When do I use critical effects?
How do defense tokens interact with attacks and other card effects...?
Why do my black dice always roll blanks?
Who is Tycho Celchu (and how is that pronounced)?

Critical hits and defense tokens can seem odd and confusing. However once you understand them they are as simple as pie...

If you have any questions try to work it out by first follow the steps below one after the other, do not assume and do not read what isn't on the cards. As you follow the steps of the attack you should find everything makes some kind of sense...

The most important thing to bear in mind - This is not X-Wing.

Forget everything you know about the X-Wing rules!

If the enemy ship's hull zone that you are targeting is within your ships's Fire Arc and within Range and within LOS you may attack.

And if you are still confused and love a video tutorial here is a video aid by Lyraeus!

I made a video on this!

Please can a friendly mod make this stickied?

Also formatting is a bit odd towards the end. I'll sort that tomorrow.

Or if it can be added to the front of the already stickyd thread.

Unless I already missed it there.

This is helpful, thanks!

It might be worth mentioning (for the sake of completeness), that you can only spend one of each type of defence token per incoming attack. That is to say you cannot brace twice, or evade twice.

Only had a quick scan but it looks thorough - nice work. I have covered a lot of that in my stickied FAQ, but not as a complete break-down like that. I've added some links from my thread

My only suggestion would be to change the text colours - the blue/red/green (esp. the latter) is quite hard to read on the grey background.

Bump - Because these questions are still being asked.

Working in a video. Hopefully will be out Friday. . . Just need time to make it. . . *inaudible curses at work*

Nice work DWRR. I'll join in the request to have this stickied.

Oh my god.

So. You can reroll dice multiple times (unlike Xwing)

And you can't use the same defense token twice? Seriously. How is anyone supposed to remember all of these RULES!

And you can use exhausted ... UGH. but not blocked.

Resolve only one critical... and resolve it first, unlike Xwing where hits come first.

Wait, you resolve the critical effect before redirect can redirect it to a shield? What, again, how is this all supposed to be remembered....

Wait, I dont understand this: You say to resolve in full the critical in section4, but then you say again in section6 that that's where the critical takes effect. What does this mean?

--

Btw, thanks for the write up, helps a lot.

All critical effects resolve straight away at the start of the damage step, some just have an effect that interacts with the game further on.

Remember the 'standard critical effect' (flip first damage card dealt) is only one of many possible critical effects available in the game and is so far the only one with a delayed effect.

It is really very simple to play once you grok how things interact.

And you can't use the same defense token twice?

Only during one attack. The token could be spent (and exhausted) during one attack against your ship, it could then be spent (and discarded) during a second attack against your ship during the same turn.

And if your ship has 2 tokens of the same type it could only spend one during an attack.

It's

And you can't use the same defense token twice?

Only during one attack. The token could be spent (and exhausted) during one attack against your ship, it could then be spent (and discarded) during a second attack against your ship during the same turn.

And if your ship has 2 tokens of the same type it could only spend one during an attack.

It is easier to explain that each one of type of token can be used once per attack.

Once a token is exhausted (in the red side) you can spend it (which means to discard it, so whenever you see the word spend think of that) but not in the same attack that you exhausted it.

If I rolled 3 hits and 1 crit and the defender uses his brace defence token does he get to choose which die are removed ? I.e. Can he choose to remove the crit?

And just for clarity the standard critical effect (face up damage card) is only dealt with after the shields are gone?

Follow through the steps above and you will see how the brace token gets used. You will also see how the standard critical effect is played.

This is why he said to ignore everything you knew about X wing.

If, in armada, you rolled 3 red dice and got two hits and a crit, you're allowed to resolve a critical effect. That critical effect is: "The first damage card received is turned face-up" or something to that effect. Now, if the target has three shields, or uses redirect or brace and such to make it so that all you are hitting is shields, then no damage card is received and thus your critical does nothing.

If you were using, say, blue dice and got a crit, and used the default critical effect.....well then the same thing would happen. First damage card is face-up, but if you don't get through the shields then nothing happens.

But other cards have different critical effects. For example, Ion Cannon Batteries says that if you get a blue crit, you can choose to discard one of their command tokens. So let's say I roll 3 blue dice and get a crit and two hits. Let's also say my opponent has a navigation command token, and we'll pretend he is using no defense tokens at all and has one shield left. What would happen is first: You resolve the critical effect. You could choose to do the standard (in this case, that would mean the target ship loses a shield, receives a face-up damage card, then a face-down damage card), or you can use your special critical effect for ion cannons and you would first remove the target's navigation token, then they would lose a shield, and get two FACE-DOWN damage cards, because you chose to use your special ion cannon critical effect, and not the standard one.

Now let's say the target has a brace defense token they wish to use. This is where people start mixing X-wing rules with armada. Again let's say the attack shows 1 crit and two hits from.... let's say blue dice. And the defender has two shields and a navigation command token, plus the brace defense token we mentioned.

Scenario 1: The defender sees you've got 3 damage showing (a crit and two hits) and decides to brace. X-wing logic says "Oh three damage goes to two, so I'm getting rid of the crit". That's the problem, and it's the wrong way to do it. "Evade" is currently the only defense token to get rid of DICE. The others modify how much damage is applied or how damage is applied. In this case, a brace token will indeed take you from three damage to two - but you've not changed your DICE at all, and you're still showing a crit. So, him announcing he's using a brace token doesn't change your dice at all - you're still showing a crit and two hits. Now you get to apply your critical effect. You know he's only going to take two damage, which will take down his shields but do nothing else. So you might as well announce that you're going to use the ion cannon battery critical effect and remove his navigation token. Then when it comes time to apply damage, your three damage has been reduced to 2 because of the brace, the shields go down, and nothing else happens.

(Note: The ion cannons have a secondary effect. If the target HAS no command tokens, then the target hull zone loses a shield. If our target in our example didn't have the navigation token, then the critical effect would happen and drop a shield, then the two damage the target receives would make it lose a shield and then receive a face DOWN damage card - because you used a different critical effect).

Scenario 2: The target decides "Hey I don't need this navigation token, I'll save my brace for another attack". He says he's not using any defense tokens. AHA! You see now that with your crit and two hits, and him not using his defense token, he's going to take three damage. You could decide to use your ion cannon critical effect, if you're being strategic and want to remove his navigation token. He would then take three damage, which would drop two shields and deal a face DOWN damage card.

BUT! Maybe you don't care that he has a nav token and he's made a mistake. Just because you have ion cannons doesn't mean you have to use it. You could decide to use the default critical effect. Now he keeps his command tokens, but is taking three damage - the first two drop shields, and the third would cause him to draw a face UP damage card, since you resolved the standard critical effect instead of the ion cannons.

(If he had no command tokens, and decided to not brace, you could use the ion cannon battery crit to remove a shield, and then he would take three damage - one on a shield, and then two face DOWN damage cards, since you used the crit to drop a shield instead of turning cards face up).

Is it complicated? Not really - it's just religiously following step by step rules, and paying attention to what the cards and tokens do. Here's something else to keep in mind, that is different from X wing:

If in all of my above examples, the attacker had rolled two crits and a hit, or even THREE crits, NOTHING WOULD CHANGE AT ALL. Because a die, any die at all, had shown a critical symbol, that ALLOWS you, the attacker, to resolve A critical effect. And as long as that die stays (and is not taken away by, say, the evade defense token), you're getting your critical effect.

But the default critical effect just says "the first damage card received is turned face up". That's it. Not one per crit, like in X wing. So if all three of your dice showed crits, you're going to do 3 damage, and have the ability to make the FIRST damage card get turned face up. There's no "well, I'll brace, but I'm still taking two crits". No no no. You brace, so the DAMAGE you receive is cut in half. Three crit results means three damage. Bracing against three crit results means two damage. Since there were ANY crit results at all, a critical effect will be resolved - the default being that the first damage card is face up.

This is all very important to realize for something like Assault concussion missiles. If you're throwing four black dice at an enemy ship that has - let's say no shields at all, and all four dice show hit/crit. That's going to let you do a critical effect, and you're also doing EIGHT damage! If the enemy braces, it goes to 4 damage. If you decided to use the default critical, that would be one face up and three face down. If you use your assault concussion missiles crit, then they'll be taking a hit on either adjacent side to your target (two damage, face-down) and, even braced, they'll take four more damage (ALL face down, because you used the concussion missile crit and not the default), resulting in no fancy face-up effects, but much more damage in the long run, and the difference between a dead ship and a live one, in many cases.

What I was surprised by was the note that something that says to "exhaust" a token that's already exhausted does nothing. I thought that exhausting something already exhausted made it go away? No?

So if I try to use "overload pulse" against someone that's already exhausted all their defense tokens, nothing happens? Man, that makes that a lot less useful. I thought it would blast their tokens clean off!

Yup that is correct, if you Overload Pulse a ship with exhausted defence tokens nothing happens...

What I was surprised by was the note that something that says to "exhaust" a token that's already exhausted does nothing. I thought that exhausting something already exhausted made it go away? No?

So if I try to use "overload pulse" against someone that's already exhausted all their defense tokens, nothing happens? Man, that makes that a lot less useful. I thought it would blast their tokens clean off!

You can't Exhaust an Exhausted Token.

When You Spend a Token you Exhaust it. When you Spend an Exhausted Token, it is discarded...

Spend does not Equal Exhaust.

Spend Results in Exhaust. Its a small, but important difference.

I made a video on this!

Great stuff!

If you don't mind I've edited the video into the first post.

:-)

Nope go right ahead. I will be handeling other rule questions in my "How does it work" segments. Expect one on targeting in the next day or so.

I am always looking for advice as well not only in improving but on things people want to see

Here's a tweaked version of the Attack sequence, using the steps defined in the Reference Guide, removal of uneeded text, different colors, and general streamlining. Hopefully it's useful to someone. I prefer the sequnce to match the game's rules.

1. Declare Target
2. Roll Attack Dice (in this order):
   1. Attacker gathers certain dice to create his dice pool:
      • The battery armament dice printed on your ship card.
      • Dice granted by any upgrade cards that increase your battery armaments.
   2. Roll Attack Dice
3. Resolve Attack Effects (in this order):
   1. Modify Dice:
      • Dice can be Added , Re-Rolled , Changed , and Spent in any order.
      • Any upgrade cards that Add dice to an attack do so during this step
      • Dice Added during this step are not restricted by range unless specified by the effect.
      • Spent dice are removed from your dice pool.
      • Dice can be Re-Rolled multiple times by different effects.
   2. Spend Accuracy Icons
4. Spend Defense Tokens
   • The Evade token takes effect here.
   • Brace , Contain and Redirect must be declared at this point, even though their effects do not resolve until later in the sequence.
   • Only 1 of each type of token may be spent during each attack.
   • Each defense token can only be spent once during an attack.
   • Spent tokens are flipped to their exhausted side, or discarded if already exhausted.
   • Any effect that exhausts an already exhausted defense token will have no effect on that token.
5. Resolve Damage (in this order):
   1. You may resolve a critical effect if at least 1 critical hit symbol is showing in your dice pool.
      1. Resolve the effect in full before continuing.
      2. Critical effects do not combine with your attack damage unless specified.
      3. Because critical effects resolve at this point any damage caused by a critical effect cannot be moved or changed by a defense token effect unless directly specified by an effect.
      4. Some critical effects might have delayed resolution, like the default critical effect, but they must all be declared at this stage, no matter when they will take effect.
      5. No matter how many critical hit symbols you have in your dice pool you can only resolve one critical effect per attack.
   2. Work out the total damage of the attack
      1. Add up the # of hit and critical symbols in your dice pool. That is your damage.
      2. A point of damage from a hit icon and a point of damage from a critical hit icon are the same thing at this point. Which dice the damage points came from no longer matters as any critical effect has already been resolved.
      3. Brace token takes effect here, but only if spent in step 4.​
   3. Apply the total damage one point at a time.
      1. Redirect token takes effect here but only if spent in step 4.
      2. Remove shields first then start dealing damage cards.
      3. If the attack generated a critical effect and the attacker resolved the standard critical effect available to all ships (flipping the first damage card dealt) during step A then it takes effect here.
      4. Remember you are just dealing with damage points now, you no longer care about the symbols in your dice pool.
6. Declare Additional Squadron Target

Blatantly stolen and inserted into original post.

Everything was written from memory so I didn't use the exact wording from the RRG, but it still played out the same way.

Thanks for the input.