Robot Death Blossoms got worse against Escort because FFG is bigoted against synthetic life forms. |
I was also hoping for some kind of an errata to shake things up a bit and/or Legion-style points changes and we got neither, so I'm expecting Pryce Quasar ace spam to be a big deal at Worlds yet again now that the SSD has been pushed out by Starhawk and Onager fleets. So... not exactly yay for me. I can't think of anything in the game I hate more than Pryce fleets but I digress. Let's move on to less grumpy subjects...
Highlights of the FAQ:
Admiral Raddus's change is now officially in a PDF. You can only drop off of his flagship now, but it's at distance 1-2 rather than distance 1.
Hyperspace Migration got errataed. Now you either cash in your whale watching token for victory points or you grab a new token. And the token-swapping/gaining process happens before the whales move.
Evades working at extreme range made it officially into a PDF. They cancel two dice at extreme range.
Exogorths now work the way they should have: second player chooses the first exogorth to attack all squads at distance 1 of it, and then opposing players attack each squadron in turn until done, then you move on to the next exogorth and repeat. No longer do I choose an exogorth and make every attack with it against squadrons where I'm not required to spend accuracy icons against my own aces. "Oops, the space slug just keeps forgetting to use accuracy on the scatter when it comes to my own guys" is no longer a thing.
SSD deployment is clarified that if you want to extend outside of your deployment zone, you need to be touching the back edge. So in scenarios with extended deployment zones (like Blockade Run), you can deploy further up without having to touch the back edge. Blockade Run is still a trap with SSDs, though 😉.
Slicer Tools and Cham get to see the dials they're about to change. FFG has given different answers on this informally over the years but now it's official that you get to see it before you change it.
Gunnery Team and first-player Advanced Gunnery's "cannot" for attacking a second squad or ship from the same hull zone during an activation is absolute. So a ship with Gunnery Team or selected as first player AG ship can't attack a squad again with Ordnance Pods or Impetuous from the same hull zone it already attacked that squad with earlier during its activation. Ships without Gunnery Team or first-player AG can do so just fine (as the "may" on the card in question overrules the "cannot" in the rules, but does not overrule the "cannot" on another card).
There are some knock-on questions with this type of ruling, though, that aren't cleared up in the FAQ:
- If Yavaris is double-tapping squadrons against a ship with Quad Laser Turrets and Gunnery Team, can you use QLTs to Counter them twice?
- Seems like no. You'd be attacking the same target from the same hull zone more than once per activation.
- It's an enemy activation, but it's still an activation (note Gunnery Team doesn't say your activation, it says per activation and that activation).
- Similar example, but let's say you've got Gunnery Team, Quad Laser Turrets, and a ship with a salvo token being attacked by a squadron. Can you use both the QLT Counter 1 and the salvo attack?
- Seems like no. Again, you'd be attacking the same target from the same hull zone more than once per activation.
- An enemy ship is double-arcing the same hull zone of your ship which has both salvo tokens and Gunnery Team. You use salvo to punch back after the first attack. Can you use salvo to punch back after the second?
- Again, seems like no. You'd be attacking the same target from the same hull zone more than once per activation.
Discarding upgrade cards (usually with Vader boarding team or your own with Vader officer) had some interesting clarifications:
- Aspiration overboosted shields are immediately lost if Aspiration is discarded.
- Bail and Pryce no longer do anything at all as soon as they're discarded (don't force last or first activation).
- Upgrades that give slots for other upgrades (like Minister Tua), when discarded, don't take the upgrades they made room for with them. This has been the rules-supported interpretation for a while now, but it's officially in the FAQ to hopefully create less confusion with newer players.
Thrawn dials can't be used to clear raid tokens, only dials assigned to the ship itself.
Linked Turbolaser Towers probably takes the cake for "worst written FAQ entry" and it's an absolute mess. It seems to imply that you can use the LTTs extra dice against squads whenever (not just the first anti-squad attack like the card says), but if you parse it down while keeping the card text in mind I think what it's trying to say is "you can resolve this effect even on attacks outside of the 2 you normally get during your activation, provided it's still during your activation and it's the first attack you made against a squadron." So basically your ship with Ordnance Pods and LTTs could use its 2 inherent attacks against ships and then use Ordnance Pods to attack squads, add the extra LTT dice against the first squad, and then stop attacking squadrons.
Yavaris got a little bit of an extra nerf from the last FAQ in that it's spelled out that squads double-tapping with Yavaris can't move at all during the Yavaris activation. So no Flight Commander+Fighter Coordination Team to move them before the squadron command (just like before) and no Fighter Coordination Team on its own to move them after, either.
If you haven't, please dig into the document itself for more. I mostly covered what I considered to be the more important clarifications/erratas. We'll be updating articles in light of the FAQ changes, of course.
Thanks for the good read. Always appreciate your take on Armada. Keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteIs IG88-B Death blossom ruling this way because of IG88’s ability to bypass escort and counter keywords? Thanks for the clarification on gunnery teams and AG! Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteI know you're joking, but I will say that I think IG-88B's interaction with Escort does make sense. You really could argue it either way but I think the way they ruled it is the more compelling argument given how Escort is worded.
DeleteAnd yeah, that Gunnery Team FAQ entry goes pretty deep if you follow the logic and I'm not sure I really like the logical conclusions but here we are :(.
You're welcome!
Beck was probably just worded poorly in its initial introduction and they corrected it with FAQ even if the card text is wonky.
ReplyDeleteSo with the Beck improvement though, I think she's really solid for an SSD Piett fleet since you can basically just choose at any time whatever command you want no matter what in addition to your main command, or even have her just give a command a command token and use a command token from your SSD while discarding the dial. That Cham Sindula jackass isn't going to ruin MY commands because I get commands any ways! HA HA! TAKE THAT YOU VILE RUINER OF SSDS! I think it gives Piett new life and genuine reason to take over Jerjerrod.