San Diego A Call to Arms Tournament

I'm a lurker by trade. I do read the forum here and use some of the sheets for B5 and VaS.

Things are much more civilized on here that some of the yahoo groups I was a member of.
 
I've heard this board called many things but civilised isn't one of them :)

That's the colonel from Space Above and Beyond in your avie, right? Killer show.
 
8, maybe 9 so far. If there's an odd number of players I'll play, I won't be eligible for placement, ranking, or prizes of course, I just don't want to assign byes.
 
A couple of questions:
-Are we assigning fighters to carriers and Earth Force missle load outs as part of our fleet list? I have been assuming that we are.
-What kind of tournement points break down are you going to use? After all Annihilation doesn't use victory points at all. Will it be the same as the first addition tourny pack?

-Chernobyl - if you need a ride from the trainstation, send me a PM and we will set something up.

Looking forward to the mass destruction!

-Humbaba
 
Humbaba said:
A couple of questions:
-Are we assigning fighters to carriers and Earth Force missle load outs as part of our fleet list? I have been assuming that we are.
-What kind of tournement points break down are you going to use? After all Annihilation doesn't use victory points at all. Will it be the same as the first addition tourny pack?



-Humbaba

Fighter swaps need to be part of your master fleet list. Missle loadouts will be declared before each round when fleet selection for that round is made.

Anihilation: At the end of the tournament round VPs will be awarded for ships destroyed only. If it comes down to one ship left on the table the owner of that ship wins.

is there anything we need to bring? besides ourselves and gaming stuff?

Drinks and whatever you want to munch on during play. We'll take a food break.
 
A big Thank You to E Nicely for hosting the tournament – I had a blast and I think everyone else did to! Kudos to you for taking the initiative and putting in the time to set it all up (plus I got to win best painted fleet as you were the judge and thus disqualified). Also - a quick thanks to Game Towne in San Diego for being gracious hosts to our deep space carnage.

I finally got a chance to use the Minbari under second edition rules and see how nasty their beams really are (though in all honesty most of my success can be attributed to rolling critical hits at a monstrous rate).

Thanks to my opponents who were all fun and challenging opponents:

I got to battle Tom3T’s last minute Crusade fleet who’s Hyperion suffered mightily under my multiple critical hit wrath (I rolled so well in a 6 point Skirmish match that he did not even get much of a chance to roll). I hope to see you at the next local tourney so that you can dish me out some payback.

I fought (screen name unknown)’s ISA in round two – imagine my shock as he pulled out a White Star and a Tara’lin as his 5 point Raid fleet. It came down to a stealth check slugfest that went to the wire with me coming out on the losing end by a few flights of fighters. Thanks for a really tough and tense match up – it was one of those games that you know could suddenly swing one way or the other at the drop of a few dice.

Last up was the Lord of Earth and his Narn fleet – my local regular. We had a smash up game characterized by sudden big BOOMs. I managed a super beam hit on a Var’Nik that instantly detonated it in the middle of my fleet clearing out all my fighter support in one glorious explosion. He managed to all but cripple my Tinashi in one big blast and I was able to clear mine ships with single big beam shots. All in all lots of big beam BOOM!!!!

Congratulations to Chernobyl (who I have yet to see lose…) and his Earth Force swarm fleet (who I did not have to face) on taking top honors.

And finally – thanks again to everyone! I had a blast (and many a big BOOOOMMMM!!!)

-Humbaba
 
Glad you guys had fun. A last minute bow-out and a no-show kept it small but I think the whole thing was definitely worthwhile. It's gratifying to me that you guys came from so far away to play. If I wasn't leaving the state I would do a tourney every couple of months. Something that's kind of noteworthy is that the Game Towne employee said we were the most well behaved and mature tournament group to play there in a long time.

The standings:

1st place: Chernobyl-Crusade EA
2nd place: Humbaba-Minbari
3rd place: dnvader69-ISA
4th place: (Lord of Earth?)-Narn
5th place: Anthony, local guy and total noob to the game-EA Third Age
6th place: Tom3T-EA Crusade EA (better luck next time, bro)

Best painted fleet: Humbaba

Had there been one more player I could have joined in to have an even number of players with my Dilgar fleet but I still had fun as referee. The CTA group in San Diego has shrunk over the last year. The Pirates ship game or card game or wahatever it is had a "tournament" that kept us from starting earlier or else the games would have been longer and had more carnage. And all of this on one of the 5 days a year that it rains in San Diego.
 
yep, I'm just about exhausted right now. Just got off the amtrak bus in marysville and came back home. Now I can get some rest!

I had an awesome time at the tourney (yay! I didn't have to run a tourney! :lol: ) despite the grevious injury suffered while waiting in the rain for he store to open :cry: and despite playing with practically no sleep and despite playing my first games of 2E with the rules in hand (which, true to form, prompty fell apart over the course of the tourney - have to look into spiral binding...) This was my first time in San Diego since my days in the Navy, and the first time I was there in the rain (sucks when you are on foot and unprepared!) but the town looks much as I remember it. Old Town Games was a nice place to play, they have quite the stockpile of all things gaming (a very wide variety - RPGs, Minis, Board games, Eurogames, card games, etc) and the staff were just great and very friendly.

My game 1 was a 6-point Skirmish PL game of "supply ships" and after playing I can pretty much attribute my win here to winning the die roll for who was the attacker. the deployment area for the defender is fairly narrow, and the attacker can come in from pretty much any direction, which means its very difficult for the defender to be able to bring his entire force to bear. My fleet consisted of a squadron of 4 Myrmidon LCVs, 4 Hermes Transports, and 2 Chronos Frigates. The Narn had a Rothan, 2 Thentus, a G'Karith, 2 squads of Sho'kovs, and I think something else (can't remember) As the Low PL game we didn't have much time to complete the mission, and as a result I think the battle might have gone much differently had there been a couple more turns played. I won this 16-6, with most of my points coming from the death of a Thentus. most humorous moment of the game was a LCV scoring 3 (1-1) crits to a transport. sigh.

Game 2 was the fleet I wasn't really designed to take on. my own! yes, it was a 5-point raid PL Annihilation game of Crusade EA vs. Crusade EA. He took a Marathon, 2 Chronos, and an Apollo Strike cruiser. all hull 6! I had chosen my Hermes squadron again, my LCV squadron, again, beefed up the chronos to 4 (un-squadroned) and a Delphi scout (which, other contributing its beam attack, did pretty much nothing the entire game. succeeded in not one scout task I assigned...) but its stealth meant it was a tough nut to crack, and came away unscathed. Victory in this game can mostly be attributed to a very lucky missile strike from the Hermes in turn 3 against the Apollo, which hit with 7 missiles, one of which gave me a catastrophic explosion for another 18 damage! after that it was short work for the Apollo. The LCVs and the Chronos mostly engaged his screen of chronos, and I avoided the Marathon as best I could. I don't rememberthe point total, but I think I had destroyed the Apollo, a chronos, and had the second down to 1 damage point when time was called. I lost some LCVs and took a lot of damage to the chronii but none went down here.

Game 3 was a 4-point (due to time constrints it was reduced from the original 5 point game) Battle Call to Arms. The terrian randomly generated by the Judge didn't play much part in the battle. Here I had to fight the ISA's Tara'lin and 4 white stars. I was really worried about this battle - white stars are legendary for their ability to make the EA whimper and the Tara'lin is just a monster. Intereceptors would not play much part in this battle. I had to bring in my big boy - the EA's Command Omega! I was asked why I brought this instead of the Warlock; I just think its a slightly better ship. It has the advantage in Command, flights carried, better broadsides, and an aft laser if it comes to that. Plus, the 8AD heavy laser is just as scary as the warlock's main gun. Supporting it would be 2 delphis for dealing with the Tara'lin's Stealth, and my faithful squadrons of 4 HErmes and 4 LCVs. The Chronii would sit this one out. I had the initiative the first couple turns, but didn't get much accomplished; the most exciting thing here was an engine disabled result on a white star, which my t-bolts then ate up afterwards since that negated its ability to dodge. His fighters did a good job of tying up my T-bolts after that - I never could win a dogfight, even after at 6-1 advantage. The winner here was numbers; to take down a white star you just need a lot of hits (that are eventually rounded down to 1 / 1!) I got a VERY luck critical on the Tara'lin (vital 3- no DC allowed!) that wouldn't let him repair the various -1AD crist I had managed. The longer game here meant we got to finish completely; in the end it was 40-6, I'd taken out his entire fleet and he'd taken out 2 LCVs and 1 Hermes. most were well mangled. A nail-biter (the ISA fleet is very intimidating, and rightly so) for me but I was able to prevail in the end.

Thanks everyone for a graeat tournament. Erik, you will be missed when you move to Texas. Salute!

Chern
 
Thanks for getting this together Erik, it was fun, even though I did get cremated. Everyone there was great and very helpful. Its nice to see John from Game Town getting around too.

I attempted to take on Humbaba's Minbari and it started off bad from the start. It was my first time taking the Minbari on and I did learn a lot. Your miniatures were outstanding.

The second round I took on another EA Fleet and did just as well there against Chernobyl I attempted to take some heavies with hull 6, but he took me down anyway. I like your ship cards, it made the ships easy to track and kept things together.

Anthony was my last defeat. He took out my Warlock in the first roll with his Warlock and then chased me around the asteroid field.

I do hope I can make it up North sometime to have another go with you guys, or at least get some Vassal going.

Thanks for the fun
 
Tom, I've got no problem with anybody that straps on a starfury and rides fire..hahahah
I hope to see you at Kubla if not beforehand (Conquest Vegas). I'm not planning on attending CQ vegas, yet, but you never know what the future will bring.
Thanks for the compliment on the cards, I think the new 2nd edition version is a little better than the old one, but Burger has done me one better with his trait-removing checkboxes. cool feature.
I was a little suprised to see so many Earth Alliance fleets at the event; half of us were using the earthers...nobody had taken on one of the new exotic fleets, and there were no ancients, whicih tended to be the winners before. I guess we were all staying with what was familiar to learn the 2e ruleset.
I also enjoyed seeing new players, and I agree with the above comment that it was a "well behaved tournament" haha not a bunch of younger kids playing clicks or CCGs or (shudder) 40K. Just a bunch of professional gamers! :lol:

Chern
 
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