Victory-class Star Destroyer Expansion Pack
The largest and most powerful of all the ships from the Core Set and first wave, the Victory-class Star Destroyer formed the core of the Imperial Navy at the outset of the Galactic Civil War, and it’s likely, soon, to form the core of many an Imperial fleet in Armada.
Available in both the Core Set and the Victory-class Star Destroyer Expansion Pack, the Victory-class Star Destroyer can be fielded as either of two subclasses. The more powerful Victory II costs eighty-five fleet points, and the Victory I, which is very nearly as imposing, costs seventy-three.
The ship cards for the Victory I (left) and Victory II (right).
These ships are the same in the expansion pack as they are in the Core Set, but the upgrades differ. And, as you can begin to guess from a look at their action bars, the different Victory-class Star Destroyers can each field an astonishing array of upgrades.
Both the Victory I (bottom) and Victory II (top) can host as many as five standard upgrades, plus a title. Additionally, the Victory-class Star Destroyer can serve as an excellent flagship for your commander, so you can theoretically associate as many as seven upgrade cards with a single Victory-class Star Destroyer.
Notably, though, the Victory II features the ion cannon upgrade type while the Victory I features the missile upgrade type. A small differences in icons that might slip your notice at first, this is the sort of distinction to which shrewd commanders will pay close attention as they assemble their fleets.
For example, the Victory I can equip the Assault Concussion Missiles upgrade. Then, whenever your attack includes a 
result on a black attack die, you can deal one point of damage to each hull zone adjacent to the defending hull zone. You can only trigger one critical effect per attack, so if you trigger the effect from your Assault Concussion Missiles, you won’t deal a faceup damage card to the enemy ship; of course, the exchange is that you will deal an extra two points of damage.
On the other hand, the Victory II can equip either the Overload Pulse or the Ion Cannon Batteries found in the Victory-class Star Destroyer Expansion Pack. You can trigger the critical effect of either of these upgrades whenever you roll a result on a blue attack die. If you’ve equipped an Overload Pulse, you can exhaust all of the defending ship’s defense tokens, leaving it, effectively, a sitting duck for the remainder of the round. Or if you’ve equipped the Ion Cannon Batteries, you can strip away a ship’s command tokens, leaving it with fewer and weaker command options.
As you can see, the upgrades that you select for your ships will drastically impact your strategy, and that means that each of the fourteen upgrades from the Victory-class Star Destroyer Expansion Pack offers its own range of strategic concerns. However, no upgrade cards offer more far-reaching strategic concerns than new commanders and title cards.
Even though the Core Set offers a wide enough range of ship cards, squadrons, and upgrades to permit a great deal of fleet-building flexibility, it includes only one commander card for each faction and just one title for each type of ship. The Imperials gain Grand Moff Tarkin as their sole commander, and any Imperial looking to field a unique Victory-class Star Destroyer must choose to field the Dominator.
These are both solid options, but the Imperial Navy gains greater flexibility with the Victory-class Star Destroyer Expansion Pack. Admiral Motti offers his services as commander, and you can field the Corrupter or Warlord instead of the Dominator (or alongside it).
These cards greatly expand the range of possible synergies you’ll be able to develop within your fleet, as do the expansion’s eleven other crew members, teams, hangar bays, and armaments. Accordingly, the Victory-class Star Destroyer Expansion Pack, like each Armada expansion, isn’t just all about its pre-painted miniature Star Destroyer; it’s about harnessing enough firepower to put the fear of the Empire into your opponents.
