All Raiders, All the Time

By xXxAngronxXx, in Star Wars: Armada

Ever since wave 2 hit, I've been looking for an Imperial list that could make good use of the Raider. This weekend I have a store tournament and I will be playing this list

Flagship: Impetous, Admiral Ozzel, Raider 1

Quad laser turrets

Ordnance experts

Expanded launchers

Raider 1

Quad laser turrets

Ordnance experts

Expanded launchers

X 4 of these

The way I see it, squadrons will be of no threat as quads and two black dice re rolling blanks with ordnance experts will deal significant damage. The raiders will be highly unpredictable with their speed changes from Ozzel and expanded launchers have them throwing as many dice as a victory against ships. So this leaves me with 50 points to spend, I was originally thinking to add 6 tie fighter squads, but I'm looking for suggestions. Let me know what you think, this list sounds like a lot of fun

add another raider 1 with ordinance experts, or a few firesprays and toss a title on the flagship

Edited by Daht

A list like this will take some careful maneuvering. I'd suggest practicing just moving them around if you haven't put them on the table yet. They have to get close to use those black dice, and at that range two-thirds of their defense tokens become useless. One Brace with four hull and two shields (with no Redirects) won't last very long. Their one upside is their numbers. You can lose two of them to enemy fire and still have enough black dice to bring down an MC80.

I have really tried to make a similar list work. It is very difficult to do. You have to be willing to make trades. You trade a Raider for one of their ships. Also might want to try APTs.

Remember that speed 2 is very important.

I will say this: I feel like that list works way better as a mostly raider list vs. an all raider list, as the addition of a single Gladiator with Demolisher completely changes the way your opponent has to think about your list.

Yeah. Demolished just really good.

Second yeah you might THiNk it's maneuverable. But armada isn't Xwing. You're still only like hanging course by like 70 degrees max in one turn.

Just run Clontroopers list. It's pretty much this but with Demolisher.

I will say this: I feel like that list works way better as a mostly raider list vs. an all raider list, as the addition of a single Gladiator with Demolisher completely changes the way your opponent has to think about your list.

In all fairness, Demolisher has that effect on every fleet...

So, @Angron, at the moment you have five activations. My friend is running a five-activation list this weekend, too - but his includes Screed, an ISD with Gunnery Teams, the Demolisher, another Gladiator, and two Raiders each with Overload Pulse. And no offense, but I know which fleet I would rather face - it would be the one without a single Redirect defense token on the board.

Further, you won't be as safe from bombers as you think - the Counter Attack is nice, but it's only a 50% chance of 1 point of damage per fighter attack - and a solid bomber wing will drop a Raider in a single activation, and could then roll along your line - start at one side, work ship-by-ship to the other.

With that in mind, may I suggest:

  • Put Admiral Montferrat on your flagship - or else that thing will go down like an Essex girl at a house party.
  • Swap out the Expanded Launchers for Assault Proton Torpedoes. With Ordnance Experts, this means you can make critical hits more-or-less a sure thing, and makes you much more effective against Brace-heavy fleets.
  • Take one of the standard Raiders and ditch all Ordnance Upgrades, keep Ordnance Experts, and give it Instigator - use it to tap down enemy bombers. It will be a sacrificial ship, sadly, but it will save the rest of the fleet.
  • Use the point savings for something big and heavy, like a Gladiator. Demolisher would be a great option, but it's your call, since you're trying to do something different to other Imperial builds. But you need some kind of bruiser in there, if for no other reason than that it will draw fire from the corvettes and let them do the dismantling work.
  • A few token TIE Fighters to mop up the rest of the points would be advisable, for similar reasons to the Instigator - don't expect much from them, just use them to help the rest of the team. (If you're feeling awesome, you could drop Ordnance Experts from the Instigator and take Ruthless Strategists instead, and just lay as much damage on the enemy as you can).

I'm bringing in 2 RSD for tomorrow's Nationals and I'm loading them with these -

RSD I

Expanded launchers

Gunery team

Tractor beam

Both titles

Escorting ISD II and VSD I

Edited by cruiser2710

You're 2 raiders short ;)

I don't understand tractor beams on small base ships...

I don't understand heavily upgrading the most fragile ship in the game.

No offence, but if I was playing your list with my typical list I would sit and wait for you and cinder most of your raiders before they did very much at all, keep my Fireball close to my ISD or Demolisher so you have to choose if you want to fire your arcs against the ISD or the fireball, either one you choose you lose. 1 demolisher double arc = Dead raider, 1 ISDII front arc = dead raider, 1 moderately sized fireball activation = dead raider.

You will struggle to make up the points when you will (and I guarantee you this unless you play some truly terrible opposition) you WILL lose at LEAST half your fleet every game.

Help yourself out and strip them down to essentials, as someone else suggested you need to put APT or ACM on most of them, you can keep expanded launchers on a couple you plan to use as suicide missiles, and for the love of god add a demolisher.

BTW where is the tourney you are playing? I'm likely going to one in Guelph, Ontario on Saturday

I don't understand tractor beams on small base ships...

I don't understand heavily upgrading the most fragile ship in the game.

No offence, but if I was playing your list with my typical list I would sit and wait for you and cinder most of your raiders before they did very much at all, keep my Fireball close to my ISD or Demolisher so you have to choose if you want to fire your arcs against the ISD or the fireball, either one you choose you lose. 1 demolisher double arc = Dead raider, 1 ISDII front arc = dead raider, 1 moderately sized fireball activation = dead raider.

You will struggle to make up the points when you will (and I guarantee you this unless you play some truly terrible opposition) you WILL lose at LEAST half your fleet every game.

Help yourself out and strip them down to essentials, as someone else suggested you need to put APT or ACM on most of them, you can keep expanded launchers on a couple you plan to use as suicide missiles, and for the love of god add a demolisher.

BTW where is the tourney you are playing? I'm likely going to one in Guelph, Ontario on Saturday

The tourney's in Singapore though.... The Nationals.but it's really 13 or 12 of us only.

I do agree with you about the fragility of RSD. My first store game bringing 2 decked out RSD and 3 decked out GSD ended in defeat since I didn't have the HP pool to tear down their last AF2.

2nd game with 2 decked out RSD and ISD GSD practically tore the Rebel fleet apart.

The 2 RSD I've got here is just part of the fleet. I'm looking to using panzerkeil formation for tomorrow's tourney.

And yes.... I'm 2 RSD short.... Construction of RSD Leberecht Maass and RSD Max Schultz ran into a lot of problems... Severe shortage of the internal modules.....

Where do you guys play in SG? I am there about once a year for work, maybe I will drop by if I can...

I would also suggest Clontroper's list in the vassal tourney as a very good starting point. It's a well thought out list; nothing is unbeatable, but it's not a list that is beating itself with internal antisynergy.

I don't wish to be overly picky (while granting I am being at least somewhat picky), but Raiders are not star destroyers. They're corvettes. Calling them RSDs kind of hurts my brain a little.

I don't wish to be overly picky (while granting I am being at least somewhat picky), but Raiders are not star destroyers. They're corvettes. Calling them RSDs kind of hurts my brain a little.

I'm always like Riaders ARE corvettes call them cr90's

They look like tiny pizza so that's why I call them RSDs.

There's plenty of places here in SG though I frequent at Battle Bunker at Bugis+

Heck, we also have a WhatsApp group for both Armada casuals and Armada league

I'm always like Riaders ARE corvettes call them cr90's

In fairness, they're closer to torpedo boats, depending on the load-out...

Where do you guys play in SG? I am there about once a year for work, maybe I will drop by if I can...

I would also suggest Clontroper's list in the vassal tourney as a very good starting point. It's a well thought out list; nothing is unbeatable, but it's not a list that is beating itself with internal antisynergy.

Got the link to the thread?

Seems to be swamped and got no luck w the search function

I'm always like Riaders ARE corvettes call them cr90's

In fairness, they're closer to torpedo boats, depending on the load-out...

To me they're souped up modular Akizuki class DDs

Where do you guys play in SG? I am there about once a year for work, maybe I will drop by if I can...

I would also suggest Clontroper's list in the vassal tourney as a very good starting point. It's a well thought out list; nothing is unbeatable, but it's not a list that is beating itself with internal antisynergy.

Got the link to the thread?

Seems to be swamped and got no luck w the search function

+++ Mean Raiders (387pts) +++

++ Imperial Navy (Standard) (387pts) ++

+ Gladiator Star Destroyer (98pts) +

Gladiator I-Class Star Destroyer (98pts) [Engine Techs (8pts), Expanded Launchers (13pts), Intel Officer (7pts), Ordnance Experts (4pts), •Demolisher (10pts)]

+ Raider Corvette (273pts) +

Raider I-Class Corvette (80pts) [Assault Proton Torpedoes (5pts), •Admiral Montferrat (5pts), •Admiral Screed (26pts)]

Raider I-Class Corvette (57pts) [Assault Proton Torpedoes (5pts), Ordnance Experts (4pts), •Instigator (4pts)]

Raider I-Class Corvette (68pts) [Expanded Launchers (13pts), Intel Officer (7pts), Ordnance Experts (4pts)]

Raider I-Class Corvette (68pts) [Expanded Launchers (13pts), Intel Officer (7pts), Ordnance Experts (4pts)]

+ Squadrons (16pts) +

TIE Fighter Squadron (8pts)

TIE Fighter Squadron (8pts)

+ Objectives +

BE FIRST PLAYER OR YOU WILL DIE(probably)

Created with BattleScribe (http://www.battlescribe.net)

I just want to say I don't understand why you guys are so worked up about the name of the Raider Star Destroyer Frigates or the rebel Chevrolet Camaro CR90 Corvette Z01.

I'm just glad we're all past the stupid Expanded Universe idiocy of "Well 'Star Destroyer' can't possibly just be a big awesome name to scare people, it must mean it's a destroyer-grade starship, so therefore there must be Star Frigates, Star Cruisers, Star Battleships and (this was great) Star Dreadnoughts, because that makes sense because I once read pamphlet about the Navy."

Like, why did you think they called it a "Super Star Destroyer", morons? Because it was actually a "Star Dreadnaught"? Or because it was a big version of something called a "Star Destroyer".

Oh, and of course, the comments of "but Han Solo said it'd take the whole fleet to blow up a planet, and stars are bigger than planets, so why is it called a 'Star Destroyer' if it doesn't destroy stars?"

IT'S A NAME, DUMBASSES, IT'S A NAME TO MAKE THEM SOUND COOL AND SCARY TO THE PEASANTS ON THE PLANETS THEY'RE TRYING TO OPPRESS, JESUS, HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO REALISE THAT IT'S JUST A NAME???

I'm... I'm sorry, it's an old gripe, still annoys me just thinking about it.

This whole thread, by the way, is awesome.