4 minutes ago, Church14 said:

Lesson learned: knowing when to fla instead of shooting ships is critical.

Truth.

I've found it's not uncommon for players to fixate on attacking ships whenever possible, even if they've got a juicy flak arc set up. I get why this happens (destroying ships wins you the game), but giving up a ship attack for a good flak attack on numerous squadrons is often much more effective.

1 hour ago, Church14 said:

She doesn't seem to do much if you are running buckets of dice in your anti-squad (Howlrummer/Ruthless/both interceptors). People forget that you tend to kill aces in 1-2 shots anyway. She does help generic TIEs though. Your crap acc-acc-hit roll? Burn that spent scatter and take one instead of having them take one while keeping that scatter.

she gives a craptastically unreliable-and-yet-somehow-super-potent anti-ship buff.

After yesterday, I feel she is set well at 24. First game I used yavaris to flak and double tap Ten, Dutch, and Wedge. 8/15 enemy squads dead in an activation. Takes the wind out of her. Last match of the day, blue-blue anti-squad powered by Toryn tore up a significant number of squads. Lesson learned: knowing when to fla instead of shooting ships is critical.

I stopped shooting ships with yav almost a year ago

- 4 blue dice environment.

Aces die after 3 shots statically speaking. You could kill them with just 2 but you roll bad if you need 4 or more.

In this environment Sloane gives NOTHING. As long as she doesn't modify your rolls, you will find accuracies easily enough to kill the aces without Sloane.

Only if you roll low and get 1 or 2 shots without accuracies, Sloane just keep the things into the average kill wasting one token use and killing the ace within 3 shots what you already had.

In this case all she does is to cover some bad rolls and only if there are accuracies involved. Exactly the opposite to the scatter token which is there to cover awesome rolls from the enemy.

- 3 blue dice environment.

Aces die after 4 shots. 5 if lucky.

Here is where Sloane gives more cause wasting a token use she is able to put down an ace with 3 shots. What would be statically hard with just 3 dice attacks.

However it only works if the accuracy is rolled during the first 2 attacks. If not Sloane gives nothing again.

So as far as I can see, in the dogfight, Sloane helps tie fighters and advanced almost pairing them with interceptors or phantoms. But interceptors are still better no matter if you take Sloane or not. The same for "howlrunered" ties or/and FC

She also helps defenders making just 1 accuracy enough to kill the ace with three attacks.

So at the end she keeps interceptors, phantoms, howlrunner swarms and FC ties as good as they are. And make non boosted advanced, fighter and defender save 1 shot. At the same time the imperial alpha nightmare doesn't care if Sloane supports it or not.

TL;DR

Sloane only helps if between all your attacks you rolled at least one during the two first attacks and no more than 2 accuracies.

If no one no help.

If one you will notice.

If two you will notice but the second is meaningless (from Sloane perspective)

If three or more Sloane means nothing.

Sloane has no real use in the squadron fight. The only bonus is against double brace squadrons, if you are able to spend 2 brace with one attack (one from your accuracy and one from the defender). You can kill double brace squadrons a bit faster this way.
But she is briliant when your squadrons go on ships. And this is where she shines.

The bad blue dice with a non bomber is suddenly great. A crit can be rerolled and the accuracy has an effect.
You went from a 50% chance for doing nothing to a 6.25% for doing nothing (crit, reroll crit).
This means that you are doing something usefull with a 93.75% chance.

Forget her on the squadron fight. That is not her main use.

10 hours ago, Boris_the_Dwarf said:

I'm all for things that create a challenge. Hating an entire group of named fighter pilots out of the game is horrible game design, especially following the decision to nerf the commander that kept it a fair fight.

Maybe what your railing against (and others have said this in other threads) isn't Sloane but the horrific combos that can be created (Howl/Dengar/ Interceptors/Flight Controllers/ Stronghold) that so far seem ubiquitous with her use.

I fell foul of just this combo on my first game vs Sloane and initially blamed her. On reflection it was the combo (and my playing to its strengths) that did me in, Sloane knocking off three tokens the entire game.

Anyone noticed that Sloane is fleet wide Toryn?

Just as Tagge is Walex and Cracken Montferrat. When do rebels get to add evades to all their ships?

17 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Anyone noticed that Sloane is fleet wide Toryn?

Just as Tagge is Walex and Cracken Montferrat. When do rebels get to add evades to all their ships?

Never going to happen.....MC80s with TRCs?

5 minutes ago, jamie nasmyth said:

Never going to happen.....MC80s with TRCs?

And without Ackbar. Its fine.

37 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Anyone noticed that Sloane is fleet wide Toryn?

Just as Tagge is Walex and Cracken Montferrat. When do rebels get to add evades to all their ships?

Well toyrn works on your ships too

ESPECIALLY your flak

39 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Anyone noticed that Sloane is fleet wide Toryn?

1/3 fleet wide to be more precise.

7 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Well toyrn works on your ships too

ESPECIALLY your flak

Toryn Nerf?

1 minute ago, Ginkapo said:

Toryn Nerf?

Going too Farr

On 7/22/2017 at 5:21 AM, Ginkapo said:

Ruthless Strategist is a hard counter to Sloane.

Still waiting for people to realise this.

Yes. Auto damage in general.

4 hours ago, GammonLord said:

Maybe what your railing against (and others have said this in other threads) isn't Sloane but the horrific combos that can be created (Howl/Dengar/ Interceptors/Flight Controllers/ Stronghold) that so far seem ubiquitous with her use.

I fell foul of just this combo on my first game vs Sloane and initially blamed her. On reflection it was the combo (and my playing to its strengths) that did me in, Sloane knocking off three tokens the entire game.

In fairness, this was the concern with Rieekan also. Not the commander, but the synergy chain.

A couple of other things about sloane counterplay from my still limited table experience (4 games, 2 with, 2 against)

Because her preffered squadron complement is often heavily invested in low hull squadrons, auto damage and strong flak is particularly effective. Ruthless Strategists, Mithel, Soontir, Boba, Ten Numb all provide solid auto damage.

It does somewhat exacerbate the issue that the rebels dont have a great ruthless platform, although the scout hammerhead can put it on the table for you with medium range for 45 points. Also, most squad stand based autodamge is imperial, so if you're a rebel player, I can see some frustration there. Although, I pulled off an adar/yavaris numb triple tap where if ten had procced each time, i would have wipped out his entire squadron force, save dengar and a lambda. Its a thing. Sadly, I messed up my activation order and got toryn killed.

The Biggs Ball is a little weaker against Sloane then other opponents, but the basic Jan ball suffers almost not at all as a result of sloane. Just watch out for six die saber snipes.

Speaking of Sniping, Ewings are pretty solid agaisnt those crazy counter balls you see when the scatter aces get together. Flight controllers help.

Anyway just a few thoughts.

You could always drip feed a few Reeiken Unique X-Wings? That basically nullifies every single benefit of Sloan for a few turns.

17 minutes ago, ImpStarDeuces said:

You could always drip feed a few Reeiken Unique X-Wings? That basically nullifies every single benefit of Sloan for a few turns.

Dengar

Just now, Ginkapo said:

Dengar

Maybe intersperse the X-Wings a bit? Put 1 or 2 at range 5 and then the rest more around range 1 and 2 of your ships? Just try to buy yourself some time just like against any other fighter heavy build.

7 minutes ago, ImpStarDeuces said:

Maybe intersperse the X-Wings a bit? Put 1 or 2 at range 5 and then the rest more around range 1 and 2 of your ships? Just try to buy yourself some time just like against any other fighter heavy build.

Yes but you can only Rieekan one

5 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Yes but you can only Rieekan one

One can be enough though? I guess I'm thinking of a Sloan ball barreling down on your ships. You engage the ball with a named Xwing. They Dengar it and move the Ball. You re-engage with another named X-Wing.

22 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Yes but you can only Rieekan one

This is a big part of the issue for me, but not all of it.If they had left Rieekan alone, the balance between him and Sloane would have been fine. You six-dice slaughtered my squadron of fighters during the ship phase, at least they get to shoot back once each.

The other problem I have with Sloan is that it's just all around poor game design. The "hero" fighters cost more and have unique abilities. To offset their higher cost, they also come with an extra layer of survivability, which makes sense. Sloane strips that in a synergistic build that removes the Star Wars named characters as an element of game play.

1 minute ago, Boris_the_Dwarf said:

This is a big part of the issue for me, but not all of it.If they had left Rieekan alone, the balance between him and Sloane would have been fine. You six-dice slaughtered my squadron of fighters during the ship phase, at least they get to shoot back once each.

The other problem I have with Sloan is that it's just all around poor game design. The "hero" fighters cost more and have unique abilities. To offset their higher cost, they also come with an extra layer of survivability, which makes sense. Sloane strips that in a synergistic build that removes the Star Wars named characters as an element of game play.

You could just Jan it?

-Edit- Jan Biggs, X-Wing ball should still work I think if you are worried about losing all of your fighter at once.

11 minutes ago, ImpStarDeuces said:

You could just Jan it?

-Edit- Jan Biggs, X-Wing ball should still work I think if you are worried about losing all of your fighter at once.

Yep. As I stated earlier, Jan/generics are unnaffected by sloane. With Aces she helps to mitigate vs the uber-accuracy.

I also like E-Wings as possible answer but havent yet tested them against her.

Hold up, was that other Sloane thread deleted??? I have no record of it in my posts, nor is it listed on Boris's profile.

2 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Hold up, was that other Sloane thread deleted??? I have no record of it in my posts, nor is it listed on Boris's profile.

Looks like.