7 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

Are we sure about that? You still reveal the dial outside of close range. And then you arent resolving a squadron command post manuever, you are discarding it for boarding troopers. Im not convinced that works the way you think it does. Dont see it on the rules forum either.

The way I did Boarding Troopers was I had Grand inquisitor on ISD for slowing down as I approached, and took a squadron command round 1 and banked the token. Then I did a couple rounds of navs, used the token to trigger the troopers at close range, then the following turn was doing squadron commands to take over for my invariably dead Quasar that was originally pushing them. I guess one question is, and I was always naving the round I did Boarding Troopers so it never came up, but can you just discard a squadron token and keep the squadron dial, so you have exhausted tokens and then squads to command? I am thinking that is how it works, but like I said I was naving when I did it.

7 minutes ago, Caldias said:

The way I did Boarding Troopers was I had Grand inquisitor on ISD for slowing down as I approached, and took a squadron command round 1 and banked the token. Then I did a couple rounds of navs, used the token to trigger the troopers at close range, then the following turn was doing squadron commands to take over for my invariably dead Quasar that was originally pushing them. I guess one question is, and I was always naving the round I did Boarding Troopers so it never came up, but can you just discard a squadron token and keep the squadron dial, so you have exhausted tokens and then squads to command? I am thinking that is how it works, but like I said I was naving when I did it.

Well what I meant was, I'm pretty sure you have to trigger boarding troopers at the top of your activation right after you reveal a dial, whatever that dial is. And I don't believe you can use Flight Commander to sort of delay that trigger the way you would delay activiating squadrons, because you aren't resolving a squadron command to trigger the card, which I thought @Baltanok was suggesting in his post.

@Baltanok incredible detailed educating and strategic information. @Ginkapo thanks for the graph. Though I can't remember what the base assumptions are for applying standard deviation. If dice count as qualifying

Just now, Madaghmire said:

Well what I meant was, I'm pretty sure you have to trigger boarding troopers at the top of your activation right after you reveal a dial, whatever that dial is. And I don't believe you can use Flight Commander to sort of delay that trigger the way you would delay activiating squadrons, because you aren't resolving a squadron command to trigger the card.

Oh I totally agree there. I don't even think there is a question, card is clear. "When you reveal a command dial, you can spend a squadron dial or token and the card to make your opponent weep a number of tears equal to your squadron value." Or something like that.

Just now, Caldias said:

Oh I totally agree there. I don't even think there is a question, card is clear. "When you reveal a command dial, you can spend a squadron dial or token and the card to make your opponent weep a number of tears equal to your squadron value." Or something like that.

What you could do is to spend a banked token for the card and then use "Flight Commander" to activate squadrons with the dial and try to spend the exhausted tokens. That might be what he meant since that was implied as something you could do in the first sentence.

Just now, jorgen_cab said:

What you could do is to spend a banked token for the card and then use "Flight Commander" to activate squadrons with the dial and try to spend the exhausted tokens. That might be what he meant since that was implied as something you could do in the first sentence.

I guess my question there is why? Because Boarding Troopers is going to trigger before the squadron command either way, so I don't see the value Flight Commander is bringing. I would rather plink with my squadrons first to get my opponent to discard defense tokens before the carrier takes its shot, personally.

That's just it...

Boarding Troopers is going to happen first.

Then the decision is up to you:

Non-Flight-Commander means your Squadrons activate now, have the chance to strip tokens completely, before your Ship Shoots.

or

Flight Commander means your ship shoots now, and your Squadrons are used as a finisher.

Essentially... This boils down, on the Imperial Side, wether you have Avenger or not.

If you have Avenger - all you need is the Tokens Spent once. So you can have Flight Commander as insurance - if the Ship lives through Avenger, then the Squadrons are Finishers.

But i fyou don't have Avenger, but you have Sloane - its probably best to have the Squadrons try to finish the Token Stripping first, before the Ship opens fire on what is hopefully a brace-less/redirect-less target.

I did some math similar to the OP was was thrilled by the same conclusions.
People often claim that the most powerful/broken upgrades in the game are the ones that let you bypass one major tactical or strategic element of the game. This is what Sloane does, and I'm not talking about defense tokens, I am talking about building your fighter wing.

There is a sort of rock paper scissors when it comes to choosing what squadrons you take in Armada. Bombers hurt ships, and killing ships is how you win the game, a list with a lot of bombers will do serious damage to a list without fighters. But a list with a lot of interceptors (squadrons good at killing other squadrons) does very well against a list with a lot of bombers. But a list without many squadrons at all beats a list with a lot of interceptors. It get's more complicated than this, but the usefulness of your squadrons depends on what you opponents brings.

Sloane lets you bypass this (to some degree) TIEs (and to a lesser extent TIE Interceptors) with the proper upgrade are great no matter how many fighters you opponent has. Yes they do slightly less damage that bombers, only slightly. TIE fighters aren't bombers they are anti-fighter squadrons. What this means is that you can bring Sloane with a bunch of TIEs and be great no matter how many or what squadrons your opponent brings.

People who bring anti-squadron fighters don't usually bring too many because they don't waste too many points on squadrons aren't very effective against ships, so a whole bunch of TIEs should easily be able to overwhelm them.

TIEs should do even better against Bomber heavy lists.

And since TIEs with Sloane are so good against ships (only slightly less effective that TIE Bombers) they are going to smash enemy ships.

Sloane's magic isn't that it just makes fighters better it is that she makes fighters good in every situation.

Now TIEs do have some natural disadvantages that Sloane doesn't fix. Primarily they die pretty fast to anti-fighter AA fire from ships. I think we will see anti-fighter raiders become more common to combat TIE swarms.

She nasty on named squadrons as she is read she can trigger yheir tokens also

13 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

Run Sloane with Avenger or OP on a Raider with DC.

I don't think you need to force a discard with Sloane if you follow up with an attack. Spending 2 or 3 tokens and make your opponent decide if they want to discard them allowing further attacks to be more effective.

I tested Sloane, Avenger; Raider II (concentrate fire orders) with Gunnery Team (!), DC and OP; and Jendon/Maarek, 5 Defenders. Ackbar's MC80 and his flotillas didn't stand a chance.

8 minutes ago, Lord Preyer said:

I tested Sloane, Avenger; Raider II (concentrate fire orders) with Gunnery Team (!), DC and OP; and Jendon/Maarek, 5 Defenders. Ackbar's MC80 and his flotillas didn't stand a chance.

... This looks like a fun list. Raider2 with GT and OP???? What madman are you.

Though tie Defenders via sloane seem to be kind of a wash. 16 points per blue die? yuck! And 6/8 are damaging hits anyways....

1 minute ago, Blail Blerg said:

... This looks like a fun list. Raider2 with GT and OP???? What madman are you.

Though tie Defenders via sloane seem to be kind of a wash. 16 points per blue die? yuck! And 6/8 are damaging hits anyways....

Thanks! It was very, very fun and I greatly enjoyed the madness. In fact I messaged @Ginkapo as soon as I thought of it because I was so excited with my Death Star Raider!

As for the Defenders, I'd be interested in people's thoughts on them and Sloane. I like the 100%ness of them and when I combine them with BCC the shenanigans are even sillier.

Also, Defenders because 'TIE FIGHTER: COLLECTOR'S EDITION' so there.

I still think you are insane if it helps.

19 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

*Maths

you know after living in the states a 11 years and recently becoming a citizen I still do not understand why the plural of Math is not maths.

13 minutes ago, jamie nasmyth said:

you know after living in the states a 11 years and recently becoming a citizen I still do not understand why the plural of Math is not maths.

Because "mathematics" (for which "math" is a shortened version) is a class of subject matter. It is similar to the term "physics". When you learn two different concepts in physics you don't say that you have " mastered those physicses". You just say you have "mastered the physics of that situation". At least that's what my American version of English hears.

Cheers!

8 minutes ago, RobertK said:

Because "mathematics" (for which "math" is a shortened version) is a class of subject matter. It is similar to the term "physics". When you learn two different concepts in physics you don't say that you have " mastered those physicses". You just say you have "mastered the physics of that situation". At least that's what my American version of English hears.

Cheers!

But maths is more fun to say

20 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

But maths is more fun to say

I prefer "maths" over "math" on paper, but as a non-native speaker, man that's a difficult sequence of consonant sounds to pronounce. Even worse than the "sh-s" in "English speaker".

15 hours ago, Vergilius said:

I think the 5 damage you're doing from the Ties will be just as meaningful if not moreso than the 2 discards. I think the biggest loser for Sloan is the no-squadron build, because even if you could have given up some attacks on your squads, the fact that any defense tokens that you do spend might become easily discarded affects your decision points.

My sense is that Sloan is going to be at her best winning the squadron game with squads, while winning the ship game with ships, and then getting some support from your squads. If you do win the squad game early, then you get support from your squads against the opponent's ships.

You are on the right track. Sloane increases the chances of your imperial AA list beating a ship list, bringing it closer to bombers, but still not there. As far as the AA game itself, squad on squad, she honestly doesn't change that much. If you push the damage and block the scatter is no different than pushing the damage and burning the scatter.

So a Sloane AA list is less scared of all ships, is how I look at it, due to slightly increased utility.

"math" would be short for mathematic (adj)

"maths" is short for mathematics (n)

Hence maths seems more correct when discussing the subject.

Just my linguistic POV

20 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

Run Sloane with Avenger

This is the play. I don't need to strip your tokens. I'll just tap them, then you can't use them. If I can force a discard, that's all to the good.

Plus you forget, 6 damage is nothing to sneeze at, they are going to have to spend those redirects to mitigate that damage as well which means you only need to spend that brace with the acc and have avenger move in for the big shot

http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/12/08/math_versus_maths_how_americans_and_brits_deploy_the_collective_noun.html

2 hours ago, Vergilius said:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/12/08/math_versus_maths_how_americans_and_brits_deploy_the_collective_noun.html

Number of people Math sent to the moon: 12
Number of people Maths sent to the moon: 0

Checkmate, Anglos.

2 hours ago, Valca said:

Number of people Math sent to the moon: 12
Number of people Maths sent to the moon: 0

Checkmate, Anglos.

The question is more how many undesirables did maths send to the colonies ?

56 minutes ago, Valca said:

Number of people Math sent to the moon: 12
Number of people Maths sent to the moon: 0

Checkmate, Anglos.

And what exactly did that achieve? I mean do you ever stop and think, what was the point.

Whoopdiflippingdo. So we got to the moon. And..... played golf.

Good job guys.