Starhawk among us
Ladies and gentlemen, the Starhawk is out in the wild. At least in the USA. So I while I wait for mine to arrive from across the seas, I got a chance to play against one in St Louis.
Chris was nice enough to play a game with me on a normal Wednesday 'Armada' night in St Louis. There were 3 games going on simultaneously so it was a good night with some interesting games, Onagers seem to be everywhere. Chris was trying something new with a new toy so it was fun to play against. But without further ado the lists are below.
The Fleets
Again, I am taking my Garm Frigates out for another spin. It's held up against squadron lists and an Onager so now lets try it against the second biggest, meanest ship in the game. |
| Frigates!! All the small ships! |
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| Where ever the MC80 emerges will be pain |
I still haven't found a Starhawk list I love, but this is an interesting take on it and there's no way Raddus is dying before 'the drop' happens.
Setup
I apologize in advance but my pictures of this game just aren't the greatest. Until Round 2, there's usually a ship out of frame or a terrible angle. I have no excuses other than I was stoked to finally play against a Starhawk. To the game though...
Chris had the bid, picked first player and chose my Ion Cannon objective. A safe bet but I was hoping to use my VCX's to drag those tokens right towards his Starhawk. I placed the objective tokens in a triangle around the middle of the board to give me options based on where he deploys.
Setup was a long game of cloak and daggers as he dropped the Starhawk down and then I got to place my entire fleet as the rest of his was in hyperspace. So again I deployed in a battle line with my Scout HH going for a flank but Paragon slightly more centrally located this time around. A bulwark that maybe the starhawk would crash against and shatter...One can hope!
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| Bad picture 1. but you get the gist of it |
Round 1
Unsurprisingly, the Starhawk took a con fire token and bolted forward at speed 2. My commands were a little wonky here but my Scout HH moved towards his side arc, the Pelta boosted her side shields for the slugging match and lept forward at speed 1. Toryn's transport inched forward as well to be covered by the station. The Assault Frigate flanked the station at speed 2, and Vanguard commanded squadrons? to have the VCX's move the Ion Cannon Tokens around right before the squadron phase when they could've done the same thing? I don't know what I was thinking. First mistake of the Captain of the Vanguard, it would not be his last. But he advanced at speed 2 to capture the other flank of the Starhawk.
Tycho and the Y-wing moved up to the station for future bombing episodes.
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| bad picture 2. The glove is slowly unfolding |
Round 2
No Raddus drop. I was a little surprised but it also wasn't a bad call either. My dials were set to shoot either way, either at the Starhawk as it moved in range or at the MC80 if it dropped in a forward position. This would be the first round of IF!.
The Starhawk activated and had no shots so it moved forward at speed 2 and aimed itself at the Assault Frigate. Then shots started slamming into the Starhawk. The Scout HH took the first long range shot and got salvoed for it's effort. Drilling a couple damage in and using it's evade and a redirect to come out only missing a side shield. The Pelta threw 2 reds at the Starhawk as well as Paragon. Toryn lobbed in Tycho and the Y-wing for another plink of damage. and Vanguard brought up the rear shuffling squadrons around again? Even though they'd do it again in like 2 seconds anyway. But at least the VCX's got a PIC token in prime position for the next round.
The Pelta and Toryn trudged forward at speed 1 but Paragon lept forward at speed three to dodge some asteroids and dodge the front arc of the Starhawk. Vanguard curled inside of the Assault Frigate to get shots on target next round. My ships were standing tall at the moment and I had severely reduced both side shields and pinged the front of the Starhawk down to 4 shields. Still a LOT! of damage to get to stick before the end though.
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| End of round 2 and the start of decent pictures |
Round 3
This round Raddus did his thing. Having the MC80 pop out of hyperspace directly in front of the Assault Frigate who was about to have a very bad day. Another round of IF! and a small hope that my parade of Frigates could hold up. But an Ion Cannon shot drilled the Starhawk immediately weakening her for the remainder of the turn.
The Starhawk initiated the battle and hammered Paragon at medium range. A brace and salvo later and both of our side shields were down. The other flank of the Starhawk took a shot at the Scout HH and stripped her of her front shields. Then she moved onto the station to heal but really close to engagement range of everyone.
Next I activated Paragon because I thought for sure she would be going down from the MC80 and her squadron friends. In hindsight, I probably should've activated Toryn and used her squadorn dial to fling Tycho up to cover the Paragon from the sure-thing swarm of bombers coming. Sometimes Frigates have to get hurt for their commanders to learn though.
Paragon activated and I had a small internal debate. Take a shot at the Starhawk or pummel the MC80 with my double arc as hard as I could before Paragon went down. I chose to take the two shots on the MC80 and nailed her hard. Accuracies, Paragon black dice and IF! led to stripping the side shields and reducing the rear shields to 1. Krysta also brought her brace back to green. Then Paragon maneuvered so as to ram the MC80 and miss landing on the debris field.
Next up the MC80 activated and went to town on the Paragon. It's broadside lanced out and due to some luck on my end didn't get the HIE crit it needed. I braced the shot and lost most of my front shields. I burned my salvo and took another shot into the MC80 for another couple damage she redirected to the front. A small move forward followed by bombers was painful. Paragon ended up burning through her remaining tokens and losing all the shields but keeping the last one in place in the front to stop Keyan from getting his super rerolls, not that he needed it as he rolled double hit/crits. This left Paragon limping along with no defense tokens 2 hull and 2 rear shields.
Finally, the rest of my fleet went. Vanguard con fired into the Starhawk and used a repair token to buff up a side shield. Then closed in for the kill. The Scout HH threw her mighty shot into the Starhawk and maneuvered to put herself in a double arc of the MC80. Toryn made a valiant attempt to save the Paragon and launched Tycho into the middle of the bomber ball since they had no intel.
Then the Pelta went and slung another 4 damage into the Starhawk and moved forward ramming the Starhawk and landing on the station to fix herself.
In the squadron phase, my VCX's moved another PIC token into play and setup for the next round.
End of the round left Paragon near death with no tokens and the Starhawk limping along with only a couple hull left and only some useless redirect tokens left.
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| Ships are definitely dying next round |
Round 4
The war continues to rage on. Another shot from the Ion Cannon lanced up from Bespin and put the final shot into the Starhawk, ripping her apart in a blaze of fire. The captain of the Paragon breathed a sigh of relief and then looked ahead at this swarm of bombers only being help off by a few A-wings and got nervous.
So, Chris's MC80 activated and with a squadron command did it's best to kill Tycho with the bombers fast and then bomb Paragon so it didn't have to waste a side shot on a certainly dead ship. Tycho managed to stay alive long enough to do his job. He absorbed the shot of each B-wing and Gold Squadron dying to Keyan at the end. Keyan then hopped over to the station for the next rounds shots. Tycho's counter ripped apart eveyone though, dealing at least 1 damage to everyone, but two to most. So, sadly the MC80 had to waste it's side shot on killing the Assault Frigate. This is easily did and followed up with ripping the Scout HH to pieces with it's other side shot. A true Ackbar slash. She then trundled forward and into range of a wrathful Pelta and Neb.
Vanguard activated first and con fired a long range shot into the side of the MC80 removing her remaining rear shield off the the MC80's redirect and getting 2 damage to stick with an accuracy to stop the brace. She then lept forward to land on the station and setup a double arc for next time.
Toryn activated next and launched the two VCX's at the damaged B-wings. The first nailed a perfect shot backed up with Toryn and killed the 3 hull B-wing but the next VCX only snuck a single damage in on the other 3-hull B-wing. Oh well, I got one of the scary B-wings dead. However, I left the VCX's out of ATN range so they wouldn't be meat shields for me next round. Another mistake!
Finally, the Pelta had a nice double arc and lanced 2 clips of 4 damage in with a con fire dial. Garm was giving me more tokens next round so she had a con fire dial ready for fire the rest of the game. Two sets of damage into the MC80 left it with a single side shield and about 3 hull remaining. A ram left the Pelta undamaged on the station but granted Vanguard a single hull damage.
My Y-wing took a plink shot into Keyan for a single damage but probably should've moved to the side away from the station and in ATN range to keep nasty bombers off the vulnerable side of Vanguard. Just not on my meat shield game today!
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| Almost there |
Round 5
This was looking like the last round barring some terrible dice rolls on my end. The MC80 was most likely dead to the Pelta but it was whether it could kill Vanguard with it's shot and the bombers.
The MC80 had a squadron dial and used it to launch in the heat. Gold and the generic B-wing both did a enough damage to strip the side shields. Keyan rolled in and blanked out, then rerolled for a single hit. Vanguard was sitting on 4 hull some braces and a red redirect. Another ripple along the broadside of the MC80 had a medium range shot ring out but for not much damage. A couple blanks, no blue crit and no accuracy let Vanguard burn a redirect and a brace to stay live.
Vanguard then activated with a double arc and nailed the MC80 with a volley of return fire that sent her to her grave. Chris and I called it after that and we chatted about our love of Armada for a long time after that while watching the other game or two come to an end.
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| Final game state |
The final score was 397-165, a couple of decent rolls from the MC80 would've lessened the point difference (Vanguard's death) but probably wouldn't have saved the MC80 in the end. Overall a great game, it was good to see the Starhawk on the table too!
Lessons Learned
I learned a couple of things this game for sure. First off, if you have a command dial plan for ships keep it! I'm looking at you Vanguard. A first turn Eng fixes it's shields with Aux Shield Teams sand then squadron or Nav next depending on how important it is to keep my squads flowing into the ATN blender of cover.
Second, if you have ATN for a screen you need to make sure to position your meatshields to take advantage of it. Tycho did his job screening Paragon, but my two healthy VCX's for sure could've beat up on 1 B-wing and stayed within ATN range. Or at least beat up on Keyan obstructed. And reduced my chances of losing Vanguard to practically nil vs oh wow! this could happen.
Starhawk's are a beast but not unkillable. It certainly helped on the two rounds of everyone firing I had my Ion Cannon in there to help pop the Starhawk. This fleet also seems decent at killing them since a swarm of 6-7 attacks over a round just overheats those tokens really fast. Although the same could be said for any ship.
Magnites seems neat but if you blaze in at speed two and everyone else is speed two they do nothing. Either the speed zero maneuver trick with Concord or just using them to control the engagement tempo seems best. Let Demo come blazing in at speed 3 but she won't be hopping out of range the next turn when she's at speed 1 or zero.
I want to love Agate Officer on Paragon and she has worked several times to keep my tokens refreshed to use it 2-3 times a round, but a fleet that traditionally goes second can burn a token off of Paragon then get it right back with Walex the next activation. I have enjoyed Walex on MC75's and AF's before so I will probably try him out several times on Paragon to see if there's any difference.
I need to figure out a good PIC setup. My first time playing it with this fleet was just a little sub-optimal. Either making myself a safe nest to deploy behind or just close together and ensuring my VCXs can move them to the appropriate places. I'll have to practice a couple times.
Still enjoying this fleet though. Though next time I want to try a refreshed version of my Exodus Fleet Prime list.
Thanks for reading!
