one flotilla, but took out two Assault Frigates and two A-Wings. All-in-all, it was a good result for me, with an 8/3 victory.

ROUND TWO - ANDY'S RIEEKAN CORVETTES

My second game was against Andy, the Queensland Regional Champion. He was flying 4 TRC90s, with Rieekan on a Quantum Storm Flottila. He had 3 YT2400s, Dash Rendar, Han Solo, Jan Ors, and an X-Wing. We both had a 16 point bid, and I won initiative on a coin toss. I chose to go first. We played his Most Wanted. He chose my Admonition and one of his Corvettes as the target ships.

Andy's first deployment was Rieekan's flotilla, giving me my first target - Admonition was gunning for the flagship.

End of turn 2, and my non-Dodonna corvette has sped from the far left to the centre-right, heading for one of Andy's corvettes, that is making a similar move to the flank.

 End of turn 3, and Admonition is in striking distance of the Rieekan flotilla, as well as the target corvette. Andy's other corvettes are heading into the side arc of the other corvette, which is waiting with baited breath...

End of turn 4, Rieekan and two corvettes are gone. Admonition is on the run, pursued by Andy's Rogues. My Corvettes are hunting Andy's remaining two vessels.

End of turn 5, and Admonition is nearly away... only one of Andy's Corvettes remains, and is double arced by my own TRC90 at close range.
During turn 6 that last corvette went pop, and we played out the squadron phase to see what would happen. One of my X-Wings made it into range to tie up some rogues, but Dash Rendar made it to range, rerolled a blank to get a crit/hit, and as Admonition had burned all its defence tokens we turned to the damage deck - anything but a structural damage to live - and I drew a structural damage. Sigh.

I took out all of Andy's ships, lost a few X-Wings and Admonition. After scores were totaled we got to 9/2 in my favour.

I went into round three with quite a nice score -I think I was 8th overall...

ROUND THREE - TRISTAN'S SCREED SCRAMBLERS

 Game three was against Tristan, aka "Trizzo" of PAWCast fame.

He was playing Screed with a Flotilla, Interdictor with Targeting Scramblers, VSD1, and a kitted out Demo. Six Tie Fighters made up a token squadron component.

I chose first, and selected "Most Wanted", a fateful decision! Tristan chose my Admonition, and his flotilla as the targets.

End of turn 1.

Tristan had deployed well back in the zone, and with only modest speeds. I did something similar, and allowed my ships to take some engineering tokens early on, which I normally do not do.

The Interdictor had the ability to move terrain, so during setup I had spread it out as much as possible. This was my first real life game against interdictor.

End of turn 2.

I was gearing up for a non-Admonition early run against the flotilla and the victory, but Tristan suddenly turned on the speed and threatened Admonition a bit more than expected. Admonition ended up making the first attack run.

End of turn 3.

Admonition has jumped in to double arc the Demolisher - A Wonderful Thing! Dodonna is on the CR90 on the back left, and the other CR90 is ready to line up for support. My Squadrons have been launched at the Victory, while Tristan's Squads stand back, waiting for their chance to pounce...

 A slightly zoomed in version of the last photo. Admonition is in prime position, but will utterly fail to roll anything close to the needed hits to take out Demolisher at the start of turn 4. Targeting scramblers had a little to do with this, but not much. It was truly some woeful rolling.
Admonition activated, and I should have moved it well away at speed 4 - instead I turned hard and ended up in the side arc of Demolisher. I thought about activating the Corvette to dash in and at least obstruct the shot, but decided to leave it in wait to finish Demolisher - a poor choice. I didn't end up with a double arc on Demo anyway, and Tristan rolled exactly enough to finish Admonition on 5 dice - thanks to Most Wanted. Sigh.
But, then Demo sailed forwards into the other Mc30s side arc, as did the Victory, and I was able to put some serious hurt on both. Demolisher blew up, and the Victory was badly damaged.

End of turn 5. Turn 4 photo was not taken I think.
The  Corvettes have managed to take out the flotilla, and are angling to put hurt on the victory. My Flotillas are flying hard to avoid getting into blue range of the victory and the Interdictor. My Squads continue to shoot the Victory, while Tristan's Ties try to finish off the torpedo frigate.

 End of round 6 - only the Interdictor and the Ties remain. I have lost Admonition, and that's about it.
After calculations, it's a 7/4 to me. I should have been more careful with the Most Wanted Admonition, but it came out nicely in the end I think.

*Some weeks later the nasty thought occurs to me that perhaps I did not use the Admonition ability to rescue this particular vessel - it is a nasty and pernicious thought - but I have no evidence against it apart from that maybe I forgot using it.*

GAME FOUR - KEN'S CRACKEN CORVETTES

At the end of three rounds I was in third place overall, and setting up to play on Table 2: the Penultimate Table! My opponent was Ken, also from PAW. Of the four players I faced, three were folks I had played against in Tournaments before, and all from Parramatta.

 Ken was flying Cracken, with a list quite similar to my own. He had one less Torpedo Frigate, and one more TRC90. He also had six A-Wings. Otherwise, very similar. His flotillas had more upgrades then mine, and he had a 12 point bid. I chose to go first, and picked "Hyperspace Assault." Perhaps I should have gone with "Most Wanted", but the previous game had burned me out a little on that one.

Ken deployed facing away from me, and I placed my corvettes sadly out of the way, but with my Torpedo Frigates ready to dash in and blast away. It has been my experience playing Cracken that he is a pain in the neck, and an early death for the occasional gunner of the Millenium Falcon is the best way to handle this fleet.

Ken put his Admonition into Hyperspace, and we went into action.

*I ran out of steam writing up this report some weeks ago, so the following will be a bland recital of dull facts.

Torpedo Frigates rush forward hoping to catch some corvettes. Ken's A-Wings decline to engage my Squadrons, and gear up to fight Admonition.

Start of turn 3 I think, and I have a choice - Ken's Admonition has jumped into range of my Dodonna Corvette (double arcing but facing away), while my Frigate on the right has side arcs on the rear of TWO of Ken's corvettes. Who to activate first?

I decided to rescue Dodonna and let one of Ken's Corvettes escape - which it did. I then activated the Torpedo Frigate, which completely failed to kill a Corvette in the rear arc even with H9s. I did not get a critical, even with rerolls. SIGH.

The dice deserted me, and I did not get them back in a hurry.

This is not the last turn, but it is getting close - my Admonition has survived the A-Wing barrage, and is positioning to kill Cracken, the wily dog. My Dodonna Corvette is swinging back into battle range, while Ken's Admonition is hunting my Transports.

I managed to kill Cracken, and Ken took out my normal Corvette. I got angry at this point and threw Dodonna into the battle unnecessarily in order to kill another of Ken's Corvettes - this brought me into Admonition range, and the rest is history.

When we totalled points, Ken had won with a margin of exactly 60 points - precisely enough for a 7/4. Which was exactly enough to get him into the Final Battle with Luke. I ended up fifth in tournament points.


It was a good game with Ken, who is always a fun player and great sport.


I quite enjoyed the Tournament - disappointed I did not make the top table, but very happy to be in the top tiers of a great competition. And beating Nick is always worth the price of admission... tee hee hee.

Andy, you still owe me that drink - I will not forget.


This blog-post was held in Comms Blackout pending the outcome of Worlds, lest we provide spoilers for Luke's A and Y wing spam list - Our National Champ did very well at Worlds, missing out on the CUT by only a small margin, and coming in the top 5 or 6 overall.

Well done Luke!


Regionals season is starting again in a few weeks in Australia - I am hoping to make it to Canberra for ACT regionals - and then we'll see where Nationals is in 2017.