Cut the Head campaign, Shuttle Blues

The idea for the starting scenario of this campaign was developed by Beni.
The Imperials must protect two Shuttles that start at one end of a 3x6' map. Emperor Palpatine is in one of them, or maybe already in the Excelsior VSD which is at the other end of the map and launches some TIEs to protect the Shuttles at the same time that it fires its Turbolasers (we used the same rules used for Turbolasers in scenario H3 of the Escape from Hoth campaign).

Teams

Rebels
Rebel Strike Team 1 (130 points) (played by Antonio)
- Airen Cracken Z-95 (19)
- Corran Horn E-Wing with Fire Control System (37)
- Tycho Celchu A-Wing with A-Wing Test Pilot, Chardaan Refit, Wired and Push the Limit (28)
- Miranda Doni K-Wing with Twin Laser Turret, Extra Munitions, Bombardier, Conner Net, Ion Bombs and Advanced SLAM (46)

Rebel Strike Team 2 (130 points) (played by Ricardo)
- Jake Farrel A-Wing with A-Wing Test Pilot, Chardaan Refit, Push the Limit, Autothrusters and Expose (31)
- Etahn A'baht E-Wing with BB-8 and Fire Control System (36)
- Knave Squadron E-Wing with Fire-Control System (29)
- 2x Prototype A-Wing with Chardaan Refit and Autothrusters (2x17)


Imperials 
Imperial Escort, Raider (175 points) (played by Beni)
- 2x Omicron Shuttle with Sensor Jammer and Counter Measures (2x28)
- 4x Royal Guard TIE Interceptor with Draw Their Fire, Royal Guard TIE, Autothrusters and Stealth Device (4x28) 
- Emperor Palpatine (7)
Imperial Fist, Excelsior TIEs (130 points) (played by JL)
- Deathrain TIE Punisher with Advanced Sensors, Extra Munitions, Conner Net, Ion Bombs and Twin Ion Engine Mk. II (38)
- 2x Cutlass Squadron TIE Punishers with Conner Net and Ion Bombs (2x27)
- 2x Black Squadron TIE Fighters with Draw Their Fire and Engine Upgrade (2x19)

Cut the Head

(epic background music)

It is a period of civil war.

After a long development phase,

the Victory Star Destroyer Excelsior 

is carrying out practice maneuvers with its new weapons' system.

Thanks to their Bothan Spy Network, 

the Alliance has learned that the Emperor will visit the Excelsior

to monitor in person the development of this new 

class of Star Destroyers.

The Emperor will travel in a Shuttle 

protected by two TIE Interceptor Royal Guards

and there will also be a decoy Shuttle.

The Alliance considers this a great opportunity to put a quick end

to the destructive civil war by capturing 

or getting rid of the head of the Galactic Empire:

Emperor Palpatine himself!

Setup

According to the scenario rules, each Shuttle had to start within distance 3 of one short border of the map; the Rebels started touching the same border; half of the Excelsior TIEs started touching the opposite border of the map, the rest would start at the end of the first round.

One of the Shuttles and its escorts, pursued by part of the Rebel Strike Team

The complete setup

Deathrain is launched from the Excelsior; we also can see the random cards we used to determine whether Palpatine was in one of the Shuttles or the Excelsior

First Turns

The Rebel Strike Team went straight to the Shuttles, mostly ignoring the escorts. One of the Shuttles was shot at by 6 Rebel fighters! Even with Sensor Jammers and Countermeasures, it looked like the Shuttle would not last long.

The escorts carry out a K-turn to try to protect the Shuttle, but they cannot stop it from suffering several hits.

One of the Shuttles stopped moving using the '0' maneuver and caused a "traffic jam"; you can also see on top of the image one Turbolaser marker; one was placed at the end of each round farther than distance 2 from each Shuttle, and would cause 3 red dice of direct damage (so no defense dice) to any ship within distance 2 of it at the end of the activation phase

the dogfight seen from a different angle

The Excelsior TIEs race to help the Shuttles

A Turbolaser discharge hits three ships and destroys one of the Interceptors that had been previously damaged while protecting the Shuttle with its upgrade Draw Their Fire

On the other side of the map, Miranda Doni manages to ionize herself, the Royal Guards and one of the Prototype A-Wings when it crashed into the Shuttle

Shuttle Down!

  Under such heavy fire, one of the Shuttles did not last too long...

And the Excelsior's Turbolasers manage to destroy the second Royal Guard... one of the E-Wings also received some minor damage

Under heavy fire, one of the Shuttles was shot down in Turn 3... it turned to be one of the Decoys!

The Excelsior's TIEs approach the action

Final Sprint

  Under such heavy fire, one of the Shuttles did not last too long, and the Excelsior TIEs did not arrive in time to help it.

The Excelsior TIEs finally arrive and try to desperately mount a defense to protect the Shuttle

The Excelsior's Turbolasers tried to protect one of the Shuttle's flanks. The TIEs deployed their bombs but did not manage to block too much the Rebels' paths... one of the Punishers even managed to ionize his colleague with his Conner Net!

One Prototype TIE sacrifices itself running head first towards the Conner Net, thus opening the path to Airen Cracken

And Airen scores the final hit on the second Shuttle... again, a decoy! So the Emperor was indeed already in the Excelsior! What can be the significance of this?

 

Summary

It was an intense and fun scenario, and a very good example of the myriad possibilities of the X-Wing game.

The Rebels' tactics were sound, as they had a lot of firepower and Etahn A'baht caused several critical hits... Even Palpatine was not good enough to save the Shuttle.

The Imperials did not fly so well this time, and the bombs' results were, again, underwhelming... It's very difficult to position them accordingly, so you end up spending points on something that can end up hitting your own ships.

Also, racing scenarios are always difficult to balance... If you give the chased too much advantage, then the escape will be easy; if you give the chasers too much advantage, then the escape will be impossible.
I also found the effect of the Royal Guard Escorts not only underwhelming but also not in line with the fluff of the scenario... I therefore proposed Beni to add a special rule to the scenario, as I think it would increase somewhat the survivability of the Shuttle in the first turns and make an interesting choice for the Rebels... will they first get rid of the Escorts or ignore them at their own peril?

Special Rule, Escorts: If a ship is inside the firing arc of a Royal Guard escort, it cannot spend any token while attacking the escorted Shuttle. (This simulates the fact that the ship cannot concentrate on attacking the Shuttles as it is being harassed by the Royal Guard escorts)

Commander Joe: Your Excellency! A Rebel Strike Team just blew two Shuttles and our cover fire caused only minor damage to them...

Emperor Palpatine (releases the Turbolasers' controls and scratches two lines in his many-scratched belt): Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen... The weak are culled, the strong shall prevail... And the Rebels faith in their Bothan allies will be their last weakness.

In the background two more VSDs approach the system...

CR90 vs. Raider

With the new addition of the Raider to the X-Wing family, we could not help but organize a third team battle featuring a Raider against a CR90. Each of us had 150 points to spend and the team had to field either one Raider or one CR90.

Teams

Rebels
Bento, CR90 escort (150 points) (played by Antonio)
- Jake Farrel A-Wing with Proton Rockets and Autothrusters (29)
- 2x Blue Squadron B-Wing with Sensor Jammer and Heavy Laser Cannon (33x2)
- Warden K-Wing with Extra Munitions, Bombardier, Proximity Mines and Conner Net (33)
- Rookie X-Wing with R4-D6 (22)

Destroyers, CR90 (146 points) (played by Ricardo)
- CR90 Corvette (Fore) with Tantive IV title, WED-15 Repair Droid, Ion Cannon Battery, Quad Laser Cannons, Engineering Team, Sensor Team, Comms Bosster and Luke Skywalker (87)
- CR90 Corvette (Aft) with Toryn Farr, Quad Laser Cannons, Gunnery Team and Backup Shield Generator (59)

 
Imperials 
Imperial Wall, Raider (150 points) (played by me, JL)
- Maarek Stele TIE-Advanced with TIE/x1 title, Predator, Twin Ion Engine Mk. II and Advanced Targetting Computer (32)
- Raider Corvette (Fore) (50) 
- Raider Corvette (Aft) with Sensor Team, Quad Laser Cannons and Emperor Palpatine (68)

Imperial Fist, Raider escort (150 points) (played by Beni)
- Colonel Vessery (35)
- Deathrain TIE Punisher with Extra Munitions, Cluster Missiles, Cluster Mines and Seismic Charges (38)
- Zertik Strom TIE-Advanced with TIE/x1 title and Advanced Targetting Computer (27)
- Commander Alozen TIE-Advanced with TIE/x1 title and Advanced Targetting Computer (26)
- Lieutenant Colzet TIE-Advanced with TIE/x1 title and Advanced Targetting Computer (24)

Rebel Tactics

Ricardo went for a fully weaponized CR90 with lots of upgrades. I must say I was always skeptic about the power of the CR90 and thought spending too many points on it was not a good idea until I saw his list. Both Luke Skywalker and Toryn Farr are great additions to the CR90 and they both proved extremely useful (specially Luke), as he was always to shoot twice with its primary weapon every turn!

Antonio went with his usual B-Wing+HLC+Sensor Jammer combo: those ships are beasts against Huge ships. He also decided to try the new K-Wing fully loaded with bombs. He also used Jake Farrel who has good synergy with the Comms Booster of the CR90

Imperial Tactics

Beni played with his favourite TIE, Colonel Vessery (I think I've seen him play with this ship 5-6 times already) and decided to try the new Punisher against the CR90 and a collection of TIE Advanced.

In my case, I was not too convinced of spending too many points on the Raider, but could not pass on the opportunity to use Emperor Palpatine! I added a Quad for close defense and the Sensor Team to help Vessery get his free Target Locks.

The Battle

Again, 600 points on the table is something spectacular to behold... I think next time I'll even propose to add 30-50 extra points per player to make an even bigger battle. I also brought my new mat, and it added to the great atmosphere of the game

Here is the summary of the battle:

Rebels took the initiative and placed the CR90 first; I decided to place the Raider so that only its Fore section would be exposed; we decided to protect its flanks with two of the TIE-Advanced and the Punisher, while using Vessery and the other two TIE-Advanced for flanking

The B-Wings started heading towards the Raider and helped by the X-Wing; Jake Farrel and the K-Wing deployed to defend the other flank of the CR90

Here you see the big maneuverability the K-Wing has thanks to its Slam maneuver; it would use it during the game to constantly avoid becoming a too easy target

 In the first turn of the battle, the B-Wings advanced very slow (to my surprise) and the CR90 opened fire on Zertik Strom, ionizing the Advanced.

At the other side of the map, Antonio used the Slam action of his K-Wing to avoid the incoming Vessery... it was quite impressive to see the Slam for the first time!

The fleets approached cautiously

 The second turn showed a lot more action. The B-Wings advanced again very slowly (again surprising), but came into range of the Raider, and Deathrain pulled his trick and dropped a Cluster Mine in front of the B-Wings.
The CR90 started pounding the Raider with as many weapons as Ricardo could bear on it while using its Quad Cannons to shoot at Deathrain without too much effect.

Finally some big action in this side of the map!

 The third turn show a lot of action. Jake Farrel finally caught Zertik Strom but his Proton Rockets were dodged by Zertik who also avoided all damage from the CR90's Quad Cannons... His survival gave the other Imperial ships lots of time to focus on the B-Wings.
The Raider and the Cluster Mines were enough to cause the first casualty of the day: the Rookie X-Wing.
And the CR90 proved its power shooting twice at the Raider, obliterating all its shields (even though it had a Reinforce token there) and dropping a crit (from then on, I obtained one less Energy each turn).

The Rookie X-Wing opened a corridor through the Cluster Mines but was the first casualty of the game: a couple shots from the Raiders and the mines was too much for him

Things looked bleak for the Imperials; the Raider has lost all its frontal shields, Zertik has Jake Farrel at his 6 and the B-Wings will be able to shoot at the Raider next turn!

At the far side of the battle, the K-Wing turned against the pursuing Vessery&friends and completely avoided them in turn 3. Later in turn 4, he used his action to drop a Conner Net on Vessery! Great maneuvering there, Antonio!

Vessery is trapped by the K-Wing's net

In the closest side of the battle, I decided to spend all my energy to recover all the Raider frontal shields. Luckily for us, the TIE-Advanced escorts and Deathrain shot down one of the B-Wings so that only the CR90 and one B-Wing could attack the Raider.

One B-Wing is shot down by the TIE-Advanced

Still, the powerful shots of the CR90 finally destroyed Zertik Strom and crippled the fore section of the Raider.

Add caption

The Raider, Vessery and the other two TIE-Advanced focus fire on the Corvette and also cripple its fore section

The last turn that we played (I think turn 6 or 7) saw the second B-Wing being shot down by the combined fire of Marek Stele, Deathrain and his Cluster Mines and the Raider's Quad Cannons.

Deathrain uses again his Cluster Mines and takes down another victim

The Imperial ships are already at the back section of the CR90, which was quite damaged, and get ready to finish it in 1 or 2 more turns

 

 

 

The last shot of the CR90 causes a crit in the aft section of the Raider... the Emperor is gone!

Summary

The game ended with an Imperial points victory:
77 Rebel points: Zertik Strom (27) and the Fore section of the Raider (50)
175 Imperial points: two B-Wings (33x2), Rookie X-Wing (22), Fore section of CR90 (87)

This time I see four main events that had a big impact on the outcome of the battle:
1. The B-Wings moved too slow and did not shoot at the Raider enough. They wasted their first attacks on a TIE-Advanced that has a 3 Agility and thus is much more resistant to HLCs.
2. Zertik Strom dodged plenty of bullets. This gave the Imperials the extra time they needed to shoot down the dangerous B-Wings.
3. The Raider front section survived one extra turn thanks to Palpatine and also to the fact that the B-Wings did not apply enough pressure. This allowed us an extra turn of Palpatine's wonderful ability.
4. The K-Wing did not protect the Corvette. Its change of direction surprised Vessery&friends, but they then just switched targets to the Corvette and made short work of its fore section (and were ready to do the same with the aft section when we had to stop playing).

So, another great game to remember. The duel between the CR90 and the Raider was really epic, and seeing the Punisher and the K-Wing in action was awesome!

I must say I'm very happy I bought the Huge ships. They extend the possibilities of the game to design more epic scenarios and battles, and the Bomber ships can play a roll against Huge ships.

Armada interlude

This blog is mostly geared towards X-Wing battle reports, but I've played already many games of Armada and just wanted to write a bit about it.

I've been playing most of my games with Rebels against my friend Mario who has been playing with Imperials, and so far it has been a blast! I'll write here about our last game, only because it's the one I took most picture of!


Mat and 3D Rocks
For this game we used the Space Rocks (from www.space-rocks.net) and a new 3x6' mat.. The miniatures look even better than normal with this material!

Fleets
Mario played a VSD II and two Gladiators with Admiral Screed. I don't remember his upgrades, but one of the Gladiators had the Demolisher title, and both had Engine Techs.

I played with 3 Assault Frigates with Bel Iblis. All my ships had Advanced Projectors and Gunnery Teams, two of them had Enhanced Armaments and the third one had Bel Iblis. I heard of this list in the IFF podcast and decided to use it, as I had not played before without squadrons.

Mario won the initiative bid and decided to be first player. He then chose my "Intel Sweep" objective.


Setup
Mario chose his VSD as his objective ship and placed his Gladiators so as to threaten my objective ship (Bel Iblis). This was one of the reasons that cost him the game, as I was able to focus first in his Gladiators and then in his VSD, and he was unable to use his VSD to finish the Gladiators work.

This was my third game against Gladiators, so I decided to give them as little maneuver possibilities to flank me as possible and packed my ships in a tight formation.

The Rebels set up close to three of the objective tokens in a tight formation... the idea was to make it difficult for the Gladiators to flank them

The VSD starts far from the main action... it would need 3 turns (a battle takes 6) to get close to the Rebel ships

The Gladiators had a lot of trouble maneuvering in the close quarters with the 3 Assault Frigates, two asteroids and being in the corner of the map; here, the Demolisher Gladiator is in the sights of all 3 Assault Frigates in turn 3

The Demolisher Gladiator falls under the concentrated fire of the three Assault Frigates

After the encounter with the Gladiators, Demolisher was destroyed and the second Gladiator had taken two Hull damage (and it had not been able to shoot a single time at close range).

The VSD then got at firing range of the Assault Frigates and shot at the one that had been damaged a bit by the Demolisher. I positioned my second Frigate (which had not suffered damage) between the VSD and the damaged Frigate and risked a double arc attack from the VSD... the Assault Frigate took a hard beating but survived relatively well (Advanced Projectors in an Assault Frigate works wonderfully well).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The VSD is surrounded by the Assault Frigates

The VSD then maneuvered into the middle of a "death circle" formed by the three Assault Frigates and was destroyed in round 6.


Summary
The Gladiators are very scary ships, but positioning them is not so easy, especially if they have to attack a close formation. The VSD would have helped breaking that tight formation, but Mario had deployed it too far away, and this gave me a big advantage in the game, as I could always focus on half of his fleet at the time.

That decision and two badly timed criticals on the VSD gave me a big advantage and final score. I also won the "Intel Sweep" objective 3 to 2, adding 75 extra points to my tally.

Armada vs. X-Wing
If you are considering which game to play (if you don't want to play both as I do) then ask yourself:
- Do you like to plan ahead your strategy, or do you like simulations of ship of the line battles? Then Armada is your game.
- Do you prefer a more reactive game, in which the first plan is not so decisive (although it will always be important, of course) and that simulates an airplane dogfight? Then you cannot miss with X-Wing!

Will of the Empire campaign, R1 and R2

I played the first two scenarios of the campaign with my friend Antonio. They were both very nice and fun games.

R1: Test Flight
In Test Flight, the Rebel Alliance attempts to destroy the X1 TIE Advanced prototypes before the Empire can use them in action.


Rebels
Top Luke, (100 points) (played by Antonio)
- Luke Skywalker with R5-P9, Predator and Stealth Device (37)
- X-Wing Rookie x 3 (21x3)

Darth Messengers, Raider Corvette (170 points) (played by me, JL)
- Raider Corvette (Fore) with Quad Laser Cannons (56)
- Raider Corvette (Aft) with Quad Laser Cannons and Single Turbolasers (64)
- Tempest Squadron TIE Advanced with Cluster Missiles x2 (25x2)

I placed my TIE Advanced in the same side of the Raider as the Rebel attackers, which I think was a mistake

The Raider-class Corvette model is a beauty!

The Rebel strike party is ready to strike!

The X-Wings flew in tight formation while I tried to flank them with one of my TIEs

One of the X-Wings breaks off the attack and tries to escape the engagement to get information of the TIE Advanced prototypes back to the Rebellion

The X-Wings outmaneuver one of the TIEs and blow it to pìeces...

Meanwhile, the other TIE hits one of the X-Wings with its Cluster Missiles and scores a clean hit!

The reserved X-Wing meets its demise at the weapons of the mighty Raider!

The Raider proved a killing machine in this game

A bit later, the Raider scores a second kill destroying the last Rookie X-Wing

But Luke manages to escape with the Prototypes information having suffered only a couple hits to his shields

Summary
R1, Test Flight is a great scenario to learn how to use the Raider and show its strength... Being able to shoot twice with its primary weapon (spending 2 energy) at ranges 2-4, plus its secondary weapons makes this ship a weapons platform to be feared!


The scenario was won by Antonio because his setup was better than mine and he also flew his X-Wings much better than I did mine and outmaneuvered me the whole game... Also, from the story aspect point of view, it was great to see just Luke escaping to seal the Rebellion win!





R2: Ion Tempest
In Ion Tempest, the Imperial captain of the Raider lays a trap for the Rebels. The scenario additional mechanics make for a very interesting scenario.

Rebels
B-Wing Fury, (130 points) (played by Antonio)
- Ethan A'baht E-Wing with R2 Astromech, Calculation and Sensor Jammer (38)
- 2 x Blue B-Wing with Heavy Laser Cannon and Sensor Jammer (33x2)
- Blue B-Wing with Sensor Jammer (26)

Darth Messengers, Raider Corvette (203 points) (played by me, JL)
- Raider Corvette (Fore) with Ion Cannon Battery (56)
- Raider Corvette (Aft) with 2 Ion Cannon Batteries, Sensor Team and Engineering Team (72)
- Tempest Squadron TIE Advanced with Cluster Missiles (25)
- Saber Squadron TIE Interceptor with Predator and Autothrusters (26) 
- Saber Squadron TIE Interceptor with Crack Shot and Autothrusters (26) 


 Strategy
I wanted to use my Interceptors to flank Antonio's ships while he attacked the Raider, but from the beginning he tried to finish my escorts first, which I think was a sound tactic.

Raider escorts try to flank the Rebels

The Raider starts moving to capture Rebel ships!

The Rebel wings concentrate their fire on the TIE Inteceptors and destroyed one of them

 The battle was very close and the Ion Storm disrupted Antonio's movement more than mine. He got very close to crippling the Raider, but I managed to capture one of his B-Wings and destroy the E-Wing and another of his B-Wings... Capturing ships was extremely difficult!

Etahn is not careful and crushes against the Raider... in the back, one of the B-Wings is shot down by the remaining TIE Interceptor (not in the picture because it was behind the Raider)

The last B-Wing is ionized, but manages to escape into hyperspace with a Barrel Roll

Summary
Another very fun scenario. I think the victory conditions are such that it was more probable to end in a draw, although anything could happen... In this one I think I maneuvered a bit better than Antonio (probably also thanks to the help of the Ion Storm that annoyed him more than me).

Antonio got too close to the Raider with his B-Wings and was not able to use his HLCs much. I think part of the reason was because of my flanking maneuvers with my TIEs. He had to take the decision to actively get rid of them, and that made his position worse later in the scenario. I still think his decision was sound; if he had ignored my TIE escorts, things would have been worse for him.

So, now we only have to finish scenario R4 to finish with the campaign... with the end of the vacation season it will be more difficult to play, as we are using our gaming time to play Epic battles, but I hope it won't be long until we manage to finish this wonderful campaign.