One week ago, I had the honor and privilege of playing in the 2nd Schaumburg Prime Offensive, which was the Firestorm Armada tournament held at Adepticon 2016.

Format

The tournament consisted of 4 rounds. Players were permitted to bring two 1,000 point lists, and chose one before the round started. Each round was two and a half hours long, with breaks in between. As a result, the entire event ran from  9 AM to almost 10 PM, a very full day! There was some discussion about splitting the event over two days next year to ease that strain, although given that the Battlefleet Gothic event is generally held on Sunday, I’m not sure I’m very excited about that idea because it would force me to choose one or the other! Each of the four rounds used different missions, and each mission had a Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary objective. These objectives were worth 4, 2, and 1 “Game Points” respectively, which were then used to rank the players. It was possible for both players to score the same objective in many of the scenarios, which was interesting.

My Lists

I ran my Terrans for the event. Leading up to Adepticon, I wrote several articles here on the blog discussing my lists and my thoughts behind their construction. As a reminder, though, here are the final versions that I played:

Round 1

The scenario for Round 1 was called “Armistice Failed,” and it required players to rescue a diplomatic shuttle from a space station in the middle of the table. The trick is that the area surrounding the station was affected by an “EM Field,” which prevented ships inside of it from shunting out, mines from detonating, and caused attacks inside the field to employ Heavy dice (6’s equal two hits but do not explode). The Primary objective was to have the shuttle token alive at the end of the game, which meant it had to be on a ship that wasn’t destroyed and was either on the table or safely shunted off. The Secondary Objective was for who had the highest Battlelog, and the Tertiary Objective was to kill the opponent’s shuttle. I took Fleet A, my battleship-carrier combo, for this round. My opponent, Austin, took a Sorylian list that was very Medium-heavy, running cruisers and gunships.

My carrier and her consorts approach the diplomatic station in an ill-fated attempt to rescue the Terran diplomatic mission. The grey area around the station is the EM Field.

My basic thought was to move up my carrier, cruisers, and shield cruisers as a tough defensive unit up to the base, grab the shuttle, and then shunt out. However, not having played Sorylians in a long time, I was not prepared for the ferocious firepower Austin’s squadrons were able to pump out at close range; Heavy Dice or not, when you are putting out 24 shots it doesn’t much matter! Suffice to say, my carrier (which had the shuttle on board) was dead by the end of Turn 2 thanks to a double crit, and the rest of my center force did not last much longer. Austin handily won this round, 7 Game Points to my 0. Oh well! In retrospect, I wonder if my Dreadnought list would have fared better; that thing is such a tank, it might have just lasted long enough to get the shuttle and escape the board.

Round 2

The second mission was called Defense Network, and is one that Ryjak and I playtested our lists with a while back. In this scenario, players have Battle Satellites to control that will give them the ability to make attacks on enemy vessels. The Primary Objective was to have the highest battle log, the Secondary Objective was to control the most Battle Satellites, and the Tertiary Objective was to have the most friendly ships in the opponent’s Deployment Zone. My opponent for this round was Will, who was running a Directorate fleet.

Will’s Directorate battleship attempts to swing into the rear arc of my carrier.

This game went much better for me; in fact, it was the best round I had the whole day in terms of Game Points. We tied on the Secondary Objective, meaning that neither of us got the points for it. However, I managed to win both the Primary and Tertiary objectives, thanks to my Battleship successfully shunting into Will’s deployment zone. The final score was 5 points for me and 0 for Will.

Round 3

The mission for the third round was called “Echoes in the Dark.” This mission had pretty straight forward objectives; the Primary Objective was Highest Battlelog, the Secondary Objective was to kill half the enemy fleet, and the Tertiary objective was to keep your Admiral alive to the end of the game. What made this scenario tricky was the deployment; no Reserves were permitted, and players were required to write down the name of each of their squadrons onto an index card, and then those cards were laid out face-down in their deployment zones. Once all the cards were down, they were revealed and the associated ships were put on the board. Since reserves were not permitted in this round, I decided to go with Fleet B and put my Dreadnought on the table for the first time that day. My opponent for this round was MBS community member Stephan, who was running his Aquans with Terquai allies.

My Dreadnought prepares to lay down some fire on one of Stephan’s Terquai cruisers.

In the end, thanks in no small part to Stephan’s ability to shut down my long-range torpedo fire with his Superior Fishy Point Defense(TM), and a few whiffed rolls on my part, the Aquans got the better of my Terrans. Stephan managed to complete all three objectives, while I was able to complete the Tertiary objective thanks to my Admiral being on board the Dreadnought. The final Game Point tally was 1 for me and 7 for Stephan.

Round 4

For the final round, I was actually matched up with MBS member Ryjak. However, since Ryjak and I live fairly close and have played each other before, we got permission to swap our partners. Given that we were all well down in the rankings by this point, the organizers had no problem with it since it would not affect the outcome of the event. Instead of Ryjak, I played a delightful fellow named Matt, who would go on to win the Best Sportsman award for the event. He was running a very nice Works Raptor fleet. For  my part, I decided to run the Dreadnought list again. The scenario for Round 4 required us to advance on a station in the middle of the board. If we could keep one of our capital models within 6″ of it and keep all enemy models more than 6″ from it, we would receive 4 Battle Log points per turn. The Primary Objective was to have the highest Battle Log, the Secondary was to be holding the station at the end of the battle, and the Tertiary objective was to be the first player to hold the station.

My Dreadnought struggles to come about and close with the station once more, while my remaining frigates struggle to finish off a heavily damaged Works Raptor battle cruiser.

This was the first time I’d played the Works Raptor, and their various defensive abilities made things quite difficult for me! I was able to knock down a few of Matt’s ships, however I bungled my approach to the station and wound up giving him two rounds worth of Battle Log points from being near it. Turns out Terran Dreadnoughts do not turn on a dime! One of the funnier aspects of this game was the mines; many of Matt’s ships, plus my Dreadnought, had mine laying ability. As it turned out though, Matt’s mines ended up being a bigger danger to himself than to me! My Dreadnought triggered several on Turn 3, and the resulting detonations didn’t get past her shields. Matt’s cruisers, however, took a couple of critical hits! In the end, though, I pretty much utterly failed to complete any of the objectives for the scenario, and Matt won it 7 points to 0. This might have had something to do with the fact that for Round 4, I decided to convert Firestorm Armada from a miniatures game into a drinking game, but I digress…

Overall Thoughts

In terms of Game Points, the day did not go so well for me; I managed a whopping 6 out of a possible 32 (at least I was in good company with Dale at the bottom of the rankings!).  However, I did have a really great time meeting and playing new people, and as always it was great getting to push models around and roll some dice! My fleet, dubbed “Task Force 22,” was well received by the painting judges, and I managed to win Best Painted Fleet! I was very happy about this, and surprised. I had some very stiff competition; make sure to check out the gallery below to see what I mean.  Overall, I felt the scenarios worked fairly well and were clearly written; the only time I had any questions was on Round 1, regarding how the EM field interacted with some things like shields.

It’s a good thing I can paint, because I sure as heck can’t play!

I liked how the Primary Objective of two of the scenarios required the players to focus on something other than just blowing each other up; Scenario 1 gave the most points for rescuing your shuttle, while Scenario 4 was all about holding the station in the middle. I think that kind of mission encourages deeper tactical thinking, and also “spreads the love” when it comes to the various factions out there. Some factions are just better at certain things that others (look at what the Sorylians did to me in Round 1), but mixing up the missions like they were in this event helps to cancel some of that out. Having the ability to run two fleet lists was also an interesting approach! I will have to get busy and paint some more stuff for next year so that I can take better advantage of the flexibility this format allows. As it was, my fleets basically boiled down to Carrier vs. Dreadnought!

Conclusion

My hat is off to the guys over at The WayGate for running a great event. I was amazed by how many folks turned out for it; 26 players completed all 4 rounds! I think this was probably the high water mark for the Spartan presence at Adepticon, and it was a great showcase for the game, the minis, and the community. I am definitely looking forward to competing in this event again next year! Make sure to check out the gallery below for tons of pics of the various fleets.

Until next time…