ARC and Legacy joining forces under Armada Community Edition (ACE) still makes me happy. I said my piece about the merger recently, so I won't repeat the whole argument. People who care about Armada are now pulling in the same direction, and that's a very good place to start.
Of course, a united team still has to make good decisions. Over this series I'll work through the 2026 Community Edition changes in some detail: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Spoiler: there's considerably more good than ugly. This first post covers the general rules and objectives; ships, squadrons, upgrades, and the rest can have their own turns in the spotlight.
These are first impressions based on the ACE changelog and the updated rules, rather than verdicts from a pile of games. I reserve the right to change my mind once someone has moved a purrgil through my fleet.
The general rules
No flotilla objective ships. ACE puts this in the general rules and spells it out on Advanced Gunnery, Most Wanted, and Intel Sweep. A little redundant, perhaps, but these objectives have sat unchanged for years. Making the restriction impossible to miss is probably wise.
Most Wanted is the obvious case: the second player can no longer nominate a cheap flotilla, enjoy the offensive benefit, and hide their own objective ship behind the fleet. Intel Sweep now needs a real ship to collect tokens instead of a cheap flotilla that can be surprisingly difficult to reach and kill. Advanced Gunnery is subtler: the first player must nominate a combat ship even if none is an appealing candidate and they'd much rather risk a flotilla. All three now ask players to put something meaningful on the line.
I find it odd, however, that this rule isn't more general in nature. You can still use flotillas for Opening Salvo and Capture the VIP because those use different wording (they are not objective ships; they just get objective tokens and can pick up objective tokens). Minor, but kind of weird if you ask me.
Moving obstacles ignore squadrons until they reach their destination. When an objective moves an obstacle towards a point or another obstacle, squadrons no longer stop that movement. If the obstacle overlaps squadrons at the end, the opposing player places them touching it. It was far too easy to block purrgils, or moving obstacles in something like Doomed Station, with a few squadrons. This makes a lot of sense. The purrgil actually gets to migrate.
No deploying ships on obstacles. Hyperspace Assault and Admiral Raddus are finally consistent on this point. It also offers a little counterplay to Raddus: a skilled opponent can use obstacles to screen some potential arrival positions. It's hardly a complete answer to Raddus, but it's a useful option and a good small change.
Strategic. Shifting an objective token now takes the place of attacking during that squadron's activation. If you command a Strategic squadron from a ship, it can move and shift a token. In the Squadron Phase, you have to choose between moving into position and shifting a token you're already near. Unless, of course, you've given your VCXs Rogue with Hera, but that's a pretty expensive solution! This is a good nerf to an ability that could feel oppressive, and ACE softens it with a one-point reduction for both the Lambda and VCX-100.
Screen. The old version depended, for most practical purposes, on how accommodating your opponent was. Except for a perfect alpha strike against a careless opponent, Screen offered very little. Now it checks for up to two friendly non-Screen squadrons at distance 1 of the defender, giving you much more control over whether the protection works. The old Screen could reach Dodge 3 (despite what the changelog says); the new one tops out at Dodge 2, a sensible limit now that the ability is much easier to use. Screen can finally do the job its name suggests. I love this change.
Objectives: more reasons to open the binder
The broad idea of tuning underused objectives is sound. If a small handful of objectives dominate selection, a lot of interesting cards might as well not exist. Eight objectives get substantive adjustments here, while Advanced Gunnery, Most Wanted, and Intel Sweep also repeat the new flotilla restriction on their cards.
That said, if any of the changes are controversial, it's these. Some of these objectives have been around since 2015 and have never been touched by FFG/AMG. In my not-so-humble opinion, however, tweaking objectives is ESSENTIAL for the game's continued health. We can't keep playing the same ones over and over and over. And by extension, we're also limiting the viability of some fleet types and restricting future design space. So the naysayers are wrong, and this is the right thing to do. Search your feeling or something and you'll know it's true.
Advanced Gunnery and Most Wanted put the no-flotillas rule directly on the cards. That is useful for clarity, even if the general rule already says it. I do wonder why their scoring was left alone when ACE revisited Opening Salvo's. It feels a little inconsistent to reconsider the risk and reward for one familiar red objective but not the others.
Intel Sweep gets the same non-flotilla wording. The scoring has always been fixed, so there's nothing comparable to revisit there. The important change is that the token collector has to be a combat ship, which can put it at risk or draw it out of optimum position if you decide to use it for token picking.
Marked for Destruction always felt almost good enough. It came from Rebellion in the Rim, where the smaller 3×3-foot battlefield gave its purrgils rather more influence. On a standard 6×3 table, it struggled to have the same impact. ACE may finally have fixed that. The second player now places all obstacles, including the two purrgils, and an attack against an objective ship can use the critical effect to move a nearby purrgil. That can damage a ship and score a victory token as part of the same play. Better yet for the second player, the damage card is faceup if the affected ship belongs to the first player. That's potentially much nastier than an ordinary facedown card. Tokens also rise from 15 to 20 points each. Full control of the obstacle setup, a way to move the purrgils when it matters, more dangerous damage, and better scoring make this a genuinely interesting option for the right fleet.
Opening Salvo finally specifies a ship's first non-Salvo attack. Small change, long overdue. The scoring revision is more important: at game's end, the second player gains a token for each damaged enemy ship still on the table, and tokens are worth 20 points. Previously, having this objective turned against you could produce a brutal scoring swing. The new endgame points give the second player a way to claw some of that back while retaining the objective's shooting benefit. That can matter a great deal in a tournament, where the margin matters as well as the win. Opening Salvo looks much less dodgy to take now.
Targeting Beacons is improved, but I don't love the design. The old version placed four beacons; ACE removes the two placed by the first player, which often ended up hidden in distant corners. I understand the impulse. But the new critical effect belongs to every ship: against a defender at distance 1–2 of a beacon, a player can cancel the attack dice to deal one faceup damage card and gain a 15-point victory token. Both players therefore have scoring opportunities, even though only the second player now places beacons. Letting the first player place one or two would have offered an interesting gamble: hide them safely or put them where both sides might exploit them. The revised card is better, but it feels a little dull and inelegant next to that possibility.
Fire Lanes lets the first player shift each objective token up to distance 1 after the second player places them. It's a small setup change, but makes the objective more consistent with others that give both players some say in placement. The bigger change is scoring: tokens drop from 15 to 10 points. With three tokens in play, the theoretical haul falls from 45 to 30 points per round. That's still enormous, but at least it's closer to other objectives.
I do wish ACE had also dealt with the awkward token-and-base interactions. Using Strategic to move tokens under ships or squadron bases, or using squadron overlaps to leave squadrons sitting on top of tokens, is pretty lame. A general clarification on what may overlap what would have been welcome here.
Jamming Barrier was workable before, but niche. ACE replaces the old attack-pool halving with obstruction, a familiar mechanic that fits much better. The second player assigns a token to each of their ships; when one is targeted, it can discard its token to remove three dice from the attack pool, on top of any obstruction the barrier provides. That's a lot of defensive power without blunting the second player's own attacks.
The clever part is the leash. Like Fleet in Being, the bonus asks you to keep your ships in the right area: a ship that ends a round beyond distance 3 of a barrier token in the play area loses its token. Each token still held at game's end is worth 15 points. So the second player can protect a ship now, save its token to score later, or lose the opportunity by moving away. That's a much more interesting objective than the old version. I expect Jamming Barrier to see considerably more play, quite possibly in competitive fleets.
Dangerous Territory gets an elegant little addition: a second-player ship at distance 1–2 of an obstacle can add a click of yaw during Determine Course. Suddenly this isn't merely an objective about collecting points. The terrain gives only the second player a tangible navigation advantage, opening up more dynamic ways to fly and fight around obstacles. Imagine pairing it with Admiral Coburn. If only I could force my opponent to pick it! Great work by ACE: a small rule that makes the objective much more versatile without making it complicated.
Hyperspace Migration was one of the clunkiest objectives in Armada, and somehow it still is. I've played since launch, and I have to read this card several times to untangle its timing, placement, and scoring. What chance does a newer player have? I appreciate ACE trying to improve it, and the objective can produce an interesting game, but this much opaque text does the game no favors.
There are good changes in here. The two objective tokens that anchor the purrgils' route now have setup instructions suited to a 6×3 table rather than Rebellion in the Rim's 3×3 battlefield. Centering the purrgils on the line between those tokens makes placement clearer. The new rule that squadrons cannot stop moving obstacles also helps the migration actually happen. Requiring a purrgil to move at least distance 1 before it hands out tokens means ships cannot simply box it in and farm points.
The victory token value is halved to 10 points, but a ship can apparently cash in an objective token at the end of the Status Phase and collect another when a purrgil moves at the end of that same round. In that situation, the lower value may not reduce the scoring rate much at all—provided the purrgils keep moving. There is a worthwhile objective somewhere in here. I just wish it didn't take a seminar to play it. If it can't be made less clunky than this, I would almost rather leave it out.
Navigational Hazards has one change, but it's a substantial one: at the end of each round, the second player moves all five obstacles other than the station. That's real control over the battlefield, even if it doesn't quite reach Infested Fields levels of appeal. It puts Navigational Hazards back in the running, and it may be an even better Admiral Coburn objective than Dangerous Territory.
First verdict
My favorites are the flotilla restriction, the Strategic trade-off, the Screen rewrite, and the new lease on life for Marked for Destruction, Jamming Barrier, and Dangerous Territory. Opening Salvo's scoring change is another welcome correction, and Navigational Hazards is finally worth another look.
The ugly? Hyperspace Migration remains a rules-reading exercise, Fire Lanes still invites awkward token overlaps, and Targeting Beacons misses an opportunity to give the first player a more interesting placement choice. On balance, ACE seems to be taking objectives seriously as part of fleet design and table play, which is exactly what I want from a living Armada ruleset.
Next time: The rest of the update. Republic ship points. Tweaked commanders. And more.
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