50 minutes ago, OgRib said:

I have to admit I'm worried about Sloane's impact on the game. A handful of cheap fast TIE squadrons taking out a brace just seems to take all the agency away from the defender.

If you're letting a handful of cheap TIE squadrons manhandle your fleet, then you haven't used your agency well to begin with.

Player agency doesn't give you exclusive rights to your defense tokens. Nym, Overload Pulse, MS-1 Ions, NK-7, Ion Cannon, etc. - the game is rife with methods to affect defense tokens. This is just another one.

Intelligence Officer is a once per turn card that has no other use, and I still have the choice whether to burn the brace or not. I stated that in my post that I appreciated being put in that tough situation.

Intel Officer doesn't have a roughly 30% chance to permanently remove my brace because I braced an ISD salvo on the first activation. Intel Officer also doesn't engage my bombers, or shoot at my squadrons, or do normal damage to my ships. Intel Officer doesn't move Distance 4 and shoot from the far side of my ship where I don't have covering squads (and before I can take an AA shot).

Make Sloane the Imperial blend of Sato and Home One - when a friendly squadron is within D1 of an opposing ship, add a blue die set to accuracy in the modify dice phase.

@Truthiness I see your point about being able to skip the upgrades that help your damage get through defense tokens, that's great but all it does is make her more OP. More points to make ships tougher or for rerolls or extra dice.

If there was a non-unique way to recover defense tokens or a means to evade attack dice at close range I'd feel this was a fun and interesting evolution, I hope I'm wrong.

1 hour ago, ovinomanc3r said:

With Sloane if your opponent get an acc he spend 1 defense token that you can use. The effect is pretty similar to IO and requires a squadron at least 8 points). If you choose to spend the spent token you loose it. If you spent it before you will loose it now. Of course several squadron could discard you a token but your opponents needs at least 2 tie fighters what means 16+24 and more probably 6 (48 points + Sloane).

Just from what happened with Sato before release, I get the feeling Sloane will change from "spend" to "exhaust" a defense token. Just all hearsay right now but in FFG we trust, right?

@ImpStarDeucesI would be completely fine with that

1 hour ago, ovinomanc3r said:

With Sloane if your opponent get an acc he spend 1 defense token that you can use. The effect is pretty similar to IO and requires a squadron at least 8 points). If you choose to spend the spent token you loose it. If you spent it before you will loose it now. Of course several squadron could discard you a token but your opponents needs at least 2 tie fighters what means 16+24 and more probably 6 (48 points + Sloane).

If you are fine with H9 or IO I don't see why not with Sloane. She gives you an IO each 3 tie fighters you take.

Difference is that IO is just IO for 7 points. A TIE fighter becomes an IO but also is a fighter with 3 hull and all squadron indepent capabilities and possibilites, for 8 points.

49 minutes ago, OgRib said:

Intel Officer doesn't have a roughly 30% chance to permanently remove my brace because I braced an ISD salvo on the first activation.

No, Intel Officer makes you decide to either ear the ISD salvo, or discard it. With Sloan and a TIE cloud, you get a similar choice. Do you spend the brace, knowing that I might be able to come and take it away from you?

That said, if they drop her ability from "spend" to "exhaust" I will not complain. It's still 90% as good, to my way of thinking, and more fun. I LOVE using Intel Officer, or anything else that makes my opponent squirm under a really tough choice.

----

IMO, Sloan will, at least potentially, force Rebel players to take more in the way of fast, light fighters, rather than a small cluster of powerful named bombers. This might just be my local meta, but I mostly see rebels taking four or five named fighters, with enough defence tokens and firepower to shrug off my fighters, and either kill them, or put the hurt on my capital ships. Both, if I'm having a bad day. With Sloan, my TIEs can't be permitted to just buzz around unopposed.

26 minutes ago, ImpStarDeuces said:

Just from what happened with Sato before release, I get the feeling Sloane will change from "spend" to "exhaust" a defense token. Just all hearsay right now but in FFG we trust, right?

can you refresh my memory, what was sato doing before release? I know he was changed but I don't remember his old effect.

14 minutes ago, xerpo said:

Difference is that IO is just IO for 7 points. A TIE fighter becomes an IO but also is a fighter with 3 hull and all squadron indepent capabilities and possibilites, for 8 points.

3 tie fighters are 1 OE. Can be engaged, killed, counter, must be acivated. And not 8... 8(x3)+24

Sato now spells out when you switch dice. Before release he did not, so many of us thought he would work during the modify dice step.

Changing her to exhaust make a big difference to the timing.

She would only has sense activating them before shooting with the ship (FC loose interest) against a ship that has not been attacked. An IO looks better for me.

I'm less excited about discarding tokens, and more excited about exhausting them.

Make Avenger Great Again!

24 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

can you refresh my memory, what was sato doing before release? I know he was changed but I don't remember his old effect.

Technically, by the original wording you could roll your dice, see the results, and then switch out two undesirable dice with two other color dice of your choice. It was a replace and reroll mechanic all rolled up into one. Nowadays, he's good but not that bonkers.

15 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

3 tie fighters are 1 OE. Can be engaged, killed, counter, must be acivated. And not 8... 8(x3)+24

If you go that tight then it would be 8(x3)+24-12(because you are not taking vader instead ie)-7x( where x is the ships youre not equipping IO) - the value of having a modest fighter multipurpose screen and an extra depolyment. You cant just sum up things with 2 variables completely out of context. The overall makes Sloane way more better and sorry to tell, OP.

1 minute ago, xerpo said:

If you go that tight then it would be 8(x3)+24-12(because you are not taking vader instead ie)-7x( where x is the ships youre not equipping IO) - the value of having a modest fighter multipurpose screen and an extra depolyment. You cant just sum up things with 2 variables completely out of context. The overall makes Sloane way more better and sorry to tell, OP.

This simply has no sense.

Those variables are in context. I would take Sloane and 3 fighter to get a similar effect than 1 IO. Not the same but pretty similar. Those 3 cannot spend more than 1 token per round. Of course I could add more tie fighter without paying Sloane again to stack her effect. Perfect! Statistics say us we need 3 blue die to spend 1 token. Those are 24 points per token spent. I could do other things that IO cannot do but the only way is to stack more and more squadrons attack that means more and more points. Yes the squadron still working as what they are but I don't think it makes her OP. At then end you pay 24 points to gain 1 token spent each three blue ant ship die from squadrons. So if you fly 9 ties you gain 3 token spent (3 IO are 21 points) with an investment of 24 points.

14 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

Those variables are in context. I would take Sloane and 3 fighter to get a similar effect than 1 IO. Not the same but pretty similar. Those 3 cannot spend more than 1 token per round. Of course I could add more tie fighter without paying Sloane again to stack her effect. Perfect! Statistics say us we need 3 blue die to spend 1 token. Those are 24 points per token spent. I could do other things that IO cannot do but the only way is to stack more and more squadrons attack that means more and more points. Yes the squadron still working as what they are but I don't think it makes her OP. At then end you pay 24 points to gain 1 token spent each three blue ant ship die from squadrons. So if you fly 9 ties you gain 3 token spent (3 IO are 21 points) with an investment of 24 points.

Yea but that's against ships. With my new revelation about her ability, she is way better against squads. 3 dice with a reroll, or 4 with Howl means you have a very good chance at getting the Acc, and 2 Ties have a good chance at stripping the tokens before it gets any use.

5 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Yea but that's against ships. With my new revelation about her ability, she is way better against squads. 3 dice with a reroll, or 4 with Howl means you have a very good chance at getting the Acc, and 2 Ties have a good chance at stripping the tokens before it gets any use.

Plus the actual damage you can do against ships and squads...

13 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Yea but that's against ships. With my new revelation about her ability, she is way better against squads. 3 dice with a reroll, or 4 with Howl means you have a very good chance at getting the Acc, and 2 Ties have a good chance at stripping the tokens before it gets any use.

This is where Sloane is really powerful I think. But it has the easiest counter (easiest but painful): don't bring aces.

On 3/16/2017 at 10:27 AM, Tokra said:

You said:

And we try to tell you, that all commanders have more or less a condition. That is all .

*face palm* It amazes me how you don't get what I was trying to say, stop being so literal. I meant Sloan is much more dependent on a certain set of conditions for her to work effectively than other commanders. And I stand by my statement that competitive builds are not as viable with conditional commanders. You want commanders who can be effective for as long as possible like Motti or Mon Mothma. For Sloan you have to hope you dont face heavy squadron or anti-squadron ships and that you can trigger her effect. For commanders like Motti and Mon Mothma as long as the commanders are alive they are effective. With Sloan once you start losing squadrons she goes down hill fast in her effectiveness.

I will openly admit that I have not played her yet but my guess is that she will be a very disappointing commander who will really shine in maybe 1-3 games. I hope I am proven wrong.

SloanE. That's what the op missed.

I think she looks fun on paper, letting me roll with generic ties and ints to win the squad fight. If any survive they can do bombing.

Fun, but how effective I the long run? You might win the squad war, but how much hull will remain then, and will it be worth losing those ties to plink at ships? Time will tell.

Hey - sending squads off in random directions trying to flip capital ship defense tokens too early in the squadron fight may even tip the balance and allow an opponent to dominate. That part is cool.

People look at Sloane and see a huge ball of tie fighters discarding the whole pack of defense tokens of their ships per round and then facing the enemy ships without a single token. This is much as seeing Ackbar as if you went to face 5 red dice per ships every round but then you play, and put your ship in front of Ackbar and the single red die he shoot you tells you "it is ok man, it was hard the first 5 times, even the first 10 but you got it". Fly 4-6 a-wings and see how many defense tokens are spent without your permission during the whole game.

She is a good excuse to fly tie fighters, she is a good excuse to take QLT and she is a good excuse to take whatever anti-squadron stuff this wave came with.

AND

Even when she boost defender too I think she is a good excuse to NOT take them if you don't really need them.

As an imperial player I am pretty sure that if I am going to spend 134 points on squadrons tie bombers with BBC still be better. She makes light fighter screens (4-6 ties/int) better as if the job is done they are not free points for your opponent and if there is no job to do at least you don't waste 32-66 points. Rebels have a-wings since wave 1 and I am pretty sure any rebel player felt stupid flying 4 a-wings when there are not more enemy squadrons in play as I did with my tie fighters. That was the reason I move to defender from interceptors. I see myself going back to those little assassins again.

21 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

People look at Sloane and see a huge ball of tie fighters discarding the whole pack of defense tokens of their ships per round and then facing the enemy ships without a single token. This is much as seeing Ackbar as if you went to face 5 red dice per ships every round but then you play, and put your ship in front of Ackbar and the single red die he shoot you tells you "it is ok man, it was hard the first 5 times, even the first 10 but you got it". Fly 4-6 a-wings and see how many defense tokens are spent without your permission during the whole game.

She is a good excuse to fly tie fighters, she is a good excuse to take QLT and she is a good excuse to take whatever anti-squadron stuff this wave came with.

AND

Even when she boost defender too I think she is a good excuse to NOT take them if you don't really need them.

As an imperial player I am pretty sure that if I am going to spend 134 points on squadrons tie bombers with BBC still be better. She makes light fighter screens (4-6 ties/int) better as if the job is done they are not free points for your opponent and if there is no job to do at least you don't waste 32-66 points. Rebels have a-wings since wave 1 and I am pretty sure any rebel player felt stupid flying 4 a-wings when there are not more enemy squadrons in play as I did with my tie fighters. That was the reason I move to defender from interceptors. I see myself going back to those little assassins again.

I disagree with the whole "Why spend points on antisquad when I can take 134 points of bombers and support instead" because at that point, you're not even playing into Sloane's strengths.

Sloane bridges the gap between Imps superior anti-squad play and attacking ships with squads. Rebels can do both. Imps can't. Now I have a reason to take 134 points of Imp aces. I can win the squad game and then use those extra attacks to compliment my ships. Imp bombers are weak against anti-squad play. You either run Tie/B and Rhymer, but the ball dies as soon as you lose Rhymer or Dengar.

Who would win if 134 point Rhymerball faces 134 point Sloane Imp aces? The Imp aces will. They are designed to deal with bombers. Then those squads can go on to harass the carriers.

I'm waiting for the vassal tourney where somebody runs Sloane, 10 jumpmasters, and Valen Rudor.

I'm also waiting to find out it was amazing until a wild Ketsu arrived.

2 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

I disagree with the whole "Why spend points on antisquad when I can take 134 points of bombers and support instead" because at that point, you're not even playing into Sloane's strengths.

Sloane bridges the gap between Imps superior anti-squad play and attacking ships with squads. Rebels can do both. Imps can't. Now I have a reason to take 134 points of Imp aces. I can win the squad game and then use those extra attacks to compliment my ships. Imp bombers are weak against anti-squad play. You either run Tie/B and Rhymer, but the ball dies as soon as you lose Rhymer or Dengar.

Who would win if 134 point Rhymerball faces 134 point Sloane Imp aces? The Imp aces will. They are designed to deal with bombers. Then those squads can go on to harass the carriers.

I meant that if I am going to spend 134 on tie fighters to maximize Sloane's skill (looking for more ship damage and eat defense tokens) I think a good Rhymerball of the same size (on points) with a decent support, BCC and other commander will do more damage. You will probably make your opponent spend his defense tokens more quickly and you will have something to do when there were not more tokens to spend.

If I want to play Sloane obviously I am not going to fly 134 on tie bombers.

Let me put in other way:

If you hope that Sloane ate every defense token before you started to throw big dice pool from your ships she will probably disappoint you. The most she will do is improved the damage output of your squadron's battery armament dice (0.5 to 0.625) and give you a chance to put some pressure on the enemy defenses after your screen had done what they have to do. This of course at the "shipping sphere".

At the "squadron sphere" she makes your squadrons better fighting aces.

Both things are good and that is her purpose. She make screen fighters better. In order to discard enemy defense tokens 3 glads with IO are far better. Anyone who though that their ships will have their defense token to look cool and just that will be wrong.

IMHO she is not OP as it is right now.