With the advent of Ms. Sloane and her Tie Swarms I was looking at how to oppose her and still have great fighter cover against other lists.

To that end, an alpha strike of 4 X-wings with 8 Z-95's in support seems rather useful. Bring the Z-95 Ace if you wish, but not needed.

Would match well vs 8 Ties and 4 Ints or 8 Ties, 3 Ints and Howlrunner. E-wings could replace the X's for snipe fun.

Use Flight Controllers to give the X-wings in the alpha 5 Blue, be a **** of a squadron fight.

Thoughts?

The trick is being able to execute an alpha strike, namely being able to command all those fighters. At the same time, you need to have something available for killing ships. The quasar has given the imperials the ability to use their lower cost and offensive oriented squads to free up space for combat ships. Namely, Imperials no longer have to activate their biggest combat ship (and ISD) just to activate fighters.

The meta game is currently at a balancing act between the wave 6 "activate 2-3 fighters at a time" to the quasar era "activate a ton of fighters".

The missing slot in the rebel arsenal is the one the imperials just got, an efficient fighter platform that can mount Flight Controllers. For efficiency, Rebels need to use expanded hanger bay flotillas. For Flight Controllers, there really isn't a good choice.

Rebels get Toryn Farr, when imps get her evil twin, then theu can whine about 'not having good FC platforms because they ignore the RAF'. It's 1 less squad, Oh no.

The TIE fighters and interceptors are faster thanspeed 3 rebels. How are you going to Alpha strike them?

When I run Sloane I take Howlrunner, 4 TIE-I, 5 Tie-F and Zertek.

Zertek and Stronghold are there for alpha strike insurance in case anyone brings 4+ A-wings, TIE Interceptors or sniping E-Wings. Then I have a set of Flight controllers to add to the punch of a Howlrunner assisted strike of my own with swarm rerolls. Howlrunner + 4 Tie-I should do about 16 damage on a single strike killing 3 X-wing escorts. Then say 4 Rebel survivors shoot them up a bit doing 8-10 damage with flight controllers killing 3 interceptors or one + Howlrunner due to her defence tokens. My Counter 2 (or 3) will soften them up a bit too before another 4 Tie-F join the fight.

I would take Jan and X-Wings to absorb a Sloane strike. Lots of Escorting X-wings should keep Jan safe and if you are spending her braces on standard X-wings the Sloane ability won't help. A few Z95s are fine if you can activate them all and AFFM on a Pelta could let rebels get an initial strike in assuming no Interceptors or Vector.

If you run a screen of X-wings in front of a swarm of Z-95s, then you don't really NEED to alpha strike. I don't want those TIES sitting in a Stronghold bubble, I want them in my AS flak range/Toryn Farr bubble instead. The X-wings with Biggs and/or Jan behind them, can absorb most Imperial alpha strikes. Once they are in MY bubble, I can then strike them back after the initial alpha, and then hopefully activate them first in the next round to clean them out.

I have been using a AF Mark II B, with FC and expanded hangers to activate 5 squads at a time (with a token), and follow that up with a Bright Hope/Toryn Farr flotilla activating another 3 squads (with a token). It has held up surprisingly well.

X-wings n Y-wings.

Add Toryn and FC to taste.

Biggs, Gallant Haven, Jan, Jamming Field.

I certainly agree with all of the Rebel strategies outlined here, and they are basically the same strategies that existed prior to the quasar. The main balance change this wave has been that Imperials no longer need to invest in ISD or VSD super carriers, the quasar fulfills that role at a much lower cost.

If as the posters above believe, and the Rebel fighter game is still superior to Imperial, I would expect more upgrades a la Flight Controllers and Chiraneau as indirect buffs to large ship fighter activation. Obviously we will see more in the coming weeks of what fleets are most effective in the larger tournaments.

On 8/4/2017 at 8:19 AM, Darthain said:

Rebels get Toryn Farr, when imps get her evil twin, then theu can whine about 'not having good FC platforms because they ignore the RAF'. It's 1 less squad, Oh no.

They don't need a Toryn Farr though. Most of the Squads have their own inbuilt Swarm anyway.

So, y'know. Take her if you want. I want a sufficiently modified Howlrunner in return, though

i played against E-Wing spam. they wrecked my interceptors as predicted and i lost pretty handily.

Biggs, Jan and three X-Wings can handle pretty much any punch coming their way. Have the X-Wings spread forward, Biggs Distance 1 behind all three of them, Jan behind them up to Distance 2. Sloane can't do anything against Jan's Braces, so all of the X-Wings (even Biggs) are covered, and then good ol' Biggs can spread the damage around.

To be more of a PitA, back it with a Toryn Farr/Jamming Field transport. Set your fighters within strike range of the TIEs so they HAVE to attack or give up their alpha. They jump in and slam into 20 hull with Braces and spreading damage and Obstructed attacks. You Jan Intel them, nudge the X-Wings just outside of Jamming Field range (or keep them within to obstruct Counter attacks) and Toryn Swarm them to death.

Oh, and your other four squadrons are B-Wings with a souped up Pelta and Yavaris, so worst-case scenario they jump in with their 3 Blues to win the squadron game in about one turn.

Biggs, Jan, and yt-1300s will always do nicely.

bringing an FCT or two can help get them into position.

On 8/5/2017 at 6:35 PM, Drasnighta said:

I want a sufficiently modified Howlrunner in return, though

You mean Blount?

I prefer A-Wing Swarms powered by flight controllers. Counter can do some work.

1 hour ago, Silver Crane said:

I prefer A-Wing Swarms powered by flight controllers. Counter can do some work.

Yeah, one of my games on Saturday required me to hit Shara. Her Counter is kind of terrifying. If you could get Toryn within range of her. . .yeesh. She could reliably pop every TIE/Ln and TIE/In squadron that swings at her.

The Mustache Ride still works well. Just need some more generic X-Wings to spread the love. I'm probably going to try Wedge, Dutch, Nora, Biggs, Jan, and 3 Xs this weekend. See you at Island. I've already got an SC under my belt for the season so I'm going to try something a little crazier.

1 hour ago, Truthiness said:

The Mustache Ride still works well. Just need some more generic X-Wings to spread the love. I'm probably going to try Wedge, Dutch, Nora, Biggs, Jan, and 3 Xs this weekend. See you at Island. I've already got an SC under my belt for the season so I'm going to try something a little crazier.

Yeah, I was running 4 B's with Jan, Biggs and 3 X's. A Yavaris double-tap with three B-Wings and BCC is. . .ugly.

I've been tempted to drop an X-Wing or two for a YT-1300. Not sure about the tradeoff of one blue die for two hull, but it could make a difference. Almost every game I find myself with three or four X-Wings with one hull left, and tough choices about who to bounce damage to so I can keep someone else alive. And AFFM can help mitigate the Speed 2 BS that is a YT-1300.

15 minutes ago, reegsk said:

Yeah, I was running 4 B's with Jan, Biggs and 3 X's. A Yavaris double-tap with three B-Wings and BCC is. . .ugly.

I've been tempted to drop an X-Wing or two for a YT-1300. Not sure about the tradeoff of one blue die for two hull, but it could make a difference. Almost every game I find myself with three or four X-Wings with one hull left, and tough choices about who to bounce damage to so I can keep someone else alive. And AFFM can help mitigate the Speed 2 BS that is a YT-1300.

If you have a way of speeding up the YT-1300, I can thoroughly endorse it as a damage sink for Biggs. I've used Biggs, Wedge, YT-1300 a couple times and each game it is impressive how much damage it can absorb.

Pelta Command with AFFM and Fighter Coordination Teams. Might not be a bad idea to put the YTs out front to soak up alpha strikes with their Counter backed by Jan's brace tokens and Biggs. But running it as Biggs, X-Wing, 2 x YTs means I won't get any kind of alpha strike. . .ever.

4 hours ago, reegsk said:

Pelta Command with AFFM and Fighter Coordination Teams. Might not be a bad idea to put the YTs out front to soak up alpha strikes with their Counter backed by Jan's brace tokens and Biggs. But running it as Biggs, X-Wing, 2 x YTs means I won't get any kind of alpha strike. . .ever.

Yup, that's pretty close to my usual Mustache Ride. My typical B-Wing list is Biggs, Jan, Wedge, YT-1300, Ten, and 3 B's. I've been laying off it during the Rieekan craze, but I'm due to pull it back out post-nerf. I'm just trying the X-Wings with something a bit more off the wall.