BREAKING – Star Wars Armada Leaks Point to Updated Rules
It looks like we are getting Star Wars Armada 1.5.
Star Wars Armada has been around for a pretty good while now and is still mostly operating under its original rules. In the not too distant future however, the game is getting some big new releases as it moves to the Clone Wars Era. As part of this, there are a pair of new smaller starter boxers, one for each new faction coming out.
“Begun, the Clone Wars has…”
Leaks of some German language sheets appear to show that FFG is using these new boxes to make some big rules updates. While it doesn’t appear we are getting a new edition, it does look like the game is getting something of a 1.5 edition. This would be similar to when FFG did a partial update for X-Wing in The Force Awakens starter set rulebook back in 2015.
The Updated Rule Leaks
Internet sleuths were able to dig up a German language version of the Learn to Play Guide from the upcoming Separatists box set. You can find the document here.
If you don’t read German, some other great folks on the net have given us a summary of the propertied changes, such as this one from Facebook.
As I don’t read German myself, I can 100% confirm the accuracy of these described changes, though you can check the doc and see the new token types for yourself. Nor is it clear if these are the only changes being made or just the most obvious. Overall it’s a pretty decent amount of changes, not merely clarifications, but with new rules and mechanics additions. Based on this it looks like the new sets are going to update Armada, not to a full new edition, but to something of a 1.5 Edition.
What The Changes Mean
Evade & Focus Tokens
Most of the changes seem kind of minor or ones we already guess at. The evade change makes it a bit better of a defensive token but isn’t major. The token’s on cards we’ve already seen in previews and this document provides some clearing up of exactly how it works. It remains unclear what Focus tokens do, so we will need to wait and see to find out more about that.
Pass Tokens
The Pass Token seems to be the biggest change and its a great way of making smaller fleets and larger ships more relevant. The game has struggled a bit with the largest ships not being all that great. While they are powerful, numerically larger fleets of smaller ships not only are better at most objectives, but are more dice efficient, and able to wear down larger ships. Since these fleets get a ton of activations they can better control the flow of the battle and when things do what, the massive popularity of flotillas, which lead to them being capped at one a player, was in large part due to them being a cheap way of getting more activations. While some upgrades have helped with this it remains an issue.
Terrors from the past
The new pass token mechanic seems to help with that a lot. The player that has fewer ships gets a number of pass tokens equal to the difference in fleets (one less if they are the first player) and can use these tokens to skip an activation. There are some restrictions on when you can use this , but it will let you delay activating ships at key points and help make large ships more relevant. Overall I like the changes we are seeing. I would guess we will also get a pretty big FAQ to not only apply these to older cards but updated versions of some of those that either don’t work, or work too well, with the changes.
I’m looking forward to seeing more of the changes as things develop.
