This may seem silly but does something have to have the armor keyword in order for impact to take effect? I looked at pg 30 of the rrg and it only stipulates that it can modify during the modify attack dice step. So far I’ve only used it against armor but this would make impact really useful against cover and get around dodge tokens. Anyone have any idea?

If you read the keyword on the cards themselves it says it changes hits to crits when attacking enemies with armor. Thus it only affects the dice when used against armored units.

Remember it only applies after cover takes effect, so you can't modify regular rolls to go through cover.
Check the steps for that;

9 hours ago, Spideyfan629 said:

This may seem silly but does something have to have the armor keyword in order for impact to take effect? I looked at pg 30 of the rrg and it only stipulates that it can modify during the modify attack dice step. So far I’ve only used it against armor but this would make impact really useful against cover and get around dodge tokens. Anyone have any idea?

Order of dice manipulation:

1. Roll initial dice pool
2. Spend Aim (or anything else that allows re-rolls) to re-roll dice.
3. Convert surges
4. Apply dodge and cover (these dice are removed and are not subject to further modification)
5. Attacker modifies dice (Impact occurs here)
6. Defender modifies dice (Armor occurs here)
7. Defender rolls defense dice
8. Defender re-rolls defense dice
9. Convert surges on defense dice
10. Defender modifies defense dice
11. Attacker modifies defense dice
12. Compare dice
13. Apply damage and suppression.