So, as much as I love the Raider, aesthetically and for its idea in filling a role in the Imperial fleet, I sense some problems with the little thing.

In the case of the CR-90, you have a small ship that doesn't have much defensive bulk. However, it stays at decent range where its evade tokens can actually keep it alive fairly well.

The Raider, from what we've seen so far, has a problem. Its attack dice all seem to be short/mid range, but its defense dice are two evades and a brace. Our inherent problem is the Raider has to get in close to do its best damage, but when it's there, it's open to counter-attacks. A single "aim" result will remove its brace, and its evades are useless at short range, so any damage you take will be straight up the a**.

Unless the Raider comes with some sort of upgrade to its evades, or some way to make itself more sustainable, it's going to get ripped apart, unlike its counterpart, the CR90, who can stay far away and troll around the edge of the board.

I'm sure FFG has something up their sleeve.

Anyway, I figured the Raider for an escort intended to cruise near your main ships and guard their flanks/rear from marauding bombers/Corvettes/MC30s.

You already have the Gladiator, which fills the hyper aggressive role very well.

The Raider will be more of a fighter support/hunting ship, or a good flank protector for those that don't want to drop the points on a Victory. If you attempt to use the Raider in the same way Gladiators get used now, by getting it stuck in the middle of the enemy fleet and pounding away with black dice, it will fall apart quickly. It will be used more from the outsides, similar to the CR90 but closer.

It will also annihilate fighters at what will likely be a highly affordable cost. I enjoy running fighter swarms and the AA potential on this thing makes me shiver.

I wouldn't count it out to be ripped apart. The majority of rebel ships have weak front shots which makes a great blocker against rebels, and if it can keep in the rear of an isd or vsd its not under much threat. To me its survivability isn't super important, so long as it stalls my opponent a turn or two so I can line up my isd's and get the juicy front arcs its worth it.

I want it to have nip guns: little shots that cant be evaded, so if you do take a 1 die blop from one, it doesnt go away. lol.

The biggest value I see in the Raider is adding ship-count to your Imperial list. Let's take a look at this:

Say we have a Rebel and Imperial fleet. The Rebel player brings a CR-90, Nebulon, and AFmkII. The Imperial player brings two Victory Star Destroyers. If the Imperial player gets the initiative, we'll have this activation:

VSD -> CR-90 -> VSD -> Nebulon B -> AFmkII

We know that the VSD gets more dangerous the closer it is. If it activates before the desired target (let's say, the AFmkII is the enemy flagship), then they will not only be putting out less dice than desired, but also will move themselves into more optimal range of the enemy ship's weapons, and potentially into strike range of a squadron-command activation. (This is a very simple, dumbed down example of the premise of activation step importance during the opening salvos, that's all)

Now, if we instead have an ISD and three raiders (assuming they're cheap enough) even going first, we get this activation:

Raider -> CR90 -> Raider -> Nebulon B -> AFmkII -> ISD

Not only can the raiders move up and screen for the ISD, but they also allow the ISD to hold back until the desired target moves into more appropriate range. Then, on the next turn, we get something even better, with the ISD being able to start out our attack on the same ship. Essentially, our ISD would get back-to-back shots at optimal range.

Of course, all of this planning rarely survives first contact with the enemy, but it's a decent strategy the Raider could be used for.

I expect the Raider 2 to have Red dice. Maybe even red and blue. . . Who knows

We know so little about it, its hard to make even a spitball, ballpark judgement. Its honestly, the one I'm most interested in, both for the Ship itself and for the spread of upgrade cards - because *so* much of that has been concealed so far.

You've neither seen the cost nor the second version. Any conjecture about the viability of the Raider is baseless without those two things, at the very least.

You've neither seen the cost nor the second version. Any conjecture about the viability of the Raider is baseless without those two things, at the very least.

All these comments thus-far have been regarding the Raider-I, which we have primarily seen most of the stats for. Next time I'll try to make that more obvious.

That being said, you can make plenty of conjecture by deducing the most likely outcomes. The Raider, lore-wise, has Dual Heavy-Laser Cannons, Single-Turbolasers, and Ion Cannons. We know that Turbolasers = Red Dice, Ion Cannons = Blue Dice, and Missiles = Black Dice. That being said, seeing the black dice on the Raider-I's loadout is a bit confusing, since nothing we know of the Raider includes missiles on standard. But, it comes with the "Rapid Reload" upgrade, which helps solidify the most likely possibility, which is that the Raider-I changes out its Turbolasers/Heavy Laser Cannons for Missile Batteries, in which case we can expect the -II to have Red and Blue dice. I think this is the most likely scenrio, since FFG helped created the Raider, and it's unlikely they would step on their own new lore for the ship.

We can also have a rough estimate of the cost of the ship. Its closest relative would be the CR90 A in terms of performance, assuming again that the -II ends up with Red Dice. However, the -II would have an increased armament over the CR90 A, with 4 front dice and 2 side against the Corvette's 3/2. It also possesses two anti-squadron dice, a blue and a black. Shielding and hull remain the same. Command, Squadron, and Engineering are the same. The only other factors left are the available upgrade slots and the balance between re-direct and brace for defensive tokens, since they both share two evades otherwise. Because of all this, we can assume that the Raider-II will probably cost a little more than a CR90 A. The biggest guess comes at how much more. I'd say probably sitting at around 50 points, or within a couple points of that. With the Raider-II sitting at that cost, we know the Raider-I will be a few less than that, so probably at or slightly above the CR90 A's cost.

The biggest reason why we can't truly know the Raider's effectiveness is not because of the second version or the cost, as you've suggested. In fact, the biggest potential game-changer from what we know is in its unknown upgrade cards, which have the ability to change a ship's effectiveness entirely. Those have the biggest ability to change anything.

I go even more Succint with it.

Let's face it. The Raider is Basically a Corvette of a slightly different Flavour.

Is the CR90 Corvette Fumbling for the Rebels?

No it is not. In fact, many people sing its praise at the things it can do, both in game and in meta game.

There is no reason why the Raider should not, as it gives most of those capabilities to the Imperials.

It's speed is also an unknown, though I fully expect it to come in at speed 4 (since, as Drasnighta points out, it is another class of corvette, after all).

From what I've seen of them, they've always struck me as a defense-oriented ship, good for guarding the flanks of more important ships from speedy CR-90s (Dodonna's pride) and for shredding bombers/providing cover-fire for attacking squadrons. It will be interesting to see if their final stats, upgrades, titles, etc. allow them to fill a more predatory niche.

The number of dice that the 1 variant of the Raider has does not mandate that the other variant retains that number of dice. We have already seen that in the Assault Frigate. Nor is FFG really all that handcuffed by lore they themselves have developed.

Irregardless of what makes this conjecture unsuportable, upgrades or cost or the second variant, as you even agree speculation on whether the Raider is going to be a dud is not supportable at the present.

A bit too early to call for doom ? We don't have much info yet on the Raider's abilities.

It does look like a decent flanker/rear arc aiming ship that the Imperial Navy can use. Brace makes it more sustainable in close combat than the Redirect of the Corvette, and it definitely has better anti-squadron. Same shielding as a Gladiator, albeit with a different repartition.

Less overall firepower than a Gladiator but with perhaps more utility due to blue dice (and Ion Cannons ?). We also have no idea about the Raider 2's strengths compared to the Raider 1.

To clarify for everyone:

I'm mostly talking in this thread about the -I, which we do have stats for.

There is one big difference between the CR90 and the Raider-I: the Raider requires it to be close up to dish out its best damage, where its evades are useless. The CR90 does well at mid-long range, where its evades are quite good to have.

My summary thought then is: from all we know currently about the Raider-I, it's not looking very good, but for what we can guess from the Raider-II, it'll be a great little ship. Of course, the costs and the upgrades can change a lot of that, for both of them..

I figure we'll know more soon. It seems to be they're doing an article every Wednesday for Armada (or at least they have the past two weeks) so maybe this next week we'll see a preview for the Raider (that way the pattern will go Imperial-Rebel-Imperial).

Okay, Raider -I Assumptions:

The Raider -I is going to be the Cheaper of the Two.

The Raider -I is going to be significantly cheaper than a Gladiator.

The Raider -I will let me have an extra activation for the Order without being a Massive Point Sink.

Ergo:

The Raider -I is a winner for me, before it even fires a Shot.

My understanding is that the Evades are there to protect the Raider early on until the time is right for it to strike. This isn't massively different from the Redirects on the VSD, which help to keep it safe early on, and are useless once all the shielding is gone.

Okay, Raider -I Assumptions:

The Raider -I is going to be the Cheaper of the Two.

The Raider -I is going to be significantly cheaper than a Gladiator.

The Raider -I will let me have an extra activation for the Order without being a Massive Point Sink.

Ergo:

The Raider -I is a winner for me, before it even fires a Shot.

Yes indeed, will greatly assist the ISDs activation order, especially if Defiance is in the opposition.

It will be very vulnerable to being 1 shot by the large ships, in which case its best defence is to be a lower priority target! I think this may extend to many of the small ships - MC30, corvette and Neb B also look like being easy kills for the ISD if they get caught out of place.

Beyond that, unless it comes with some good anti squadron upgrade cards I can't see it being that much of a deterrent, especially to Y wings etc.

But with Vader etc supporting, it will do respectable damage against ships.

Besides, the Evades will help you get INTO position. Once you are in position, you can just hover and fire rear shots for the rest of the game. And to be honest, if ALL this thing does all game is force me to activate a ship out of order to avoid getting shot in the butt and (under Screed) take a guaranteed FOUR damage, then it's making back ALL of its points. Figure in that it can also be used for a fighter escort, and you are talking about an amazing ship that is probably doing its job better than the Corvette is. Honestly, I'm more jealous of what I expect the Raider to be than I am the ISD vs MC80 comparison.

Step 1: Take a Raider

Step 2: Put Overload Pulse on it

Step 3: Use Admiral Screed to guarantee a blue critical

Step 4: Unload your unholy complement of dice from your Star Destroyers into whatever the Raider just Overload Pulsed

Step 5: Get choked out by Vader for an unrelated failure

That is actually a fantastic idea, Tvayumat!

Step 1: Take a Raider

Step 2: Put Overload Pulse on it

Step 3: Use Admiral Screed to guarantee a blue critical

Step 4: Unload your unholy complement of dice from your Star Destroyers into whatever the Raider just Overload Pulsed

Step 5: Get choked out by Vader for an unrelated failure

It doesn't matter that you have the battery layout, anti-squadron value, or it's stats; you don't have the cost nor the upgrade slots. Without those things you have no real ability to postulate about the Raider-1s effectiveness.

A ship could have amazing stats, and be overpriced and thus a dud. A ship could have few redeeming qualities, and still be undercosted and end up overpowered. You can not analyze a ship without at the very least knowing it's cost.

Whether the Raider-1 is properly costed is going to determine it's merit.

Anyone knows what the ship does in x-wing?..