So Day 1A has ended at the Armada World Championship 2018 and what a day for Armada it has been!

Cinderella stories, incredible comebacks, and the consistent presence of an irrepressible Canadian community. I’ve combed through the intel from the various sources as best I can to provide the best picture possible, and I’ll update the data as I get better details.

Much like last year this will hopefully serve as a handy reference guide for the top performing lists coming out of Worlds, and we’ll even dive into some of the wider data.

1. Shiu-Yik Au (Grandmaster Yik) – 37pts

So Yik is the man who first brought the infamous Rieekan aces to Toronto. There’s been some online debate about where the list originated, and what constitutes an evolution of an archetype, but it’s clear in terms of the Toronto scene Yik was the guy who first showed them the unholy Rieekan light.

Yik’s list looks to be an evolution of all that the Toronto community has learned with its experiences with Rieekan Aces, and that’s a lot considering they won Worlds last year, altering the list to reflect both the FAQ and the threat of Raddus.

As provided Yik’s list is:

Nebulon-B Escort Frigate

Yavaris

CR90B

General Rieekan

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette

GR-75 Medium Transport

Boosted Comms, Adar Tallon

GR-75 Medium Transport

Torryn Farr, Bomber Command Centre, Bright Hope

2x VCX-100 Freighters, Gold Squadron, Rogue Squadron, Norra Wexley, Ten Numb, “Dutch” Vander, Corran Horn

400

Objectives: Fire-Lanes, ?

Again, this is pulling from a variety of sources so any inaccuracies are mine, I’ll be very excited to see the lists in their complete form and how they perform in the cut!

It’s incredibly nice to see the Hammerheads performing at such a high level, it looks as if the FAQ has been to their benefit as they become the cheapest ‘full’ ship activation.

The squadron ball is, unsurprisingly, incredibly deadly; with a good mix of anti-squad and anti-ship power that is only heightened by the efficiency provided by Yavaris and Adar Tallon. This aspect of the fleet is something that Yik has undoubtedly been flying for nearly two years, so I imagine his play was right at the red line in terms of what was possible.

In addition to this, six activations allow him to dictate the flow of the game, while the Hammers provide some much needed ship-to-ship punch. For 36pts a pop, you really don’t care if the dice are unmodified. Plus, having the points so heavily spread makes the list very hard to table (protecting the points tied up in the squads) and also is a nice soft counter to Raddus as no individual ship is any real big loss.

While it’s something that I would not have been able to come up with it’s easy to see how this has performed so well thus far, especially in such capable hands!

Yik was dominant from start to finish on Day 1A – that’s all the narrative you need. Really hope to see his list on stream.

2. Josiah Burkhardsmeier (JJsJuggernaut) – 32pts

His intro to this year’s Vassal World Cup says it all really:

“You know who I am…”

And, if you’ve taken any sort of fancy to competitive Armada in the last few years, JJ is undoubtedly right. 2016 World Champion, and winner of the 2017 & 2018 Vassal World Cup, if he isn’t already an Armada immortal becoming the first two-time World Champion ought to do it.

Details have been a bit cryptic about JJ’s list but working backwards this is the best approximation I could get (which will has now been confirmed by JJ himself):

CR90B

Admiral Raddus

GR-75

GR-75

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette

Ordnance Experts, External Racks

MC-75 Ordnance Cruiser

Profundity, Ordnance Experts, Assault Proton Torpedos, External Racks, Early Warning System

Tycho Celchu, Shara Bey, 2x VCX-100 Freighters, 4x YT-2400 Freighters

397

So this is a hell of a list, with a hell of a pilot. It’s interesting how the top players can work off of each other. Roquax got ruined by JJ in the VWC’18 semi-finals, but then won Canadian nationals with Raddus shortly thereafter. JJ’s current list looks to have taken cues from both – dropping down the non-Raddus ships to include a bigger squadron complement.

I definitely think this is a massive improvement to the original chassis he designed. Heavy squadrons pose a real threat to the spotter ships in Raddus fleets and without adequate cover it can become a very untenable position for the Raddus player. With 8 squadrons (that don’t need much support), at minimum one could expect JJ to be able to hold down the heavy squads long enough to successfully hit the Raddus drop.

Speaking of which, JJ has already shown how deadly he is with the nesting-doll strategy. It’s a high skill move, but he really does seem to make it look easy, eke-ing out the biggest advantage from the drop and also negating Raddus’ main negative (can’t activate first) by having Profundity drop off the super fly-weight Hammer-head.

Credit must go to JJ for coming back from a 6-5 in the second round to roar home into the Top Cut with a 9-2 and a 10-1 in the back half of swiss. It was anyone’s game there at the end with nearly 8 players a chance at making the second spot, but as it turned out JJ’s cool hand (and perhaps a smidgeon of luck) allowed him to stay on target.

Good luck to whoever has to face him in the cut – if you come at the king, you best not miss.

3. Nicholas Litrenta – 30pts

Nick is by all accounts a local to the Can’t Get Your Ship Out of Speed Zero boys who could not have been more proud of him. Nick came back from a heavy 2-9 defeat to fall just short of the top-cut in what is an absolutely remarkable display of determination.

I know little else to what must no doubt have been a sterling tale as he rose from the ashes other than what is, possibly in an incomplete form, his list:

ISD-II

Early Warning System, Spinal Turrets, Heavy Ion Emplacements, Gunnery Teams, Strategic Adviser

ISD Cymoon

Darth Vader, Intensify Firepower!, Gunnery Team, Relentless, Minister Tua, Early Warning System, Quad Turbolaser Cannons, H9s

Gozanti

Comms Net, Hondo

Gozanti

Comms Net

As you can see it’s a brutally efficient list. 2 ISDs, 2 Goz, maximum firepower. It’s a scary list that can murder ship-to-ship. Would be interesting to know how much EWS helped in the heavy squadron match-up which no doubt became a damage race, but (dark) lord (of the sith) help you if you get into those front guns. Hopefully we’ll get more from the man behind the list soon. Watch this space.

4. Michel Nguyen-Quoc – 30pts

A man from MA, and by god one of our patrons, Michel had the narrative of the day.

Michel played in his first Armada tournament in February of this year. That’s right, in nearly exactly three months he went from his first tournament to being at the top table of Worlds, and he damn near made the cut as well, only falling to Yik’s list in the final round.

Michel went 3-1 overall, and played two of the other top 5 finishers (Yik and Krisjan) leaving him with an insane 7.52 Strength of Schedule. An absolutely Herculean effort to perform so well given his inexperience on the Armada scene and one of which he should be deservedly proud – congrats man.

MC75 Ordnance

Ordnance Experts, Early Warning Systems, Assault Proton Torpedos, External Racks

CR90A

Admiral Raddus, Engine Techs, Turbolaser Re-route Circuits, Jaina’s Light

GR-75

Quantum Storm

Hammerhead Scout Corvette

Slaved Turrets, Task Force: Organa

Hammerhead Scout Corvette

Slaved Turrets, Task Force: Organa

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette

Ordnance Experts, External Racks, Task Force: Organa

Shara Bey, Tycho Celchu

A very aggressive list that forgoes any meaningful squadron force in favour of mass-ships on the table. I think Michel was unfortunate to match up against Yik in the final round as Yik’s list looked geared to punish this kind of build (which is what happened).

It’s amazing to see the Hammerhead out in force and they really are proving to be a ship that punches above their weight. It’s very easy to see how this can envelop a force with its swarm, put in some early damage, while setting up the best drop for the MC75 to finish the fight.

Hopefully this won’t be the last time that Michel graces the main stage.

5. Kristjan Jurimae – 29pts

A perennial stalwart in the Toronto / Canadian scene, Kristjan was not only the Canadian National champion in 2016 but has also been agonisingly close to the top cut at successive worlds. Once again he falls just short, something which can likely be chalked up to the vagaries of swiss more than anything else.

Shout out to the VTTV Live crew of which I know he is a part, they put out some amazing content for nearly all FFG games (not just Armada).

Of all the lists in the Top 5, I think Kristjan’s is arguably the most interesting (and why I arbitrarily extended my discussion out to the Top 5).

VSD-I

Warlord, Minister Tua, Electronic Counter Measures, Quad Battery Turrets, External Racks, Veteran Gunners

Arquittens Light(?) Cruiser

Moff JerJerrod, Turbolaser Re-route Circuits, Captain Needa

GSD-II(?)

Demolisher, Agent Kallus, Ordnance Experts, Flechette Torpedos

Firespray, Bossk, Maarek Steele, Captain Jonus, Morna Kee, Dengar

Like I said, it’s the most interesting list in the top five, and it was this close to making the Top Cut.

So let’s get the first thing out of the way – the VSD. I actually really like this build, Warlord, QBTS, and Veteran Gunners allows that thing to sling some stupid amounts of damage at long range. Then if you want to close the gap it has the turning capacity through Jerry to keep the big guns trained on you, which will include 5 black dice if you get too close.

Nice.

The Arq seems like a solid flanker / finisher, and really more than anything is there to keep Jerry out of harms way.

Now with Demo, I’ve assumed it’s a GSD-II and that’s on the basis of Captain Jonus and the fact that he’s kitted this thing out as a pure flak wagon with Agent Kallus and Flechette Torps.

I’m in two minds about this build, and its something we got into a discussion about on Reddit a while back. I think this variant of Demo is a hyper-evolved super-predator. Against Rieekan Aces and Sloane Balls, that thing is undoubtedly an absolute game changer. Based off my understanding (which is admittedly from a distance) of the Toronto meta, this thing would be murder there. The problem however is that I feel it can fall afoul of its hyper-specialisation.

If it doesn’t encounter aces, it’s never going to be anywhere near as effective (though having Jonus for the acc proc is a nice touch that definitely helps negate this). It would be interesting to know his thoughts on both his game with Michel (who had 2 squadrons) and on his game with Brobafett (who had massed squadrons but were all generic YT-2400s). I think with the return of the angry frisbee in conjunction with Raddus it may have just slightly been hit by the meta, but still, clearly it was effective. Can’t wait to see discussion about it.

General Data:

Ok so now that we’ve covered the Top 5, lets quickly run over some broad level stats (helpfully provided by the human calculator Tokra).

So Day 1A had 44 players signed up, of those 44 it appears only 34 actually played. Of those 34 there were 19 Imperials and 15 Rebels.

Imperials

For Admirals there were: 6 Sloane Fleets, 3 Motti, 3 Jerry, 3 Thrawn, 2 Vader, and 2 Screed. No presence for Tagge, Tarkin, Ozzel, or Konstantine.

Ships had 21 Gozantis, 17 ISDs, 7 Quasars, 6 Raiders, 5 Interdictors, 4 Arquittens, 4 GSDs, and a single VSD (Kristjan’s). All Imperial ships had at least some presence, although not all variants (there were no Quasar-IIs for example).

There were 11 Strategic Advisers in the Imperial Contingent.

Average Imperial ship count was 3.42 (4 once you include the Strategic Adviser activation).

Rebels

For Admirals there were: 8 Raddus Fleets, 3 Dodonna, 2 Rieekan, 1 Garm, 1 Madine. No presence for Ackbar, Cracken, Mon Mothma, Leia, or Sato.

Ships had 23 GR-75s, 13 CR90s, 10 MC75s, 9 Hammerheads, 3 Assault Frigates, 3 Libertys, 2 MC30s, 2 MC80 Home Ones, and a single Nebulon (Yik’s Yavaris – noticing a trend?). The Pelta did not appear Day 1A.

There were 4 Strategic Advisers in the Rebel Contingent.

Average Rebel ship count was 4.47 (4.6 with Strategic Adviser included).

Squadrons

183 squadrons total, meaning an average of 5.38 per list.

Highest number was 12 (Darryle’s massed Y-Wing list) with two lists going squadronless, and 9 fleets going 1-4.

That’s a wrap for Day 1A. Hopefully I should be back burning that midnight oil to bring you the results from Day 1B tomorrow, and then onwards to the cut and final conclusions.

To all the Australians out there, happy international Star Wars day!

May the Fourth be with you.

– Intel Officer Luke.