Sloane hard counters

By Jukey, in Star Wars: Armada

Shara Bey and Ten Numb can do it all alone. I mean, if you are doing the ol' Adar and Yavaris stick, Ten Numb with Toryn nearby is almost guaranteed three area damage outside of the two attacks he gets and Shara's two attacks. It gets real vomit worthy if you then have a ship's AS and Ruthless Strategists to pick off any aces.

Edited by Geodes
Typos and such

My Sloane counter is Blount and 17xZ95s for 133 points.

Now, how to activate them...... <_<

On 7/26/2017 at 1:38 AM, Jukey said:

Sloane has been getting a lot of attention lately. So instead of focusing on what she does for imperial lists, and how she makes us mad, let's discuss some ways to take her down.

In general, my opinion is heavy flak is number 1 on the list. Raiders, Arquitens, hammerheads, and liberties are all good with their nasty black or dual black flak. Anything rebel shooting blue backed by toryn farr is gonna hurt as well.

Option 2 is hard counter squads, shara and Ciena both are good at this, as well as any a-wing or interceptor. Another option is our good friend Mauler (remember him?) or his clunkier rebel counterpart Ten Numb (bring toryn to get those crits!).

Option 3 is to simply kill those **** fragile quasars before the swarm gets rolling.

theres a few rough thoughts. What are your hard counters?

Tie defenders 1 shot ties

1 hour ago, starbat861 said:

Tie defenders 1 shot ties

MTG-ThreadNecromancer_3198.jpg

Also, Defenders do on average 2.5 damage to squadrons, so they've got about a 50/50 shot of one-shotting a TIE Fighter.

3 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

MTG-ThreadNecromancer_3198.jpg

Also, Defenders do on average 2.5 damage to squadrons, so they've got about a 50/50 shot of one-shotting a TIE Fighter.

Mithel

28 minutes ago, starbat861 said:

Tie defenders 1 shot ties

1) They also cost twice as much per unit.

2) Vanilla TIE swarms are not the only way to build Sloane.

13 minutes ago, starbat861 said:

Mithel

So... not one-shots then.

9 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

1) They also cost twice as much per unit.

2) Vanilla TIE swarms are not the only way to build Sloane.

So... not one-shots then.

Mithel then defenders mithel does not shoot them

1 minute ago, starbat861 said:

Mithel then defenders mithel does not shoot them

Sure, but

"Defenders one-shot TIEs when backed up by another 15 points assuming they didn't account for the obvious Mauler move and also that I activated Mauler and also that he's in range despite being 1 speed slower than a Defender"

is not the same thing as

"Defenders one-shot TIEs."

2 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

Sure, but

"Defenders one-shot TIEs when backed up by another 15 points assuming they didn't account for the obvious Mauler move and also that I activated Mauler and also that he's in range despite being 1 speed slower than a Defender"

is not the same thing as

"Defenders one-shot TIEs."

Fair but they have a 50/50 chance to one shot

On 7/28/2017 at 10:24 AM, Mad Cat said:

My Sloane counter is Blount and 17xZ95s for 133 points.

Now, how to activate them...... <_<

Five GR-75s with Expanded Hanger Bays under Commander Leia?

Leaves 114 points for whatever, or more if said whatever pushes squadrons and you can mulch a flotilla or two.

So I generally run a squadron heavy list with GH. I have played multiple Sloane lists. Only one beat me, but that was more due to time running out as we only completed 4 turns, and I had a very weakened VSD double arced by GH and was gaining the upperhand in the squadron game by then.

You really don't need much beyond GH to deal with Sloane imo.

Edited by Brikhause

Against a Sloane ace flying circus list, it's not super likely that Mauler will be able to get a massive amount of work done before getting completely deleted as the public enemy #1 that he is.

At the end of the day, the best way to kill squadrons is to use dedicated fighters - a tight cluster of Interceptors backed up by Howlrunner and FC will be far more capable and efficient at chewing through squadrons than Defenders are, especially those pesky scatter aces Sloane likes so much.

Rather than just saying nay as is my wont, things that scare me as somebody playing 134 points of Sloane scatter aces + interceptors:

Jamming Fields + Gallant Haven. You need serious damage mitigation to weather the alpha strike off of these lists. JF or GH alone hurts, but I've faced and beaten each--both of them together is really rough.

Well-escorted Ten Numb. Exponentially scarier for each layer of amplification on top of him: Yavaris, Toryn, Adar, Flight Controllers. It's hard to keep him safe from the alpha, and you don't have a great chance of getting all three of those crits off even with all the layered effects--but even just reducing all of my squadrons to 1 or 2 hull is super nasty.

MC30s and Gladiators. Blow up the carriers and win. Just make sure you can do it fast!

Things that don't particularly scare me:

Shara, Defenders, or pretty much any other squadron-on-squadron force. I have 134 points of pure squadron-killers in my list. If you do too (and aren't also Sloane), then you're super handicapped in every other matchup.

Unsupported flak from big ships. You need overlapping meaningful shots to punch through scatter, and large ships can't cross-support like that reliably. You just physically don't have the space.

Conga lines. My squadrons out-range your reds.

Strategic. I'm going to pick an objective that needs your Strategic to stay alive the whole game to maximize (Firing Lanes, usually), kill your strategic first and fast, and then drink your milkshake.

Just my opinions, and I'm sure there is a counter-example for each. :)

6 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

Rather than just saying nay as is my wont, things that scare me as somebody playing 134 points of Sloane scatter aces + interceptors:

MC30s and Gladiators. Blow up the carriers and win. Just make sure you can do it fast!

Things that don't particularly scare me:

Shara, Defenders, or pretty much any other squadron-on-squadron force. I have 134 points of pure squadron-killers in my list. If you do too (and aren't also Sloane), then you're super handicapped in every other matchup.

Unsupported flak from big ships. You need overlapping meaningful shots to punch through scatter, and large ships can't cross-support like that reliably. You just physically don't have the space.

Picking out a few keys that I'd like to talk about, having just come off a big loss to Sloane aces last night and trying to get that sour taste out of my mouth. I was running a CR90 swarm with a pretty small screen (I was Riekann and brought Shara and Green squadron, plus a VCX).

First, can the Glads live long enough to kill the carriers? Obviously Gladiators are far more survivable than Vettes, but ships were flying off the table for me. Part of that is me playing my nemesis who always rolls just right to kill me, but it felt like it would have been tough with any small based ships to survive. MC30s I can see, as there are enough shields and redundant redirects, but not sure on Glads.

As to the other point, I figured that I could feed his group Shara on one turn and Green on the other, then use blue flak (with Toryn) to clean up the field. In reality he killed all my fighters in one turn and only exposed himself to AA from two ships. I did some damage, but mostly I just stripped scatters and watched his squadrons fly off with but a scratch. It's too difficult to overlap 4 or 5 AA fields AND do something else meaningful with your fleet. In short, I agree with you on those two points. Sloane loves to kill enemy aces.

Appreciating I made errors, it was my first time flying this fleet, it felt like one heck of an uphill battle. I keep thinking about effective counters and most of my ideas include at least 100 points in squadrons, and I'm one of those guys that really dislikes the squadron game. Not sure what to do about it... but it sort of seems like we traded Riekann aceholes for Sloane aceholes...

A Sloane list always relies on squadron activation. Kick the main activator in the nuts and run away with the prize. Investing in the squadrons will make your list weak against other lists. Depending on flak won't stop Sloane's fighters of hitting your ships no matter what. And if she has scatter aces that flak takes 2-3 turns to kick in. Do you have that much time? I don't think so.

13 minutes ago, Norell said:

A Sloane list always relies on squadron activation. Kick the main activator in the nuts and run away with the prize. Investing in the squadrons will make your list weak against other lists. Depending on flak won't stop Sloane's fighters of hitting your ships no matter what. And if she has scatter aces that flak takes 2-3 turns to kick in. Do you have that much time? I don't think so.

Bear in mind, the main activator is sometimes Jendon rather than a ship.

Kill the ship sloane is on.

11 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

Bear in mind, the main activator is sometimes Jendon rather than a ship.

True, but Jendon can activate only 2 squadrons at a time. And a Sloane list usually has a ship that activates 4-6 squads. But even if the fleet revolves around Jendon and a bunch of Gozantis, it is a good way to disable squadrons by hunting down the ships that activate them. At least in Sloane's case U found this a great counter.

11 hours ago, DrakonLord said:

Kill the ship sloane is on.

That does help.

Any tips to how?

20 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

That does help.

Any tips to how?

Nope, every game is different and unique so any tips wouldnt help :P

Nah, im currently in the camp of "sloane has no hard counters"

Like sure some fleet builds can counter some sloane builds.... but ive yet to fly or see a fleet flown that will always counter every sloane build and win (what i associate with a Hard counter)

Though i have yet to run a 10×YT-1300 fleet yet....... ;)

1 hour ago, Green Knight said:

That does help.

Any tips to how?

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Wait, no that one...

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BT-This.

A number of items you can throw into your list that help against sloane (not guaranteed):

- slicer tools flotilla

- counter squadrons (A wings, YT1300, HWK, etc.)

- high health squadrons

- double AA

- walex blissex

- MSU ( more targets-more defense tokens-no single large targets)

- quad laser turrets

Disclaimer: non of these are really sloane counters, but will help somewhat against sloane fleets if flown/used right.