Star Wars Armada: How Each Round Works

Setup

1. Learning scenario: mark out a 3 foot by 3 foot play area with the setup area markers at the corners, then give each player a faction. The Rebel player has initiative.

2. The Rebel player gets the CR90 Corvette A, the Nebulon-B Escort Frigate and the X-wing squadron. The Imperial player gets the Victory II-class Star Destroyer and the TIE Fighter squadron.

3. Build the ships and squadrons. Set each ship’s speed dial to 2 and its shield dial to the maximum shown on its ship card. Place each ship’s defense tokens beside its card.

4. Place the damage deck facedown, with the dice, range ruler and round token marked 1 beside the play area. Put the command tokens in a supply.

5. Complete setup once players know the game: use a 3 foot by 6 foot play area and a 3 foot by 4 foot setup area. Choose an objective, place six obstacles, then take turns deploying one ship or two squadrons at a time.

6. Fleets: players choose ship, squadron and upgrade cards without exceeding an agreed fleet point total. The booklet describes 300 points as a standard fleet.

Turn by turn

• Command phase

  Players choose commands in secret, then reveal them at the same time. In the first round, each ship gets as many dials as its command value. Each later round, it gets one new dial, tucked under the others. Plan ahead: those choices take time to come up.

• Commands

  The four commands are Navigate, Squadron, Repair, and Concentrate Fire. A dial gives the full effect; a command token gives a smaller one. A ship can hold up to its command value in tokens, with no more than one of each type.

• Maneuvering a ship

  A ship’s speed chart shows how many clicks each joint on the maneuver tool allows at that speed. Click the joints, line up the tool with the ship’s base, then move the ship to the tool’s end. The minimum speed is 0.

• Attacking with a ship

  Choose an attacking hull zone, then a target hull zone in its firing arc and within attack range. The range ruler shows which dice colors work at each distance. At long range, you can use only red dice. Roll, resolve accuracy icons, let the defender spend tokens, then deal damage.

• Damage and critical hits

  Each hit or critical icon deals one point of damage. Damage removes shields from the defending hull zone first. Any leftover points deal damage cards, one per point. If the attacker rolled a critical icon, the first card is faceup and its effect applies.

• Squadron attacks and engagement

  A squadron is engaged if it begins an activation within distance 1 of an enemy squadron. It cannot move while engaged, and must attack a squadron rather than a ship. Squadrons can attack any target within distance 1, in any direction.

End of the game and scoring

Key rules

• Defense tokens

  Ships carry tokens such as Redirect, Evade, Brace, and Scatter. The defender spends them after the dice are rolled. Each token can be spent once per attack. A ready token flips to exhausted when spent, and at speed 0, no tokens can be spent.

• Accuracy icons

  For each accuracy icon rolled, the attacker picks one of the defender’s defense tokens. That token cannot be spent during the attack, a handy way to pressure a ship that relies on it.

• Initiative and squadron sliders

  Each squadron has an activation slider. The initiative token’s color and icon show which side means “unactivated” this round. The token flips every status phase, so both players can track who has already gone.

• Destroyed ships

  A ship is destroyed once its damage cards equal its hull value. A squadron is destroyed when its hull points reach zero. Squadrons take damage from hit icons only; they ignore critical icons.