Welcome to the first Armada Monday Minutia. First I just want to thank the community for all the support and the passion they have for this game, this community obviously would not be what it is without you. Secondly some may wonder why I am doing this blog thing, to put it quite simply and plainly it is to keep the community engaged, in the game with weekly content and discussions. With this the blog will have a comment section, but I would like the discussions to happen on the SLC Armada Facebook page, the blog site is here to store the arctics in a very simple way. The site may grow and get more features overtime or maybe even change entirely, but for now it is going to keep this very simple format. Lastly I am not a professional writer nor website designer I am simply passionate about this game and community, and did'int want to create a hassle for anyone else, and want to support it in anyway I can, I will keep the articles as neat and professional as I can, now to the actual content for this week.
So when I was thinking what to wright about to start off Armada Monday Minutia, I try to keep engaged with the community at large though forums and other means. Lets be honest its been a bit since we really got anything news wise, but the game is still very rich and has tons of space to explore. Just over the last week or so there has been rules questions about, some less than explored aspects of the game and a pretty substantial shift In the meta in competitive play, because people explored cards that where not being used. So I decided to take a look at upgrade cards that I don't really see played in Armada, or at least out here in our community. I have decided to break it up into three categories the good, the bad, and the ugly, because making a ratting system biased off the title of a 1960's westerner seamed like the only logical thing to do.
So what do each of these category mean, well the good are cards that are good and you should probably consider using or at the very lest trying in your games, the bad, are cards that are sadly just bad, however most cards have a use so we will talk about how to use these “bad” cards, and the ugly these are cards that are ether good, but out performed by other upgrades or are very good but niche. So with out any further ado lets look at our there upgrades this week. The Good
Captain Brunson
It is no secret to people that I play against that I love Captain Brunson. So I was originally not going to put her on the list as I see her a lot, but I started thinking that I don't think I have seen anyone other than myself play her, so she gets on the list. So why are we not seeing Brunson in action more around this area; well I think the answer is really two fold, one she is an officer and that is a pretty competitive upgrade slot, second is that people are afraid of not getting use from her as your have to stay distance 1-2 away from an obstacle.
In regard to the second issue the distance 1-2 of an obstacle its actually a pretty large area and its even larger the larger your base is. Distance 1-2 almost the same as close range, though admittedly a little less, but for some reason at least in my mind it seams a little more workable to keep a ship at close range of an obstacle than at distance 1-2, even though they are practically the same thing. In regards to her taking up the officer slot we just have to establish that she is more valuable than other choices, and I don't think I can illustrate that in any better way than an example form one of my games.
I was flying a Quasar, and anyone who as played against or with a Quasar knows they are fairly fragile ships. So I put Brunson on my Quasar, during the game my the other players Demolisher comes in and sets up for the dreaded Triple Tap. Demolisher rolls gets five damage one hit crit to trigger Assault Proton Torpedoes, so I Brunsoned the crit away and then braced and redirected effectively brunson took out 3 damage from that attack because I was able to cancel the crit effect with her. They then do the triple tap at the start of the next turn I effectively Brunson away 3 more damage and the Quasar survived a Demo triple tap followed up by a long range shot from and ISD-II then goes on the next round to kill the ISD with help from squadrons. To recap Brunson saved my a total of 6 damage, she also makes it so your ship has less stress on its defense tokens meaning you can hold on to them for longer, and the icing on the cake she can make it quite hard for your opponent to trigger the crit effects that they really want to. With all that in a five point package it's steal and you should really consider putting her in your next Imperial list, I have a hard time leaving home without her. The Bad
Point Defense Reroute
So this is a card that has not been completely forgotten, but its more a laughing stock card or the epitome of what a bad card is though It is defiantly not the worst card in the game, and if this is a series everyone would like to have continue maybe we will get to that card, but for now why is this card bad?
Armada is a game that can be rather unforgiving at times, I am sure that we have all been there we make one mistake and it determines the outcome of the whole game. We have all had the games where one more point of damage could have swung the game the opposite direction, if only we had set a certain command for our dial not this one that is coming up we would be able to kill the other players ship etc. Armada is a game about maximizing the value out of every ship out of every point you have spent to build your list, and Point-Defense Reroute (PDR) well it has the chance of doing nothing for you and other cards are just better at what it does
First PDR does nothing for black dice as a crit face also has a hit face so in that case ordnance experts just become so much better. Second If you are a ship that has two flack dice and at least one of them is blue and you can take leading shots, that option is better, and you can use it at medium range to almost always get one hit on your flack attacks. So with this two limitations in mind lets look at ships that might want to consider it ships that don't have black dice flack, and ships that don't have the leading shots upgrade slot or only have one blue flack dice.
Admittedly this is a very small group of ships let me start with Rebels. The rebels actually have more ships where this upgrade could be useful, both iterations of the assault frigate, GR-75 Combat Retrofits Hammerhead Scout Corvette, and the Pelta Command Ship. So with so many options why don't we see this upgrade on rebel ships well first most of these ships are only toughing one blue dice that mean that 75% of the time you attack this card does nothing for you, because you are ether getting an accuracy or you already got a hit that is way to high a percentage for me to really ever consider taking this on a one blue die flack ship, and only one of the mentioned ships has two dice the assault frigate A so why don't we see it on that ship, well first that version of the ship is not very popular, and second the Rebels lord and savior Toryn Farr.
I don't want to spend to much time talking about why Toryn Farr absolutely kills PDR for the rebels but I do think it needs to be said. If you want to talk about maximizing everything, in a list Toryn Farr does it all you need to reroll blue flack reroll that you need to reroll a blue dice when attacking a ship reroll that your squadrons attacking a squadron reroll that, if your squadron is attacking a ship with blue dice reroll that in short she is the Oprah Winfrey of Armada, “You get a reroll and you get a reroll and you get a reroll!” and she really kills the PDR upgrade card for the Rebels. So after all of that and determining that single blue dice flack ships just really don't want to take this card due to 75% of the time it does nothing for you, the Empire has no ships that would really want to take this card at all. However in my quest to find a reason to take this card I found one and its pretty niche. Remember how I said that if you have the leading shots slot well that was a small lie, if you are having a lot of trouble with scatter aces take this build:
Imperial II (120) • Gunnery Team (7) • Point-Defense Reroute (5) • Leading Shots (4) • H9 Turbolasers (8) = 144 Points
So with two blues and a reroll at close range you can pretty much guaranteed 1 damage and the accuracy with H9s and are still able to attack ships with Gunnery Team, pair that with Mauler Mithel Sloan aces will melt away pretty fast, though you could do the same thing with and ISD-I H9's and Ordnance experts and it would be a bit more reliable, but you would not have Gunnery teams to shoot at ships as well, but I think you would get more mileage out of H9's on the ISD-I so it really comes down to do you want the gunnery teams?
Its a little sad but the few ships this card would be good on without a niche type build don't have the slot to support it so I think this card will remain unseen until a ship with two blue dice that has the slot to support it and no ion cannon slot is seen on the imperial side and even then its still a pretty weak upgrade. The Ugly
Medical Team If there was an upgrade type I would really like to see more of it is support upgrades as we only have 6 of them and much like the ion cannon slot has started to come to be know by some as the “leading shots slot” like I have referred to it as such in just this article. Along with that the Support team slot has become somewhat know as the “Engine Techs slot” and if the Engine tech is not taken the slot is usually left empty. We used to see Fighter Coordination Team but with the nerf to Yavaris has fallen out of favor, and every now and then you see Projection Experts on an Interdictor, but the next time you think to leave that slot empty because you can't afford engine techs I would Highly consider this upgrade especially if the ship you are taking does not have contain tokens.
First why this card might be worth taking other than leaving the slot empty, it is only one point, one point there is only one other upgrade that is that cheep in this game. Second it will act as a line of defense and make your ships slightly more durable. Crew crits and the most plentiful type of crits in the damage deck so when you pull a crit it is most likely going to be a crew crit this card gets rid of that card before the damage is applied to you. So lets say for example your GSD is going to take exactly lethal damage, but the crit is a crew crit your GSD is still alive on one heath because that crit gets discarded.
There will be games where this card does nothing and really that is the only reason this card is in the “ugly” category, but if only 1/400th of your list does not contribute to your game you will probably still be just fine, and fully capable of winning the game still. So if you have a few points left over and an empty support slot I would put this guy in it. I hope everyone enjoyed reading this and please discuss this on the FB page with the community, would you like me to continue The Good, the Bad, the Ugly upgrade Card evaluations or would you rather have something different? What cards to you think are good/bad/ugly? Thank you everyone for all you do for this community please let me know how these wright ups could improve and really what you as a community want content wise as this is intended to help engage our community on a weekly basis, again thank you for all you do for the community.
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