This fleet is pretty simple in what it wants to do - tear any enemy squadrons to shreds and then strip defence tokens away from ships, and then follow up with a heavy beating from the paired Vic-Is.

That's a cool looking list. Love to see Vics still getting attention.

What can I say, I have a soft spot for the old angry space triangles

It's not far from a list I've tinkered with. I think you are overspending on the Vic-I, though? I mean, YES, QBT totally makes sense, absolutely. NEVER go anywhere in a Victory-class without it! Basically stapled together, now - amazing combo. Still, nobody is ever going to be in 'close' range of a Victory-I, so the 7 pts each on ordnance isn't something you'll likely see value from.

You do have a probably-more-intelligent fighter swarm than I run with it, though! I just can't get over having Scum fly with Imperial ships, so usually just run pure TIE Defenders and support.

My own take on this list concept was:

Quote

Sloane's Many Victories

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 400/400

Commander: Admiral Sloane

Assault Objective: Precision Strike
Defense Objective: Fighter Ambush
Navigation Objective: Superior Positions

Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (73 points)
- Quad Battery Turrets ( 5 points)
= 78 total ship cost

Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (73 points)
- Quad Battery Turrets ( 5 points)
= 78 total ship cost

[ flagship ] Quasar Fire I-class Cruiser-Carrier (54 points)
- Admiral Sloane ( 24 points)
- Squall ( 3 points)
- Flight Controllers ( 6 points)
- Expanded Hangar Bay ( 5 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
= 96 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Hondo Ohnaka ( 2 points)
- Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 27 total ship cost

1 Maarek Steele ( 21 points)
5 TIE Defender Squadrons ( 80 points)
1 Colonel Jendon ( 20 points)

...but I can't say I was really happy with it.

IMHO, it is far too reliant on the enemy making mistakes. And it's totally weak sauce if the enemy wants to give you player 1 - there is really nothing here that can capitalize on that.

13 hours ago, Diabloelmo said:

This fleet is pretty simple in what it wants to do - tear any enemy squadrons to shreds and then strip defence tokens away from ships, and then follow up with a heavy beating from the paired Vic-Is.

Sloane's Victory circus

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 400/400

Commander: Admiral Sloane

Assault Objective: Most Wanted
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Superior Positions

[ flagship ] Quasar Fire I-class Cruiser-Carrier (54 points)
- Admiral Sloane ( 24 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
- Expanded Hangar Bay ( 5 points)
= 87 total ship cost

Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (73 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Quad Battery Turrets ( 5 points)
- External Racks ( 3 points)
= 85 total ship cost

Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (73 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Quad Battery Turrets ( 5 points)
- External Racks ( 3 points)
= 85 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 25 total ship cost

1 Dengar ( 20 points)
1 Maarek Steele ( 21 points)
1 "Howlrunner" ( 16 points)
1 "Mauler" Mithel ( 15 points)
1 Valen Rudor ( 13 points)
1 Ciena Ree ( 17 points)
2 TIE Fighter Squadrons ( 16 points)

Problem:

Your squad loadout is rather weak. Or rather, it's fairly good, but not really up where it wants to be if you're serious about winning a major squadron battle.

Also, a potential maximum of 8 blue dice vs ships is really at the lower end of the spectrum for a Sloane fleet. Especially when 2 of those dice come from super-fragile TIE fighters.

29 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

Problem:

Your squad loadout is rather weak. Or rather, it's fairly good, but not really up where it wants to be if you're serious about winning a major squadron battle.

Also, a potential maximum of 8 blue dice vs ships is really at the lower end of the spectrum for a Sloane fleet. Especially when 2 of those dice come from super-fragile TIE fighters.

What would you suggest in order to bump the power up? It's already sitting at 118pts, so there's not an awful lot of wiggle-room. A simple switch-out of the basic TIEs to Defenders fits into 134pts (just!) without having to worry about activation count, though the increase to killing power is quite minimal. For the same cost I could take another pair of basic TIEs, though that does run into the issue of not enough squadron activations.

1 hour ago, xanderf said:

It's not far from a list I've tinkered with. I think you are overspending on the Vic-I, though? I mean, YES, QBT totally makes sense, absolutely. NEVER go anywhere in a Victory-class without it! Basically stapled together, now - amazing combo. Still, nobody is ever going to be in 'close' range of a Victory-I, so the 7 pts each on ordnance isn't something you'll likely see value from.

You do have a probably-more-intelligent fighter swarm than I run with it, though! I just can't get over having Scum fly with Imperial ships, so usually just run pure TIE Defenders and support.

...but I can't say I was really happy with it.

IMHO, it is far too reliant on the enemy making mistakes. And it's totally weak sauce if the enemy wants to give you player 1 - there is really nothing here that can capitalize on that.

I made a point of choosing objectives that punish opponents for staying at arm's length, so I feel it is probably worth the investment to turn the once-per-game attack from "okay" to "oh man that is a lot of damage"

I find it hard to go all-in with basic Defenders due to their cost, which makes me sad since I am such a huge fan of the design - I would have loved them to be a point cheaper. In the same vein as GK mentioned above, Sloane does want lots of blue dice being tossed towards capital ships, and a half-dozen Defenders just aren't putting in the amount needed to really strip a ship of its tokens reliably - not to mention the reroll Sloane provides is wasted upon them. I love the heck out of Steele though, the guy is a absolute monster. All we need now is another Defender ace or two to make me happy. Mmmm, Colonel Vessery...

6 hours ago, Diabloelmo said:

I find it hard to go all-in with basic Defenders due to their cost, which makes me sad since I am such a huge fan of the design - I would have loved them to be a point cheaper. In the same vein as GK mentioned above, Sloane does want lots of blue dice being tossed towards capital ships, and a half-dozen Defenders just aren't putting in the amount needed to really strip a ship of its tokens reliably - not to mention the reroll Sloane provides is wasted upon them. I love the heck out of Steele though, the guy is a absolute monster. All we need now is another Defender ace or two to make me happy. Mmmm, Colonel Vessery...

Sure, but remember that Maarek + Jendon lets Maarek attack twice, and Maarek's anti-ship armament is two blues. So the Defender list above is dropping 9 blue dice against ships (granted, 4 of those can only Sloane into two defense tokens removed). Additionally, I'd hardly say Sloane's reroll on the crit is wasted, I mean...you just landed a crit! That's...pretty useful! Compared to the TIE Fighters/Interceptors that cannot crit against ships at all. (One of the perks of squadron-heavy fleets, especially as fast as the Defenders are, is how easy it is to keep moving them around enemy ships to shoot into down shields)

Give it a try, some time - I think you'd be surprised how powerful the TIE Defender is. ESPECIALLY that Maarek + Jendon combo. Relayable, too, so you can basically let it wander all around where needed.

Problem 2: Vic's won't be able to get close enough to anything to unload their black dices. Not in time at least. A Sloane list needs a speed 3 heavy hitter otherwise it turns into a brawl and as you invested heavily into squadrons, stronger, better equipped ships will tear you apart if you start brawling with them.