9/12 Tournament: Pooka's Perspective

Casual Tournament Prep and Batreps - September 2020

Pre-tourney prep and thoughts

Hey there! We’ve got a small, casual tournament coming up this week in St. Louis. Masking, social distancing, all that good stuff. Nothing big, but I’m excited about it. Why? Because I like building with a goal in mind, and the goal that most frequently brings me back to the fleet building app is competitive play. With no major tournaments on the horizon (barring the LVO, which I’m unlikely to make), the little tournaments help keep me engaged and building and experimenting. This is also one of the reasons why I’ve chosen this particular moment to experiment with Palpatine (see my ongoing experimental series, “The Best Teacher, Failure Is”!): it gives me a reason to mess around with different builds and gives me goals to achieve.


So! Here I am, figuring out what to take to this small tourney (probably 4-6 people, more likely than not), and I’m considering taking my experimental Palpatine fleet. But I decided against that, as I can’t spend the entire tourney taking playtest/batrep notes the way I am for my experiment, so I feel like the attempt would sort of be at odds with the spirit of the experiment. So I won’t be rolling out Palpatine for this. My next thought was that my Command SSD throwing 11 TIEs (6 Fighters, 5 Bombers) is a lot of fun, and might be a good choice! I was “settled” on that for about two days. Then, I spoke with Lewis here at It’s A Trap, and he was waffling between 3 different ideas, two of which just sounded more like fun than anything else. So I started messing around with the fleet builder app, and I came up with the following:


Beasts of the Air and Sea (0/395/400)

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Starhawk-class Mk.I (140 + 74: 214)

· Kyrsta Agate (20)

· Bail Organa (7)

· Raymus Antilles (7)

· Local Fire Control (4)

· Hardened Bulkheads (5)

· Leading Shots (4)

· XX-9 Turbolasers (5)

· Magnite Crystal Tractor Beam Array (10)

· Concord (12)

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36 + 4: 40)

· External Racks (3)

· Task Force Organa (1)

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36 + 4: 40)

· External Racks (3)

· Task Force Organa (1)

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36 + 4: 40)

· External Racks (3)

· Task Force Organa (1)

GR-75 Combat Retrofits (24 + 8: 32)

· Slicer Tools (7)

· Quantum Storm (1)

GR-75 Combat Retrofits (24 + 5: 29)

· Leia Organa (3)

· Comms Net (2)

Ion Storm

Fire Lanes

Intel Sweep


I have built at least a dozen Starhawk fleets, and I haven’t liked any of them. That’s not to say there aren’t good ones out there! I know people were winning with Starhawks just before Primes season ended. I know it can be a nasty beastie. But I personally just haven’t built anything with it that excited me beyond having it helmed by Raddus, who dropped a Command MC80, which in turn dropped a full complement of B-Wings. It was a fun idea, but it was a terrible one!


I don’t know that the above notion is that much better. But it seems like fun to me! My starting point is just that every successive Starhawk build I came up with excluded Magnites because they were too expensive for what I was trying to accomplish. But the Magnites are one of the coolest things about the Starhawk! So, how to best incorporate it? Well, the Concord title and Concord’s ability to use a defense token at speed 0 are obviously a great fit. The extra Salvo token is bonus dice. Also, I needed to ensure that I would be going first so that the ship I hit with Magnites couldn’t then speed back up before I unload on it. Clearly, Bail Organa is a great choice if I am not interested in having much of a bid. Bail also allows me to pick second, play one of my objectives, and then still activate Concord first to devastate its prey. All of that said, I’ve never once played with Bail or Pryce. So there’s a distinct possibility I screw up that timing. But it’s a casual tourney, so, bring on the user error! As I’m throwing Concord right into the middle of combat, I better be able to keep it alive. I chose to go with Raymus so that my Engineering dials are that much more powerful, and I thought that Hardened Bulkheads would help with that as well. The rest of Concord’s loadout is just to ensure maximum carnage.

                                            

After that, I want activations activations activations. I want options with regards to deployment, as well as activation order. I always enjoy Hammerheads, so I’ve got a bunch of them. If Concord gets to drop something to speed zero early in the round and it’s stuck that way, I want my Hammerheads pouncing and absolutely unloading so that the target is primed for Concord at the top of the next round. Their loadout feels simple, cheap, and effective. The flotillas are kind of funny. The one with Leia and Comms Net is there in case it needs to fix Concord’s dials. Quantum Storm is there as a predator of opportunity. I decided to roll with the Combat Retrofits because of the Magnites. I have 6 activations, which is solid. But if my opponent also has a high number of activations, I want every one of my ships contributing to hitting my speed zero prey before it has an opportunity to bump up its speed again. Ideally, Concord is going last so it can shoot and then slow it down, then hit it hard at the top of the next round. But that won’t always happen. If activations work out so that their ship is at speed zero near the end of the round and I only have a flotilla left, being able to throw one or two blue dice is free money that I want to take.


I suspect that this entire thing will crumple the moment I see squadrons. But until then, I’m excited to try it out!



Batreps and Analysis

So it was a really light day, and there were only 4 total players. It was still a good time, but we decided to make it a 2 round tourney instead of a 3 rounder. I was matched up against Jacob, who was also flying a squadronless fleet with a Starhawk helmed by Kyrsta. His other ships were Garel’s Honor and Mon Karren. Was not looking forward to the Mon Karren, but figured I could basically pick a fight with either the Starhawk (with the Unity title) or Mon Karren without having to deal with both. Turns out I was quite wrong, as I chose Jacob’s Minefields (I had the bid and chose to go first rather than risking choosing the wrong round for Bail). I figured I’d be able to work around them, but they were positioned in such a way that I was either backed into a corner or I would be eating damage. Didn’t really want to deal with it, so I cram-jammed all 6 ships into a corner at the right of the board so as to avoid the mines altogether.

                                  

You can see based on the deployment above that my notion was to kill the Starhawk, box out Mon Karren, and either let it fly on by or risk going down. My Concord immediately fell under fire from both Mon Karren and Unity. I was convinced it would go down, so I decided I needed to take down Unity so after Concord died, I could either hunt Garel’s Honor or Mon Karren. Magnites and XX-9s were huge in taking down Unity before it could kill my Concord. It was owing to XX-9s that Jacob drew into a Life Support Failure which prevented him from increasing his speed or making any repairs. His Unity killed one of my Hammerheads, then my Concord took out Unity. Concord survived a volley from Mon Karren and was able to answer with a double-arc. However, I was unable to use Magnites on Mon Karren, so he was able to Brace a big dice pool. Mon Karren then crunched Concord and was able to escape at speed 3. I also made a horrible error while dealing with Garel’s Honor: I knew it couldn’t jump Mon Karren at speed 2, so I meant to use Slicer Tools and turn its dial into literally anything BUT Navigate. I was so focused on that when my mouth moved faster than my brain that I said the following words: “Slicer Tools, Navigate.” Because I’m the best Armada player this world has ever seen! Jacob then quickly countered with, “That’s great, because a Navigate is what I had dialed up.” I explained what I meant to say and he very graciously offered to retcon my use of Slicer Tools, but I declined. Again, Jacob was (as always) incredibly gracious about it, but I could not take that in good conscience. I knew what I meant to say, but I clearly called out Navigate, and then he proceeded to tell me what his dial actually was. We both knew I knew what it was, but still. So Garel’s Honor also escaped. It was a close match, and I lost it 5-6.


My second match was against my friend Ted, who was fielding his Leia fleet (featuring a bunch of bombers, Yavaris, a Pelta, Jaina’s Light, and a GR-75). I was familiar with it, and once more had the bid. I didn’t really want to choose first player because I had Bail and also didn’t want to deal with the unholy squadron triptych of objectives. But I, again, didn’t want to risk picking the wrong round for Bail and getting myself killed over it when I could first/last him. So I chose to once more go first, and I ended up selecting Precision Strike so that maybe I could snag a couple of tokens for myself.

                                    

You can see from the deployment that he intends to concentrate all of his fire on my Starhawk, and so my Quantum Storm will sneak into his flank and start using Slicer Tools, while my Hammerheads flank and cut off his ships after they kill the Starhawk and hope to just fly on by. This, however, is not at all how it goes. Once Quantum Storm and my Hammerheads start coming in a little faster, he diverts his squadrons backwards to answer. He doesn’t want Slicer Tools ruining his day, so Jaina’s Light cuts hard across the front of my Concord. Unfortunately, it also managed to wander right inside range 1-5 of Concord, and I was lined up for that. As I had Ted outactivated 6-4, Concord went last and used that opportunity to attack Jaina’s Light, and then drop to speed zero, taking Jaina’s Light down to zero with it. Next turn, one of my Hammerheads activates first (as Ted’s squadrons are all over the place and I’m not terribly worried about them bombing Concord, as Yavaris is only positioned for a very light double-tap on the Concord) and wipes out Jaina’s Light with Ex Racks and a Con Fire dial. Unfortunately, I was not thinking straight a few moments later when one of my remaining Hammerheads was in a position to jump the Pelta and run. But instead, I forgot I was stashing a Navigate token and rammed the Pelta :/ Foolish mistake that would cost me my Hammerhead. I knew I was going to lose all 3 of my Hammerheads at this point, but I figured it was only 120 points to his 400 when I tabled his fleet. After all, I was about to hit Yavaris with my Magnites so I could kill it, and then the Pelta would not be able to get away. Except the clock was still ticking. So my remaining Hammerhead dies, and by the time we start round 5, we only have several minutes left. I realize at this point that I’ll get Yavaris, but since we won’t be playing round 6, I won’t get the Pelta. And I’ve not killed any squadrons. Plus, I only have 2 Precision Strike tokens to Ted’s 4. So another 5-6 loss for me.


Despite going 0-2 on the day, Lewis (also from It’s A Trap with his own prep piece and batreps from the same tourney!) had two very convincing 9-2 wins, so I ended up scoring second place of the four players. Overall, this fleet was fun to fly, which is what I was going for! And I’ve learned more about what I like about the Starhawk, and what I don’t. I’ve always sort of struggled with builds, but man, the Magnites combined with Concord is so much fun. However, it’s always the rest of the fleet that supports the Starhawk that I have difficulty with. There are only so many points left over whenever I’ve finished building the Starhawk that I want. The Hammerheads were fun, but ultimately, the way I flew them meant I was going to either lose them or lose my Starhawk. Some of that is definitely my flying and my decision-making. But ultimately, while I enjoy the Starhawk, I don’t know that it’s the ship for me. I’ll keep messing with builds because I enjoy that stuff, but I’m more likely to move onto other things.


-IratePooka