Imperial squad balls are a bane of my existence and I've never usually had much use for generic YT-1300s but how about this for an idea for intercepting and destroying an Imperial squad ball at long range.

MC80 - independence, flag bridge, AFFM

4 YT-1300s

4 E-wings

Biggs

Squad total of 131

Hurl the YT-1300s out at speed 5 at the outer edges of an imperial squad ball (so they're engaging enemies one-on-one and can't be all heavy'd at once if a jumpmaster is around) to pin the ball in place.

Have the E-wings follow (but not engage) and snipe at any jumpmaster first. Put biggs in to help some of the YT-1300s split damage

From here you can command the e-wings to focus fire down on any target in snipe (or normal) range while the YT-1300s draw fire and keep pinging back at counter 1 with biggs to keep them long lasting.

This should tie up the imperials for an extended period. If they win the squadron war, send the whole group off to bomber duty.

I hate imperial squad ball, I mean counter 5 from interceptors activated from a quasar with howl runner and dengar. My only counter is killing the quasar.

I've tried that but to paraphrase a line from The Last Starfighter.

So we knock out the carrier to get the fighters....but to get the carrier we gotta get THROUGH the fighters....

We're dead.

6 hours ago, Stinchy said:

I hate imperial squad ball, I mean counter 5 from interceptors activated from a quasar with howl runner and dengar. My only counter is killing the quasar.

How do you get Counter 5? Interceptors have Counter 2, Dengar and Howlrunner add 1 each....I am assuming the Quasar-Fire has Flight Controllers, but that don't help Counter shots, since the fighters are not shooting during its (the Quasar Fire's) activation.

5 hours ago, Cap116 said:

How do you get Counter 5? Interceptors have Counter 2, Dengar and Howlrunner add 1 each....I am assuming the Quasar-Fire has Flight Controllers, but that don't help Counter shots, since the fighters are not shooting during its (the Quasar Fire's) activation.

The TIE-Is would need to be near Howlrunner, Dengar and Instructor Gorman to get counter (5).

Most Rebel players though would attack Dengar and Howlrunner first rather than chewing through counter (4 or 5) interceptors the hard way.

12 hours ago, Stinchy said:

I hate imperial squad ball, I mean counter 5 from interceptors activated from a quasar with howl runner and dengar. My only counter is killing the quasar.

And it's a pretty good counter.

If you didn't bring your own squads, they just wasted more than 100 points on near-useless stuff.

It's their way of asking you to stop taking bombers and not much else.

Me and my son really like to run Sloane too and we have started to use much less interceptors as they just get ignored until everything that boost them are destroyed first. Running two maybe three generic interceptors is enough, especially with reserve hangar bays and concentrate most of the squadron points on hitting power on the enemy. We found out that using too many ties or interceptors are counter productive. I like Phantoms and Defenders as well as some Bomber aces too with Sloane.

I have also used Galant Haven to good effect, Jaming Fields and Transponder Network is good to prevent enemy Intel to attack certain targets. Aside from this there is allot of skill how you move your ships and squadrons, how you set up obstacles, the station and how move the ships with them. There really are no silver bullet that will "fix" the problem. Sloane can be a hard nut to crack if used by an experience player, but so are most fleets in the hands of a good player.

Also, remember that Imperial fighters melt in the face of good Flak fire... I have repeatedly destroyed Sloane balls with flak, that is one reason we tend to use less Ties and/or Interceptors these days as they are so deadly you don't need that many, especially with reserve hangar bays.

2 hours ago, The Jabbawookie said:

And it's a pretty good counter.

If you didn't bring your own squads, they just wasted more than 100 points on near-useless stuff.

It's their way of asking you to stop taking bombers and not much else.

Sloane make good use of even Tie fighters to strip tokens and damage ships as bombers too, so the points are certainly not wasted with Sloane. SLoane is a real pain in the ##!!

6 hours ago, jorgen_cab said:

Sloane make good use of even Tie fighters to strip tokens and damage ships as bombers too, so the points are certainly not wasted with Sloane. SLoane is a real pain in the ##!!

It’s true, but the Interceptor remains a terrible value for that compared to other fighters. They get shredded by flak even in squadless matchups. I think my record is... 7? 8? dead Interceptors with lucky AA rolls, as Ackbar, when they tried to chase me.

Aces at least live. Generic TIEs are more cost-effective antiship damage. Neither has problems killing what gets in their way.

As a Sloane player, I’ve had since her launch to be impressed by Interceptors, and never found a niche I need them to fill so badly I’m willing to watch them die in one round to Ravager’s AA.

Yes... also add Toryn Farr and Rebel Flak gets even worse...

We only play Imperial versus Rebel games so I have very little experience in Imperial vs Imperial so that I can't comment on what you do.

But the key with Sloane is to not use generic Ties & Interceptors too much, they are there to combat other fighters most of the time. The trick though is to force the enemy to chose the fighters or something else to shoot at, you also can often position them so that the opponent drive into them and you shoot and move away, works best against black Flack dice ships though, but even blue flack works great sometimes. Using Rhymer is also something I like to do with Sloane as that makes the positioning of fighters much easier and harder for the opponent to avoid them. You also work on the softer target first if possible to remove as much flak support as possible, depends on situation of course.

For the most part it is mostly about the skill of the player and how good you are at the positioning game. But Sloane is really effective using generic blue dice even if the Ties are weak against flak. We have seen Sloane both work well and not so well. In my opinion she is quite good but not too good. There are many other admirals out there that can be equally good in their own way. When I play Sloane I rarely have more than four Tie/Interceptor squadrons (including Aces) as reserve hangars keep them coming back anyway. It is better to have other more resilient squadrons part of the mix too. It also make it possible to split up and both engage enemy squadrons and attack enemy ships at the same time.

But if you play the rebel then using your defensive nature and forcing the enemy to place their squadrons in a way they can get caught by multiple flak is key to melt Sloan squadron swarms, or any fighter swarms for that matter.

My main point is that there rarely are any magic bullets, in the end you need to get better at the positioning game to beat an opponent repeatedly no matter what they play with. I feel that too often people put too much stock in list building. The problem is that when you build a list it has to do well against most things so it is your skill that matters not the off chance you brought the rock to the opponents scissors. At least that is the way I approach the game, or even all similar games for that matter.

Is no one going to comment on my build in the first post? 😩

15 minutes ago, Garrett17 said:

Is no one going to comment on my build in the first post? 😩

I mean, it will probably stop Imperial fighters, which is the stated goal.

Toryn is love, Toryn is life. Jan would also be pretty nice.

My biggest issue would be that it’s a poor bombing wing for the investment, and even if the YTs did damage they can’t keep up with targets. If you want something worth flying blind, I’d fit in Norra for the E-wings, maybe swap out a YT or 2 for Xs.

I’d sooner look at 8 YT-2400s as the cynical approach (nothing will make them a bad investment) or ATN Y-wing spam with heavy flak support (like a Ruthless Strategists Starhawk or Armored Cruiser.)

Well in this case my intention is more to destroy the squad ball or at least tie up imperials squads for an extended period without sacrificing points for doing so while my ships go to work elsewhere.

I also want the fighters to largely manage on their own without me having to worry about always putting a carrier close by.

By engaging one-on-one with one of the toughest rebel hulls (the YTs have 7) I hope to essentially keep him pinned for quite a while. The e-wings with their extended range afforded by snipe means once they're nearby I don't have to keep moving them into new positions because their inherent reach is simply longer which will hopefully also force the Imps to fire on the YTs first and get pinged by counter as a result. Between the counter and snipe I essentially want to to cut a trapped Imperial squad ball to ribbons while really only risking the Yts.

Using independence to fling the yt-1300s means I also have a lot of room to pick where the engagement will take place which is critical because if some of his fighters wiggle free I want them to be doing so far away from my ships.

If you invest 130 point into squadrons they ARE your main hitting force in general. Squadrons need to both be able to protect you and deal heavy damage to enemy ships. I have learned that as I generally play with a high squadron presence no matter what fleet I run, not necessarily max squadrons but if you invest 80+ points into squadrons they need to do damage to enemy ships as well as defend against enemy squadrons.

The empire can get away with a 50-60 Tie squadron contingent that is meant to fight squadrons as their sole purpose... in my opinion the Rebel generally struggle to do this as their squadrons are either to expensive or too slow.

A good player make sure to bring a balanced force or simply risk loosing because the opponent just happen to bring the scissor to their paper fleet.

This is why I don't understand why some people just categorically refuse to use squadrons as one example or only bring one or two which will practically do nothing no matter who they are, the game are practically balanced around both sides having some decent squadron presence (6-10 squadrons in 400p). If you play the rebels and you have the models then YT-2400 is a very good balanced squadron to take if you don't want to necessarily activate them all that often with ships. 5 YT-2400 and a VCX is a good choice that gives you options and don't necessarily reduce your ship destroying capabilities for the point invested either. The VCX is necessary for the Strategic that can be so vital in certain missions and will hold their own in combat too if you need it to. Using rouges also reduce the need to invest points in squadron pushing and the move "4" of the YT-2400 is fast enough to give you options.

32 minutes ago, jorgen_cab said:

This is why I don't understand why some people just categorically refuse to use squadrons as one example or only bring one or two which will practically do nothing no matter who they are,

Same principle as a multirole squadron wing, those extra ships are always a good investment if you bring the right lists. It comes down to playstyle, and the competitive squadless wins are there to reflect it.

Otherwise I completely agree with your points. 2/3 of a fleet loses to 3/3.

2 hours ago, The Jabbawookie said:

Same principle as a multirole squadron wing, those extra ships are always a good investment if you bring the right lists. It comes down to playstyle, and the competitive squadless wins are there to reflect it.

Otherwise I completely agree with your points. 2/3 of a fleet loses to 3/3.

I probably don't agree that all ship fleets are overall competitive against a decent squadron fleet unless one player are experienced and the other are not, but that is a discussion for another thread.

5 hours ago, jorgen_cab said:

I probably don't agree that all ship fleets are overall competitive against a decent squadron fleet unless one player are experienced and the other are not, but that is a discussion for another thread.

That seems less of a matter of opinion and more like a contrafactual position considering the number of tournament wins squadless lists have been putting up. If they win big tournaments, they are by definition competitive, no? No squads, medium squads and max squads have all won big relatively recently.