For X-Wing it was because all of the Empire's capital ship designs specializing in ant-fighter roles were bigger then they wanted any ship to be in the system.

For Armada it was because all of the Empire's capital ship designs specializing in ant-fighter roles were overspecialized to the point that while they could destroy fighters with ease they had to run like hell if a CR90 showed up becausd their weapons would be lucky to scratch the corvette's paint despite them being two-thirds larger

Uuhhhhh... anti-squadron... do you remember all of the new squadron stuff? The raider with Instigator, Quad Laser turrets and ordinance experts can lock down even the new rogue squadrons...

This ship is all about the nav chart. Get behind the enemy, and then always stay at speed 2. You'll be double arcing every single turn. Lamprey indeed. Makes me want to run the expanded launchers version.

Here I thought 8 with Motti gave you a chance to ram through anything.

In the end I'll probably have two or three in my personal Armada, if for no other reason than to have the option available for a corvette analogue in the Imperial Navy. Use them as flankers, cheap anti-fighter ships, activation sinks, etx.

I'll also say this, the Raider is prettier than some of the other Corvettte analogues Star Wars used in the past, like the Carrack.

In the end I'll probably have two or three in my personal Armada, if for no other reason than to have the option available for a corvette analogue in the Imperial Navy. Use them as flankers, cheap anti-fighter ships, activation sinks, etx.

I'll also say this, the Raider is prettier than some of the other Corvettte analogues Star Wars used in the past, like the Carrack.

I feel the same way about having 3, it gives a lot of options within a list, being that it is cheap. Having 132 points to give you 3 ships that can provide a better position during setup is huge while not needing to spend half list points for ship advantage. Also in the bigger picture of i can make someone focus on 44 points flanking vs 356 points coming at them, the ship will prove its worth.

Last thought the model is cool to me so it's totally worth it for that alone.

(Ps the X-wing Art gives some great insight into the thought behind the raider and its propose within the Star Wars unvi it helps to understand it better within armada and the roll it fills https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2014/12/19/here-comes-the-imperial-raider/)

Symmetry. Now both sides have a light small, a heavy small. A medium, and a large.

They have so far made the 2 sides asymmetrical in abilities, so the raider is a great gunboat instead of just a wedge shaped CR90

I've honestly been thinking of having it run with my 4speed glads. And bring along squadrons. Yea 1squad isn't good. But three of them is a nice small interceptor screen. Lol. Or rhymer, a bomber or two. Then the villains after.

Gah! I came back to this thread to see what wonderful new insights had been posted, and saw the Lamph again! Nightmares and willies all over...

I still like the idea of running a Raider (or two?) with a Gladiator.

Raider-II with Overload Pulse sets them up, Demolisher with ACMs knocks them down. Screed laughs an evil laugh while flexing his robot hand because we're the Empire and when we go cartoonishly evil, we go all the way.

Gah! I came back to this thread to see what wonderful new insights had been posted, and saw the Lamph again! Nightmares and willies all over...

let the willies inspire you

might have to buy a Raider now just to have a ship in the fleet named The Lamprey

I think if you are an Imp player who doesnt want to take any squadrons you might want a Raider as your anti fighter speedbump.

If the enemy takes a bomber swarm it will die but as its a ship it might give you a few turns of extra activations. If you face a list without fighters you can sneak round the back and plink away.

Or Lamprey away!

To me its most important as a cheap ship that can speed bump. I don't have alot of disposable income, and Itry to support multiple games. So wave one I've been playing with nebulons and corvettes, which simply can't win in a straight fight against 3 asf with enhanced projectors or 2 with 9 squadrons. There's just not enough dice, so what I learned to do is pick a single asf, and only ever shoot at it. No matter what arcs were better, you focus down that one ship. What I'd also have to do to set that up, is block it from ever moving with a speed 1/0 corvette. Something that I had 0 attachment to if it died, would deal an instant damage on the ram, and my opponent wouldn't want to burn shots on it initially. By locking the ship in place, yavaris and salvation could go to town on it, and usually kill it within 2 turns. At that point I run away losing a corvette to an asf and win on MOV.

I see the raider carrying that same role for imperials against the mc80, its a ship that can halt its movement for nearly all of the game if its never touched, and enable your isd or vsd to drill into an arc while also dealing ram damage straight to hull. Ozzel is going to be very useful for this strategy, as you can switch gears to speed 1-3 and run away with an easy 7-3 / 8-2 after the snipe and peace out

The Raider also pairs decently with Vader (commander). Use the evades as needed to keep you alive at long range. Once you get in close, they aren't doing anything for you anymore, so you can spam some rerolls on a bunch of shots (giving you another chance at accuracy on the blue, and/or rerolling the black blanks). Heck, you could burn the evades on anti fighter shots if you need to. Save a few points from Ordnance experts if the rest of your fleet is needing to run Vader.

Oh, and if I ran two of them without the titles, I may just have to call one of them The Lamprey and the other The Mynock.

The Raider also pairs decently with Vader (commander). Use the evades as needed to keep you alive at long range. Once you get in close, they aren't doing anything for you anymore, so you can spam some rerolls on a bunch of shots (giving you another chance at accuracy on the blue, and/or rerolling the black blanks). Heck, you could burn the evades on anti fighter shots if you need to. Save a few points from Ordnance experts if the rest of your fleet is needing to run Vader.

Oh, and if I ran two of them without the titles, I may just have to call one of them The Lamprey and the other The Mynock.

Nice names.

Unfortunately the Raider doesn't roll many dice, except out the front. But Ordnance Experts + Vader = a fairly good chance at landing APTs or ACMs off the side arc, so a round with successful double-arc crits could be significant.

While I'm pretty keen to give the Raider a try (I do have one), I'll have to admit that I don't have much of a plan for its use.

It is the ship i am least excited about. Clearly not in a position to judge as yet but if its primary role is anti squadron then i would rather just take squadrons and as a fly up and 'smack in the mouth' kind of ship i would rather take a Gladiator. I will get one just to get the cards and ship variety. I do agree that it provides the Imps with a cheap ship that you might just take as another activation.

I think there's a good point that squadrons are the best anti-squadron option, and that the Gladiator is the best 'fly-up-and-smack-in-the-mouth kind of ship'.

But maybe the Raider's ability to do both, even if it does either less efficiently than either squadron, is a strength rather than a weakness.

With the capabilities of your opponents expanded, it's harder to know what your opponents are going to be bringing to the table. Having a ship that can take on multiple roles means that you're more adaptive to any given situation. Additionally, maybe it can fill the role as a fly-around-and-kick-in-the-ass kind of ship (a.k.a. a flanker), even if a Demolisher with Engine Techs would be better for that, trusting that your opponent would allow your Demolisher to do so.

The ways I see the Raider working:

1) Interceptor Role: Obviously, the two titles on this ship, plus its various upgrades, make it pretty good at breaking up massed balls of enemy squadrons. Re-rolling black dice against squadrons is a 93% chance to hit on each die (75% to hit, with a re-roll). Combine that with a few TIE-Fighter squadrons, and you can break the back of any bomber-heavy list.

2) Lancing: I'm normally not a fan of Expanded Launchers. It's far too expensive in my books. However, when you toss it on a little ship like a Raider-I, you're now tossing out six dice from that semi-wide front arc. That's pretty good damage-dealing capability. I would pair two or three of things with Admiral Ossel, who will let you come across the board, slow down from Speed 4 to 2. That high maneuverability on speed 2 will let you make the turn and come up on your enemy's rear in the following turns (assuming they don't blow you up). At 61 points with Expanded Launchers and Ordnance experts, these are dangerous little kamikazes capable of really threatening larger ships. What I like most about this build is that we're going to see a lot of Ackbar builds in the coming months as people experiment with throwing out long-range shots and skirting the board edge with MC80's, AFmkII's, and CR90's. These little torpedo boats will be able to close that gap and prevent them from playing the long game.

3) Shin-kicker: If you are running Screed, I'd definitely take at least one of these with Overload Pulse. A Raider-II with Overload Pulse only costs 56 points, and it's going to make your Demolisher or Imperial much deadlier (especially the Imperial with the Avenger title). Even a defensively built MC80 is going to be limping after it takes a full shot from an Imperial's front arc with no damage mitigation.

4) Ball-puncher: Another build that's pretty easy to figure out: ACMs. Yep, that's all. Well, if you have Screed, that's all, but if you're not running Screed, may wanna toss on Ordnance Experts to help with that crit. Raider-I with ACM costs 51 points. While it won't have the direct damage output of a Glad with ACMs, there are a few benefits to using the Raider for this role. First, speed 4. Secondly, both speed 1 and 2 are double-click. That high maneuverability makes it pretty easy to line up a double-arc. With Screed, even the side arc is dangerous. At close range, no evade to negate the crit shot, brace will take it from 2 initial damage with 2 adjacent hull damage down to 1 and 2, and redirect will still leave your opponent's shields pretty weakened. With Screed, this thing is cheap and efficient. Imagine two or three of these getting to the side and rear of an Imperial where they can attack relatively unmolested by it.

I do believe there is an element of this involving the matter of FFG made a ship, now they have to use it. That said I own one for X-wing and it looks **** fine. Aesthetics aside, I feel it will fill a role that I have found lacking in Imperial fleets: the placeholder. You want a Glad but don't have the points; you have a bunch of points left over but don't need/want any more squadrons. Also, see an (or more) extra activation(s) in your fleet allowing certain ships to expose themselves to your ISD, VSD and GSD's juicy arcs of choice before those ships have to activate. In my experience I'm always short of activations which can hamper my play by not allowing me to maximizing my battery power. Especially as an Imperial (and going first) player I see a lot of VSD/GSD first, Corvette, VSD/GSD as my second activation then at least 3 more Rebel activations. I may get to bingo one ship but then they get a 3 v 1 on one of my boys. A Raider would help that, help I could definitely use in bringing my arcs to bear in better positions.

I've come up with a different idea: as a rear arc guard. It's super maneuverable, so you put it where you want it, so that something either a) can't flank your large ships, or b) has to eat a face full of Raider. It means that a AFM2 isn't necessarily going to enjoy avoiding that front arc. If you move it right, you should be able to keep it in front arc, so that either the ship turns to deal with you (meaning more likely your SD can get a front arc) or has a limited ability to engage the raider. Also keep those CR90s from staying in the rear arc of your large ships. Granted, it can also be used as Anti-fighter, depending on the opponent.

When I've been playing around, I usually have about 30-40 points left and just add more squadrons. With the raider, I am finding that building an anti-squadron raider after shaving a few squadrons off is a better bet.

I'm almost excited for someone to actually beat me with one. Lol.