No, really. It doesn't make it much more difficult. In fact, I'll talk you through it.
First, you can set up a single sprite and position it off-screen so you will never see it. Also at this point, you can switch off the backsave because otherwise everything will be cleared to the standard blue backdrop after every sync:
` Create a 'worker' sprite
get image 1, 0, 0, 1, 1 ` (Need an image to make a sprite)
sprite 1, -1000, -1000, 1 ` (Make the sprite and position off-screen)
set sprite 1, 0, 1 ` (Disable backsave, we don't want a blue background erasing everything)
delete image 1 ` (This is 'safe')
Then whenever you need to paste a new tile to the display, you can flip/mirror/rotate the sprite appropriately and paste it into place using a function like this:
function PasteTile(TileID as integer, x as integer, y as integer, Flip as integer, Mirror as integer, Angle as float)
` Use the image required
set sprite image 1, TileID
` Flip/mirror/rotate as required
if Flip <> 0 then flip sprite 1
if Mirror <> 0 then mirror sprite 1
rotate sprite 1, Angle
` Paste the sprite into place
paste sprite 1, x, y
` Undo the flip/mirror ready for the next tile
if Flip <> 0 then flip sprite 1
if Mirror <> 0 then mirror sprite 1
endfunction
Just use the PasteTile function instead of the PASTE IMAGE command and you're good to go.