The Might of the Empire

At one-hundred squad points, the Raider-class corvette is the game's largest, biggest, and baddest ship to-date. In fact, the Raider is so large that it requires two bases and is divided between two sections, fore and aft , as are its upgrade bars, action bars, and damage decks. It boasts more total shields and hull than the CR90 corvette, and it can perform up to two attacks each round with its primary weapon, worth four attack dice each, to make short work of enemy ships caught at Range 2 – 4. Of course, the Raider is also heavily customizable, boasting three hard points and slots for two crew and three teams.

Furthermore, the Raider, like the Rebellion's huge ships, can gain and spend energy to fuel a wide variety of powerful effects. Each round, your Raider gains energy during its activation, equal to the number of energy icons revealed with its chosen maneuver. For example, the Raider would gain two energy while performing a bank maneuver at speed "2," but it would only gain two energy if it were to fly straight ahead at speed "4."

As befits these officers, they come with unique abilities that allow you to exert profound influence over your ship, your fighters, and even your opponent's fighters. With these new officers, you can strip away your opponent's focus tokens or add them to your fighters, you can take new risks with your shields, and you can adopt new tactics or even entirely new strategies in the course of your Epic X-Wing battles.

No word on a release date, it seems, just this: "The time is fast approaching. Prepare for your Epic battles today. Head to your local retailer to pre-order your copy of the Imperial Raider Expansion Pack!"

Yes! This means it's close to being here!

Anyone else feel like this is exponentially better than the CR-90? More hull & shield, more firepower, better ability, and some pretty good crew so far.

Ozzel's about to have a very bad day.

I think Grand Moff Tarkin is really good, especially in his flexibility to help your own ship or hinder an opponent's, although he's a bit pricey, even for Epic.

Anyone else feel like this is exponentially better than the CR-90? More hull & shield, more firepower, better ability, and some pretty good crew so far.

I think they kinda acknowledge that in saying "It may not be the Death Star, but the Imperial Raider is, at least for now, the ultimate power in the X-Wing galaxy." Although I kinda wonder what they mean by "at least for now"... Is an even more powerful epic ship coming? Maybe for Scum?

So they spoiled 3 cards. No news on the advanced.

That article was... Underwhelming.

So they spoiled 3 cards. No news on the advanced.

That article was... Underwhelming.

I agree. Still no idea what Palpatine does. Bummer

I just wanted the tie advance fix...I may just start playing epic games now.

So they spoiled 3 cards. No news on the advanced.

That article was... Underwhelming.

I agree. Still no idea what Palpatine does. Bummer

I just hope he isn't for large ships only. The decimator needs some new crew.

So they spoiled 3 cards. No news on the advanced.

That article was... Underwhelming.

I agree. Still no idea what Palpatine does. Bummer

I just hope he isn't for large Huge ships only. The decimator needs some new crew.

The Decimator is a large ship, good chum

Anyone else feel like this is exponentially better than the CR-90? More hull & shield, more firepower, better ability, and some pretty good crew so far.

It looks pretty great, yeah. But we don't know how the maneuvers/energy on the dial compares, and maybe more importantly, that primary weapon isn't on a 360 arc. Meaning (I think) it can only fire those double 4-dice attacks in its forward arc. On the other hand, 2-4 range is going to be more generally useful than 3-5. It has some interesting trade-offs compared to the CR-90.

So they spoiled 3 cards. No news on the advanced.

That article was... Underwhelming.

I agree. Still no idea what Palpatine does. Bummer

I just hope he isn't for large ships only. The decimator needs some new crew.

If he can't be put on the shuttle, FFG will be departing significantly from their general fluffy choices.

So they spoiled 3 cards. No news on the advanced.

That article was... Underwhelming.

I agree. Still no idea what Palpatine does. Bummer

I just hope he isn't for large ships only. The decimator needs some new crew.

If he can't be put on the shuttle, FFG will be departing significantly from their general fluffy choices.

Palpatine will be the Shuttle buff we've been waiting for!

Er, I mean...what?

Just release the darn thing already.

Anyone else feel like this is exponentially better than the CR-90? More hull & shield, more firepower, better ability, and some pretty good crew so far.

My mathematician friend would have an aneurysm at the improper use of the word 'exponentially.'

Anyone else feel like this is exponentially better than the CR-90? More hull & shield, more firepower, better ability, and some pretty good crew so far.

My mathematician friend would have an aneurysm at the improper use of the word 'exponentially.'

But your local English professor would help him understand hyperbole

So they spoiled 3 cards. No news on the advanced.

That article was... Underwhelming.

I agree. Still no idea what Palpatine does. Bummer

I just hope he isn't for large ships only. The decimator needs some new crew.

If he can't be put on the shuttle, FFG will be departing significantly from their general fluffy choices.

Would you call Tarkin's ability particularly "fluffy", though?

I mean, I can see Needa and Ozzel's ability working alright - Needa certainly seemed willing to go into an asteroid field, which tended to have bad consequences, but he did it anyway. And Ozzel's ability...is as clumsy as it is stupid. But it might well work out in a pinch, so he's pretty much taking a chance with his decisions - maybe it will work out in a big way, maybe it will get him killed!

Tarkin's ability is just...huh?

What about Tarkin, in any of the places we've seen him (RotS, TCW, Rebels, ANH) would make you think 'his ability has to do with focus'. STRESS, sure, I'd give you that. Add or remove a STRESS token arbitrarily, and that would feel like Tarkin. But focus? Meh. Not Tarkin.

Anyone else feel like this is exponentially better than the CR-90? More hull & shield, more firepower, better ability, and some pretty good crew so far.

My mathematician friend would have an aneurysm at the improper use of the word 'exponentially.'

But your local English professor would help him understand hyperbole

And full stops, no doubt.

HNN has the scoop:

Anybody else notice that it looks like it comes with new HUGE debris fields?

5 attacks in a single round of combat. Doesn't seem underwhelming to me.

Anybody else notice that it looks like it comes with new HUGE debris fields?

Yeah, didn't really think much about them the first time, as debris was only useful scenario-specific when the thing was initially announced.

Now that debris is tourney-legal...these definitely look like newer, larger debris fields than we currently have.

These going to join the pool of allowable tokens? Because if so...*heck*, yeah!

5 attacks in a single round of combat. Doesn't seem underwhelming to me.

I had a single Interceptor weather that many attacks from the CR-90 and live to tell the tale. The huge ships are actually very underwhelming without dice modifications to accompany their attacks.

5 attacks in a single round of combat. Doesn't seem underwhelming to me.

I had a single Interceptor weather that many attacks from the CR-90 and live to tell the tale. The huge ships are actually very underwhelming without dice modifications to accompany their attacks.

Was that before or after the ruling change about range 4 and 5?

I know I've seen fighters completely avoid long-range shots from the big ships, but I haven't played since the range 4/5 change, so...

I think the best part of this article is all of those TIE Advanced base inserts just SITTING there, entirely too low-res to parse. Gah!