I like playing with Raddus but now I just have a predictable pattern with it. In almost all of the games I drop it in turn #4.

Usually drop ship is a big ship with heavy short range punch, only delivery ships are different sometimes MC-80s and sometimes smaller riskier ships.

I was just wondering is it just me or dropping the ship at turn #4 is a usual habit for most players?

14 minutes ago, LostFleet said:

I like playing with Raddus but now I just have a predictable pattern with it. In almost all of the games I drop it in turn #4.

Usually drop ship is a big ship with heavy short range punch, only delivery ships are different sometimes MC-80s and sometimes smaller riskier ships.

I was just wondering is it just me or dropping the ship at turn #4 is a usual habit for most players?

I've dropped it Round 5 and Round 6 before, even. It really depends on how much of a "win" you need... if you need a 10 point win vs a 6 point win, well that will dictate how aggressive you need to be. But most lists need a few dedicated rounds of sustained attacking to kill an MC75, so if you drop it in Round 4, 5, or even 6 you really limit how much of an opportunity the opponent will have to kill it in return.

I had a guy at Worlds get really upset because I skirted my flagship around the board avoiding any sort of combat for the first 4 Rounds, so we literally had not rolled any dice. Then, on Turn 5 I swung my flagship back around and into the tip of his now strung-out formation. Then Round 6 I dropped my MC75 and was able to obliterate his lead ship (his flagship AFKII) while he couldn't possibly put any meaningful amount of dice into my ships. Win, me. If it was a later round and I needed 10 Points to have any chance of prizing out, I'd have to do it a bit differently and earlier, likely. But doing a Round 6 drop like that basically means you cannot possibly lose.

My 2 cents.

I would say it depends alot on opponent's movements. If he charges hoping to table you will be able to flank him earlier and drop earlier. If he plays cautious like most will against Raddus, keeping formation or slow-rolling, then it is best to wait it out as well while moving your delivery ships to get that end-game flank. As @AllWingsStandyingBy mentioned dropping late also benefits high-damage short-range Raddus ships(mc75) as they can selectively delete targets that the remaining turns allow while themselves being harder to destroy before end of round 6.

One nasty I've learnt to watch out for is demo, which can jump around popping your smalls or mauling the large delivery ship while the rest of the imp fleet keeps formation, waiting for Raddus ship to land. If done right it can goad Raddus into dropping too early.

There’s also Squall in the 2 ship matchup; it forces many Raddus builds to play a little more aggressively by threatening dropships across the table (though it’s easier to table as well.)

It depends a lot on the style of your Raddus fleet. If you're using a Liberty, you probably need time to get your spotters around the enemy ships, so your Mon Karren can get behind them and chase them off the board. If you're using an MC75 Ordnance, particularly a Profundity, you want to drop sooner, so you can get in front of the enemy ships/let them come into range of you, where you can block them and chew them up.

With my Profundity/HH combo I tend to drop turn 2. Sometimes turn 3 if my opponent is playing slowly. Once I dropped turn 5 (and probably should have dropped turn 6), but that was a special case (by the end of turn 4 I think we had a total of 1 damage across all the ships).

Usually that is soon enough that there's time to chew up the enemy fleet and get a 10-1 or 9-2 (if the Profundity goes down). Also means that your opponent has less time to get things into position. Plus dropping later leaves you with a nasty activation disadvantage.

But sometimes you want to wait a bit - let the enemy commit somewhere before dropping - particularly with a squadron-heavy build (it encourages them to split their fire - try to take down my MC80 flagship, then the MC75 drops and they're distracted and switch to that).

That said, European Armada seems to be a lot more aggressive than North American Armada; often turns 2-3 are the big turns when the key stuff happens - I had a game on Monday that was called half-way through turn 2 (partly due to Raddus droppings). One of the players around here has been experimenting with Raddus-dropping a Mon Karren turn 1, which can be pretty devastating.

23 minutes ago, Grumbleduke said:

That said, European Armada seems to be a lot more aggressive than North American Armada; often turns 2-3 are the big turns when the key stuff happens - I had a game on Monday that was called half-way through turn 2 (partly due to Raddus droppings). One of the players around here has been experimenting with Raddus-dropping a Mon Karren turn 1, which can be pretty devastating.

Gonna go on a bit of a tangent from the main topic here, but I know what you mean on that. Lately I've been messing around with some (non-Raddus) alpha strike lists designed so that they can hit turn 1 in a lot of situations. It's good to have that option against anyone trying to resurrect things like Fish Farm and just sit on a bundle of points!

I don't want to derail LostFleet's initial question too much, but a lot of you have noted that to answer it really depends on what the Raddus fleet is, namely what is being dropped into play.

What do people prefer? I played a lot of Raddus in a couple CCs and some tournaments , and I've tried dropping in both MC80L ( Mon Karren ) and MC75 ( Aspiration ). In my experience, the MC75 is incomparably better as the ship to pop into play, and I use an MC30 ( Admonition ) as the drop ship. I mean, clearly I like the aggressive playstyle and hard-hitting nature of black dice and ordnance upgrades. I've just always found that in Armada black-die brawlers can more consistently get their jobs done than red-die ships, and because of this belief I've always gravitated toward Kuat-Refits, MC30s, MC75s, etc. and have never been terribly fond of Cymoons or Ackbar or anything. RRNG (Red Random Number Generation) just drives me crazy and makes the swing of dice felt especially strongly by such ships. I honestly think Black Dice are worth more than Red Dice, but the game's costing structure makes Red Dice more expensive than Black Dice (which suits me fine, I suppose ).


I flirt a lot with the idea of dropping in the Profundity and then having it drop in a Garel's Honor . If GH has External Racks and OE, it's throwing 5 Black Dice, a Red Die, and a Blue Die into the target ship (because CF), and then ramming for a Face-Up. This also makes it easier to "trap" the target ship, helping to make sure the Profundity can finish it off. This seems more like a fun CC fleet, though, then a tournament-caliber tactic, and as such I've never seen the Profundity used to any sort of success.


How about you? What do you prefer to Raddus-Drop?

Raddus is all about getting that one ship in the perfect place at the perfect time. And that fits naturally with the MC75 Ordnance. My list started as an Ackbar dual-MC80 one, then I replaced one with an MC75 Armoured (to discourage someone from sitting in front of your ships, blocking them), but I had a lot of trouble getting the MC75 into the right position. Raddus solves that problem (most of the time).

So my main list (which I've been playing for far too long now) is an MC80 Assault with all the shiny (180 points), and MC75 Ordnance with Lando, ECMs, APTs, ERxs, OEs and Profundity, and then a simple Hammerhead Torpedo with OEs and ERxs. Plus two Comms Net GR-75s for tokens, activation padding, drop options and Leia for those times when you need a new command quickly.

Most of the time it works wonderfully. It fears a heavy Demolisher (which can last-first and kill the MC80), BTAvenger (which, if it gets lucky, can kill the MC80) and heavy squadron lists with a lifeboat (where you can't just kill all the ships by the end of turn 3, and the squadrons become free points).

I experimented for a while without Profundity (and some squads instead), but I think you need the extra ship for activation padding, and for the first activation on the drop-round. It's also great to send that after a smaller ship (it can one-shot Yavarises, CR90 objective ships etc.) while the cruisers take on the larger ships.

I get the appeal of the Liberty as the Raddus ship; (particularly the Mon Karren, XI7s, Intel Officer, Spinals, Engine Techs version) - with the red dice it can chase quite well. But it's a lot of points, and dies fairly easily. Plus you need some fast ships to get into position to drop. Plus with that sort of list, why not go Madine - the Mon Karren can still get wherever it wants to be, doesn't have to worry about spotters, and you're not putting too much emphasis on a single aspect of the game.

My typical Raddus drop is nearly always turn 2. Sometimes turn 3. In one weird CC game where I played keep away from a massive squad wing, I dropped it turn 5 and had it support flaking the heck out of a squad screen

My typical choice is a kitted out MC80A Defiance. I have found it better than the MC75O, but I get the reasoning behind MC75O. My build typically throws 13 dice and maybe 1 more with a ConFire, that’s typically more dice but of lower quality (no frog effects) than the MC75O. I just have a habit of dropping my Raddus ship directly in front of ISDs, MC75s, and MC80s, so I want a superior defensive suite.

I found Mon Karren a lackluster choice for Raddus. It wants to engage two targets every turn and my personal Raddus play usually revolves around using Raddus to efficiently place one my own ships to delete one of my opponent’s. I get why it would work for others.

Never played using Raddus but I was thinking of something like this...

400/400. Most Wanted , Planetary Ion Cannon , Superior Positions .
CR90A, TRC, ETs, Raddus 85
GR75T, Slicer Tools, Quantum Storm 26
GR75T, Boosted Comms, Tallon 32
MC75-Ord, E-Rax, ACMs, ECM, OE, Lando 125
Han, Dash, Corran, Shadow Caster, Rogue, Gold, HWK 132/134

I thought the rogues can go in, with Tallon's Flotilla staying just far away enough to activate a fighter or two hence the BC. Once the fighters have softened up a target the MC75 can hop in to finish the deal. The rogues themselves may do fine if there is only moderate squadron opposition. Have to keep the TRC90 alive though to avoid tabling so I put engine techs there for a burst of speed. I'd like to squeeze Jiana's light in if I can.... maybe APTs instead of ACMs.

My preferred Raddus build which I've had success with is to drop an MC80BC with Spinals and Caitken&Shollan (sprinkle other upgrades based on the rest of your list). Use it to reliably threaten the ship you want to take out (at any range). I usually drop it turn 3 with one of my spotters: an ET CR90 and Quantum Storm with Slicers.

I have been using Raddus for a few tournaments now. I am naturally a aggressive player, so I generally plan my drop for turn 2, unless my opponent deploys on the back line at speed 1 or deploys sideways. If they deploy at distance 3, even at speed 1...I will Raddus drop on turn 2 every time. I don't really care what my opponent brings, I will have my target ship picked out and try to kill it in the next round. My usual load out is a MC75OC Profundity with a HH inside as the drop ship, MC30T, 2xGR75, and a CR90A flagship with no squads and a 23pt. bid.

To summarise @Grumbleduke :

You've got to hold and give
But do it at the right time.
You can be slow or fast
But you must get to the line.

They'll always hit you and hurt you,
Defend and attack.
There's only one way to beat them:
Get round the back.

Catch me if you can
'Cause I'm the England man
And what you're looking at
Is the master plan.

Thank you for your comments, honestly I am a bit suprised, I expected everyone's favorite would be 4 or 5 but everyone has variety of approaches for entrance. Some prefer 2,3 and some 5,6.

I never tried at turns 2,3, I guess I am the cautious player and I take my time to get into the battlefield. When I first started I loved going staight in, now after losing many ships in crossfire, if objectives permit, I will fly slow, wait the enemy to come to me and release the Raddus which happens as I have stated earlier, in turn #4.

Also a bit out of subject but I wish Interdictor had some effects on jumping ships and squadrons into the battlefield.

I know a player who drops turn 1

Turn 1 or 2. Liberty or death!

Theres definately a tedious link to the fog on the KonstanTyne in here somewhere.

Ackbar is almost certainly the 1994 Manchester United FA cup classic 'cmon you Reds'

there must be others...

5 hours ago, Truthiness said:

Turn 1 or 2. Liberty or death!

Or in their case, both.

13 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

I know a player who drops turn 1

I don't know who that would be 😁

1 hour ago, Jimble said:

I don't know who that would be 😁

I wondered when you'd show up in this thread!

Let's start by clearing up terminology here. Your title references the Raddus Bomb, which in its purest form requires Hyperspace Assault. But given actual playable constraints, it has to be the Profundity and a small. Anything else is just a standard Raddus drop.

With the Raddus Bomb, you're probably best off dropping turns 2 or 3 to make the most use out of both drop ships.

9 hours ago, Jimble said:

I don't know who that would be 😁

John Barnes