Anyone notice the wording on page 15 for critical hits? It is not as straight forward as X-Wing's and I think we should clear it up. Does critical damage get delt directly to the hull bypassing the shields or not? If you have more than one critical hit you deal as many face up cards as critical hits and not just one, right?

I think I got it but the attack example is garbage for these questions.

Also FFG can we get sub-forums for topic types. Like rules questions? Thanks.

Hmm. I would like to think that shields have to go first in Armada as well.

From the Ship Damage paragraph: "If he does not have any shields remaining, he instead draws one card from the damage deck and places it facedown near his ship card."

And then from the Critical Effect paragraph: "If the attacker has rolled at least one critical (E) icon, the first damage card that the defender receives is dealt faceup."

So I think in order for a critical effect to land, you have to be dealing damage cards rather than reducing shield points - and then outside of upgrade cards like XX-9 turbolasers where you would deal two faceup cards - you only resolve one critical effect per attack. My understanding could totally be incorrect though.

Never mind. The comprehensive rules are in the Rules Refference Guide, not the Learn to Play guide. Feel silly.

Will read that then come back.

It's fairly straight forward once you wrap your head around it - hopefully this helps to explain it.

It's a bit different from X-Wing so lets start from scratch.

When damage is dealt, it is dealt against a "hull zone" on the ship, i.e. the front, back, or a side.

If the "hull zone" has shields, then the damage is dealt against the shields.

If there are no sheilds remaining on that zone, or not enough, then the damage that is over the shield amount will be dealt as damage cards. Once the number of damage cards equals or exceeds the ships hull value, the ship is destroyed.

Sofar so good?

When a player rolls a critical hit result, it adds 1 to the damage total - so in other words it counts just like a normal hit.

If a player has at least one critical hit result in his attack pool, he may resolve a "critical effect".

Note that its only one effect, regardless of if you roll several critical dice results.

Different upgrade cards grant ships different critical effects that the player can choose from, however, all ships have the base effect of "deal the first damage card dealt face up".

So if you shot a ship and dealt damage, and one (or more) of your dice facings were critical hit symbols, you could make your opponent draw the first card faceup. Alternatively, if you had an upgrade card like "overload pulse" which works on a blue critical result, and you had one - instead of the player drawing the first damage card faceup, you would trigger that alternate effect instead.

Hope that is more clear?

Yep. And now that I am reading the RRG instead of the LtPG it is making Way more sense.

Also when you look at the download size of the two the RRG is 1/20 the size of the LtPG so I seriously thought it was just a two page refference sheet. Not the more detailed rules. Now my understanding is gaining traction.

1. So no way to deal multiple crits in a single attack?

2. To be clear, you can only land a critical once the defending shield zone has been reduced to 0, yes?

3a. Is the first hit to hull always delt face up? OR is it that, IF a crit is landed, it is by default the first damage drawn (thus flipped up)?

3b. Otherwise, if an upgrade card has a critical effect, the one crit of that attack can be the given result instead?

4. In an upgrade attack crit, who chooses which crit to take, the attacker or the defender if the card doesn't specificy?

1. So no way to deal multiple crits in a single attack?

No, you can only trigger one critical effect per attack.

2. To be clear, you can only land a critical once the defending shield zone has been reduced to 0, yes?

You could only trigger the face up damage card critical effect once you get through all the shields yes, but there are other critical effects you could trigger on ships that still have shields, like ion effects, or concussion missiles.

3a. Is the first hit to hull always delt face up? OR is it that, IF a crit is landed, it is by default the first damage drawn (thus flipped up)?

If you roll a critical effect, and don't want to trigger any other effect with it, then the default critical effect is to draw the first card face up - If there is no critical effect (or it is used on another effect) then the cards would be dealt facedown.

3b. Otherwise, if an upgrade card has a critical effect, the one crit of that attack can be the given result instead?

Yes, you choose one critical effect to apply, either from an upgrade card or the default "deal the first damage card face up"

4. In an upgrade attack crit, who chooses which crit to take, the attacker or the defender if the card doesn't specificy?

It would be the attacker who would choose which critical effect they want to apply. Some effects rely on specific combinations of dice colour and rolling a crit, so could be harder to do i.e. Assault Concussion Missiles is a black crit, but Overload Pulse is a blue crit. If you couldnt do the one you were hoping for - say you rolled a red crit result, then you would always have the default crit effect (assuming you had got through their shields)

Answers added, does that make sense?

MaverickNZ is spot on

I to have a question, how many cards from a critical can a ship have at once. Can it have more than one damage card? Also how do you get rid of a damage card?

A ship can have as many damage cards up until it's hull value. When it has that many (face up or down, it doesn't matter), the ship blows up.

A ship can have any number of 'face up' crit effect cards, or 'face down' damage cards. Each card is simply 1 damage that will kill the ship when it reaches the hull value.

Engineering/Repair can remove a damage card, face up or face down, it doesn't matter. Same with stopping on the space station obstacle.

Wow, this old thread.

Yeah, an old one -- but a good one.

I love that lukey1212 took the time to read / google for the thread. LOTS of good stuff in here

Hello all, sorry if this has already been covered and I just did not see it.....

when it comes to resolvong critical hits, if you roll more than one I understand only one card is dealt face up, but do the other critical hits just count as damage to the hull, or are they ignored completely like when firing on fighters?

Thank you from someone who is new to Armada!

A handy dandy video was created for this very topic!

Hello all, sorry if this has already been covered and I just did not see it.....

when it comes to resolvong critical hits, if you roll more than one I understand only one card is dealt face up, but do the other critical hits just count as damage to the hull, or are they ignored completely like when firing on fighters?

Thank you from someone who is new to Armada!

When attacking ships, the damage total (i.e. shields lost + cards taken) is the sum of all Hit and Critical icons. The only difference is that, if you rolled at least one critical icon, you get to resolve one critical effect (which can be the standard face up card OR an effect made available by an upgrade, like Advanced Concussion Missiles).

In short, yes, critical icons count as hits for determining hull/shield damage.

The bonus thing a critical hit does is completely independent of it also counting as damage.

The bonus thing a critical hit does is completely independent of it also counting as damage.

Right. You get the damage for the crit, then you get to resolve a crit effect on top of that. It's not a "spend the die to resolve the crit effect."

• Thus, if you're resolving the standard crit effect, it's "flip the first damage card face-up" (assuming you dealt at least one damage card).
• If it's ACMs, it's +1 damage to each adjacent hull zone, after you deal the damage from the attack.
• If it's APTs, it's deal 1 face-up damage card to the target ship, after you deal the damage from the attack.
• Etc.

The bonus thing a critical hit does is completely independent of it also counting as damage.

Right. You get the damage for the crit, then you get to resolve a crit effect on top of that. It's not a "spend the die to resolve the crit effect."

• Thus, if you're resolving the standard crit effect, it's "flip the first damage card face-up" (assuming you dealt at least one damage card).
• If it's ACMs, it's +1 damage to each adjacent hull zone, after you deal the damage from the attack.
• If it's APTs, it's deal 1 face-up damage card to the target ship, after you deal the damage from the attack.
• Etc.

Almost. Crit effects happen before damage from the attack is dealt.

The bonus thing a critical hit does is completely independent of it also counting as damage.

Right. You get the damage for the crit, then you get to resolve a crit effect on top of that. It's not a "spend the die to resolve the crit effect."

• Thus, if you're resolving the standard crit effect, it's "flip the first damage card face-up" (assuming you dealt at least one damage card).
• If it's ACMs, it's +1 damage to each adjacent hull zone, after you deal the damage from the attack.
• If it's APTs, it's deal 1 face-up damage card to the target ship, after you deal the damage from the attack.
• Etc.

Almost. Crit effects happen before damage from the attack is dealt.

The bonus thing a critical hit does is completely independent of it also counting as damage.

Right. You get the damage for the crit, then you get to resolve a crit effect on top of that. It's not a "spend the die to resolve the crit effect."

• Thus, if you're resolving the standard crit effect, it's "flip the first damage card face-up" (assuming you dealt at least one damage card).
• If it's ACMs, it's +1 damage to each adjacent hull zone, after you deal the damage from the attack.
• If it's APTs, it's deal 1 face-up damage card to the target ship, after you deal the damage from the attack.
• Etc.

Almost. Crit effects happen before damage from the attack is dealt.

My bad, should have said "and/plus/in addition to," rather than "then/after."

The bonus thing a critical hit does is completely independent of it also counting as damage.

Right. You get the damage for the crit, then you get to resolve a crit effect on top of that. It's not a "spend the die to resolve the crit effect."

• Thus, if you're resolving the standard crit effect, it's "flip the first damage card face-up" (assuming you dealt at least one damage card).
• If it's ACMs, it's +1 damage to each adjacent hull zone, after you deal the damage from the attack.
• If it's APTs, it's deal 1 face-up damage card to the target ship, after you deal the damage from the attack.
• Etc.

Almost. Crit effects happen before damage from the attack is dealt.

My bad, should have said "and/plus/in addition to," rather than "then/after."

ACMs and Redirect rely on the timing pretty heavily. Lol.

The bonus thing a critical hit does is completely independent of it also counting as damage.

Right. You get the damage for the crit, then you get to resolve a crit effect on top of that. It's not a "spend the die to resolve the crit effect."

• Thus, if you're resolving the standard crit effect, it's "flip the first damage card face-up" (assuming you dealt at least one damage card).
• If it's ACMs, it's +1 damage to each adjacent hull zone, after you deal the damage from the attack.
• If it's APTs, it's deal 1 face-up damage card to the target ship, after you deal the damage from the attack.
• Etc.

Almost. Crit effects happen before damage from the attack is dealt.

My bad, should have said "and/plus/in addition to," rather than "then/after."

ACMs and Redirect rely on the timing pretty heavily. Lol.

The bonus thing a critical hit does is completely independent of it also counting as damage.

Right. You get the damage for the crit, then you get to resolve a crit effect on top of that. It's not a "spend the die to resolve the crit effect."

• Thus, if you're resolving the standard crit effect, it's "flip the first damage card face-up" (assuming you dealt at least one damage card).
• If it's ACMs, it's +1 damage to each adjacent hull zone, after you deal the damage from the attack.
• If it's APTs, it's deal 1 face-up damage card to the target ship, after you deal the damage from the attack.
• Etc.

Almost. Crit effects happen before damage from the attack is dealt.

My bad, should have said "and/plus/in addition to," rather than "then/after."

ACMs and Redirect rely on the timing pretty heavily. Lol.

So do APTs

APT are particularly devastating because of timing, as an example (very lucky shooting) shooting at a shield facing with 4 shields.

Role damage (say 4 hits +1 crits)

No dice mods

Defence tokens 1 brace

Trigger APT crit and deal one face up damage and resolve crit( say you get crit that collapses shield on highest face)

Resolve damage ( 4 hits and 1 crit = five damage , braced to 3, so deal 3 face down damage cards)

If I'm playing it right That gives you 4 damage cards against a four shield, bracing ship (you would be lucky to get this but less so if you run a number of MC frigates with Doddona)

Hi, sorry I'm late to the party. Correct me if I'm wrong but I was fairly certain you resolved the unique critical effect (eg overload pulse) as well as the standard one?