Guest Article: Mike "comatose" Bohlmann's 2019 GenCon Experience!

Hey all.  John's just checking in real quick before we give the microphone over to Mike Bohlmann and his list.  We may have a few more Chicagoans or Chicagoan adjacents contributing over the next week or so, so enjoy!  Mike goes by comatose on the forums, and is part of the 21st Fleet Group down in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois.  Hit him up below the map of a totally real city in our great state!

You can SMELL the corn

Rebellion in the Rim obstacles and proximity mine tokens

I briefly considered adding these to the original article on obstacles, but given they're not commonly used in most games (being tied specifically to Rebellion in the Rim objectives and the mines to RitR upgrade cards), it seemed wisest to give them their own separate article I could link to when I discuss the new RitR obstacles and mines in the future (we're getting there!). So let's talk new cardboard tokens that go on a giant mousepad.

SSD and RitR Imperial officers added

As the guy responsible for the Imperial half of the site as well as the objectives and obstacles and offensive retrofits... I've got my work cut out for me. The first big chunk has been done though: I've added in the new SSD and Rebellion in the Rim Imperial officers to the Imperial officers article. Their entries will change over time, but these here will not, so if you want to keep up with any changes of opinion/elaboration, please go to the base article. Thanks!

Uncle Ben taught us that with unlimited power comes... unlimited responsibility?

John's 2019 GenCon Writeup!

So, I imagine you all saw the LAST post, but many of you know nothing about what I ran or how I built it or my games or blah blah blah.  THIS is that post. I go into a LOT of things here, and there's still the goofy jokes, but it's a lot more.... meandering towards the end, like a Tolkien novel.  I'd apologize, but A) it's our blog and B) I'm not sorry?

Two of the important keys to my list

Relatedly, there's several Avengers Endgame spoilers contained within, so, uhh, go see the movie if you're like the one or two people who haven't?

Gencon and Rebellion in the Rim

FFG had a limited number of Rebellion in the Rim boxes for sale at Gencon and they (very thoughtfully) reserved a copy for everyone playing in the Armada tournament. That means both John and I picked up a copy and now that it exists as a saleable item in some limited sense, we can talk about it.

First off, I did okay at Gencon. Despite attempts at different tactics, I was struggling locally against well-practiced 2-ship and John's fleet and didn't want to hit them at Gencon and get stuffed, so I went with a build similar to (but not identical, some meaningful changes) to John's with about a week or two to spare. I did all right (I'd say top 1/3 or so) until I hit Shmitty (of Steel Squadron, who won Gencon with Dumpster Fire day 2, which I expect he'll write about) round 4 and got 10-1ed when I made a couple mistakes. Womp. Wound up in the middle of the pack, but still overall had a good time; if you're going to go down, there's no shame in going down against the champ. I didn't expect to do amazing with a new fleet, and honestly probably should've stuck with what I'm well-versed with but here we are. John did much better than I did (#3 after day 2) and he's writing up a big summary right now.

Secondly, huh, I see some interesting names for playtester credits on RitR:

😁, but for real don't bother us about spoilers in the future 'cuz you ain't gettin' none

GenCon Weekend!

Guess who punched his World's ticket this weekend? Lengthy update to come, but it was a blast.  Congrats to shmitty, and as always at every tournament, it was good to meet and see so many of you.  Now, sleep.

Even Hotter Takes Than Steel Squadron's!

FFG demoed some Rebellion in the Rim earlier today and spoiled a few cards. Gotta get them clicks somehow, right?  Hit the jump so we can go so far overboard that we make THAT OTHER WEBSITE (who I certainly didn't just steal their pictures from, thanks bros) seem sensible and reasoned!

Me all day today

Chicagoland Armada tournament for charity 11/9/2019!

Putting this one up here in case any of our readers are close enough or would like to come out and play with us.

In short, one of the guys who is involved in X-Wing's Gold Squadron podcast/group, Ron Longhi, is hosting his second annual big games extravaganza in a local moose lodge, and Armada will once again have a tournament (it's a casual tournament, so it will be TOed by yours truly, who will also be playing). The event itself is like a relaxed Adepticon: you get to play plastic spaceships, drink beer, and order food like hamburgers and hot dogs and the like while you play (and it gets brought to your table!). It was a lot of fun last year and this year it should be even bigger. Plus it's a charity tournament with the proceeds going to the local Boy Scouts.

Prizes are TBA at this point, but I'm Ron-authorized to tell you that participation prizes will be acrylic versions of the 6 obstacles that come in the core set and an alt-art squadron, with more prizes going to players who place well at the tournament.

If that sounds swell to you, go on over and register for the tournament! Hopefully we will see you there Saturday November 9th.

Updates 4/23!

I hit some more updates on the SFC article (I removed the squadron bits I suggested AGAINST using as I cover them in bits later, and I also removed the parts about deploying squads when I can just quote Eric and the deployment article), and Eric and I significantly updated the MFC article.  Next plans are an ACTUAL article I'm working on and updates to (what else?) the LFC.  Which is going to be a big chunk for sure.  Stay tuned, as usual guys!

Nathan Coda Worlds 2019 AAR

Editor's note: we're happy to have Nate back to talk to us about his experiences at Worlds this year!

This year was the fourth Worlds tournament I have attended, and was yet again a memorable experience. I got to play eight games of Armada with a group of excellent players from around the world, discuss my favorite game with people who are just as passionate about it as I am, and managed to earn my fourth top-four Worlds placement. What’s not to enjoy?

Tips and tricks: running away

Unlike many miniature games, your success in a game of Armada isn't defined purely by win-loss but by the severity of that win or loss. It's not uncommon in casual games for players to concede when it's clear who will win or lose but they're robbing themselves of valuable practice in the fine art of running away. That's what we're going to talk about now with another entry in the smaller-article "tips and tricks" format.

With your shield or on it, you cowards!

John's Regionals and Worlds Write-Up!

It's been a while since I did one of these, huh?

I got bored of like the same 5 Leia pics, so, here, Carrie Fisher!

Worlds 2019 data and analysis

I've got an awful lot of data gathered from the 91 fleet lists at Worlds plus some analysis on a table-by-table basis, so get ready to crunch through some numbers with me. Before I get any further, I want to give special thanks to a few people:

• John, my co-author who did the lion's share of the data entry and got so tired of it that he let me do the fun part because he was sick of looking at it all.
• Giled, who helped John with the remaining data entry
• Truthiness from Steel Command, who gifted us his excel spreadsheet with formulas for making sense of the Regionals data, which was used for turning Worlds fleet lists into data.

So basically, a big ol' thanks to all three of you who did the labor-intensive un-sexy work before I get into the (to me, anyways) fun part. Let's proceed, then!

In short, John deserves a beer. Or support for his charity run. Or both?

Pictures of the SSD

Much smaller update, but I wanted to give it its own little article: I took a few pictures of the SSD on display at Adepticon. It's gigantic - supposed to be between 26 and 27 inches long. Very impressive model.

Eric's Worlds/Adepticon 2019 AAR

Now that we're all done learning about vegetable gardening and jogging, I suppose we should talk about Armada. I guess. I heard some kind of event happened? Oh right, Worlds.

I was lucky enough to make it to day 2 of Worlds (coming in at 6th place at the end of day 1 and falling to 17th place by the end of day 2 after reaching table 2 and getting slapped back down, haha) so I've got seven games to talk about! I'll try to cover them fairly quickly, but first we need to talk about the fleet I brought:

8 ships what up? I don't believe anyone else had 8 ships at Worlds.