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| I'm cheaper now! |
My posting rate has… not been great lately. Since November, I’ve been dealing with some health issues (as mentioned in earlier posts), and while things are improving, they’re still not entirely resolved. I’m hoping to pick up the pace again going forward, but we’ll have to see how it goes.
Which also explains why I’m a bit late to the party here. ARC-02 dropped in late 2025, and I’m only getting to it now. Better late than never, right?
Anyway. The show must go on. Or something.
This is the second ARC release, and as promised by the roadmap, it arrives when it was supposed to — and it’s also small.
And by “small,” I mean minuscule.
Points changes only, for a few cards, from two factions only.
What? Seriously?
Now, I do agree with the actual changes, and we’ll get to them in a second. But my initial knee-jerk reaction was: at this pace, it’ll take forever to make any meaningful impact.
And honestly… that reaction hasn’t changed.
If this is meant to be a full ARC release (even if it’s a smaller mid-season patch), why bother making it an “event” at all? I welcome the tweaks, but the “release” as a whole feels like a huge wasted opportunity.
Anyway. On to the cards.
CIS
Kraken (Commander)
-6 points (30 → 24)
Good change. Kraken is strong, but he takes setup to really shine — much more so than Mar Tuuk (28). After this adjustment, Kraken lands 2 points below TF-1726, which feels about right: TF adds dice, Kraken fixes dice, both are powerful, and this makes the choice a lot more interesting.
That said, this immediately makes me side-eye the rest of the CIS commander lineup.
Trench can be very strong, but… 32 points strong when Mar Tuuk is 28 and Kraken is 24? Probably not.
Dooku can be decent, but his raid tricks don’t feel worth 27 compared to his competition.
Grievous is a whole separate problem: you can’t really fix him with points alone unless you’re willing to make him the first sub-20 commander… so I'm fine with him not being touched.
Munificent-class Comms Frigate
-5 points (70 → 65)
Also a good change — but I don’t think it solves much.
The Comms is a better carrier than the Star Frigate, sure, but:
A) it’s still not a good carrier compared to other options (especially now that we have the new ARC Command Frigate from ARC-01), and
B) it just… dies.
So a 73-ish point Star Frigate or Command Frigate will often still be a better choice in practice.
A 5-point drop is enormous on a 70-point hull, but it doesn’t change the fundamental issue here — or rather, the issue baked into Armada’s core design: valuable ships struggle to live without a defensive retrofit slot, and that’s doubly true for slow ships.
Competitively, I don’t expect this to suddenly become a staple. But it does open up some design space, and in campaign formats like Rebellion in the Rim this could be a meaningful leg up.
What I don’t love is how little time ARC spent looking at other underused CIS ships. Making the Comms Frigate cheaper arguably pushes the Hardcell (and especially the Battle Hardcell) into an even more awkward spot. Maybe that overlap is smaller than it feels, but it’s hard not to notice.
Belbullab-22 Starfighter Squadron
-1 point (15 → 14)
Sure. Fair. But I don’t think it matters.
The Belbullab is just too much of an odd duck in the CIS lineup for a 1-point drop to fix. Relay 1 means you still kind of want them in pairs to matter, and 28 vs 30 for the pair is still pricey — especially when you also need a bunch of other squadrons to really leverage Screen, which remains… pretty irrelevant. Even if you do build around it, the Belbullab is the last CIS squad you actually want to remove, making Screen practically useless.
Why not drop it to 13? Maybe because it starts making out-of-faction squads look even worse, and then you’ve opened another can of worms. Either way: I don’t expect to see these on tables much more often at 14.
GAR
And then we get to GAR, where we… also only get squadron points changes. Three cards. That’s it. Even more depressing, somehow.
Delta-7 Aethersprite Squadron
-2 points (17 → 15)
This is the best change in the whole patch. The Delta is still a bit squishy, but now you can slot one (or more) into lists without feeling like you’re committing a small crime against efficiency. Excellent adjustment.
Luminara Unduli & Plo Koon
-3 points each (Lumi 23 → 20, Plo 24 → 21)
Great change — or at least a great attempt to open up GAR squadron builds a bit.
GAR still struggles with variety and compelling ace options, but cheaper Delta-7s plus cheaper Delta-7 aces (other than Anakin) is at least a push in the right direction. And yes, Anakin is still comically underpriced for what he does… but the faction also lacks other punchy ace options, so I understand why nobody wants to touch him without a broader plan.
Final thoughts
And that’s ARC-02. A handful of points tweaks I mostly agree with — wrapped in what feels like an almost comically tiny “release.”
I really wish this update had done more. At the very least, it could have offered something for Empire and Rebels. But I’m not going to beat that dead horse any further.
If you want ARC’s own breakdown and intent behind the changes, they’ve got a write-up here:
https://www.armadarulesetcollective.com/news/these-arent-the-droids-youre-looking-for-lnapZ2
Next up on this blog: Legacy Wave 1 — and some errata thoughts for Legacy Wave 0.
