Hello fellow admirals,

Quick question, do you resolve a critcal hit on a capital ship if the designated target still has available shields in the targeted firing arc? I have downloaded both rules & reference books & can't seem to find an answer to this.

May the force be with you. (a.k.a. Thanx!)

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Ok. The way I understand it.

You fire at a hull zone with 1 shield. You roll 3 hits and a critical effect.

The first hit goes to the shield and 2 damage cards are drawn face down. You can then spend the critical effect to make the first card be drawn face up.

MaverickNZ explained it much better than me

When you roll a critical hit, it counts as a regular hit for the purposes of the number of damage but allows you to resolve a critical effect. (Only one effect can be resolved regardless of how many crit "icons" are rolled).

The default critical effect is that the first damage card dealt by the attack will be dealt face up.

Of course if the ship has shields still, then no damage cards will be dealt, so this would have no effect.

Other upgrade cards offer alternate critical effects that you as the attacker could choose to resolve instead.

For example, the Concussion assault missiles black critical effect deals an extra damage to each of the shield facings adjacent/next to the target facing - so this would be a good one to choose if you did not do enough damage to get through all the shields on a facing.

This made me think of a question on the subject.

So the target has 1 shield left. You roll 1 cit and 2 hits. Since the rules state that the first card dealt is turned face up, does that mean that 1 of the hits takes out the last sheild, then you resolve the crit, and lastly the 1 regular damage remaining? Or are crits canceled by shields first, then hits----the opposite of how x wing works?

Its actually simpler than x-wing I think.

Every hit and crit symbol on the dice count as 1 damage. At this stage they are functionally identical

You'll apply the damage to the shields first, and then any remaining straight to the hull.

If there was a crit symbol on the dice (that wasn't evaded or otherwise nullified somehow) then you can use it for an additional effect, as Mavrick explained earlier

TLDR

The short answer is that the order the hits and crits are applied is unimportant.

that makes sense.

As for alternative crit effects, you can resolve whatever they do even if there are sheilds? Like those assault concusion missile things?

that makes sense.

As for alternative crit effects, you can resolve whatever they do even if there are sheilds? Like those assault concusion missile things?

Yup! That's exactly it.

Master Yoda puts it best, "You must unlearn what you have learned."

I think a lot of players are coming over from X-Wing and are simply hung up on hits versus crits because of the way they work in X-Wing. Armada is much simpler than X-Wing in this regard, in my opinion. I don't think I can explain it better than others have, but if you are just using the basic critical effect, the bottom line is that if you have at least one crit result (how many crit results you have doesn't matter, so long as there is at least one) then the first damage card dealt is face-up. If there are no damage cards dealt (due to shields absorbing the shot) then the crit effect has no effect. If you have 4 crits, then it is still just the first damage card dealt is face-up.

If you have upgrade cards that you can use for a crit effect other than the basic crit effect, then you can still trigger them, even if all the hits go against shields, so long as at least one crit result is showing on the dice.

My skull must me thicker than I thought as i still don't quite get it.

I thought each damage rolled was worth one damage card delt face down. If there was at least one critical hit, only the first card is delt face up. The defender then "spends" shield points from the respective hull zones to redirect the damage cards to the Discard pile.

Is this not how it works?

That is not how it works.

You only add cards once the shields on that hull zone are gone. from the rules ref, page 4:

When a ship suffers damage, it suffers that damage one point at a time. For each point, reduce the shields in the defending hull zone by one. If the defending hull zone has no shields to lose, deal a facedown damage card to the ship instead.

OK, so the ship is burning damage points so long as it has shields. Once the shields are gone, the damage cards come out... So if you use shields to reduce damage points, but there are some damage points left over, is the first card still a critical?

If that's the critical effect that the attacking player decided to use.

The first CARD delt is a crit not the FIRST DAMAGE, so the first time you pick up a card and place it next to the ship card (and there was a crit result in the attack that was not used on a diffrent effect) is flipped face up

So basically, if you roll one or more critical faces on the dice, so long as you don't "spend it" on an upgrade ability, your entire attack is a critical attack. Shields only protect you from this attack if they eliminate all damage points from that attack. Otherwise, the first damage card that gets dealt to the defender will always be dealt face up. That's so much easier, assuming that's how it works.

Well, that works most of the time but it still isn't quite correct.

A critical hit means the critical effect WILL happen. In most cases, the critical effect is that the first card dealt is dealt faceup. Obviously if no cards are dealt this effect won't do anything. However, shields do not actually protect you from any critical effect, not even the basic one. For example:

Luke Skywalker causes damage to go straight to hull, bypassing shields. He is also able to resolve critical effects. That means that if Luke attacks your ship and rolls a Crit, the first damage applied to your ship will be a face up damage card no matter how many shields you have.

Concussion Assault Missiles cause a point of damage to the adjacent hull zones on a critical hit. This occurs no matter how many shields you have.

It is best to simply ignore everything you "knew" about critical hits. They have exactly their stated effect, ignoring ALL other considerations.

So basically, if you roll one or more critical faces on the dice, so long as you don't "spend it" on an upgrade ability, your entire attack is a critical attack. Shields only protect you from this attack if they eliminate all damage points from that attack. Otherwise, the first damage card that gets dealt to the defender will always be dealt face up. That's so much easier, assuming that's how it works.

This is correct yes

So basically, if you roll one or more critical faces on the dice, so long as you don't "spend it" on an upgrade ability, your entire attack is a critical attack. Shields only protect you from this attack if they eliminate all damage points from that attack. Otherwise, the first damage card that gets dealt to the defender will always be dealt face up. That's so much easier, assuming that's how it works.

This is correct yes

OK, that seems SO much easier (baring special cards or attacks). I wonder if they'll bring X-Wing into alignment with armada (X-Wing v2 rules or whatever)?

Doudt, they won't change x-wing now it is rooted to deep

Not a chance. X-wing has a completely different way of handling how ships defend as well.

It almost seems like a lot of these similar rules in Armada are an XWing v2 take on the rules. Most people I see comment on differences indicate things are a lot easier to grasp or speeder to play. I'm sure that's not always the case, but what I mean is there appear to be a lot of "lessons learned" in armada. It would be silly not to apply those same lessons back to XWing.

yes ffg has obviously taken what they have learned from x-wing and used it to make a much more refined game in armada

Just one other thing about crits that wasnt discussed so far i think.

Going only by the standard critical effect " Crit: If the defender is dealt at least one damage card by this attack, deal the first damage card faceup." alone would allow you to also resolve the effect of i.e. the concussion missile ontop of that if you roll 2 black crits assuming the usual "cost:effect" notation.

So the rule " The attacker can resolve only one critical effect per attack." must also be taken into account.

I hate to bump this topic, but what is the contain token supposed to do? In the article the introduces the wave two vessels, the article make specific reference to critical hits passing through shields. I haven't seen the token spoiled yet, but the article makes it sound like the contain token stops critical hits from passing through the shields. What say you to this, fleet commanders?

The artical says that it cancels the STANDARD critical effect, i.e deal the first damage card dealt in an attack face up.

That means that any upgrades that you have bought that have other critical effect still work (even XX-9 turbolasers, which let you deal the first TWO damage cards in an attack face up)