What do you do with Raiders?

[godsgopher]

While looking over the various fleet lists I like to consider each ship and how it fits into the general fleet. I have looked at the explorer vessel and seen a ship that while almost unarmed and very lightly defended plays a critical role in reconnaissance and fleet support. Yet when I take a look at the Decados and Li-halan Raider I'm totally perplexed as to what your suppose to do with it.

The Raider is basically an Explorer without the scout ability, with upgraded defenses and a reinforced hull. Yet possesses extremely light firepower, inadequate to the needs of a "raider" type ship. In point of fact to manage to acquire enough firepower to even be mildly effective you must purchase them in pairs and even then this is no more then 4 AD worth of light lasers for the price of 120 points! For a mear 100 points you can have yourself a frigate which, while generally slower and less maneuverable to the very agile raider, possesses at least 1/3 more hit points, more then twice the firepower, and 300% more troops! So what do you do with these overpriced targets?

I have considered a few ideas, one, being to transfer troops to a raider to sneak in as a boarder, but honestly for twice the price I can get a gallot to do the exact same job and it will do it better. As a second idea I thought maybe it would serve as an anti-fighter support ship, but I really would just rather have six more fighters for the price.

To compare two frigates vs a Destroyer plus some upgraded troops would be 200 points vs 200 points and seems like a pretty even fight. But two Raiders at 120 points vs a Frigate at 100 points, the frigate would total dominate such a fight as the raiders would have to hit with all four of there lasers to even inflict one point of damage, and would have to repeat this feat 18 times to destroy the Frigate, while the Frigate would mostly likely make short work of one raider then the other! the Extra 20 points does not grant you two vessels even comparable to the one Frigate. To me it seems the weakness here is that you are deploying a ship that on its own can not even kill its chief pray, the Explorer, as said ship has two shields, the most damage a Raider could do in one turn would be to drop an Explorers shield. For the price your paying it seems utterly preferable to get a Frigate which can easily splatter an explorer.

I would recommend reworking the raiders and lower their shields to 2 like an Explorer while increasing there on board Light Laser Armaments to 4AD so they can actually have a fair chance of killing there chief target. Other wise I can't even imagine a battle were i would bother even shooting at a Raider at all, as by its self it couldn't even drop the shield of a Frigate, yet it remains too hard to kill vs. its effectiveness on the battlefield.

 

[Stormrider]

In a decados fleet I took recently of 5 mantis and 4 raiders I used the raiders as crit causing ships. The mantis would take down shields and the raiders would deal crits.

They are fairly fast too so you could race them around behind the enemy fleet to take out his scouts etc then cause havoc in the rear.

Also, at 60 points each they are pretty cheap and allow you to outnumber your opponent, which gives you advantages in the movement phase.

 

[katadder]

the reaper raider provides something decados dont have - precise weapons so use them afterwards.
the slayer raider is one of the fastest most manouvrable ships in the game and can happily sit in a frigates rear arc blasting away and most frigates only have a couple of turret dice. they can also protect the rear of your Iskati frigates who dont have turrets. 2/90 and agile is very good for this.

 

[godsgopher]

I could see the imitative sink working, thought not as effective perhaps as in the previous edition. and I defiantly like the ideas of the critical specialists, though in the case of the Li-Halan this would be pointless as all there ships have lasers. But I still think there individual damage dealing ability just isn't in league with there point cost, I think the frigate is the superb platform, especially if were talking Decados Frigates. For the speed and maneuverability I would just take Galliots.

(On a total unrelated note, with this post I have now achieved Mongoose Status!)

 

[starbreaker]

They are kind of iffy, but some uses I can see:

They give Decados and Li Halan their only cheap ship option, which is important in some scenarios and campaign games.

They ram twice as hard as an explorer, and their speed and maneuverability make them good at doing so. It's fairly suicidal to ram a large ship, but smacking a frigate is usually survivable and 2-12 hull damage is more than your guns will do without help. Sometimes suicide is a fine idea anyway - if your opponent has clustered his fighters near a big ship (or on its base for support) a ram can easily produce an instant 6AD explosion (of the Raider, that is) that stands a fair chance of killing those fighters. Works best on low-armor bombers, but even fighters may succumb if they fail their dodge saves.

With troop upgrades, they can reliably board and capture enemy explorers that don't have their own troop upgrades, giving your fleet access to scout functions. Li Halan and Decados ships are nightmarishly good with target rerolls. Other ships can manage this as well, but the Raiders have better speed for chasing elusive scouts and even with two marauders or elites on board, they cost less than a frigate does and do the job better. The Decados raider is less useful for this due to lower speed, but it also provides their fleet with their only Precise weapons, making them a good thing to snipe unshielded targets with at the end of the firing phase - and having lasers in every arc makes it easy to set up shots on multiple targets.

 

[MongooseMatt]

One good use for Raiders in medium and large games - use them to go after the enemy Explorers. They will overwhelm an Explorer, whether by guns or boarding), especially if used in packs - Explorers do not usually go around in groups (because it is good to space scouts out), but Raiders have no such limitation. They are then fast enough to cross the battlefield to target the next Explorer in a turn or two.

Knocking out the enemy's scouting capabilities is a good enough justification to have theml leaving your bigger ships to pound something more important. When done, their few Troops are good enogh to help swing the odds in your favour over a tight boarding action.

 

[starbreaker]

The numbers simply don't support that usage. It takes 2 raiders to stand even a small chance of pentrating the shields of an explorer, and 3 or more to reliably inflict even small amounts of hull damage per turn. Shooting simply will not do the job unless you buy a lot of raiders or have support fire from other ships or fighters.

Moreover, while the Li Halan raider is very fast, as good as any explorer, the Decados one is quite slow, not really capable of running down a Hawkwood or Al Malik explorer at all, nor can they reliably evade speed 12 frigates or destroyers who decide to intercept their hunting attempts. Both types of raiders can catch up with Hazat explorers, but they may not enjoy doing so - the Hazat has just as good firepower over the prow (still meaningless unless many ships are firing, since 2 light lasers won't penetrate 3 shields by themselves) and can match them one-on-one for boarding. The extra hull, damage and ramming still gives the raiders an edge, but not a huge one.

Knocking out scouts is very important, but raiders by themselves are not the tool to do it efficiently. They're simply not very good at anything except providing raw numbers of hulls, which is important in some scenarios and helpful in campaigns. They're also efficient at jumping weakened ships with boarding runs, sudden rams against small or badly-damaged ships, or (for Decados) providing a few lasers for crit-fishing. Buying too many of them doesn't leave you with enough real combat ships to set up those uses, though. You can have too many explorers too, but their scout functions are much more generally useful than raiders are.

 

[godsgopher]

Im afraid Starbreaker has the right of it. The whole concept of the Raider is to be a very fast and light warship able to conduct deep penetration raids into enemy territory. To be effective in this role such a ship MUST carry enough firepower to be a threat light warships and troop ships. The problem here is we have a ship thats very hard to kill, but does not pack enough firepower to do anything note worthy.

Lets examine two Decados Raiders to there classic enemy the Hawkwood Frigate. Combined they posses 4AD of Light Lasers that can be brought to bare to the Front, Port, and Starboard, and 4 troops and move at 12in with a turn of 2/45', Now the Hornet Frigate of House Hawkwood, It has 4 Light lasers and 2 turreted Missiles, it carries 6 troops and moves at speed 12, with a turn of 2/45' yet you get all of this for 20 points LESS, than the Raiders. The only advantage if you dare call it that, is that the combined raiders posses more shielding and structure points in total over the Frigate.

None the less, having greater defenses does not a warship make, the key issue here is that the Raider does not do its job. A single raider should eat an explorer alive and still prove dangerous to a Frigate, but as Starbreaker pointed out, with only 2 light lasers on any once facing, its only going to be able to drop the Explorers shield!

Now, I have made my case, and I believe made it as clear as possible. Its time to offer a solution to the issue. After all there is no point raising a complaint if I'm not going to help fix the problem, what I propose we do is this, lets place an update in the next S&P adjusting the Raiders Stats to the following.

House Decados Reaper Class Raider
Speed:16
Turn: 2/45'
Hull:4
Shields:2
Damage: 12/4
Ramming: 2
Troops: 3
Craft: None
Traits: None

Weapons Range Arc AD Special
Light Laser 24 F 2 Accurate, Burn-out, Precise
Light Laser 24 T 2 Accurate, Burn-out, Precise
Grapple Gun P
Grapple Gun S
Light Laser 24 P 1 Accurate, Burn-out, Precise
Light Laser 24 S 1 Accurate, Burn-out, Precise

House Li Halan Slayer Class Raider
Speed:16
Turn: 2/90'
Hull:4
Shields:2
Damage: 12/4
Ramming: 2
Troops: 3
Craft: None
Traits: Agile

Weapons Range Arc AD Special
Grapple Gun P
Grapple Gun S
Light Laser 24 P 4 Accurate, Burn-out, Precise
Light Laser 24 S 4 Accurate, Burn-out, Precise

The changes above improve there firepower, it also increases the troop value to half that of a Frigate, after all these ships should have more troops than their chief prey. however it reduces the shield value from 3 to 2, because it does not make since for these little buggers to have the same defenses as a frigate. Also I have increased the Decados Raider to speed 16, this is fairly radical but the argument that they are too slow to evade superior opponents, and run down there chief target makes me feel its a must, after all being sneaky and using hit and fade tactics are a Decados tradition! All of this should be done at the same point cost as the existing raiders 60 points.

Alternatively, if Raiders are exactly the way they just have to be, then please reduce the point cost from 60 to 40 points, as we need at least three of them to go toe to toe with a frigate, and largely they posses no special abilities unlike the explorer. After all the things do come in packages of 6.

 

[locarno24]

As a second idea I thought maybe it would serve as an anti-fighter support ship, but I really would just rather have six more fighters for the price.

True, but the situations in which you can do that are limited - most of the time those fighters will need a carrier.

The whole concept of the Raider is to be a very fast and light warship able to conduct deep penetration raids into enemy territory. To be effective in this role such a ship MUST carry enough firepower to be a threat light warships and troop ships.

You could argue it's 'primary prey' is freighters, and it's supposed to avoid action against anything bigger (being fast enough to evade it and well shielded enough to tank a turn of fire if it has to).

Of course, that's a very situation-specific mission in game terms.

 

[starbreaker]

You might be able to argue that they're also slightly more efficient at sniping at fighters than an equal value of other ship types, but that's a weak role IMO. True fighter dodge saves are too good, and bomber shields mean you need at least two lasers to even force a dodge.

Honestly, I think a change is in order. My vote would be a reduction to 40 points as suggested above, although there's room for argument. It would certainly have the advantage of encouraging blister sales by making raiders more cost-effective - I predict those sales are going to be pretty dead otherwise. I know the local store owner looked at the rules and decided not to carry them as wall stock.

 

[kaltorak18]

I agree.. If chasing down explorers is their primary purpose they fall short of the job. Maybe if they had light blasters instead of light lasers. Or one light blaster and one light laser.

 

[Rick]

As far as the Decados Reaper goes, I agree that the speed increase would be an advantage, not a necessity - I like the reduction of the shields and adding an extra forward laser, but I don't think increasing the troops by 1 or adding a turret laser is necessary. My thinking on this is that the reaper as it is at present isn't significantly better than an explorer - it should be able to defeat an explorer 1 on 1, which it has trouble doing on it's own. Similarly, it should need 2 or 3 other raiders to be able to take down a frigate - which, again, it can't do at present. Adding an extra forward laser makes sense for a tail-chaser raider and there's even one already on the model! :lol: The extra troop and turret laser aren't really necessary for it's role and the extra laser just won't fit into that size of turret (really - it's impossible). As to the reduction in shields - I'm still ambivalent towards that - it might fit in better, be seen less as a light fleet asset and more as what it is, a raider, but on the other hand, it would be easier to kill. I still think it would probably survive 1 turn of fire from a frigate whether it's shields were 2 or 3, so it probably doesn't matter a huge amount.

Maybe if they had light blasters instead of light lasers. Or one light blaster and one light laser.

I'd like to see a variant with 2fwd, 1p/1s light laser and a single turret light blaster - that would be a little bit nasty! :twisted:

 

[godsgopher]

Actually I like the idea of replacing the turreted Laser with say a Light blaster. While I still think two lasers is a valid alternative, Blasters are much more in line with Decados Ship Design philosophy.

Anyway, as things stand now, I would not take a Raider, nor would I bother even shooting at one until all other warships in range were eliminated. I would board one if the opportunity presented its self assuming there wasn't a more worthy target in range. At present Raiders are not a threat relative to there high point cost. To take two raiders with a total potential damage of 4, over a Decados Frigate with a total potential damage of 12 is fool hardy in the extreme.

 

[godsgopher]

Alright this thread has gone quiet for over a month, I thought it needed a bump.

By now many of you have had a chance to play the game on at least a limited level. I'm still pushing for a revision to the Raiders ether they need a firepower increase, 100% increase in my opinion. Or they need a price decrease say down to 40 points from 60.

Is anyone actually using them? or are you paying 40 points more for a full frigate with more than twice the firepower?

 

[godsgopher]

I was just looking over the Kurgran and I noticed their raider is equipped with Heat Blasters, this means their Raider is actually battle worthy and worth the 60 points you have to pay for them.

 

[starbreaker]

I was just looking over the Kurgran and I noticed their raider is equipped with Heat Blasters, this means their Raider is actually battle worthy and worth the 60 points you have to pay for them.

Because why, exactly? Heat Blasters are Inaccurate and Slow versus active shields, and much like Al Malik, the Kurgan have no way besides lucky crits to render your shields inactive. It's got slightly more light heats than the other raiders, but I'm not sure it's enough to make it any more worthwhile than they are. Being able to bypass shields with Slow is helpful, but you're realistically looking at an optimum broadside shot doing a whopping 1 point to a Hull 4 target, and only 1.5 points to those Hull 3 explorers they're supposed to be so good at hunting.

That's better than the laser raiders can manage by itself, but you had to get to range 15 to do it, where the others can stand off a bit and salvo Accurate Precise lasers into targets that have had their shields stripped by the rest of the fleet. The lack of range also makes them bad at sniping fighters, and Inaccurate versus shields will make the tougher bombers (Decados, Hazat in particular) very hard to hit even they do bypass their shield. Besides, this is supposed to be a carrier fleet - with multiroles at +1 dogfight and interceptors sporting +2, they shouldn't need raiders for anti-fighter work.

More damningly, compare them to their frigate. Just like everyone else's raiders, two of them are not worth one frigate in either shooting or boarding. Not even close - and the Kurgan ones don't even have a token speed advantage to make them feel better about themselves.

Raiders need to be cheaper, or better. Cheaper is easier to execute as a fix. 40 points is probably about right IMO.

 

[locarno24]

the Kurgan have no way besides lucky crits to render your shields inactive.

True, but then all their firepower ignores them. Whilst Innacurate is a git, the fact remains that enough heat blaster fire will screw over any ship, regardless of size, and one or two dice could be 'that shot'.

The fundamental problem with light warships is that shields are good at tanking fire with no permanent effect (compared to ACTA EI and EII) - especially small ships can take far more fire than they hand out.

However, fire from a Mujahidin can always punch through, no matter the target's defences. Shields don't stop it. Gatling Lasers - unlike missiles - don't stop it. Defending Troops don't help. Yes, not much heat blaster fire will hit, but you've got an incredibly agile raider hovering on your stern and you're trying to fight him with just your turrets (assuming you have any).

 

[starbreaker]

Except that they aren't "incredibly agile" - at speed 12 and without Agile as a trait, the Kurgan raider has wider turning circle than many frigates. Al Malik's destroyers out-turn them easily.

Besides, parking on an enemy's tail only helps if they've already moved - even a Lumbering ship can always turn 45 degrees one way or the other and bring a broadside to bear. Having lots of cheap ships for initiative sinks helps arrange "safe" tailing shots, but unless your opponent is an idiot his fleet will position itself so that ships cover one another's blind spots, and raiders evaporate under even light firepower. You may even be helping the enemy to try to tail him - the last time someone did that to me I found myself getting to fire both broadsides constantly, one at flanking light ships and the other at the heavier stuff they'd left behind to get onto my tail.

And anything that applies to the raider's heat blasters also applies to the frigate's, and theirs have 5" greater range, multihit 2, and turret arcs. A raider has to work a bit to get 3 AD of single-hit heat fire. A frigate manages 2 AD of double-hit heat in it's sleep, and can add rockets over the broadside as well. It also presents a far more credible boarding threat. There's just no way 5 raiders are going to beat 3 frigates, or much of anything else that costs 300 points for that matter. Same problem all the raider fleets have - their small guys are overcosted.

 

[Rick]

I have got to agree with you in some small part, Starbreaker - the points costs for some of the ships will need to be tweaked upwards or downwards a touch, to reflect their strengths or weaknesses - but this will probably best be done once all of the major fleet lists have been released. I have no opinion on the heat blaster as yet - I might try a game at some point and see how it plays out; after all - the stats on paper don't always tell you how well it plays on the table, especially when it's in a fleet of ships, not on its own.

 

[starbreaker]

Very true, as my first game against Hazat proved to me ("16" light blasters will take two turns just to get into firing range" - ha, not hardly!). OTOH, I've been playing with Al Malik since the game came out - I've got a good feel for what 20" range Inaccurate Slow weapons can and can't do, and I know how horrid they are without scout guidance. Heat blasters are fine as a weapon, but they really shouldn't be overestimated.

The Kurgan don't even really rely on them that heavily - outside of the carriers, all the big ships derive the bulk of their raw damage from torps and missiles, with heats as something to crit-fish with. Crits are really important against capital ships and cruisers, and heats are scary because of the high chance of maxing the crew line - but they aren't any scarier to me than facing a wall of Li Halan lasers or Decados line ships getting within 15".

Dying to see how Kurgan boarding works out, though. They look very good there, and lately firepower has been dominating the fights over boarding for us. Be nice to see that reverse itself a bit. If their shooting wasn't so "Al Malik-style" I'd probably try them myself, but as it is I think I'll look at one of the other new fleets instead. Mmmm...Vau.