The Imperial Raider, Coming to a Galaxy Near You!

Hey X-wing fans, I'm glad you found my little blog about this game I love. I hope you enjoy the article and stick around for the next blog which will be more of an introduction to me, as a player. For the first blog I want to jump right in with the newest X-wing release from Fantasy Flight Games, Here Comes the Imperial Raider.

Beautiful packaging as always!

First I just want to say that I was shocked that this came out at all but much more so in the midst of so many other big Star Wars game releases. I for one have so many games and additions on my radar that are coming out in the next couple months I am going to have to get choosy! This is a good problem to have I guess, right?

Anyway, the Imperial Raider model looks amazing, their is no mistaking which side of the war this ship is fighting for. It's of Classic Imperial design with the triangular build and even has large Interceptor style solar panels on the sides. You may be asking yourself, as I did before I read the article, where did this ship come from? Well it's definitely not in the movies, maybe it's in a EU book I've never read? Nope, FFG teamed up with Lucasfilm Ltd. to create a ship specifically for X-wing! This isn't the first time a Star Wars licensed tabletop game has created something for their game, West End Games first wrote of an Imperial Inquisitor in a sourcebook for a Star Wars RPG. 27 years later and the Inquisitor is official Star Wars canon in Rebels. Hope for the future?

The classic Imperial triangle design, also some odd firing arcs!

Looks aside, this thing will give any Rebel huge ship a run for it's money. Boasting what I can assume will be a primary weapon similar in power to the Corvette's (4x attack dice range 3-5), Single Turbolasers, and the new Ion Cannon Batteries, this ship should easily fulfill the Empire's need for a mix between a fighter and a Star Destroyer. The main difference between the Raider and the Corvette are the printed firing arcs. The Corvette has 4 separate arcs that overlap on the side and have blind spots in the front and rear. The Raider seems to fair better with all angles being covered except the aft. I say printed as the Corvette has a 360 degree firing arc but I cannot confirm the Raider has the same. From the small pilot card seen below, I honestly do not see the red circle around the primary weapon logo on the pilot card. 

The full package, we'll talk about the Tie Advanced later!

As do the other huge ships, the Raider comes with two damage decks, one for the fore end, the other for the aft. The box also comes with almost 40 upgrade cards most of which will probably be for the Raider. It's also worth noting that the aft section works similarly to the way the Corvette's did, using energy and having hardpoints for weapon attachments. Other items to ponder are the third type of obstacle tokens on the left side and all the mission tokens to bring the Raider right into the mix of the Galactic Civil War!

The introduction of the Raider should make plenty of fans happy, that often complained about the lack of Imperial love in the epic format. This release should bring more attention to this often overlooked style of play. I'm extremely excited for this to release in Q1 2015, which for FFG means first half of the year for sure! As excited as this article has made me, it raises a few questions too no doubt. Will their be a similar imperial card to C3-PO that force strict 100pt dogfighters to spend $60-90 just for one card? What's the special rules for the large new obstacles? Just how similar will the Raider be to the Corvette, will their be an obvious winner between the two? You can probably think of more but we'll just have to wait and see! As for the new Tie Advanced, we'll get to that later:)