FSA tourney report

I got to play in an FSA tourney yesterday.  I went in expecting to lose, but that's okay, because I had only played a couple of games of 2nd ed FSA.  I just wanted to get some games in, which is the same expectation that I have for any games at GenCon. My list was dictated mainly by what models I had, and what I was most comfortable with. (Eg, I have a carrier, but haven't tried it yet, so I did not take it.)

I fielded:

Tyrant battleship, with +1" Mv, +2 PD, -1" turn limit
3 Hermes crsuiders, all with +1 shield
3 Artemis destroyers
4 Missionary frigates
4 Armsmen frigates

I faced Ba'Kash and two different Sorylian fleets. The Ba'kash player just rolled over me - his frigates outflanked me, and my torps just could not get to his carrier. (I played poorly, which is part of it, but I was trying to use my cruisers, battleship and destroyers to crack his heavy cruiser, and not having any luck.) I did bad, bad things to the first Sorylian; a combination of lucky dice rolls, and most of his force was either ambush or in reserve, so everything got to shoot at his battleship. I did not kill the BB when I had the chance, and it cost me a couple ships in the end. I also should have spent a battle log point to ensure that my reserves got onto the board on the final turn, instead of letting him have the free points. (Lesson learned).

The second Sorylian player tabled me, and I barely did enough to him to avoid hitting -10 on the battle log. I played passably well, and he said that my fleet wasn't bad - it just needs some tweaks (which I know). My lesson on that game was just how powerful nukes can be.

So, my quick lesson thoughts are:
Buying MARs for extra PD and shields were worth it. That extra shield or PD (or both) kept my ships alive much longer, often being the difference between a crit and just a point, or even taking no damage at all.

Next time, take nukes. They will force the other players to either spread out their fleet, or risk the extra damage. Plus, Terran nukes are cheap.

Remember that you can reroll beam weapons in range band 1. The Tyrant shot at something, and I had a bunch of 1s, commented on it, scooped, and went on. A couple minutes later, with my next squadron, I realized that I could have rerolled those. I might not have done any better, but I sure as hell would not have done any worse.

Terran destroyers are evil. Full stop + hidden killer + maneuverable is bad enough, but if I make the fore weapons into nukes, all I need is a clear firing lane.

The cruisers were kind of meh. I'll try them again, and spend the extra points for nuclear torpedoes.

Missionary frigates did not do much, and were barely useful in hunting down enemy ships with Difficult Target. I need to try shunting them in or bringing them on the flanks as reserve. Armsmen frigates were almost always more useful, and I used their torps to take out Difficult targets with a decent rate of success.