Your Hobby Place - Alexandria's Summer Bash 2025 🏖️

What a great time! On 26 July 25, Madonna and I demo'd at Your Hobby Place - Alexandria! Madonna went as Misty and I went as Brock from Pokémon's Indigo League. We were so stoked to get such a warm reception; the demo sold another four or five copies, bringing us to another re-stock that week!

Here’s some quotes we were able to nab from players:

"Loved how simple the rules are, but [that they] still capture the feel of complex operations." -- David

"IADS is smooth, slick, and fun to play!" -- Calvin

"Such a great game, thank you for a great time!" -- Suzy Q

"Super cool game, thanks for playing with us." -- Hunter

Summer Bash 3v3 Demo Game

We got lucky enough to run two 3v3 games — one with the Base Game and one where we broke out the Advanced Capabilities!

• Madonna’s team (Madonna, Suzy, and Hunter) leaned on upgraded Long Range SAMs in the center of the map, aiming for some easy Attrition Points.

• Our team (Henry, Calvin, and me) went with a triple-upgraded Frigate!

Team Frigate completely forwent pushing air assets until the SAMs were cleared. With Intelligence as our first step (a must-have, am I right?), we crushed their distant HQ with a 5-range Surface-to-Surface shot before turning on their helpless Long Range SAMs.

Hear me out: SAMs are on the earth so they're Rock/Ground type. Airplanes are obviously Flying type. Frigates beat SAMs, so.... Water type?

Talking to Hunter and Suzy afterwards, I think their best move would have been to double-team my zero-anti-air Frigate with their two Heavy Bombers loitering nearby, but it was just a little too late. Before Madonna’s team knew it, it was GG!

Counterpoint from Seth

We sent that photo and a quick note to Seth -- an IADS: The Game Master and one of the OGs. He'd sent an anecdote that actually offered a counterpoint to our winning triple upgrade strategy. He sent the photo below with the note:

"Quadruple upgraded [Advanced Bomber] can hit anything on the table, but the [Advanced Air Superiority Fighter] / [Next Gen Fighter] made short work of him."

🪦RIP that Advanced Bomber. Poor Seth.

Takeaways

Scoreboard after two case studies, it seems we have:

• 1 Point for min/maxing (stacking Upgrades on a single unit is so strong!)

• 1 Point for balanced play (the other team doesn't like you having an overpowered unit!)

Curious what everyone else’s experiences have been! Personally, I like the feeling of having one overpowered unit — but like I mentioned in the Mobile SAM vs. Long Range SAM post, maybe drawing so much attention (aggro) outweighs the benefits.

-- Ric