One of the great balancing devices in Seas of Thunder are the Axis raiders and their ability to force the Allies to defend even the most out-of-the-way backwater Sea Zones. The raider’s distant reach and their special abilities force the Allies to play defense across the entire globe. They are hard to hit, hard to catch and hard to stop. Good play with the raiders can go a long way to an Axis victory, especially in the early scenarios. Sloppy play can bring the curtain down on Axis chances quite abruptly and far more severely than their strength seems to warrant. When the seas are populated with massive battleships and carriers full of planes and submarines that can easily bring down said battleships, what makes the lowly armed merchantman kso decisive? Well, the game works hard to keep them alive, but it can be squandered. Knowing what they can accomplish is helpful, but ignoring it can be disastrous. Treating them as fragile treasures can preserve them as a menace throughout the game, but considering them just another tin can will doom them. Raiders have unique options and skill sets that can reap great rewards, but if these are ignored, they become just another weak ship destined for Davy Jones’ Locker.

What does the game encourage you to do?

Raiders are at their best when they are obeying three rules; hunt convoys, avoid aircraft, never stay for a fight.

Players are encouraged to search out far-flung convoys across the globe and either alone or in pairs hunt those ships to score that victory point. There should be convoys all over the board (after all you get to place half of them) so be sure to search out the ones that are unescorted or lightly escorted and not under air cover. If all the convoys have escorts, that’s OK. Your ability to hit and run can still allow you to get in and get out unscathed. Try to stay away from aircraft. If possible avoid convoys that could be protected by air from neighboring ports. If you get caught by a light carrier, you stand a good chance of survival. If you wander into the path of a fleet carrier or a flight of bombers, that may be the end of the line. It is always recommended to avoid enemy warships if possible. Combat is unpredictable, and in the case of raiders, particularly deadly. These ships were not meant to go toe-to-toe with any service ship and those that do can easily find themselves in a world of hurt. Even victories with these ships feel very lucky when they happen.

First off, the combat system that we alluded to before is exceptional when raiders simply raid. Heck there is a whole box on the mat devoted just to them. The game literally screams at you, “Place the raiders here!” The raider phase goes off before any opportunity for opposing surface or subs or even minelayers to get a shot at them. Only Air Strikes goes off before Raiding. The game allows raiders to constantly frustrate your opponents if they send surface ships out to protect their convoys. The raiders can take their shot and disappear over the horizon before they can be confronted. This should simply be the modus operandi of the class. Find convoys, target the convoy, scoot away and live to fight another day. Against the British, this system is almost flawless, most all of the raiders are rated with the ability to avoid the British so no harm can come to them in ship vs ship engagements. When the American fleet does arrive, some of the raiders can be run down by the more capable American ships. It is at this point that all of the German cruisers using raiding tactics must stop, which I will explain further below.

Why is air dangerous to the raiders, but not as much as with other ships? In Seas of Thunder, Air Strikes occur after only Air Superiority. So any air unit, land-based air, carriers, or seaplane tenders have the ability to make a lucky strike on a raider. However, where all other surface ships are vulnerable to hits one-third of the time from a single air strike, raiders are only vulnerable one-sixth of the time. We introduced this mechanic as a balancing mechanism, but it also represents the difficulty of finding a single ship in the vast expanse of ocean. Oddly enough the land-based air is more fearsome to the raiders. A single LBA has four to five shots and leaves nothing to target if it misses. A carrier alone is in a much weaker position. Sure there are the famous fleet carriers, Lexington, Ark Royal, Wasp, Furious, etc… but for each of these giant beasts, there are five escort carriers that get one or two shots only. If they strike and miss, and they are alone; then the raider can elect to stay and take a free shot at the carrier. The odds are both ships sail away, but it is the one realistic shot the raider has at inflicting damage without risk. The other problem with a single carrier is that it has to decide if the ship that is in the area is a submarine or a surface ship. Choosing to go on anti-sub patrol with a raider in the area will take away even the low chance they have to hit the raider. Early in the game, the odds are very high that ships distant from the North Sea are raiders. But as the game progresses and more submarines are built, especially by the Germans, the difficulty in choosing the identity of a single face-down counter becomes more and more of a coin flip. My thought on the matter is a single carrier should never hunt either for raiders or subs alone. Later in the war, this becomes even less safe.

When weighing raiding vs surface combat, I have to give a heavy advantage for raiding. As mentioned before, a carrier that either misses you with its air strikes or guesses wrong, can be targeted with impunity. But other than that, even going up against a lowly 1-1-2 destroyer can be potentially crushing. Why? First, the danger — any ship that can get a shot on a raider can sink the raider if it hits home. Most raiders have only 1 hull point and the vast majority only have 2 or fewer. Almost any hit will sink the raider. However, most raiders only have a gunnery value of 1 or 2 so staying to fight is almost pointless as well since sinking the enemy is also nothing but luck. Sure a desultory combat ends in a contested sea zone but, in all honesty, raiders should never be in a sea zone that the Allies can score a point in, so contesting sea zones should be a non-factor. On the other hand, a raider that survives turn after turn after turn can always threaten unimportant sea zones and convoys. Losing those raiders while chasing a point here or a point there is incredibly short-sighted. These ships are few and far between. Their range ability is unmatched and their ability to always strike at convoys is key. Until the end of the war is in sight, they should never be treated as normal ships.

A note on end-games.

Because Seas of Thunder allows for modular play, it is a gamey effect that if you only play one scenario, such as Scenario 2 for example, the last turn of that game will probably see raiders treated as standard ships more often. This is a by-product of the modular system and in hind-sight it may appear a mistake on our part but I offer a different outlook. We thought about it but decided that the leaders at the time didn’t have the hindsight we do, so throwing everything at a potential quick end to the war works for us and the game.

The possibilities and some points to chew on.

The Germans start Turn 1 with four Armed Merchantmen, three 6-range cruisers, and three 5-range cruisers. If the cruisers took on the role of raiders through turn 10 (the USA enters on turn 11) and the Merchantmen were protected throughout the entire game, with average die rolls they could account for at least 80 points. In a game that sees final scores in the 1400 range, ten smartly-played ships could account for 5% of a sides total score. That is not to mention the other handful of good raiders in the German arsenal coming later to the war, the three Ramb-class CX’s from Italy and the assortment of Japanese raiders. It is quite conceivable that 20% of the Axis score could come from a well-husbanded fleet of raiders. Turn that around and see what would be lost if the raiders were treated as ‘just another ship’. I think that as more is seen of Seas of Thunder, players will discover a number of subtle challenges and hidden tricks that they can use to aid their cause. Raiders are just one of those tricks.

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Seas of Thunder – Sailing Outside the Edge of the Map

Combat Sequence in Seas of Thunder

War on the Raiders: A Strategic Look at Playing the Allies in Seas of Thunder Scenario 1