Been playing Armada for a couple months now, my buddy and i absolutely love this game and weve been sharing models to get larger games than we own models for. But as we try to delve into the more "proper" rules, squadrons confuse me a bit.

Up until i bought the Assault Frigate, we had always played that Squadrons cannot resolve critical effects, but still did the damage. With the Assault Frigate came a card that mentions i can reroll crits against squadrons in close range...and i thought why the heck would you do that.

After pouring through the rules far as i can tell squadrons completely ignore that die result, basically saying its a miss both offensively and defensively...including from other squadrons. Is this true? We played this way in our last game and tbh it made a lot more sense and our squadrons actually survived quite awhile. Xwings no longer 1shotted tie fighters literally every time they attempted it and Ships suddenly couldnt hurt squadrons for squat barring awesome luck. It also makes Bomber rule not as insane, since the way we were playing before they could do 3 damage with a black die on ships (hit + crit + bomber bonus, since we didnt know the crit die is ignored entirely at the time)

The other question is involving debris. I cannot find anything talking about how squadrons affect the Obstructed rule, but i did notice it specifically says Ships and that Squadrons do not take collision damage. That means that squadrons can hide in debris and be basically invulnerable to most Ships (except the ones that have 2 AA dice) but take/dish out full damage from squadrons, right?

Squadrons take no damage from obstacles, but can be obstructed as normal.

This means that if your squadron is completely on top of an obstacle token, all attacks both TO and FROM that squadron are obstructed and must be reduced by one attack die, even from another squadron.

Squadrons themselves do not obstruct attacks, but still can be obstructed by ships or obstacles.

Obstruction also prevents engagment, meaning that even if you're within distance 1 of a squadron that's completely on an obstacle, you can fire on it but you are not engaged, and it can move freely.

I sometimes use this to lure people toward TIE bombers in asteroid fields then shoot past them.

You are correct with how the crits work, they are in essence a miss when dealing with squadrons.

Squadrons take no damage from obstacles, but can be obstructed as normal.

This means that if your squadron is completely on top of an obstacle token, all attacks both TO and FROM that squadron are obstructed and must be reduced by one attack die, even from another squadron.

Squadrons themselves do not obstruct attacks, but still can be obstructed by ships or obstacles.

Obstruction also prevents engagment, meaning that even if you're within distance 1 of a squadron that's completely on an obstacle, you can fire on it but you are not engaged, and it can move freely.

I sometimes use this to lure people toward TIE bombers in asteroid fields then shoot past them.

Really? Hmm...thats interesting indeed.

Thanks for the responses!

Squadrons take no damage from obstacles, but can be obstructed as normal.

This means that if your squadron is completely on top of an obstacle token, all attacks both TO and FROM that squadron are obstructed and must be reduced by one attack die, even from another squadron.

Squadrons themselves do not obstruct attacks, but still can be obstructed by ships or obstacles.

Obstruction also prevents engagment, meaning that even if you're within distance 1 of a squadron that's completely on an obstacle, you can fire on it but you are not engaged, and it can move freely.

I sometimes use this to lure people toward TIE bombers in asteroid fields then shoot past them.

Really? Hmm...thats interesting indeed.

Thanks for the responses!

Isn't it?

Thematic, too.

I picture my bombers lurking among the asteroids, waiting for the fighters to draw close and start to enter the field before rocketing out of hiding and straight past the interceptors.

Yeah I'm a huge dork.

You are correct with how the crits work, they are in essence a miss when dealing with squadrons.

Squadrons take no damage from obstacles, but can be obstructed as normal.

This means that if your squadron is completely on top of an obstacle token, all attacks both TO and FROM that squadron are obstructed and must be reduced by one attack die, even from another squadron.

Squadrons themselves do not obstruct attacks, but still can be obstructed by ships or obstacles.

Obstruction also prevents engagment, meaning that even if you're within distance 1 of a squadron that's completely on an obstacle, you can fire on it but you are not engaged, and it can move freely.

I sometimes use this to lure people toward TIE bombers in asteroid fields then shoot past them.

Really? Hmm...thats interesting indeed.

Thanks for the responses!

Isn't it?

Thematic, too.

I picture my bombers lurking among the asteroids, waiting for the fighters to draw close and start to enter the field before rocketing out of hiding and straight past the interceptors.

Yeah I'm a huge dork.

It does not help that I play Android Netrunner. . .

You are correct with how the crits work, they are in essence a miss when dealing with squadrons.

Unless you are Vader which is where you should have went "huh, why does he have that text?"

Actually we viewed it the same we we viewed bomber rule. It literally added damage. So basically, he could theoretically do 9 damage to a squadron since 3 blue die crits = 6 damage, no crit effects though, and the 1 black wit a hit/crit for 3 more damage = 9.

Needless the say the few times i ran Vader before we found out we were using the rules on crits for squadrons wrong, he never did anything because he would be zerged to hell and back. Then again i'd tribute the win to him because my opponent would usually spend way too many resources to try and get rid of him before he attacked, which meant my ships took 0 damage lol.

Like i said in my OP, the card that made me go "wait...wat?" on this subject was the "reroll any crits against close range squadrons" for 5pts. I couldnt see why you would ever do that since it still did damage, just had no crit effect. Until i dug into it and found they were suppose to completely ignore the die result all together, hence my confusion and hence this thread lol.

Just to make sure you're understanding Vine:

1 Critical HIT= 1 damage

1 HIT= 1 damage

squadrons to squadrons and ships to squadrons crits count as misses, unless it is vader.

I am confused where you are getting 3 blue crits= 6 damage and 1 black hit/crit= 3 damage?

All vaders ability does is allow him to make critical hits count as 1 damage when he attacks instead of 0 as all other squadrons do ( except bombers when attacking a ship).

Just to make sure you're understanding Vine:

1 Critical HIT= 1 damage

1 HIT= 1 damage

squadrons to squadrons and ships to squadrons crits count as misses, unless it is vader.

I am confused where you are getting 3 blue crits= 6 damage and 1 black hit/crit= 3 damage?

All vaders ability does is allow him to make critical hits count as 1 damage when he attacks instead of 0 as all other squadrons do ( except bombers when attacking a ship).

I already said why we thought that. We didnt know squadrons ignored crit results by default, so the rules being worded as "add 1 damage to the pool and may resolve a crit effect" made us think that a crit did 2 damage for Bombers/Vader.

They could have worded it a lot better by saying "Benefits from Crit Icons, unlike normal squadrons" - which would have made me dig through the rules like that one card did about rerolling crits against squadrons wondering why the heck they would have that be a thing.

I now know squadron-related Crit effects are counted as a miss by default. Previously, i thought they simply couldnt cause a Crit Effect, but still did the damage.

No he's confused as to why you are counting each crit as 2 damage, as that is not how it works. Crit results, provided they are relevant to the target, add 1 damage to the damage pool, the same as hit results. They just also grant you access to other effects.

Right, and the confusion about the 2damage was because we always thought they simply didnt get to resolve a crit effect, but still did the damage. Which stacked the "add 1 damage" effect.

Doesnt matter anyway. The rules were horribly misread and have been corrected lol