Han's pretty decent in missions where the Rebels have to take and hold an objective. If they have a choke point they can hold, the Imperial player just doesn't get to use surges that game. You won Means of Production? Too bad, Han is too 'distracting'. Of course bringing Han on missions where the Imperial player can easily shoot at him is a terrible idea... just like you wouldn't bring Echo Base Troopers on a mission with lots of long hallways and their red dice never get to trigger. Sure, most of the Villains are terrible in all situations involving the Campaign, but the Allies at least have roles to play.

Thanks, clon, I will review these!

Does anyone have any videos of some competitive Raider-centric games against what are considered to be top tournament lists (i.e. Ackbar conga, double ISDs, etc)? Not that I necessarily disbelieve that it's possible for Raiders to do well, but all I see are lots of words about "time it right", "outplay them", and the like, which don't actually amount to any practical understanding of how to pilot Raiders. It's really simple to say "Just go in from outside max range band to short range in one turn with all your raiders, then move before they can attack back", but some actual turn by turns are needed to give any real, actionable insight. I happen to be in the same boat as the OP, with my experience of Raiders. As some background, I walked away from Sullust with the MC80 and an ISD, in an area which is generally considered to be competitive. Also done similarly well back when I played X-Wing. Not to brag, but show as a baseline that I at least am not a terrible player. Have tried things like 3 Raiders, 2 Gladiators, ISD plus 2 Raider escorts, and many times adding a single Raider to some normal lists. Sure, I've won a lot of those game, but attribute that more to when my opponent made mistakes than because the Raiders ran so well. Some of the problems I see with Raiders are problems (Or, "limitations", rather) to the game system. Mainly with regards to how time is experienced. For example, the worst place for a Raider to be is actually the rear hull zone, even when squaring off against an ISD - which is strangely disconnected from what one would assume to be true. With a short range ship like the Raider I, you can't actually attack when flying into the rear hull zone, as you start outside of close range. Then, if you activate first, you get one round of attacks off, then must move into either the side arc or front arc of their ship. They activate and likely blow your Raider away in one shot. The other option is to activate, then ram to stay put, but then you won't likely be getting a shot off next round. If you activate after, all they have to do is activate that ship, then move. Any ship moving speed 1 will move out of close range unless you managed to park the Raider only a couple of centimeters behind it - which is extremely hard, by the way, when compared to the "payoff" of doing so. This results in a pretty bizarre experience where, even if the ships are moving at the same "speed" in game terms, a close-range ship (black dice) will perpetually be either too far away to fire or constantly ramming its prey. Anyways, I'll stop myself before I repeat a bunch of points already brought up in this thread. I'm just hoping that someone will be kind enough to link to some decent competitive batrep videos of Raider use. There didn't seem to be any in the clontroper5 thread, but haven't been able to read the whole thing yet.

This is a very unfortunate upgrade at the moment. Spending the dice to negate another is really bad. However, if X-Wing is any indicator, we'll get a use for it at some point. Most likely we will see some kind of effect from an attack that reads "When attacking, if you meet criteria <X>, remove all dice before totaling damage. The defenders suffers <Y> effect." With <Y> being something that could be mitigated by defense tokens. That way, negating the dice wouldn't matter, but the accuracy would. Otherwise, with the advent of Home One, Vader, Ordnance Experts, etc, there is very, very little reason for this upgrade to exist.

I think the problem with Redundant Shields is that the 1 point of damage you are negating every turn is offset by the 2, 3, or 4 damage that your Brace is no longer able to block due to lack of ECM.

True, which is why I'm not running either of those upgrades. Sorry, I was referring to the post above mine. I don't have any concrete opinions on SW-7s on those guys. My gut reaction is that you are still spending quite a but on something with low damage output. Some of it will always be tied up in blacks, which will be out of range if you're constantly finding yourself at medium. Nevertheless, it's worth a shot. You can take your guaranteed damage blue dice and focus on the dials you need to get you into the right positions.

I've tried using 2 or 3 of them in a couple games with NK-7 Ion Cannons to soften up defenders for either an ISD or Victories to capitalize on. However, I found the points cost to be prohibitive. A cheaper build with Raider I's and ACMs seems to always outperform, especially since with things like NK-7's or Overload Pulse require timing orders that restrict your movement options - a bad thing for ships like Raiders.

That's nice. Have fun with another game. I still can't see how you have fully explored this game to the point that you are bored with it. Its sad, people are willing to complain about the lack of players but do nothing to increase their player base. I found out a few days ago that a kid I showed the game to was able to get into this fantastic game with his chrismas. A friend who I got a core set for and some other things is still going strong and the FLGS that I am always at is slowly growing. It takes time, patience and a willingness to build a community. Maybe you need to do that first. Wow could you be be a bigger pretentious *******. You know **** all about our area or what we and I have done. Happy new year to you too. I am not the one whining about the lack of announcements and have not even tried out the new ships or anything. How can you be upset about the lack of news when you have not even bought the Rogues and Villains Pack let alone an Imperial Star Destroyer? You are upset about the low amount of players in your area but X-Wing started off the exact same way. Lets go through some dates eh? X-Wing Release dates: Wave 1 was released at GenCon in 2012, that was August 16th Wave 2 was released on February 28th (look at that it was over 6 months) while their Kessel Run event (same thing as our Sullust event) occurred in December. Oh to help you more, They previewed Wave 2 in September 2012. Wave 3 was released on September 13th, WOW what a long wait there! You know. . . Wave 3 was not even announced until May 4th so that was 2 months from the time of Wave 2's release Wave 4 was not even announced until February 7th! Talk about a wait and a half! After wave 4, FFG started to really pick up its pace, in fact it announced waves, 5, 6, and 7 all in 2014. Hmmmm, personally I think you and all of those who are complaining need to settle down and look enjoy what we have so far. If all someone has is Wave 1, it's quite possible to have explored every facet of the game. There weren't that many when Empire had 2 ships and most ships had an almost objective "best" upgrade set. Really, Wave 2 is a must for anyone who wants to analyze Armada for long term play.

This. So much this. People who are accidentally inconsiderate players tend to have no idea they are having that effect. And, let's be honest, the category of people who play board gamers, minis, etc, has a high percentage of shy people who see coming to events with strangers as a social risk. We had a guy who got exploded at (Not for slow play, but for being a bit forgetful) and he never came back. That might be seen as a victory ("We don't have to deal with that guy anymore!"), but it's really a loss for the community when an otherwise decent human being decides its socially safer to move on to other things. Most situations can be solved with Snipafist's advice here.

VSDs are very efficient ships. However, they suffer from meta problems. Everyone and their brother is running Ackbar conga gunlines right now. This means the VSD is likely to face ships that are faster than it (Speed 3), more maneuverable than it (More than 1 yaw tick), outrange it (Ackbar ships tend to shoot a minimum 5 reds at long range), and are more survivable than it (ECMs on MC80s, Assault Frigates, etc). Before Ackbar, when more Nebulons and CR90s were seen, the VSD was really in its element. People also played Imperials more, whose ships the VSD is much more reliable against. The existence of Home One, made all the more common by Ackbar's popularity, is also a huge deterrent to running VSDs. VSDs are tough because high damage rolls are usually low accuracy rolls, allowing that Brace token to neuter the attack. This soaks loads of damage over the course of a normal game. But the moment Home One hits the field, every attack gets a free Accuracy and, since the VSD only has one Brace token, it'll be about as tough as a piece of paper. That is then exacerbated by the fact that, in this Ackbar meta, most ships are throwing huge amounts of dice. And unlike the ISD, VSDs cannot take ECMs. The thing that VSDs can do really like no other right now is command squadrons. A VSD-I is a sturdy carrier that will fight back viciously if you want to close in to take it out. Corrupter is such a powerful effect for the already-fast TIE Bombers, combined with Chiraneau will allow you to assault pretty much any ship on the battlefield with impunity. But another meta problem with the VSD now is that most Imperial builds involve a Rhymer + Firespray formation of some sort, meaning that an efficient carrier is often not needed (and indeed a somewhat waste of points). So of course VSDs are seeming weak now - the function they excel at (Carriers) isn't really used much in the current meta, and the meta lists tend to exactly counter them. Give it another wave or two and I'm sure some upgrade will have people chomping at the bits to get VSDs on the field.

Yikes, I see Disney is taking lesson from the Empire. That's not just a C&D letter, they also want all the money Space Rocks has made to date. This is what we call 'bad PR'.

Yeah, depending on the description in the ads, it could be an attempt at being misleading. Without looking at the listing personally, though, I would assume its for people who want the plastic blisters to use for storage. I got rid of my Falcon packaging and regret now that I have a huge collection that can't be stored in one starter box

It's on the boat already? My, my, time flies. Haven't even pre-ordered it yet!

Historically, the developers have always waited until the product in question is released before answering e-mails about them, so that won't help right now. Despite the fact that they probably cemented the new wording for Huge ship rules 12 months ago in the design process...

You can reinforce or recover BUT NEVER BOTH no matter how you want to word it. Putting Adv. Protocols just allows you to use a different action with the section that has reinforce and recover that is not reinforce or recover. Exactly. So, in your example, a CR90's Fore section activates and chooses Target Lock as an action. Then, Advanced Protocols triggers and gives the Fore a free action of either Recover or Reinforce. The CR90 Fore chooses Reinforce and places a token on the ship. Then, the Aft section activates and chooses the Recover action on its own action bar. No problem with that portion of the rules here. Just like how a VT-49 can take an Evade action that isn't on its action bar with Ysanne Isard equipped.