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.