Roseville Armada Regionals - Feb 3rd - AAR

I ran a variation of my Rieekan Aces list that I have been flying off and on for a couple years. Some of the more significant changes are I swapped in H9 Turbolasers and External Racks on Admonition, as well as adding Nym to my squadrons. I often find myself missing shots into flotillas, and H9 solves that problem. I'm also slowly starting to favor External Racks over APTs on Admonition as well - I seem to get more work out of them. The reason I decided to run Nym again is I thought I might see more big heavy hitters with the new releases. Nym himself didn't provide much benefit from his ability, but it was nice to have a speed 3 heavy bomber in play (I usually run Ten Numb instead).

I sometimes hesitate to bring this list to tournaments because it's been popular for awhile and people are a little sick of it. I'm glad I did though - I didn't see any heavy Rebel bombers lists on any other tables, and I feel like they deserve representation. Plus, I just really enjoy playing the list, which should be reason enough to bring it.

Faction: Rebel
Commander: General Rieekan

Assault: Most Wanted
Defense: Fighter Ambush
Navigation: Superior Positions

MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63)
• General Rieekan (30)
• Lando Carissian (4)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• External Racks (3)
• H9 Turbolasers (8)
• Admonition (8)
= 120 Points

Nebulon-B Escort Frigate (57)
• Flight Commander (3)
• Fighter Coordination Team (3)
• Yavaris (5)
= 68 Points

GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Toryn Farr (7)
• Bright Hope (2)
= 27 Points

GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Adar Tallon (10)
• Bomber Command Center (8)
• Boosted Comms (4)
= 40 Points

GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Comms Net (2)
= 20 Points

Squadrons:
• Biggs Darklighter (19)
• Wedge Antilles (19)
• YT-1300 (13)
• Jan Ors (19)
• Dagger Squadron (15)
• Nym (21)
• Gold Squadron (12)
= 118 Points

Total Points: 393

1st Game - Ben

Ben was running Raddus on an MC-30 (Admonition), with a flotilla (Bright Hope), CR-90 (Jaina’s Light), and MC-75 Armored Cruiser (Aspiration) in support. Aspiration had Boarding Troopers, Leading Shots, and External Racks. He was also running a light fighter screen of an x-wing, HWK, 2x VCX, Shara, and Tycho.

I won the bid, electing to go second. Ben selected Most Wanted as the objective. He set up Bright Hope on my left, Admonition in the Center, and Jaina’s Light on the right. I put Yavaris on the far left and Admonition on the far right, with my flotillas in between. Squadrons from both sides were mostly clustered in the middle.

I hadn’t played against Raddus yet, but I was concerned about him deploying Aspiration where I would not be able to easily turn to get shots in him down. So I started my ships out a little slow, to make it harder to drop behind me, and I angled Yavaris and Admonition on the outsides to cut across the middle in different directions. I selected Ben’s Admonition (can’t choose Aspiration - it was not in the game yet) and my comms net flotilla for Most Wanted, and we were off.

• Second round, Ben dropped the MC-75 double arcing Admonition, in Admonition’s front arc. I decided to take the massive double arc boarding troopers shot into Admonitions face in hopes that I could return the double-arc favor after he moved. The 12 dice to the face hurt quite a bit, but between Lando and Admonition I survived, losing shields on two sides, taking one hull damage, and dumping two tokens. Some well placed Aspiration shields dulled the return fire, so both ships survived the pass.
• Third round, Ben’s Admonition died to massed squadron fire and a double arc from Yavaris. My Adar Tallon flotilla lost a ramming battle with the MC-75, briefly turning into a zombie.
• Fourth round, Ben’s fighter screen was finished off - taking Biggs with them - while heavy bombers and Yavaris circled around to chase the MC-75. Ben’s Bright Hope also was rammed to death.
• Fifth round, my Yavaris and heavy bombers chased Aspiration off the board.
• Sixth round, Ben’s Jaina’s Light almost joined the battle (it left briefly to avoid Admonition), but decided discretion was the better part of valor, so things wrapped up there.

I ended up with a 10-1 win from this game.

2nd Game - Tom

Tom was running Darth Vader on a Cymoon with strategic adviser and gunnery teams, a Quasar with Chiraneau, and a flotilla. He was running bomber heavy, with 6x tie bomber, lambda, Maarek, and Dengar.

I won the bid and elected to go second again. Tom selected Superior Positions and setup with a tight formation in his corner on my left. I put Admonition in my corner on the left side and Yavaris on the right flank, with my flotillas in between them. Squadrons for the most part were clustered in the middle.

I had not played against a Cymoon yet, and I was leery of those long range shots. I setup on both sides so he couldn’t hit both my significant ships with his front arc at the same time, forcing his Cymoon to commit to one or the other. We wished each other luck and started pushing around plastic spaceships.

• Second round, 4 bombers and Dengar jumped on Admonition. My screening elements (Biggs, Wedge, YT-1300, and Jan) intercepting them and took out Dengar. I locked down the bombers and congratulated myself on a job well done. Tom’s Cymoon got a good angle on Yavaris - no escape likely, even though I had yet to move - but Yavaris got a round of heavy bombing in to remove a significant amount of shields on the Cymoon.
• Third round, the Cymoon killed Toryn Farr’s flotilla and Yavaris (zombie time). In retaliation, Admonition killed Tom’s flotilla and half killed the Quasar. Then Tom reminded me he had Chiraneau and I felt a lot less good about locking those bombers down, as they all took another round of shots into Admonition. Zombie Yavaris brought in a second round of shots against Tom’s Cymoon, all in the rear, to take it down.
• Fourth round, Admonition gets finished off between bomber fire, Quasar fire, and ramming. It hangs around as a zombie anyway, as Adar Tallon sends bombers to fire into the rear of the Quasar to finish it off.

I ended up with a 9-2 from this game.

3rd Game - Sam

Sam was running Darth Vader on a Cymoon, with another Cymoon as backup. The Cymoons were both pretty loaded up, and upgrades included gunnery teams and strategic advisor (among a lot of other painful upgrades). Additionally, he also had 3 flotillas with comns net to feed the Cymoons tokens, pad activations, and for general suppressor/avenger shenanigans. There were no squadrons in the list.

I won the bid and once more decided to go second. Sam selected Fighter Ambush and setup with his Cymoons in the corner on my far right. I ended up with Yavaris on my far right setup across from the two Cymoons, angling about 45 degrees left, with Admonition on the far left angled about 45 degrees right. My squadrons deployed at medium range of one of his Cymoons.

Yavaris was angled to avoid long range shots as long as possible, while Admonition was setup to fly around behind the Cymoons and be annoying. I was hoping for my squadrons to be able to soften up the Cymoons before they could close, and was not looking forward to what those long range shots could do. Our admirals saluted each other and battle commenced.

• First round, all 7 of my squadrons shot his non-Vader Cymoon. They had no rerolls, but managed to dent the shields.
• Second round, shots came in on two of my flotillas, who got lucky with no accuracies. Bright Hope had to ditch a scatter due to intel officer, though. Then 2 heavy bombers managed to be in the right place for a Yavaris double tap of the wounded Cymoon, getting through the shields and leaving it near dead. A few extra attacks from squads in the squadron phase finished it off, with the YT-1300 dealing the final blow.
• Third round, Vader’s Cymoon killed Yavaris (zombie) and Torynn Farr’s flotilla. Admonition had gotten into Sam’s flotillas at this point and killed one. Yavaris made her last assault run, heavily damaging the remaining Cymoon, before being removed from the table.
• Fourth round, Adar Tallon’s flotilla barely survived a Cymoon shot, Squadrons finished off the remaining Cymoon, and Admonition chased down the flotillas

I ended up with a 10-1 from this game.