SW Armada: Star Destroyers Just Got A Lot Deadlier
FFG unveils some powerful new upgrades for Star Wars: Armada.
It may have been a while since FFG last gave us any news on the goings on with Star Wars: Armada, but today fans were reward for their patience. In a new article where 2016 World Champion Josiah Burkhardsmeier talks about the process of designing Grand Admiral Thrawn, they teased a couple new and powerful cards. While the article in it’s whole is well worth reading, lets focus on the juicy the new releases.
Chimera
The Iconic flagship of the Grand Admiral, no one had any doubt that Chimera would be makings its debut this wave. After the Imperial expansion pack is named after it. Still I don’t think players were prepared for just how awesome this card is. Simply allowing any Imperial Star Destroyer to take the Fleet Command Upgrade would be a pretty powerful ability. Fleet commands are a powerful tool, that have up till now been limited by the ships you could take them on. However now a large number of Imperial ships can take them, and most likely will.
However Chimera does more than just allow you to take a command, it lets you switch them out at will. This ability is super powerful as it allows you adapt you fleet to any situation. Feel the need for speed in the early turns? Take Entrapment Formation! Getting pounded in the mid game? Replace it with Shields to Maximum! This flexibility will serve you well in just about any game, and is a massive cherry on top of the ability to take the upgrade in the first place.
I also just really like this card form a fluffy stand point. Thrawn is the ultimate commander, it makes sense that he would have the ultimate command ship. The ability if flavorful for him and pairs well with his own ability. Really impressive all around.
Intensify Firepower!
Speaking of pairing well with things, the other new card revealed, Intensify Firepower!, as a new and awesome Fleet Command Upgrade. Since we already had cards relating to the all the other commands it was a sure bet we’d get some working off of the firepower command at some point. Like Chimera this card may not be a surprise, but it more than delivers on expectations. The ability to get an automatic hit once each attack you make vs a ship for a whole turn is absolutely amazing. Screw re-rolls, I’ll take certainty any day of the week. Now it is limited too a single hit icon, so no shenanigans, but this is still very powerful and leads to all sorts of combos.
Think for example of using this is Screed list, now even the worst roll on 3 or more dice will net you a minimum of 3 hits. That’s brutal. This is the card to use when you have lots of ships attacking. Heck you could take a large group of Gozonti’s and be certain of getting a hit with every dice.
Of course this card can also be used by the Rebels, and has some real potential there. Rebels tend to have a lot of long range dice, but lack as many options for re-rolls as Imperials have. This card really helps with that. Consider a Pelta running this and supporting a fleet of CR90s taking highly accurate long range shots. Between this and TRC you could get a min of three hits each shot. With Double fire arcs and a concentrate firepower command, your 51 point Cr90 could get a guaranteed 6 hits a turn with out even having to roll. Pretty spicy. Or pair it with Home One and make your whole fleet super accurate.
And Exciting Tease
Overall while we only had two cards shown to us I am very excited for them to come out. Both of these cards are super powerful additions to the game. I can already see fleets being built across the world with these new cards. I can’t wait to see more!
Let us know what you think of the new cards, down in the comments !
