I've had trouble getting 60-100 point holes in an Imperial list filled, something that is easy to fill in Rebel lists with CR90s and Hammerheads. Those ships are cheap and effective, and don't really care about who is the Commander. Now don't get me wrong I do like Arquitens and Raiders, but when I use them in a fleet I typically build around them, rather than as an effective points filler.

Should the Empire in your opinion get a CR90/Hammerhead equivalent, and what ship(s) get your vote to fill that niche?

It might be passed over by FFG for too derivative of the CR90, but I think the CR92a is a cool example of the Imperials learning from Rebel successes.

60 point gaps?

Whats wrong with barebones Glads/Arqs?

40 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

60 point gaps?

Whats wrong with barebones Glads/Arqs?

Or a couple of decimators or aggressors .

I think you mean 40-60 point gaps that the rebels can fill very easily with a versatile, relatively powerful ship. TRC90s and ExRacks Hammers are 51 and 39 points respectively that fit in almost any fleet archetype. I agree with you that I’d love an Imperial equivalent. Both Arqs, Glads, and Raiders usually need either 2 upgrades or a specific commander to help them. Doesn’t mean you can’t run a naked Raider, but it just takes more skill to make it sing in comparison to its Rebel “equivalents”.

Its easier to just see each faction as different at the core. The less I compare them the easier it is to just pull out their individual strengths. Have a 50-100 pt gap? Maybe another combat ship isn’t the answer! A Gozanti with Jendon and Maarek is 70 pts and hits with plenty of force on both sides of the fight! See what I did there @BrobaFett ??

30 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Whats wrong with barebones Glads/Arqs?

Glads you'll want OE and External Racks (63 points minimum) and they need a fleet with enough activations to shine (or the Demolisher title but then you get more expensive). You can't just toss them in like a (Jaina's) TRC CR90A.

Arqs need their red dice and/or nav chart fixed. Generally that depends on your commander, so isn't universally applicable, but you can also do some of that with upgrades (say, with Needa and TRCs) but then you get a bit over the 60 point line.

That said, I don't want the Empire to have a CR90 equivalent. Factions should be different, and the CR90 is one of those archetypal Rebel ships, featuring the better speed, yaw, and red dice out of different arc options that are more emblematic of Rebels. The Raider is similar in a few ways to the CR90, but it requires closer ranges or gets expensive and can do long-range against bigger prey once a game (the D Caps HIE Raider-II). My main issue with Raiders versus CR90s is Raiders generally need the right kind of fleet to shine whereas CR90s can just get dropped in wherever and for the most part they do well enough, regardless of the rest of the fleet (there are, of course, better ways to spend the points depending on lots of variables, but it's rarely an outright bad way to spend the points).

I would , however, be keen on the Empire getting a cheap can-be-used-wherever-without-needing-just-the-right-kind-of-fleet ship that can fling a few red dice to assist the generally shorter-ranged Imperial fleet. As a starting point I'd look at Hammerhead Scouts, but modify them substantially to be more Imperial-style. The important elements from Hammerheads are speed 3 with a nav chart that gives clicks earlier on rather than later (encourages them to be more used as a group or with fleet support rather than as flankers, which Raider-IIs and Arquitens already do) and have a front arc focus with poor side arcs (which is another typically Imperial thing, keeps them from competing directly with Arqs, and makes them more dependent on other ships nearby flying in a group).

ExRack hammer is 39pts. If you are happy with using one of these then you really should be happy with a 47pt Exrack Raider...

A cr90 with trc's in 51pts. A HIE DCap Raider is 60pts. An OE ExRacks Glad is 63pts and a DTT Arq is 59pts.

There is a slight imperial tax, but its not that high.

@Baltanok signal!

Do people actually fly cr90s these days?

I would love to see an Imperial, long range, small base ship that had a Support team slot, and was 50 points or under.

I'd recommend the Vigil -Class Corvette for the Imperials. At 255 meters she's well within small range, armed with Turbolasers, Laser Cannons and Tractor Beams. I'd say a little better firepower than a CR-90 Corvette and better armored, but more expensive and slower. Just throwing in my 2 cents ?

15 minutes ago, idiewell said:

I'd recommend the Vigil -Class Corvette for the Imperials. At 255 meters she's well within small range, armed with Turbolasers, Laser Cannons and Tractor Beams. I'd say a little better firepower than a CR-90 Corvette and better armored, but more expensive and slower. Just throwing in my 2 cents ?

Fractalsponge makes great designs that's for sure, and it matches the aesthetics of most Imperial ships.

3 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

@Baltanok signal!

Do people actually fly cr90s these days?

Do you want Regionals or majors?

Counting the top4 lists from recent majors (worlds, Euro, Gencon, NoVa, UK, German): 11 rebel lists total, 7 with CR, 8 with Hammers.

Major Imps: 9 lists, 1 with Raider, 4 with Arqs

Rebels were also more likely to use multiples, with 8 lists using 2+, and 2 using 3. Imps only had 2 lists with 2 smalls (one pair of raiders at UK, and a pair of Arqs at Gencon)

Regionals, wave 7:

Rebel 29 top 4, 3 with CR, 3 with HH

Imp 38 top 4, 6 with Raiders, 3 with Arqs

Conclusions: At recent major tournaments, top rebel fleets used small combatants, to a significantly higher degree than imperial fleets. This is substantially different from regional wave 7, where relatively few top contenders used the smallest combatants.

I think there's a definite gap to be filled for Imperials in that they have no useful ship besides the Gozanti that functions comfortably in the 35-45 point range. Those ships are a critical reason why Imperial MSU is effectively dead while Rebel lists are increasingly looking similar with 1 large ship, several small ships, and a squadron component generally determined by the commander.

42 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

critical reason why Imperial MSU is effectively dead while Rebel lists are increasingly looking similar with 1 large ship, several small ships, and a squadron component generally determined by the commander.

Which, if they can make the factions balanced against each other like that, I don’t have a problem with. If the game can work with Imperials flying 1-2 large ships and the rebels a swarm of small ships it would be super thematic.

I don’t think they have achieved that balance, but if they could.

6 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

Do people   a  ctuall  y fly cr90s these  da  ys? 

Well for some OT nostalgia definetely

I know you guys are talking about game stats and mechanics and all, but I do feel the need to mention that FFG invented the raider explicitly to be an imperial counterpart to the cr-90

9 hours ago, Snipafist said:

I would , however, be keen on the Empire getting a cheap can-be-used-wherever-without-needing-just-the-right-kind-of-fleet ship that can fling a few red dice to assist the generally shorter-ranged Imperial fleet.

That's... a CR-90. About the only thing you'd be missing from the CR-90 is the fantastic movement chart... which is part of the reason it's as ubiquitous as it is. That, and guanteeing 2 damage out of the all-but-mandatory upgrade of TRCs.

The problem with Imperial lights is that they're so **** hard to use. Raiders not only explode spontaneously in half the situations they find themselves in, have "long range guns" for only one turn, which while it hits nicely doesn't have the wild, consistent punch factor that CR-90s with TRCs have. I've never felt as safe fielding raiders like I do with CR-90s.

Using armed Gozantis feels like desperation (let alone they can't realistically hit as hard, or as certainly, as TRC-90s) since the Rebels aren't forced into these kinds of compromises with their armed transports. Best GOZ use is to make them cheap for a fleet support slot- going the expensive gun version with something lethal like an intel officer turns them into expensive pinatas that die too easily. Concentrate fire on a GZ feels like an opportunistic novelty, or desperation move, than something to base your entire strategy on.

ARQs often have the complaint of a tricky movement chart, in addition to being more akin to nebulons than CR-90s anyway. The 10 extra points matters when choosing that one upgrade to run on the rest of the fleet.

The best generalists in the fleet are the heavier- and more expensive- mediums and heavy ships with the ISD being the best generalist in the Empire... which is why you see them in every run-of-the-mill standard imperial list, and they are never a bad choice during list building.

As I'd like to see more generalist ships (and keep hoping the VSD is secretly a great generalist), I'd be in favor of the Empire getting a light ship with 2 reds on 1+ arc around the 40 point mark. Something I can take as a light escort ship and not feel embarrassed to lose it too easily against targets it's supposed to destroy (had it with too many Raiders lost against fighters). Something speedy, too. The CR-92a Assasin corvette would be an awesome analogue, since I'm also a fan of TIE Fighter.

I said imps need a cheap and universal ship too long ago. Lancer frigate/Carrack light cruiser.

14 hours ago, Piratical Moustache said:

It might be passed over by FFG for too derivative of the CR90, but I think the CR92a is a cool example of the Imperials learning from Rebel successes.

It not so much that the Empire learned from the rebels. The CR90 was more a "civil" version of the Corvette while the CR92a was a more militarized version. As such the Rebels got more Cr90s, while the Empire had more Cr92a.

I would like to see the Corvette in the Empire rooster: I helps telling the narrative that the Galactic Civil war was a CIVIL WAR, and not two indepedent factions fighting each other.

I am also not a fan of the Version A/B that Armada went with. Making the Cr90 and Cr92 would have been a better approach in my eyes (same with making the VSD II and ISD II more distinct from their Mark I predecessors)

I strongly disagree with the OP idea.

Part of the game is that factions differ from eqch other. By the same logic we would need a Rebel equivalent of the ISD. An MC80 will never be as good...

We don't need a counterpart for everything, we need the factions to be as different as possible!

39 minutes ago, Coldhands said:

I said imps need a cheap and universal ship too long ago. Lancer frigate/Carrack light cruiser.

As much as I would love to see them, theiy are both a step larger than corvettes. The Lancer is Frigate sized (Nebulon-B) and the Carrack is a light cruiser.

2 hours ago, Norell said:

I strongly disagree with the OP idea.

Part of the game is that factions differ from eqch other. By the same logic we would need a Rebel equivalent of the ISD. An MC80 will never be as good...

We don't need a counterpart for everything, we need the factions to be as different as possible!

Part of the game is the star wars fluff.

Kuat was an enterprise that build only for the empire, the MonCals build for the Alliance.

Mostly everybody else build for the market, and the Cr90 was a pure market not a military product. It should be available to both sides.

We dont need a counterpart for everything, but we also shouldn`t reject any ship used by both sides. The faction as civil war factions not diefferent nations or species.

14 hours ago, Snipafist said:

Glads you'll want OE and External Racks (63 points minimum) and they need a fleet with enough activations to shine (or the Demolisher title but then you get more expensive). You can't just toss them in like a (Jaina's) TRC CR90A.

Arqs need their red dice and/or nav chart fixed. Generally that depends on your commander, so isn't universally applicable, but you can also do some of that with upgrades (say, with Needa and TRCs) but then you get a bit over the 60 point line.

That said, I don't want the Empire to have a CR90 equivalent. Factions should be different, and the CR90 is one of those archetypal Rebel ships, featuring the better speed, yaw, and red dice out of different arc options that are more emblematic of Rebels. The Raider is similar in a few ways to the CR90, but it requires closer ranges or gets expensive and can do long-range against bigger prey once a game (the D Caps HIE Raider-II). My main issue with Raiders versus CR90s is Raiders generally need the right kind of fleet to shine whereas CR90s can just get dropped in wherever and for the most part they do well enough, regardless of the rest of the fleet (there are, of course, better ways to spend the points depending on lots of variables, but it's rarely an outright bad way to spend the points).

I would , however, be keen on the Empire getting a cheap can-be-used-wherever-without-needing-just-the-right-kind-of-fleet ship that can fling a few red dice to assist the generally shorter-ranged Imperial fleet. As a starting point I'd look at Hammerhead Scouts, but modify them substantially to be more Imperial-style. The important elements from Hammerheads are speed 3 with a nav chart that gives clicks earlier on rather than later (encourages them to be more used as a group or with fleet support rather than as flankers, which Raider-IIs and Arquitens already do) and have a front arc focus with poor side arcs (which is another typically Imperial thing, keeps them from competing directly with Arqs, and makes them more dependent on other ships nearby flying in a group).

Assault Gozanti with some new slots, +1 red front and side and a 10-15 points cost raise?

Ofc purely fictional.

If FFG adds a new ship to fill the "gap" please dont let it be the Tartan-class Patrol Cruiser from Empire at War. I would much rather see the Victory II Frigate show up to fill this role, as it is way more Imperial in its appearance.

What imperials need is the Imperial Tax to be gone and... the ISD is very compounding this problem. If you don't fly an ISD as an imperial your tournament competitive lists become very narrow. The meta is skewed in a sense that it feels balanced (which it is) but only because the ISD is such a good ship for such a "low" point cost with Strategic Adviser basically invalidating VSD's / Raiders (with exceptions) etc.

(Slight addendum, if you go First player lists you almost always also have to take the Demolisher, which narrows your list even more down)

VSD's exemplify this perfectly... it's not that the VSD's are terrible, it's just the current state of the game that you need activations, and they can't fit a Strategic Advisor, they don't have the hull to survive an Avenger Alphastrike but ISD's have more activations, more hull, more firepower, more maneuverability. More everything for a little extra cost. So instead of asking for new ships we need to talk about general opportunity cost balancing. All the "alternatives" cost to much.

A ship is not bad per se. A ship is bad if it costs to much for what it brings to the table. Look at the Raider, i love that ship and it's design. It's a great thing but it costs to much (probably being the worst point / performance balance of all ships). If it cost 1 point everybody would take it, right ? How about 10 ? 20 ? 30 ? 40 points ? Sure, so where is the magical balance ? We don't need new ships, we need to reevaluate the point cost of these obsolete ships due to opportunity cost.

Oh and i wouldn't shed a tear if the Strategical Advisor gets burned with the Banhammer. It punishes anything Midsize way way to hard, on both sides. And before you go into "raiders are awewome yadda yadda". I know, i love them, i play them in my competitive list, but that doesn't mean they are balanced, we pay a BIG prize for this love affair at that pointcost.

1 hour ago, Lancezh said:

A ship is not bad per se. A ship is bad if it costs to much for what it brings to the table. Look at the Raider, i love that ship and it's design. It's a great thing but it costs to much (probably being the worst point / performance balance of all ships). If it cost 1 point everybody would take it, right ? How about 10 ? 20 ? 30 ? 40 points ? Sure, so where is the magical balance ? We don't need new ships, we need to reevaluate the point cost of these obsolete ships due to opportunity cost.

The Raider is *far* from the worst point / performance ship. They hit well above their weight class with OE and Exracks, dropping 3 blues 6 blacks on a single turn (given over 2 attacks, but can still be 2 blue / 5 blacks from a single attack). And they have the speed to get out of there then. They are missing a redirect, which sucks, but if played correctly, they'll take some front hull shields on their approach, and then run away, exposing their rear shields for the departure, so they can get away without having a redirect. They a small enough of a threat that they're not worth chasing down, but hit hard enough that you have to worry about them. My favorite thing to do is to drop the massive attack onto a mid-level threat, and then gtfo and track down the flotilla. With their blue dice, they're much better at killing them off than a Gladiator, and allows them to continue to contribute to the game after they drop their payload. Whenever I have 2 Gozantis in my fleet, I question "would I be better served by a Raider?" The answer is not always yes, but it often is. Even if you get outbid and end up as player 2, these things can flank your primary threat, such that while they may escape your front arc of your ISD, they still end up eating 7 dice to the face... Or better yet, they ram your Raider, leaving them in the front arc of the ISD, and both the Raider and the ISD combine to finish off an untouched ISD.

All of that is about the Raider I, and primarily about player 1... But the Raider II with Dcap HIEs can be brutal as well, especially if Screed is your commander. But even if he isn't, you still have a 58% chance to trigger HIEs - 68% if you double arc. And with Dcaps, you can traditionally do this twice before the rest of your fleet engages, stripping the target of pretty much all of its shields. This is a great 60 point ship for 2nd player (given it doesn't work in all fleets). And if you ever run up against a 134pt squadron list, they can augment your 50-60pt squads by throwing double flak for a round or two, ideally during their approach run for its primary task.