Hey guys, Admiral Fickle here

So after combing over the previews and trying to keep all the information in my head, it stood out to me that this game is far more difficult to grasp at first glance than X-wing. There are a lot of stats and a lot of unfamiliar mechanics that will make it difficult for new players (i.e, all of us ) to judge ships and their strengths at first glance.

I thought I'd take a stab at compiling a basic summary of how the stats on the ship cards reflex their capabilities in game, because there is a lot more to take in than just red, green, hull, and shield

Note: If I leave something out or get something wrong (very possible, since I'm still trying to grasp the rules myself) please feel free to inform me.

So anyway, let's get started

Capital Ship Stat Summary

[--Simple--]

Hull: Works exactly the same as X-wing. You get a card for each damage dealt to you, and once you get X amount cards you're dead.

Shields: Similar to X-wing, you have to eat through shields before you can start striking the hull.

The huge difference is that each of a ship's four arcs, named Hull Zones, has a shield value, and only attacks that land on shield-less arc make it to the hull (not counting upgrades and abilities)

Attack Dice: Like shields, each arc (Hull Zone) has its own attack value marked. The number of symbols indicate the number of dice rolled and their color indicates the color of dice used.

"If you choose, however, to have your ship perform an attack against one or more squadrons, it uses a different pool of attack dice. Each ship has an anti-squadron armament that is indicated to the right of its hull value on the ship card, and it uses this pool of dice against squadrons, regardless of the hull zone from which it fires."

Each color of dice has a different arrangement of symbols on each face and may be used during attacks made against ships at certain ranges (marked on the range ruler for convenience)

The range ruler is split into fifths. Attacks against ships within the first 2/5 are close range (use all marked dice), the middle 1/5 are medium range (use marked blue and red dice), and the second 2/5 are long range (use marked red dice only). Black dice can only be used during attacks at close range.

"After you reveal your ship’s command dial, your ship can perform up to two attacks, though each must originate from a different hull zone. Each attack can target a single hull zone on an enemy ship or one or more enemy squadrons. "

Finally, the number of nice rolled can be increased by the Concentrate Fire command. When you reveal the command, you can add one die to your roll. The color of the die must match the color of dice you would normally roll (so you cannot add a black die when you would only roll red, such as during an attack made at long range).

The Concentrate Fire Token lets you re-roll any one attack die when spent.

Visit http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=5116 for further details on combat

[--Defense Tokens--]

Instead of rolling green dice, ships get defense tokens marked on their card. When attacked, they may use as many (if any) of the marked tokens on their card.

"Once you use one of these tokens, it is exhausted and turned facedown, displaying its red side. Exhausted tokens aren’t refreshed until the end of the round, so if your ship is exposed to multiple attacks, you need to think carefully about when you want to use one of your defense tokens.

It is possible to use an exhausted defense token, but doing so removes it from your ship entirely. You no longer have that defensive option available to you each round."

Redirect: When you redirect an attack, you choose one of your hull zones adjacent to the defending hull zone, and you can redirect any amount of the damage dealt to your ship from the defending hull zone to the redirect zone’s remaining shields.

Evade: A ship with an evade token can spend it to cancel one attack die at long range, or to force an opponent to reroll one attack die at medium range. Against attacks made at close range and distance “1,” the evade token has no effect.

Halve Damage: A ship with the halve damage token can spend it to halve the damage from a single attack, rounded up.

lifted from http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=5116

[--Complex--]

Command (1-4): Arguably the 2nd most important stat in the game. The number next to this stat determines how many commands must be in your command stack before any ship activates.

The higher the Command value, the more rounds you have to queue your commands in advance.

Ships with a Command value of 1 can essentially select the command they want to use at the start of their activation.

When a player reveals a command, they may chose to spend it to gain the relevant token instead of the resolving the command. You can store up to your Command value in tokens (so the Corvette stores 1, the Victory a maximum of 3), but you cannot store more than one of each type.

These tokens remain on the ship and can "you can spend a command token at any time you could resolve the [same type of] command from your dial" to gain a lesser version of the command (Navigation changes speed but not maneuverability, Squadron only activates a single Squadron regardless of your stats etc.)

"...you can spend a command token for its benefits at the same time that you resolve the same type of command from your dial. For example, you could reveal the concentrate fire command to enhance your attack, adding an extra attack die to your attack pool. You could then also spend a concentrate fire command token to reroll a blank die during the same attack."

There is no limit to the number of command tokens you can spend per round (just be remember you only get one token per round and forfeit the full benefit of that round's command)

So while a high command can be a liability, it can also turn the ship into a bristling porcupine of rationed mini-commands just waiting for the right turn to burst.

Squadron: Used for the Squadron command, which activates friendly Squadrons (within a certain range of your ship) before their phase and allows them to both move and attack (which they cannot do normally).

The activation of these squadrons occurs immediately, so your ship's activation becomes 1.) Reveal Command 2.) Activate squadrons 3.) Squadrons Move 4.) Squadrons attack, if able 5.) Ship attacks 6.) ship moves.

The number of this stat determines the maximum number of squadrons you can activate when you reveal the command. The higher the value, the crazier things get

The Squadron token only activates a single squad (regardless of stat)

Engineering: Used for the repair action. When the command is revealed you get X engineering tokens. You can spend these tokens to:

Move one shield from one arc to another (costs 1 token)

Recover one shield in one arc (costs 2 tokens)

Discard any damage card on your ship (costs 3 tokens)

The Repair token only grants half your Engineering stat in tokens (rounded up)

"...you can’t save any unspent engineering points after resolving a repair command."

Speed Chart:

(for more detail, visit http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4979)

The most important and easily the most complicated "stat" on the card, the speed chart is actually a graph and acts Armada's analog to the X-wing dial.

Because Armada is going to focus heavily on ship arcs for the purposes of damage and firepower (especially the Victory), knowing how to change the facing of these ships is going to be integral.

The maneuver tool has to be completely straight every time you set it and can be rotated a maximum of two clicks (which, when eyeballed, seems to be a 45 degree turn at that section)

2 clicks on one section = 45 degrees turn (Corvette pulls this off naturally)

2 clicks on two sections = 90 degree turn (Victory can't do this even when navigating)

2 clicks on three sections = 135 degree turn

2 clicks on all four sections = 180 degree U-turn (not even the corvette can pull this off)

The Navigate command or token is the only way (apart from upgrades) to change your ship's speed by 1.

The Navigate command itself allows you to rotate the maneuver tool one additional time at one joint (so a rotation of - become I, I to II, and II to II because it's the maximum)

Putting it All Together

Each of Armada's 6 rounds proceed as follows:

1.) The Command Phase

Each player sets the command stack for every one of their capital ships in secret (like setting dials)

The player can stack any of the four command types in any order they want. The player can stack multiples of the same type of command.

Before this phase can end, every command stack of every ship must always have X commands stacked, where X is the ship's Command stat. (special abilities/upgrades/damage might override this)

2.) The Ship Phase

Players take turns activating one ship at a time, starting with the player who has initiative.

a. When a ship is activated, the first thing it does is reveal the highest command on the command stack. The player may choose to resolve the command and gain its full benefit, or to "store" it as a command token with reduced benefit for later use.

According to the wording on the Squadron command ("you can immediately activate a number of squadrons equal to your ships' Squadron value"), you would activate your selected squadrons at this point before proceeding with the capital ship's attacks and movement.

b.The second thing a ship does is make attacks.

The activated ship can make two attacks from two different Hull Zones ("arcs"), but you apparently can target the same ship/squadron if you have it in both your arcs.

How these attacks are resolved are very concisely explained here: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/star-wars-armada/support/SWM01_diagram_attackexample.pdf

c. Lastly, the ship preforms a maneuver.

Normally, the ship is locked at a certain speed (marked on a dial on the ship's base) and you must move to that value on the navigation tool.

The player controlling the activated ship sets down navigation tool straight, and can then make adjustments to how the ship moves (if any). The ship's Speed Chart illustrates how each ship can adjust its maneuver.

The boxes in the columns show the number of steps ("clicks") you can adjust the movement tool at each marked speed value on the tool, starting from speed 1 at the bottom and going up to speed 4. The number of adjustments you can make goes from a minimum of none ( - ), to one ( I ), to a maximum of two ( II ), or 0 to 45 degrees). If an adjustment is possible at a speed value, it can be made in either direction at the player's discretion.

(yes, you can apparently zig-zag your ship if you wish)

Ships also turn differently at different speeds, so refer to the bottom row of numbers (1 through 4) to determine which column you can use to affect your movement.

Normally, the only way to change your speed is through the Navigation command or token. Both allow you to adjust your speed by 1. The Navigation command also allows you to adjust the navigation tool 1 additional time at a section of your choice, turning one ( - ) into ( I ), or ( I ) into ( II ), or ( II ) into ( II ).

Fairly positive the sections of the navigation tools weren't built to bend past ( II ), so please don't try doing ( III ) because it'll probably break

3.) The Squadron Phase

We'll get to this soon, I promise!

4.) The Status Phase

"In the Status Phase, players ready their exhausted defense cards and flip the initiative token.

Then the player with initiative increases the round count, or if you’ve just completed the sixth round, the game ends.

Victory is awarded to the player who has scored more total points, counting both those awarded for eliminating enemy ships and squadrons as well as those awarded for completing objectives worth victory points." http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp?eidm=270&esem=1

reserved for ship analysis

They may only use a token once per round.

In the Gencon videos it was stated they can use "one of each type" per attack.

So you couldn't half damage and then half damage again, but you could half damage and then redirect.

you could then use the second half damage against the second attack from that ship.

Unless new commands are introduced, this stat will never be higher than 4.

Im not sure where this comes from? I have never heard this before. I dont see any reason why the stat couldnt be higher.

Because of the way the stack works, a Command 1 ship can repeat a command every round if it wanted (6 times per game), a Command 2 ship can repeat a command every other round (3 times per game), and a Command 3 ship once every 3 rounds (2 times per game). The hypothetical Command 4 ship could repeat a command twice per game, but it would have to be the first or second command stacked during the first round.

Again I am not sure on your interpretation of this - the command stack dials have all the commands available, so a ship could choose to repeat the same command over and over again every turn if it so wished. i.e. a carrier role ship might choose to uses its command each turn to do a Squadron command to enable its fighters to be more effective.

Engineering: Used for the repair action. When the command is revealed you get X engineering tokens.

I think the actual wording is "points" as there is no physical tokens given out.

The only tokens given is when a ship reveals a command and chooses not to use it that turn, it instead can gain a token to redeem at a later round at a reduced effectiveness. If sounds like the number of command tokens a ship can "bank" is equal to its command value.

They may only use a token once per round.

In the Gencon videos it was stated they can use "one of each type" per attack.

So you couldn't half damage and then half damage again, but you could half damage and then redirect.

you could then use the second half damage against the second attack from that ship.

Unless new commands are introduced, this stat will never be higher than 4.

Im not sure where this comes from? I have never heard this before. I dont see any reason why the stat couldnt be higher.

Because of the way the stack works, a Command 1 ship can repeat a command every round if it wanted (6 times per game), a Command 2 ship can repeat a command every other round (3 times per game), and a Command 3 ship once every 3 rounds (2 times per game). The hypothetical Command 4 ship could repeat a command twice per game, but it would have to be the first or second command stacked during the first round.

Again I am not sure on your interpretation of this - the command stack dials have all the commands available, so a ship could choose to repeat the same command over and over again every turn if it so wished. i.e. a carrier role ship might choose to uses its command each turn to do a Squadron command to enable its fighters to be more effective.

Engineering: Used for the repair action. When the command is revealed you get X engineering tokens.

I think the actual wording is "points" as there is no physical tokens given out.

The only tokens given is when a ship reveals a command and chooses not to use it that turn, it instead can gain a token to redeem at a later round at a reduced effectiveness. If sounds like the number of command tokens a ship can "bank" is equal to its command value.

I agree with Maverick, you have the command bit somewhat wrong. There's certainly no reason the command stat couldn't be higher than 4, and I can't see any reason why you couldn't set the same command every turn, whatever your Command value is.

And yep, a shop can store a number of command tokens equal to its command value.

I may have misread

I was taking the command thing from

"The Four Commands

There are four basic commands in Armada. Each command can be resolved for full effect when you reveal your command dial, or it can be spent to assign a command token to your ship.

You can assign a number of command tokens to your ship equal to its command value, though you can’t assign more than a single token for a given type of command. While command tokens can then be spent at any appropriate time, the benefits they grant are less than those you gain from resolving the command directly from the dial."

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=5084

So I mistook tokens for stacks

speaking of, I forgot to write about command tokens.

I'm heading out for now, but I'll fix my mistakes when I get back

I may have misread

I was taking the command thing from

"The Four Commands

There are four basic commands in Armada. Each command can be resolved for full effect when you reveal your command dial, or it can be spent to assign a command token to your ship.

You can assign a number of command tokens to your ship equal to its command value, though you can’t assign more than a single token for a given type of command. While command tokens can then be spent at any appropriate time, the benefits they grant are less than those you gain from resolving the command directly from the dial."

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=5084

So I mistook tokens for stacks

speaking of, I forgot to write about command tokens.

I'm heading out for now, but I'll fix my mistakes when I get back

Ah yeah....the tokens are separate things. Just to add to the fun, you can reveal a command on the dial AND spend a stored token of the same type at the same time!

gencon demoer say you can use only one of each token type on defense per attack and flip it over from green to red. Then it on a later defense that round you can use it again and remove the token if its red. If the token wasn't used a second time it flips back to green at the end of the round.

So on any given attack defender can use one of each type of token they might have. Flip any tokens used from green to red, or remove if red. End of round flip red tokens back to green.

gencon demoer say you can use only one of each token type on defense per attack and flip it over from green to red. Then it on a later defense that round you can use it again and remove the token if its red. If the token wasn't used a second time it flips back to green at the end of the round.

So on any given attack defender can use one of each type of token they might have. Flip any tokens used from green to red, or remove if red. End of round flip red tokens back to green.

Your confusing the Defense tokens with the Command tokens. You get Command tokens from unused Command from the Command dial. This wasn't covered in any of the Gencon demo videos and only in the FFG articles.

From Capital Ships in Battle article.

Once you select which of your ships you intend to activate, you reveal the top command from its command stack and place the dial faceup next to your ship. If you want to resolve the command from the dial for its full effect, you can do so at the appropriate time. Otherwise, you can spend the command to gain the matching command token and place it next to your ship.

Thanks for the Eagle Eyes, guys

Patched up the summary, with

*Fixed the confusion with Command Stack versus Command Token

*Actually wrote down the Token information and how the Command stat corresponds to them

*Fixed the defense token description to correctly reflect the fact that you can use as many or as few (if any) as you want against any single attack

Tomorrow or the day after, I'll add the Squadron rules.

And I do love the Squadron rules in this game. Raw stats per cost alone have them kicking the ass of capital ships, but they also limit themselves heavily with the fire OR shoot restriction in the Squadron phase and Squadron blocking rules (plus no crits on capital ships without the Bomber rule).

Without the Squadron command benefit (granted so far only by Capital Ships) they're far less offensively useful.

Pretty brilliant balancing act, imo

And I do love the Squadron rules in this game. Raw stats per cost alone have them kicking the ass of capital ships, but they also limit themselves heavily with the fire OR shoot restriction in the Squadron phase and Squadron blocking rules (plus no crits on capital ships without the Bomber rule).

Without the Squadron command benefit (granted so far only by Capital Ships) they're far less offensively useful.

Pretty brilliant balancing act, imo

This is one of those things I'm gonna have to play with for a bit before I can feel I got a handle on them. But I do look forward to your write up maybe it will help clear it up some.

I think you need a bit elaborate a bit more about attack dice.

Basically the way FFG explains it, each dice red/blue/black is a different range. Black is range 1 only, blue is upto range 2, red is upto range 3. This is particularly important when looking at the anti-squadron fire for capital ships, which is usually blue dice, as it means they are limited to range 2 fire against squadrons. (even if their normal firing arc dice are red for range 3).

There are four possible symbols on a dice, blank, accuracy, hit and critical hit (or combinations of symbols).

Blank has no effect, accuracy means that the attacker can nominate an evade token that the defender cannot use.

Hit is a single hit

Critical hit counts as a hit, but once per attack as long as at least one critical result was rolled, a critical may trigger a special effect. By default this appears to be that the first (and only first) damage card drawn is turned face up and resolved but if the player has an upgrade card on the attacking ship it may list an alternate effect that can be triggered instead. (for example Ion Cannon Batteries, or Overload Pulse upgrade cards).

Awesome stuff.

Thanks fickle, for putting this together and thanks to everyone contributing. I get the feeling this thread'll be stickied as a source of information for newbies and vets alike.

Alright guys,

Fleshed out the attacks a bit more (legitimately missed that you could preform two but only from two different hull zones) and added a short summary of the phases in each round.

It's not complete yet, but we'll get to it later. If you could continue combing the post for human mistakes it would be greatly appreciated (for they have no place in the cold, efficient imperial war-machine).

For now, though, I have an X-wing tournie to attend and some stupid turrets to slay in the name of the empire. Firesprays, ho!!!

(be back either late tonight or tomorrow!)

I believe (but could be wrong) the navigate command can increase the II click to III. In your break down it says II stays at II.

Navigate- command allows an increase or decrease in speed and you get one extra click(turn) on the maneuver tool.

Engineering- token gives points equal to half your engineering value rounded up, so a victory with 4 engineering gets 2 if a token is used.

I believe (but could be wrong) the navigate command can increase the II click to III. In your break down it says II stays at II.

I honestly have no concrete proof that it does or does not. I am basing the ( II ) max thing on the number of ticks on each link (there are 5, 1 in the center and 2 on either side) and the diagrams show that the far right or left ticks correspond to a 45 degree turn (admittedly eyeballed).

If it turns out we can get to however many degrees, 67.5? (corvette would have a ball!), I'll amend the section post-haste.

Navigate- command allows an increase or decrease in speed and you get one extra click(turn) on the maneuver tool.

Engineering- token gives points equal to half your engineering value rounded up, so a victory with 4 engineering gets 2 if a token is used.

Navigate does seem to be capped to a speed adjustment of one per command/token, just waiting on confirmation for the max rotation of the maneuver tool to see if the command can get us to a maximum of ( III )

On Engineering, you are 100% correct. I have no idea how I saw 1 repair token instead of half, but it's fixed

Alright guys,

Fleshed out the attacks a bit more (legitimately missed that you could preform two but only from two different hull zones) and added a short summary of the phases in each round.

It's not complete yet, but we'll get to it later. If you could continue combing the post for human mistakes it would be greatly appreciated (for they have no place in the cold, efficient imperial war-machine).

For now, though, I have an X-wing tournie to attend and some stupid turrets to slay in the name of the empire. Firesprays, ho!!!

(be back either late tonight or tomorrow!)

Keep up the great work. it's making more sense everytime you up date it

Keep up the great work. it's making more sense everytime you up date it

I hope it makes the correct kind of sense

I don't want to learn a game that doesn't even exist

Side note: blew the tournament, feeling like a disappointment to the empire

Soontir w/ 2 Bounties is a killer list and in every game I had it won, only to throw it away on really stupid mistakes (flew a firespray off the board, blocked soontir with my own hunter)...

Keep up the great work. it's making more sense everytime you up date it

I hope it makes the correct kind of sense

I don't want to learn a game that doesn't even exist

Side note: blew the tournament, feeling like a disappointment to the empire

Soontir w/ 2 Bounties is a killer list and in every game I had it won, only to throw it away on really stupid mistakes (flew a firespray off the board, blocked soontir with my own hunter)...

It happens, for the first like six games I played I flew my ships off the table more than I fired my weapons lol. So I slapped Navigator on my Firespray until I got the hang of it.

The Squadron token only activates a single squad (regardless of stat)

Does it also alot said squadron both a movement and an attack as the command does? Because in the squadron phase they can only do one or the other. If the token allows for both it is significantly better.

The Squadron token only activates a single squad (regardless of stat)

Does it also alot said squadron both a movement and an attack as the command does? Because in the squadron phase they can only do one or the other. If the token allows for both it is significantly better.

It's been outlined in the Command your Fleet to Victory article under the "Four Commands" section

The Squadron token only activates a single squad (regardless of stat)

Does it also alot said squadron both a movement and an attack as the command does? Because in the squadron phase they can only do one or the other. If the token allows for both it is significantly better.

Engineering command still talks about tokens, needs changing to "points" a token is what you get when you don't use a command on a dial. You can "spend" the dial it to get an engineering token instead to use on a later turn. Engineering "points" are what you get when you use an engineering command on a dial and/or an engineering token to recieve engineering points equal to the ships engineering value (or half in the case of spending a token). All the engineering actions I.e. recovering shields list a "points" requirement to do so. Any unspent engineering points are the end of an activation are lost.

The Squadron token only activates a single squad (regardless of stat)

Does it also alot said squadron both a movement and an attack as the command does? Because in the squadron phase they can only do one or the other. If the token allows for both it is significantly better.

Token and Command allow for both movement and attack, the primary difference is in how many squadrons can be activated. (1 for token, squadron rating for the command).

The Squadron token only activates a single squad (regardless of stat)

Does it also alot said squadron both a movement and an attack as the command does? Because in the squadron phase they can only do one or the other. If the token allows for both it is significantly better.

Token and Command allow for both movement and attack, the primary difference is in how many squadrons can be activated. (1 for token, squadron rating for the command).

So... Exactly what I said two posts up? Lol