I have a quick question regarding how damage is calculated in regards to critical effects such as Assault Concussion Missiles.

So let's say I roll a Gladiator side-arc of black and land 1 critical, 2 hits, and a miss.

Does that mean my opponent suffers 3 damage and the Black <crit>: Each hull zone adjacent to the defending hull zone suffers 1 damage from Assault Concussion Missiles?

or

Does that mean the crit is "removed" in order to resolve the effect of Assault Concussion Missiles?

Either translation is logical, but I would think it would be clear that in order to resolve a critical effect, that crit would have to be "removed" from the pool, thereby reducing the dice-damage done in order to trigger the standard critical effect.

No, you do not "spend" (remove it from the dice pool) a critical hit result when you choose to resolve the one critical effect you are allowed to resolve. So resolve the ACM and then resolve three damage from your crit and 2 hits.

You don't have to spend a die (so you wouldn't remove it) for resolving a critical effect.

So after the defender uses his defense tokens you begin resolving the damage and apply the critical first which in this case will be that the adjacent hull zones of the defending zone suffer 1 damage. THEN you apply the full damage that you rolled (including both hits and crits)

Let's assume no defense tokens were spent and there is nothing mitigating damage.

You have 4 damage (hit/crit is 2 plus 2 hits). The crit triggers ACM, which happens before damage is dealt from the attack. So you deal 1 damage to the adjacent hull zones. And then you deal 4 damage to the hull zone you attacked.

You do not spend a crit to trigger a crit effect, unless the card says to spend it. Flechette Torps says to spend a black crit icon, so you can compare the difference.

Let's say your opponent spent a brace and redirect. ACM goes off before either of those take effect. So you remove 2 shields, then brace to half (2 in this case) and then that 2 damage can be redirected. Good thing is the redirect effect is much weaker because you already took away some shields. Brace does not reduce the damage from ACM.

Does that mean the crit is "removed" in order to resolve the effect of Assault Concussion Missiles?

Either translation is logical, but I would think it would be clear that in order to resolve a critical effect, that crit would have to be "removed" from the pool, thereby reducing the dice-damage done in order to trigger the standard critical effect.

To quote the Rules (italic emphasis mine):

RRG, Page 4: "Critical Effects"

Critical Effects

A critical effect, denoted by the “CRIT:” header, can resolve if there is at least one CRIT icon in the attack pool.

• The attacker can resolve only one critical effect per attack.

• The attacker does not spend a die icon to resolve a critical effect unless the effect says otherwise.

• Critical effects resolve at the beginning of the “Resolve Damage” step of an attack.

• The standard critical effect is “CRIT: If the defender is dealt at least one damage card by this attack, deal the first damage card faceup.”

This straight up means that the CRIT: Header simply means "Have a Critical Icon Showing"... It does not mean "Spend a Critical Die"... Just have one.

At this point in time, we do not have any Critical Effects that require you to spend a Die... (Fletchette Torpedoes come close , but they're technically not a Critical effect, as they are working on Squadrons, and are a spend mechanic, in the Resolve Attack Effects, not Critical Effects)...

... SO you can imagine, with the Power of APTs and ACMs to deal damage without losing attack power... You better believe that the first critical to come out that does require you to spend a Critical Die will be an absolute monster of a Critical Effect ....

Does that mean the crit is "removed" in order to resolve the effect of Assault Concussion Missiles?

Either translation is logical, but I would think it would be clear that in order to resolve a critical effect, that crit would have to be "removed" from the pool, thereby reducing the dice-damage done in order to trigger the standard critical effect.

• The attacker does not spend a die icon to resolve a critical effect unless the effect says otherwise.

Yup, there it is. I must have missed it when I looked. My brain skips sometimes. Easy to do when you have a 3 month old howling while you're trying to read. I just wanted to verify my interpretation. Thank you all!

Last question,....in X-Wing, is a dice spent (removed) to resolve card effects?

Last question,....in X-Wing, is a dice spent (removed) to resolve card effects?

Kinda.

Its part of the applying damage, as far as I understand it.

Both Hits and Crits are 1 Damage... A Hit though is face down if it is on hull, and a crit is face up if it is on hull.

You have to apply hits first, then Crits.

And when you're cancelling dice (like, due to evading), you have to cancel Hits first...

And of course, no limit to amount of 'crit' per shot, basically... If you have 4 attack dice showing crit after evading, and no shields, you're taking 4 face ups.

I think that's where the confusion came from, then. My Armada opponent is an X-Wing main (or rather, most experienced) and it came up during our last engagement.

Critical effects work very differently in Armada and X-wing. The evade dice and evade tokens must cancel non-crits first, then any remaining hits/damage goes to shields and if no shields remain you receive damage cards. Criticals are applied last. Each damage card received from a critical result is dealt face-up. But the dice aren't really "spent" for this.

Armada allows only one critical effect per attack and it may not even be a damage card.

I don't know every X-wing card but I don't think X-wing has the same sort of "spend" mechanic with dice as Armada does with accuracy results and a few other effects. I also think the way accuracy results work contribute to confusion over critical effects.

Critical results are a big stumbling block for people moving from X-wing to Armada.

I've always been tempted by X-Wing but never pulled the trigger. When I saw Armada for the first time, I seriously considered it for a long, long while (probably 2 or 3 full waves), Just prior to Wave 5 (and after) I picked up two of nearly everything and don't regret 1 red cent. xD

When it came up, I figured it had something to do with X-Wing and rolled with it for the game just to progress play but thought I'd confirm my original interpretation of how card effects worked.

Yeah, I think thethe largest adjustment for me coming from X-Wing in the fashion of crit effects is that a ship only resolves a single crit effect (barring the Fire Control Team card) even if 5 of the 6 dice they just rolled show crits. All the ones after the first are effectively just hits.