Harrow

Updated the VSD article with Harrow. The title section is as below, and I've added two new VSD-I builds as well as cleaned up here and there and added an alternative VSD-II build using HIEs and Weapons Battery Techs. I've also reordered the ship index alphabetically for similar reasons to the squad index: it's quicker to find things alphabetically. Ordering them by wave makes its own sense, but long-term ease-of-use seems more useful to me. I also spent upwards of 8 years of my life working in libraries, so I may be biased 😉.

Imperial Rogues & Villains aces from Rebellion in the Rim

Churning on along and it's time for the new Imperial aces for Rogues and Villains squadrons introduced in Rebellion in the Rim. They've been added to their squadrons' base articles. On a side note, I've rearranged the order of squadrons in the squadrons index to be alphabetical so they're easier to find (previously they were in order of release).

Rebellion in the Rim offensive retrofits

As I rapidly churn through RitR articles we've finally hit offensive retrofits. As usual, these cards have been added to the base article and they will likely change in the future as the meta changes or I change my opinion on things or learn new tricks or whatnot, but this article itself will not change.

A quick primer on Raid

Given Raid is making a comeback in Rebellion in the Rim, it seems like the right moment to have a short rules article on exactly what raid does, as I've seen a number of different people get it wrong lately when discussing the new stuff.

Kills ants, roaches, and squadron commands with minimal hassle!

Corvus

The Raider article has been updated with a few things (specifically the Corvus title, Iden Versio, and Weapons Battery Techs), and here's the bit on Corvus:

All the haters are going to eat crow.

Corvus is a neat cheap little title and it has some surprising utility. Rules-wise it's important to note that when you deploy a ship, you choose its speed. Redeploying a ship is deploying a ship, so you have a chance to reset Corvus's speed when you redeploy it as well. Also of note is that when you redeploy Corvus, it redeploys within your deployment zone. This means if you originally deployed it somewhere special due to the objective (say, for example, in the ambush zone in Fleet Ambush or on the station in Surprise Attack), you must redeploy it in your normal ol' deployment zone. That's normally a good thing.

The immediate use for Corvus is using your Raider as a "fake" deployment. You can put it wherever you please and it tells your opponent nothing about your future plans. It's pretty common for player 2 to start their deployment based on the information they gain from player 1's first deployment. If you're player 1, Corvus reveals nothing. If you're player 2, you can continue to wait out player 1's motives with Corvus.

You can also deploy squadrons at distance 1-2 of Corvus like normal, so don't hesitate to buy time with squadron deployments after your Corvus deployment to continue to keep your opponent guessing. Will you be deploying your carrier(s) to the left or the right of the squad ball? It's hard to say, and Boosted Comms and/or Relay makes it even more difficult to guess for sure. If those squadrons are Rogues, you don't even need a carrier to help them out afterwards!

In short, Corvus is 2 points pretty well-spent, if only for the deployment shenanigans. In my experience the title seems best on Raider-IIs and/or flagship Raiders. On Raider-IIs it's because they generally are happy acting as flankers due to their superior range, whereas Raider-Is tend to like to "catch" their prey as it drifts into them, so you can use Corvus to deploy at high speed on a flank safely to begin the chase. With a flagship Raider, it's mostly to ensure you're not biting off more than you can chew. I tend to prefer my flagship Raiders as Raider-IIs as well (as they can contribute at safer, longer ranges), so these tend to overlap for me.

GenCon Analysis

The best part of GenCon is of COURSE the post-event analysis.  I've been busy, but I finally got all the lists (well, as much of them as I could.  I'm missing some objectives there) and it's time to sit down and pour over Excel spreadsheets!

Sweet, percentages!

RitR weapon team - Weapons Battery Techs

Rebellion in the Rim gave us one new weapon team, the Weapons Battery Techs, and they've been added to the weapon teams article.

Speaking of weapon teams, I also updated the entry for Jyn Erso in the boarding teams article because RitR more than doubled the number of objectives she works on (those with objective tokens on ships and victory tokens).

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.