A week ago my friend Eric and I played our first game of Star Wars Armada. We just used the basic stuff from the starter pack with no upgrade cards or admirals or anything and it went very well and was a lot of fun. So this week we decided to play a 300 point game with all the bells and whistles. We each had a starter set and we had each bought a Gladiator class star destroyer and Rebel Assault Frigate and a set of each type of fighters at the store where we play. We agreed that Eric would take his Imperials and I would take my Rebels.
I set up my fleet with my three ships (Assault Frigate Mark IIA, Nebulon B Escort Frigate, and CR90 Corvette B) and five squadrons (1 X-Wing, 1 X-Wing with Luke Skywalker, 1 A-Wing, 1 Y-Wing, and 1 B-Wing). I put General Dodonna on board the Assault Frigate and gave the ship Enhanced Armament and Expanded Hanger bays. The Nebulon had an Engineering team and "Redemption" beefing up the whole fleet's repair capabilities. The CR-90 had Dodonna's Pride, which in conjunction with General Dodonna's ability to select critical damage cards gave me the potential to put some serious hurt on the Imperials. The whole thing came to 299 points.
I was fully expecting to be facing A Victory Class Star Destroyer and a Gladiator, since those were ships Eric had. But to bring that up to 300 points there would have to be a lot of fighters and probably a lot of ship upgrades.
So, imagine my surprise when I arrived at the game store where we play to find him with TWO Victory star destroyers and a Gladiator! The scoundrel! (He lives close to the store so he snuck back and bought another one!) Wow, I wasn't counting on that! He also had 3 TIE Fighters (one with Howlrunner), 1 TIE Advanced, 1 TIE Bomber, and 1 TIE Interceptor. But aside from an admiral and one veteran captain, he had no upgrades of any kind. All for 300 points exactly. Quantity over quality, he said.
Since I had the lesser point total I elected to have Eric go first, since I like counter-punching. We took turns deploying ships and I ended up with my CR-90, Nebulon and Assault Frigate from left to right, facing the Gladiator and the two Victories. I had managed to shift my line a bit to the left and I hoped to use my superior speed to gang up on the Gladiator and take it out before the Victories could intervene. Well, that was the plan and it almost worked :)
Turn 1 saw no combat since we were out of range. I headed for the Gladiator and immediately saw the flaw in my plan: to do it meant turning my Assault Frigate right across the bows of the two Victories. This could get ugly!
It didn't actually turn out that bad since you fire THEN move. So Eric activated his middle SD first and peeled some shields off my Assault Frigate and then moved right up so he was at point blank range for my large broadside with enhanced armament. Then I activated the Assault Frigate. I had gotten a squadron token on the previous turn so I was also able to bring my B-Wing squadron up to spitting distance and still fire. Between the two they tore off all the forward shields and scored a couple of hull hits, one of them critical. At that point I used General Dodonna's truly strange special ability. When any friendly ship scores a critical hit, he can take the first four cards off the damage deck, look them over and then discard three and put the one he wants on the top of the deck—which then gets drawn. I was hoping for a really nasty one like halving the ships engineering rating, but I had to settle for structural damage which adds another hull hit. So three hull hits right off the bat and then, thankfully, I could MOVE my frigate and get it out of range of the other star destroyer. Yay! (although it got me closer to the Gladiator.)
Eric then activated his Gladiator and blew away my remaining forward shields with his forward batteries which were the only ones with a target. He then moved and collided with my Assault Frigate putting a damage card on each of us.
Then it was my turn and the Nebulon scored a number of hits on the Gladiator, taking down more shields. The right wing star destroyer had no targets but tried to close the distance. Finally, my CR-90 blasted the Gladiator and using the "Dodonna's Pride" ability scored a critical even though there were still shields in the way. General Dodonna then turned that into two hits with another Structural Damage. Three cards on the Gladiator now!
The fighters fired and moved, but didn't do much. I positioned three of my squadrons to try and score more hits through the middle SD's weakened frontal arc.
Turn 3 saw a real scrum as the fleets passed through and by each other. I can't recall all the give and take, but by the time the turn was over my Assault Frigate had very few shields and four hit cards (out of six hull points). The middle Star Destroyer was up to seven hits (out of 8) and the Gladiator three (out of 5)! Now if I could just finish these guys off! But most of my ships were heading off in the opposite direction now.
On Turn 4 Eric activated his middle star destroyer first. He rolled terribly against my Assault Frigate and it survived, but then his move took him right in front of three squadrons of fighters, including Luke! My assault frigate put another critical on the Gladiator and Dodonna worked his magic (and it's got to be magic, how do they justify this ability?) and halved the Gladiator's engineering rating—no big repairs now!). Eric activated the Gladiator next and again his firing rolls were terrible. But his move appeared to put the ship out of immediate danger. Or did it? My Nebulon now had a line on the Gladiator with its rear batteries. Only two dice, but the Gladiator only had one shield and one hull point left and it had used all its defense chits. I rolled and got two hits! Down went the shield and BOOM went the Gladiator! Huzza! Now for my fighters against the SD! But sadly I rolled just as badly with them as Eric been with his ships and scored no hits. Darn it, Luke! And Eric moved his own fighters in and locked mine in place for the next turn.
With only two turns left in the game it looked like there would be no opportunity to turn around and have another go. Oh well, we had killed a ship; not too shabby.
But wait! What was happening? Eric then gave us both a vivid lesson in planning out your moves! The heavily damaged star destroyer was activated first and turned to the left to swing its vulnerable bow away from my fighters.
Right into the path of the other star destroyer!
"Take evasive action!"
"Too late!"
Crunch!
The other star destroyer rams the crippled one amidships, breaking it in two!
The Rebels gawk in disbelief and then head for home. They've done enough for one day!
So, at least this time quality won out over quantity. The upgrades I took were quite useful. Dodoona's Evil Damage Spell is very nasty and the "Redemption" card helped my ships repair a lot faster. The "Dodonna's Pride" on the CR-90 almost guarantees a critical each time it fires, shields or no shields. Eric had no corresponding abilities and it hurt.
But it was a very fun game!
