Star Wars Armada Rules Update Released

Star Wars: Armada is a tabletop game where Rebel and Imperial fleets must go head to head to fight for control of a galaxy devolving into chaos. The two player minatures game is an incredible experience, especially for hardcore Star Wars fans, where players assume the role of the Fleet Admiral but first … they must choose a side. Rebel or Imperial? You decide.

The developers behind the flighter experience have recently just updated their rules to clarify a few misconceptions, answer new questions, and detail minor changes made to the game. The recent FAQ update contains six errata to existing cards now in addition to updated content. We’ll be breaking it up by Avenger, Gallant Haven, and Yavirs, while also diving into the Relay keyword and Flotilla rule changes.

Card Errata

Several balance changes have been applied to “promote greater list parity and fleet diversity.” Here are the changes made to the existing cards, as per Fantasy Flight Games: 

Avenger

“The Avenger title has been a powerful upgrade for Imperial-class Star Destroyers since its introduction into Star Wars: Armada. Resolving this card’s effect originally required careful preparation, but subsequent releases have made Avenger more reliable. Combined with list-building techniques to control the activation order of ships, Avenger-based fleets have the ability to destroy any ship in the game in a single activation.

Avenger’s effect now reads “While attacking, you may exhaust this card. If you do, the defender cannot spend exhausted defense tokens during this attack.”

Because the effect will only resolve during one of Avenger’s attacks each round, lining up a double-arc attack is less likely to destroy an enemy ship before it can activate, leaving more opportunity for counter play.”

Gallant Haven

“The Gallant Haven title has long been a staple of Rebel squadron-based fleets. Although there are other sources of damage reduction available to squadrons, Gallant Haven can prevent damage entirely and combines with other effects to dominate squadron gameplay when playing against other squadron-based lists.

Gallant Haven now reads “Before a friendly squadron at distance 1 suffers damage from an attack, reduce the total damage by 1, to a minimum of 1.”

This change means that no attack can be nullified entirely, allowing the opponent to make progress against squadrons protected by Gallant Haven and removing the potential for a bad matchup between fleet lists to leave a player’s squadrons helpless.”

Card Errata

Yavaris

“Alongside Gallant Haven, the Yavaris title has been a centerpiece of Rebel squadron-based fleets since its release in the first wave of the game. Subsequent releases have contained effects that allow players to circumvent the Yavaris’s vulnerabilities, increasing the card’s relative power. Like Avenger, Yavaris and its squadrons pose a serious threat of destroying even a large ship before it can activate.

Yavaris now reads “[Squadron Command]: Each squadron you activate can attack twice if it does not move during your activation.”

This change prevents the combination of Flight Commander and Fighter Coordination Team from allowing players to move their squadrons up to distance 1 and still attack twice over the course of Yavaris’s activation. In conjunction with the restrictions added to Relay (see below), this change will introduce additional risk and decision-making for players by requiring careful preparation to get the most out of Yavaris’s ability.”

Relay Keword

“The introduction of the Relay keyword on Colonel Jendon, the Lambda-class Shuttle, and the VCX-100 Freighter has offered players a greater degree of flexibility when positioning their ships and squadrons. Allowing ships to activate squadrons at a greater range has made new tactics possible for players, but it has also created the potential for a fleet to fight effectively with its squadrons while avoiding combat with its other ships. It also further amplifies the impressive activation and squadron efficiency of flotillas.

Each of these squadrons’ Relay keywords now reads “Relay X. (When a friendly ship resolves a [Squadron] command, if you are in range to be activated, up to X of the squadrons it activates can be at distance 1–3 of you.)”

Fantasy also discussed how the chance to the Relay keyword took careful positioning while also detailing changes to combat engagement. 

Flotilla Rule Changes

“Although the careful planning and coordination of your fleet’s maneuvers is one of Star Wars: Armada’s main features, flotillas have mitigated some of the risk and player interaction built into these decisions in competitive play. For this reason, the tournament regulations now include two additional restrictions for ships of the flotilla type.

The first is a fleet-building restriction that states: “A player’s fleet cannot contain more than two flotillas.”

“This restriction prevents players from creating fleets for a tournament that rely on the inexpensive activations provided by flotillas. Players can still include flotillas in their fleets to make use of their unique support abilities or to activate moderate squadron complements, but they can no longer add so many activations that opportunities for counter play are eliminated.

The second is a change to the rules so that a tournament game now ends when “At the end of a game round, all of one player’s ships that are not flotillas are destroyed.”

This change means that destroying all of the opposing fleet’s non-flotilla ships results in a victory. Following the example of the errata preventing flotillas from equipping commander upgrade cards, this change means players can no longer mitigate the risk of loss in tournament games by investing heavily in squadrons and inexpensive flotillas.”

You can read the full list of changes, including a detailed description of every game aspect listed, right here directly from Fantasy Flight Games!