Star Wars Armada Battle Report: Imperials vs Rebels
It’s a meat-and-potatoes fleet of Imperials vs a tricked out Rebel fleet at 300 points! Come check out the Star Wars Armada Action!
Hey BoLS Readers! AdamHarry here with another BoLS Battle Report – this time we’re playing some Star Wars: Armada! I’m playing the Imperials in a very basic list with 3 Capital Ships and a TIE Wing of fighters vs a Rebel list with 2 of the newer Assault Frigates and a wing of character led fighters. We are also trying out one of the missions involving objectives so it’s not just a slug-fest. So take a look:
Things I learned:
Judging distance and movement speed takes a lot more practice with Armada – like most “naval” combat games. You actually have to think about and plan for the inertia of your capital ships – this can be both neat and frustrating at times. But it’s a unique mechanic and I look forward to getting the hang of it!
Capital ships need to utilize their firing arcs to maximize firepower – sounds simple but if you’re coming from X-Wing (like me) it’s going to take some more practice.
TIE Fighters need to be in swarms – this is another “duh” statement but they are WAY more effective when you can attack in pairs or in groups of 3 or more.
Rebel Fighters are MEAN up close – seriously. B-Wings are the devil. If you watch the video you’ll understand.
The order cups are a cool mechanic that take a lot more planning. I messed this up during the game quite a bit. My planning was almost always a turn off. It’s another challenging mechanic that I look forward to mastering.
Don’t forget about the player initiative token.
For new players I really recommend moving your Fleet in a big group until you get used to how your ships handle. I had one ship get way out of position (I though I could move sharper than I did) and it struggled to get back into the game. If I had kept it with the rest of my ships It could have done some serious damage.
You’re going to want a ship to be the “Fighter” craft. Being able to order your fighters to move AND attack is really, really powerful vs other fighters.
The right upgrades can really swing a battle. One of Ben’s capital ships was reducing the damage his fighters took by 1 point as long as they were within a certain range. That saved a few of his fighter wings from getting destroyed and allowing me to swoop-in.
I can’t stress the movement thing enough, especially coming from X-Wing – Capital ship maneuvers are no joke. Sometimes I felt like I was going to slow only to have the ship overshoot the following turn. It’s going to take practice!
I had a good time, even when things were going terribly wrong for me! Sometimes you just need to throw whatever plan you had out the window and just go with your gut. Sometimes you end up ramming a ship. It happens! It’s a game, have fun with it.
I can see this being played by folks as a relaxing dice throwing game or a super competitive “thinking-man’s” game. Player skill becomes quite evident with the ship maneuvers and firing arc positioning. If you’re looking for a game that is going to stretch your strategy muscles this one will have you thinking at least two turns ahead! Or you can just play bumper boats and try to kill all the Rebels… Hey, it could have worked! It’s a really well built and well designed game. I’m looking forward to the next one we do!
We’re gonna need a bigger boat…and more TIE fighters.
