Star Wars Armada Corellain Conflict, Turn 1, Battle 1
We have begun our Corellian Conflict Campaign and fought our first battle. I, Grand Admiral Scott, am facing the scum commander, Rebel Eric. We built our fleets (3 each), set up the campaign map, and since the campaign score was tied at zero points for both of us, Rebel Eric got to select the first assault. He decided to assault the Nubia system, hoping to secure its repair yards and 16 resource points. I, thinking only of the good and loyal citizens of that world, dispatched my Fleet #2 to oppose them. My force consisted of:
Victory Class I Star Destroyer "Conqueror" with Redundant Shields and Grand Moff Tarkin as admiral (flagship)
Gladiator Class I Star Destroyer "Vindicator"
Arquitens Class Light Cruiser "Powerful"
Raider I Class Corvette "Daring"
Raider II Class Corvette "Active"
Gozanti Class Cruiser Flotilla CAX-147 & CZX-328
2 x TIE Fighters
2 x TIE Bombers
2 x TIE Advanced
The Rebel fleet consisted of:
2 x Assault Frigate IIA (one is the flagship with Admiral Bel Iblis)
2 x MC30c Torpedo Frigates
1 x Nebulon B Escort Frigate
2 x B-Wing
We were a little uncertain about how the objective rules worked in the campaign, but after puzzling through the rules for a while, Eric selected "Blockade Run" as the objective for this game. This meant that we were playing down the length of the table rather than facing along the wide edges. My objective was to get my ships into the Rebel deployment area. I got 20 extra victory points for each of my ships which made it and Eric got 20 points for each one he destroyed. So I needed to force my way through his fleet without losing too many ships.
I placed the six asteroid fields in the center and due to spacing restrictions they were spread widely apart, leaving clear paths though them.
During deployment I had an advantage, having one more ship and two more fighter pairs and Eric having to place first. He concentrated most of his strength toward my left, so I put my weakest ships far over on the right and planned to shield them with my Star Destroyers. The Corvettes were initially exposed, but I figured I could use their high speed to swing them around to my right. That didn't work out so well!
Deployment
Glorious Imperials!
Rebel Scum!
Turn 1
The first turn had all the ships still out of range, so there was no combat. Tarkin and Bel Iblis both used their special abilities to spew out command tokens to all their ships. Neither fleet lacked for tokens in this game!
The Rebels began shifting to their left to try and cut off the imperial escape while the Imperials tried to sneak (I mean redeploy) along the right edge of the board. Sadly I miscalculated clearances and ended up with one of my corvettes rear-ending the other and giving a damage point to both. Drat these poor charts! I'll have that astrogator shot! But the Rebels had their own difficulties and the Nebulon had to turn sharply to starboard to avoid a collision with a torpedo frigate or an asteroid field. This sent it cutting across the current of the rest of the Rebel fleet and basically took it out of the game.
Imperial bumper cars!
Take evasive Action!
Turn 2
Okay, now we started getting close! In order to get just the setup I wanted for shooting, I ended up sending my lead corvette, the "Daring" forward. I expected it to take some damage, but figured I could still slip it through on the next turn at high speed. At first this seemed to be working as the Rebels took a few long-ranged shots which did little. But then one of the Rebel Torpedo Frigates fired its broadside at close range and… POOF! The Daring was reduced to wreckage with six hits through its open shields. Ow! Wasn't expecting that!
My return fire didn't seem to accomplish much. I hammered the leading assault frigate, and while I scored a lot of hits, it managed to redirect most of it and while all of its shields except the rear were down to zero, I only scored one actual hit. My fighters got into things and tied up the two Rebel B-Wings and helped whittle away shields. Still, it had not been a very good turn.
Turn 3
This turn went better. I opened up with my Victory Class, the "Conqueror" and she finally blasted through the assault frigate's shields and did some serious damage. Only one more hit needed to take the thing down. But then my luck seemed to desert me and shots from the gladiator, corvette and several fighter squadrons did nothing. But then, at the very end, my light cruiser took a long range shot and managed to get a hit. The assault frigate had used up all its defense tokens warding off the other attacks and couldn't stop this one. Boom! Chalk up a kill for the "Powerful"!
Ironically, that shot was just an afterthought, because the Powerful along with my little flotilla of auxiliary cruisers had gotten themselves locked into a collision match with the torpedo frigate that had destroyed Daring. They were all wedged together between the edge of the board and an asteroid field. With no way to get past each other, we appeared doomed to keep ramming heads until we all were destroyed.
Turn 4
Except for the traffic jam on the edge, the fleets were swinging past each other now. The ranges were opening up and we didn't do any significant damage to each other. But I concentrated everything I could bring to bear on the torpedo frigate and managed to destroy it before it could wreck the Gozantis. The Conqueror, got the killing blow in. Our fighters continued to tangle and unfortunately, since I was focusing on hurting his ships, his B-Wings each killed a fighter and the Nebulon got another one.
Turn 5
The Rebels decided they had had enough and charged up their hyperdrives this turn and escaped. The surviving five imperials all moved into the Rebel deployment zone. Victory!
So our first game is a resounding Imperial victory. The Imperials scored 244 victory points and the Rebels 94. The Conqueror and Powerful and the two Rebel B-Wings are now veterans, and the Daring, three of the fighters, and the Rebel Assault Frigate and Torpedo Frigate count as ‘scarred' until refitted.
The Empire gains one campaign victory point, but since it was the defender, does not have the option of building a base in Nubia.
A fun game! We look forward to the second battle of the first campaign turn.
is back from Council of Five Nations.
