Commerce raiding isn't easy. Your targets should be easy prey, but they're hard to find, harder to catch, and prone to slipping out of your grasp at the last moment.

When you do catch up with them, they're usually in the company of proper warships, tougher and nastier than you, who would just love a chance to blow you out of the water.

And that's to say nothing of the enemy air cover that would happily jump an undefended target.

But sometimes, it all pays off, and you can take out one of those fat merchantmen!

With all of the talk about flotillas, some people have mentioned the possibility of flotilla hunters, ships specifically designed to track down enemy flotillas and take them out. And while flotillas are common but not really being spammed in my local area at present, there's nothing to say that won't change - and if it does I want to be ready.

So what makes a good flotilla hunter - can anyone recommend any sample builds that are still cheap enough to be worthwhile? Can they still contribute if hunting flotillas isn't an option? How do you steer clear of the bigger and nastier warships they're supporting? And how do you deal with enemy air cover when you're all alone, half a board away from friendly fighters?

MC30 Torpedo with H9s are probably the best for the rebels

Just add OE and APT.

Took 2 out in one round with this combo

I think this is kind of the gold standard for flotilla hunter ships.

MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63 + 26)

+ Skilled First Officer (1)
+ Ordnance Experts (4)
+ Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
+ H9 Turbolasers (8)
+ Admonition (8)

On the squadron side, Jendon + Maarek get work done. They're quick, can get anywhere on the board fast, largely autonomous thanks to Jendon's Relay, and Maarek's near-guaranteed double damage with a crit means you're either burning off the scatter in one turn or the target is taking a crit.

Other good options include a Liberty Battlecruiser with GT, QTT, and either H9 or backed by Home One; CR90B with engine techs; Raider with APT and Sensor Teams under Vader or Screed; Jonus; TRC90's with IO (haven't seen this work, but I'm told it does).

Some of these are more efficient than others; some also derive their efficiency from the ability to handle flotillas without detracting from their ability to contribute to the main fight.

Ion Cannon

The H9 equipped Torp MC30 is for sure the gold standard. They pop flotillas like nobody's business.

A CR90B with SW7s and Engine Techs is also quite proficient. They can crash-land into a flotilla on turn X and then double-arc and double-ram (if necessary with Engine Techs) on turn X+1.

The Imperials have it a bit rougher, but Gladiators with Engine Techs and Intel Officer can shoot down (when double-arcing) or ram flotillas to death when juicier targets aren't available.

Raiders can get the job done for cheap. Concentrate fire for an extra blue (fishing for an accuracy) if necessary. Vader makes them very reliable when used this way, but they do fine with other commanders.

Captain Jonus is your friend if you're sniping flotillas with anything that rolls red or blue dice. The main issue is delivering him to the target.

Raider with ST and APT if you go with Screed is almost guaranteed. With CF you just have to add 1 blue. If I am not wrong the chance of failing is 1.56%

I would only talk about Imperials and the list is (in no particular order):

Raider1

GSD: Intel Officer/Engine Tech

Arquittens: Engine Tech

ISD1: Ion Turbines/H9

ISD2: Gunnery Team/Leading Shots

EDIT: In my mind the killing of flotilla isn't a problem, getting your flotilla killer into a shooting range is (the same problem UBoats had )

4 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

Raider with ST and APT if you go with Screed is almost guaranteed. With CF you just have to add 1 blue. If I am not wrong the chance of failing is 1.56%

The failure is the same as the chances of rolling NO damage on a Raider front arc shot, isn't it? You have to roll all accuracies on the blues and blanks on the blacks to not get it. And also not pull Structural. And also not be able to ram to finish it off, or have rammed the preceding turn.

Thanks for the suggestions - definitely some ideas to try out next time I play!

As expected there's a lot of emphasis on getting a suppression on on at least one non-black dice. Jendon + Maarek is also interesting - I've only just acquired Imperial Fighters II so this will be one to try out.

For the ship-based hunters, how do you get them into position? Flotillas usually (although not always) have company in the form of the big nasties they're escorting - how do you get your hunter into position without risking more points then the flotilla is worth? This espoecially applies to the black dice based ones...

3 minutes ago, Hedgehogmech said:

Jendon + Maarek is also interesting - I've only just acquired Imperial Fighters II so this will be one to try out.

Another squadron-based option is Jendon + Bossk + Zertik. Damaged Bossk has a potential to kill a flotilla in a round of shooting.

4 minutes ago, pt106 said:

Another squadron-based option is Jendon + Bossk + Zertik. Damaged Bossk has a potential to kill a flotilla in a round of shooting.

Worth noting that Zertik doesn't even really have to stick around in this scenario--he just needs to get one shot off on anything while Bossk is close enough to eat the hit, then Bossk and Jendon can vámonos.

Just now, Ardaedhel said:

Worth noting that Zertik doesn't even really have to stick around in this scenario--he just needs to get one shot off on anything while Bossk is close enough to eat the hit, then Bossk and Jendon can vámonos.

Yes, and using Bossk for flotilla hunting is a secondary role for him anyway given the popularity of squadrons with scatter.

Something I have thought about is for rebel fighter float hunter config is to use Ketsu and lancers. The pack is mobile enough to chase with speed 4 and rogue, and Ketsu's two blue bomber dice are prefered when going aginst floats.

As for imps, they have to balence the question of do they want to rely on rolling for the acc. or damage. My answer would be rolling for damage. In this the upgrades I'm looking to help are different. Rapid reload and expanded launchers look appealing as they gain back dice for the ship sacking dice to ST. From there if rerolls are still wanted the list can pick it up from Vader as commander or find ways to generate CF tokens for the corresesponding ships.

OP started interested...but then turned the topic into a discussion of flotillas?

How odd.

Initial concept is a better area of discussion. That is to say - while the 'objectives' of the game are FANTASTIC (they really are the game, and set it apart from so many others), and the Corellian Conflict is an interesting campaign - definitely a solid way to take the objectives already present and add another layer on top of them - I think both kind of miss the idealized perfect campaign that should be possible in Armada.

And that 'commerce raiding' lead-in points to such a thing, directly.

The nature of the rebellion-era was asymmetric warfare. And none of the standard objectives (at all), nor the Corellian Conflict (mostly) touch that topic in any way.

I'd LOVE to continue fleshing out a campaign system that allows for battles to be fought that are PURELY over strategic goals. IE., enough VPs on the table that a lone CR90 has an equal chance of winning the battle as the Imperial Star Destroyer it is facing...if it can achieve its goal*, but the scenario balance works to make it an even match for both sides. A campaign system that allowed for results like that would be IDEAL.

* Okay, maybe not that extreme. I can't imagine any way you could possibly balance that, given the possibly-wild-variations in configuration between those two ships.

"Commerce raiding", of course, is the very definition of 'asymmetric warfare'. True with the 'surface raiders' (Emden in WW1, Bismarck and Graf Spee in WW2, etc), as well. The goal of the raider is to have sufficient combat capability to fight off light escorts for merchant ships, and outrun (or otherwise evade) what it can't outfight. In cases where it 'catches' too big and fast a prey...well, that usually goes badly for them. This would be expected to be very common tactics for the Rebels, so the Empire would be looking to spread the available fleet around for merchant protection; base defenses; occupation and blockade duties; searching for the rebel bases; etc.

I'd love to see a commerce raider mission - perhaps a single fast medium/heavy ship (Liberty or ISD) trying to kill a pile of flotillas in convoy, while defended by an escort of lighter corvettes?

On 4/5/2017 at 5:45 PM, Ardaedhel said:

The failure is the same as the chances of rolling NO damage on a Raider front arc shot, isn't it? You have to roll all accuracies on the blues and blanks on the blacks to not get it. And also not pull Structural. And also not be able to ram to finish it off, or have rammed the preceding turn.

Correct. So 1/254 (0.25^4)

0.4% chance of failure.

"But sir! The odds of successfully navigating a raider's front arc at close range are 3720 to 1!!!"

"never tell me the odds. Besides, they've already activated and we have first activation."