The concept is a BiX-wing (for me: Biggs, Luke, Wedge, 3 regular X, Jan, Norra) assisted by 3 hammerheads with ruthless strategist, commanded by Rieekan. Basically you Just put all the damage on one of the X ace(ruthless+biggs). 1 squad for all the 3hull ones. Could this work?

In theory it works perfectly.

Just now, Ginkapo said:

In theory it works perfectly.

Im pleased to hear that:)

So while a vast chunk of your fleet is dealing with a swarm, the rest of its dying to your opponents ships.

Dont get blinkers on those Ties ?

11 minutes ago, Coldhands said:

The concept is a BiX-wing (for me: Biggs, Luke, Wedge, 3 regular X, Jan, Norra) assisted by 3 hammerheads with ruthless strategist, commanded by Rieekan. Basically you Just put all the damage on one of the X ace(ruthless+biggs). 1 squad for all the 3hull ones. Could this work?

There are two major flaws, but yes this does technically work.

First off, is that Biggs only works on damage that comes from attacks. Boba Fett, Mauler Mithel, Ten Numb, Soontir Fel, even Ruthless Strategists all do damage that can't be passed by his ability, so you have to keep that in mind.

Second is that the Immortal Biggs is something that is actually already rather common, so players have developed strategies to deal with him. Just keep this in mind, it's not going to be immediately easy.

One good option might be to simply make Biggs himself the target of all that damage, so that he survives one round while your other escorts proceed to kill as many targets as they can. The only reason you need a second Escort Ace is to have Biggs around for another go. As soon as that Escort is killed, opposing players are free to focus fire on Biggs himself and kill him immediately thanks to the new Rieekan errata.

38 minutes ago, Coldhands said:

The concept is a BiX-wing (for me: Biggs, Luke, Wedge, 3 regular X, Jan, Norra) assisted by 3 hammerheads with ruthless strategist, commanded by Rieekan. Basically you Just put all the damage on one of the X ace(ruthless+biggs). 1 squad for all the 3hull ones. Could this work?

If you want to abuse ruthless strategist with 3 Hammerhead and Rieekan, you should use the cheapest unique squadron you can find. Green Squadron or Gold Squadron. Killing your own unique X-Wing is a bit expensive (19 or 20) for it. Especially because these have special effects that you want to use.

After all it is really expensive to use 12 points for the 3 ruthless on the Hammerhead (scout version in this case), just for the case that you fight a Sloane list. it is to specific (imo).

A counter against Sloane? Maybe. A good counter? No.

If Sloane moves in with Ties that throw 5-6 blue dice a piece then Biggs ability will not be that big of a deal, especially not it you can snipe Jan Ors and spend her Braces early, after which you focus fire down the on normal X-Wings very fast before you can shoot back at all. Six Ties with that kind of fire-power are pretty devastating. This leave only the Aces left for turn two which all will be focused down together in the next activation. You also need to worry about Agent Kallus on a Quasar, can hurt a bit as well, especially if it also have ruthless strategist.

As long as you can keep them under AA fire you will probably be fine but so would you without relying on Rieekans abilities and just taking regular squadrons which give you more squadron hull and offensive dice to play with in general.

It looks good in theory but rarely play out that well in reality all things considering...

29 minutes ago, jorgen_cab said:

If Sloane moves in with Ties that throw 5-6 blue dice a piece then Biggs ability will not be that big of a deal, especially not it you can snipe Jan Ors and spend her Braces early, after which you focus fire down the on normal X-Wings very fast before you can shoot back at all. Six Ties with that kind of fire-power are pretty devastating. This leave only the Aces left for turn two which all will be focused down together in the next activation. You also need to worry about Agent Kallus on a Quasar, can hurt a bit as well, especially if it also have ruthless strategist.

As long as you can keep them under AA fire you will probably be fine but so would you without relying on Rieekans abilities and just taking regular squadrons which give you more squadron hull and offensive dice to play with in general.

It looks good in theory but rarely play out that well in reality all things considering...

Biggs is by far the best answer to a Tie swarm.

Your 6 dice (with Howlrunner and FC) from a Tie Interceptor give you max 6 damage. After brace its 3. With Biggs its 2 on the target and 1 on something else. So in best case you will need (with perfect rolls!) 3 Tie interceptors for one X-Wing. But perfect rolls are not so common. Better count with 4-5 Tie Intercetors just to take down one X-Wing (in the first combat round). After this its easier because the Brace Tokens from Jan will be gone. But the counterattack from the X-Wings will really hurt the Ties and might decimate them way more.

And this was even without Rieekan. With him it will be a real pain to get take down the X-Wings. So much damage will go into an already dead X-Wing.

If you are able to make the first combat round only a draw (kill at least one and dont lose to many), you will have the overhand for the next combat rounds. As soon as the brace tokens are all gone they die really fast.

And about sniping down Jan. Jan should be out of reach for you. No way to attack her at all. If you are able to do this, your opponent did something wrong....

10 minutes ago, Tokra said:

Biggs is by far the best answer to a Tie swarm.

Your 6 dice (with Howlrunner and FC) from a Tie Interceptor give you max 6 damage. After brace its 3. With Biggs its 2 on the target and 1 on something else. So in best case you will need (with perfect rolls!) 3 Tie interceptors for one X-Wing. But perfect rolls are not so common. Better count with 4-5 Tie Intercetors just to take down one X-Wing (in the first combat round). After this its easier because the Brace Tokens from Jan will be gone. But the counterattack from the X-Wings will really hurt the Ties and might decimate them way more.

And this was even without Rieekan. With him it will be a real pain to get take down the X-Wings. So much damage will go into an already dead X-Wing.

If you are able to make the first combat round only a draw (kill at least one and dont lose to many), you will have the overhand for the next combat rounds. As soon as the brace tokens are all gone they die really fast.

And about sniping down Jan. Jan should be out of reach for you. No way to attack her at all. If you are able to do this, your opponent did something wrong....

Problem is that with five or six dice you will not be able to use those braces very often, I know from experience. Sloan even spend braces on the Tie counterattacks... very nasty.

As I said... looks good on paper but very difficult to pull off in reality... I know.

The biggest drawback is that it is a very rigid static and PREDICTABLE formation that rely on ONE single strategy, in my opinion that is the biggest flaw.

As long as you can keep them under AA fire you might whittle down the Ties faster than they destroy you.

Personally I would only keep Jan Ors and one of the other Aces plus two X-Wings and then add some Y-Wings. Give more of a real threat to deal with and Ruthless Strategist can be used to put damage on the Y-Wings. I also think that using named squadrons is better if you use Rieekan since they are cheap and useful upgrades.

11 minutes ago, jorgen_cab said:

Problem is that with five or six dice you will not be able to use those braces very often, I know from experience. Sloan even spend braces on the Tie counterattacks... very nasty.

Well. 4 times for sure (Jan). And a few times when you attacking named unique X-Wings. Unless you are rolling 2 accuracy on each attack. But this way Jan can reduce them to 2 and biggs to 1+1.

And as i said. After the first combat round it is easier for the Ties. Most of the brace tokens will be gone after this first attack. At least the 2 on Jan.

Yes... if Jan Ors are able to hide which is easier said than done in my experience.

Alpha strikes are usually done late in a turn and then those six or more Ties activate as early next turn as well. That is the price you usually pay for being passive and unless you can activate many squadrons yourself will get out activated and just destroyed. Most Sloan squadron forces have at least ten to twelve squadrons in them and most likely high activation numbers as well. At least my fleets have since that is key with Imperial carrier fleets.

I have been on both sides of that equation and done several things to either mitigate or increase my chances of success. First of it is NOT about just raw numbers, the fact that Biggs make you rigid, slow and none dynamic is something the opponent should capitalize on and get them under severe flak crossfire or simply force them to either leave their formation or start loosing ships someplace else.

X-Wings are not fantastic bombers either so you usually are not that scared of that squadron ball for those reasons which will impact your overall tactics for dealing with them.

2 hours ago, Coldhands said:

The concept is a BiX-wing (for me: Biggs, Luke, Wedge, 3 regular X, Jan, Norra) assisted by 3 hammerheads with ruthless strategist, commanded by Rieekan. Basically you Just put all the damage on one of the X ace(ruthless+biggs). 1 squad for all the 3hull ones. Could this work?

Why Norra? What is her purpose? The purpose of the squadron compsition is obviously not antiship. I'd rather go with another X-wing instead, even Dutch since youre flying along with Wedge.

42 minutes ago, xerpo said:

Why Norra? What is her purpose? The purpose of the squadron compsition is obviously not antiship. I'd rather go with another X-wing instead, even Dutch since youre flying along with Wedge.

Norra is durable, not heavy, and has an extremely useful effect if you need to throw those squads against ships (such as a low/no-squad fleet).

Funnily enough played against a Sloan Interceptor swarm last night using a Biggs/Jan ball (though notably not with Rieekan).

Sloane combined with Stronghold, Dengar, Howlrunner and flightcontrollers made for Interceptors not only dishing out 6 blues on the attack, but 4 on the counter with my attacks being obstructed. X wing ball was utterly ruined by turn 3, with Jan alone fleeing the fray to mitigate point loss.

Like someone said earlier, Biggs is "a" counter to Sloane swarms, but maybe not a good one.

2 hours ago, xerpo said:

Why Norra? What is her purpose? The purpose of the squadron compsition is obviously not antiship. I'd rather go with another X-wing instead, even Dutch since youre flying along with Wedge.

All it really needs is a BCC transport to support it and that's a pretty effective mixed force. It has 7 bombers in that group.

A way better strategy using Rebels in general are probably to be more proactive and take a mixed large squadron count and use things like flight-controllers with E-Wings, X-Wings, A-Wings and Y-Wings combined and use proactive tactics depending on the situation during the battle. I would even look at VCX for its strategic effect as well, VCX are pretty sturdy and overall good squadrons in a fight too.

I think that if you just bring your relatively balanced squadron force you can win the overall fleet battle. You might not beat a 134p of Tie-fighter/intercept fighter wing, might be nearly impossible to beat with rebels if supported properly, but you can still win the battle if you play your cards right.

A large mixed rebel wing with enough Intel might do enough damage with a Bomber command before they die... there are many ways you can view the squadron game. A swarm of say Jan Ors and one more HWK-290 and only Y-Wings would be able to more or less ignore those Ties for enough time to do huge amount of damage before they die. If supported by a proper fleet and able to operate under AA they can do enough damage in the Ties in return to turn the tide. A-wings probably work better than X-Wings in general against Tie-fighters.

I also find it more useful to be proactive and use the Escort ability to force the opponent to split fire rather than using Biggs ability, work really well. E-Wings with Flight Controllers to kill Dengar or Howlrunner, preferably with AA and ruthless strategist if possible.

My preference are proactive rather than passive use of my forces, t bthat way I can'e predicted from battle to battle how they will act.

3 hours ago, GammonLord said:

Funnily enough played against a Sloan Interceptor swarm last night using a Biggs/Jan ball (though notably not with Rieekan).

Sloane combined with Stronghold, Dengar, Howlrunner and flightcontrollers made for Interceptors not only dishing out 6 blues on the attack, but 4 on the counter with my attacks being obstructed. X wing ball was utterly ruined by turn 3, with Jan alone fleeing the fray to mitigate point loss.

Like someone said earlier, Biggs is "a" counter to Sloane swarms, but maybe not a good one.

Add the Gallant Haven to the Biggs ball. Or dont allow his fighter to stay under the Stronghold screen, and it will become way better. If you made the fault to play their game, you have already lost.
And if there are Interceptors with 4 Counter i suggest to attack these that add the counter dice first (Howlrunner and Dengar ), and not attacking the interceptors.

But yes, this is what i see as a problem as well. Biggs Ball is one of the best counter for Sloane. I never said it is a good one . But this means that there are no good counter against sloane right now (beside biggs) imo. Or i just didnt see them. Maybe no counter but a stall could be enough already to kill the ships while a few squadrons just distract the Ties (~8 A-Wings).
But a good and adjusted Sloane list is really dangerous and hard to stop for the rebells. Imperials have is way easier. GSD II with Demo is really good. And Kallus is as well great for it. Even the ISD with the two blue dice can harm the squadrons.

Sadly one counter would be (and its hard that i have to say it): kill the ships. I always said a squadron list can only be beaten by another squadron list. But it might be really hard to stop a Sloane list without Sloane. So killing the ships is the best way to stop the squadrons right now.
If the carrier is an ISD or quasar it is at least possible. Just kill the carrier before the squadrons kill your ships . But if the carrier are gozanti, who control the squadrons via relay, it wil be hard. Killing the shuttles might be the best way in this case.
Or use AA from the ships. Two blue with Toryn might kill the Ties really well (as long as these are not all the aces). And Quad laser turrets could be usefull again. Sloane lists might not use rhymer. So the distance 1 counter could work again.

It might be that i overreact a bit. And overestimate the Sloane lists. And maybe they are easier to beat than it seems. But i have done and watched quite a few Sloane matches so far (with Sloane and against). And have a good image of the strenght and weakness.
But to all who said that the Sloane lists, they played against, were bad, and they won so easy, ask yourself a question. Who was your oppoenent and how good was the sloane list.

My Vassal Sloane list for example. It is a Sloane list. But not a good one. I made to many mistakes in it. Mainly because of unexperience for her, for testing reasons, or any other. But i would change so many on the squadron part right now, that would improve the list. And it was without the new FAQ in mind (Slone on a gozanti, Rhymer with full range).

And PS: sorry for the little drift away from the OP thread. It was about Biggs/Rieekan, and not about general counter for Sloane . But i got carried away.

@TokraJust run no squads against Sloane....

3 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

@TokraJust run no squads against Sloane....

That's what I did last week. Worked pretty well!

This really is no rocket science... math will not always help because there are effects during a game that change the dynamic of how squadrons work.

You can even beat the all internceptor Sloane fleet with using the right tactics.

Saving your squadrons from dying might not be possible all the time. I also don't think Biggs need to be the best defence either. I say there are multiple ways to do it depending on your play-style.

Could also intel to ignore the immortal blob

Intel seems nice for sloane in general

Plus dengar for Counter 1 tie fighters or counter 3 ceptors

10 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Could also intel to ignore the immortal blob

Intel seems nice for sloane in general

Plus dengar for Counter 1 tie fighters or counter 3 ceptors

With Howlrunner that is Counter 2 on Ties and 4 on Interceptors (plus Swarm if applicable), pretty sick and work really well as a deterrent to attacking them, especially if protected with Stronghold.

I had a Sloan force at 400p with Lambda, Howlrunner, Dengar, 3x Tie-fighters, 1xInterceptor, Saber Squadron, 4xTie-Bombers

I also had a Quasar with Flight-Controllers and a Gozanti with Bomber Command Center.

Bombers both spend tokens and do damage at the same time, Tie-fighters are good when they attack a ship with already spent tokens. Bombers move in first and Tie-fighters second. Do way more damage than just zooming around with Ties.

Those Ties are strong enough against enemy fighters as they are.

Usual tactic that works with both rebels and Imperials are to attack with bombers in a place where the opponent will have a problem reaching with all fighters and then move fighters in and attack while they are disorganized and split up.

Or if you can and have the opportunity you alpha strike opponent squadrons with you last move and then activate them again with your first move for maximum damage,

You also send bombers in a vector where the opponent ships are moving from and you are moving against that way they will usually have trouble intercepting and command those squadron while your ships can move in and support them. These are all basic concepts but worth mentioning.

Relying on maximal counter-shenanigans with Dengar has always been a bit hit and miss...

Load up on Interceptors + Dengar, and they just shoot Dengar, who has no counter.

Throw Escort in there to protect Dengar, and now they're shooting the Escort with Counter 1 (or 3 2 in the case of Black Squadron)... Rather than shooting the Interceptors with Counter 4...

Never really see someone hit that perfect balance of both, which enables both through good positioning.

Since the CC campaign came out, Black Squadron tends to lean that way of usefullnes.s.. But its also a Unique that's otherwise irreplaceable and unreplicateable.

28 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Relying on maximal counter-shenanigans with Dengar has always been a bit hit and miss...

Load up on Interceptors + Dengar, and they just shoot Dengar, who has no counter.

Throw Escort in there to protect Dengar, and now they're shooting the Escort with Counter 1 (or 3 in the case of Black Squadron)... Rather than shooting the Interceptors with Counter 4...

Never really see someone hit that perfect balance of both, which enables both through good positioning.

I agree 100% with this... all squadron tactics are about positioning. Not just the squadrons but also your ships.

13 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

Relying on maximal counter-shenanigans with Dengar has always been a bit hit and miss...

Load up on Interceptors + Dengar, and they just shoot Dengar, who has no counter.

Throw Escort in there to protect Dengar, and now they're shooting the Escort with Counter 1 (or 3 in the case of Black Squadron)... Rather than shooting the Interceptors with Counter 4...

Never really see someone hit that perfect balance of both, which enables both through good positioning.

Since the CC campaign came out, Black Squadron tends to lean that way of usefullnes.s.. But its also a Unique that's otherwise irreplaceable and unreplicateable.

I must be missing something. How does Black Squadron get counter 3?