A lot of whining about Sloane lately, so I for one welcome back our imperial AA overlords. Imps have always had massively great fighter alpha strikes that will delete your very soul. This isn't new, this isn't because of Sloane, although we are seeing more of it because she is that archaetype. Thing is she isn't that archaetype, so much as supporting it BEYOND the squadron game.

Sloane and Sato have something in common, both require you to win the squadron game before you can actually get much out of them. Sloane burning tokens on squads is miniscule, the imp alpha was going to rip those squads apart on contact regardless. That's what they do, because if they don't, they melt like ice cream on a hot summer day.

Seriously, folks have been so used to the reb dominance (and I still believe imps are back foot to rebels currently, in flotilla meta especially as they save a good 15 points on their activation padding) that they have forgotten what the imp squads are actually good at, especially when they other imperial tools that kept them moving also got hit with the bat.

Welcome back swarms, welcome back face melting alphas. We've missed you.

(Will come back to edit inevitable phone typos).

I have only played against Sloane three times, but I don't understand why everyone is freaking out so much. My last game I only had Tycho and Shara for squads. Tycho did just about nothing, and all Shara did was able to kill a single Tie before she died, and cause one damage on another. But then I killed the Quasar (who would have been sliced otherwise expect for Pursuant). And then the Ties never really bothered me again.

I was surprised how little Sloane's ties did against ships. At first I thought it was overpowered to reroll crits. And I imagined all my tokens disappearing. But even if there are 4 ties attacking one ship, chances are you are still only getting one accuracy. And then your Flak kicks in and you are fine.

And if you are really scared, get Blissex.

Freaking out because she's new

I, for one, welcome the opportunity to finally work "there's...TOO MANY!" squadrons into a viable fleet

Just doesn't seem like empire if you ain't drowning in TIEs

The main thing I see people crying about is the complete dominance of the squadron mini-game you see in Sloane fleets due to Howlrunner and Flight Controllers on a Quasar just pushing aside squadron opposition early through buckets of blue dice. This has nearly nothing to do with Sloane directly: it's something Imperials could always do, albeit on more expensive platforms (VSDs). The Quasar is more a culprit here than Sloane is (due to being a cost-effective Flight Controllers/carrier platform); the main benefit derived from Sloane is that those fighters get to do something once they're done mopping up enemy squadrons even if in the grand scheme of things it's not always that impressive unless the wipe-out happens so early that they're just picking on defenseless ships from turn 3 or so.

If your anti-squadron plan is destroyed by turn 2 then that's on you, man. You committed a strategic error (didn't invest enough into fighters and/or flak) and/or a tactical error (left a big blob of your fighters sitting out there to get alpha struck into ashes, didn't use flak well). There's nothing wrong with saying "hey, that was a frustrating outcome and I should learn from that." What most of us are annoyed with are those who are coming in crying about the much-improved Imperial anti-squadron options nowadays (after a period of Rebel squadron dominance that began in waves 3/4 and reached a peak in wave 5) and demanding nerfs so they can go effectively go back to how things used to be. There are growing pains in every wave. With very limited exceptions, errata was not required, but mindset changes were.

8 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

The main thing I see people crying about is the complete dominance of the squadron mini-game you see in Sloane fleets due to Howlrunner and Flight Controllers on a Quasar just pushing aside squadron opposition early through buckets of blue dice. This has nearly nothing to do with Sloane directly: it's something Imperials could always do, albeit on more expensive platforms (VSDs). The Quasar is more a culprit here than Sloane is (due to being a cost-effective Flight Controllers/carrier platform); the main benefit derived from Sloane is that those fighters get to do something once they're done mopping up enemy squadrons even if in the grand scheme of things it's not always that impressive unless the wipe-out happens so early that they're just picking on defenseless ships from turn 3 or so.

If your anti-squadron plan is destroyed by turn 2 then that's on you, man. You committed a strategic error (didn't invest enough into fighters and/or flak) and/or a tactical error (left a big blob of your fighters sitting out there to get alpha struck into ashes, didn't use flak well). There's nothing wrong with saying "hey, that was a frustrating outcome and I should learn from that." What most of us are annoyed with are those who are coming in crying about the much-improved Imperial anti-squadron options nowadays (after a period of Rebel squadron dominance that began in waves 3/4 and reached a peak in wave 5) and demanding nerfs so they can go effectively go back to how things used to be. There are growing pains in every wave. With very limited exceptions, errata was not required, but mindset changes were.

I have to change how i think of things when new stuff comes out? This is bull****! How dare I have to take into consideration a ship that can push 6 TIE fighters forwards throwing 4 blue dice each! No, no, clearly its Sloane that's the issue here. Also, people not throwing flak out of their ship confuses me. If you're bringing a token force, you need to supplement it with flak or you gonna get rekt.

Are people actually using Sloane with Ties? My meta is all Slone and defenders.

Edit: and Squall. And Lambdas. And Avenger/BT ISD 1s.

15 minutes ago, TaeSWXW said:

Are people actually using Sloane with Ties? My meta is all Slone and defenders.

Regular TIE Fighters and TIE Interceptors as well as the ace versions, yes.

General consensus is Defenders don't have as much synergy with her. They don't roll enough blue dice against enemy ace squadrons to reliably generate accuracy results and because they're bombers already, you're spending some points on Sloane's ability to reroll crits against ships that you generally want to keep anyways. They're also rather pricey if you're looking to get several ship or squadron attacks in and aren't as cost-effective at anti-squadron as TIE Fighters or Interceptors, especially when you're including Howlrunner and/or Flight Controllers.

I don't think they're bad, mind you, but I have thus far found the "not as much synergy as other options" argument fairly convincing.

9 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

I, for one, welcome the opportunity to finally work "there's...TOO MANY!" squadrons into a viable fleet

Just doesn't seem like empire if you ain't drowning in TIEs

I ran a dual ISD, 15 TIE fleet once, before Sloane. . . does that count?

3 hours ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

I ran a dual ISD, 15 TIE fleet once, before Sloane. . . does that count?

No

You could fit 1more tie in 134 points

Don't forget the TIE Phantoms! Sloane has brought them back with a vengeance in our north-Austin meta.

27 minutes ago, Democratus said:

Don't forget the TIE Phantoms! Sloane has brought them back with a vengeance in our north-Austin meta.

How have they been doing? I've been very curious about play experience with Sloane and the Phantom but I haven't seen it yet on the tables where I play or online, which is a shame.

9 hours ago, Snipafist said:

Regular TIE Fighters and TIE Interceptors as well as the ace versions, yes.

General consensus is Defenders don't have as much synergy with her. They don't roll enough blue dice against enemy ace squadrons to reliably generate accuracy results and because they're bombers already, you're spending some points on Sloane's ability to reroll crits against ships that you generally want to keep anyways. They're also rather pricey if you're looking to get several ship or squadron attacks in and aren't as cost-effective at anti-squadron as TIE Fighters or Interceptors, especially when you're including Howlrunner and/or Flight Controllers.

I don't think they're bad, mind you, but I have thus far found the "not as much synergy as other options" argument fairly convincing.

It's interesting. In the other rage thread, there is agreement that if you are simply throwing a lot of dice, Sloane doesn't benefit you unless you roll poorly. So Tie/D+ FC is 5. Howl+Fc can get you 6. So does it really matter for the anti-squad game if you have 8 Tie/D tossing 4-5 dice? You will crush your opponent with the weight of your dice. Same for 12 Tie/F or I. With or without Sloane, you win with a ton of attacks.

I do think Tie/D with Sloane attacking ships is a waste. You're not getting value from her in the squad game, so you're paying 24 points for only her Acc ability against ships. Better off taking BCC and another commander for nearly the same cost.

32 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

How have they been doing? I've been very curious about play experience with Sloane and the Phantom but I haven't seen it yet on the tables where I play or online, which is a shame.

They can do a neat trick where they bomb a ship with black AS dice - and then shuffle out of close range at the end of the squad phase. Unless we were measuring wrong.

Two red dice with re-rolls on crits also pose a decent threat against ships. And with 4 blue dice they are no slouches in anti-squadron.

33 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

It's interesting. In the other rage thread, there is agreement that if you are simply throwing a lot of dice, Sloane doesn't benefit you unless you roll poorly. So Tie/D+ FC is 5. Howl+Fc can get you 6. So does it really matter for the anti-squad game if you have 8 Tie/D tossing 4-5 dice? You will crush your opponent with the weight of your dice. Same for 12 Tie/F or I. With or without Sloane, you win with a ton of attacks.

I do think Tie/D with Sloane attacking ships is a waste. You're not getting value from her in the squad game, so you're paying 24 points for only her Acc ability against ships. Better off taking BCC and another commander for nearly the same cost.

Which is why I need all of you to stop talking about why it is a bad combo before they figure it out and swap Jerry back in.

Avenger/BT is a lot less scary without Jerry. I need them to keep Jerry off the board.

10 hours ago, Snipafist said:

Regular TIE Fighters and TIE Interceptors as well as the ace versions, yes.

General consensus is Defenders don't have as much synergy with her. They don't roll enough blue dice against enemy ace squadrons to reliably generate accuracy results and because they're bombers already, you're spending some points on Sloane's ability to reroll crits against ships that you generally want to keep anyways. They're also rather pricey if you're looking to get several ship or squadron attacks in and aren't as cost-effective at anti-squadron as TIE Fighters or Interceptors, especially when you're including Howlrunner and/or Flight Controllers.

I don't think they're bad, mind you, but I have thus far found the "not as much synergy as other options" argument fairly convincing.

So, yes. But I will say I deleted admo with a goz two squad activation followed by four squad quasar push, 2 phantoms, 2 defenders, mareek:jendon eifel tower. By the time it was over, admo was out of tokens, stripped of its front shields and had 2 remaining hull, which is when the quasar popped it from red with her red dice. And part of that was getting value from defender accuracy rolls. The other part was just really, really mean phantoms.

1 hour ago, Madaghmire said:

So, yes. But I will say I deleted admo with a goz two squad activation followed by four squad quasar push, 2 phantoms, 2 defenders, mareek:jendon eifel tower. By the time it was over, admo was out of tokens, stripped of its front shields and had 2 remaining hull, which is when the quasar popped it from red with her red dice. And part of that was getting value from defender accuracy rolls. The other part was just really, really mean phantoms.

I mean I don't dispute that happened, but did the Defenders do something special that made them better than just using two cheaper TIEs there?

10 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

I mean I don't dispute that happened, but did the Defenders do something special that made them better than just using two cheaper TIEs there?

They were just like, super sexy. I mean it was crazy how good they looked.

I think one forced admo to discard an evade or suffer a crit.

23 hours ago, Snipafist said:

General consensus is Defenders don't have as much synergy with her. They don't roll enough blue dice against enemy ace squadrons to reliably generate accuracy results and because they're bombers already, you're spending some points on Sloane's ability to reroll crits against ships that you generally want to keep anyways. They're also rather pricey if you're looking to get several ship or squadron attacks in and aren't as cost-effective at anti-squadron as TIE Fighters or Interceptors, especially when you're including Howlrunner and/or Flight Controllers.

I don't think they're bad, mind you, but I have thus far found the "not as much synergy as other options" argument fairly convincing.

While sure, they don't have as much synergy, they are also already the best all around squadron in the game, so Sloane just makes every bomber face on the die useful. Defenders don't need a boost, they're already awesome, but Sloane makes them even more awesomer. They still hit harder anti squadron than an interceptor, so while sure, TIEs do get boosted more from her, Defenders are already awesome and completely viable with her, and less prone to AA, especially with Flight Controllers.

My Sloane list was TIE/Int Aces, but I would love to try Defenders. The biggest thing stopping me from doing all Defenders is having to paint their annoying panels.

15 minutes ago, Caldias said:

The biggest thing stopping me from doing all Defenders is having to paint their annoying panels.

If only there were people out there that'd do that for you