Opinions? I freely admit that I'm terrible at building ISDs.

My plan is to slow-roll the ISD in, winning the squadron game quickly with my ludicrous antisquadron investment, before pivoting to killing ships in turns 4-6. I might swap out a TIE/ln or two for interceptors, not sure I like leaning on vanilla TIEs for the alpha strike.

I don't think it's going to be a high-MoV approach, but it should be pretty reliable. I think?

And yes, I brought Support Officer because I'm bad at driving ISD carriers that aren't Relentless...

Sloane's Aces (390/400)
======================
Imperial II-class Star Destroyer (120 + 24)
+ Support Officer (4)
+ Flight Controllers (6)
+ Expanded Hangar Bay (5)
+ Leading Shots (4)
+ Avenger (5)
Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 + 26)
+ Admiral Sloane (24)
+ Comms Net (2)
Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 + 20)
+ Minister Tua (2)
+ Slicer Tools (7)
+ Suppressor (4)
+ Electronic Countermeasures (7)
Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 + 7)
+ Slicer Tools (7)
Soontir Fel (18)
Ciena Ree (17)
"Howlrunner" (16)
"Mauler" Mithel (15)
Valen Rudor (13)
Jumpmaster 5000 (12)
Black Squadron (9)
3 x Tie Fighter Squadron (8)

Advanced Gunnery
Superior Positions
Hyperspace assault

Similar issues/ideas here:

Any reason not to add RBD to your ISD? I still think that you'll need another ship that is a damage dealer as the current build will crumble apart once the ISD is dead.

Also I would highly recommed to bring at least one lambda to activate squads from Gozantis.

Then again, maybe the flexibility of Sloane and using TIEs will be okay?

What if I am not sitting in your ISD front arc?

19 minutes ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

Then again, maybe the flexibility of Sloane and using TIEs will be okay?

Nope.

Switch second slicer tools fpr bomber command.

Switch the fighters for Rhymer and friends.

Swop Sloane for Jerrod.

And suddenly its a workable fleet.

I think Sloane wants first assault carriers. ISDs yes, but also glads and raiders.

Definitely not Gozanti.

I do love the Tua Trollboat with Slicers and Suppressor. It's so much fun to get in there and block with, even if it's not crazily practical for other things.

2 hours ago, pt106 said:

Any reason not to add RBD to your ISD?

Bid. It was the last thing cut, and will probably go back in once I can get away from Support Team.

2 hours ago, pt106 said:

Also I would highly recommed to bring at least one lambda to activate squads from Gozantis.

I'm still not on board the Relay hype train. I've tried it a couple of times, and it's cool, but... meh.

I want both Slicers in the mix anyway. Between them and the ISD I'm activating up to 9 of my 10 squadrons even without a token from Comms Net.

2 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

What if I am not sitting in your ISD front arc?

Then I should learn to drive better, because what did I bring two Slicer Tools for if not to flood you with useless commands?

1 hour ago, Ardaedhel said:

Bid. It was the last thing cut, and will probably go back in once I can get away from Support Team.

I'm still not on board the Relay hype train. I've tried it a couple of times, and it's cool, but... meh.

I want both Slicers in the mix anyway. Between them and the ISD I'm activating up to 9 of my 10 squadrons even without a token from Comms Net.

Then I should learn to drive better, because what did I bring two Slicer Tools for if not to flood you with useless commands?

Problem with slicer tools is when you run into a foe who can make any command work.

18 minutes ago, Gottmituns205 said:

Problem with slicer tools is when you run into a foe who can make any command work.

It's true!

8 hours ago, Ardaedhel said:

Then I should learn to drive better, because what did I bring two Slicer Tools for if not to flood you with useless commands?

Without nav commands on the ISD? Yeah good luck with that. There is a reason Aresius only ever has nav dial plus comms net nav token on that mc80.

3 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

Without nav commands on the ISD? Yeah good luck with that. There is a reason Aresius only ever has nav dial plus comms net nav token on that mc80.

... Huh?

2 hours ago, Ardaedhel said:

... Huh?

Aresius ran the Liberty/GR75 Spam in the World Cup. Did quite well! Lost to JJ.

2 hours ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

Aresius ran the Liberty/GR75 Spam in the World Cup. Did quite well! Lost to JJ.

Mc80 Battle Cruiser armed to the teeth with 6 gr75's and z95's. The mc80 needed nav commands turns 1 to 3 with engine techs to make sure it had shots lined up.

Oh! Right, you're talking Aresius' approach in the WC.

So I guess I'm not seeing the problem here. Someone with a roughly analogous Rebel build did well, therefore... bad approach?

I think I'm just going to put it on the table next time I play and see what shakes out. What I'm most concerned about is whether I'm too weak against squadron-light builds, MSU's in particular. And without a great metric for scaling the squadron investment for Sloane yet, the only way to find out is to try it!

Just to know your thoughts:

Why not...

(132/134)
Maarek Stele (21)
"Whisper" (20)
Soontir Fel (18)
Ciena Ree (17)
"Howlrunner" (16)
"Mauler" Mithel (15)
Valen Rudor (13)
Jumpmaster 5000 (12)

...?

I know they are 8 points more and 1 deployment less but beyond that, what were you looking for? Room for upgrades? ships? I am curious cause I am looking for a Sloane fleet too but I am far for get something yet (I feel the lack of a Quasar each attempt I do).

4 hours ago, ovinomanc3r said:

Just to know your thoughts:

Why not...

(132/134)
Maarek Stele (21)
"Whisper" (20)
Soontir Fel (18)
Ciena Ree (17)
"Howlrunner" (16)
"Mauler" Mithel (15)
Valen Rudor (13)
Jumpmaster 5000 (12)

...?

I know they are 8 points more and 1 deployment less but beyond that, what were you looking for? Room for upgrades? ships? I am curious cause I am looking for a Sloane fleet too but I am far for get something yet (I feel the lack of a Quasar each attempt I do).

So, Whisper I dropped for the points, but I'm not sure Maarek is a good fit. Generally speaking, I think you usually want Maarek to be paired with Jendon if you want to make the points worthwhile, and that ends up being over a third of my points. It's a fine build, just not the direction I wanted to take.

And yeah, the QF is definitely going to open up Sloane builds.

So, played this last night, and it went awesome, buuutt... it was a pretty terrible test of Sloane, at least directly. You'll see why.

First of all, the lists:

Sloane's Aces (388/400)

ISD2 - Support Officer, Flight Controllers, EHB, LS, Avenger

Gozanti Cruiser - Sloane, Comms Net

Gozanti Cruiser - Minister Tua, Slicer Tools, Suppressor, ECM

Gozanti Cruiser - Slicer Tools

Soontir
Ciena
Howlrunner
Valen
Mauler
Black
TIE Interceptor x2
Jumpmaster

Advanced Gunnery
Hyperspace Assault
Superior Positions

The Other Guy (389/400)

AF2B - Flight Controllers, Toryn, Gallant Haven

NebE - Flight Commander, FCT, Yavaris

GR-75 - Dodonna, Comms Net, BH

GR-75 - BCC

GR-75 - BCC

Jan
Norra
Gold
VCX
H-6 x 2
X-wing x 3

He chose initiative because I can't add, and chose to go first.

So, I say that it wasn't a great test of Sloane directly, because 1) her ability went off all of twice, against Norra, and 2) my opponent picked my Advanced Gunnery. Against Avenger.

It went pretty much as you'd expect. I tore through his bombers with almost no retribution at all with my significantly heavier investment in fighters. Avenger had popped a BCC from long range with an AG double-shot, and was positioned to tear through first Yavaris, and then Haven, when we called it at the start of turn 3.

What it did do, though, is illustrate what I think is Sloane's biggest strength: her ability makes those non-bomber dice just strong enough that you can invest very heavily in the fighters without losing too much on the anti-ship side, and it drove my opponent away from Superior Positions. The premise obviously requires more testing as I suspect the 100% fighter investment will be just a little too weak against ship-heavy opponents, especially slippery little things like TRC90s. But I do expect Sloane's fighter/bomber split to settle somewhere around the 80-20 or 90-10 line, as opposed to the roughly 50-50 I usually end up with.

I think Phantoms can fill in the bomber role you need in your list.

*snip* - I gave some average damages here that were wrong, as you can only reroll one crit.

Plus the fact they can move out of engagement so you can command them back in at the ships, combined with the higher resistance to AA.

I think the current perception of them being overpriced is (though maybe accurate) entirely down to the fact Sloan was coming.

2 hours ago, TheCallum said:

I think Phantoms can fill in the bomber role you need in your list.

*snip* - I gave some average damages here that were wrong, as you can only reroll one crit.

Plus the fact they can move out of engagement so you can command them back in at the ships, combined with the higher resistance to AA.

I think the current perception of them being overpriced is (though maybe accurate) entirely down to the fact Sloan was coming.

I think this works in one direction but not the other.

Sloane makes the Phantom way better than it was, but I'm not convinced that the Phantom is the best way to maximize Sloane. At first blush, of course.

Wow. I just sat down to do the math for the Phantom, and... It's not going to be simple enough to do on my phone calculator. The math on red dice is weird enough to begin with, and then you've got to define things like do I reroll accuracies, what does it look like when i roll two accuracies, would I rather keep a double and an acc or reroll the acc... Bleh.

She definitely helps the Phantom a lot though. Enough so that I don't think it's necessarily an obvious choice to leave it home, especially with cloak's intangible benefit.

8 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

I think this works in one direction but not the other.

Sloane makes the Phantom way better than it was, but I'm not convinced that the Phantom is the best way to maximize Sloane. At first blush, of course.

Wow. I just sat down to do the math for the Phantom, and... It's not going to be simple enough to do on my phone calculator. The math on red dice is weird enough to begin with, and then you've got to define things like do I reroll accuracies, what does it look like when i roll two accuracies, would I rather keep a double and an acc or reroll the acc... Bleh.

She definitely helps the Phantom a lot though. Enough so that I don't think it's necessarily an obvious choice to leave it home, especially with cloak's intangible benefit.

She only lets you reroll Crits.

Just now, Green Knight said:

She only lets you reroll Crits.

... I knew that. He even said that in the text I quoted.

Yeah, Phantoms are still bad.

1 minute ago, Ardaedhel said:

... I knew that. He even said that in the text I quoted.

Yeah, Phantoms are still bad.

I once saw JJ roll Jerry n Arquitens swarm, plus Rhymer and maybe 7 Phantoms? It kind of worked. But no.

Or was it Tagge? Might have been.

2 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

I once saw JJ roll Jerry n Arquitens swarm, plus Rhymer and maybe 7 Phantoms? It kind of worked. But no.

Or was it Tagge? Might have been.

Yeah, I tried a Phantom swarm once. Think I did it with ISDs? It wasn't good.

I love the Phantom, as I think Cloak is a lot of fun. There are just better options for everything that you might want to do with it. The Defender being only 2 points more and significantly better by pretty much every measure really hurts the Phantom. And it suffers from the same in-faction balancing factors as the Defender--no swarm, no auto damage or escort--without the absolute value advantage of the Defender.

The wild inconsistency of its AS coupled with the fact that it's worse at AA than the 20% cheaper interceptor--and its strong point isn't significantly improved by any current auras--makes it sort of the redheaded stepchild of the imperial squadrons. I think the Phantom should've either had swarm, or a non-bomber red+blue antiship.

2 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

Yeah, I tried a Phantom swarm once. Think I did it with ISDs? It wasn't good.

I love the Phantom, as I think Cloak is a lot of fun. There are just better options for everything that you might want to do with it. The Defender being only 2 points more and significantly better by pretty much every measure really hurts the Phantom. And it suffers from the same in-faction balancing factors as the Defender--no swarm, no auto damage or escort--without the absolute value advantage of the Defender.

The wild inconsistency of its AS coupled with the fact that it's worse at AA than the 20% cheaper interceptor--and its strong point isn't significantly improved by any current auras--makes it sort of the redheaded stepchild of the imperial squadrons. I think the Phantom should've either had swarm, or a non-bomber red+blue antiship.

And I think the Cloak keyword is a dud.

Or that it should have gotten another keyword to supplement it.