Grand Moff Tarkin stood on the bridge of the imperial Star Destroyer and with a snarl and a curled lip he simply uttered the words “You may fire when ready.” Then the gunner team rolled all their dice and rolled nothing but blanks, for six rounds!
Star Wars Armada is a two player fleet game set in the Star Wars universe. Each player takes control of a series of large ships, such as Imperial Star Destroyers or Corellian Corvettes and takes turns pummeling each other until a victor emerges.
The mission was to rescue/capture the VIP. I was going second which meant I could set up the location of the VIP, I placed it within two turns of Tarkin’s Star Destroyer, planning to use the heavily shielded and armoured ship to hold the objective for the rest of the game and score the 50 bonus victory points. For added insurance I was flying a Gladiator Class Star Destroyer in close formation with the Victory. This way if anyone tried to take the VIP back they would face down a barrage of high impact black dice.
Meanwhile I set up a flanking maneuver with my two fast and maneuverable small base ships; an Imperial Raider and an Imperial Light Cruiser. These two gunboats were supposed to move quickly, staying at long to medium range. They would attack and destroy the heavy hitting Nebulon B in my opponent's fleet before moving on to harass his Assault Frigate.
Finally I added an attack wing of Tie Fighters and Boba Fett to mop up any X-wings that might try some bombing runs on my Destroyer.
Everything started as expected. The flanking force ended up barrelling towards the guns on the Neb B (which was not in the plan!), while the Gladiator and Victory charged the objective. From the other side the Assault Frigate ambled towards the Victory, backed up with a few squadrons of X-Wings. The Corvettes took off heading for a flanking manoeuvre on the Victory, which would take them out of position for at least three rounds. However it was the MC30 missile boat that proved to be the problem.
The rickety old frigate sailed alongside the Gladiator, placing herself in range of twelve attack dice. She knew it was kill or be killed and unleashed her attack. She ripped through the Gladiator's 2 shield and five hull with hits to spare. It was only the beginning of turn two and I was already a ship down. This made it five vs. three and it was the beginning of the end.
The Victory Class, with Tarkin at the helm, held her own in the middle of the firefight but at the end of turn four all guns were aimed at her and the Grand Moff turned and ran, hoping to hold the VIP. The raider and the light cruiser had launched everything they had at the Neb and the ship didn’t even have a scratch. She turned her guns on the Raider and it vaporised. The MC30 mopped up the last of the ties and Corvettes sped after the slow moving Victory, destroying her on the last turn and preventing her escape.
It had been a promising plan, but being two ships down on the enemy at the start of turn two put me at a huge disadvantage. It was my dice however that really let me down. I didn’t destroy a single rebel ship and every time I had an opening I rolled blanks. Long live the Rebellion!