Armada/Tactics/Confederacy of Independent Systems
The CIS's squadrons are defined by their AI abilities, which boosts their damage when activated by squadron commands. Like the Republic most of their squadrons have swarm, however they also receive a a squadron with relay.
As for their ships, the CIS likes to fight at range, throwing plenty of red dice in most arcs. All but one of their ship cards has a turbolaser upgrade, and their dreadnought gets two. Half their ship cards have ion cannon upgrades as well. However, only two of their ships have access to support team, and these are their squadron pushers; their heavy hitters won't be using engine techs or nav teams to zoom around.
Ships
| Class | Variant | Fore | Sides | Aft | AA | Hull | Defenses | C/S/E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcell | Transport | ❸ ⬤⬤⬤ | ❶ ⬤ | ❷ | ⬤ | 5 | Brace, Evade, Redirect | 1/2/3 |
| Hardcell | Battle Refit | ❸ ⬤⬤⬤ | ❶ ⬤ | ❷ | ⬤⬤ | 5 | Brace, Evade, Redirect | 1/2/3 |
| Munificent | Comms Frigate | ❹ ⬤⬤⬤⬤ | ❸ ⬤⬤⬤ | ❷ ⬤⬤ | ⬤ | 6 | Brace, Redirect, Salvo | 2/3/4 |
| Munificent | Star Frigate | ❹ ⬤⬤⬤⬤ | ❸ ⬤⬤⬤ | ❷ ⬤⬤ | ⬤⬤ | 6 | Brace, Redirect, Salvo | 2/2/4 |
| Recusant | Light | ❸ ⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤ | ❸ ⬤⬤⬤⬤ | ❷ ⬤⬤ | ⬤ | 8 | Brace, Evade, Redirect, Salvo | 3/2/3 |
| Recusant | Support | ❸ ⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤ | ❸ ⬤⬤⬤⬤ | ❷ ⬤⬤ | ⬤ | 8 | Brace, Evade, Redirect, Salvo | 3/3/3 |
| Providence | Carrier | ❺ ⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤ | ❸ ⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤ | ❷ ⬤⬤⬤ | ⬤⬤ | 9 | Brace, Contain, Redirect, Salvo | 3/4/4 |
| Providence | Dreadnought | ❺ ⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤ | ❸ ⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤ | ❷ ⬤⬤⬤ | ⬤ | 9 | Brace, Contain, Redirect, Salvo | 3/4/4 |
Hardcell Class
"What is my purpose?" "You pass butter." "Oh my god." "Yeah. Welcome to the club, pal."
- – Rick & Morty
More like hard-sell. At a moment's glance the Hardcell looks like a cheaper, crummier Nebulon-B, with fewer dice and the the maneuvering chart of the Gozanti. But this is somewhat unfair; it's not a front line warship and it will never hit the table as one. What it is, is the only ship in Armada with a three shield arc and fleet support. It's a backfield support ship with no pretensions of being anything else.
- Transport: The basic model with two officers, fleet support, and support team. Virtually no armament upgrades or retrofits to speak of, but it's the toughest fleet support ship in the game.
- Battle Refit: Trades the transport's comedy blue dice for reds. It gets both offensive and defensive retrofits as well as turbolasers, giving it a slight edge over the Nebulon-B (forgetting that people only fly the Neb because Yavaris).
- Titles
- Beast of Burden: Meet Bob the space-cleric. Bob can spend defense tokens to ready the defense tokens of others.
- Foreman's Labor: When you take damage in an arc that still has shield remaining, you can exhaust to reduce the total damage by one. Basically plugs the Hardcell's biggest vulnerability of being hit in the side by a squadron.
Munificent Class
The Munificent is an odd take on the rebel assault frigate. Both variants have the same reds and shields in all arcs as the rebel ship but with the blues all forward, red AA, and with ion cannon and turbolaser upgrades. However, its maneuvering chart only goes up to 2, although its turning at 2 is very good.
- Comms Frigate: The cheaper of the two versions with squadron 3 and offensive retrofit.
- Star Frigate: For three points more you give up a squadron to get a black AA, and trade the offensive retrofit for a defensive one.
- Titles
- Sa Nalaor: When defending at speed 2 or higher it can spend any defense token to get an evade effect.
- Tide of Progress XII: Can exhaust its card to discard an incoming damage card with the ship trait before it resolves.
Recusant Class
The Recusant is a is an odd ship that essentially takes the play style of the TRC-90 or Arquitens and does it on the points budget of the Victory. Both hulls can crank speed three, with excellent yaw for a large ship, and can throw plenty of red dice in any direction but aft. But with only shield three at best, and no access to support teams or defensive retrofits, it's a glass cannon that can only spend its upgrades on more dakka. Command 3, engineering 3, and no duplicate defense tokens all contribute to its lack of survivability.
- Light Destroyer: Black dice variant, with an ordinance upgrade. Slightly cheaper.
- Support Destroyer: The more expensive blue dice variant with two offensive upgrades.
- Titles
- Gilded Aegis: Can sacrifice its redirect to focus its shields in one zone.
- Nova Defiant: Gets four free command tokens, but at the cost of an agonizing Command 4.
- Patriot Fist: Can give up its second attack to add two blue dice as long as its shooting to medium or long range.
Providence Class
The Providence is a big squadron pushing log that falls somewhere between the Home One and Liberty in stats. Both hulls get squadron 4 and rainbow dice in all arcs, with the dreadnought hull being slightly shootier at range. With 5 shields ahead and 3 on the sides, but 5 guns ahead and 6 on the sides, the providence is built for making a frontal charge and then transitioning into a double arc, but it's narrow front arc makes this tricky.
- Carrier: Paradoxically does not get an offensive slot despite its name.
- Dreadnought: Gets the offensive slot that you want to take full advantage of Invisible Hand.
- Titles
- Invincible: Gives you a defensive slot. Simple as.
- Lucid Voice: Flips the rear arc to 3 reds at the cost of swapping one of your side blues for a black. Practically made for salvo boat gimmicks.
- Invisible Hand: Can set aside up to 5 swarming squadrons and deploy them like rapid launch bay. Increases the AI value of the launched fighters for the turn.
Commanders
- Count Dooku: Dooku starts the game with three command tokens of at least two types. At the start of every ship phase he can discard one to give EVERY enemy ship a raid token of matching type. An odd commander in that he doesn't care what sort of fleet he's rolling with because all he does is fuck with the opponent's plans.
- Kraken: Release the kraken memes. Once per activation, while a friendly ship is attacking a ship, if another friendly ship is at close-medium range of the defender, the attacker may change 1 dice to a face with any 1 icon (and no other icons). Kraken likes ship heavy fleets with lots of activations; assuming the Recusant class destroyer of clone wars Wave 2 is a speedy midranger, expect to see him a lot.
Crew
- Rune Haako: Starts the game with 2 command tokens. When revealing a command, he can pull tokens from himself or a nearby friendly ship. Good to run on your big ships, harvesting tokens from a support hardcell.
- Wat Tambor: On a repair command, he can spend 2 shields from any hull zone, or 1 hull zone of a nearby friendly, to gain twice that many engineering points. Again really handy for pulling from a support ship.
- T-Series Tactical Droid: Requires a token to ready after use, comes with none. When you spend a repair, maneuver, or squadron command token, it can exhaust to resolve the command as if it was a dial.
- Battle Droid Reserves: Requires a repair token to ready after use, comes with none. On a repair command, it can exhaust to flip any faceup damage cards with the "crew" trait to facedown. Or it reduces the cost of discarding facedown damage cards by 1.
Equipment
- Hyperwave Signal Boost: Requires a repair or squadron token to ready, comes with none. During the squadron phase, when it is your fleet's turn to activate squadrons, you may exhaust this card to choose a number of unactivated, friendly squadrons at close-long range up to your squadron value. This turn, activate each of those squadrons. While attacking, each of those squadrons are treated as if activated by a squadron command. This one is okay today but will probably get a lot more mileage when the CIS gets bigger, squadron oriented ships.
Squadrons
The Separatist fighters are built around a gimmick of being individually very weak (generally inferior to TIEs) but getting stronger when commanded. This is due to the AI:Battery and AI:Anti-Squadron abilities, which grant an additional attack dice when the squadron is activated by a squadron command. This cannot be emphasized enough that CIS droid fighters really, REALLY, REALLY want to be commanded and if you're not commanding them you're not getting your points worth. Also, virtually nothing in the CIS arsenal has escort, so expect to lean on tokens to keep your bombers alive.
| Type | Ace | Speed | Hull | AA | AS | Defense | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Belbullab-22 | 4 | 5 | ⬤⬤⬤⬤ | ⬤ | Relay 1, Screen | ||
| General Grievous | 4 | 5 | ⬤⬤⬤⬤ | ⬤ | Brace x2 | Relay 2, Screen | |
| Droid Tri-Fighter | 5 | 3 | ⬤⬤⬤ | ⬤ | AI:Anti-Squadron 1, Counter 2, Swarm | ||
| DIS-T81 | 5 | 3 | ⬤⬤⬤ | ⬤ | Brace, Scatter | AI:Anti-Squadron 1, Counter 2, Snipe 3, Swarm | |
| Phlac-Arphocc | 5 | 3 | ⬤⬤⬤ | ⬤ | Brace, Scatter | AI:Anti-Squadron 1, Counter 2, Swarm | |
| Hyena-class Bomber | 4 | 4 | ⬤⬤ | ⬤ | AI:Battery 1, Bomber, Heavy | ||
| Baktoid | 4 | 4 | ⬤⬤ | ⬤ | Brace, Scatter | AI:Battery 1, Bomber, Heavy | |
| DBS-404 | 4 | 4 | ⬤⬤ | ⬤ | Brace, Scatter | AI:Battery 1, Bomber, Heavy | |
| Vulture-class Fighter | 4 | 3 | ⬤⬤ | ⬤ | AI:Anti-Squadron 1, Swarm | ||
| DFS-311 | 4 | 3 | ⬤⬤ | ⬤ | Brace, Scatter | AI:Anti-Squadron 1, Intel, Swarm | |
| Haor Chall | 4 | 3 | ⬤⬤ | ⬤ | Brace, Scatter | AI:Anti-Squadron 1, Swarm |
- Belbullab-22: A barebones relay 1 with screen to help keep it alive.
- General Grievous: This is the one you should be taking. Old wheezy keeps screen but steps up to relay 2, and his crits against anything with no readied defense tokens add 1 damage.
- Droid Tri-Fighter: Flimsier A-Wings with swarm.
- DIS-T81: Comes with snipe 3, and its attacks ignore obstructions. Hands down the best unique squadron the CIS has.
- Phlac-Arphocc Prototypes: Enemy squadrons that end activation at distance 1 take 1 damage. Difficult to use effectively.
- Hyena Class Bomber: Acceptable (but not great) for bombing ships, and that's it. Really wants to be used in squadron commands with a bomber command center.
- Baktoid Prototypes: When attacking a ship near another friendly bomber, it can change one dice to an accuracy. The ability kinda sucks but it comes with defense tokens.
- DBS-404: If in base contact with the defender, can take one damage to add a dice to the attack pool. Like the Baktoid you're basically taking this for the defense tokens.
- Vulture-class Fighter: Very good... if commanded. If not, they're bad. Really bad.
- DFS-311: When defending and the attack is obstructed, you can pick one of the attacker's dice to reroll. Wants to sit in cover and pass out Intel to cheaper droids.
- Haor Chall Prototypes: Before an enemy ship or squadron at distance 1 moves, it can attack them even if engaged. Like the Phlac-Arphocc, this is an ability that wants to be in the thick of things on a fighter that doesn't have the hull points to be in the thick of things.