Ballet

Admiral Screed, fanart by Brian-Snook.

+++Incoming transmission
+++ From Bothan Spy network
Imperial flotilla under the leadership of Admiral Screed is moving to to meet with Lord Vader Fleet with a cargo of Spy Drones. It appears that his flagship has the cargo. The fleet will have at least 1 Victory Star destroyer and heavy fighter Escort.
It's imperative to avoid that this cargo reaches lord Vader to stall his effort to find our hidden base in the Outer Rim.
Strike at the waypoint near the Imperial staging point of Corfai in the Core Systems.+++
May the force be with you!+++

I got started off with my friend Francesco to a little campaign in Star Wars Armada. Francesco invented a little background story and now we're taking it from there depending on the results of the battles.

The start of the game. Francesco's Victory class Star Destroyers (VSD) are in the top left and the top right corner. Admiral Screed's VSD in the top left corner first needs to go to the space station at the center and then exit the field through the lower right corner. Because we were playing ambush, Francesco had to set up the Imperials first, but I had the initiative.

Once again the frail Nebulon-B Frigate was supposed to be the anvil on which the VSD has to be crushed.

The end of turn 1. The VSDs were far slower than I thought and I started to worry if I may make it into their backs. Good thing I wasn't going full speed either!

With the gap closing, Screed's VSD coming from the top left tries to shoot the next Corellian Corvette, but she is just barely out of range. I leave it to you to decide if it was luck or skill on my part, but I definitely tried to play my best game.

In the meantime, all TIEs were amassing in the center in one huge blob and both VSDs started to come into the critical range...

...but my Corvettes on the very left finally had the room to flank. Screed surprised me though by reducing the speed of his VSD from 2 down to 1, so it was going to be super tight!

The first shot truly fired goes to Silver Squadron which was supposed to protect the Corvettes, but due to a lack of TIEs nearby it heroically took on Screed's VSD instead.

Once again, the Corvettes did really well because Screed's VSD was only able to fire at them with her broadside.

Up center, half the X-Wings reinforced the A-Wings on their attack against Screed's VSD whereas the remaining two tied down the TIE blob.

So that was the end of turn 3.

Turn 4 saw the activation of the TIEs because of the VSDs' squadron commands. One X-Wing squadron was automatically dead and the other survived with one life left on the dial.

Although I planned in advance and had the Maneuver Command ready, the Nebulon-B had to pass too closely slongside Screed's VSD for my taste. However, the Corvettes both went into her back arc and stripped it of her shields there. The X-Wings and A-Wings took care of her front shields so now Screed's VSD was essentially naked.

The thinning of the Rebel Squadrons in front of Screed's VSD continued since the Rebels decided to ignore the TIEs and concentrate on the mission objective instead. However, now the VSD started to throw around Engineering Commands and restored shields where they were most needed. This was a hard pill to swallow because I still couldn't fire directly into the hull despite previously fully stripping her shields. When you only have three dice to throw, every dice counts.

In this picture, the Nebulon-B Frigate is a goner. I wanted to active her first to bring her to safety, but Francesco asked what good a safe Nebulon-B is in a sector where she can hardly fire at the VSD when the Corvette can throw her full dice (plus I had the Fire Command ready) into the VSD's back. Hence I activated the Corvette first and let the VSD feel her full load, but that was the death sentence for the Nebulon-B as she already had 0 shields on her broadside.

Both VSDs are now heading for the base in the center, but Screed's still has two Corvettes in her back. In the meantime, she couldn't shake off Purple Squadron in front of her either. I still deemed this game winnable despite the loss of the Nebulon-B.

The first Corvette shot and rammed, but because the VSD was still throwing Engineering Commands around, it still wasn't enough to kill it. By now it had lost six out of eight hullpoints and had no significant shields left.

And then disaster struck: just as I was barely out of Francesco's firing range earlier, Screed's VSD moved 2 and now was barely out of the 2nd Corvette's firing range either. These dice would have been necessary to kill the VSD and win the mission.

I got stuck at six damage cards, whereas one card was an open crit.

Being exposed to the fire of two VSDs, the Corvettes died one after the other. Only Purple Squadron still hugged Screed's VSD...

...until Purple Squadron eventually was all that was left.

So how do I look back at the game. I am very happy with the game because of several reasons:

• it was my first game when I didn't do any major tactical mistakes.
• hence my battle plan worked as intended and the result ultimately depended on the luck of dice and range.
• the scenario was great fun.

Ways to improve my game:

• The Nebulon-B had the Fire Command for quite a few turn when she was still out of range. Rolling Squadron Commands there to take care of the TIE blob would definitely have been more effective. Maybe I should think of my Nebulon-B as less of a firing base and more as a squadron support base.
• I had Engine Techs on all my ships, but forgot to use them throughout the entire game... had I remembered them, the game could have turned out quite differently because of me making those few critical inches.