You don't know the power of RAID pt. 2 (List building)

 

The true glory of raid

We discussed the rules and meta considerations surrounding Raid in part 1. With that in mind, let's look at how Raid can be leveraged (and by extension, countered):

Raid is best employed by keeping up the pressure. 

A single raid token to a single ship is an inconvenience at best. 

A single raid to multiple ships gets annoying and eats a lot of tokens.

Multiple raid over several rounds to the same ship gets annoying and eats a lot of tokens.

Multiple raid over several rounds to multiple ship might overwhelm your opponent's ability to clear raid without sacrificing dials.

It's important, however, not to just load any single ship with a ton of raid tokens, and especially not too early. A single dial clears EVERYTHING. You want raid to be on a ship when it matters, either to strip away a key token, or preferably, shut down an entire dial.

There is no hard rules, only the above guidelines, for how to accomplish this. It's something you can only develop a feel for during play. So to get good with raid, you have to actually play with raid. Sorry about that 👀

Dooku is by far the best single source of raid in the game. But even Dooku alone isn't enough if your REALLY want to disable your opponent. Nor do you always want to be playing Seppie/Dooku lists...

Which is why I propose that raid should ideally be run in conjunction with other game effects, such as slicer tools and ion cannon batteries, that further cut down your opponent's ability to use the commands they want to use.

WHICH COMMANDS TO RAID?

Not all commands are equal in power or utility. Squad fleets can be shut down pretty hard with raid, and ships that can't add yaw through nav have a severe handicap. That's not to say that blocking repair/cf isn't valuable, but it's more niche.

Navigate: Positioning. Positioning. Positioning. Navigation is so vital in Armada, that a single lost nav dial (or token) can lead to a much worse board state 1 or more rounds down the line. As someone who has run a Consular swarm against Dooku, I can attest that those lost navs were keenly felt, even though I knew what to do to minimize the problem. Nav raid hurts all ships equally. Well, except those run by Ozzel and Jerry.

Squadron: Squad-centric fleets, barring those heavy on rogues, are entirely reliant on their squad commands, at least until they've placed their bombers in front of your slow-moving medium-large base ship. It's kind of a big deal if a quasar can throw 4-6 squads or none at all. Therefore, squad-centric fleets are entirely reliant on having access to squad tokens so they can clear squad raid and use their dial. It's still a loss of the squad player, bc when it comes to squad pushing, every squad counts, and if raid keeps a ship alive 1 round longer due to a missed bombing run, that's pretty huge. For those not running squads, this one is irrelevant...

Repair: If applied alone, as single repair raid generally means a lost repair token and that's it. So either 1 less shield back, or 2 shields not moved. It's only if you can block a engineering 3-5 ship from spending its dial that it really starts to hurt. Still, in the end stage of a game, its often down to that last hull, so don't underestimate this one.

CF: Concentrate fire is, I must say, a command that's been regarded as rather weak. Well, it's not. An extra die and/or reroll, can be significant. It's often what pushes an attack beyond what the defender can comfortably handle. That said, not all ships wish to cf, so utility is limited.

As mentioned above, it will often be beneficial for raid to punish the same command (or commands) over several consecutive rounds, as this puts that (or those) commands under a lot of pressure. It will require dedicated effort by Comms Net or other token generating (or converting) sources to keep raid checked.

COMMAND VALUE CONSIDERATIONS

Ships are hurt differently by raid depending on their role, at what stage of the game it is, what tokens they have available, and so forth. 

But one thing is constant: how many command tokens any given ship can hold. 

Command 1 ships can only hold 1, and those have less of a token reserve to clear raid with, often forcing them to use a precious dial. Fortunately, many command 1 ships will just want to navigate early, and either keep naving or add a few cf into the mix. 

Bigger ships with higher command ratings can hold more tokens, and more easily clear raid using those, possibly preserving their dials, which on larger ships generally have more value. On the other hand, big ships regularly want to resolve multiple commands, maybe boosted by commanders like Thrawn or Bail, and putting heavy raid pressure on those could radically diminish their ability to resolve those commands.

Let's move on to look at concrete cards that aid with raid strategies:

OBJECTIVES

We can debate whether or not SA is a good objective another time (IMO it can be good, with the right fleet and commander, but it's not as good as some seem to think). But it's the only objective that hands out raid. Used with Dooku, it becomes stronger. It has synergy with Konstantine and Grav Wells.

Ion Storm doesn't deal raid directly, but it can help strip command tokens, which in turn makes clearing raid easier. A possible points-scoring alternative to Surprise Attack (though admittedly not A-tier).

COMMANDERS

Dooku is the only commander to directly work using the raid mechanic. I don't think he's competitive in the 4-faction meta, at least not at the moment, but IF you want to leverage raid, he's the only realistic alternative. I doubt he'll be top tier once wave 10 hits, but at least you'll have more build options.

The new King K both manipulates speed AND can strip nav tokens. If he can also bring a source of raid, possible boosted by further token-stripping and slicers, he can completely shut down the enemy's ability to maneuver (and take other key commands). But will that be enough to blow up their fleet? Maybe.

UPGRADES

Slicers are fucking annoying, and for squad-centric fleets, close to NPE, bc there ain't no real counter to Quantum Storm moving speed 4 and triggering this at medium range, while Bright Hope creeps forward, laughing at your attempts to destroy it.

Slicers Tools is a natural supplement to raid, and because Dooku-raid isn't as weak as you think it is, Slicers got a pretty massive nerf, starting exhausted and being non-recurring.

But but, you say. Even if you slice, they've still got a dial. Yeah, it's a little counterintuitive: the dial can be discarded to clear raid, no matter what command it has. But what you opponent wants to do, is clear raid with a simple TOKEN, then use his DIAL. This is ESPECIALLY vital for squad-centric (unless rocking those 3 commanders I mentioned), but important for any fleet. If I manipulate you into sacrificing a sliced dial (or even just tokenizing it), where normally you'd just use a token, that's a win for me.

If you want to be a real A-dmiral, always combine raid with slicers.

Reduce their speed. Preferably to 0. Then raid them with nav. Great as a supplement/alternative to Grav Wells and speed-manipulating objectives. You want to drop someone to 0 and then hit them with Cataclysm on r1. That's the dream anyway.

Barely worth mentioning, be she can raid once those evades are gone. Pretty niche/worthless. She'd be cool if you could do that repeatedly, like Rex.

Rex is far superior to Iden. He's what she wants to be, a repeating source of raid. He's also essential in any rebel raid strategy, as he blocks a dial from clearing more than 1 raid. Combine with some token-stripping and it will be hell of your opponent. I guess Rex proves just how weak raid is, given how rarely he sees the table.

I'm just including her here bc she's a way of giving yourself raid, which usually isn't a huge problem, but could be if you face Dooku or another raid-focused list.

Jyn is a shitty card. She eats two slots, is a discard AND the target ship can't have any raid to begin with. WTF FFG!? Oh, and her secondary ability never triggers, so she's even more wasted. Gaaahhh!!!

Not directly raid. But same as Titus. Set their speed to 0, hit them with raid to keep them there, or at least severely limit their nav options. I COULD have mentioned the Experimental Projector here, but it's so niche I don't want to. MEGA-Meh.

Indirect speed manipulation and token stripping. Generally not worth considering at it's pricey, size-limited, and a mod.

With LS up to 6, IMO Ion Batteries got a lot more interesting in general. Stripping tokens is GOOD. If combined with raid its even better. A Dooku fleet that can leverage these guys would be a fearsome thing indeed.

I mention these bc they can be used to exhaust a non-recurring card at a bad time, putting further pressure on command tokens.

SQUADRONS

The reason raid got such a bad name in the first place. FFG wisely did not make raid too strong (for NPE resons), but at the same time they made this PREMIUM squad (which you can only get by buying the Chimaera) UTTER SHITE.

On the surface, it's not so bad, is it? A speed 4, 7 hull rogue is AMAZING. But no, it's not. For the simple reason it's 20 points and can damage anything more scary that a plain TIE (or Z-95), which it will, on average, need 2 rounds to kill. 2 blue, 1 red. What a fucking joke. It ain't got grit, so it'll just get stuck too. And then 7 hull wo defense tokens, escort (bc the empire has few good ones), and no Jan doesn't last long. 2 blue vs ship is just a hair better than 1 black. You see where this is leading? YT-2400 is 1 less hull, but 4 blue vs squads, and can bring Jan along if they want to (or hang out with Lando, Hera and other awesome rogues).

But to add insult to injury, you actually have to SPEND a die with a hit to proc Assault. So you got a semi-decent chance of landing a hit with 2 blues (75%, but not a bomber, so no rerolls), but you have to probably do no damage to land 1 raid token. Aahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Dumber shit you don't find outside Redundant Shields or Independence.

So the primary delivery platform of raid is so bad and overcosted you should never take it, and the raid keyword is worded to take away when little damage you do. Rant over.

He's got a single brace, and is also just +3 points over the generic. He's got a blue-black battery, so you got a better chance at giving away your damage to assign a raid token raid. His ability has become markedly less relevant of late. And just as bad AS dice. He's les bad, but still bad. Just kill the enemy with Maarek - Jendon - Morna instead.

Combined with cloak, Kanan's assault is is almost interesting in itself, but it's his special ability to spend worthless crits into a raid that's interesting (possibly 2 raid in 1 attack). Double brace 4 hull is arguable better than generic 7 hull. So that mean's he's WAY BETTER than a Gauntlet for less points. He can also lean on Rex for massive synergy. Problem with Kanan is he's unique, and there are no other raid squads for rebels.

RAID COUNTERPLAY

If the subject of mild raiding and there is a key command you really need to use, just keep a matching token in reserve. Don't clear raid until you need to clear it, as multiple tokens of the same type can't be assigned. Then make sure you pace your activation so that 1 of your token generators  (comms net other otherwise) can hand that ship the key token before it's next activation

Token generators: Tantive, Comms Net, Munitions/Parts Resupply, Tarkin, and Garm are all great counters to raid. It's hard to effectively raid against fleets with lots of token generation. 

Token manipulators: Stuff like Ahsoka and Sovereign are amazing at countering raid. There are other, less flexible cards as well.

Fleet Commands: Fleet commands laugh at raid. Only AFFM! is reliant on ships actually resolving commands.

Other non-resolve cards: Ozzel just changes your speed, doesn't require you to resolve the command. Same with Jerry - you take damage and get insane yaw. There are other cards which shurg at raid.

CONCLUSION

Outside of Dooku + Surprise Attack + Slicer Hardcells, I can't currently see any fleets which can leverage raid hard enough to be worthwhile. Even Dooku is a corner case, as the opponent will just pick your yellow objective. 

Rebels have an interesting little combo in Kanan + Rex, but it's not going to be enough to matter.

GAR has nothing. Forget it.

Empire could try a Konstantine list with Ions and try to add in Gar and slicers, but that's a list that works almost as well (if not better) if you don't shoe-horning in 20+ point squads of dubious value.

Honorable mention goes out to @Drasnighta's Nose Punch. This is a multi-Dictor list that leverages multiple Grav Wells and raid from Gauntlets to shut down the enemy at speed 0. If you're interested, you should contact him directly, as he's the only person I know that's been able to utilize it properly.