Check out part 1 & 2 of this battle report series if you haven't already!

Battle Report•October 29, 2025•By James Chen

Saint-Lawrence Open 2025

The Saint-Lawrence Open 2025 Tournament occurred October 18-19 at the Abyss Game Store in Montreal (Quebec, Canada). James Chen (Maturin), who achieved 2nd place, writes about his experience with his Rebel fleet!

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Battle Report•November 6, 2025•By James Chen

SLO 2025 Battle Report Part 2

In Part 2 of the Saint-Lawrence Open 2025 Battle Report series, James Chen (Maturin) goes over his first three games of the tournament. Stay tuned next week for the third and final part of this battle report.

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Game 4

SLO 2025 Game 4, Turn 1

SLO 2025 Game 4, Turn 2

SLO 2025 Game 4, Turn 3

SLO 2025 Game 4, Turn 4

SLO 2025 Game 4, Turn 5

    Now on table 6, the last game I played on saturday was against Erikk, who’d brought a Tarkin-led Republic fleet, featuring a Rapid Launch Bay Acclamator flagship, with a supporting Tranquility and PE Pelta.  By this point fatigue was definitely starting to be a factor in the games; I could feel my brain operating a bit slower and I’m sure that was true for Erikk too. I won the roll-off and chose to go first, playing his Opening Salvo. We’d placed all the terrain on one side of the board…and then proceeded to ignore that half of the board entirely.  I suppose neither of us wanted terrain in the way - GAR bricks don’t enjoy weaving amongst obstacles, and I wanted unobstructed shots at long range to wear down his ships.

    Our ships deployed facing each other, resembling a showdown from an old Western.  Since I outdeployed him handily, he had to guess at my intentions while I was able to capitalize on his deployments. The difference between his deployment and mine was in speed; his ships were at speed 1, ready to respond to my moves.  My ships put the pedal to the metal - his ARC-170s were all loaded into the Acclammator and killing the clam before his ARCs could launch would be a major advantage for me. I plotted a course to focus the Acclamator on his flank quickly, and then would turn in to deal with the rest of his fleet.  When he activated the Clam on turn 2 but didn’t use the RLB’s, I sensed my opportunity!  The Clam wandered into range of Salvation, which used its Opening Salvo token to put some damage on target, but the Assault Frigate held its fire while hopping up close on its activation.

    Then my first activation on turn 3 was the Assault Frigate, which Boarding Troopered the Clam using the Veteran Captain token.  Erikk’s flagship now had an exhausted brace and redirect, and my Assault Frigate still had its Opening Salvo token.  5 dice out the front forced him to discard his tokens, and then 4+1 (CF) dice out the side took him down to 1 hull.  And then the AF rammed the Acclamator for the kill.  And as I’d hoped, the ARCs were still sitting in the launch bays when the ship exploded.  Erikk admitted that he was surprised by how quickly my Assault Frigate had jumped on his Acclamator - in this case the combination of First Player and Opening Salvo gave me the opportunity for a decisive strike.

    His Tranquility charged in to avenge the flagship, but was rapidly overwhelmed by multiple squadron and ship attacks (since the majority of his fighter cover had just been destroyed). I was able to kill the Pelta on turn 5, ending the game at 400-41.  I ended the day frazzled and tired, but in 7th place and hopeful that I could continue submarine-ing up the leaderboard.  We all rallied and headed upstairs for food, drinks, and a pleasant evening chatting and getting to know one another a bit more.  Then it was off to the hotel for some shut-eye!

Result: 10-1 win

Game 5

SLO 2025 Game 5, Turn 1

SLO 2025 Game 5, Turn 2

SLO 2025 Game 5, Turn 3

SLO 2025 Game 5, Turn 4

SLO 2025 Game 5, Turn 5

SLO 2025 Game 5, Turn 6

    Now on table 6, the last game I played on saturday was against Erikk, who’d brought a Tarkin-led Republic fleet, featuring a Rapid Launch Bay Acclamator flagship, with a supporting Tranquility and PE Pelta.  By this point fatigue was definitely starting to be a factor in the games; I could feel my brain operating a bit slower and I’m sure that was true for Erikk too. I won the roll-off and chose to go first, playing his Opening Salvo. We’d placed all the terrain on one side of the board…and then proceeded to ignore that half of the board entirely.  I suppose neither of us wanted terrain in the way - GAR bricks don’t enjoy weaving amongst obstacles, and I wanted unobstructed shots at long range to wear down his ships.

    Our ships deployed facing each other, resembling a showdown from an old Western.  Since I outdeployed him handily, he had to guess at my intentions while I was able to capitalize on his deployments. The difference between his deployment and mine was in speed; his ships were at speed 1, ready to respond to my moves.  My ships put the pedal to the metal - his ARC-170s were all loaded into the Acclammator and killing the clam before his ARCs could launch would be a major advantage for me. I plotted a course to focus the Acclamator on his flank quickly, and then would turn in to deal with the rest of his fleet.  When he activated the Clam on turn 2 but didn’t use the RLB’s, I sensed my opportunity!  The Clam wandered into range of Salvation, which used its Opening Salvo token to put some damage on target, but the Assault Frigate held its fire while hopping up close on its activation.

    Then my first activation on turn 3 was the Assault Frigate, which Boarding Troopered the Clam using the Veteran Captain token.  Erikk’s flagship now had an exhausted brace and redirect, and my Assault Frigate still had its Opening Salvo token.  5 dice out the front forced him to discard his tokens, and then 4+1 (CF) dice out the side took him down to 1 hull.  And then the AF rammed the Acclamator for the kill.  And as I’d hoped, the ARCs were still sitting in the launch bays when the ship exploded.  Erikk admitted that he was surprised by how quickly my Assault Frigate had jumped on his Acclamator - in this case the combination of First Player and Opening Salvo gave me the opportunity for a decisive strike.

    His Tranquility charged in to avenge the flagship, but was rapidly overwhelmed by multiple squadron and ship attacks (since the majority of his fighter cover had just been destroyed). I was able to kill the Pelta on turn 5, ending the game at 400-41.  I ended the day frazzled and tired, but in 7th place and hopeful that I could continue submarine-ing up the leaderboard.  We all rallied and headed upstairs for food, drinks, and a pleasant evening chatting and getting to know one another a bit more.  Then it was off to the hotel for some shut-eye!

Result: 10-1 win

Game 6

SLO 2025 Game 6, Turn 1

SLO 2025 Game 6, Turn 2

SLO 2025 Game 6, Turn 3

SLO 2025 Game 6, Turn 4

SLO 2025 Game 6, Turn 5

    The small MoV in my game 5 meant I stayed on Table 4 for my last game of the tournament.  I was paired up with Ben MacKinnon, who had brought, amongst other things, an Interdictor fully loaded with all the obstacle shenanigans you could want.  This meant he could wreak havoc on two of my own objectives, Contested Outpost and Doomed Station, and potentially flip them for some delicious victory points.  And indeed my fears came true when he chose First Player, and selected my Doomed Station objective. Additionally his commander, General Romodi, would benefit heavily from the moving obstacles to provide obstructed shots.

    At this point I knew I had to mitigate the potential points losses, so decided to get rid of the station by turn 2.  With judicious placement I suspected I could still score the station on Turn 1, while placing the other obstacles to be sucked into the gravity rift ASAP, leaving a “safer” obstacle-free battlefield for my fleet.

    Since I had a decent squadron complement, I held a considerable deployment advantage and was able to deploy my combat ships on my right flank with plans to focus down one enemy ship at a time.  His ships headed toward the Station and the Rift, while mine stalked Ben’s Arquitens.  Since the Station is scored after obstacle movement, I was indeed able to score a Victory token on turn 1 using Asokha’s flotilla.  

    And yet again her valiant service on the frontlines was rewarded with a trip in an escape pod as Ben’s Cymoon easily swatted her flotilla from the sky on Turn 2. In return I downed his Arquitens, with Norra and Gold stripping shields early via very fortuitous dice rolls.  The Cymoon charged in and scored what would be the final Station token, for Ben.  One for each of us - an outcome with which I was very content.

    On Turn 3 I was able to hit the Cymoon with nearly all my firepower simultaneously.  Norra & Friends got lucky again, and the Cymoon’s shields rapidly disappeared to her special crit.  My fleet then focused their fire, overloading the Cymoon’s single brace token, and destroyed it.  On Turn 4 his Arquitens ended up overlapping the Rift, and dropping to speed 0 sealed its fate.  Meanwhile my Salvation was able to slow to speed 1 near the Rift, pointing nose to enemy and essentially hovering in place.  Turn 5 saw the end of the Interdictor, securing a 420-42 victory for me.  Ben was a very gracious opponent and we settled down to watch the rest of the games play out.  I ended up ordering a Dark Side, a cocktail L’Abyss had whipped up for us this weekend!

Result: 10-1 win

Wrap-up

    After 6 games I’d successfully clawed my way back up the standings, having finished the weekend with 43 Tournament Points.  Local Legend Sebastien (aka Dad Vader) had clinched first place with an undefeated run and 49 points, but Will Ross (aka RoscopantsAU) was finishing his game up against Etienne Tardif and with 37 TP’s going into game 6, he was set to take second place as long as he won with a 7 or greater. Unfortunately Lady Luck didn’t come through and Will won, but with 6 tournament points.  I held a slight advantage on the first tiebreaker, Margin of Victory, and so barely edged Will out for second place. I regretted that I didn’t get a chance to play either Will or Sebastien this weekend, but will savour a chance to match wits in future competitions.

    I was pretty happy with how my fleet ended up performing, once I figured out how to fly it. It works best when all the elements of the fleet work together, much like a Republic fleet.  The squadrons boost the ships’ firepower while adding their own, while the ships offer the squadrons flak cover and durability with Gallant Haven.  Neither is enough to take on the strongest parts of enemy fleets alone, but working together they’re both a tough nut to crack and a solid hammer. 

    Prizes and Trophies were handed out (I gave mine away freely; as an ARC Core Exec member we excluded ourselves from winning prizes at ARC events) and much poutine was consumed at the restaurant upstairs.  Will and I had a very nice extended chat after dinner as he and I were flying out much later.  For his excellent report of the same weekend, head over to his blog the Aluminum Falcon, where he has some excellent content that melds spaceships, strategy, and thought provoking history.

    Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the plastic spaceship action.  As you can tell I’m a big fan of this event - anyone who can make their way to Montreal next fall, should!  I hope to see you there at SLO 2026

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Super awesome TO Simon Girard (aka CptAwesomer) and the unquestionable champion Sebastien (aka Dad Vader) with the First Place Trophy!