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With the Core Set behind us, we turn to the first major expansion of Armada’s objective pool: The Corellian Conflict.
But before we look at the cards, let's discuss what makes a "good" objective:
A good objective is not simply one that hands Second Player the biggest possible advantage. Above all, it should encourage engagement. This is Star Wars: Armada—plastic spaceships should go pew pew, not endlessly circle the map farming tokens or dodging each other for six rounds.
The most reliable way to achieve this is to give Second Player a slight advantage in points if First Player avoids a fight—an incentive to push the game toward conflict. That bonus must be big enough to offset the natural advantage of First Player (getting to act first each round), but not so large that Second Player is rewarded for also refusing to engage.
A good objective leaves room for counterplay. First Player should be able to mitigate or deny some of the advantage with smart positioning and good decisions. At the same time, objectives where the “fallout risk” is so high that Second Player could lose catastrophically for trying to play the card are equally poor. The best ones walk that line—tactical and scoring advantages balanced against meaningful interaction from both sides.
Back to the Corellian Conflict:
Released in December 2016, this campaign box added 12 new objectives—4 red, 4 yellow, and 4 blue—intended to enrich both standard and campaign play. And while a few have gone on to become competitive staples (Planetary Ion Cannon, Solar Corona), others… not so much.
This was the first set to fully embrace objective token shuffling mechanics. Strategic squadrons had just arrived in Wave 5, and FFG leaned hard into them. The result? Some of the worst token-farming archetypes the game has ever seen. See what I led with that bit about good objectives? Pretty clever of me, actually 😇 Fortunately, most of those builds have faded, but the scars remain, so to speak.
We also had unlimited Relay, no max flotillas, or ace cap... the only thing missing... a certain Admiral Sloane 💓 But that's a story for another day.
On top of that, The Corellian Conflict also introduced dust fields, a new obstacle type that—while somewhat underused—can still add interesting texture to objectives. Where appropriate, I'll suggest incorporating them into these cards to reinforce the set’s flavor and tactical identity.
Let’s dig in and see what’s worth keeping, what needs tweaking, and what belongs in the dumpster.
⚔️ Assault Objectives (Red)
Blockade Run
Tactical: Favorable if you can leverage the narrow board.
Scoring: Modest advantage for second player.
Fun Factor: Mixed.
It looks cool. The narrow board creates exciting ISD murder corridors. But MSU fleets can sometimes just stall, then dash across for points without engaging—and that’s less fun.
Fixes:
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Remove the station.
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Add 2 dust fields.
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Let Second Player discard their ship’s objective token to resolve Evade, even if they don’t have the defense token.
➡ Verdict: Borderline playable already—but there are better options TBH. Dust helps. A flexible, defensive mechanic helps more. But will these changes make it a "good" objective in terms of the above criteria or just annoying for First Player?
Close-Range Intel Scan (CRIS)
Tactical: Dust fields in play, no other 2nd player advantage.
Scoring: Modest advantage for second player.
Play Rate: Rare.
This one saw some use back in the day, mostly with accuracy generators. It's a pure scoring objective, no tactical advantage outside the dust fields. It hasn’t aged well, I think. And Quad Turbos got turned into a Mod, which didn't help.
Fix:
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Allow squadron attacks to generate tokens/points.
This gives squad-centric fleets a thematic, useful red objective to round out their suite. I'm sure someone will find this to be potentially troublesome, but I mean, who doesn't want to play this with ARCs, Ketsu, Maarekdon, Gold Squadron, etc.?
➡ Verdict: Not far off. This one tweak puts it back on the table (maybe) by making it a viable pick for squad-centric fleets.
Station Assault
Tactical: Come at me burh + healing potential.
Scoring: Modest advantage for second player.
Play Rate: Near zero
It’s quirky and hard to interact with—but not impossible to fix. It plays a bit like Contested Outpost, but with two stations that can heal you. This is good. On the other hand, the stations are squishy and can easily be picked off in so many ways. Not good.
Ideas:
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Add 2 dust fields with some form of placement restrictions to prevent fortress setups.
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After setup, Second Player chooses one Armed Station (aligned to them); the other is an unaligned Unarmed Station.
This gives real decision-making to both sides, while staying flavorful.
➡ Verdict: Needs thoughtful rework, but the bones are interesting.
Targeting Beacons
Tactical: Rerolls are significant if you can get them.
Scoring: None.
Play Rate: Near zero
Letting First Player throw two tokens in the corners while Second Player tries to scrape together rerolls? No thanks, even if you were to bring multiple Strategic squadrons.
Full overhaul:
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Players alternate placing 5 tokens beyond distance 5 of the long edges.
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During attacks:
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Second Player rerolls 2 dice.
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First Player rerolls 1 die.
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Now there’s a real battlefield and real decisions with counter-play options. It has some similarities with Most Wanted. The only part lacking is scoring, but the tactical stuff is pretty powerful, so that's probably fine.
➡ Verdict: Needs a total rewrite. The current version is non-functional.
🚢 Navigation Objectives (Yellow)
Capture the VIP
Tactical: Forces the 1st player to chase.
Scoring: Modest.
Play Rate: Solid fallback pick.
This is a safe, effective objective, the kind you take when there are no better options, and that's fine—but let's consider what can be done to make it slightly more attractive.
Fixes:
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Increase token value to 60 or 75 points.
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Ban flotillas from carrying it.
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Possibly ban Strategic movement of the token.
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Add 2 dust fields for thematic and tactical flair.
➡ Verdict: Still good. Deserves a small bump to stay relevant.
Fighter Ambush
Tactical: Bad deployment penalty.
Scoring: Potentially high, can be flipped by those 1st players who pick it.
Play Rate: Very Rare
This one has two issues: squad-heavy lists have paid a premium for their deployment advantage, and giving that up can be pretty bad. Secondly, the only opponents that will choose this one are those that can flip it, or fight you to a point where you gain zero points from it.
Fixes:
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Instead of setting aside squadrons, Second Player’s squads gain Scout.
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First Player’s ships receive 1 squadron aid token each at the start of Round 1 (Maybe also round 2, but that may be too harsh).
Now this feels balanced and offers squad-centric fleets a fair fight.
➡ Verdict: A few tweaks away from being a viable option.
Jamming Barrier
Tactical: Decent if leveraged correctly.
Scoring: None.
Play Rate: Rare.
A weird but flavorful card that could shine with more interaction. I've seen this objective leverage to some effect, so it's not hopeless by any means. But still, let's see if we can make it slightly better, or at least more flexible.
Fixes:
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At the end of each round, Second Player may:
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Move one token up to Distance 1, or
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Remove both tokens (drop the barrier).
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Optional: First Player gains a CF raid token if shooting through the barrier.
➡ Verdict: Leave it niche, but make it dynamic. This way, the second player gains a lot of tactical options. Combined with the dust fields already in play, this creates a constantly changing battlefield.
Planetary Ion Cannon (PIC)
Tactical: Strong.
Scoring: None needed.
Play Rate: A staple of yellow, but not overrepresented.
A consistent, thematic choice that punishes poor positioning. One minor fix keeps it feeling sharp.
Fix:
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If the cannon doesn’t fire, Second Player may move one token up to Distance 1–2.
➡ Verdict: Still a top-tier objective. Minor tuning keeps it fresh.
🛡️ Defense Objectives (Blue)
Navigational Hazards
Tactical: Practically useless.
Scoring: Very modest in practice.
Play Rate: Zero.
In practice, this is a useless objective. It should be fun with all the moving parts, but only the slowest and most cumbersome ships fail to avoid the obstacles. And if the first player avoids all obstacles, the scoring advantage is zero for the second player.
It also suffers horribly from being overshadowed by other blue objectives. If you're playing Romodi, would you want THIS or Infested Fields? Yeah, thought as much.
Fix:
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First Player must assign 1 additional command dial to each of their ships.
Now you’re adding pressure without altering the game’s physical space. This idea was lifted straight from Nebula Outskirts (but toned down a bit).
➡ Verdict: Still jank—but fun jank, now.
Salvage Run
Tactical: Minor, forces a fight.
Scoring: Modest.
Play Rate: An alternative to Intel Sweep
Fixes:
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Second Player chooses Nav or Repair tokens at setup.
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Add a 5th token or increase value to 20 points.
➡ Verdict: Still chill. Slight buff makes it a fair pick.
Sensor Net
Tactical: Forces a fight.
Scoring: Too much.
Legacy: Token-farming hell.
Token sweeping, Strategic abuse, and low interaction. This is the original sin of token farming hell.
Fixes:
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Players choose between a victory token or a command token.
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Reduce Second Player’s move range to 1–3.
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Reduce victory token value to 10 points.
➡ Verdict: The potential for abuse is still there, but now there is a tactical/choice element to it, and the points are not as severe.
Solar Corona
Tactical: Can be significant, especially for fleets with few deployments.
Scoring: None.
Play Rate: Decent.
An example of simple design done well.
Optional spice:
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For every accuracy icon removed by the Corona, opponent gains 10 points.
Not necessary, but could be fun.
➡ Verdict: Still excellent. No fix needed.
🔚 Outro
The Corellian Conflict gave us some truly iconic objectives—and a few infamous ones. While not every design aged gracefully, many can be revived with relatively light tweaks. Adding dust fields for thematic consistency, reining in Strategic abuse, and offering meaningful decisions to both players are all steps toward a healthier objective pool.
🔜 What’s Next?
In Part 3, we dive into the final batch of objectives—those from Rebellion in the Rim.
We'll explore them all.
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