Meanwhile, my MC80s are one-shotting two of them per turn...

If they have surrounded you, you're already dead.

I dont know. I may be the only one who has found this hard but getting more than 3 to 4 CR90 B's into medium range where they can attack and survive is about the best I can do.

I dont think more than 4 is likely to get in and attack but these are much larger ships so in theory 2 of them can tail the rear of the MC80 and 2 to each side but the ones on the side will be dead and that is double the points of the MC80, so there are another 100ish points doing things as well.

And possibly like a pawn piece for the game. Get in, do a little damage, die, and here's your main course of ISD's.

Not sure about that - if your plan with the Raider is to directly damage ships (rather than fending off squadrons) I reckon you'll want to race round behind your enemy, in which case you'll probably engage around the same time as, or after, your ISD.

And possibly like a pawn piece for the game. Get in, do a little damage, die, and here's your main course of ISD's.

Not sure about that - if your plan with the Raider is to directly damage ships (rather than fending off squadrons) I reckon you'll want to race round behind your enemy, in which case you'll probably engage around the same time as, or after, your ISD.

The Rebels have strong side arcs. . . Racing around that is a lot harder than one would think

you would need to over-saturate your target, that's a given. I do that already with AFmrk2's. They can only attack twice, so that means you need to provide 3+ targets for them and make sure the other ships of your opponent are out of range/obstructed.

you would need to over-saturate your target, that's a given. I do that already with AFmrk2's. They can only attack twice, so that means you need to provide 3+ targets for them and make sure the other ships of your opponent are out of range/obstructed.

So I play the CR90 swarm and I am highly dubious the Raider swarm will be a good list. Here is why:

• To be a good swarm, you either need to be always willing to engage at long range and durable enough when there (CR90), or tough enough to get into close range and then deliver an unbelievable punch once you are there (Demolisher - seriously, think of how terrifying a swarm of 5 GSDs with Demolisher would be - it's a good thing that is a title).
• Absent those features, you are going to suffer badly to either Imperial Phalanx style lists that want you to rush them, or Rebel long range evasive lists, where the Raiders will spend all game chasing around things like CR90s and AFIIs while the latter get to engage at optimal range more often than the raiders.
• As more ships appear with truly brutal long range firepower (MC80), it's going to get increasingly hard to get in close without losing ships.
• Swarms of small ships lose value in incremental chunks as they are blown apart, unlike a big-ship list where you don't lose any operational effectiveness until you lose an entire large ship.

These factors combined mean that I think the most likely future rebel lists, which are probably going to be AFII and MC80 heavy, are not going to be a good matchup for a Raider list. If you don't get in super fast and then blow these ships to smithereens immediately without taking losses, you might just not have enough once you get there. Likewise, the CR90 swarm is probably close to a hard counter assuming both lists are played by equally skilled players, as you cannot box / impede the CR90 with a Raider, so you are going to constantly be spending time trying to anticipate where a highly manueverable speed 4 ship is going to be next turn to get short range shots off, while they can just take whatever open space there is and engage at long range. Or, in plain English, the Raiders are far harder to pilot vs. the CR90s than the reverse.

With that said, I think the raider will be very effective, just not as a spam ship, and rather as a filler / complement ship, just like the Z-95's rebel usage in X-wing.

Yes, they will take losses, we find that acceptable.

you would need to over-saturate your target, that's a given. I do that already with AFmrk2's. They can only attack twice, so that means you need to provide 3+ targets for them and make sure the other ships of your opponent are out of range/obstructed.

That is 150ish points of Raiders on a single 90ish point Space Whale.

I mean, I try to saturate my target with my whales + corvette when I play. Trying to saturate a whale is tricky, because they move so far.

So I play the CR90 swarm and I am highly dubious the Raider swarm will be a good list. Here is why:

• To be a good swarm, you either need to be always willing to engage at long range and durable enough when there (CR90), or tough enough to get into close range and then deliver an unbelievable punch once you are there (Demolisher - seriously, think of how terrifying a swarm of 5 GSDs with Demolisher would be - it's a good thing that is a title).
• Absent those features, you are going to suffer badly to either Imperial Phalanx style lists that want you to rush them, or Rebel long range evasive lists, where the Raiders will spend all game chasing around things like CR90s and AFIIs while the latter get to engage at optimal range more often than the raiders.
• As more ships appear with truly brutal long range firepower (MC80), it's going to get increasingly hard to get in close without losing ships.
• Swarms of small ships lose value in incremental chunks as they are blown apart, unlike a big-ship list where you don't lose any operational effectiveness until you lose an entire large ship.

These factors combined mean that I think the most likely future rebel lists, which are probably going to be AFII and MC80 heavy, are not going to be a good matchup for a Raider list. If you don't get in super fast and then blow these ships to smithereens immediately without taking losses, you might just not have enough once you get there. Likewise, the CR90 swarm is probably close to a hard counter assuming both lists are played by equally skilled players, as you cannot box / impede the CR90 with a Raider, so you are going to constantly be spending time trying to anticipate where a highly manueverable speed 4 ship is going to be next turn to get short range shots off, while they can just take whatever open space there is and engage at long range. Or, in plain English, the Raiders are far harder to pilot vs. the CR90s than the reverse.

With that said, I think the raider will be very effective, just not as a spam ship, and rather as a filler / complement ship, just like the Z-95's rebel usage in X-wing.

+1

Very nice write up, appreciate it.