Star Wars Armada - Battle Report: The Nebulon Phalanx

I had never run an all Nebulon fleet in Star Wars Amada, but since I have five of them, I figured it was about time I give it a try!

So my fleet had:

Nebulon-B Escort – Gam Bel Iblis (82pts)

Nebulon-B Escort – Yavaris (62pts)

Nebulon-B Support – Salvation – Slave Turrets (64pts)

Nebulon-B Support – Redemption (59pts)

Nebulon-B Support – (51pts)

4 x A-Wings – (44pts)

2 x B-Wings – (28pts)

390 Points Total.

My opponent was my good buddy Ed, who was running an “Gencon Special+” with:

Victory II – Admiral Screed – Gunnery Team – XI7 Turbo Laser (124pts)

Gladiator – Demolisher – ACM – Engine Tech – (81pts)

Gladiator – ACM – (63pts)

Gladiator – ACM – (63pts)

Howlrunner – (16pts)

2 x TIE – (16pts)

3 x TIE Interceptor – (33pts)

396 Points Total

With the lower bid and facing a Demolisher, I felt I had to take First Player. Ed then picked Contested Outpost as the objective.

My plan was to keep all five Nebulons in tight formation while advancing slowly at speed 1.

The deployed fleets. - Demolisher is left furthest ship from Screed's Victory, next is GSD-1, the VSD, and then GSD-2 on the Victory's port side.

The rebels are deployed from left to right; Vanilla Nebulon, Flagship Nebulon, Yavaris, Salvation, and Redemption.

Turn 1

On turn 1's kick off, I moved up the Vanilia Nebulon on my left. Ed activates a GSD-1 and surprisingly has a Squadron order. He sends forward a TIE Interceptors to try to tie up my fighters early.

Unfortunately for Ed, first blood goes to the Rebels who knock down that bold TIE Interceptor. Counter followed up by Dual Dice anti squadron fire from Yavaris sealed its fate.

Turn 2


Turn 2 opened with Salvation laying into GSD-1's port side with five red dice which generated 8 hits on the Imperial vessel!

Ed's Imperials responded sending in more Interceptors, one of which got a lucky three hits, knocking out a Rebel A-Wing.

 Ed then sends in his TIE fighters led by Howlrunner, killing off two A-Wings.

Yavaris now has no fighters to activate and finds is shots against GSD 1 falling short but does bring down another Interceptor with anti-squadron fire.

On my right Redemption, with some help from squadrons, weakens the front and side shields of GSD-2.

Turn 3

Turn 3 starts of with Vanilla Nebulon unleashing concentrated fires on GSD-1, which brings the Imperial ship down.  However, the port batteries have only a minor effect on the Demolisher.

 Demolisher then avenges the loss of GSD-1 by finishing off the Vanilla Nebulon.

Demolisher then continues its run around the rear of the Rebel line, stripping off the port and rear shields off the Rebel Flagship.

The Gunnery Teams of the Victory then get to go to work.  Salvation, on the right is dealt a crippling blow on its weak flank leaving only one point remaining. Yavaris, out of the range of the Blue Dice, takes only minimal effects.

The Victory then proceeds to ram Salvation to finish her off.

Yavaris, unable to make an impression on the Victory, elects to concentrate its rear and starboard weapons on GSD-2, which explodes in a fireball of vengeance!

Turn 4

Yavaris gives its last squadron order to A B-Wing to knock out the last Interceptor, but Howlrunner and her TIE squadrons continue lock down the rest of the Rebel squadrons.


The ships are all at long range with the Nebulons unable to bring their front weapons arcs to bear. They have already been increasing speed to increase the range between them and the Imperials.

The last kill the Rebels get is when a B-Wing knocks down a TIE squadron.

Turn 6

The battle ends with the Yavaris grabbing a victory token with Howlrunner and a TIE squadron finishing off the last Rebel squadron.

My Rebels lose 115pts of ships and 72pts of squadrons giving the Imperial  187 points total. This added to their two Victory Tokens for controlling the Space Station on Turns 1 and 2 increases the Imperial Victory Point Total to 207pts.

Ed's Imperials give up 126 points of ships and 41points of Squadrons. This gives me 167 points to which I add 10 points for controlling the station on turn 6. That leaves me with 177 points, 30pts shy of the Imperials.

So the battle ended up as a very close...and very fun game. I can't say that I'd recommend running an all Nebulon fleet as a very optimized roster, but it was both a fun and challenging change from the Assault Frigates which are my Rebel mainstay ships in Star Wars Armada.

Nebulons are tricky, but not hopeless. I think I could have not taken Redemption to save on points, and maybe downgraded the B-Wings to A-wings to give me 12 points to increase ship firepower. I certainly could have made use of a Escort upgrade to one of the Support Nebulons! Maybe Wave 2 will have some other options to tweak this fleet to give the Nebulon Phalanx another shot?!

Tom has been playing wargames since the late 70’s, and Flames of War since 2007. He maintains a gaming website www.battlevault.com for the BattleVault Gamers of Kentuckiana and posts and moderates WWPD as Iron-Tom.