In my meta, we're working to turn our newer players into stronger players. I find there's a lot to Armada and list-building sometimes trips people up, particularly upgrades. I find newer players can go crazy with the upgrades and they often don't synergize well and the result is a list bloated with non-ideal upgrades and ships that don't have a clear purpose. Conversely, sometimes newer player just... don't use any upgrades and then find themselves surprised by enemy ships that use their upgrades well. I would like to have a resource for newer players to familiarize themselves with the more commonly-used upgrades both for the purposes of building their own fleets as well as so they can have a better idea of what their opponents might be bringing. We will NOT directly be covering Commanders or Titles in this post, but everything else is fair game.
I also want to specify that there are some decent mid-tier cards (example: Flight Controllers, Heavy Turbolaser Turrets, Slaved Turrets on the Salvation, etc.) that won't be covered because I'm trying to be as succinct as I can (...and failing).
Defensive Retrofits
How do I get this card?:
- Assault Frigate MkII box
Good when:
- Your opponent is directing several moderate-to-high damage attacks against the same hull zone, you can use your opposing hull zone for "overflow shields." This is most frequently useful against a Demolisher triple-tap nowadays and can save your bacon by giving you an extra 2-4 ablative hit points.
- Also useful against Assault Concussion Missiles, as it allows you to use your opposing hull zone for normal Redirect usage while soaking the splash damage with your neighboring hull zones.
- Your ship has multiple Redirect tokens and a decent number of shields.
Bad when:
- Your opponent is using XI7 Turbolasers to render your Redirect tokens much less useful.
- Your opponent can generate enough accuracy results to lock down all of your Redirects.
Seen on:
- MC80s concerned about Demolisher triple-taps
- Less frequently on Assault Frigates and ISD-IIs.
- Rarely on MC30s without the Foresight title (which has a similar effect)
How do I get this card?:
- Armada core set
- CR90 blister
- Assault Frigate MkII box
Good when:
- You need to defend a crucial defense token (usually your Brace, but sometimes others).
- Your meta has a lot of blue dice ships and/or Home One is a regular feature in Rebel fleets.
- Your meta tends towards fewer stronger ships with correspondingly stronger (but fewer) attacks. Keeping your defense tokens free is very important in those circumstances.
Bad when:
- Your opponent is using Intel Officers on your crucial tokens anyways.
- Your opponent is not relying on Accuracy icons at all and is instead focusing on a raw-damage approach (like black dice small ship fleets)
- Your ship has duplicate defense tokens (like an MC30) and so doesn't really need the extra layer of defense.
Seen on:
- Imperial Star Destroyer-IIs, MC80 Cruisers, Assault Frigates.
Offensive Retrofits
How do I get this card?:
- Imperial Star Destroyer Box
- Home One box
Good when:
- You want to command aggressive bombers (like TIE Bombers, Y-Wings, B-Wings thrown around with Independence, Scurrgs) or fighters that want a longer leash (like A-Wings or TIE Interceptors).
- Your opponent's ships are playing hard to get and you need to keep issuing squadron commands at long range to chase them down with your bombers.
Bad when:
- You're running slower bombers or fighters running combat air patrol closer to your ships. If you never command squadrons at further out than medium range, you wasted this card.
Seen on:
- Carrier MC80 Cruisers (often Independence), Assault Frigates, Imperial-class Star Destroyers, and Victory-class Star Destroyers.
Support Teams
How do I get this card?:
- Nebulon-B blister
- Gladiator box
Good when:
- Its ship has a 2-click maneuver when it is going speed 1
- Its ship is naturally slow and would like the option to step on the gas when necessary
- Gaining rapidly on your foe or outpositioning him opens up offensive options or prevents strong attacks
- The ship its on doesn't lose effectiveness from Navigating by default, or has a means to generate additional Navigate tokens (Tarkin, Wulff, Raymus Antilles, Garm) for itself.
Bad when:
- You rarely Navigate and have no means of generating easy Navigate tokens.
- The extra speed and/or turning won't assist the ship in its role.
Seen on:
- Gladiator-class Star Destroyers (for the extra speed control and 2-click turn)
- MC80 Cruisers (for the extra burst of speed and 1 click of turning)
- Rarely on CR90s
Weapon Teams
How do I get this card?:
- MC30 Frigate box
- Raider blister
Good when:
- You're equipped with a decent number of black dice and expect to get use out of them.
- You're using ordnance upgrades that trigger on black crits and would like to more reliably.
Bad when:
- Your ship has no black dice!
Seen on:
- Raider-Is, Gladiator-class Star Destroyers, MC30 Frigates
- Rarely on Victory-I Star Destroyers and Imperial-I Star Destroyers
How do I get this card?:
- Core set
- Victory class Star Destroyer box
- Assault Frigate MkII box
Good when:
- You have a good arc (often for Imperials in the front and Rebels on the sides) and two different ships you'd like to shoot out of that arc. It helps if the arc is wide (like the front arc of a star destroyer) or easy to use (like the broadsides on an Assault Frigate).
- Also has some use for shooting one ship from an arc and then shooting squadrons out of the same arc.
- Your good arc has long-ranged dice (red preferred, blue encouraged) so you can hypothetically get some meaningful use out of it by having your choice of 2+ targets in it.
Bad when:
- You lack meaningful long range attacks.
- Your good arc is not easy to get 2+ ships in at once.
- You want to have Advanced Gunnery as an objective and use it on the ship in question (as the "cannot" on Gunnery Team trumps the "can" on Advanced Gunnery).
Seen on:
- Imperial Star Destroyer-IIs, Assault Frigates (particularly with Ackbar), Victory Star Destroyer-IIs
- Less frequently on ISD-Is and VSD-Is
- Sometimes on MC30 Scout Frigates in an Ackbar fleet (using them something like Assault Frigates)
Turbolasers
How do I get this card?:
- Nebulon-B blister
- 2016 Summer kit
Good when:
- You can regularly make attacks that do 5+ damage, thus making Redirects for more than 1 damage more appealing.
- You can get the defending ship to not use its Brace token, either due to rolling enough blue dice to reliably generate Accuracy results or due to Intel Officers.
- The enemy ship's defense token suite has 2 Redirect tokens.
Bad when:
- Your attacks don't do enough damage for the debuff to matter.
- You're attacking an enemy ship without a Redirect token (Raiders, Nebulon-Bs, flotillas once wave 3 is released) where it does nothing.
- You're attacking an enemy ship with Evade tokens at long range - your fickle red dice won't generally produce enough damage and the damage they do produce can be cut down by a well-used Evade.
Seen on:
- Imperial-class Star Destroyers (both), MC80 Cruisers (both), Assault Frigates (often with Ackbar), Victory-II Star Destroyers
- More rarely on Nebulon-B Frigates, MC30 Frigates (both), and Victory-I Star Destroyers, usually in combination with Intel Officers in those cases
How do I get this card?:
- MC30 Frigate box
Good when:
- Your ship uses red dice and has 2 Evade tokens, so it can spend up to 2 of them to use the Turbolaser Reroute effect.
- Your ship doesn't do enough damage to prefer XI7 Turbolasers but appreciates the damage spike from evening out your red dice rolls (...and then some).
Bad when:
- You only have one Evade token to spend, so deciding between using it as intended or spending it for TRCs can get to be somewhat stressful.
Seen on:
- CR90As and Scout MC30s
- Sometimes on Salvation Nebulon-Bs (it's this or Slaved Turrets, basically).
Ion Cannons
How do I get this card?:
- CR90 blister
- 2016 Spring kit
Good when:
- Your attack dice pool is large enough that you don't mind giving up a blue dice for a reroll
- Your attack dice pool is primarily dice that can come up blank (reds and blacks)
Bad when:
- You roll a low number of dice in the first place
- You are rolling mostly blues, which regularly turn out to do SOMETHING no matter which side is face up
Seen on:
- Imperial-class Star Destroyers, MC80 Cruisers
Ordnance
How do I get this card?:
- Gladiator-class Star Destroyer box
Good when:
- You want to improve your front battery (due to wanting to get in one super-strong attack or as part of a double-arc attack of front+side) but don't want to rely on black crit effects.
- You're using Intel Officer on the same ship.
Bad when:
- You're not confident about getting front arc short ranged attacks in.
- You would rather use a different cheaper ordnance upgrade.
Seen on:
- Gladiator-class Star Destroyers with Intel Officers (most infamously, the "clonisher" variant), Raider-Is.
- Sometimes MC30s Frigates that intend to double arc (as this brings the front arc up to a bit better than the side arc for two respectable wallops).
- Rarely on VSD-Is. I can't recommend this, myself.
How do I get this card?:
- MC30 Frigate box
Good when:
- Your ship is expecting to primarily go up versus smaller ships with lighter hull values.
- Your ship is using Engine Techs (as you can combine the straight-to-hull damage from this with the ramming hull damage).
- You want the cheapest black critical effect.
- When you get a double-arc attack in and crit on both attacks (adding two face up damage cards)
- You can control when you get black crits (with Screed).
- You can choose a juicy crit (with Dodonna).
Bad when:
- Your target is a heavier ship and a few hull damage isn't enough to meaningfully damage it.
- Your crit card draws don't go well.
- Not as good as Expanded Launchers when you only get one front arc
- Mixed with Assault Concussion Missiles. The two effects work very differently - APTs ideally work by disregarding at least some of the target's shields en route to making it dead. ACMs work by overheating the shields and just grinding the enemy ship to death. They work at cross purposes.
Seen on:
- Raider-Is, Gladiators, MC30s
- Rarely VSDs
How do I get this card?:
- Core set
- Victory-class Star Destroyer box
- Gladiator-class Star Destroyer box
Good when:
- You're going after larger prey that can take more of a pounding (this adds 2 damage per black crit rather than 1 from the APTs; those targets also tend to have Redirects and ACMs quickly decrease the benefit of Redirects by burning off side shields)
- When you get a double-arc attack off and can crit with both attacks on the same target (this adds FOUR total damage)
- Otherwise similar to the APTs for benefits.
Bad when:
- The target has Advanced Projectors to help live through a good attack run.
- Not as good against ships that lack Redirects because those side shields weren't going to help save the ship anyways.
- Otherwise similar to the APTs.
Seen on:
- Raider-Is, Gladiators, MC30s
- Rarely VSDs
Officers
How do I get this card?:
- Core set
Good when:
- You want to keep using a command token repeatedly, either to boost a command dial and/or to keep using a command-dependent upgrade (like Engine Techs, for example).
Bad when:
- You can't turn the continuously regurgitated token to good use. Wulff is expensive for an officer and you could've used some other officer instead.
Seen on:
- Gladiator-class Star Destroyers with Engine Techs, Carrier ISDs and VSDs that want to augment their squadron value by 1 more from turn to turn.
How do I get this card?:
- Raider blister
Good when:
- On a Gladiator that's going to be making an attack run at speed 3 (often the Demolisher)
- On a Raider that's going to be consistently going speed 3 or more as a "bunker" for your commander to hide in.
Bad when:
- You won't be going speed 3+ consistently.
- You expect to ram enemy ships (example: on a Gladiator with Engine Techs and APTs, it's very tempting to ram enemy ships)
Seen on:
- Raiders used as command bunkers
- Gladiators who want a bit more survivable.
How do I get this card?:
- Victory-class Star destroyer box
- Nebulon-B blister
Good when:
- Your ship tends to get a single powerful attack and you want to make it count.
- Your fleet has few activations and thus you're relying on taking out/ignoring defense tokens to make your attacks count.
- Your enemy is relying on Electronic Countermeasures to keep his Brace safe from Accuracy results.
- Combined with effects that increase damage on his ship.
- Combined with XI7 Turbolasers and targeting the Brace token.
Bad when:
- Used in combination with numerous Accuracy results, as your opponent (without ECMs) couldn't spend the defense tokens anyways.
- Used on ships with smaller, unaugmented attacks where the individual attacks aren't strong enough to make the defense token spend a hard choice.
Seen on:
- Star destroyers of all descriptions (Victories and Imperials), Gladiator-class Star Destroyers with Expanded Launchers, MC80 Cruisers.
- Sometimes on Assault Frigates in Ackbar fleets, Salvation Nebulon-Bs, and MC30 Frigates.
- Rarely on CR90As with Turbolaser Reroute Circuits.
How do I get this card?:
- Assault Frigate box
Good when:
- Used with individually strong Rebel squadrons like B-Wings, Scurggs, and character aces.
- Used on a carrier ship that will be activating those types of squadrons regularly.
- Used on an MC80 with the Independence title so you can activate a B-Wing, send it at speed 4, and then refresh it to bomb later on.
- Yavaris is in your fleet so you can triple-tap a squadron by activating it with Adar, refresh it, and then double-attack with it later.
Bad when:
- None of the "good when" are true. Adar Tallon is expensive and if you don't exploit his ability well he's wasted points.
Seen on:
- MC80s configured to be carriers, Assault Frigates configured to be carriers.
- Less frequently on Nebulon-B Escorts.
How do I get this card?:
- CR90 blister
Good when:
- You want to use a command dial one turn and then the token in the next, often to trigger a command-dependent upgrade (like Engine Techs).
- You want to combine the effects of a dial and token together (example: this can allow the Yavaris Nebulon-B to activate 2+1 squadrons using a Squarons command).
- You want to be able to throw out a free token with the Tantive IV CR90 title (bringing you up to a maximum of 2 per turn if you take the dial as a token as well).
Bad when:
- You can't take advantage of any of the "good when" to merit his cost.
Seen on:
- The Yavaris Nebulon-B, MC80s with Engine Techs, CR90s with the Tantive IV title.
- Less frequently on Salvation Nebulon-Bs for super-powered Concentrate Fires.
Congrats, you reached the end!
If you've got any thoughts on the list, things to be added, etc., please let me know. I was sorely tempted to include Flight Controllers, Heavy Turbolaser Turrets, Expanded Hangar Bays, etc., but I'm trying to keep the list as short as possible. I'm planning on pointing my new guys here and thought perhaps other new players could benefit from it as well.
Edited by Snipafist
I mean I didnt lay it out nicely like this....