11 minutes ago, Destraa said:

Because they first take damage from Fel for free, then chew themselves up fighting Soontir, making it a steep uphill battle. Attrition is a MFer.

You're not wrong, but I think there's more than one way to use Soontir. Pairing him with Escort is the most obvious choice, but that doesn't work well for a Sloane Swarm Counter fleet. If you're worried about Soontir being attacked, you can take Stronghold and grant obstruction. You could add Zertik and Black Squad if you want Escort without sacrificing too many points. But running Soontir, Howl, Mauler, and Dengar, your opponent will have a tough choice picking who to attack. Attack Mauler, Howl or Dengar and take a point from Soontir. Attack Soontir and take counter 4 and leave Mauler alone.

Instead of attrition, these squads force hard choices in order to break down the synergy, while maintaining high quality squadron activations.

32 minutes ago, Destraa said:

Because they first take damage from Fel for free, then chew themselves up fighting Soontir, making it a steep uphill battle. Attrition is a MFer.

1 escort is not sufficient to protect a target. 3 is required for mandatory coverage.

*furiously taking notes*

23 minutes ago, Darthain said:

1 escort is not sufficient to protect a target. 3 is required for mandatory coverage.

It's enough for forcing attrition when you know that the intent is to cause as much damage as possible to break synergies.

All your talking about Fel and you forget one part.

Would you attack Fel with counter 4 and swarm, or attack ANY OTHER squadron and get only 1 damage from Fel?
Well, i would only risk the counter 4 if i am sure that i will take Fel down really easy. If not, i would maybe attack the other squadrons, that cause the problem (like Howlrunner or Dengar....).

3 minutes ago, Tokra said:

All your talking about Fel and you forget one part.

Would you attack Fel with counter 4 and swarm, or attack ANY OTHER squadron and get only 1 damage from Fel?
Well, i would only risk the counter 4 if i am sure that i will take Fel down really easy. If not, i would maybe attack the other squadrons, that cause the problem (like Howlrunner or Dengar....).

I already said that though. And if you attack another squadron, it's likely you will take at least counter 1 from Dengar, or up to counter 3. So it's a tough choice.

One of the easiest ways to kill the ball is with AA.

Quasar 1 - 54

Stronghold - 5

Flight Controllers - 6

Expanded Hangers - 5

Total Price - 70

Being able to attack with 6 very nice Imp squads on the alpha...priceless.

Just now, CaribbeanNinja said:

Quasar 1 - 54

Stronghold - 5

Flight Controllers - 6

Expanded Hangers - 5

Total Price - 70

Being able to attack with 6 very nice Imp squads on the alpha...priceless.

Yeah it is delightful.

Here's my first attempt at something that might absorb a Sloane alpha.

Probably overdoing it with the YTs, but I've wanted to do something like that for a long time for a laugh. Could easily see trading out for two X Wings for a little more bomber.

I feel kind of gross using Rieekan, but eh, he's been knocked down a notch, so I won't feel too bad.

Might try to find a way to make room for BCC.

These days I'm running less fighters so for me Zik and 5 advance is all I want as they stay close to my ships and run protection

1 hour ago, RogueCommander said:

Here's my first attempt at something that might absorb a Sloane alpha.

Probably overdoing it with the YTs, but I've wanted to do something like that for a long time for a laugh. Could easily see trading out for two X Wings for a little more bomber.

I feel kind of gross using Rieekan, but eh, he's been knocked down a notch, so I won't feel too bad.

Might try to find a way to make room for BCC.

Sloane who?

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 400/400

Commander: General Rieekan

Assault Objective: Custom Objective
Defense Objective: Custom Objective
Navigation Objective: Custom Objective

Assault Frigate Mark II A (81 points)
- Gallant Haven ( 8 points)
- Walex Blissex ( 5 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Point-Defense Reroute ( 5 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
- Spinal Armament ( 9 points)
= 120 total ship cost

[ flagship ] Nebulon-B Escort Frigate (57 points)
- General Rieekan ( 30 points)
- Yavaris ( 5 points)
= 92 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Bright Hope ( 2 points)
- Toryn Farr ( 7 points)
- Expanded Hangar Bay ( 5 points)
= 32 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Adar Tallon ( 10 points)
= 28 total ship cost

1 Ten Numb ( 19 points)
1 Jan Ors ( 19 points)
1 Biggs Darklighter ( 19 points)
1 Wedge Antilles ( 19 points)
4 YT-1300s ( 52 points)

Card view link

Fleet created with Armada Warlords

This is exactly the kind of squadron ball that Sloan will be good at cracking with Ties throwing 5-6 blue dice and Sabre Squadron sniping Jan Ors with 6 blue dice. You can most likely kill two to three aces in one turn with just some small luck. No one would bother shooting at the YT-1300 until the aces are gone.

The problem is that the fleet becomes very slow and you are very likely to become out positioned by the opposing fleet. At least if you are pushing your squadrons around with Galant Haven and Yvaris. No one in their right mind will go straight in against them unless they come at you with two ISD or something which Galant Haven will never be able to deal with.

They send their bombers after your flotillas to draw out your fighter squadrons away from Gallant Haven, in a threat axis that means your fleet is moving away and you might loose control. Depends on how the ships formation looks like. The major problem is short control radius of the squadrons and slow squadrons which means a slow unwieldy fleet.

In my opinion a Madine fleet using MC30 and a more spread out squadron defense and offensive squadrons would be more effective, not to mention less vulnerable to several large ship fleets. The point would be to not allow Sloan to concentrate her forces too easily and having to split the Ties to cover the more offensive capable Rebel fighters from supporting the more maneuverable Madine ships. Would work well with Rieekan too.

The above fleet are just too vulnerable to a slew of other types of fleets as well... in my opinion.

15 minutes ago, jorgen_cab said:

This is exactly the kind of squadron ball that Sloan will be good at cracking with Ties throwing 5-6 blue dice and Sabre Squadron sniping Jan Ors with 6 blue dice. You can most likely kill two to three aces in one turn with just some small luck. No one would bother shooting at the YT-1300 until the aces are gone.

The problem is that the fleet becomes very slow and you are very likely to become out positioned by the opposing fleet. At least if you are pushing your squadrons around with Galant Haven and Yvaris. No one in their right mind will go straight in against them unless they come at you with two ISD or something which Galant Haven will never be able to deal with.

They send their bombers after your flotillas to draw out your fighter squadrons away from Gallant Haven, in a threat axis that means your fleet is moving away and you might loose control. Depends on how the ships formation looks like. The major problem is short control radius of the squadrons and slow squadrons which means a slow unwieldy fleet.

In my opinion a Madine fleet using MC30 and a more spread out squadron defense and offensive squadrons would be more effective, not to mention less vulnerable to several large ship fleets. The point would be to not allow Sloan to concentrate her forces too easily and having to split the Ties to cover the more offensive capable Rebel fighters from supporting the more maneuverable Madine ships. Would work well with Rieekan too.

The above fleet are just too vulnerable to a slew of other types of fleets as well... in my opinion.

I think you're being overly optimistic with the idea that 2-3 aces are going to go down in a turn. You also seem to be ignoring two double blue AAs that will help bring down squads as well.

but I guess we'll see - a whole new chance to experiment is upon us!

Just now, RogueCommander said:

I think you're being overly optimistic with the idea that 2-3 aces are going to go down in a turn. You also seem to be ignoring two double blue AAs that will help bring down squads as well.

but I guess we'll see - a whole new chance to experiment is upon us!

You will not see bomber squadrons attacking your Gallant Haven, they will move around and attack the trailing ships with bombers and force the fighters to leave Gallant Haven while assaulting Gallant Haven with their capital ships from a different angle.

The problem is that the fleet is forced to move extremely tight and be a very rigid formation and relatively week in ship to ship combat too.

Im not worried about bombers, I'm thinking about how to absorb and counter a Sloane alpha with a bunch of low hull Ties, which we're likely to see a lot of.

And like I said, XWings will likely be a good substitute for the YTs, if I feel I need to put the pedal to the medal. Additionally, I might know a few things about flying tight formations at speed three.

>shrug< it's an idea to test

Why would you not worry about bombers tearing your GR-75 apart in the rear?

If you run a large squadron fleet you should always bring bombers even if you run Sloan or a corvette or two to hit the rear of an enemy tight formation.

There are allot of missions as first player this fleet would basically automatically loose to as well. As a commander of any fleet no one would attack Gallant Haven with fighters and you would not really need to.

You obviously need to replace those YT with X-wings if you are going to go faster than speed two with your formation, even at speed three those X-Wings might struggle to keep up. As soon as you need to turn a tight formation of more than two maybe thee ships you are in big trouble.

I'm probably more used to building balanced fleets that have few if any weaknesses so I can win against any type fleet it is up against. Even if I run Sloan I would never just bring Tie-fighters and I would certainly not throw them at Gallant Haven. Perhaps it will work... I might just not see it...

Best of luck to you.

To answer the original question....nope! Not worried about Sloane one bit, looking forward to playing with her! It's gonna be awesome! ??

7 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

You're not wrong, but I think there's more than one way to use Soontir. Pairing him with Escort is the most obvious choice, but that doesn't work well for a Sloane Swarm Counter fleet. If you're worried about Soontir being attacked, you can take Stronghold and grant obstruction. You could add Zertik and Black Squad if you want Escort without sacrificing too many points. But running Soontir, Howl, Mauler, and Dengar, your opponent will have a tough choice picking who to attack. Attack Mauler, Howl or Dengar and take a point from Soontir. Attack Soontir and take counter 4 and leave Mauler alone.

Instead of attrition, these squads force hard choices in order to break down the synergy, while maintaining high quality squadron activations.

Yep, my usual has :

Soontir : Counter 4 + swarm reroll
Mauler : Counter 2 + swarm reroll
Rudor : Counter 2 + swarm reroll
Howlrunner : Counter 1 + swarm reroll
Vader : Counter 1 (75% chance of damage)
Dengar

Vader sits covering Dengar and Howlrunner. getting 2 rounds of activations with everyone but Vader gaining 2 dice is nasty, he gains 1 and man, 4 blue 1 black combining Vader + Sloanes abilities is ...ugh!

20 minutes ago, TheEasternKing said:

Yep, my usual has :

Soontir : Counter 4 + swarm reroll
Mauler : Counter 2 + swarm reroll
Rudor : Counter 2 + swarm reroll
Howlrunner : Counter 1 + swarm reroll
Vader : Counter 1 (75% chance of damage)
Dengar

Vader sits covering Dengar and Howlrunner. getting 2 rounds of activations with everyone but Vader gaining 2 dice is nasty, he gains 1 and man, 4 blue 1 black combining Vader + Sloanes abilities is ...ugh!

I'm starting to think some E Wings are in order....

10 hours ago, RogueCommander said:

I'm starting to think some E Wings are in order....

This is a list I came up with to utilize red bomber dice before the FAQ dropped. I think it's what your list you posted above was looking to do.

X's and E's

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 399/400

Commander: General Dodonna

Assault Objective: Station Assault
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Intel Sweep

Assault Frigate Mark II B (72 points)
- Gallant Haven ( 8 points)
- Skilled First Officer ( 1 points)
- Flight Controllers ( 6 points)
- Expanded Hangar Bay ( 5 points)
= 92 total ship cost

[ flagship ] CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
- General Dodonna ( 20 points)
- Jainas Light ( 2 points)
- Turbolaser Reroute Circuits ( 7 points)
= 73 total ship cost

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
- Turbolaser Reroute Circuits ( 7 points)
= 51 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Bomber Command Center ( 8 points)
= 26 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Bright Hope ( 2 points)
- Toryn Farr ( 7 points)
= 27 total ship cost

1 Jan Ors ( 19 points)
2 E-Wing Squadrons ( 30 points)
1 Wedge Antilles ( 19 points)
1 Norra Wexley ( 17 points)
2 X-Wing Squadrons ( 26 points)
1 Biggs Darklighter ( 19 points)

It used to have 2 BCC, but can't anymore so you're anti-ship attacks are a bit weaker. Luckily, I was using that second BCC about 25% of the time. With TRC nerfed, you could drop the naked TRC90 for a Torp HH and put ER or Flechette Torps on it. The list works well going first or second. The AF and Toryn Farr are your carriers. You should take a squad token first round on both which will let you activate all 8 squads in 2 activations. That leaves BCC and both TRC90s as activation padding so you can force your opponent to activate their squads first, which you can easily hold off with Biggs, GH and Jan, or force their ships into range.

The 3 objectives are defensive. I like to place stations in corners and force my opponent to come at me from 1 side. A TRC90 can be the objective ship from Intel Sweep.

I think this could be your generic Sloane buster. It's very hard to kill the squads and with 2 TRCs, it has some pretty good damage output from ships. I think this list will immediately die to a Sloane ISD list, just because they can alpha strike you from a longer range and an ISD can easily kill an AF.

22 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

This is a list I came up with to utilize red bomber dice before the FAQ dropped. I think it's what your list you posted above was looking to do.

X's and E's

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 399/400

Commander: General Dodonna

Assault Objective: Station Assault
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Intel Sweep

Assault Frigate Mark II B (72 points)
- Gallant Haven ( 8 points)
- Skilled First Officer ( 1 points)
- Flight Controllers ( 6 points)
- Expanded Hangar Bay ( 5 points)
= 92 total ship cost

[ flagship ] CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
- General Dodonna ( 20 points)
- Jainas Light ( 2 points)
- Turbolaser Reroute Circuits ( 7 points)
= 73 total ship cost

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
- Turbolaser Reroute Circuits ( 7 points)
= 51 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Bomber Command Center ( 8 points)
= 26 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Bright Hope ( 2 points)
- Toryn Farr ( 7 points)
= 27 total ship cost

1 Jan Ors ( 19 points)
2 E-Wing Squadrons ( 30 points)
1 Wedge Antilles ( 19 points)
1 Norra Wexley ( 17 points)
2 X-Wing Squadrons ( 26 points)
1 Biggs Darklighter ( 19 points)

It used to have 2 BCC, but can't anymore so you're anti-ship attacks are a bit weaker. Luckily, I was using that second BCC about 25% of the time. With TRC nerfed, you could drop the naked TRC90 for a Torp HH and put ER or Flechette Torps on it. The list works well going first or second. The AF and Toryn Farr are your carriers. You should take a squad token first round on both which will let you activate all 8 squads in 2 activations. That leaves BCC and both TRC90s as activation padding so you can force your opponent to activate their squads first, which you can easily hold off with Biggs, GH and Jan, or force their ships into range.

The 3 objectives are defensive. I like to place stations in corners and force my opponent to come at me from 1 side. A TRC90 can be the objective ship from Intel Sweep.

I think this could be your generic Sloane buster. It's very hard to kill the squads and with 2 TRCs, it has some pretty good damage output from ships. I think this list will immediately die to a Sloane ISD list, just because they can alpha strike you from a longer range and an ISD can easily kill an AF.

I like it. I was wondering if leaning in Yavaris was what was holding the other list back.

thanks!

On 6/30/2017 at 4:25 PM, jorgen_cab said:

her ability to give Ties extra potential against ships should not really be looked upon as you have no use of bombers.

If I were using sloan, I'd be saving my TIEs for after at least one or two activations of forcing my opponent to spend defence tokens, so I could burn them away. They may not be bombers, but forcing you to either not use your Brace, or risk losing it on turn 2 seems a pretty serious threat.