This time last week I found myself contemplating what I wanted to take to the Sydney Regional event.

Trawling through the FFG forums for inspiration I was reminded of a thread I had seen earlier in the week regarding a Regional event at Indianapolis.

And just like that I had the basis for my fleet.

The Fish Farm

For those of you unaware the ‘garbage’ in question is a list archetype that has been floating around Armada since at least Worlds last year.

The list has three main elements. Firstly, it has a heavily upgraded MC80 Assault Cruiser carrying Admiral Ackbar (the Fish). Secondly, it invariably has 2-4 VCX-100 Freighters for their Strategic prowess (the Farm). While lastly, the list is rounded out with 4-5 GR-75s to provide support for the MC80, squadron commands for the VCXs et al, and most importantly for activation padding.

My list at the Sydney Regionals was extremely derivative of the Indianapolis Mon-strosity build:

MC80 Assault Cruiser – 192pts

Admiral Ackbar, Engine Techs, H9 Turbolasers, Advanced Projectors, Reinforced Blast Doors, Defiance, Leading Shots, Lando Calrissian

GR-75 Medium Transports – 22pts

Bright Hope, Jamming Field

GR-75 Medium Transports – 23pts

Quantum Storm, Repair Crews

GR-75 Medium Transports – 22pts

Repair Crews

GR-75 Medium Transports – 23pts

Leia Organa, Comms Net

GR-75 Medium Transports – 20pts

Comms Net

Jan Ors, 3x VCX-100s, 2x X-Wings – 90pts

Objectives: Advanced Gunnery, Fire Lanes, Sensor Net

392/400pts

Again, our lists were largely the same (if it ain’t broke…)

I swapped out XI7s for H9s figuring that a near-guaranteed accuracy at will would bring better returns than redirect prevention, especially against small ships and the ubiquitous flotillae. My other additions, Quantum Storm to one of the Repair Crew flotillas, an additional Comms Net, and Leia Organa were largely a reflection of my familiarity with the list – which is to say non-existent.

I hoped that with these slight inclusions I would have some redundancy or a small safety net to account for my lack of play time with the list, sacrificing some of my bid in exchange.

How does it work?

So the basis behind the Fish Farm is pretty simple. It wants to be second player because the objective choices it forces are incredibly brutal.

Advanced Gunnery allows Defiance to lob an obscene 6-7 dice twice a turn. Meanwhile, the other two objectives allow the VCXs to go to work and use their Strategic keyword to rake in the points.

On the flip side, if forced into first player (or if taken willingly) the list uses its obscene activation padding to first / last its opponent with the MC80.

In a nutshell, the Fish Farm wants to present you with no good options and then either beat you into submission with the firepower of the MC80 and/or farm a ridiculous amount of points from its objective play.

The Regionals

Heading into the day we were both fortunate and unfortunate in terms of players. Fortunately, a coterie of skilled players (including the reigning National Champion who was also running the Fish Farm) made the marathon 10-12 hour journey from Queensland. Unfortunately, the Regionals clashed with CanCon, a longstanding gaming weekend in the Australian Capital, and a bunch of local players were out as a result.

In the end 15 challengers stepped into the ring, with two of the Queenslanders taking first round byes (leaving a very unfortunate National Champion to be randomly drawn into the natural bye).

Round One

My first round opponent was Kia, the only one of the road warriors to be playing in the first round.

Kia was running an interesting Sloane list with Demo, another Glad carrying Sloane, the BFF Gozantis (both with Expanded Hangar Bays, one with Wulff Yularen, the other with Commandant Aresko), and a hefty squad ball including Maarek, Jendon, Shuttle, Gamma, Tempest, Whisper, Saber, and some INTs.

Kia had (in my eyes) an excessive bid at 22+ and having already run a practice game against the Fish Farm opted to make me first player. After some brief deliberation I decided to take his Precision Strike.

So this game was decided fairly early on into the match. I used my extra deployments to shy away from Demolisher, and by creating a fairly open deployment zone was able to place my Whale opposite the Gozanti BFFs. As can be seen in the above photo my whale turned away from the Glads, and set on an intercept with the BFFs.

Kia’s real mistake was doing my job for me and engaging his heavy squad ball into my own. With my low speed he could have pretty comfortably ignored me and gone after the Whale wholeheartedly, though I’m glad he didn’t. My squads, especially supported by Jamming Field were able to tear away at the bulk of his, and generally prevent much pressure being applied on that front.

Meanwhile, Demolisher couldn’t escape the large side arc of Defiance and was promptly first / last-ed into vapour. Sloane headed into my backfield to pressure some of my transports but would prove to be largely ineffectual.

Cheekily, I dropped the MC80 to Speed 0 to force the BFFs to come into range, before blasting them.

In the end Kia killed some of my squads, a transport, and scored 2-3 tokens. While I was able to kill Demo, the BFFs, a chunk of his squads and wrack up 4-5 tokens for a 325-99, 9-2.

Round Two

My second round match up was against a local, Dan. Dan has a tendency towards low activation fleets, with some odd compositions, but he also has an ability to make them work very well.

His fleet this time around was of the same mould. A loaded Avenger ISD, Demo, an ECM-Tua Slicer Tools Suppressor, and a mess of very lethal ace squads (including Bossk and Morna Kee). Having the bid I opted to take Second Player, and Dan, wary of the points I could wrack up, opted to take Advanced Gunnery (I put it on the MC80, Dan put it on Demo).

This game was fairly uncomplicated, I used my activation padding to force shots and with Advanced Gunnery this was brutal. At the end of Turn 2 I killed Demo – I took her to only 1 health remaining after the first salvo but opted not to get greedy and finish the job there and then.

The next round saw Dan blast two of my transports away with his ISD and in turn I was forced to use both of my shots to kill the increasingly annoying Suppressor.

From here, Dan’s squads slowly butchered mine, while he pummelled the MC80 with his ISD, taking two salvos a turn from the MC80. In the end, although he was able to push the MC80 to three health remaining at one stage, even the grand Motti ISD could not sustain such abuse and died.

456-134 for a 10-1.

Round Three

My final round opponent was Ben, not only another Queenslander but also a former X-Wing National Champion and an all-round savvy gamer and great guy.

Ben was flying a very clever build I thought. It was an ISD-II with a smattering of upgrades (includng BTAvenger, SW-7s, and Wulff Yularen), a Quasar with a host of squadron upgrades (including Pursuant, Boosted Comms, Flight Controllers, and Flight Commander), a comms net Gozanti, and a very scary Sloane Ball (Maarek, Jendon, Saber, Ciena, Valen, Zertik, Mauler Mithil, and a JumpMaster). Ben’s list might not have been strong on activation count, but the quality of his two main activations was quite frightening.

Having the bid again, I opted to be second player, and Ben decided to take my Sensor Net.

This was a mistake.

Despite this, it was actually an incredibly close game and a reminder of why I love Armada.

I placed one Sensor Net token opposite the respective corners of my deployment zone. On the left corner I placed Bright Hope, another GR-75, and all of my squads bar one VCX. On the right side I placed a GR-75 and the remaining VCX. With the rest of my fleet spread across the middle.

Initially, I planned to intercept the Quasar with my MC80, blast it, and escape before the squadrons and the ISD could harpoon the whale. As it happened, the Quasar sailed straight by the engagement and both the ISD and the squadrons leapt to engage.

This was my first real display of Sloane’s token stripping power (I’ve only played against her three times) and boy it hurt. Shockingly, Maarek and Jendon are just as good as they’ve always been.

I quickly realised that my MC80 could not kill the ISD on its own and, worse, that it was in very real danger of going down. Changing tack, I decided that discretion was the better part of valour, so I used Leia to change my command to a Nav, blew up the Gozanti and legged it.

Through some skilled (and lucky) flying I was able to land on the station repeatedly to repair damage, and in the end Ben’s dice (and my constant repairing) failed him at the last hurdle, leaving the whale alive on 2 hull.

In the meantime my VCXs had bought the farm, racking up an obscene 19 tokens for a 310-105 / 8-3.

As the smoke cleared (or rather as the rest of the games finished) it became apparent that on my 27 Tournament Points I was coming away with the goods.

TLDR: I won it all!

Conclusions

Having taken the Fish Farm, it is abundantly clear that it is a very well put together list.

I found that the list tends to force your opponent into a very reactionary position. Invariably, they’re trying to play around your game, rather than just playing their own.

It’s also incredibly good at winning as second player due to the objective manipulation afforded by strategic.

The list does however have some pretty clear weaknesses. Firstly, it hates squads. I mean it really hates a properly geared out bomber-ball or Sloane wing. Now admittedly, this pain eases somewhat in Wave 7 with Early Warning System, but it certainly doesn’t go away. Maarek / Jendon for example are atrociously good against the Fish Farm, nearly always stripping a shield facing a turn or burning a GR-75 scatter.

Secondly, while this might be due to taking H9s rather than XI7s, without Advanced Gunnery, it isn’t actually that good at killing other big ships. Jeff Berling’s Worlds fleet smartly took Intel Officer to burn the brace of a big ship and line up the killing blow, but in the world of BTAvenger and Sloane, Lando or Walex are too useful to pass up. Resultantly, without firepower from other sources (or Advanced Gunnery) it just can’t do the job.

While finally, it really wants you to play its game. So… don’t? If you have the option, take second player yourself, and put the onus on this fleet.

Let me know your thoughts –

Intel Officer Luke.