The Wraith class Raider is a new and late model fighter employed by the Cylon Empire, and is their version of the versatile Colonial Asp Recon Viper. In fact, the Wraith fufills almost exactly the same role within the Cylon Fleet.

However, the Wraith is built along Cylon military doctrine and thus follows some slightly different paths than the Colonial Asp. For a start, the Wraith is armed with normal pulsar turbolasers and thus can be intergrated into a normal fighter flight with no loss in firepower, something that is not lost on the Cylons. Secondly the craft is almost identical in size, shape and performance as normal Cylon Raider, with all the advantages and disadvantages that this gives. For most normal Colonial pilots, this means that the craft is quite easy to shoot down. However, the Wraith does have a fourth crew Cylon installed within the small cockpit. This Cylon operates the special electronic detection equipment installed on the craft.

Wraiths are not employed on a regular basis to standard ships like the Colonial Asp. Instead, they are issued as needed which means that they are not as widespread as the Cylons would like, and indeed, many important battles can (and will) be fought without their assistant.

Master Fighter Chart Extract:

The Wraith follows all normal Colonial Asp rules with an obvious difference in performance. The scout channel will be blinded if the craft uses its weapons.
A Cylon craft may substitute Raiders for Wraiths on a 1:1 basis, with a maximum of 1 Wraith per fighter flight.
Wraiths may not be used as Ghost Fighters or Death Squads.