Star Wars: Armada

Star Wars: Armada is a fleet-scale tabletop miniatures wargame developed by Fantasy Flight Games and set in the Star Wars universe; not to be confused with the other one.

In Armada, the fleets of the Rebellion and the Empire wage massive battles, with Star Destroyers and Mon Calamari capital ships trading fire while X-Wings and TIE Fighters engage in fierce dogfights. The game emphasizes forward planning, rewarding skilled positioning and ship commands chosen turns in advance, with an upgrade system that allows for an almost unlimited variety of list-building options.

Why Play Armada

Relevant information is presented clearly for both players to see at a glance.

Armada is a game of planning and foresight. Where other games focus on turn-to-turn tactics and responding to a shifting battlefield, Armada is a game where you set your strategy in motion, and then lean back and evaluate as it unfolds - for better or worse. Armada is a game of momentum, that challenges your grand designs rather than your snap decision-making. You're not a sergeant commanding a squad of infantry as they assault a bunker; you're Grand Admiral Thrawn, tapping your fingers on your armrest as Star Destroyers explode in anticipated sacrifices, while bombers draw the enemy deeper into a trap that may well be about to backfire.

Welcome to the Armada, Commander. The fleet is at your command.

Armada's ships come pre-painted and pre-assembled (although squadrons come in unpainted colored plastic), saving players less interested in the hobby side the need to model and paint, while still allowing those who want it the option to customize their models. Ships and squadrons come with all rules and tokens needed to use them, aside from the basic game rules available in the Core Set and as free PDFs on FFG's website, so there's no need to buy a giant rulebook or continually re-buy overpriced army books; and ships include dials, tokens, and counters, to make tracking game information such as ship health, speed, activation, upgrades, and the like quick and easy. The game is also well balanced - while some upgrades may be overcosted or have niche applications, and certainly some ships see the table more than others, every ship in Armada is viable and can be made to work with the right list.

The rules are straightforward and intuitive, but still allow for a great deal of complexity and depth. Inherited from its forefather X-Wing, Armada's player base brings a "fly casual" attitude to the table, focusing on fun and civility over nitpicking and tilting, even in tournament competitions.

As a disclaimer: note that the Core Set can be a rather poor and misleading representation of the full game - giving the inaccurate impression that Rebels are strictly fragile flankers with strong squadrons, while the Empire flies slow front-firing bricks supported by glass TIEs; and often ends in very lopsided games dependent solely on whether or not the VSD managed to line up a shot with its front arc. If possible, get someone with a complete collection to demo the game for you.

Star Wars X-Wing

Star Wars: X-Wing and Star Wars: Armada are completely different scales and rulesets, and while those familiar with X-Wing may notice many individual similarities, Armada is a very different game and in some instances the rules are the exact opposites of their X-Wing equivalents. While X-Wing is a tactical game of starfighter combat between small squadrons of fighters, Armada is a strategical game of fleet combat between capital ships escorted by half a dozen or more squadrons of fighters. If X-Wing draws inspiration from World War 2 dogfighting and allows you to re-enact scenes such as the Death Star trench run, Armada is inspired by WW2 carrier fleets and can simulate the entire Battle of Scarif. If you want to command the full might of an Imperial Star Destroyer and throw a baker's dozen squadrons of TIE Fighters at all of your problems, you're in the right place.

Cost

Compared to some other tabletop strategy games, Armada has a relatively low entry cost and upkeep requirement. That said, Armada's price is largely front-loaded, especially compared to X-Wing, with the Core Set required to play the game running $100 MSRP, yet providing less than half a full fleet for each faction and the necessary components being impossible to split between two new players to share the cost.

However, once that sticker shock fades off, the good news is that beyond the initial purchase staying up to date with new releases is very inexpensive. With one to two waves per year, and typically one ship per faction per wave, upkeep costs can be as low as $20-$30 once every six months. Unlike X-Wing, it is typically uncommon to need more than two of any ship, and as often as not there's limited need to buy more than one. Furthermore, only a small handful of upgrades are found only in one faction's boxes, so a player who only purchases mono-faction won't be significantly hindered. Eventually, many of those upgrades end up as alt-arts, making them plentiful and cheap to buy or easy to borrow.

As for going from the Core Set to a full 400 points, it'll depend on which faction you want to play and what sort of fleet grabs your interest, but will likely run you around an additional $120. Obviously, if you can grab anything below MSRP - either from a local retailer selling at a discount or buying ships second hand - then that price will begin to fall dramatically. Sample Imperial and Rebel cheap starter fleets for $250 or less (including the $100 Core Set) can be found here, if your own Google-fu fails you. Get imperials if you like pizza slices and Doritos, Rebels if you want the option to proxy potatoes and pickles as ships.

Gameplay

Two Victories and an Interdictor flanked by an MC80 Liberty, Nebulon-B, and MC30 Frigate.

The game is played on a standard 6'x4' table, with 6'x3' dedicated to gameplay and the remaining six inches per side for cards and tokens.

The first player activates a ship, and then reveals a command dial set in secret often several turns in advance. If it's a squadron command, the ship activates a number of nearby squadrons which can then engage enemy fighters or make a bombing run on an enemy ship. Then the ship fires if any targets are in range, and then after shooting, moves - making positioning a game of cat-and-mouse as you try to predict where your opponent will be, rather than being able to shoot at where he is now. Huge ships can also choose to pass, delaying their activation until later in the turn.

Ships attack with one or more of three colors of dice, each with a different combination of results and a different range, making up to two attacks a turn; with each of the ship's four firing arcs potentially having different numbers and colors of dice. The new category of Huge ships is an exception, with six firing arcs (the basic four, and the new left-auxiliary and right-auxiliary) which can make three attacks per turn.

While defending, ships have a variety of defense tokens that can be spent to reduce or redirect the incoming damage, with the remaining damage reducing their shields or damaging their hull. Ships move using a maneuver tool that restricts turning based on the given ship's maneuverability and current speed, creating a feeling of momentum and further rewarding skilled positioning and spatial planning.

Squadrons - representing groups of X-Wings, TIE Bombers, or aces like Tycho Celchu or Boba Fett - zoom forward, engaging in dogfights or bombing enemy ships. Squadrons can only make attacks at range 1, regardless of dice color. In addition, squadrons can only move or shoot (not both) unless activated by a squadron command. On the other hand, squadrons can move in any direction and any distance up to their maximum speed, and can do their movement and their attack in either order, giving them great flexibility. If two opposing squadrons move into range 1 of each other they become engaged, meaning they are locked in a dogfight, unable to attack ships or move. Capital ships and squadrons both have separate attack profiles for attacking squadrons or attacking ships. Like ships, squadron aces gain defense tokens of their own to reflect their superior piloting or uniquely modified starfighter.

Activations alternate, with the first player activating one ship, then the second player, until both have no unactivated ships; then players begin activating any squadrons that weren't already activated by a squadron command, with first player activating two squadrons, then second player activating two, and so on.

Rules Summary

Each round is divided into a number of phases.

Command Phase

• Both players set a stack of command dials for their ships in secret, with each ship having a number of command dials equal to its command value. A ship's top command is revealed at the beginning of its activation, and new commands are placed on the bottom of the stack; meaning that ships with Command 2 or 3 require planning well in advance. However, even Command 1 ships have to account for the actions of any other ships that may activate before they do in the turn. Instead of providing the command's normal effect, you can gain a command token of the same type, which offers a lesser version of the ability but can be saved for a later turn. Each ship is limited to no more than one command token per type, and no more total command tokens than its command value. A ship can spend a command token while taking the effect of the same command from a dial, to augment the effect - for example, spending a token while using a navigate command to change speed by 2, or a squadron 3 ship spending a squadron dial and token to command 4 squadrons.
  • Navigate - When your ship executes a maneuver, it can make one additional click to the maneuver tool over what its ship card allows, and can also raise or lower its speed by one. Navigate tokens can be spent to change speed by one. Note that these are normally the only ways to change your ship's speed.
  • Squadron - You may activate a number of squadrons at close-medium range equal to your squadron value, which can then move and shoot in any order. In addition to bypassing the normal restriction that squadrons can only move or shoot, this allows you to activate them earlier in the turn for an alpha strike. A Squadron token can be spent to activate exactly one squadron, regardless of ship. Squadrons can only attack at range 1 - regardless of the color of their dice or the target - and if opposing squadrons enter range 1 of each other, they are "engaged" - unable to move or make attacks targeting ships.
  • Repair - Your ship gains a number of engineering points equal to its engineering value; spend one to move a shield from one hull zone to another, two to regain a shield, or three to discard a damage card (regaining one hull); taking each option multiple times if desired. Engineering tokens provide half your engineering value, rounding up.
  • Concentrate Fire - Add one die of a color already in the attack pool to one of your attacks. Concentrate Fire tokens instead allow you to re-roll one die. If using both in the same turn, they must both be used on the same attack.

Ship Phase

• The player with initiative chooses a ship to active, revealing its top command dial. You immediately must choose to either convert it into a token for later, or to use it that turn - if applicable (squadron or engineering), resolving it then. The ship can then make one attack each from up to two of its hull zones, declaring an attacking hull zone, the target, and the target hull zone if targeting a ship. Then the ship must execute a maneuver, after which the other player activates one of their ships. Players continue activating ships back and forth until all ships have activated.

Attacking

It's less complicated in practice than it sounds.

• The ship can then make one attack each from up to two of its hull zones, declaring an attacking hull zone, the target, and the target hull zone (if targeting a ship).
  • First, determine arc of fire, following the lines printed on the ship's cardboard as if they extended out (a laser line tool is useful for this).
  • Then measure range, from the closest cardboard on the attacker to the closest cardboard of the defender, using the range ruler. The attack can only consist of dice that match the distance of the target.
  • Finally, check line of sight, from the yellow diamond on the attacking hull zone to the yellow diamond on the defending hull zone (or the closest cardboard, of a squadron). If line of sight passes over a ship or obstacle, the attack is obstructed, and you must remove one die from your initial pool. If line of sight passes through one of the targets hull zone lines, then you cannot attack that hull zone at all - another hull zone is in the way!
  • Then, to attack, you first roll the initial dice pool - the dice printed on your card, plus any added by effects that modify your "battery armament", such as Expanded Armaments. If this would be no dice - either because the target was out of range of your dice, or because obstruction removed all your dice, then you cannot attack - the target is too far! When firing against squadrons, your ship does not use its hull zone's normal dice, but instead uses its AA value (which is the same for all hull zones). This still counts as firing from a particular arc for that turn, but unlike shooting at a ship, you roll your AA dice as a separate attack against every enemy squadron within arc and range.
  • After the initial dice are rolled, the attacker resolves any effects that take effect "while attacking", such as adding a die via a Concentrate Fire dial or Admiral Ackbar, or re-rolling dice using Leading Shots. The attacker can spend any Accuracy icons to lock down the opponents defense tokens. (Note - attacker can do these in any order, such as spending Accuracy icons before re-rolling the pool using Veteran Gunners, potentially then spending new Accuracy icons).
  • After the attacker is done modifying the dice pool, the target gets to spend any defense tokens not targeted by accuracies to mitigate the damage - flipping green tokens to red (exhausted), or discarding exhausted tokens altogether. Tokens unexhaust at the end of every round - but discarded tokens are gone for the rest of the game!
  • After defense tokens are spent, but before any damage is taken, the attacker has the opportunity to resolve a critical effect. To do so, there must be at least one critical hit in the pool. The crit die is not removed from the pool, and having multiple crits doesn't enable multiple critical effects - only one critical effect can be resolved per attack, regardless of the number of critical hits rolled. All ships (and squadrons with Bomber) have the same critical effect by default - "if the defender is dealt at least one damage card by this attack, deal the first damage card faceup" - with others available via upgrade cards or squadron ace abilities.
  • Finally, the defender suffers any damage, one point at a time, either onto the shields or as damage cards onto the hull.

• Both ships and squadrons can possess defense tokens. The defender can only spend one of a given type of defense token per attack, and a specific defense token may only be spent once per attack.
  • Brace - Halve the damage in the damage pool, rounding up.
  • Redirect - You may take some (or all) of the damage on an adjacent hull zone, up to that hull zone's remaining shield value.
  • Evade - If the attack is at long range, cancel one die. If at medium range, force a re-roll on one die instead. No effect at close range. Note the timing - if an evade removes the only crit from the pool, then the attacker cannot resolve a critical effect.
  • Scatter - Cancel all attack dice. As with evade, this prevents the attacker from resolving a critical effect.
  • Contain - The attacker cannot resolve the default critical effect.

• Like most of the other FFG Star Wars games, the system comes with its own unique dice. In Armada, the dice faces feature:
  • Blank - a miss.
  • Hit - add a point of damage to the damage pool.
  • Accuracy - the attacker gets to prevent the defender from using one of their defense tokens. Multiple accuracies can lock down multiple defense tokens.
  • Critical Hit - add a point of damage to the damage pool, and allow the attacker to resolve a critical effect. Note that unless otherwise stated, only ships and bombers can score critical hits, and only onto ships - otherwise it offers no effect and doesn't add any damage.

• There are three colors of dice - all three are D8s, but each features a different combination of faces and have a different range:
  • Black dice (ordnance) have the shortest range and are the most deadly, with four hits, two faces with a hit and a crit, and two blanks.
  • Blue dice (ion cannons) are medium ranged and are the most accurate, with four hits, two crits, two accuracies, and no blanks.
  • Red dice (turbolasers) have the longest range but are the most variable, with two hits, one double hit, two crits, one accuracy, and two blanks.
• Damage is taken first onto any shields, and then onto the hull. Normal damage is taken as face-down cards drawn from a damage deck, but some effects - including the default critical effect - cause face-up cards. Face-up damage cards carry a negative effect that persists until indicated by the card, or until the card is repaired by the player. Once a ship has a number of face-up and face-down damage cards equal to its hull value, it's destroyed.

Determine Course

At speed 3, a Nebulon B can make at most 0, 1, and then 2 clicks of the maneuver tool.

• After attacks have been resolved, the ship executes a maneuver. If the ship has a Navigate dial, or spends a Navigate token, it may change its speed by 1. Place the maneuver tool beside the ship, rotating the yaw at various distances, up to your current speed, based upon the yaw values in your ship's maneuver chart. Note that you can only pre-measure with the maneuver tool during this step! You cannot execute a maneuver that would cause you to overlap the maneuver tool (except if caused by a ram). Once you've made your decision, slot the maneuver tool into the ship's base - at that point, your decision becomes final, and you must execute it. Place your ship's base into the maneuver tool at the corresponding speed - if your maneuver would cause your ship to overlap another, it moves back to the previous notch and both ships take a face-down damage card (if it would still overlap at the previous notch, it continues to back up, potentially such that it doesn't move at all - and only the closest of any overlapped ships receives damage). If the ship overlaps friendly or enemy squadrons, the opposing player places them anywhere in base contact with the ship. Finally, if any part of the ship's base - excluding shield dials - is outside of the play area, that ship is immediately destroyed.

Squadron Phase

• Any squadrons that were not already activated by squadron commands activate, but by default they can only move or attack. The first player activates two squadrons, then second player, until all squadrons have activated. Squadrons can only attack at range 1 regardless of the dice in their pool, and can move up to their maximum speed in any direction.

Status Phase

• Basically a clean-up stage - you reset your ships' and squadrons' exhausted (but not discarded!) defense tokens, unexhaust any upgrade cards, and resolve any upgrade effects with this timing (eg, dead ships kept alive by Rieekan).

Fleet Building

Every fleet must have exactly one "flagship" - a ship equipped with your Commander, a unique character leading your fleet and granting a fleet-wide effect. Any ship other than a Flotilla can serve as your flagship.

Each ship can equip one Title upgrade (for example, turning a generic MC80 into Admiral Ackbar's Home One) and/or your Commander, plus a variety of other upgrades depending on the upgrade icons on its ship card. You can equip no upgrades, or as many as you have slots, and you can take as few or as many ships as you want (to a minimum of one, your flagship). There are at least two variants of each ship model, with different point costs, dice, Squadron values, or upgrade slots. Unique cards, usually characters like Darth Vader but sometimes upgrades like the Interdictor's Grav-Shift Reroute, are indicated by a dot next to their name and can only be taken once per fleet - so you can't have Darth Vader as your Commander and field Darth Vader's TIE Advanced at the same time, or field both Officer and Commander Leia. The same upgrade can't be taken more than once on the same ship, and a ship can have at most one upgrade with the "Modification" keyword.

You cannot spend more than a third of the match's point limit on squadrons, rounding up - for most games, played at 400 points, this means you can take at most 134 points worth of squadrons. You can take none, or up to your squadrons point cap; taking multiple generic squadrons and/or unique aces - such as a "Red Squadron" wing of Wedge Antilles/Luke Skywalker/Biggs Darklighter, or simply 8 groups of TIE Fighters.

Finally, every fleet has to select one each from three types, of objectives - Assault, Defense, and Navigation. Every game is played using one of the players' chosen objectives. During setup, the player with the lower points value chooses who goes first, giving incentive to "bidding" by intentionally taking fewer than max points to try and guarantee being first (or second) player. First player always activates first in the ship and squadron phases, granting a significant advantage. To counteract this, the first player has to choose one of the second player's three objectives to play that game, with most objectives granting the second player a large advantage - but moreover, giving second player the ability to bring objectives uniquely suited to his list.

Campaign Expansions

The Corellian Conflict

The Corellian Conflict introduces a 2-6 player campaign set in the Corellian Sector. Splitting into Rebel and Imperial teams, the players battle for control over planets and resources on a sector map, building up to 500 point fleets while their ships and characters become skilled veterans, or battle-damaged junkers. New mechanics allow for players to retreat to hyperspace rather than wage a losing battle that may have their ships (and their upgrades, titles, etc.) permanently destroyed, or emerge from hyperspace to reinforce their allies during the campaign's ultimate, 1000 point all-out battle. As each team is limited to one of each unique across all of their fleets, and makes their offensive and defensive decisions as a group, each player can opt to specialize their fleet in a certain type of task, or take on the harder battles while weakened fleets repair and rearm.

In addition to the campaign components, the Corellian Conflict also introduces new material for standard Armada games. Four new Objectives per type (as well as a new Dust Field Obstacle that blocks all attacks) increase your list building options, as well as the variety of lists you must be prepared to counter; and each of the squadron types in the Rebel and Imperial Squadrons 1 boxes get two new unique squadron cards/bases - one new ace, and one new unique that lacks defense tokens but brings new options to the table - for a total of 16 new squadrons.

Upgrades

Commanders

Your Commander is one of the most important upgrades in your fleet, granting game-changing abilities. Every fleet must have exactly one Commander, equipped to any one of its non-flotilla ships.

Imperial Commanders

• Grand Moff Tarkin - At the start of each ship phase, pick a Command and every ship in your fleet gets a matching command token. While powerful, and flexible from turn to turn, the limitation that every ship in your fleet take the same token and his high price leave him overshined by cheaper alternatives.
• Darth Vader (Commander) - While attacking, you can spend one defense token to reroll as many attack dice as you like. Useful on ships that lack another way to reroll their dice, like Arquitens or Cymoons.
• Grand Admiral Thrawn - After deployment, set 3 command dials on Thrawn's card. Before each ship phase, you can reveal and discard any one of those dials, and every ship in your fleet gains the effect of that dial during their activation, in addition to their own normal command dial. Your whole fleet can repair while navigating, or push squadrons while concentrating fire. Thrawn's extra dials don't stack with the same type (no, you can't have two Concentrate Fire dials), so take care not to set redundant commands and waste the ability. But, if you set the right dials in advance, and time their use properly, the Grand Admiral can add tremendous flexibility and versatility to almost any fleet archetype.
• Admiral Screed - Once per activation, your ships can remove one die from their attack pool to change another to a die with a crit face. Situational, because if you've already rolled a crit in the pool there is no point adding another unless you also rolled two or more misses; but with black dice's hit/crit faces and black crit effects, can be a fleet-wide substitute to Ordnance Experts.
• General Tagge - At the start of rounds 3 and 5, each of your ships can recover one discarded defense token. Because it's rare to have already lost many defense tokens by the end of round 2, and one side or the other are usually pretty dead by round 5, Tagge is usually regarded as one of, if not the, worst commanders in the game. Just take Motti instead.
• Admiral Sloane - Non-rogue squadrons may spend an accuracy icon while attacking, to spend one of the defender's defense tokens. The defender can't then spend that token again for its effect, so Sloane gives you super-accuracies, allowing you to burn enemy ace or capital ship defenses. And speaking of, Sloane also grants non-rogue squadrons the ability to reroll crits against ships - so you can take nothing but TIE Fighters and Interceptors, wipe out the enemy's aces, and mulch enemy capital ships all without relying on a single TIE Bomber or filthy mercenary. Because single blue dice don't do a whole of damage to ships even with rerolls and burnt defense (and TIEs die to flak pretty quickly), Sloane is best when you pair TIE swarms with heavy-hitting ships to follow up. In other words, Sloane is why you play the Empire - block out the sun with TIEs while Star Destroyers smash everything in their way.
• Admiral Motti - Small ships gain 1 hull, medium ships gain 2 hull, large ships gain 3 hull. There's nothing like a 14 hull ISD, and for just 24 points giving your small ships 20-25% more hull can make a bigger difference than you'd think. Naturally scales better the more points you spend on ships, and the fewer you spend on upgrades and squadrons, and tends to compete with Jerjerrod as the "go-to" Imperial commander.
• Admiral Konstantine - During the Status Phase (reminder - that's at the end of the round, before commands are set next round), for every enemy ship at distance 5 of two of your medium or larger ships, you may change its speed by 1 (to a minimum of 1 / maximum of its normal max speed). Getting an enemy within range 5 of two medium+ ships is tough (and costs a lot of points), changing their speed by 1 isn't usually game changing, and as often as not they were going to die anyways (did being speed 2 rather than 3 really affect that CR90 about to get shot by twin ISDs?), so making the most of Konstantine can be tough. "Speed control" as an archetype is generally weak, and while with the Chimaera and Quasar the Empire has more medium+ ships to throw around than ever, it's hard to justify the opportunity cost of the other commander you could have taken instead.
• Moff Jerjerrod - Your ship can suffer one damage to treat the first yaw of its current speed as 2 until the end of its activation. As it just says "damage", you can suffer it on any hullzone of your choosing - many players make the mistake of thinking it goes straight to hull, when it does not; which means Jerjerrod can have your ships turning on a dime at a relatively minor cost. One damage to shields sucks, but not being able to turn hard enough to get a shot off, or to avoid an obstacle or incoming shot, hurts worse. Just be careful not to overdo it - using JJ every turn on every ship is a pretty easy way to have all your ships horribly explode.
• Admiral Ozzel - The cheapest Imperial commander, befitting a man whose career ended being telekinetically strangled on his own flag bridge. When you resolve a Navigate command, you can change speed by an additional 1. Yes, that means a Navigate dial+token can change your speed by 3 - pounce the enemy, slow roll them while you trade fire, then speed up and zoom off into safety. Combine with an Entrapment Formation ISD for maximum unpredictability.
• Emperor Palpatine- The Emperor has a staggering cost of 35 points, but his ability is worth every one of them. When the fleets deploy, he gains one defense token of each type, and before any ships activate in a round he can discard one of them. If he does so, all enemy ships and squadrons trying to use that defense token that round must discard that token type instead of exhausting it. Used correctly, this can force an opponent into a no-win situation where they can either let their ships be destroyed or buy them a chance at survival at the expense of being unable to do so a second time.

Officers

• Intel Officer - Exhaust after rolling your initial dice pool (but before resolving any effects, like Concentrate Fire) pick a defense token, and your opponent has to discard it if they use. Great on heavy hitters, especially those only making one attack per round anyways.
• Navigation Officer/Tactical Expert/Engineering Captain/Wing Commander - Your command can always be this command. Pricey and in a valuable slot, but the ability to always have a certain command if you suddenly need it (eg, Navigate on a Madine Liberty) can give you the freedom to crank out other Commands, rather than dialing in commands you end up not needing.
• Damage Control Officer - Upgrades your contain token to prevent all critical effects. Meta dependent, but useful if you expect lots of APTs or the like.
• Support Officer Discard your entire command stack and reset it. Only useful on Command 3 ships (otherwise, use Skilled First Officer instead), but allows them to change their commands if things are not going according to keikaku, or a Slicer Tools/Cham Syndulla has "altered" your plan.
• Strategic Adviser -
• Defense Liaison/Weapons Liaison - Discard a command token, and your command can always be one of these two commands. Similar to the above options, cheaper in points and more flexible, but pricier in conditions (requires a token). As above, you can dial in the same command over and over while resting easy you can switch out if needed.
• Veteran Captain - Discard to gain a command token. Cheap and useful in a pinch, but Hondo is cheaper still, and while he benefits the enemy too, he doesn't have to use up the Officer slot of the ship you need a token on.
• Flight Commander - Your squadron command can resolve after moving, rather than immediately after revealing your dial. Primarily useful with Fighter Coordination Team.
• Hondo Ohnaka - A unique but not faction-locked officer, Hondo can be discarded to give two ships two different command tokens. Then, your opponent chooses two ships and assigns them the remaining two tokens. A double-edged sword, but first pick of tokens and control of exactly when he's used grant you the edge if you utilize his effect well - such as when your opponent has only one ship left and has to give you the fourth token.
• Chart Officer - Discard to ignore the effects of landing on an obstacle. Cheap insurance for a ship that doesn't have the hull to afford eating a damage card, like the MC30; or for pairing with an objective like Navigational Hazards.
• Skilled First Officer - Discard to discard your top Command dial. Useful on Command 3 ships, and allows Command 2 ships to overwrite their entire stack (you discard your top Command dial before reassigning the one used in the previous turn). A fantastic card for a single point, the main reason it's not used more is its exclusivity to the Liberty expansion - nobody wants to buy 4 Liberties just to run a Gladiator MSU fleet.

Imperial Officers

• Admiral Chiraneau - Engaged squadrons you activate can move, but treat their speed as 2. At ten points, you are usually better off just bringing a Jumpmaster, but Chiraneau allows you to move squadrons on the edge of a ball that a Jumpmaster couldn't cover (because it would mean moving away from a squadron on another edge), or to allow a small sceen's power squadron (cough Mauler cough) to go hard without easily giving up a Jumpmaster's points to larger fighter wings.
• Commandant Aresko - When another friendly ship reveals a command, exhaust to gain a matching token. Like a reverse Comms Net, but not limited to flotillas, and doesn't use up the dial.
• Instructor Goran
• Governor Pryce - Medium or large ship can choose a round in advance, and must activate last that turn. You can get a devastating last/first off with your ISD or Quasar alpha strike, and by spending just 7 points rather than taking 80 points of Gozantis - but your opponent gets to see your plan and react, potentially causing your plan to backfire as your opponent's ship lands safely in front of you, knowing you can't activate until after it does next round.
• Wulff Yularen - Exhaust to regain a spent Command token. The Imperial Raymus, sacrificing the Rebel's flexibility for reliability - one Navigate taken as a token turn 1, can be used every turn for the rest of the game while you dial in other commands.
• Admiral Montferrat - Likes to go fast. So long as the ship he's on is traveling at speed 3 or higher, attacks against it are obstructed. Dies if the ship crashes into anything, though.
• Captain Brunson -
• The Grand Inquisitor - Exhaust when an enemy ship at distance 5 changes speed, and you can too. Useful on a ship that wants to stick to its target like glue, or is too busy with other Commands to dial in Navigates.
• Agent Kallus - While attacking a unique Squadron, add another die of any color (that means black, unless you need an accuracy). Take him on a Raider 1 and double arc a pesky ace to throw 6 black dice at it.
• Director Isard - When your ship reveals it's command, you get to look through the command stack of any enemy ship. Useful when your plan changes depending on the commands your opponent has set - does he have an Engineering, or can I rely on a ram later to finish his 1 hp? Can I block him in, or does he have a Navigate to change speed? - but the hidden element of Command dials is much less relevant than, say, their X-Wing counterparts.
• Captain Needa - At the start of the game, swap any defense token for an Evade. Useful on ships with a Contain they don't expect to get much use from, or a ship that wants to take Turbolaser Reroute Circuits.
• Admiral Titus - At the start of the game, change one enemy ship's speed by 1. Given the popularity of turn one Navigate commands, most enemy fleets just shrug him off anyways.
• Minister Tua - Gain a defensive slot, but not if you're a medium/large ship that already has one. Useful for slapping ECMs on a vital ship.

Weapons Team

• Gunnery Team - You get to shoot twice with one arc, but can't target the same ship or squadron twice. Note that if you take Advanced Gunnery, Gunnery Teams "can not" overrides Advanced Gunnery's "can" on shooting the same target twice.
• Flight Controllers - Squadrons you command get an extra blue die in their anti-squadron roll. Another good reason to keep your carrier close to the dogfight. Pairs well with the Empire's generally higher Squadron values, and makes for frighteningly lethal alpha strikes.
• Sensor Team - Exhaust and spend one die to turn another die into an accuracy. Makes for a discount H9 Turbolasers if you don't need the slot for anything else, but you usually do.
• Veteran Gunners - Exhaust to reroll your entire attack pool. Black dice ships prefer Ordnance Experts, and red dice ships usually want Gunnery Teams, but it's a source of dice-fixing at a low price.
• Ordnance Experts - Reroll any number of black dice. Fantastic for anything throwing more than 1 or 2 black dice, or a ship that wants a crit to proc APTs or ACMs.
• Ruthless Strategists - While attacking squadrons, you can take a damage on a friendly squadron to deal an (unblockable) damage to an enemy squadron. Great way to deal with pesky scatter aces, especially if you've got high hull squadrons like VCX-100s or Decimators around.
• Fire Control Team - Exhaust to resolve an additional critical effect, but not the same one twice. Note the way that the default critical effect, APTs, and XX-9s are worded, you can't stack them with the default critical effect (and if stacked with each other, you don't get 3 crits, only 2). Still, resolving ACMs and XX-9s, or some combination of the various blue crit effects, can be very fun - but while the upgrade is cheap, it's on top of paying for both crits, and most ships with a Weapons Team want to take something else besides.

Rebel Weapons Team

• Caitken and Shollan - Six point, unique, exhausting Ordnance Expert, that works for any color of dice. Ackbar Assault Frigates can take the twins to remedy their lack of access to Leading Shots, or MC75s/MC30s can use them to alternate between long and close ranged attacks.

Offensive Retrofit

• Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams - Force a ship of equal or smaller size to toss a Navigate token, or slow them down by 1 (to minimum of 1) if they have none.
• Rapid Launch Bays - Load a number of squadrons up to your Squadron value into your ship, and then deploy them at range 1 with a Squadron command. You can then resolve that Squadron dial as normal, but if used to activate the Squadrons you just deployed, they can't move this turn. Drop in the face of a big ship coming to bully you, or use a second carrier to send the deployed squadrons off into the fight.
• Hardened Bulkheads -
• Point Defense Reroute - Reroll crits when shooting at squadrons at close range. Worthless on ships with black flak, but doesn't benefit from the extra range of blue flak. Rebels should just take Toryn Farr, but it can add a bit of damage to blue dice flak coverage if you've cheaped out on taking squadrons.
• Expanded Hangar Bay - Increases your Squadron value by 1. Cheaper than taking another flotilla if points are tight, or you've got upgrades that make your activated squadrons better.
• Quad Laser Turret - Your ship gets Counter 1 at close range. Can make a target less appealing if you've got enough overlapping flak coverage that the potential extra 1 damage matters, but taking fighter squadrons is usually the more cost effective defense unless you've got a good reason not to.
• Boosted Comms - Command squadrons at long range. Useful for ships that are fragile enough they need to keep some distance from the brawl, or for fast squadrons that want to pounce and alpha strike the enemy.
• Disposable Capacitors - For one round, a small or medium ship can throw its blue dice at red range. Huge boon to VSDs, giving them the ability to potentially one-shot two different small ships (with Gunnery Teams) who thought themselves relatively safe at long range with their evades, and somewhat ameliorating their slow speed.

Boarding Teams

A specific type of upgrade that uses both an Offensive Retrofit and a Weapon Team slot, and requires you to discard a Squadron dial/token and the upgrade, while at close range of an enemy ship, to trigger.

• Boarding Troopers - Select a number of defense tokens up to your Squadron value, and exhaust them. Slap on an ISD with Avenger to one-shot almost any ship in the game.
• Boarding Engineers - Select a number of facedown damage cards up to your Engineering value, and flip them face-up (one at a time).

Rebel Boarding Teams

• Cham Syndulla - Slicer Tools, except for a ship's entire command stack. Activate first, and now that Flight Controllers ISD that was expecting to push 5 squadrons per turn has to Engineer for the rest of the game. Slap it on a cheap External Racks Hammerhead for some spike damage, and continue laughing even while the enemy blows it up afterwards, knowing its work is done.
• Jyn Erso - Give a ship two raid tokens - preventing it from resolving two commands of your choice - and additionally, gaining a victory token if that ship has an objective token on it. While the latter effect only matters in Blockade Run (nice) and Capture the VIP (incredibly strong); Jyn allows you to shut down a carrier or prevent an ISD from navigating or repairing.

Imperial Boarding Teams

• Darth Vader - Discard an enemy upgrade card (other than their Commander). Yavaris bringing you down? Raymus Antilles + Engine Techs making that MC80 a bit too fast for your liking? Send Vader off on a Raider Express Rocket to file that title clean off, chuck an officer out an airlock, or "disappear" an entire Gunnery Team.

Support Team

• Engine Techs - If you resolved a Navigate command this round, you can execute a speed 1 maneuver after your normal maneuver. Great on slower ships, ships with good yaw at speed 1, and any ship that wants the extra flexibility - or just to ram something twice.
• Projection Experts: - Spend up to two engineering points to shunt that many shields to a friendly ship. Useful on high-engineering ships that can then regenerate back the shields they sent off.
• Engineering Team - Gain one extra engineering point. Pricey at five points, and only useful for moving a shield around unless you have an odd Engineering score.
• Nav Team: - Your Navigate tokens can be used to increase yaw instead of change speed. Useful for a bit extra yaw if you have tokens lying around, stacks with Ozzel (but not Madine).
• Fighter Coordination Team - After your maneuver, you can drag a number of unengaged squadrons up to your Squadron value distance 1. More useful on otherwise slow squadrons, like B-wings, and/or with Yavaris - there's no rule that they can't end the move engaged.
• Medical Team - Discard before taking a "crew" faceup damage card to discard it. That's around half the deck - worth it? Probably not.

Fleet Command

Powerful, unique upgrades that enhance your entire fleet. All require you to discard either a corresponding Command token or the upgrade itself at the start of the ship phase. Found on the Pelta, the Cymoon 1 Refit, the Chimaera title, and three of the Super Star Destroyer variants. The effects persist until the end of the round, even if the ship carrying the upgrade is destroyed.

• All Fighters, Follow Me! - Squadron token; every squadron activated by a ship increases its speed by 1 (to a maximum of 5).
• Entrapment Formation! - Navigate token; during their Determine Course step, your ships may change speed by 1.
• Shields to Maximum! - Engineering token; before revealing their command dial, your ships may regain 1 shield.
• Intensify Firepower! - Concentrate Fire token; while attacking another ship, your ships may change 1 die to a face showing 1 hit icon (and nothing else).

Defensive Retrofit

• Redundant Shields - Regenerate one shield per turn. Eight points for (probably) 3-4 turns worth of spent Engineering tokens, in a (usually) valuable slot.
• Early Warning System -
• Electronic Countermeasures - Exhaust to spend one defense token targeted by an accuracy. Extremely valuable on ships with a single brace token.
• Advanced Projectors - Your redirects can put damage on as many hull zones as you like. Hard-countered by XI7s, but useful on ships with balanced shields in a meta without XI7s.
• Cluster Bombs - Discard for four dice against an enemy squadron that attacks you, bypassing their defense tokens (and Biggs, etc). For an average 3 damage, not worth it unless you have other means of piling on flak damage (Quad Laser Turrets, etc), and dubious even then.
• Reinforced Blast Doors - At the start of the ship phase, discard up to 3 facedown damage cards. Three extra health on an MC80 or ISD is amazing, but smaller ships like CR90s can have trouble not going from 3/4 hull to 0 in a single turn - although even 1 or 2 extra HP on those ships can make all the difference; just ask Motti.

Experimental Retrofit

Exclusive to the Interdictor.

• G-8 Experimental Projector -
• Targeting Scrambler -
• G7-X Grav Well Projector -
• Grav Shift Reroute -

Ion Cannons

• NK-7 Ion Batteries - Blue crit effect; exhaust to make the defender discard one of their defense tokens. Expensive and hard to get off compared to an Intel Officer.
• Heavy Ion Emplacements -
• Overload Pulse - Blue crit effect; exhaust all of the enemy's defense tokens. Turns enemy ships into punching bags for the rest of the round, but crits resolve after defense tokens are spent, so you need another ship to set up your big (cough Avenger cough) attack.
• High-Capacity Ion Turbines - Expanded Armaments, but blue dice.
• Ion Cannon Batteries - Blue crit effect; force enemy to discard a command token, losing a shield if they have none. Useful for things like an MC80 expecting to use Engine Techs, or an ISD expecting to spend a token to trigger Boarding Troopers.
• SW-7 Ion Batteries - Unspent blue accuracies count as 1 damage. Which means, yes, your blue dice now are guaranteed damage - take on ships with lots of them.
• Leading Shots - Spend a blue die to reroll any number of dice in your attack pool. This is the card that ensures your big ships do the damage they need to with their strong arcs. Pair with Defiance, Opening Salvo, etc to trigger at long range.
• MS-1 Ion Cannons - Blue crit effect; exhaust one enemy upgrade card. Being exhausted doesn't do anything to cards with an exhaust effect, so very meta dependent.

Ordnance

• Expanded Launchers - Two extra black dice in the front arc. Decent enough, but the ACMs are usually more flexible (work on side arc shots) and more cost-efficient.
• Rapid Reload - An extra black die on either side. Probably the better option given the 5-point savings over ACMs.
• Assault Concussion Missiles - Amazing upgrade that hammers both adjacent hull zones for one damage each on a black crit. Weakens Redirect, can't be Braced, and if you're rolling black dice they can't Evade anyways.
• Assault Proton Torpedoes - Black crit deals an automatic face-up damage card. Free crits through shields never hurt.
• Flechette Torpedoes - Spend a black critical result while flakking to activate a targeted squadron. Of course, this is only useful if your ship uses black flak dice.
• External Racks - Discard to add two black dice to a single attack. A 2-point upgrade that works for any arc and cheap enough to put on something disposable like a Hammerhead.
• Ordnance Pods -
• Wide-Area Barrage - As a black critical effect against a ship, an enemy ship or squadron at close range of the target takes damage equal to half the number of hits showing on your black dice. Most ships with an Ordnance slot have better cards to put there, and your opponent can just spread out a bit, making it situational. But for 2 points, a last/first Demolisher can rush Gallant Haven, and snipe Jan Ors at the same time.

Turbolasers

• Quad Turbolaser Cannons - When attacking, if one of your red dice has an accuracy result you may add another red accuracy die to the attack. VERY situational and expensive on its own but can be combined with accuracy generating effects like H9 Turbolasers/Captain Jonus to guarantee a double hit from Warlord without sacrificing that elusive red accuracy.
• Enhanced Armament - Boost your side arc shots by one red die. Expensive, so put it on something that'll last the battle.
• Spinal Armament - Increase the front and rear arcs by one red die. The vertical brother to Enhanced Armament for one less point.
• H9 Turbolasers - Flip a hit or crit to an accuracy face. Decent at ensuring damage goes where you want it to.
• Turbolaser Reroute Circuits - Spend an evade to change a red die to either double Hit or Crit. Delicious guaranteed damage, if you can spare the token. Needa makes it strangely possible to use on whatever ship he's on.
• Heavy Turbolaser Turrets - Target gets to block only one damage with Brace unless it's the only token used. Good for heavy hitters only; if you're not tossing at least 3 damage regularly at the enemy, this upgrade is doing nothing for you. But it stops Brace + Redirect shenanigans for that juicy juicy hull damage.
• X17 Turbolasers - Redirect defense tokens can only shunt one damage. Amazing at ensuring damage goes where you want it to. Highly recommended when playing Rebels vs. Imps.
• Slaved Turrets - You get to only shoot once, but you get a red die shooting at ships. Crippling for big ships, overcosted for small ones, but finds it's place on the Nebulon-B, where the front arc is the only one you want to be using ever.
• Quad Battery Turrets - When a ship with Quad Battery Turrets is attacking an opponent that's going faster than itself, it may add a blue die to the attack. This die is added regardless of the range which is HUGE for older, less maneuverable red dice heavy ships like Nebulon-Bs and Victory Destroyers.
• Dual Turbolaser Turrets - Exhaust this card and discard a die during an attack to add a red die to that attack. Essentially, it's insurance for finicky red dice allowing you to delete a blank result for another chance at rolling something useful.
• XX-9 Turbolasers - Flip the first two damage cards instead of one. Combine with Dodonna on the Rebel side for picking out exactly what debuffs you want to slap on the enemy.

Fleet Support

• Bomber Command Center - Bombers at distance 5 get a reroll. What you use if you're running a squadron-heavy list.
• Slicer Tools - Screw with the top dial of a ship at distance 3. Scatter will save you from the ship you're hacking... but leave you open to others. Stick to them like a remora and use them for cover.
• Repair Crews - Engineering commands let you fix 1 damage card on a ship at distance 2. Perhaps useful, but is this really the best use of 22+ points?
• Comms Net - Shift tokens to ships nearby. Ship support, if you have a ship build that needs a lot of tokens.
• Jamming Field - All squadron shots on other squadrons at distance 2 are obstructed. Note this affects friendlies as well! Also doesn't break engagements. Tricky to use.

External Links

• Star Wars: Armada on Fantasy Flight Games' website, includes a full description of the rules and play.
• The Star Wars Armada wiki, featuring pictures of the ship/upgrade cards and rules text.
• Armada Warlords Fleet Builder
• Fab's Fleet Generator
• Ryan Kingston's Fleet Builder

Star Wars Miniature Games Tactical Guides
X-Wing:	Rebel Alliance, Galactic Empire, The Resistance, The First Order, Scum & Villainy, The Galactic Republic, Confederacy of Independent Systems
Armada:	Rebel Alliance, Galactic Empire, The Galactic Republic, Confederacy of Independent Systems
Legion:	Rebel Alliance, Galactic Empire, Grand Army of the Republic, Confederacy of Independent Systems,