2 sources of auto damage, 4 sources of escort to keep the auto damage up for more than a round of concentrated fire, 1 source of spike damage. Heavy Alpha Strike capability. Solid bid for first, or cringe-worthy objectives for second (Rhymer could still replace an Advanced for Fighter Ambush). And all the while you're getting Avenger to the face.

Not so Gallant
Author: Parkdaddy

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 389/400

Commander: Admiral Sloane

Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Fighter Ambush
Navigation Objective: Minefields

Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer (120 points)
- Avenger ( 5 points)
- Skilled First Officer ( 1 points)
- Flight Controllers ( 6 points)
- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 144 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Vector ( 2 points)
- Admiral Chiraneau ( 10 points)
- Expanded Hangar Bay ( 5 points)
= 40 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Suppressor ( 4 points)
- Slicer Tools ( 7 points)
= 34 total ship cost

[ flagship ] Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Admiral Sloane ( 24 points)
- Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 49 total ship cost

2 Lambda-class Shuttles ( 30 points)
1 Zertik Strom ( 15 points)
2 TIE Advanced Squadrons ( 24 points)
1 "Mauler" Mithel ( 15 points)
1 Soontir Fel ( 18 points)
1 Darth Vader ( 21 points)

Antigallant and antiBiggs too I think. I like a lot and I have one similar without sloane 'cause I don't proxy her. I hope write a post tomorrow.

I think is pretty solid fleet and for criticise something maybe I change the blue objective for superior positions but it can backfire you too. Hope to see the results of the fleet in other post Parkdaddy

Great looking squadron list!

I see Mauler as one source of auto-damage. What's the second?

17 minutes ago, Democratus said:

Great looking squadron list!

I see Mauler as one source of auto-damage. What's the second?

Soontir Fel, when you shoot at Zertick or Vader (because you have to)

I'm looking at doing a similar list but with ruthless strategists as well to just really twist the knife in on them.

Could throw in a little Valen Rudor to really stick it to 'em? (with a bit of a re-jig - maybe ditch a shuttle?)

While this may counter Gallan Haven builds, I don't believe that it is viable vs other matchups. 1 combat ship (even ISD) and 4 activations just wouldn't cut it.

I would personally explore Ruthless Strategists as the damage dealer instead.

17 hours ago, pt106 said:

While this may counter Gallan Haven builds, I don't believe that it is viable vs other matchups. 1 combat ship (even ISD) and 4 activations just wouldn't cut it.

I would personally explore Ruthless Strategists as the damage dealer instead.

So I will say respectfully PT106 that in my Gallant Haven builds I have 48 hull points of squadrons. I have had opponents try and field a heavy ruthless strategist build against me with the result being that they end up weakening their own fighter screen sooner than they do mine. Yes, I take a few more casualties then I normally do against most fighter defenses, but the damage mitigation from GH is so great that it just makes it easier to overcome. With the point investment of building around ruthless strategist it makes you weaker anti-ship wise. So even when I loses a few squadrons I don't notice their potency vs. ships go down any.

The real trick to taking out a GH build is taking out GH. You want to be able to do this around the turn 2-3 time frame with a Rieekan build to do the most damage. Or what you want to do is hold your forces back until you are in position to take out GH in a timely manner before your opponent can set up his combo against you.

Personally I believe Sloane will best be used as an anti-ship commander. If you can get an ISD 1+2 with avenger in position to strike GH and use your squadrons to roll that accuracy to deplete GH defense tokens you will be able to one shot it. Before this was not possible. With Sloane this is very possible.

41 minutes ago, Brikhause said:

So I will say respectfully PT106 that in my Gallant Haven builds I have 48 hull points of squadrons. I have had opponents try and field a heavy ruthless strategist build against me with the result being that they end up weakening their own fighter screen sooner than they do mine. Yes, I take a few more casualties then I normally do against most fighter defenses, but the damage mitigation from GH is so great that it just makes it easier to overcome. With the point investment of building around ruthless strategist it makes you weaker anti-ship wise. So even when I loses a few squadrons I don't notice their potency vs. ships go down any.

A fair point. My main point there was that Ruthless Strategists build in my mind (and I'm not an experienced squadron player) has a higher chance of success than a proposed autodamage solution. It doesn't mean that a chance is high. The space that I thought about exploring is multiple RS raiders commanding bombers with intel as I feel that engaging in a squadron battle while GH is alive is mostly pointless.

On 5/6/2017 at 10:35 AM, Parkdaddy said:

2 sources of auto damage, 4 sources of escort to keep the auto damage up for more than a round of concentrated fire, 1 source of spike damage. Heavy Alpha Strike capability. Solid bid for first, or cringe-worthy objectives for second (Rhymer could still replace an Advanced for Fighter Ambush). And all the while you're getting Avenger to the face.

Not so Gallant
Author: Parkdaddy

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 389/400

Commander: Admiral Sloane

Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Fighter Ambush
Navigation Objective: Minefields

Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer (120 points)
- Avenger ( 5 points)
- Skilled First Officer ( 1 points)
- Flight Controllers ( 6 points)
- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 144 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Vector ( 2 points)
- Admiral Chiraneau ( 10 points)
- Expanded Hangar Bay ( 5 points)
= 40 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Suppressor ( 4 points)
- Slicer Tools ( 7 points)
= 34 total ship cost

[ flagship ] Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Admiral Sloane ( 24 points)
- Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 49 total ship cost

2 Lambda-class Shuttles ( 30 points)
1 Zertik Strom ( 15 points)
2 TIE Advanced Squadrons ( 24 points)
1 "Mauler" Mithel ( 15 points)
1 Soontir Fel ( 18 points)
1 Darth Vader ( 21 points)

It doesn't really seem like you're maximizing sloane with this list. How many blue anti ship is that? 4 total?

Yeah and this was the exact sort of thing that has been done against me. I find neither the autodamage squadrons, nor the ruthless strategist scenario to be viable. Even the combination of the two is not enough. You still need to complement that ruthless strategist anti-squadron fire with real squadron damage otherwise you just don't do enough and your opponent will wipe the floor with you with a fair bit of ease. The other problem with Raiders is that they need to be activated in the ship phase. They also require a certain amount of precision to be utilized on a group of squadrons due to their short range. I find that the best way to deal with Raider anti-squadron is wait out the ship activations of your opponent and then during the squadron phase position your squadrons so they are away of the anti-squadron but within striking distance of the raider to knock it out. It is actually quite easy to accomplish if you run squadrons enough. Again if you are investing that many points into that sort of anti-squadron you might as well be putting your points into anti-ship instead.

4 minutes ago, Warlord Zepnick said:

It doesn't really seem like you're maximizing sloane with this list. How many blue anti ship is that? 4 total?

I agree I think the key to Sloane will be a mixture of generics and scatter aces complemented by Intel to help burn defense tokens. With my Sloane list I want to shoot for at least 10 squadrons with 3/4 of them having a blue die.

I'm running an ISD I with 3 Gozanti's and 10 squads. It's not as good as you think. You only have 1 threat since the squads can't reliably push damage on ships and kill squads. I'd suggest running Demo and an ISD with Goz support. Dengar, Howl, Mauler, Ciena, Rudor, and Saber should be your first choice for squads. Add Rhymer for the extra ship threat. I added 3 more Tie/F to get 10 squads.

You NEED another threat for the list to be effective. Otherwise you have 1 strong activation and 3 questionably week ones. And an H9 MC30 will wreck you.

2 hours ago, Brikhause said:

Personally I believe Sloane will best be used as an anti-ship commander. If you can get an ISD 1+2 with avenger in position to strike GH and use your squadrons to roll that accuracy to deplete GH defense tokens you will be able to one shot it. Before this was not possible. With Sloane this is very possible.

This is the number 1 reason to run Rhymer with Sloane. As your squads are closing into the fight, they can take shots at GH to set up an Avenger blow out, or strip tokens. Then they can engage and hopefully your ISD can kill GH. Same goes for Yavaris.

Yes and no. I think people have just been conceptualizing the battles wrong and using their fighters ineffectually. I know that sounds arrogant, but look at what myself and others have done with the Pelta when most said it couldn't be done. Finding the right formation and sweet spot timing will make a huge difference, I think

I only have 4 blue ship die fighters because I'm only activating 4 with Avenger. With all of the escorts, they are highly survivable (Dutch Vander triple tap aside). And Avenger is the one that capitalizes the most on sloanes ability, so I only need 4 with the initiative to pull off a solid first activation. Or a setup with Vector. And the escorts themselves offer A-wing level AS. But i agree, Rhymer should find his way in

As far as another threat... id just do gunnery teams first. I've seen people make a single ISD work pre sloane. Dual ISD could probably do something mighty scary with Sloan.

I think what people are saying is why bother with any tie advances at all with Sloane. It is point inefficient. Once I use my fighters to destroy GH it is game on, and then I have a bunch of tie fighters and interceptors that are good at taking out enemy squadrons. Why give that up. Whereas the tie advance is ok against Squadrons and is ok against ships, and against ships doesn't take into account Sloane's ability. Really all the tie advance is good for is dying so your other squadrons don't, and so it is sort of a play not to lose mentality. If you ask me with Sloan speed 5 interceptors are the way to go. Send them flying to GH's rear and eventually GH has to fly forward so any squadrons it sends to protect or tie down your interceptors all of a sudden leaves the GH protected bubble.

Someone (correctly) mentioned earlier the best GH counter is taking out GH. Now with Rieekan in the mix this will mean it still gets to do its (potentially devastating) thing with squadrons... so how about including some slicer tools?

Had a game last night against a Dodonna Yavaris bomber list and slicing Yavaris at the right time paid huge dividends. Allowed my ship killers (in this case a Christmas tree MC30) to then mallet it secure in the knowledge it wouldn't be caught in a double-tapping mess.

For Imps could have a tooled up Demo with two slicer gozantis for this role? (im not an Imp player, so just an off-the-cuff suggestion).

2 hours ago, GammonLord said:

Someone (correctly) mentioned earlier the best GH counter is taking out GH. Now with Rieekan in the mix this will mean it still gets to do its (potentially devastating) thing with squadrons... so how about including some slicer tools?

Had a game last night against a Dodonna Yavaris bomber list and slicing Yavaris at the right time paid huge dividends. Allowed my ship killers (in this case a Christmas tree MC30) to then mallet it secure in the knowledge it wouldn't be caught in a double-tapping mess.

For Imps could have a tooled up Demo with two slicer gozantis for this role? (im not an Imp player, so just an off-the-cuff suggestion).

Absolutely a possibility, but if your opponent brought a counter such as Leia then the slicer tool is pretty close to worthless as it just delays the inevitable. You could have two slicer tools, but then it just gets more costly.

What about this ace line up: Howl, Dengar, Ciena, Mauler, Soontir.

I bet you're saying "Well I just kill Soontir!" And you're right. But that's also a Sloane Counter 4. They attack Dengar, and they take damage. They attack Howl, and they take damage. All have Scatter, so they can survive. They are all quick, so you can stay out of range of your opponent and engage on our terms. Throw in FC and you can really tear through some squads.

I'd probably take some Tie/I since they work well with Howl and Dengar.

I think the key to winning Rieekan aces on the squad battle, is to throw as much dice as possible since Jan and GH will reduce it. This line up can reliably throw 5-6 dice and auto damage.

24 minutes ago, Brikhause said:

Absolutely a possibility, but if your opponent brought a counter such as Leia then the slicer tool is pretty close to worthless as it just delays the inevitable. You could have two slicer tools, but then it just gets more costly.

... but not as costly as a GH fighter ball running rampant through your fleet. If you conceive of Slicer flots as offensive ships rather than flotillas, they're a bargain at 25 points, their utility potentially outweighing a timely engineering or movement command in addition to extra activation/ blocking shenanigans.

A counter that can cripple a Rieekan/GH squad blob or 50/60 points (Rebs/Imps) is a bargain. If you're a pro-ship guy (as i am) its also nice to have a counter that doesn't rely on having your own squads.

1 hour ago, GammonLord said:

... but not as costly as a GH fighter ball running rampant through your fleet. If you conceive of Slicer flots as offensive ships rather than flotillas, they're a bargain at 25 points, their utility potentially outweighing a timely engineering or movement command in addition to extra activation/ blocking shenanigans.

A counter that can cripple a Rieekan/GH squad blob or 50/60 points (Rebs/Imps) is a bargain. If you're a pro-ship guy (as i am) its also nice to have a counter that doesn't rely on having your own squads.

I don't disagree.