Hi All, I am looking for a Raider list for my upcoming store tournament. I've browsed thru the forums and really haven't found anything concrete. I am looking for a ramming setup that can recover shields. I've tried all offence before and it never turns out good.... I've only played about 3 times with the epic ships. All i have is the Raider for an epic ship. No Gonzati or its pilots. Any suggestions?

Ramming works as long as you don't ram other huge ships. Then you lose (so does the other huge ship, but it's not much fun).

If you are aiming for small and large ships, they are more manoevreable so they can and will get out of your way unless they mess up. So (in my opinion) it isn't worth making a corvette or raider to be a dedicated rammer.

Using a Gozanti to ram a CR90, or a Transport to ram a Raider, is worth while. The Raider is much more effective when it has a Gozanti to keep enemy ships out of range 1 of itself; plus you can pincer ships between two huge ships...

The key to making an offensive Raider is to manage your energy. I've had a lot of success with this build:

PILOT: Raider-class corvette (fore) 50
SHIP: Raider-class corvette
UPGRADES PTS
Ion Cannon Battery 6
Engineering Team 4
Tibanna Gas Supplies 4
Total Points: 64
PILOT: Raider-class corvette (aft) 50
SHIP: Raider-class corvette
UPGRADES PTS
WED-15 Repair Droid 2
Shield Technician 1
Ion Cannon Battery 6
Backup Shield Generator 3
Optimized Generators 5
Total Points: 67

Ship total points: 131

You can get 4 energy per turn by doing 1 or 2 straight, or 3 from most other manoevres. You can spend 2 energy to recharge one of the ion batteries, while getting 2 bonus energy from the Optimised Generators. This allows you to fire the main guns twice and both ion batteries when undamaged; or make 3 attacks while using the Backup Shield Generator to recharge one shield, plus fixing one hull with the WED droid; or make 2 attacks plus fixing a critical damage plus one shield.

The Shield Technician is there if you really have to do a recover (and is cheap), but can be swapped out for eg Captain Needa (to reduce damage from obstacles), or Darth Vader (if you must), or anyone else you fancy.

I like using the Ion Batteries because denying an enemy huge ship its energy is a major factor in winning a battle. Plus automatic criticals! And you only need one uncancelled hit on a ship for it to work. But you might prefer a mix of weapons, to get different ranges.

An alternative is to go for the Ordnance Tubes, but then you will struggle to get multiple target locks (and you'll still want to do a Reinforce action), so that will cost you the opportunity to fix damage with the droid.

Hope that helps - if you see this, anyway.

I would seriously consider the Construction droid in place of the Repair droid. While he cannot repair crits, he does not take an action either. He just works automatically any time you Recover. Action efficiency is just as big a thing for Huge ships as regular ones so this change is important.

Other than that I like Gilarius's list. The only change I would make is I prefer a turbolaser on the front section for extra damage and longer range on the opening shots. While Ion does reduce energy, knocking down more shields requires them to use up energy to Recover them or deals hull damage once the shields are down which is harder to deal with.

With respect (since you have probably been playing a lot longer than I have, and might know something I haven't thought of), I think the WED repair droid is far more useful than the Contruction Droid.

This is because critical damage is horrendous to a huge ship, and reduces their effectiveness drastically. Being able to remove that is something I find essential. Eg if we have two otherwise identical huge ships, but one has the construction droid instead of the repair droid, then only one of these ships can afford to ram another huge ship - and mine, with the repair droid, will be aiming to do so since I will have the advantage! This curtails your movement, plus my Ion Batteries will (eventually, once your shields are gone) be dishing out a lot criticals - which you can't fix. Plus, if you're doing the Recover action, you'll be both taking more damage (no Reinforce) and causing less (less energy to shoot with).

Both droids require actions, since the Construction droid only works when you do a Recover action - and how often will you do that? Most of the time, I want to do a Reinforce action; whereas the opportunity cost for the Repair Droid is me not taking a Target Lock. This is the only way (without some sort of alternative build) to get dice modification, yet 3 out of the 4 attacks a Raider makes will not benefit from one anyway (barring taking Weapons Engineer, I think), so losing the target lock for one round doesn't seem to me to be that important compared with getting rid of eg a Reactor Leak, or losing a hardpoint, or...

There is an argument for taking both Droids, though! And the Shield Technician isn't essential...after the first 2 rounds of shooting, it's unlikely that the ship will have enough energy to fully recover all shields anyway.

On the other hand, taking a Single Turbolaser comes down to personal preference. I like the critical hit plus ion - and, without being able to modify dice on most attacks, many shots fired will only do one or two points of damage anyway.

What build would you favour for the CR90? I have less experience with that.

Thanks for all the info, but my post didn't post for 2 days since it was my first, so i went with a ramming missile list. No weapons needed energy so basically the strategy was just to ram and fire all weapons while howlrunner with swarm-tactics stayed glued to the raider. I won the first 2 matches and went to time on the last, but i did win the tournament.

Could you post your final build?

There aren't enough posts about the huge ships on this forum!

Raider-Class Corvette: Raider-Class Corvette (Fore) (50)
Optimized Generators (5)
Sensor Team (4)
Engine Booster (3)
Homing Missiles (5)
Raider-Class Corvette: Raider-Class Corvette (Aft) (50)
Ordenance Tubes (5)
· Captain Needa (2)
Weapons Engineer (3)
· Instigator (4)
Ordenance Experts (5)
Gunnery Team (4)
Backup Shield Generator (3)
Homing Missiles (5)
Ion Pulse Missiles (3)
TIE Fighter: · "Howlrunner" (18)
Crack Shot (1)
TIE Fighter: · "Scourge" (17)
Crack Shot (1)
Lambda-Class Shuttle: Omicron Group Pilot (21)
Heavy Laser Cannon (7)
Fire Control System (2)
· Emperor Palpatine (8)
TIE Fighter: Black Squadron Pilot (14)
Crack Shot (1)
TIE Fighter: Black Squadron Pilot (14)
Crack Shot (1)
TIE Fighter: Black Squadron Pilot (14)
Crack Shot (1)
TIE Fighter: Black Squadron Pilot (14)
Crack Shot (1)
TIE Fighter: · "Wampa" (14)
-- TOTAL ------- 300/100p. --

I modified this some, but this is the meat of the list. It was a really fun time and now im kinda addicted to playing epic, BUT the fatigue of the day got to me toward the end of the day 11 hours later.....OH and the boost on the raider is a must for ramming!

How did the Ion Pulse Missile work out on the Raider? I've considered it myself - would work beautifully against other capital ships once you close as well as an energy denial weapon...

Also - pretty sure you can't put Optimized Generators with Ordnance Tubes... Am I wrong here? I thought the ship could only have one modification.

I believe that was one of the mods i did to the list, getting rid of that card i mean. The ion cannon worked well, slowing down ships for my tie fighters to engage, but the best part is firing the main gun first, then all 3 secondary weapons, hitting for max almost all the time. As far as the ion cannon for ramming, i would have to have put it on the front to be more effective. The only issue with the list is if they get in close you have no shot. all weapons are either 2-4 or 2-3, but you need zero energy to fire them so its a tradeoff. In any case it was very fun to fly....

Did you have 3 missiles, or 2 missiles and one energy weapon? I'm wondering, because you just mentioned using an Ion Cannon but the build has 3 lots of missiles, one of which you can't fire because you only get 2 target locks - unless I'm missing some trick?

I have been trying to make a CR90 using ordnance tubes, but so far I haven't been happy with it.

I took Ion Cannon to mean the Ion Pulse Missiles he had equipped in the list. And he can fire all three, depending on choices on the first two. Homing Missiles and Ion Pulse Missiles do NOT spend the target lock to fire. They just need to have a lock. Meaning, if the roll is bad, you can spend the lock to re-roll dice - but then that means no further missiles at that specific target. Sometimes a tough call...

Ooh, I've been misreading them for ages!

This might allow my CR90 build to work - I will have to take another look. Plus, I'll have to consider it for my Raider too.

Thanks.

It would definitely help! That said, that overlapping field of fire is what makes it so great on the Raider. Nothing quite like pumping three homing missiles into a single target. Take that Dash! The CR90 fire arcs cross at a much greater range which makes it harder to use missiles the same way. Not impossible, but harder.

Sorry i always misuse the terms, cannon, missile etc.... Yes i fired all of them at once, trying to alpha what i could and cause havoc to the rest while boosting into "Ramming Speed" before i fire LOL. Like a hot knife through butter. There is nothing better than taking out 2 ships at once and taking a max of 2 damage or 2 shields for it.