"What are you doing? You’re not actually going into an asteroid field?"

–Leia Organa

One of the most defining elements of any good Star Wars game is that it can get you into the Star Wars mindset. Whether it makes you feel like Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back or awakens you to powers you didn't know you had, a good Star Wars game is naturally rich with both conflict and narrative. The forces of light and dark must collide, and there should be something at stake as they do.

In Star Wars™: Armada, the shapes of your conflicts are determined largely by objective cards. There are twelve objective cards in the Core Set, and each makes a major impact on the way your games play out. You and your opponent may fly the same fleets to battle against each other many different times, but if you change your objectives, each game will tell a different tale.

A match that utilizes Advanced Gunnery won't just play differently than one using Intel Sweep, it will feel different, too. The strategies you implement and the tactical decisions you make in order to maximize your balance of fleet destruction and objective points lead to different stories. In one, your Mon Karren may lay waste to a whole host of smaller Imperial ships. In the other, it may struggle to keep pace with the elusive Imperial raiders racing ahead of it and intercepting key Rebel transmissions.

So while it's clear that Armada is a great, immersive Star Wars game largely because of the way it uses its objectives, it should be welcome news that The Corellian Conflict will soon grant you access to eight new, campaign-specific objectives, plus another twelve objectives that you can use in any of your games—no matter whether you play these games in your campaign or your next big tournament.

A New Look for Your Battlefield

In our earlier previews of The Corellian Conflict, we looked at its campaign and its squadron cards. But in addition to these—and the new objectives that we're exploring in today's preview—The Corellian Conflict also introduces six obstacle tokens, including two new dust field tokens.

The dust field is a new type of obstacle that prevents ships from performing any attacks that would trace line of sight across the token. Squadrons can attack through a dust field, but their attacks are obstructed. And, of course, the dust field features in three of the new objectives from The Corellian Conflict— Close-Range Intel Scan , Jamming Barrier , and Salvage Run .

While these are the only objectives from The Corellian Conflict that incorporate its two dust fields, several other objectives rearrange your battlefield in other ways.

Station Assault adds a second station to the battlefield, then designates both station tokens as Unarmed Stations .

Blockade Run effectively turns your battlefield sideways, challenging the second player to race as many ships as possible into the first player's deployment zone.

And two of the expansion's new objectives— Sensor Net and Navigational Hazards —transform your battlefield into a living, moving, and unpredictable thing.

New Objectives Equal New Challenges

Of course, it's not just the appearance of your battlefield that changes. The stories of your battles change, as well.

Suddenly, your Rebel corvettes are really trying to earn their due as blockade runners, finding their way through the entirety of a deadly Imperial fleet. Cunning Rebel admirals, knowing they're outgunned, may try to hinder Imperial fire by launching their attack while screened by the blinding flare of a Solar Corona . Or a driven Imperial commander—perhaps Darth Vader—may recruit a number of Rogue squadrons, pair them with his Bombers, and snare the Rebels in his carefully planned Fighter Ambush .

The objectives from The Corellian Conflict offer a wide range of new approaches to the battles of Armada, and that's before you even consider the fact that you still have all the Core Set objectives.

By doubling the number of available objectives, The Corellian Conflict dramatically improves your ability to match your fleet and its tactics to a beneficial objective. At the same time, because it also improves your opponent's ability to match his or her fleet to the perfect objective, the expansion places greater emphasis on the initiative bid and your decision to go first or second.

If you go first, you'll find it more important than ever to field a flexible and powerful fleet that can adapt to nearly any circumstances. But if you go second, you can take advantage of the rerolls from Targeting Beacons , the extra damage introduced by your Planetary Ion Cannon , or the extra navigation tokens you gain to help you on your Salvage Run .

Control the Battlefield. Control the Battle.

Star Wars battles are full of drama and heroics, and there's plenty of room for both of these among the new objectives in The Corellian Conflict. And as you look to explore their potential for new tactics and narratives, you'll find that—more than ever—these objectives, paired with those from the Core Set, allow you to fight your battles on your terms. After all, it's one thing to fly into battle and see where the fates will take you; it's quite another thing to lure your opponent into a battlefield of your own design.

Control the battlefield. Control the battle. Explore all that the new objectives from The Corellian Conflict have to offer. This Armada campaign expansion is coming soon. Head to your local retailer to pre-order your copy today!