The latest version of the Star Wars™: Armada  FAQ is now online! This update contains the usual clarifications, updates, new questions, and other minor changes that come with refining the rules. In addition, today’s update includes multiple errata that tournament players should be sure to read about. Learn why these changes were made directly from the developers in the paragraphs below, and download the new FAQ to see all the changes for yourself!

Click on the image above to see the new FAQ.
This update goes into effect 4/23/2018.

The Star Wars: Armada Developers

The Star Wars: Armada development team is excited to release FAQ v4.1.1, an update that contains six errata to existing cards and several clarifications to existing and newly released content. In addition, we are making two changes to the tournament regulations for flotilla ships!

Card Errata

The card errata introduced in FAQ v4.1.1 are updates for balance. These changes are intended to help promote greater list parity and fleet diversity and to increase opportunities for player interaction during a game. The Avenger, Gallant Haven, and Yavaris upgrade cards all have updates to the wording of their abilities, and the Colonel Jendon, Lambda-class Shuttle, and VCX-100 Freighter squadron cards all have updates to the wording of their Relay keyword.

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.

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 Keyword

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.)”

This change means careful positioning becomes more important, as although Relay offers additional range and flexibility, the squadron resolving Relay must now be within range of the ship's normal squadron command. Ships will no longer be able to activate squadrons freely while avoiding combat with their ships at the opposite end of the play area. In conjunction with the changes to flotillas in the tournament regulations (see below), this players from building fleets that can largely avoid combat with the opposing player's ships.

Flotilla Rules 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.

Download the new Star Wars: Armada FAQ now to read the entire update before it goes into effect on April 23rd. Players attending an event before April 23rd can still find the previous FAQ on the Star Wars: Armada page.

As always, game rules, tournament regulations, and other support materials for Star Wars: Armada can be found on our Star Wars: Armada page.