I've been an Epic player ever since the Raider was released. Used to love trading broadsides with CR90s, but there's one issue I've run into that is turning me off to the whole genre; if you focus fire on the Aft portion of the Raider, you take it out of the game. You've lost all ability to fire from your side arcs, and your energy production and movement are severely hampered. Trying to get anything into your forward arc becomes next to impossible as only the most inept maneuvering of small ships will put them in your arc while they're trying to target your front and you've likely either passed by the CR90 (or other epic ship) or entered into a mutual orbit around each other.

This is of course not the case with the CR90. If you focus on the Fore section you cripple the turret, but it is still putting out max energy and has its rear secondary firing arcs to still put out much hurt. If you manage to take out the back, you still have the Fore turret at full strength , 2 secondary arcs filling a good chunk of the doughnut hole, and the main route of attack on the rammy end of the ship.

Now this wasn't always an issue. Used to be that the lack of actions and energy draw of laser weapons meant that the rear section wouldn't hold out for long against concentrated fire. But now we're in the age of Ordnance Tubes, TLT Dutch Vander, Shara Bey, and Esege Tuketu and all of the sudden there's a number of workarounds for a Rear section that couldn't TL but wanted to use Ordnance so all energy could go into shields and repairs.

This doesn't lead to a loss every time, but I've found that my Raider is now more of a draw for damage rather than something that deals damage. The whole game revolves around whether my fighters can outfight his and still be strong enough to kill off the CR90 as the raider has inevitably been turned into a miniature Eclipse if it survived to the end stages of the game. The Rebels home in on the Aft section of the Raider like it was an exhaust port while I'm having to pick my poison on which end of the corvette ends its existence first (I still usually go for the Fore myself due to the Aft's huge blind spot). But the CR90 always has the option to turn its Fore section away from the fight to repair and recharge while still being able to fire at my fighters and Raider while the Aft section can eventually serve to block counterattacks.

It's just gotten to the point where it's getting tiresome to fight the same uphill battle and have a sizable part of my list hamstrung because they only bothered to put primary weapons on the front. I don't want to shelve my Raider, so any other Epic players know some good ways to work around this?

I haven't played a huge amount of epic, but I have noticed that the engine is a massive blind spot for the raider. In my experience, the hardest part of the battle is the initial phases of getting past the Raiders guns to launch that attack on the aft. Thing is though, I've never fought a CR-90 to compare, but I find I like playing the Raider with a "death is inevitable," mentality and try to hit a sword hard as possible before the ship burns. Not sure if that helps, but it sounds like it is tanking for you, so maybe refitting for assault would help? Sorry if this was pointless.

24 minutes ago, flyboymb said:

It's just gotten to the point where it's getting tiresome to fight the same uphill battle and have a sizable part of my list hamstrung because they only bothered to put primary weapons on the front. I don't want to shelve my Raider, so any other Epic players know some good ways to work around this?

Post your build. That would help in the critique. I have also started a couple threads on community Raider builds you can check out.

We normally play 300 points for Epic to make it... more epic:

Raider Fore: Ion Cannons Battery, Gunnery Team, Comms Booster, Optimized Generator (69)

Raider Aft: Shield Technician, WED-15, Plasma Torpedoes, Cluster Missiles, Engineering Team, Shield Projector, Ordnance Tubes (73)

Whisper: VI, FCS, Kylo Ren, ACD (42)

Countess Ryad: TIE/x7, TIE MK II, Adaptability (33)

2X Onyx Squadron: TIE/x7, TIE MK II (Note this was pre-nerf, been thinking about how to retool this) (62)

Mauler Mithel: Opportunist (21)

Been using this list to try to throw out large amounts of red dice every turn. I try to decloak Whisper in a way that he'll be under max cover of Shield Projector. Kylo starts throwing around Blinded Pilot or turning their aces to PS 0. Comms Booster focuses and TLs help make sure that the crit damage sticks. Mauler turns into a Corvette killing beast if he's left unmolested, and 3D+W helps keep him that way.

I suppose that, given that the meta for Raider games at my LGS involves focused fire on the Aft section, that I could throw off the WED and put a more attack-savvy crew on there. Maybe lose one of the Ordnance and get a good initiative bid so ACD and Kylo go off before another PS 9 gets to attack?

I don't play the Raider that often but doesn't it have very good firing arcs forward? While the CR90 likes broadsides, the Raider wants to be aimed at the enemy.

Don't overload it with offensive weapons. It needs a lot repair mechanics to stay afloat. Think of thd Prince of Wales and Repulse of WW II fame. They fell easily to aircraft.

You also need to hold back 2 or 3 good fighters as escorts. They are there to cover the blind spot.

10 minutes ago, Stoneface said:

Don't overload it with offensive weapons. It needs a lot repair mechanics to stay afloat.

You also need to hold back 2 or 3 good fighters as escorts. They are there to cover the blind spot.

I don't agree with the first part, but I kind of agree with the second.

As for your squad, @flyboymb , my first suggestion would be to take off one of your modifications; even though it has two sections, the rule is still one mod per ship.

Second, I can see why they gun for your Raider: it's the easiest target! You're other ships are good, but they're too defensive. For how many points are tied up in the Raider, and how much damage it dishes out, it doesn't have enough protection. Shield Projector, in particular, isn't doing you any favors. Generally, you want them to take ineffectual potshots at Whisper because she can take it. She should probably be sent on a flanking mission to destroy the enemy CR90, anyway. She could do that all by herself. Oh, but you have Kylo Ren. Yeah, that's pretty good. Still, something to consider.

Hey, what about Snapshot on Mauler Mithel? Adding dice isn't a mod, so if he lands at range 1 of the CR90, he gets a 3 dice Snap Shot, followed by a 4 dice primary attack. 7 dice in one round sounds pretty awesome!

I think the defenders need TIE/D. This allows them to dish out more damage and control, and you can use an additional Comms Booster to add a focus for defense. Might be worth it to find the points to bump them up to Glaives with Predator, but it may not be necessary (and it's a lot of additional points if you're going from TIE/x7 defenders). They're just so defensive that your opponent has no trouble saving them until after the Raider is down.

I want you to tell me how the crew have been working out for you. They're definitely solid in a defensive role, but they wouldn't be my top picks. I usually go for at least one crew that doesn't require energy.

So tactically, I wonder if it makes sense to delay the Raider. Try to make the first round of combat have your fighters up in your opponent's grill, and the Raider hanging back at range 4 so it can't be targeted, but can still shoot. After the first round, they can either split fire by abandoning the damaged fighters and focusing on the Raider, or they can pursue your fighters and leave the Raider to destroy them. The only trouble is that they will still almost always hunt the Raider, and without a fighter screen, it will be a sitting duck. Fortunately, TIE defenders have white K-turns, so they can easily pursue your foes. Just brainstorming here.

1 hour ago, Parakitor said:

I don't agree with the first part, but I kind of agree with the second.

As for your squad, @flyboymb , my first suggestion would be to take off one of your modifications; even though it has two sections, the rule is still one mod per ship.

Second, I can see why they gun for your Raider: it's the easiest target! You're other ships are good, but they're too defensive. For how many points are tied up in the Raider, and how much damage it dishes out, it doesn't have enough protection. Shield Projector, in particular, isn't doing you any favors. Generally, you want them to take ineffectual potshots at Whisper because she can take it. She should probably be sent on a flanking mission to destroy the enemy CR90, anyway. She could do that all by herself. Oh, but you have Kylo Ren. Yeah, that's pretty good. Still, something to consider.

Hey, what about Snapshot on Mauler Mithel? Adding dice isn't a mod, so if he lands at range 1 of the CR90, he gets a 3 dice Snap Shot, followed by a 4 dice primary attack. 7 dice in one round sounds pretty awesome!

I think the defenders need TIE/D. This allows them to dish out more damage and control, and you can use an additional Comms Booster to add a focus for defense. Might be worth it to find the points to bump them up to Glaives with Predator, but it may not be necessary (and it's a lot of additional points if you're going from TIE/x7 defenders). They're just so defensive that your opponent has no trouble saving them until after the Raider is down.

I want you to tell me how the crew have been working out for you. They're definitely solid in a defensive role, but they wouldn't be my top picks. I usually go for at least one crew that doesn't require energy.

So tactically, I wonder if it makes sense to delay the Raider. Try to make the first round of combat have your fighters up in your opponent's grill, and the Raider hanging back at range 4 so it can't be targeted, but can still shoot. After the first round, they can either split fire by abandoning the damaged fighters and focusing on the Raider, or they can pursue your fighters and leave the Raider to destroy them. The only trouble is that they will still almost always hunt the Raider, and without a fighter screen, it will be a sitting duck. Fortunately, TIE defenders have white K-turns, so they can easily pursue your foes. Just brainstorming here.

The last Epic I played had 300 pts for fighters and 40 pts to outfit the CR() or Raider. I went with a moderately offensive build on the CR90 and played around with my part of the fighter escort. I flew tight to one edge of the board that way you always have a "safe" side. Cuts down on the amount of territory you have to defend. The Rebels felt that the fighters were the main threat and approached the build and the fight in that light. Hence the strong defensive build.

The Imps had fielded a Raider stacked with Single Turbo Lasers and it was their intention to down the CR90 as soon as possible. The first salvo directed against our aft section would have gutted the ship but for the repair parties that were available.

You still need to focus on the aft section of the CR. Cripple energy production you cripple the ship. True, ordnance tubes don't require energy to launch which makes them a bargain but be careful. The range limitations, 1-2 or 2-3 can bite you. Think outside the box. Use XX-23 on the Raider to give your escorts a free TL. Saves them an action.

You might want to consider a two ship "flying squad" whose sole purpose is to get behind the opponent's capital ship. They don't have to be strong, just fast. don't let them get tied down in a dog fight. Try to blow past the fighter screen and get behind the barge.

19 minutes ago, Stoneface said:

The last Epic I played had 300 pts for fighters and 40 pts to outfit the CR() or Raider. I went with a moderately offensive build on the CR90 and played around with my part of the fighter escort. I flew tight to one edge of the board that way you always have a "safe" side. Cuts down on the amount of territory you have to defend. The Rebels felt that the fighters were the main threat and approached the build and the fight in that light. Hence the strong defensive build.

The Imps had fielded a Raider stacked with Single Turbo Lasers and it was their intention to down the CR90 as soon as possible. The first salvo directed against our aft section would have gutted the ship but for the repair parties that were available.

You still need to focus on the aft section of the CR. Cripple energy production you cripple the ship. True, ordnance tubes don't require energy to launch which makes them a bargain but be careful. The range limitations, 1-2 or 2-3 can bite you. Think outside the box. Use XX-23 on the Raider to give your escorts a free TL. Saves them an action.

You might want to consider a two ship "flying squad" whose sole purpose is to get behind the opponent's capital ship. They don't have to be strong, just fast. don't let them get tied down in a dog fight. Try to blow past the fighter screen and get behind the barge.

Raider can't use XX-23, needs a focus.

Huh, didn't know that about the mods. The Yet Another X-Wing Squad Builder treats both halves as individual ships but they're usually good about blanking out stuff that you can no longer equip.

Anyway, Shield Technician is nice when you've taken superficial damage, have the action to spare, but don't want to bleed you reactor dry trying to keep ahead of the damage curve. It can really pay for itself over a matter of turns as you have more tokens to spare on average.

WED really shines when you have 3 energy to burn and a crit card that cannot be flipped and eats into your action/energy economy or primary attack. Ordnance tubes lack of energy use can generally allow you to at least discard a couple of facedown cards every turn and that can generally allow a section to stay afloat for another turn or two. Of course, like everything else on the Raider, these two cards are dependent on the rear section making it that much more of a juicy target (and yet another thing that makes prioritizing the CR90 difficult).

For changes to the list, I guess I'll have to get rid of Optimized Generators. That will lose me the 'free' charge to the Ion Cannons, but losing Tubes would cost a lot more energy because of that. I could perhaps change out Shield Projector for Tibanna Gas Supplies, but you have no idea how often a slip up with a Defender or Whisper turned from a Range 1 attack against a fighter into a Range 3 attack against a Reinforced Fore with a green die and regen This goes double for the Corvette's cursed 360 4 dice attack. Yes once your fighters get in close it is useless, but I've nearly cracked a tooth when FGD popped my cloaked Phantom at range 5. Really difficult to lose that insurance policy when so many points are on the line. Comms Booster is expendable if the Defenders are switched to TIE/D as the nerf to x7 no longer applies to them.

As for said Defenders, the points freed up by switching to Snap Shot, losing Comms, and losing OpGen allows just enough points to switch them all to TIE/D, give both Onyx Flechette Cannons, and give the Countess a Tractor Beam. Ion cannons might be nice for movement control or draining energy, but I'd have to drop a team or bump Onxy down to Deltas in order to free up the points for that. I could actually maybe drop CM or PT from the rear in order to free up points. Really there's no sense in having both unless you have Weapons Engineer equipped. It is nice having the choice between token draining multiattacks and shield bleeding, but I'd guess that Clusters would be the better anti-fighter defense if I'm really trying to keep pointed at the Corvette.

If I harken back to the glory days of TIE fighter then it feels right. Imperial ships did their thing by pointing at the enemy, and you hit them from behind.

Yes, but that went double for CR90's. They had a big flashy orange blind spot that you could settle in behind to get away from those nasty homing lasers (at least until they added damage for being too close to the engines).

5 minutes ago, flyboymb said:

For changes to the list, I guess I'll have to get rid of Optimized Generators. That will lose me the 'free' charge to the Ion Cannons, but losing Tubes would cost a lot more energy because of that. I could perhaps change out Shield Projector for Tibanna Gas Supplies, but you have no idea how often a slip up with a Defender or Whisper turned from a Range 1 attack against a fighter into a Range 3 attack against a Reinforced Fore with a green die and regen This goes double for the Corvette's cursed 360 4 dice attack. Yes once your fighters get in close it is useless, but I've nearly cracked a tooth when FGD popped my cloaked Phantom at range 5. Really difficult to lose that insurance policy when so many points are on the line. Comms Booster is expendable if the Defenders are switched to TIE/D as the nerf to x7 no longer applies to them.

Gotta say, you're use of Shield Projector is on point! I'm glad it's working so well for you. I usually only hear of people using it to keep Biggs alive, but it seems to fit well here. I usually balk at the energy requirement, but if it works then you should keep it.

25 minutes ago, Warlon said:

Raider can't use XX-23, needs a focus.

My bad. I shouldn't be allowed on the computer this late at night.

Use the XX-23 on a fighter and Weapons Engineer on the Raider.

13 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

Gotta say, you're use of Shield Projector is on point! I'm glad it's working so well for you. I usually only hear of people using it to keep Biggs alive, but it seems to fit well here. I usually balk at the energy requirement, but if it works then you should keep it.

Haven't had the chance to use it against somebody flying Biggs yet. The irony would taste lovely.

3 minutes ago, Stoneface said:

My bad. I shouldn't be allowed on the computer this late at night.

To be fair, the CR90 can potentially use them with Esege Tuketu (unless that was shot down by FFG). Man, with all these abilities and synergies, it's a good thing that the CR90 costs more than the Raider at the baseline. OH WAIT.

Yes I'm salty.

7 hours ago, flyboymb said:

Haven't had the chance to use it against somebody flying Biggs yet. The irony would taste lovely.

To be fair, the CR90 can potentially use them with Esege Tuketu (unless that was shot down by FFG). Man, with all these abilities and synergies, it's a good thing that the CR90 costs more than the Raider at the baseline. OH WAIT.

Yes I'm salty.

Yeah, but the Raider is a little better than the CR90 out of the gate.

I think Tuketu is still a viable option with the CR.

What really surprised me was how quickly the Epics die when faced with fighters. Health wise it's not as strong as two Decimators. I wonder how much testing FFG did to come up with the numbers for these ships. Maybe it's designed this way to limit playing time? What I'd like to try is a capital ship alone vs a strike flight. Not sure of a squad point value for the fighters yet. Maybe 150% of the cost of the capital ship?

The last epic game was great! The idea was to cripple or destroy the opposing side's cruiser. The Imps came loaded for bear. They went with few but powerful ships like loaded Punishers, Tie shuttle with HLC, etc. Very few fighters fof defense.

Rebels went for a more balanced approach. I think I was the only player that had any epic experience and that was very little and not recent. In theory, there were three squads of fighters, one run by the guy running the capital ship, the other squads run by the other players. I gave my two aces to another player and kept my lower PS escorts. Slow play to get my CR in behind my fighter screen then off to the races!

If I remember correctly, the CR was responsible for claiming two Punishers, a shuttle and a Firespray. And that was by ramming. If you're not familiar with the movement mechanics of huge ships, you really don't want to be too close. They weren't and got too close. In four or five rounds of combat the Imps lost about 60%+ of their small ships. The Rebels were more or less intact. Their Raider went for the Single Turbolasers with the big donut hole. They got swarmed!

All in all a good day of X-wing! This was the Rebel payback for the beating they took in the Galactic Civil War that we just finished.

56 minutes ago, Stoneface said:

What really surprised me was how quickly the Epics die when faced with fighters.

Yep, which is why a tend to avoid the bigger one-shot secondary weapons and field Quads for anti-Starfighter action. Also, Cluster Bombs are a nice surprise against someone who thinks getting in close for extra dice on offense is a good idea.

Quote

This goes double for the Corvette's cursed 360 4 dice attack

Be careful with that, due to the Blue Line rule, it actually ends up being less than 270

After recently play with the CR-90 and back a Massive build error which lead to some brainstorming, it is entirely possible to build a CR-90 that can survive the loss one 1 section and still pound the crap out of you. And which section you target is entirely down to what the CR-90 build is. Where as for the Raider it is still very much a case of "Aim Aft"

2 hours ago, Shockwave said:

Be careful with that, due to the Blue Line rule, it actually ends up being less than 270

After recently play with the CR-90 and back a Massive build error which lead to some brainstorming, it is entirely possible to build a CR-90 that can survive the loss one 1 section and still pound the crap out of you. And which section you target is entirely down to what the CR-90 build is. Where as for the Raider it is still very much a case of "Aim Aft"

Whoa whoa whoa what's this Blue Line rule? This seems extremely pertinent to my future game play.

5 minutes ago, flyboymb said:

Whoa whoa whoa what's this Blue Line rule? This seems extremely pertinent to my future game play.

If the shot it has crosses the blue line on the huge ship base, it doesn't really have that shot.

I'm probably going to get this wrong in some manner, but shooting goes something like

After choosing your target and confirming that it is in arc, you have to confirm that you have "Line of Fire" or "the Blue line rule"

Draw a line from the centre of stem of the section your targetting to the centre of the firing ship (Or section if a Huge ship) if the line of fire goes through a Blue line on the base of either firing ship or target ship, you can't shoot that section.

I'm sure someone with Vassal can cook up an image.

Two ideas:

1) The non-Raider part of your Epic list is weak. With only five ships, you don't really have enough jousting power or bodies on the board to provide an effective screen for your Raider. Replace those Onyx Squadron pilots and Mauler Mithel with something more like a Howlrunner TIE Fighter swarm. That will give you a block of ships that can fly out in front of the Raider, throw a lot of dice at the enemy, and block the enemy from easily maneuvering in to attack your Raider.

2) Try a more purely offensive Raider build. You only get one Modification, but if you equip Ordnance Tubes, it affects both the fore and aft sections (you have to equip it on both sections first to get the squad builder to let you do this, then unequip it from one section to get the correct squad point total, because squad builders have a hard time dealing with the one-ship-on-two-cards concept). You can do something like this:

http://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Galactic Empire&d=v4!e!129:17,91,83:-1:-1:;130:29,-1,17,17,157,90,-1:32:23:&sn=Unnamed Squadron

Fore: Homing Missiles, Sensor Team, Backup Shield Generator

Aft: Homing Missiles, Homing Missiles, Weapons Engineer, Ordnance Experts, Gunnery Team, Ordnance Tubes, Impetuous

Then, run Captain Jonus next to it to give rerolls on the Homing Missiles without needing to spend your target lock. Jonus can even be a TIE Shuttle carrying a Systems Officer to give your Raider a free Target Lock action each round.

This set up lets you acquire locks from long range, then dump primary weapon and homing missile fire into your preferred target. If your target dies before you've fired all your guns, the title lets you reacquire locks on new targets. You also have the option with Huge ships to fire your weapons in any order you like, so you can fire off your homing missiles first, then your primary last. If you're smart about choosing when to spend your target locks, you can ensure that you're never lacking a lock to fire your missiles.

I've flown against a Raider with this set up. When it catches one of my ships in the overlap between its front and rear arcs at range 2-3, that ship is just dead, no questions asked.

I don't know what it is, but neither of the Imperial ships really make me want to use them in epic. I love the idea of epic, and I only play Imperials... but the Raider and Gozanti just both seem so meh.

The Aft is definitely the weakness of the Raider since it shuts down pretty much everything, but putting your reinforcement token there is also the primary incentive players have to attack the Fore. It really doesn't have any desire to fly forward aggressively, so stick to the 1's and point the spearhead where you can keep your rear near the edge of the board and your enemies in front.

11 minutes ago, LunarSol said:

The Aft is definitely the weakness of the Raider since it shuts down pretty much everything, but putting your reinforcement token there is also the primary incentive players have to attack the Fore. It really doesn't have any desire to fly forward aggressively, so stick to the 1's and point the spearhead where you can keep your rear near the edge of the board and your enemies in front.

Yeah, I could see the problem as soon as you said "I want to trade broadsides with a CR-90!" The Raider is not built for that in the slightest. Keep the Fore pointed at the enemy, unload with primaries and Ion Cannon Batteries, and keep the rear defended.

I also like putting Howlrunner with Decoy as an escort. She can swap Pilot Skill with the Raider, allowing it to fire its volleys at PS8 and getting one reroll on each primary weapon attack. It's not quite as good as Roark boosting the CR-90 to PS12, but it's still pretty solid.

The Raider wants to keep it's front toward the fight. Think of any rear-section hardpoints as there to protect against flankers trying to get shots on the aft, not as weapons you want to point toward the entire enemy formation.

Also worth noting, a huge difference with the Raider over the CR90 is that the Raider retains it's hardpoint upgrade when the front is crippled. This allows it to continue to attack from the fore with its hardpoint even after it has been crippled. So the "zombie" front can still pose a crush and attack risk while screening off attacks and keeping the energy-generating rear safe and sound. This is a huge advantage over the CR90, because once it's fore is crippled it loses a big chunk of its firepower since it doesn't retain any hardpoint upgrades. The CR90 needs to fight with its broadsides to be fully effective, and this means putting its side toward the enemy and allowing them to easily target either section of the CR90. The raider, who is front-facing, can make the aft section very, very difficult to actually attack, so the zombie-front can fight as long as the game last without the opponent being able to get the raider off the board without a huge amount of effort.

Don't put the rear hardpoints of the Raider on the enemy, but rather think of them as protection for the aft. When ships try to get around the Raider to attack its aft, that's when those rear hardpoints (if any) can start to fire, but don't be afraid to save points and run a Raider without rear hardpoints.