Armada Card Tweaks (from early pre-orders)
Changes are here!
Due to some leaks over on Reddit from Roland8561 CLICKY we've got some/all of the leaked card texts/errata a little before FFG releases it. Somehow it usually happens that way. Below I've hit some of the major changes and my initial thoughts on what that might bring. They are in no particular order.
Evade Rework
CHANGE: One of the leaked changes is that Evades will now work all the way to close range. They still cancel two dice at extreme range and 1 dice at long range. At medium and close range now (even including distance 1 squadron attacks) it now offers a reroll. Also, against a ship larger than the defender, you can discard the green token to effect an additional dice. AKA cancel two dice at long range, two rerolls at close but that token is gone forever.
MY THOUGHTS: Mon Mothma for everyone. I've fiddled around with this a bit on vassal and my initial take is that it gives some added survivability to smalls. They can now venture into close range and not immediately get one-shot. Forcing rerolls on doubles and hit/crits will most likely save them. Granted if they've been shot previosuly they will still probably die to a large's primary arc. But it should allow a small to sneak into range, gets it's shot off and then maybe run away. If it stays there thought, it's dead. The discard effect can be used as you close into range or if you're dead anyway, might as well give it a try. Perhaps a resurgence of MSU overall?
Tarkin/Leia Admirals
CHANGE: Both admirals reduced in price from 38 to 28.
MY THOUGHTS: I've always liked both of them, but they were a little unwieldy to use at that cost point. The 10 point reduction should let them seem less like you're getting cheated out of points to play them. Tarkin will see use, with the increased usefulness of tokens in 1.5. Leia, in concert with the evade change, should make an MSU swarm with fighter/bomber cloud viable. At least that's what I'll be trying first.
Admiral Konstantine
CHANGE: Admiral Konstantine: Unique, 23 pts; At the start of each Status Phase, you may choose any number of enemy ships at distance 1-5 of at least 2 friendly non-flotilla ships, 1 of which muct be medium or larer size class. For each chosen ships, you may discard 1 Navigate token from it or increase or drecrease its speed by 1 to a minimum of speed 1.
MY THOUGHTS: Basically an entire rewrite of his ability but keeping the intent of speed control. Make him viable as long as you have a single medium or large and a non-flotilla, very good. Discarding a nav token is pretty useful, as almost everyone runs around with one on their ships, and it prevents you from making those speed changes when you need to. More uses for tokens YEAH! Also, you can still make people fly off the board at speed 3 or 4 but he can't slow you to zero. Still a very small possibility of a negative play experience, though if you sped the ship up but left them a token they most likely will be fine. I like it and he might actually see some play now.
Admiral Sato
CHANGE: Now costs 27 points
MY THOUGHTS: A little more room for that crucial squadron or that extra black dice crit on the Hammerhead. Maybe he gets slightly more play.
Mon Mothma
CHANGE: 27 points, When a friendly ship resolves the Evade token effect, it can cancel one dice at medium range or reroll an additional dice at close range or distance 1.
MY THOUGHTS: Small point decrease but she makes her Evades even better. Discard at Medium is strong and an additional reroll at close, should keep her ships safe from bombers. I would expect her to see some play, especially if MSU becomes viable.
Captain Brunson
CHANGE: Same text, just an increase of 4 points to 9 total.
MY THOUGHTS: She was an auto include before at 5 points. At 9, she might see some competition but I still imagine I will take her on any ship I don't want to die. Just fairly costed now.
Demolisher
CHANGE: During your attack step, you can perform only 1 attack. You can perform 1 of your attacks after you execute your first maneuver during your activation.
MY THOUGHTS: What this means is you can't triple tap with Demo anymore. You can move into range and shoot. And then the next turn, you can take a shot but then you MUST move before your second shot. Now you can ram and stay in place, or hop to the side and still roll all them black dice. But then you're stuck in range to get shot back. Combined with ACM/APT changes means that it'll still probably vaporize corvettes it probably can't single handedly bring down an MC80. And a large has a chance to shoot back besides salvo most likely. This combined with OE and the black crit changes hopefully brings Demo out of the auto-include category. I mean I can build an Imp list without Demo but then I'm handicapping myself.
Assault Concussion Missiles
CHANGE: Now costs 5 points and is a recurring exhaust.
MY THOUGHTS: Additional layer of Nerf to Admo and Demo. Now those sweet double arcs can only be affected on one of their attacks for the special crit. Though the price decrease takes the sting off of not doing an additional 4 unbraceable damage per double arc.
Assault Proton Torpedoes
CHANGE: Now costs 4 points and is a recurring exhaust.
MY THOUGHTS: Copy/Paste from ACMs essentially. Additional layer of Nerf to Admo and Demo. Now those sweet double arcs can only be affected on one of their attacks for the special crit. Though the price decrease takes the sting off of not doing two faceup damage cards per double arc.
Both of these changes make Black Crit Torpedo HH's and Raiders a little more viable since you're not pouring points into a squishy platform.
Ordinance Experts
CHANGE: Same cost, now reads "While attacking, you may reroll up to two black dice."
MY THOUGHTS: You usually didn't need to to reroll more than that unless you were fishing for crits. Now with the changes to black crits, you only need to get a crit on one of your attacks. Doesn't effect flak rerolls. I think it's a alright change to an always taken card on black dice ships. Might make Vader Commander or Officer more useful to black dice fleets though I still can't foresee taking any other weapons team card on MC30s or Gladiators.
Gunnery Teams
CHANGE: Concentrate Fire, The next attack you perform this activation can be performed from the same hull zone. You cannot target the same ships or squadrons more than once your activation.
MY THOUGHTS: Same effect as before but requires spending at least a Con Fire token. Shouldn't be to hard to do but tokens have more value so you might not always have one available. And if you see an ISD without a confire token, it's time to pile into that arc since they can;t shoot both of your ships. Also, the SSD cannot attack 3 times out of one hull zone now and is limited to at most two, again after using a confire command. I think this is a good change at it was always my first consideration for ISD II's and Libs among others. Might open up the weapons team slots that Gunnery Teams has held in it's clutches for a while.
Yavaris
CHANGE: The only Nebulon-B you ever took now is different though still squadron focused. Instead of double attacks you now get the following: Each squadron you activate may choose only to attack during your activation. If it does, while attacking, it may add 1 die to its attack pool of a color already in the attack pool.
MY THOUGHTS: Alright, I love my rebels fighters but this is similar to Demo changes. Two attacks from Keyan Farlander or Luke could single handedly destroy much more valuable ships/shred squads and wasn't really fair. This change does give Keyan 3 rerollable blacks against a ship but it also means that defense tokens are more meaningful against said attack. And one set of 4-6 damage is better to suffer than two sets of 3-4. Also, Yavaris also might be able to flight controller/FCT her squadrons into range again though I'm not sure with that beginning text section 'only attack during your activation'. Standing by official FAQ.
Electronic Countermeasures
CHANGE: Same text/cost, just a non-recurring exhaust that requires an engineering token in the status phase to refresh.
MY THOUGHTS: ECMing a brace is only going to be used now if the damage pool is 4 or over OR if you're dead without bracing/using defense tokens that have accuracies on them. I say 4 or greater damage since that saves you two points of damage and a engineering token on a large is usually worth 1 shield. So if you only save 1 damage, maybe it's not worth it? ECM was too much of a no brainer before. It was the best way to ensure your ship could survive the Haymaker attack. Now I'll still probably put it on my important ships, but you either need some token generation ability (Parts Resupply?) or perhaps a different defensive retrofit? If it opens up options I consider it a good change as I rarely ever gave any other defensive retrofit even a glance.
Avenger
CHANGE: Same cost, but now reads: "While attacking, you may exhaust this card. If you do, the defender cannot spend more than 1 exhausted defense token during this attack."
MY THOUGHTS: Straight-up nerf to Avenger. BT Avenger can still put a whole lot of damage into a target, but that target will most likely get to brace, and if it's a large it should survive. Granted if you roll an accuracy and they don't have ECM or Agate Admiral they still can't spend that accuracy. Not sure if this was needed as I haven't seen swarms of BT Avengers running around and it's usually a pretty forecast thing.
Mon Karen
CHANGE: Same text, now requires a con fire command to generate the "only spend 1 defense token" effect
MY THOUGHTS: Token generation is again important. Title was strong and now makes it just a bit harder to get full use out of. Either you're pointing your Agate Buffed Liberty at the enemy and spamming Con Fire OR you will probably need a token since the MC80L probably needs to be naving or engineering to stay alive/keep her guns pointed at the bad guys.
Admonition
CHANGE: Now reads, "While defending, during the Spend Defense Token step, you may discard a readied defense token to cancel 1 attack die." Now only costs 6 points.
MY THOUGHTS: Admo was always stapled to your first MC30 because it was SO good. I've had her face down ISD's, laugh through the front arc, and then beat the tar out of said ISD before running away to save her points. With the evade change, this would be even more super powerful as you could force all the doubles/hit-crits to reroll and then target any remaining ones with Admonition. The evades were the first to be discarded once you dove into close range and would've been too useful. Doesn't seem unfair and with the evade changes there might be an actual debate between Foresight and Admonition. I look forward to see if there are any changes in lists and plan on trying out Foresight a couple times in place of Admo to see if what I prefer now.
Things that I think are more important now
The evade & ECM changes make accuracy generation more important so perhaps H9 turbolasers will see their stock rise. Also, Token generation is going to be key for some new cards and now some old staples so comms net, Raymus, Vanto, new Parts/Munitions Resupply are going to be very useful. Finally, small ships might not need to rely primarily on activation advantage to have an impact in the game.
Things I thought would change but didn't
Stuff like Cluster Bombs, Expanded Launchers, Rapid Reload, Certain Titles like Dominator, Independence all could've used points reductions, effect change, or a tweak with the recur/non-recur changes. But I think this first points adjustment I think brought most of the auto-include cards into alignment with the rest of the cards and tried to make all admirals useful. I might make a more detailed post later about what some possible changes could be that would make them viable.
Perhaps we will see how these changes shake out and then there might be a second tweak to those cards to give us even more options for the 'dead' cards like those listed above.
Bonus: Squadrons were never going to change in this but there are some definite over/under-costed Aces that should probably get point adjustments. I'm looking at you Mauler.
