I don't understand critical hits - do critical hits bypass shields? For example a ship has two shields on a side and a critical is rolled, does that person pull a damage card?

Thanks!

No it doesn't as far as I know. The standard critical effect will only trigger if you have dealt at least one damage card to the defender. And since you can't deal any damage until you knock the shields down, the critical you rolled does not resolve into anything other than damage to the shields.

No.

A lot of people having played x-wing in the past get confused. Firstly you need to unlearn what you have learned

In Armada you have regular hits and critical hits. Both add 1 damage to the total being inflicted, the difference being that if you have at least one critical symbol, then at the end of the attack (after defence tokens are spent) you may trigger one (and only one) critical effect.

The default critical effect, that all ships has is that if a damage card is dealt, the first card can be dealt face up.

However, there are many upgrade cards that have different critical effects that a player could trigger instead, particularly if the defenders shields are still up (so the standard effect is not possible as no damage cards are dealt).

No.

A lot of people having played x-wing in the past get confused. Firstly you need to unlearn what you have learned

Critical hits in X-Wing don'y bypass shields either.

No.

A lot of people having played x-wing in the past get confused. Firstly you need to unlearn what you have learned

Critical hits in X-Wing don'y bypass shields either.

I wasn't meaning they did, rather the fact that a critical hit in X-Wing is different from a regular hit and is automatically associated with a face up damage card.

One follow up question: if you roll 3 crits, it's still just one face up card per attack, correct? (this is different than xwing)

(I am assuming a tafget whose shields are down, the attacker rolls 3 crits, no tokens are spent, the result is 1 face up damage card first, followed by 2 face down ones, sound correct?

Yes.

If you roll three black dice with three results of hit & crit you have six damage and a critical hit to activate once.

Just remember, your critical hit can activate a single face up card or activate an upgrade effect, but not both.

Essentially if an attack finished up the "Apply Defense Tokens" step, and a crit die face is still showing, then that attack itself is a "crit" and can resolve a single crit effect.

Upgrade cards can add further options of crit effects (and some may require crit faces on a specifically colored die), but each ship (and bombers) have the standard crit effect.

The standard crit effect is, that the first damage card dealt (if any) to the ship from this attack is dealt face up (and subsequently resolved).

The crit face doesn't represent more damage. The standard crit effect doesn't mean "draw a card."