Are Raiders good or at least worth playing?

A a rebel player I love to see a couple of raiders on the table, I know I'm in for some easy points, as they die to a stiff breeze.

The problem is ships like this need to stay at a distance to live and raiders need to get close. For me you play a raider if:

1)You need a cheap ship for an extra activation

2) you're playing a set of missions that work with a fast cheap ship such as most wanted etc...

3) you're playing an imp corvette swarm

I was thinking though to use a few as suicide bombers, expanded launchers and ordnance experts

My experience is when people play a pair of theses against me, they tend to die before doing Any good. I just turn away throw my fighters in their faces and let them chase me... Four bombers or black Dice fighters will leave one of these so open you don't even need to get a side arc to finish it. Get gladiators they are much more scary....

I have actually run a couple of Raiders with that kitout (expanded launchers and ordnance experts). The first time I did my opponent was a bit dissmissive of them, until I one shot his Demolisher with the front arc (I think we were also running Opening Salvo). They are effective, but you have to be careful with how you use them.

Yeah, was thinking of using expanded launchers and charging enemy ships, it does lots of damage, tried it out about 2-3 hours ago

I love the Radiers in every game they end up playing an important role, they give an extra activation and can be kitted out with some game changing stuff. In my last game I used a raider 2 with overload pulse to set up a nice shot from an Avenger ISD. This one two punch effectively removed an MC80 from the game. This won me the game with only the loss in of my ne little Radier and a few squadrons.

I have used the expanded launcher Raider one and it to has excelled in taking out or crippling something big and expensive. Now my local opponents spend a lot to f time and effort in trying to deal with my Raider and this can let Demolisher do its dirty work or give an ISD a chance.

Basically I think they are my favourite class now. They took some getting used to and I lost a lot of them finding out how I like to use them.

Basically I think they are my favourite class now. They took some getting used to and I lost a lot of them finding out how I like to use them.

Most of the people I play with use 1 raider very consistently. At first it was easy for me to kill them but like you said, once they figured out the maneuvers they avoided side shots from my rebel ships for 3 games now. So they are indeed very effective when flown properly. Get in close. Unload some black dice and ideally a critical effect. Activate and fly far, far away. If they're good at flying they can avoid the lethal shots in between activations. So I must disagree with Frogkiss because they are not my favorite class...I find them very annoying