Podcast Episode #14 - Rebellion in the Rim and... Cluster Bombs?

Episode 14 - Biggs and Truthiness talk about Rebellion in the Rim.

Revised Commander's Guide - Raider-Class Corvette

In the beginning, there was only one small base ship for the Empire, and it was the Demolisher Gladiator-Class Star Destroyer.  With Wave 2 came the first true picket combat ship the Empire would have - a ship cheap enough to fill holes in your list, or to take multiple units to maximize your activations.  Clontroper5 showed what the power of the Raider was, with a list that maximized the amount of Raiders on the board back at the start of Wave 2.  And then... with Wave 3/4 and the Gozanti, Raiders faded off into relative obscurity.

Now, in the dead middle of Wave 7, where does the Raider-Class Corvette sit?  How is it different from when it first came out, and what role does it have with other options for cheap escort ship available?

Escort Ships of the Empire

Corellian Conflict Strategy - Initial Builds (Imperials Part 1)

Gonna jump around a slight bit - let's talk about the "small base" Imperial ships for Corellian Conflict initial builds.  If you haven't read the background yet for why I suggest building things the way I do maybe you should read up on the Rebels first...

Just a goofy picture from the World Cup.

Strategy Discussion: (Mailbag) Escort Ship Tactics (Imperial)

Today's Mailbag topic comes from Rhinehard of the FFG Forums.  He writes:

Hi mate,

I'm a big fan of your blog. On that note I've been really interested in the Raider posts recently and I was thinking I'd love to see your views on Escort Ships and strategies.

A good topic that needs to be covered.  There has been a lot of posts on the Raider recently, with people experiencing varying degrees of success with the ship.  On the Rebel side, the CR90 serves the same price point, though certainly not the same roles.  Other small base ships can serve in an "Escort" role as well - the Nebulon B and the Gladiator can both be used in such a role, though they can be capable of scaling up into a heavy hitter all on its own.

So, let's look at these "Escort" ships, and how they can fill a role within your ship list.  Today we'll be looking at the Imperials.

Offensive Retrofits - Wave 2

Wave 2 actually gave us three new Offensive Retrofits, more than doubling the initial numbers.  Continuing with the theme of the Offensive Retrofits of before, we got one that dealt with activating squadrons, one that dealt with getting rid of enemy squadrons, but we got one more that didn't deal with squadrons at all.  In addition, we got three new ships that could take an offensive retrofit - the MC80 (Command variant), the ISD, and the Raider - to go with the previous two.

Let's go over them, shall we?

Wave 2 Weapons Teams

Previously we've covered Wave 2's new officers, but today we are going to talk about the Weapons Teams that come with the new Wave 2 ships.  What ships do they work with?  What roles do they improve?

Well, let's take a look at the two new Weapons Teams.  We've got 3 ships that can utilize them in the new expansion - the Raider, the MC30c and the ISD, plus the three ships from the previous wave: the AFII, the GSD, and the VSD.

Commander's Guide - Raider Class Corvette

It's time to dig more into the Wave 2 ships with a new Commander's Guide, specifically the Imperial's Raider Class Corvette, the first thing without "Star Destroyer" somewhere in the name that the Imperials can put down on the table.  Not that this "Personal Pan" pizza slice doesn't look similar to literally everything the Imperials have.  It does get the honor of filling some roles that the previous Star Destroyers couldn't or were not the ideal choice for, specifically anti-squadron support and as an weapon upgrade platform.

Let's take a look at the Raider, and see what's under the hood of the new Imperial support ship.

The Raider Class Corvette, covering the far Left flank with a GSD