KARM Rulings Book

Ion Cannon E

Card Text

A E is a special type of upgrade card with the E icon on its card back and upgrade icon in the lower-left corner of the card front.

A E can be equipped to any ship that has the E upgrade icon in its ship card.
A ship cannot equip more than one copy of the same E card.

Heavy Ion Emplacements E

Card Text

BLUE T : You may exhaust this card. If you do, the defending hull zone and each adjacent hull zone loses 1 shield.

Timing

This Upgrade Card may be exhausted and resolved during the 'Resolve Damage' step.

Clarifications

The damage suffered by this card ability only affects the shield values of a ship; it does not cause any damage to a ship's hull. That shield damage is suffered before the damage total is calculated, so it cannot be blocked by card effects such as Major Derlin or Seventh Fleet Star Destroyer. [1]
This upgrade resolves during the 'Resolve Damage' step, meaning that the defender must decide whether or not to spend their defense tokens before this card may be triggered. [1]

Upgrade Interactions

A defending ship that has Tranquility equipped may choose to reallocate shields before the attacker can trigger this card. Tranquility triggers after the 'Spend Defense Tokens' step but before the 'Resolve Damage' step. [1]
Implacable cannot reduce the loss of shields from this card as Implacable only applies to the total damage dealt at the end of the 'Resolve Damage' step. [1]

[1] ARC | 2025-07-11 | ARM 1.03

High-Capacity Ion Turbines E

Card Text

Modification.

The battery armaments for your left and right hull zones are increased by 1 blue die.

Timing

This Upgrade Card is always active, unless it is discarded.

Clarifications

Battery armament is used when attacking a ship. This Upgrade Card does not increase that ship's anti squadron armament. [1]
This card ability only increases the 'Left' and 'Right' hull zones of a ship's battery armament; 'Auxiliary Left' and 'Auxiliary Right' hull zones (such as those on the Super Star Destroyer) do not qualify. [1]
This added die is part of the initial attack pool when gathering dice. [1]

Objective Interactions

The blue dice added by this card can be used to claim Fire Lanes objective tokens during the 'End of Round' step, as they are considered part of the ship's battery armament. [1]

[1] ARC | 2025-07-11 | ARM 1.03

Ion Cannon Batteries E

Card Text

Blue T: Choose and discard 1 command token from the defender. If the defender does not have any command tokens, the defending hull zone loses 1 shield instead.

Timing

This Upgrade Card may be exhausted and resolved during the 'Resolve Damage' step.

Clarifications

The damage suffered by this card ability only affects the shield values of a ship, it does not cause any damage to a ship's hull. When suffering the shield damage, that shield damage is suffered before the damage total is calculated, so it cannot be blocked by card effects such as Major Derlin or Seventh Fleet Star Destroyer. [1]
The defender may not choose to have the defending hull zone lose one shield instead of discarding a command token. [1]

Upgrade Interactions

A defending ship that has Tranquility equipped may choose to reallocate shields before the attacker can trigger this card as Tranquility resolves before the 'Resolve Damage' step. [1]
If a defending ship is the target of the Implacable effect during the 'Resolve Damage' step, because this card forces the defender to 'lose 1 shield' instead of 'suffer a damage', Implacable cannot reduce the loss of shields from this card, only any other damage present in the pool. [1]

[1] ARC | 2025-07-11 | ARM 1.03

Leading Shots E

Card Text

While attacking, you may spend 1 blue die to reroll any number of dice in your attack pool.

Timing

This Upgrade Card may be resolved once during the 'Resolve Attack Effects' step.

Clarifications

This Upgrade Card's ability works on attacks against both ships and squadrons. [1]
A blue die spent for any other effect does not also resolve this card; a die can only be spent for one effect at a time unless a card ability states otherwise. [1]

[1] ARC | 2025-07-11 | ARM 1.03

MS-1 Ion Cannons E

Card Text

Blue T: Choose and exhaust 1 of the defender's upgrade cards.

Timing

This Upgrade Card may be resolved during the 'Resolve Damage' step.

Clarifications

This Upgrade Card has no effect on cards that are already exhausted. [1]
Exhausting a card that does not have any abilities relating to its exhaustion (such as Spinal Armament or Intensify Firepower!) will have no effect. [1]

[1] ARC | 2025-07-11 | ARM 1.03

NK-7 Ion Cannons E

Card Text

Blue T : Exhaust this card to force the defender to choose and discard 1 of its defense tokens.

Timing

This Upgrade Card may be exhausted and resolved during the 'Resolve Damage' step.

Clarifications

The defender can choose and discard any defense token of their choice including any exhausted defense tokens that were spent in the 'Spend Defense Tokens' step. [1]
If an Evade defense token was discarded to resolve the Evade effect, the defender must select another available token to be discarded by this card's effect. [1]
A token discarded by this Upgrade Card's effect will not resolve its normal effect. [1]

Upgrade Interactions

A defending ship that has Admonition equipped (and not discarded) cannot resolve the Admonition effect by discarding a token from this card as the 'Spend Defense Token' timing window has already passed. [1]

Damage Card Interactions

The faceup damage card Faulty Countermeasures does not prevent a defending ship from discarding an exhausted defense token due to this Upgrade Card; the token is 'discarded', not spent. [1]

[1] ARC | 2025-07-11 | ARM 1.03

Overload Pulse E

Card Text

BLUE T : Exhaust all of the defender's defense tokens.

Timing

This Upgrade Card may be resolved during the 'Resolve Damage' step.

Clarifications

This card ability does not resolve before defense tokens are spent. The Defender may still spend defense tokens in the 'Spend Defense Tokens' step, which is before the 'Resolve Damage' step. In the 'Resolve Damage' step, when the attacker chooses and resolves this critical effect, any remaining readied defense tokens will be flipped to the exhausted state. [1]
Exhausted defense tokens are not affected by this Upgrade Card. [1]

[1] ARC | 2025-07-11 | ARM 1.03

Point Defense Ion Cannons E

Card Text

While defending at close range or distance 1, during the Spend Defense Tokens step, you may force the attacker to reroll 1 die of your choice.

Timing

This Upgrade Card is resolved during the Spend Defense Tokens step of the Attack step.

[1] ARC | 2025-07-11 | ARM 1.03

SW-7 Ion Batteries E

Card Text

While attacking a ship, each of your unspent blue U icons adds 1 damage to the damage total.

Timing

This Upgrade Card is resolved during the 'Resolve Damage' step.

Clarifications

During the 'Spend Defense Tokens' step, if dice are rerolled by a defense token (Evade) or card effect (Lando Calrissian or Targeting Scrambler, etc), any accuracies rolled at that time cannot be spent to lock defense tokens as the 'Resolve Attack effects' step has already passed. However, this Upgrade Card will allow blue die accuracies to still be counted as damage, as they are 'unspent'. [1]
The Damage card 'Blinded Gunners' does not prevent this Upgrade Card's effect, as the accuracy dice are 'unspent'. [1]

[1] ARC | 2025-07-11 | ARM 1.03