Gameday in the Gateway to the Midwest

Well, I was heading to the St Louis area for work and much to my delight there appeared to be a thriving Armada community in the area.  Time to pack up the fleet, the bare minimum anyway, and fly it across the world to go play some games and make new friends.

But with more February rain

The Lists

I brought my Garm Frigates lists.  Just getting more practice with it and seeing how it fairs against a variety of fleets.  Plus it's been a lot of fun lately.

My opponent, Nathan, generously let me steal the second game of his day from Dakota.  All the Armada folks I have met so far have been great people and it's always a blast to just talk to them while we push our plastic space ships around.  Pew Pew noises mandatory!

PEW PEW PEW

  This would be my first time facing an Onager lit and after watching the two games unfold before me, I saw them peel apart a Starhawk and kill one another mercilessly.  Therefore, I wasn't quite sure how my VERY explodey Frigate Fleet would fair.  Also, that's a lot of Assault Concussion missiles! and my side shields are meh at best.  Looking at you Neb and Hammerhead!

LOTS of black dice

So this was going to be the classic tale of Red dice vs Black dice.  

Setup

Nathan had the bid so chose to go first, which I was more than happy to let him.  Most Wanted, Planetary Ion Cannon, and Infested Fields are all great choices for me, either giving me points or letting me hit you hard.  His final choice was Most Wanted.  We proceeded with setup as normal.  His Onager took one corner and his Demo the other flank.  I set Paragon last putting it in position to come around and either flank the Onager if she drove ahead or said Onager would have to turn to face Paragon and have an annoying Scout HH snacking on it with 4 red dice all game.  Imps were all at or near max speed, I was at Garm speed 2 AKA I can't take tokens so odds are it's a Turn 1 Nav Dial, which means I'm speed 1-3 but you don't know.

Cool Acrylic tokens courtesy of Chicago Charity Tournament!

I chose his Demolisher as the Most Wanted and Toryn's brave transport as my own. It ended up being the right decision, but we had a long conversation about whether or not picking the Onager was the right call.  Who doesn't want more points from killing the points pinanta, but from this deployment I knew Demo was coming in to kill the Pelta or Paragon, which meant I would gets shots on her.  I figured those extra dice would be A) Helpful killing Demo and B) I kinda wrote off the Onager and figured I COULD kill Demo, some raiders and run while I sacrificed the HH and Vanguard to the maw of the Onager.

Round 1

Iden was the Raider closest to the Onager and went zooming off at speed 4 to hunt the Scout HH. I activated the HH next and accelerated to speed 3, and did an inside turn, keeping me out of medium range of Iden, keeping my guns pointed the right direction and betting the Onager wasn't going to come hunting a measly 47 points. I then moved my Neb and Tranports buying time to try to get Paragon into a double arc. Regarding the Onager move, I gambled correctly, as the Onager gracefully did an inside turn at speed 3 and went hunting all the points on the right side of the board.  Luckily I was just outside of close range of the token once it was put down. He moved some Raiders up while the Pelta inched forward not wanted to get completely ACM'd to death, but repairing some shields with AST to at least tank some hits.  

Finally, Demo moved forward and put a shot into the Pelta on Round 1.  A single hit which was promptly evaded.  Then Paragon got to lumber forward, accelerating with her dial and lined up a double arc on Demo.  

There's definitely going to be a lot of weapons fire next round 

Round 2

After setting dials, Round 2 was underway.  This would be the first round I trigger Intensify Firepower!  The round started with Demo taking it's long range front shot at Paragon, I used salvo hoping for Agate to bring it back with a crit, and thinking Demo would lean hard to the Pelta to kill IF! so I wouldn't get another shot to arm up Paragon.  Paragon took two damage and redirected it to her right shield  She did two hits on the Salvo which was evaded to one and then Demo came barreling onto Paragon with a Con Fire dial.  The only way to to get the next turn double arc was to double arc herself, not the wisest plan but Assault Frigate's aren't that scary.  The next shot was 5 black for 6 damage and a crit.  After a brace, she had lost right shields, and had a single shield on the front.  I elected not to salvo to save the token and at least make Demo think of her choices next turn, in hindsight burning it would've made little difference and given me an even better chance to kill Demo, maybe Walex IS better here.  

But then it was HER turn.  A Paragon double arc, fueled by Salvo and Most Wanted. This might be the only time in history that the PARAGON dream happens!  I led off with the front, rolling 2 Red, 1 Blue and 2 Black then followed with the side 3 Red, 1 Blue, and 2 Black.  Agate triggered on attack one since I wasn't getting though the shields but readied the salvo for any other attacks that round.  This game I had some crazy good red dice and I think a double in every attack I made. So Demo ended up with 1 side shield and 1 hull damage with only a red evade left.  A nav dial let me slow to two and for sure ram Demo for said hull damage.

Next the Raider closest to Demo went and managed to obstruct the front shot of the Pelta, but not the side.  So Garm's Pelta activated with the Con Fire Dial and used it, using Ashoka to convert the Nav token for IF! for next turn.  With Most Wanted and the dial this gave me two medium range shots with 4 dice at Demo.  Side shot went first with the Dial resulting in 4 damage followed by the obstructed front shot for another 4.  Ending in a very dead Demo, thankfully, or she was gonna go chomp on Paragon HARD.  Garm rammed to stay in place.

Next Iden went and tried to block in the HH, followed by the HH taking a fantastic shot into Iden at close range doing 3 damage after Iden and the brace.  Then maneuvered to just be in the front arc. Finally, the Onager had to go because if the other Raider advanced the splash damage could hurt it too.  The Extreme Range Onager shot at Vanguard was Evaded and then Braced so only 1 damage stuck, which was promptly repaired with a token.  An obstructed Vanguard shot into the Onager did a single damage after the brace and then the medium range Raider shot did 2 damage to Vanguard, with some clever driving causing ram damage afterwords, doing a hull point and setting up the double arc next turn. Finally, the transports hurled the VCX's  and Y-wing (didn't hit anything all day!) in stripping the shields and with Tycho's help putting a another damage card into said Raider, for two total and no side shields.  

The bloodbath will continue

Round 3

The Raider facing off against the Pelta activated first, only having a front arc show resulted in the Pelta with minimal wounds and keeping her redirect green but losing a fair amount of shields.  A quick hop over the Pelta and she was zooming off to the transports.

I followed with the ship I thought most likely to die, the Scout HH. I elected to take the long range shot at the Onager since I figured with Iden I wasn't likely to get the damage needed to kill her.  I was probably correct and ended up hitting the Onager for 5 damage pre-tokens.  This caused her to spend all her tokens and then the Scout HH jumped to the side arc of the Raiders setting up for next turn.  

The Raider facing off against Vanguard activated and successfully evaporated Vanguard, not even requiring ACM's due to the amount of straight damage put out even past the braces.  It then made a run for the Pelta and landed on the Debris field but successfully shielded herself from my fighter bombing run.  Next the Pelta went and shot a double arc into the Raider that shot her.  2 Reds and 2 Blue's isn't great and ended up only putting a single damage onto the hull.

Iden activated and with ACM's managed to get the HH down to 4 hull with basically no shields.  Then maneuvered to have another side arc at the HH next round. Then my transports flung the Y-wing and Tycho into the side of the Onager stripping her last shield there.

Finally, the Onager had to activate and barrel into a Paragon double arc.  The ignition shot stripped away the front shields but did little else.  Then a REGULAR front arc shot put some more hurt onto the Pelta, plinking away another shield.  Then Paragon got to live the dream again.

Paragon repaired her shield and Ahsoka gave her another repair token so 3 shields came back to the front.  A front arc Paragon Shot followed by a side arc with the Black dice added, left the Onager defense tokenless, and with 6 damage card and no shields.  After the move, Paragon still had her in a double arc.  

I did not get a picture due to the fact that the store was closing and we rapidly got to the next round.  

Round 4

The Onager activated before it got eaten by Paragon in an attempt to shoot it's way out.  The ignition attack walloped away for 7 damage with Intel on my brace.  Knowing it was going to be the last big shot I would take anyway and knowing the Raider's couldn't;t get back into the fight until Round 6, Paragon burned her brace and redirected the rest leaving her shieldless.  The Onager couldn't escape the block and bumped for another damage after punching with it's side arc at the Pelta.  The Pelta was left with 3 hull, and a single rear shield.  

So since the Pelta was vulnerable to getting Screed'd to death with a Raider ACM from the rear, Garm activated, laid into the Onager and managed to kill it with the front arc.  She then took an ineffective side arc shot at a Raider and flew out of the danger zone.  We called it at this point knowing how the game would end.  We had Iden activate since there was a chance she could kill the nearly dead HH and in fact, she did.  

Final state of the game

The store was closing so we had to scoot out of there quickly but it was a fun game.  279 - 115 was the final MOV.  

Closing thoughts

An Onager is scary but if you manage to dodge the meat of the ignition attack it's not the end of the world.  It just forces some careful dancing especially with the ships more vulnerable to a large attack that completely removes it...like a Scout Hammerhead.  

Otherwise, I'm still liking this fleet.  It has a very Schmitty dumpster fire-esqe feel to it but I am really enjoying it.  I think there are still some tweaks, although I do like the new objective choices. Most Wanted helps (especially with Paragon) vs the old Opening Salvo and Planetary Ion Cannon vs Hyperspace assault is even scarier especially with the two VCX's to make sure I get all three shots most likely.  

Officer Agate, I like her in principle on Paragon but she is vulnerable to not getting used based on dice rolls.  She's a might get to use this token multiple times a round, but if I can out activate you, like in this game, I could've easily burned the Salvo against demo on it's second attack, knowing that I'm going to get it right back with Walex.

Overall, a great game and I look forward to additional games throughout the week with the great Armada folks of St Louis!