The Yavin Retaliation: Contested Outpost (Star Wars: Armada)

 
Captain Draygan contemplated how exactly his career would be ended as he oversaw the repairs to the Vindictive. His cautious approach had seen him caught in the rebel's trap, and despite his angry frustration there was nothing to be done than accept his fate. When he was eventually called to a holographic conference with the Lord Vader Draygan stole himself for the worst.

The Sith Lord's expression of  disappointment in the Captain's performance did not surprise Draygan, but the sudden order to report to the "Commander" and take command of the
Victory II-class Star Destroyer did. Reeling from the sudden change of direction, Captain Draygan barely noted Lord Vader's brief explanation that the commander of the newly arrived Star Destroyer had become indisposed.

The Captain felt a curious numbness throughout his shuttle-flight to the "Commander", but as he walked on to the bridge of the Star Destroyer the last words of the Sith Lord galvanized his resolve; "Do not disappoint me again...".

The Rebels may have won the opening moves, but the Imperial fleet was reorganized and reinforced. The Rebels were not in a position to escape yet, stationed as they were protecting the evacuation efforts. As Admiral Screed transmitted his orders for the second attack, Draygan decided to embrace a far more offensive tactic.

He would not fail the Dark Lord's trust...

Moving on to our second game we both wanted to toy around with our list a bit, focusing more on experimentation than getting to carried away with list efficiency. In that regard we also seized the excuse to paint up a few more squadrons.

First up are the TIE Bombers:

TIE Advanced:

And finally the A-wing squadrons:

Marw and myself both feel that any given game cycle (and preferably every game) should be enhanced with some hobby progress, even if it is just a model or small terrain feature. Therefore these squadrons make perfect additions for this cycle given that one of the main reasons for spending some time on Armada is to give us time to paint up other stuff for future cycles.

The Objective: Contested Outpost

The Imperial Fleet:

Victory II-class Star Destroyer "Dominator" (Admiral Screed, XX-9 Turbolasers, Veteran Captain, Sensor Team)

Victory II-class Star Destroyer (XX-9 Turbolasers, Veteran Captain, Point Defense Reroute)

2x TIE Advanced Squadrons

2x TIE Interceptor Squadrons

2x TIE Bombers Squadrons

Fidor Draygan - Imperial Captain of the "Vindictive"

Captain Draygan found himself tranferred to the Commander in order to take command of the Imperial Victory II-class Star Destroyer. The Vindictive was undergoing emergency battlefield repair, but would not be ready for the second strike, and the captain of the Commander had suffered an unforseen accident during its hyperflight to the Yavin system.

Draygan had been given an opportunity to make up for his initial failure, and he would make the most of it.

The Rebel Fleet:

Assault Frigate MkII (Expanded Hanger Bay, Mon Mothma, Weapons Liaison)

CR-90 (Overload Pulse)

CR-90 "Tantive IV" (Raymus Antilles)

Luke Skywalker

2x X-wing squadrons

2x A-wing squadrons

2x Y-wing squadron

Edaara Durgen - Rebel Fighter Pilot

Edaara had to eject during the initial battle, but was promptly rescued by a reble shuttle. Although the medics rushed to get her battle ready, knowing the danger was far from over; she would not be able to take another star fighter to combat just yet.

First Player: Imperial Player (me)

Battle Report:

The two Star Destroyers deployed on the flank, close to the objective. The Rebels chose a more cautious deployment on the opposite diagonal, with the exception of one CR-90 that was to grab some early victory point before veering off to the flank for a come-around.

The two Star Destroyers drove straight towards the objective, and unfortunately for the Rebels managed to destroy the courageous Tantive IV. This put the rest of the Rebel fleet on their back foot as they were forced to deal with two Star Destroyers camping the objective at a slow cruise by turn three.

There was a furious star fighter battle where Rebel squadrons daringly cut through Imperial Star Fighters for multiple bombing runs on the Commander, supported by long-range fleet bombardment. Despite being heavily mauled, the Commander held together and its position, denying the Rebels space superiority.

(Unfortunately we did not take any pictures of the gameplay.)

Victory Points: 167 (Imperials) vs 63 (Rebels)

Conclusion:

The Rebel fleet was running out of time. They had done all they could, to remain any longer was to invite a high risk of unacceptable looses. Whatever remained on Yavin now would simply have to stay behind. Those left on the base were ordered to immediately abandon the planet and prepare to escape the system.

While the Imperial fleet closed in on the planet, the Rebel fleet prepared themselves to run the gauntlet towards free space.

The Yavin Retaliation: Fleet Ambush (Star Wars: Armada)

 
In the long days of chaos following the destruction of the first Death Star, the Empire tried to make sense of what had happened. Grand Moff Tarkin had arrogantly rushed into destruction without accurately reporting the location of the rebel base. A great number of high-ranking Imperial officers had gone missing, including the dark lord of the Sith, Darth Vader. Emperor Palepatine had withdrawn, and the remaining Imperial authority was in disarray.

The rebellion, as surprised at their own success as any Imperial command, fought to maintain the secrecy of their Yavin base. For months, they continued to operate, rallying from the battle and trying to hold on to their momentum. Eventually rebel command had to concede that the secret location of their base had once again been compromised and a general evacuation was ordered.

Darth Vader suffered several difficult trials following the Battle of Yavin, but ultimately the fallen Jedi survived and managed to reassume his position within the Empire. Impatient to enact his vengeance, Darth Vader assembled a retaliatory strike force of several Star Destroyers that he lead back to Yavin.

Having been forewarned of the Empire’s knowledge of their base, the rebels were fortunately in the final stages of evacuation when Darth Vader’s fleet arrived. As the Star Destroyers erupted from hyperspace, a stern guard fleet of rebel frigates and corvettes moved to intercept: their mission to buy the evacuation a little more time.

The Objective: Fleet Ambush

The Imperial Fleet:

 Victory II-class Star Destroyer "Dominator" (Admiral Screed, Expanded Hanger Bay, XX-9 Turbolasers)

Gladiator II-class Star Destroyer (Assault Concussion Missiles, Nav Team) (see below)

Howlrunner

2x TIE Interceptor Squadrons

7x TIE Fighter Squadrons

Fidor Draygan - Captain of the Gladiator II-class "Vindictive" (free Officer upgrade - no ability)

Draygan is a son of Denon, born to a middle-class family of that Imperial world. Although never considered brilliant, his focus and diligence earned him a commission from the Imperial Academy. His work ethic saw him rise steadily through the Naval ranks, but never earning particularly prestigious assignments. This did not bother Daygan, however; who was proud of eventually earning command of the Vindictive. He was content to fulfill his career diligently carrying out Outer Rim patrol duties, but the events following the Battle of Yavin saw him thrust into unforeseen circumstance. As Darth Vader hastily assembled a retaliatory force to strike at the rebel base of Yavin, the Vindictive was near-at-hand and ordered to support the Dominator.

Although uncomfortable with the situation, Draygan nevertheless recognized the opportunity this presented should he perform to the Sith Lord's satisfaction. Darth Vadar was not known for his forgiving nature, but Draygan put his trust in the stoic work ethic that had seen him successful this far.

The Rebel Fleet:

Nebulon-B Escort Frigate (Mon Mothma, Nav Team, Veteran Captain)

2x CR-90 (Overload Pulse)

CR-90 (Nav Team, Enhanced Armament)

Wedge Antilles (see below)

X-wing Squadron

2x Y-wing Squadron

Edaara Durgen - Pilot (Wedge counts-as)

Edaara hails from the Talay system in the Mid Rim. Her parents were dengu farmers. A local algae grown in large shallow lakes. At the age of seventeen Edaaras family lakes were the victims of an imperial take over to turn the lake districts into a new star port. During the protests that followed, her father was killed by the imperial suppression force. Edaara and her mother fled the system as stow aways to Najiba of the Faj system in the Outer Rim Territories.

Growing up Edaara spent much time to care for her mother. She came to work as a co-pilot on a freighter. At the age of 24 she decided to join the rebel alliance. She quickly displayed a great talent for piloting and has since risen to become commander of Firewing Squadron.

First Player: Rebel player (Marw)

Battle Report:

The Imperial fleet arrived in a tight formation, pouncing upon the lone CR-90 that had strayed too far into the ambush zone.

The force was with the blockade runner, as it escaped Imperial fire relatively unscathed and came about on an escape vector. Meanwhile, the rest of the Rebel fleet began to respond.

The escaping CR-90 came about again, looking to out-flank the Imperial fleet. Although tempted to pursue and box in, Admiral Screed decided against it in favor of maintaining a strong defensive stance against the remaining Rebels.

Seeing an opening and loosing patience, the Admiral ordered the fighters in to clear out the X-wing and Y-wing nuisance. Although successful, the Imperial squadrons got caught in a brutal Rebel crossfire and were mostly wiped out. This opened a clear path to the Vindictive, and in a heroic act of sacrifice another CR-90 shot forward and hit it with a pulse overload, disabling its defenses.

Although the Dominator obliterated the courageous corvette, the damage was already done. Combined fire by the remaining Rebel ships disabled the Vindictive even as they struggled to regain shields. The fire from the Dominator was relentless, but the Rebel pilots did their utmost to escape the worst fields of fire and thus managed to keep their ships intact.

Victory Points: Rebels 135 vs. Imperials 99

Conclusion:

The fierce Rebel counter-assault had robbed the Imperial fleet of their initiative and a great number of their fighter squadrons. The Vindictive was disabled and Howlrunner barely able to limp back to her Dominator.

The Rebels had all reason to be relieved that they had won the opening moves of the battle, but the evacuation of Yavin was still ongoing and there were several Star Destroyers in the system, including an unscratched Dominator.

Edaara had punched out of her X-wing and was fortunate to be amongst those EVA pilots rescued. Captain Draygan found himself in a less fortunate circumstance, however; having failed to anticipate the Rebel's gambit and greatly displeased Lord Vader. The officer knew that unless he got the Vindictive repaired and back in the fight his career would literally have a short life expectancy.

The Yavin Retaliation (Star Wars: Armada)

Our next project will be a short cycle (3 evenings) of Star Wars: Armada. My buddy Marw and myself got together last Thursday and discussed what we wanted to achieve with this, and we agreed the principle goal was to get some more experience with the basic format of the game (300 pts fleets).

However, we did not want to waste the opportunity to enjoy a little storytelling so we agreed to add a simple narrative. Marw came up with the idea to set our games right after the battle of Yavin, as the Rebels fled their base. Although they won the battle and destroyed the Death Star, the war was far from over. Marw imagined that a retaliatory strike could have been sent, engaging the Rebels as they made their escape.

We did not want to affect the basic format of play too much, so to represent this campaign we agreed to both take the objectives that Marw suggested to represent the narrative with and play set-up exactly as laid down in the rules, only agreeing that whoever chooses objectives must pick the appropriate objective for that game. This way we would in theory be playing all games exactly as presented in the rules (in order to stick to our principle goal with this cycle).

The three objectives would be Fleet Ambush, Contested Outpost and Advanced Gunnery. This is to represent the Imperial retaliatory fleet ambushing the rebel fleet aiding the evacuation, their battle as the rebels fight protect their assets as they get ready to flee, and the relentless firefight just as the rebels make a run for it!

Sticking to keeping things very simple, we decided that the victor in each of the two first games gets one a free dice re-roll in the following game, while the winner of the last game wins the campaign. This was a minor point, as neither of us felt that winning or losing the campaign really affected the principle goal.

One of the reasons we chose to play Armada was to free up more hobby-time for future cycles. However, it would not be any fun unless we got some new toy to put on the tabletop! I love the work Mel does with Shapways, providing designs for 3D printing various ships for Armada. However, not only did we not have time for anything that extravagant, but also it would go against our principle goal. Instead, I focused on painting up a few of the Wave I squadrons I had not gotten around to yet.

First up are the TIE Interceptors I added to my list:

And some Y-wings that Marw wanted to try out:

It is not much, but enough to add a small sense of hobby achievement for when we play our games.

In order to spice up my excitement I picked up The Old Republic: Legends graphic novel just to add a little Star Wars excitement since I'm currently working on projects from different settings. It did not have much starfighter "candy" in it, but I enjoyed the read nonetheless. I find that reading a little relevant fluff always enriches the game experience, so during this cycle I will be finishing Mercy Kill and finishing Season 6 of the Clone Wars series.

This promises to add up to quite an enjoyable gaming experience. We also sat down and did our lists for the first game, but I'll leave that for the next post.

Cycles of Gaming

I have renamed my Blog and will make a new attempt in getting it underway with a different concept that I originally envisioned.

The past 18 months has been strange as far as the hobby is concerned, which has prompted many reflections regarding how, why and what we play. After a lot of discussions (fueled by copious amounts of coffee and/or beer) several of my gaming group has landed on a "cyclic approach" to gaming where we - in "cycles" - deal with one gaming project at a time as opposed to all of us pursuing multiple games and painting/playing after some random, willy-nilly fashion.

This approach has provided us with several advantages beyond the obvious - getting to play various games in a slightly more predictable schedule. These other advantages have been making planning and communication easier, allowing for more freedom of hobby/painting without losing focus and providing a sense of validation/justification for some of the many gaming purchases made. I have already noticed how inspiration/motivation and my creativity/hobby progress has greatly improved since settling on this approach.

This is something that I want to consolidate in my Blog, which I want to update in relation to the projects our "cycles" we are currently enjoying, providing an anchor for whatever chain of thoughts and hobby achievements I feel like sharing.