So we got lots of juicy Clone Wars announcements this week and some announcements about some rule changes its an exciting time to be an Armada fan. We have a lot in the pipeline and we are going to get a lot of stuff from FFG leading up to release in December with more ships in Q1 as well. I am very excited my wallet like many of yours is probably less enthused, but man it should be exciting.
Many people have already talked about the cards and ships that have been spoiled over the weekend, so I decided I was going to talk about some of the less flashily, but still important things that are coming with Clone Wars: a Living Rules Reference, Updated Cards, and Rule updates, and eventually when we know more we will do a full evaluation of the cards ships and commanders.
So Armada is getting a Living Rules Reference, this is not as flashy as new ships and upgrades, but it's still a pretty big deal. We will now have access to all rules in one easy online file so rules for salvo, Rouge , extreme range, raid, huge ships etc. will be in here so that will be nice. In addition the living part means they will be able to easily update rules and do any balance changes they see fit, it also sounded like the planed to adjust point cost for competitive play inside this Living rules reference that could be for upgrades or ships. Not as flashy as new ships but the opportunity that a living rules reference brings to this game is exciting.
This leads us into the fact that they did say some of the upgrade cards in the Upgrade Card pack will be updated they said roughly 18% of the cards have some change. Now I might be wrong because I counted this myself but there are 221 unique upgrades in armada and that means around 40 cards have had some kind of work done. That is a lot of cards, now the changes can be from points adjustment to streamlining some text, are they counting adding the new exhaust icon on the cards in that 18% I really don't know but around 40 cards are getting some kind of rework, that is a lot of cards. Lets get speculative here are some of the changes I hope to see.
As far as commanders go I would like to see point adjustments for Darth Vader, Tarken, and Papa Palp for the empire for the rebels we already know that Leia got a ten point cost reduction, but I would like to see an point adjustment for Sato as well. If we are talking adjustments Tagge just needs a little tweak to make him good, Mon Mothma and Madine could use a rework or point adjustment as well.
As far as other upgrades I have a feeling Demolisher is getting a rework, just a gut feeling for me though nothing more. I hope to see adjustments to Veteran Captain, engine techs and ECM,. I think that Reactive Gunnery might start giving ECM a run for its money,
so maybe it does not need to have an adjustment, but the lack of diversity in that slot is sad making it so you have to spend some token to ready it would be nice really the same of engine techs would be great as well. Veteran Captain I think should be dropped to one point I can see him being taken at that point cost maybe even 2 but he gives you one command token for 3 points its a bit steep.
Lastly we come to rule changes they were fairly cryptic about it, but we do know that we are getting a lot off pass tokens in the dial pack and when asked directly about it they kind of side skirted the question, but said something along the lines that it was about a rules change. I think that it is likely that the new rule is something like this “If your opponent has more un-activated ships remaining than you one of your non-flotilla ships may gain a pass token, instead of activating, a ship that already has a pass token can not gain a second token. A ship with a pass token must still activate during the ship phase. All pass tokens are removed during the status phase.” this iteration of the rule would make it so that if a 2 ship list came in contact with a 4 ship list they would effectively have the same amount of activations. This will help reign in the activation arms race. Will this be how it actually works I have no idea, but it seems like a plausible assumption.
What will be the other rules changes, I am not really sure, but do have a feeling that some type of ace cap or restriction be in the changes as mass aces seams to be a bit of an issue making it so generics very rarely see play. What will this take the form of I have no idea a point cap on aces or if you have to have X generics for every ace I really don't know, but this is again a rule I think that will likely be part of this update. I am sure there will be a few other minor adjustments made, as well but am a bit unsure what they will be.
I am very excited to see all the content that will come with clone wars both the new ships and the rules updates. I am very excited to learn more about the ship cards and updates that are coming with Clone wars. What cards do you think will be revised in the upgrade card pack? What rule changes do you think will be coming with clone wars, and what are you most excited for? Hopefully we will get more news sooner rather than latter, until next time have a great week!