Welcome back to Special Modifications!
In Part 1, we looked at defense tokens — one of the most important and iconic mechanics in Armada, and the way the game’s entire combat system revolves around denying their effective use. ECM, Intel Officer, XI7s… all part of a long history of token suppression that has shaped Armada since Wave 1.
This time, we’ll continue down the same road: dice modification and defense. Specifically, why Armada’s “unlimited rerolls” are a mixed blessing, and why some defense tokens are vastly stronger (or weaker) than others.
Unlimited Rerolls: A Blessing or a Curse?
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One of Armada’s design choices is that dice can be rerolled as many times as you want, as long as you have the effects to do it (as opposed to X-Wing, where a die can only ever be rerolled once).
On the surface, unlimited rerolls sound great. More consistency, more reliable damage, more control over dice. But in practice, they’re not exactly elegant — and sometimes they’re downright excessive. Dice modification is already the single most important part of Armada’s combat math. Layer unlimited rerolls on top of that, and it can start to feel like you’re just cycling the dice until you get what you want.
Anyone remember the old days of stacking Bomber Command Centers? Squadron rerolls upon rerolls upon rerolls. Theoretically balanced by opportunity cost, but in practice, it was just boring and oppressive. No one misses those times.
Personally, I think Armada would be healthier — and more interesting — if each die could only be rerolled once per side:
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The attacker gets one reroll in the “Resolve Attack Effects” step.
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The defender gets one reroll in the “Spend Defense Tokens” step.
That’s it. One and done.
This wouldn’t remove rerolls from the game — far from it. It would keep them impactful, but stop the abuse and over-layering that sometimes creep into Armada’s dice system. Now, there are many other dice modifications in Armada, and those would persist, so the change isn't as big as you might think. But there would be some knock-on effects that would have to be accounted for, cards that need rewording or redesign, that sort of thing. But overall, I think it would create a more elegant system with better design space.
The Power (and Weakness) of Defense Tokens
Not all defense tokens are created equal.
One is overpowered, one feels like filler, the rest sit somewhere in between. This isn’t a strict tier list — aside from Scatter, which sits on the throne uncontested — but rather a look at what each token actually brings to the table, and how they might (or dare I say should) have been designed differently. Please don't take these ramblings at face value: we're deep into "what if" territory here, and any changes to tokens would have to be thoroughly playtested!
Scatter – Canceling all damage is simply too much. It’s the reason Scatter aces have always been disproportionately hard to deal with.
If Scatter instead canceled up to three dice or reduced total damage by three (a “Kit Fisto” style effect), it would still be incredibly potent but not 100% proof against unlucky spikes. It could even be combined with Brace or the reworked squadron Evade (see below) to provide additional options.
With all of this in place, you’d still have to fear Shara and Ciena, but at least there would be a crack in their "armor." Flotillas would become somewhat more susceptible to long-range fire (but not all that much) and could no longer laugh at massive close-range black dice volleys (a good thing IMO, we don't need flotillas blocking Demo anymore).
Brace – Honestly, Brace is fine.
It’s powerful, consistent, and always relevant. Cutting damage in half is a cornerstone mechanic, and it feels right where it is, perfectly appropriate for both ships and squadrons.
Evade – On ships, Evade found its equilibrium after Armada 1.5. Keep as is.
But on squadrons? Evade makes no sense at all. A better design would be:
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Always cancel 1 die, regardless of range.
This would make squadron Evade actually relevant, instead of the limp afterthought it is today, without making it overpowered. It even combines with Brace — and the original Vult Skerris Scatter/Evade combo could have worked!
If you wanted to make squadron Evade even better:
- Either: Make them cancel 1 additional die if the attacker is a squadron (the dice pools are much larger).
- Or: Let squadron Evade affect an extra die (vs any attack) only if you discard the token (mirroring the vs larger ships effect of ship Evade). I think I like this one the best.
Redirect – Redirect is useful, preventing the enemy from drilling through shields to get at your hull, but it is clearly weaker than Brace.
If Redirect had a weakened Expert Shield Techs effect baked in — move the damage or reduce it by 1 to a minimum of 1 — it would feel like a real choice without completely invalidating chip damage. A little tweak that would have done a lot to bring Redirect into parity.
Actually, if the old Empire and Rebel ships were reworked to have the same token suites as their CW equivalents (Salvo instead of redundant Redirects), you COULD do the full EST as the alternate effect. It would make Obi-Wan suck a lot less — and Luminara would still be a potential problem. Probably too strong. I prefer the first option. Maybe with 3-point EST?
Salvo – I have a love-hate relationship with Salvo.
It brought fresh new dynamics into the attack/defense dynamic (by making defense attack), but also created some situations where small and/or weakened ships WILL NOT ATTACK because attacking is worse than not attacking. That's... not ideal. Yet Salvo (and Ignition) does bring something to the game, so it's not all bad!
But let's put the "is Salvo good for the game" question aside and just accept that it's a thing.
Salvo gave Clone Wars-era ships teeth, but it also left Civil War-era ships looking dated and lame without it. If Salvo had been part of Armada from the start, the entire defensive landscape would have been designed differently. Dropping it in midstream created an imparity that needs to be addressed.
So my solution for Salvo is not to change the token effect but to rework the old ships, swapping a Rediect for a Salvo where appropriate. And add ship "keywords" while you're at it. You hear that, ARC?
Contain – The odd one out. It technically works, and it can be useful, but it’s not up there with the rest of them. It’s always the one you swap out when upgrades let you. Damage Control Officer got dropped to a mere 3 points, but it still struggles to justify an officer slot.
Back in the Fantasy League of 2022, we tried beefing it up by making it work like EST Redirect — reduce incoming damage by 1. That turned out to be too strong in conjunction with other defense tokens and upgrades.
A better idea might be this:
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Alternate use: reroll a die with a crit icon.
This way, Contain has some utility even before shields are breached, while still keeping its original purpose intact. It’s not flashy, but at least it would feel worth spending. And if combined with the "one reroll" rule, it can't be layered with Evade, PDIC, etc.
If you wanted to beef it up some more, consider an Evade-style discard effect:
- If defending against a smaller ship, discard to cancel that die.
It's an interesting concept. Even though I'm not a big fan of making big ships better at fortressing, I think a one-use Brunson could be agreeable.
The ARC perspective
All of this is mere speculation and theorycrafting, of course. But if there was ONE thing I would love to see make it into the game, it's a change to squadron Evades. Sure, Scatter is OP, but it's well ingrained in the game by now, so fine, leave it.
But squadron Evade? It really could use a bump, and I think my "always cancel a die" makes perfect sense. And it would be the icing on the cake if you could discard the effect and add an additional die.
Squadrons and the Token Divide
Ace squadrons get defense tokens. Generics (and non-ace uniques) don’t. That gap is HUGE, and it has defined Armada’s squadron game since day one.
Now, taking defense tokens away from aces isn’t really an option. If Tycho, Ciena, or Maarek lost their Scatters and Brace, they’d leave the table far too quickly and stop being worth their points.
So the obvious solution seems to be the reverse: give all squadrons defense tokens.
But that way lies madness.
If every generic squadron suddenly had tokens, the entire ship–squadron interaction would break. Ships would have a much harder time thinning the squadron herd, bombing runs would be far deadlier, and every piece of anti-squad tech in the game would need a redesign. Not only that, but you’d have to give each generic its own individual card and track which tokens belong to which model. Messy, slow, and very un-Armada.
And the knock-on effects would be even worse: the squadron command system and ship command values are all balanced around the idea that you’re fielding a mass of generics. If those generics suddenly became fewer but a lot tougher, the whole subsystem would collapse. Squadron commands would be much less relevant, and the careful balance between ships and squadrons would unravel.
So no, you can’t just slap tokens on everything. The split has to remain — unless you’re willing to completely redesign Armada from the ground up.
Which leaves us with one real path forward: we need to take a long, hard look at the base generics themselves. Make them useful. Make them correctly costed. Ensure that when taken in quantity, they offer real value compared to aces, instead of being disposable filler.
The Clone Wars factions actually succeed here — to some extent. Most of their generics are more competitive and better balanced than those of the Civil War era. That’s the model to learn from.
And that’s where we’ll head in Part 3.
Wrap-Up
Unlimited rerolls and uneven defense tokens are two sides of the same design coin. They both show how Armada’s core rules are solid, but sometimes aren't finely tuned enough, tilting too far toward “more” instead of “enough.” Rerolls became stackable to the point of excess. Some defense tokens became indispensable while others became jokes.
Would changing these mechanics fix the game? Not without a massive redesign. But thinking about how they could have worked differently gives us insight into why Armada feels the way it does — and how small design choices ripple outward for years.
That’s what Special Modifications is all about: pulling at the strings, seeing where they lead, and imagining how the game might have played if those strings had been tied differently.
Up Next
In Part 3, we’ll stay with squadrons and ask a simple but important question: what should the “base” generics of each faction have looked like? Their costs, their stats, and their lack of tokens set the stage for everything that followed — and maybe not always in the best way.
Stay tuned.
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