With the new points discounting the Barons of the Empire, I've had the idea to combine the Jendon-enabled missile alpha with a Sloane swarm(-ish). Jendon did go up a point, but Passive Sensors to enable him to benefit from his own ability went down a point so the combo remains the same total.

Sloane's Barons (200 points)

Colonel Jendon (49) Passive Sensors (2) Admiral Sloane (9) Shield Upgrade (4) Ship total: 64 Half Points: 32 Threshold: 6

Baron of the Empire (28) Concussion Missiles (6) Ship total: 34 Half Points: 17 Threshold: 2

Baron of the Empire (28) Concussion Missiles (6) Ship total: 34 Half Points: 17 Threshold: 2

Baron of the Empire (28) Concussion Missiles (6) Ship total: 34 Half Points: 17 Threshold: 2

Baron of the Empire (28) Concussion Missiles (6) Ship total: 34 Half Points: 17 Threshold: 2

Total: 200

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0: https://raithos.github.io/?f=Galactic Empire&d=v8ZsZ200Z167X240WW14WW165WY172XWW99Y172XWW99Y172XWW99Y172XWW99&sn=Sloane's Barons&obs=

Jendon alpha used to be used with 3 Inquisitors (with a few variants), this takes 4 Barons so the ship count is higher. So compared to the typical Jendon alpha, spike damage potential is higher because this squad enables 5 double- modded 3-red-dice attacks.

Compared to the typical Sloane swarm, ship count is lower (although the recent success of RAC-Sloane + 4 Academies online shows that Sloane doesn't necessarily need a huge swarm). On the other hand, the individual fighters are better and work viably without the command ship, unlike the usual Academies who get mopped up easily after Sloane dies. All that alpha strike power can make it dangerous to commit hard to killing Sloane. With the +1 shield on the Lambda, this seems like one of the safer Sloanes of the squad builds I've seen.

Looks like it has some tools. Give it a go and post your results!

I want to try this and I'm tempted to get a forth TIEv1 so that I can. I played Jendon's Inquisitors for a bit. A key feature of that list was the tankiness of the Inquisitors with force / evade. It will be interesting to see how the Barons compare.

My first thought was that I didn't like it, seemed like a lot of investment in rerolls which kind of wind up duplicating each other.

But that's not really accurate. Sloane and Jendon work pretty differently. Jendon is first-round rerolls, before Sloane comes on-line in the midgame.

I can see it working out.

2 hours ago, Old Sarge said:

Looks like it has some tools. Give it a go and post your results!

I'd like to but I don't have the opportunity right now. I don't play online (I don't have internet other than my phone anymore because it's all I used 90% of the time anyway) and in-person games are impossible for the time being. I've played a little Fly Casual, and although it can be useful to find out if a squad is bad, it's not a reliable way to check if a squad is good - you need a real opponent for that IMO.

2 hours ago, eljms said:

I want to try this and I'm tempted to get a forth TIEv1 so that I can. I played Jendon's Inquisitors for a bit. A key feature of that list was the tankiness of the Inquisitors with force / evade. It will be interesting to see how the Barons compare.

Yes, I've tried that squad a few times myself and it was an inspiration. My thinking is that this version trades out the tankiness of evade+force for the deterrent of Sloane punishing a kill. The theory is that if the opponent does the classic anti-Sloane strategy (kill her at any cost) the Barons potentially have the advantage over the enemy by the time Sloane dies - they're fresh and probably still have missiles and maybe leftover locks too.

If the opponent settles for picking off the Barons, Sloane can stress them and then the other Barons hit them. Jendon can try to rescue a Baron who's struggling, coordinating to enable a double green token stack or coordinating an action before the Baron's activation for a boost or BR linked to a Focus, then it does a blue to clear stress and evades (similar to a Supernatural Inquisitor). So targeting a Baron might end up getting the attacker nothing unless they can score a one round clean kill.

Just thinking it through some more. I generally want to be coordinating with Jendon and like the title for the free locks that come with that. Also, Concussion Missiles didn't come down and a lot of others did. Maybe Clusters are better value right now? I'm not sure it's an alpha list at this point, it certainly wouldn't hit hard until you got into range 1-2. It's also potentially falling for the trap @theBitterFig is pointing out - second re-rolls aren't worth as much as the first. The counter thought in my head is that you're creating more possibility for re-rolls (stress or target locked) meaning you should be able to reposition / focus a lot. Also, with Cluster Missiles the added mods might come through more.

Anyhow - throwing it out there as an alternative:

Colonel Jendon (49)
Admiral Sloane (9)
ST-321 (4)

Ship total: 62 Half Points: 31 Threshold: 5

Baron of the Empire (28)
Fire-Control System (2)
Cluster Missiles (4)

Ship total: 34 Half Points: 17 Threshold: 2

Baron of the Empire (28)
Fire-Control System (2)
Cluster Missiles (4)

Ship total: 34 Half Points: 17 Threshold: 2

Baron of the Empire (28)
Fire-Control System (2)
Cluster Missiles (4)

Ship total: 34 Half Points: 17 Threshold: 2

Baron of the Empire (28)
Fire-Control System (2)
Cluster Missiles (4)

Ship total: 34 Half Points: 17 Threshold: 2


Total: 198

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0: https://raithos.github.io/?f=Galactic Empire&d=v8ZsZ200Z167XWWW14WW162Y172XW113W98Y172XW113W98Y172XW113W98Y172XW113W98&sn=Unnamed Squadron&obs=

I think it would be very effective against a swarm! Eight three-dice shots, good mods for all of them

Difficult choices for Aces not wanting to take the double stress.

Yeah - I want to try this.

The clusters may be good value now. I'm a bit biased against them because my only experience with them was playing against massed clusters once and the unmodded secondary attacks did almost nothing! I favour ordnance that gives 3 red dice at range 2&3 and does real damage (not ion etc) so it's a straight-up firepower upgrade, at least for a list like this where the squad relies on ordnance for most of its damage. Clusters only improve the number of red dice over primary at range 2.

That said, you could take my list from the first post and swap out some of the Baron+Concussion for Baron+FCS+Cluster because each is the same 34 points. A hybrid approach sometimes works better than spamming identical units.

3 hours ago, eljms said:

It's also potentially falling for the trap @theBitterFig is pointing out - second re-rolls aren't worth as much as the first. The counter thought in my head is that you're creating more possibility for re-rolls (stress or target locked) meaning you should be able to reposition / focus a lot.

I dunno. I don't really think there's too much overlap. Jendon's locks will mostly be spent on the first round of combat (and if not, ideally the target dies), and Sloane won't be online until a little after that. In general, taking two reroll-type pilots/upgrades seems bad, but I think it'd work with this specific combination, due to how the timings interact.

That said, some Clusters might be nice.

Per @Dasharr it might be nice to mix them.

• Baron (FCS, Cluster) 34
• Baron (FCS, Cluster) 34
• Baron (FCS, Concussion) 36
• Baron (FCS, Concussion) 36
• Jendon (Passive Sensors, Sloane) 60
  • Total 200

I'd be tempted to put fcs and targeting computer on Jendon. The few times I've used him with my x1s it's surprised people when they expected the shuttle to hunker back and it pounce on them with three red dice, a focus, TL and a re-roll.

My first impression is this is one of those lists where the shuttle probably wants to Reinforce. If it dies first, Sloane doesn't give a lot of value, so making sure you're protected against early fire seems pretty useful.

Just to say I tried this on TTS the other night. I went with all Clusters and it wasn't a great choice. Maybe one bonus shot the whole game verses at least two range three shots where I regretted not having the extra die. My opponent was flying Imperial 4s (Echo, 7th Sis, 5th Bro, Sabacc) and I was outmatched anyway. It could definitely have been flown better

I'm not sure what I'd do differently next time. Move away from Clusters for sure. I'm not convinced about concussion missiles anymore though. Most often you're only pushing one damage through, so maybe Ion? Also, sad to say, I don't know that Sloane really works. The damage threat of the Barons is possibly not high enough. When you take into account that you're not going to be able to focus fire higher initiative ships, they chip away rather than blow away lists. So I'd probably be more inclined to look at Jendon, 3xBarons and something - fifth bro maybe?

Colonel Jendon (49)
Ship total: 49 Half Points: 25 Threshold: 5

Baron of the Empire (28)
Fire-Control System (2)
Ion Missiles (3)

Ship total: 33 Half Points: 17 Threshold: 2

Baron of the Empire (28)
Fire-Control System (2)
Ion Missiles (3)

Ship total: 33 Half Points: 17 Threshold: 2

Baron of the Empire (28)
Fire-Control System (2)
Ion Missiles (3)

Ship total: 33 Half Points: 17 Threshold: 2

Fifth Brother (42)
Fire-Control System (2)
Homing Missiles (5)

Ship total: 49 Half Points: 25 Threshold: 2


Total: 197

View in Yet Another Squad Builder 2.0: https://raithos.github.io/?f=Galactic Empire&d=v8ZsZ200Z167XWWWWWY172XW113W101Y172XW113W101Y172XW113W101Y394XW113W100&sn=Unnamed Squadron&obs=

In that list I'd certainly spend the last three points on targeting computer for Jendon.

3 hours ago, eljms said:

So I'd probably be more inclined to look at Jendon, 3xBarons and something - fifth bro maybe?

Thanks for sharing your result. Unfortunate that it didn't work well, but it does at least confirm my guess that the clusters aren't ideal. I'll give some consideration to how to tweak it.

1 hour ago, KingmanHighborn said:

In that list I'd certainly spend the last three points on targeting computer for Jendon.

I'd prefer 2 points for passive sensors instead. A 1 point bid doesn't often matter (bids in general aren't often valuable at mid initiatives) but you never know, and passives usually do an equal or better job than the targeting computer.