SW Armada: The 7th Fleet & Mandalorians Strike

Lets look at the new cards FFG has previewed for Armada!

In their infinite kindness FFG has once more previewed some of the new cards coming to Star Wars Armada. Some of these cards we’ve already seen, and they’ve got me pretty excited. These newly shown cards only build on that excitement. Lets take a look at some of Empire’s exciting new options.

Taskmaster Grint

Now some people have pointed out that hes just a cheaper but more limited Raymus Antilles, and this is true. But so what? Raymus is a great card, and the Empire getting a version of him is great for them as well. Like Raymus, Grint allows you to get free tokens when you revel a command. Unlike Raymus he only works on one type of command, chosen at the start of the game. Still this isn’t a huge handicap, as a lot of ships know what commands they are going to be using, and can focus on one type. In addition think of using him and Thrawn in a list. For the key turns in the game one ship could be generating two commands and a token, maybe even getting a token from Comms Net as well, for some real power.

I should note that you can’t use his power on the Thrawn command. Since Thrawn’s command is not “revealed” things that trigger “when you reveal a command” don’t work on his command. A minor annoyance but something to keep in mind.

I can see using Grint in a number of great ways. You could put him on a carrier to in essence work like a 2nd Expanded Hangers, giving a dedicated carrier the ability to activate 6 squadrons every turn. You could also throw him on a Cymoon ISD and he can make sure you’ve got plenty of tokens to spend on Fleet Orders, while still letting you give commands to the ship. Yulearn is another good choice for that, but which one is best is debatable. When it comes down to it any ship is going to benefit form having Grint around.

Seventh Fleet Star Destroyer

Star Destroyers are already known from being tough, but what if you want yours to be even tougher? Take the Seventh Fleet! This is very interesting card here. This non-unique title can be taken by any Star Destroyer, so not just Imperials, but Victorys and Gladiators as well. It’s a relatively cheap card and used en masse has the potential to mitigate a lot of damage.

I think these are particularly good used on VSD since in general they have pretty lackluster title cards now. GSDs have Demolisher, which this won’t replace, but this does make a great choice if you have more than one GSD in the fleet. ISDs have a number of good titles already, but this is still viable. Of course you want to use it in as great a number as you can. I can easily see throwing this on all the ships in a 3 VSD (or ISD) Motti list just from some added toughness. A GSD swarm could also get a lot of use out of this upgrade, with the ability to shrug off a lot of damage.

Mandalorian Gauntlet Fighter

This is the tricky one out of the bunch. At 20 points the Gauntlet Fighter is pretty pricey. It’s also pretty directly competing with the Firespry (18 pts) and the Decimator (22 pts) both heavy rogue squadrons in the same points area. Stats wise it’s not bad, decently fast and tough. Its big weakness is killing power. While it can get 4 hits vs squadrons the two blue and a red dice are going to be a little less reliable that 4 blue. It’s two blue anti-ship dice are nice, but it doesn’t have bomber which really hurts it there.

Of course you aren’t taking the Gauntlet for its ability to kill things, but for how it messes with them. The key to this ship is the Assault ability which lets its give ships raid tokens, blocking the use of commands. Now this seems like a pretty solid ability, but we still don’t totally know how it works. One the key questions we haven’t had answered is how you get rid of raid tokens? If you can’t then this ship and ability could be really key to winning. If getting rid of the tokens is a pretty easy process then paying 20 points for the chance to minorly inconvenience your enemy is most likely not worth it.

For myself the ship doesn’t really fit my play type. I’d rather kill the enemy then annoy them without doing damage. It’s expensive and a bit of a gimmick. However I can see how in the right hands it could be a game winner.

Well that’s it for this time folks. Let us know what you think about the new cards down in the comments! 

Author: Abe Apfel

Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers 40K tactics and lore, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe remains in mourning over the loss of WFB to this day.