How to Build a Dumpster Fire - The Ballad of Garm Part 2

I’m still in a bit of shock, but I actually took the Dumpster Fire to GenCon and won the 2019 Armada North American Championship!

Since then I have received a ton of congratulations from the Armada community for which I am very grateful.  I have also been getting more than a few people asking What? How? Why? Garm? WTF?

So, this post is going to cover the “Why?” of the fleet.  Every piece of it is there for a reason and has a job to do.  The fleet has been described as finely tuned by my opponents and I wanted to give you all a glimpse into what that fine tuning looks like.  I’ll break down my 7 games in the tournament in another post later on.

The Ballad of Garm

I'm here again at GenCon to take another swing at the Armada North American Championships.  This is my 4th time at the tournament.  In my previous 3 attempts I have managed to lose pretty badly in the first round.  I had hoped to combat that by getting to bed a little early this evening.  Then someone in my hotel decided to smoke weed in their room and set off the building fire alarm.

So, thanks to that and my 3-hour jet lag I am now wide awake.  So I figured I would write a bit about the fleet I will be playing tomorrow.

It's time for Garm's Dumpster Fire to take on GenCon.

Day 2 - The Dumpster Fire Continues

When we last left off, we were talking about the Rolling Dumpster Fire, a Garm based list that I created with Shmitty and brought to worlds because it somehow seemed to work.

2019 World Champion (Right) and a bunch of scrubs who didn't win.

But first, breakfast.  Did you know the 2019 World Champion had breakfast with us?  Spoiler:  It was not me.  Eat breakfast, folks!

Smoldering or Burning - World Championship AAR for Garm and the Rolling Dumpster Fire

We've talked about how this beautiful list came to be, and also how to fly it.  Shmitty even did an AAR already for a casual game.

Now it's time to put our child to the test.  At the most prestigious event they'll still let anyone (but not everyone) in to:  The 2019 World Championship.

Thank you Geek19 at Cannot Get Your Ship Out for the alternative Pelta.  Everybody to the Limit!

Battle Report - Garm's Dumpster Fire vs Mon Mothma

Recently Biggs and I had a bit of a long back and forth about designing a Garm fleet that used the admiral's flexibility to have a fleet with some strong gunnery backed up by some bombers.  You can read the thought process HERE.

Life intervened a bit, but I finally got a version of the fleet on the table and wanted to share with you all how the game went.  I ended up against a buddy's Mon Mothma fleet that had something of a similar strategy, with a bomber wing supporting TRC equipped CR-90s.

This gave us the chance to play out a classic EU Rebel Grudge Match.  Who should have the right to lead the Rebellion, the Senator from Chandrilla or Space Dad from Corellia?  Read on to find out!

Garm-spiration

A look into how the sausage is made, with Shmitty and Biggs:

If you could redesign some Armada Admirals...

Armada is a great game that I think has a pretty high level of balance and accommodates a good variety of play styles.  Still though it is not without some warts.  Since the game has come out the pool of admirals in the game has grown, but not all of those admirals are as effective or used as one might hope.  There are a few that have just been relegated to the card binder.  I think if FFG was given the shot at a re-do many of Armada's admirals would look fairly different today.

Eliteone on the FFG forums had originally posted his thoughts on point changes for some of the admirals, but I felt like what was really needed were some modifications to their abilities themselves.  I thought I would expand on my thinking here in a blog post.  So, how would shmitty redesign some of Armada's less used admirals?  That's the question I am going to try to answer even if the real answer is that no one really cares.

AAR - Biggs (and Garm) at the Empire Games Center Regional Championship

On Saturday I got to play in the Regional Championship at the Empire Games Center in Streetsboro, Ohio.  I had been practicing with a Clonisher style "Go first and smash with Black dice" list, but I hadn't been liking how it performed, so the evening before I put back together something from the archives, that I updated for Wave 6.  I had won my local store championship with the original list, partly by getting lucky and having my buddy Chris beat Q in the final round to let me leapfrog into first.

Plus, Shmitty wanted Garm to win Regionals, and he had given me a Garm card signed by Zahn himself!

I did pretty well.

Bonus Store Championship - Garm 3: Corellian drift

I am fortunate to live in a area with a great Armada community.  Which means lots of chances to play in Store Championships.  I am actually TO'ing the tournament next weekend in town, but some bad weather canceled my camping plans for this weekend so I am going to head down to Salem, OR for the Borderlands Games tournament.

I wanted to play another Garm based fleet, but didn't want to use the same fleet that I had the last time.  So, I asked Biggs and he suggested the fleet he is planning on taking to his first Store Championships.  I liked it, but didn't have the right squadrons to pull it off.  Still a couple of quick changes were enough to make it my own.  So, let's take a look at Garm 3: Corellian Drift!

Drawbridge Games Store Championship - Garm 2: 2 Garm, 2 Iblis

Biggs checking in for Store Championship Season!  Here's what I'm going to be taking my local gaming store's Store Championship.  In attendance will be Chris Jantzi (Top 32 Worlds, 2017), Angelo Butera (Top 8 Worlds, 2016), Daniel "DabDarklighter", and Q (2 time US Nationals Champion, coming from out of town).  Gonna have to bring my A game to win big here.

AAR - Garm Goes To Red Castle Games

Yesterday was the Store Championships at Red Castle Games in Portland, OR and the first stop on the Make Garm Great Again World Tour 2017!  The tournament was well run, the shop is a nice venue, and a great crowd of players showed up for the event.  Keep reading to see how Garm did.

Making Garm Great Again

Did you know that Garm bel Iblis was the winning admiral at the 1st Armada World Championships and also the 2nd place admiral at the first North American Championships?  Given how he has performed since then it wouldn't be surprising if you didn't know that.  But at one time Garm was the top admiral in Armada.

Store Championship season is upon us and I am lucky enough to live in a part of the world that has several excellent game stores.  While I will probably take a different fleet to each tournament I play in, my one real goal is to win a Store Championship with Garm bel Iblis.  I had a lot of success with him in the early days of Armada, but more recent waves have not been as kind to Garm.  It's not so much that Garm does poorly in tournaments, it's more that no one really brings him.

So, it's time to Make Garm Great Again!

Interview With Worlds Champion Jonathan Reining

I managed to track down Armada World Champion Jonathan Reining and ask him a few questions about Worlds, his championship list, and what his thoughts were going forward.  Before anything else, I wanted to congratulate him for winning Worlds and becoming our first ever World Champion, and thank him for taking the time to answer the questions that I asked him.

The Sky Isn't Falling: Reaction to Worlds

Worlds is over, and with it Jonathan Reinig has taken first overall with his list of Garm Bel Iblis, 2 AFII-Bs, a CR90B, and 8 A-Wings.  Congratulations to him, especially for being our first World Champion for the game, but also for proving something we've really known all along:  Squadrons aren't bad or worthless, just requiring practice and skill to use effectively.

And Jonathan did use them effectively in two games streamed live on FFG's Twitch TV, using them to great effect to destroy his enemy's ships with nothing in the way of upgrades on his stock Assault Frigates and only a Token distributing Garm on his CR90B.  Using the A-Wings, the rebel fighter that is not only the most point-effective Interceptor in the game, but also a viable anti-ship platform and space superiority fighter (see Squadron Composition) he was able to go the distance, ending the tournament with 42 points to his nearest opponent's 37.

FAQ & Tournament Rules Update - 7.24.15

Today we are going to talk briefly bit about the FAQ update as well as the Tournament Rule changes just released by Fantasy Flight on the 24th.

FAQ

Overall, there isn't much in the FAQ that changes in a dramatic way an understanding of any of the cards.  For the most part, it is a clarification of the existing rules.  Interestingly enough, the ruling of XI-7 Turbolasers and how they interact with the Advanced Projectors was not covered (it should be noted that Advanced Projectors lets you transfer 1 damage to each hull zone against an XI-7 attack, per FFG email).

The biggest change was how attacks were made, specifically how line of sight was established on hull zones.  Previously, the rule as worded allowed you to take shots on an enemy hull zone if it was in arc and had line of sight that did not go through another hull zone.  Now you have to measure both line of sight AND attack range to ensure neither one goes through another hull zone.

Let's take a look at what is a legal shot and what isn't:

AFII has a line of sight on the VSD's rear arc.

But the VSD's rear arc isn't in the AFII's side arc per the new rules.

Above, the pictures show a shot that with the previous rules as written would be perfectly legal.  The rear arc of the VSD is within the side arc of the AFII (though you'd have to go through the VSD's side arc to measure it), and there is Line of Sight between both arcs.  Under the new rules, because the shortest point between the two that is still in arc is now covered by the VSD's side arc, the shot is no good - the AFII cannot shoot the VSD's rear with its side arc.

The AFII has line of sight on the VSD's rear arc from its front...

And though some points are blocked...

The nearest point in arc is not.

This is the example of something that is still legal - in the above scenario, the AFII has the rear hull zone of the VSD in its front arc, and still does according to the new rules after measuring for range.  It also has the line of sight, making it a perfectly legal shot.

General Rule Clarifications:

Each attack against a squadron is treated as a separate attack for purposes of cards.  No, you are not allowed to attack ALL squadrons with two extra blue dice with Dominator, unless you spend shields for each attack.

Card Clarifications:

Admiral Motti - Sympathetic Death for your ships is now a thing that can happen: if Motti's ship is destroyed, and another of your ships has enough damage to destroy it without Motti's effect, it blows up too.

Admiral Screed - Yes, he works like you think he does.  Screed lets you change a dice to any face that has a crit, even if other things are on that face.

Demolisher - You can use the post-maneuver attack after you use Engine Techs.  You cannot maneuver > attack > engine tech maneuver > attack.  If you don't attack before you maneuver, the first attack is lost.  Demolisher only affects one of the attacks.

Warlord - Like Screed, you can use Warlord to change your red dice to a double hit result.

Garm Bel Iblis - Just a friendly reminder, no duplicate command tokens.

Tournament Rules:

First there is a quick clarification on what happens if both players have all their ships blown up at the same time - even if there is a point differential (from objectives), the Second Player gets a win, and the game ends with a 0 point margin of victory.

TOME:

TOME exists, and does stuff.  Specifically, it changes the calculations for strength of schedule tiebreakers from "How Many Tournament Points Do Your Opponents Have?" to a calculation that does not factor in Byes to the strength of schedule.  Consider the following Scenario:

Ackbar played Vader, Piett, and Ozzle.  Vader has 26 Tournment Points, Piett has 10, and Ozzle has 15.  Ackbar - according to the basic tournament rules, would have a total Strength of Schedule of 51.

But Piett had a bye in the 3rd round, inflating his score, and Ozzle also had a 1st round bye!  So the new calculation would be as follows:

Vader = 26 / 3 = 8.67

Piett = 2 / 2 = 1.00

Ozzle = 7 / 2 = 3.50

Total = (8.67 + 1.00 + 3.50) / 3 = 4.39 Strength of Schedule for Ackbar

Conversely, Ozzle had a first round bye.  His opponents were Solo and Ackbar.  Solo had 21 ponits, and Ackbar had 24.  For the old way of measuring, he wound up with 44 points for Strength of Schedule.

But since he had a first round bye, the new calculation would be as follows:

Solo = 21 / 3 = 7

Ackbar = 24 / 3 = 8

Total = (7+8) / 2 = 7.5 Strength of Schedule for Ozzle

So you can see that the new TOME calculations remove byes from the equation, as earlier Ackbar would have a much better Strength of Schedule even though most of his opponents had byes, and Ozzle had a much worse Strength of Schedule because of his early bye.  But with the TOME calculations, the effects of the byes are removed, and you get results based on only the games that were played.  Something to keep in mind if you are playing in a tournament.

Pairings:

The next is how pairings take place.  Pairings are random for the first round, but Players can ask not to be paired up with people they traveled with or family members for the first round only.  After the first round, players are paired up against one another randomly, based on their Tournament Score.  If an odd number of players are in any particular Tournament Score, a random player from that group is they are paired with a player from the next lowest group.

The other big edit is that players should not be paired against each other more than once before the end of the tournament / elimination rounds.

Mirror Matches:

Painting your ships is now a legal way to differentiate who owns which ships.

One Tool Rule:

You can only use one measuring tool at a time to measure range / distance / movement.  No triangulation!  And no marking things off with tokens.

Displacement in Maneuvers:

Both players need to agree on how to mark displaced ships when moving through areas.

Well, that's it for this update.  I hope this lets you look at the big highlights of the changes for the tournaments and FAQs.  Next time I'll discuss movement and formations!

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Armada Commanders Wave 1 - Rebel

Previously, we talked about Imperial Commanders - what they did and when to use them.  Now we are going to discuss their Rebel counterparts.  As before, the Commanders represent the Flagship officers of your list.  You can only chose one, and by chosing one you are locked out of utilizing any others.

General Dodonna

Dodonna is the lowest costed commander, for either side - coming in at 20 points.  His fleet-wide ability is that if an enemy ship is dealt a faceup damage card, you get to look at the top 4 cards of their deck and select which one the critical hit will be.  

If you want the most out of General Dodonna, you need to plan ways of dealing critical hits and faceup damage cards - more than you normally would.  The obvious synergy is with Dodonna's Pride, the Corvette Title that allows you a faceup damage card in exchange for cancelling all other damage. Luke Skywalker is another - being able to ignore shields, and bomber lets you drop crits directly onto the hull.  With that said Dodonna doesn't descriminate between ships and squadrons - any build so long as it can land criticals will be improved by him.

Garm Bel Iblis

For just 5 points more than Dodonna (25 points total), Garm fills up your fleet's command tokens to full on the start of the first round and the start of the fifth.  Unlike Dodonna, his ability is better the more high command ships you have to fill up with tokens.  Corvettes would only get one, but Assault Frigates would fill up 3 tokens each.  This gives you a significant action boost in the early game and the mop-up portion, and competes directly with Tarkin for number of tokens handed out.

The drawback is that because you can't have multiples of tokens, you can wind up with more than you need.  How many of you bank your command on turn one?  Can't really do that if Iblis has already maxed out your token supply.  On turn 5, are you really going to use all the tokens that just popped up?  Do you already have some banked from Turn 4?  Oh well, don't get all your tokens. Took a Corvette?  Too bad!

Mon Mothma

Mon Mothma is the most expensive of the Rebel Commanders, coming in a 30 total points, and 10 more than Dodonna.  However, with that in mind, she takes the Rebel's biggest defensive token, the Evade, and makes it significantly better.  All evade tokens can be used at medium range to cancel one die (normally long range only) and can be used at short range / distance 1 to force a reroll (normally medium range only).  This is big, as every rebel ship out at this point has at least one evade token (the Corvette has two) and the Imperials really love to get into medium / close range for their shots. Being able to force a Screeded die to reroll a hit/crit is huge, as is straight up cancelling a mid-range hit/hit from red dice.  It means all your ships can be that much more survivable.

The drawback is that you are giving up a full 10% of your list (4% or so if you count Dodonna as the baseline) for this defense boost.  And you are turning away a lot of free tokens / critical effect boost. And anyone with an Intelligence Agent on their ship can neuter your expensive commander for a mere 7 points.

Well, that's it for the rebel high command.  Feel free to comment to let me know what you'd like to see me cover next.  Until then, fly casual!