(My English isn't the best and I'm wrighting from a phone so please excuse my English)

The most interesting in wave 4 is undoubtably the phantom. Or rather two specific pilots named "whisper" and "echo". These two pilots with the Advanced Cloaking Device(ACD) modification will tear apart big formations and outduel any ship with an lower PS.

A common whisper/echo will most likely be upgraded with the ACD along with veteran scars and possibly a crewmember to further enhance its dueling power like tactician or navigator.

This phantom have very few weaknesses. It can deal with swarm and It can deal with any PS 7/8 or less. And it will demolish bouth if played correctly.

There is a few counters of course. Han solo will crush echo and whisper half of the time unless veteran scars is used in witch case solo will demolish bouth all the time.

with the release of the 4th wave I belive the meta will change in favour to high pilotskill. And having some kind of countermeasure to phantoms will almost be required in all competetive lists.

What do you think? You think there will be a shift towards higher PS or will swarm lists still dominate.

The Phantom may be the shiny new horse in the center of the paddock, but it's workhorses like the Z95 and Defender that I think will have the longest lasting impact. The Defender will give the Imperials the option to go with fewer, but more durable small base ships while the Z95 gives the Rebels more guns at a low low price.

@DAGONET

I'm not so sure about that. I mean we are still building squads to have some kind of couter towards tie-swarm lists. And those have been along from day 1 almost. They are adding another kind of swarm now in the form of z-95 but those will not be flewn in the same way as tie swarm for obvious reason. It wouldn't supprise me if we will see squads with 6 z95s with 2 assult missiles and 4 concussion missiles. Aouch. Get failsafe for the assault missiles and you are good to go with a 100p squad.

While it doesn't necessarily invalidate all of the old options I can see Wave 4 radically altering the metagame. The rebels finally get what could be a swarm ship but at the very least get something they can use when they don't want to find a dozen points worth of upgrades for their fleet. The E-Wing may be crazy in some aspects but I wonder if it's impact will not be the smallest; a bit more agility than an X-Wing and host of upgrade options but expensive as all get outs. In some ways the Defender is like the E-Wing except the Empire really doesn't have a ship that is close unless you could a high end Interceptor with Shield and Hull upgrades; the white k-turn is also something that will shake up games. In many ways the Phantom is the wildcard in the wave and no one can really say what it's going to do because it is so radically different.

Although their exact effects are unknown three of the ships have some similarities to current ships but the Phantom will bring in a whole new way of seeing things.

I look forward to seeing some Rebel Swarms, because I already love high PS builds. I can't wait to take a TIE Defender or Phantom against them, I want to see if Z-95s die as easily here as they did in Star Wars: TIE Fighter.

the Phantom will bring in a whole new way of seeing things.

Or to be more precise, a new way of not seeing things. Heh heh.

the Phantom will bring in a whole new way of seeing things.

Or to be more precise, a new way of not seeing things. Heh heh.

Ah, ah, I see what you did there

Not much. Rebels will try the 7/8s Z95 list and realise that its not as consistent as the TIEs due to the lack of rebel force multipliers

Phantoms require so much processing overhead that only the best of the best will use them with any success in the long term. They have so little margin for error that any incoming shot could potentially cripple your 40 point model. You can see the data for how few 3x interceptor lists there are in competitive play. They will cause an uptick in the use of Y-wings over B-wings in the short term but thats about it.

About the only thing that will change is probably the use of Predator over PTL in more lists where PTL is already a marginal choice.

I have a feeling the impact of wave 4 won't be fully felt until rebel aces is also out

if anything changes things it might be the phantom but hopefully that change isn't just "more falcons"

I wouldn't underestimate the power of 2 assult missiles and 4 concussion missiles. Fireing of all of those missiles will take out 2 ships almost instintaniously. Yes having only naked z95s with only 1 or 2 missiles will probably be a weaker tie swarm.

I wouldn't underestimate the power of 2 assult missiles and 4 concussion missiles. Fireing of all of those missiles will take out 2 ships almost instintaniously. Yes having only naked z95s with only 1 or 2 missiles will probably be a weaker tie swarm.

Not really. Ordnance is a just a play that shifts the upper bound of variance higher. It by no means guarantees 2 ships killed in a turn particularly since the rebels lack Jonus to make it a more consistent play. And tournament players avoid variance like the plague given the data that comes out of regionals/championship reports.

You might see some fringe play along these lines but that's not a profound meta change.

Oversimplified summary:

Z-95 will give the rebels a swarm ship and a cheap missile carrier. Both open up new doors for the rebels, and provide a lot of options, and save points when compared to the A-Wing.

The E-Wing will either increase the amount of 3-fighter rebel builds or will act as a powerful but lower PS spearhead of 4 ship lists.

The Phantom will be the ultimate high risk, high reward ship with both the strengths and weaknesses of an Interceptor, with both highly exaggerated. The two most frustrating things post wave 4 will be using an Phantom, and playing against a Phantom.

With the Phantom being risky, and the large base of the Firespray making it predictable, the Defender will be an easy to use and nimble ship that can act as a focal point for Imperial lists.

I hope a Phantom-heavy meta might push Boba back onto the frontlines. Fettigator may just be able to nip the maneuverability of a phantom in the bud (without VI, even, he may be able to easily act as a blocker for decloaking).

The Z-95 is going to be the biggest meta changer. Blount with assault missiles is a powerful swarm/Biggs counter for a cheap price, while having a 12/13-point ship available is a huge change for a faction that has previously had their cheapest ship at 17 points.

The phantom is going to be a big casual meta changer, but probably not much in tournaments. The maneuverability is a powerful tool in the right hands, especially against low-PS lists, but in a tournament metagame it runs right into the same YT-1300 hard counter that drives out interceptor ace lists. The biggest effect it will probably have is encouraging even more turret-based lists than we already have.

The defender and e-wing will probably have negligible effect. They're expensive super-ships, and we already have those available. Sure, they're slight variations on the themes we already have, but probably not significant enough ones to really change their role in the metagame and how you deal with them.

I wouldn't underestimate the power of 2 assult missiles and 4 concussion missiles. Fireing of all of those missiles will take out 2 ships almost instintaniously. Yes having only naked z95s with only 1 or 2 missiles will probably be a weaker tie swarm.

The issue here is getting your target locks on the right ships. A low-PS missile list is going to have trouble with higher-PS opponents where the Z-95s move first, find nothing within range 3, and then watch as the enemy ships move into shooting range and start killing missile ships before they fire. Then even if you get into range at the right time you still have to predict where to put your target locks. So you're almost guaranteed to either get too many locks on a ship that will die and leave your missiles un-used, or spread out your shots too much and not finish off anything with your one good shot.

More realistically you're probably going to see 1-2 missile z-95s at most, probably Blount for his auto-hit assault missile and deadeye slot, or Cracken because he's just awesome and still fairly cheap with a missile. Anything more than that is just not going to be consistent enough to be a viable list.

98% for imperial shift to meta

45% shift to rebel for meta

these are my predictions, most imperial squads will include a phantom or defender and less so for rebel and a z-95 or e-wing.

these are my predictions, most imperial squads will include a phantom or defender and less so for rebel and a z-95 or e-wing.

I think it's going to be the exact opposite. A defender or phantom (or e-wing) means committing 30+ points, potentially 40+ depending on upgrades. It might be a good idea, but it's not something you can just throw into every list. And I don't think either ship is so obviously overpowered that it will drive all other imperial strategies out of the metagame. A z-95, on the other hand, is dirt cheap. Blount is a powerful swarm counter that costs as much as a generic x-wing, which makes it very easy to just throw him into whatever list you already like.

The Phantoms and Headhunters are going to cause all sorts of problems...and I love them for that.

Theres going to be a lot more movement going on in the new meta. Phantoms decloaking, a-wings with abilities like Jake (I'm excited to pair him with Garvin and possibly Kyle (that could be 3 boosts/barel rolls a turn combined with veteran instincts plus push the limits)

I see lots of movement for high PS skilled fighters

I think Green Squadron Pilots with the refit + outmanauver will be a thing. I really do.

Theres going to be a lot more movement going on in the new meta. Phantoms decloaking, a-wings with abilities like Jake (I'm excited to pair him with Garvin and possibly Kyle (that could be 3 boosts/barel rolls a turn combined with veteran instincts plus push the limits)

I see lots of movement for high PS skilled fighters

You know that you may only perform each action once?

Theres going to be a lot more movement going on in the new meta. Phantoms decloaking, a-wings with abilities like Jake (I'm excited to pair him with Garvin and possibly Kyle (that could be 3 boosts/barel rolls a turn combined with veteran instincts plus push the limits)

I see lots of movement for high PS skilled fighters

You know that you may only perform each action once?

Played two Games tonight with the Phantom. Both games he hit hard. Never took dmg, and was very hard fot my opponent to predict.

Turrets will be its weakness. In that case you really need to keep at range 3 and have something else at range 2 so your opponent targets that instead. Most would choose a ship not getting bonus dice. Especially if your getting 5 with a focus.

The way echo moves around not all that hard if you can get him in a good position early on

Played two Ganges tonight

Wow. Travelled all the way to India to play X-wing with a river. Now THAT'S impressive.

**** it, was hoping to fix that before someone saw that.

Sucks but I'm usually doing this on my phone and it always auto corrects to something else and I don't notice lol