Has anyone had any success with Rebel builds against Imperial Phantom builds? Is a YT or at least a turret becoming a must add to Rebel lists?

4 Rebel ships going against Whisper with Adv Cloaking device can't get it done. Certainly not regularly. It seems to me that the only way to beat a phantom is to put firing arcs in as many places as possible. Even then, with Adv Cloak, it's going to have 4 green dice, 5 at R3, and probably a modified or two to help the greens. Even 3 Red with TL + F won't be able to reliably hit a Phantom. And that's only when you have the shot, which will be the exception. Is 4 firing arcs enough to blanket for the Phantom? It doesn't seem to be. You could throw in a handful of Z95s, but they only throw 2 reds, against 4 greens I'm not sure they are really worth adding.

I had some success with a Gold Ion, but when I did get the ion hit, my other ships were out of position for the followup shot. The ion does keep them cloaked, which is good defense for the next round.

Does anyone have a proven winning strategy against Phantoms without using Rebel turret ships? The other requirement is that the list can't be tailor made to just beat Phantoms, it really should be able to hold it's own against other Rebel and Imperial lists.

Imperials don't have it easy against them, but a Firespray helps. A Tie swarm is so many ships that they can block them and blanket arks. Sure Ties have the same issue as the Z95, but at least they have 3 evades to help them survive a little longer. Imperials can also run their own Phantoms and make a big initiative bid to ensure they shoot fire and use their Adv Cloak before their opponent shoots back.

Engaging from long range helps (because your firing arc is broadest there), which means HLC or ordnance can work. High PS helps, to offset the advantage of Advanced Cloaking Device. Wes helps, because four dice without a token to modify them actually aren't all that good. Wedge helps, because shrinking the number of evade dice is obviously good.

So now that Wave 5 has been announced, and the Imperials are getting a Falcon like Turreted ship, does that solidify my question above? With high PS Interceptors and high PS Phantoms, are there lists that can beat those ships, reliably, without turrets?

To counter those **** phantoms the rebels need is a turreted ship that can barrel roll as a normal action, and maybe equip an HLC as a turret...

Oh yeah.

No Range 1 shots with a turreted HLC.

So now that Wave 5 has been announced, and the Imperials are getting a Falcon like Turreted ship, does that solidify my question above? With high PS Interceptors and high PS Phantoms, are there lists that can beat those ships, reliably, without turrets?

Counter high PS phantoms with high PS rebel ships. The highest PS for a Phantom is 7. 9 with VI. Literally every Rebel fighter in the game can top that. Higher PS means you'll be shooting against 2 dice. Ion turrets also help, and the new tactician piles stress at range 2 regardless of whether you hit or not.

Sure, your pilots will be more expensive, but if an Imperial flies a high PS Phantom/Interceptor list you'll still hold the advantage in THP.

So whats the list then? Wedge w/VI, Luke w/VI? That gets expensive fast. And it may fall apart against Bloody Daggers or something. I agree that could be a counter, but people don't run those now because they can struggle against 4 rebel ship builds.

So whats the list then? Wedge w/VI, Luke w/VI? That gets expensive fast. And it may fall apart against Bloody Daggers or something. I agree that could be a counter, but people don't run those now because they can struggle against 4 rebel ship builds.

Welcome to the Empire. Ready your swarms or get ready for a rough ride.

On a more serious note, yes a named list is going to get expensive fast. But if your opponent is running a high PS Phantom/Interceptor list, they won't be fielding much more than 3 fighters themselves either.

You have to realize that the Phantom is designed to have an advantage against low PS fighters for a reason. The current meta is very high on the "low PS but lots of ships" builds. The Phantom is like a firecracker in this habit and forces us to rethink the lists we've become so used to taking. Because while the Phantom has a high PS, it's never high enough to outclass any other fighter in the game. The only other fighter without a PS8 pilot is the Bomber, at PS7 tops. That's no accident.

A PS9 Phantom, Whisper w/VI, with Adv Cloak and with initiative, I'm just not sure 3 Elite Xwings can beat that. I guess my concern is that 2 equal skill players, I think PS9 Whisper + Howl mini swarm will beat any 3 elite Xwings 80% of the time, maybe more. I struggle to find a Rebel list without a turret that can beat that imperial list 50% of the time. Am I the only one worried about Rebel lists without Turrets?

something else is if you do have a high PS ship give initative to the Phantom, its more important you can line up your shot then to try to shoot before they cloak (Soontir Fel and I learned this lesson the hard way)

Maybe Ibi or Ten Numb with VI. You'll want some sort of reposition skill, after all. X Wings get crushed against Interceptors and Phantoms specifically for that reason. X wings with Engine upgrade and R2 maybe.

X Wings DO have the stress droid, which will help.

Maybe Cracken as a wingman to an Engine Upgrade Bwing? After Cracken attacks, could give an action to the B wing to it it could hopefully use the roll or boost to put the phantom in it's arc. Even then though, against Whisper you are still probably shooting at 4 focused green dice. Those are hard to get hits through.

A PS9 Phantom, Whisper w/VI, with Adv Cloak and with initiative, I'm just not sure 3 Elite Xwings can beat that. I guess my concern is that 2 equal skill players, I think PS9 Whisper + Howl mini swarm will beat any 3 elite Xwings 80% of the time, maybe more. I struggle to find a Rebel list without a turret that can beat that imperial list 50% of the time. Am I the only one worried about Rebel lists without Turrets?

A Wes/Wedge/Luke with VI runs with PS 10/11/10. No way Whisper will shoot first, which means you're shooting at 2 defense dice. 1 if you're shooting with Wedge, while Wes can remove focus, evade or enemy TL's. And you can toss in an R3 to further handicap the Phantom with stress tokens. The Howl mini-swarm meanwhile has four TIE's total, including Howlrunner, which is not something that's going to kill you 80% of the time.

Stress it. Flechette Torps, R3-A2, Ion

2 Bwings with FCS, Ion and Flechette Torp & Munitions Failsafe (on a blue 30 points )

Stress it then Ion it then move in for the kill

just an idea

Here's a thought: learn how to predict what your opponent is going to do and pick your maneuvers accordingly. I'm sure this is going to come as a surprise to some people, but that's what 90% of this game is already about, not brainstorming new lists. The Phantom isn't going to suddenly trivialize that skill.

That having been said, people aren't going to be fielding several Phantoms at one time. A couple Heavy Laser Cannons should do the trick for a single Phantom, and XXBB is already a solid anti-swarm(let) option. Don't worry Rebel players, the sky isn't falling.

Honestly, don't bother screwing around with situational counters dedicated to phantom killing, just take a Falcon and accept that rebel lists in the current metagame have ~50 points of ships and a mandatory turret.

The Phantom isn't going to suddenly trivialize that skill.

Remember how the phantom gets to pick most of its maneuver when it activates, not when it sets its dial? If you're facing a higher-PS phantom you can't predict where it's going to be because your opponent won't make that decision until after you've committed to your moves and they've figured out what the best counter is.

Right, because there will never be times when certain routes are blocked by asteroids or other ships, and it's never painfully obvious when moving a certain way is the ideal (if not only) way to go. Oh, and while we're at it let's go ahead and pretend like the maneuver you chose will still be viable if the direction you were planning on decloaking doesn't pan out. I mean, you only have to plan two moves in advance instead of one. What could go wrong?

The Phantom is a lot of fun, and it does offer you a lot of freedom of movement, but at the end of the day it's really just a super Interceptor. I've played with it, and I can assure you that player skill is still extremely relevant - on both sides of the table.

As for your poor assessment of the meta game, I can all but gaurantee that I could beat you with an XXBB + HLC list. Rebels are absolutely not limited to YTs, nor will they be in the foreseeable future.

For the OP - HSF hasn't let me down against a Phantom list yet.

Yet.

I think what FFG wants is for high and low PS ships to mix, to go with squads that don't spam one thing and to not copy the "good" builds. Run a full TIE swarm or an XXBB rebel swarm and you'll do well until you hit the phantoms. Rely on phantoms or PTL interceptors and you'll do great until you hit the turrets. Rely on turrets and those heavy hitting swarm squads will take you down.

If you look at this thread, someone said high PS kills phantoms. The response was to suggest a squad with three X-wing aces, variants on the Trench Run Trio. That'll then die to a swarm. Which'll die to phantoms. Build soley counter and you'll die to the counter to your counter, which, unless you've made a new squad rather than gone with the status quo, is likely to be there.

FFG are trying to kill the meta, so to speak. If everyone copies the same squad or variants of it then all you need is for one or two people to run the counter and they sail to victory. Everyone copies that counter and the counter to that sails to victory. You can no longer win reliably by copying other people. The route to victory now is to run stuff that isn't anticipated and that's versatile. Netdeckers, for need of a better term, are about to have a real hard time.

Welcome to the era of the SableGryphon.

FFG are trying to kill the meta, so to speak. If everyone copies the same squad or variants of it then all you need is for one or two people to run the counter and they sail to victory. Everyone copies that counter and the counter to that sails to victory. You can no longer win reliably by copying other people. The route to victory now is to run stuff that isn't anticipated and that's versatile. Netdeckers, for need of a better term, are about to have a real hard time.

Welcome to the era of the SableGryphon.

I think this is pretty much spot on. Up through Wave 3, there wasn't quite enough variation in possible lists, so it was still possible to build something mathematically efficient and fly it in about the same way against all opponents. Once Wave 4 hits general distribution, though, people will have to adapt their maneuvering to the lists they face far more than they are used to, and learn to mitigate their weaknesses rather than just minimizing them.

I've also been testing different Phantom builds. I do like the ship, but find it to be fairly balanced. The first few games it seemed to pour on hits like an open fire hydrant, as ships fell left and right to its attack. Then we learned how to fly versus the Apparation ship, and everything balanced out. Although not an interceptor it is fragil. I have seen the Spector ship fall to single attacks even while cloaked. Turrets do pose the biggest threat to the poltergeist vessel and Ion being the worst for it. Against a Biggs Walk the Doggs or Bloody Daggers a high pilot skill Wraith could be everything that squad can handle. However, running through a tournament with out facing Ions, Turrets and Stress Creaters boarders on lucky.

We will soon learn the fate our ghostly friend as they get off the boat and on our tables. We will see some making the top tables at Orginized Play events but I'm sure it won't be saturated with ghoals.

Personally, while I think the Phantom is a huge issue for the current meta game, I don't think they are an issue overall.

It's true a 4 ship rebel list is going to have a hard time with the Phantom, as will lists with no ability to hand out stress or ion. And I think that is the point. The meta had settled fairly firmly on high ship count, low ps builds with few upgrades or abilities.

Well, now the ability to hand out stress, put down ion tokens, shoot first, and do other interesting effects is extremely important. Pilot skill is important, stress is important, abilities are important. The strength of a low ps/high ship count build are that they can ignore stress and take ablative damage. Their weakness is that they are bad at controlling their opponent, and that is exactly what the phantom requires.

So you can take Blount with an ion pulse missile, someone with a fletchett torpedo, or one of the MANY other new stress producing upgrades, and suddenly the Phantom can't control its own cloak, can't control its moves, etc. Or you can start stacking up target locks and focus with the many abilities that help with that so you can actually hit it.

It forces a huge change to the meta, but a welcome one I think. Suddenly pilot skills and abilities are more important than just having the most guns or HP on the table. And this is a good this. It will increase the number of builds that are considered viable.

Here's a thought: learn how to predict what your opponent is going to do and pick your maneuvers accordingly.

I think you're trivializing the Power of Choice that comes with DeCloaking.

And for that matter, Advanced Sensors with mobility-actions.

Even if you predict what your opponent intends to do and attempt to punish them for it, if they see the punishment coming they can change their mind.

The Decloak function has a range of 5 from one side to the other.

Decloak with the Barrel-Roll action has a range of 9 from one side to the other.

And that is all done prior to executing their chosen maneuver.

Phantoms, moreso than any Hypermobile ship previously instilled in the game, do not have a position, so much as they have a Probability Cloud.

You've got a lot of positions to cover, Mr. Predictor.

The Phantom wants to avoid your arcs and get into a good firing position. Make sure it can't do both.

I know, easier said than done, but this is a game of skill.

FFG are trying to kill the meta, so to speak. If everyone copies the same squad or variants of it then all you need is for one or two people to run the counter and they sail to victory. Everyone copies that counter and the counter to that sails to victory. You can no longer win reliably by copying other people. The route to victory now is to run stuff that isn't anticipated and that's versatile. Netdeckers, for need of a better term, are about to have a real hard time.

Welcome to the era of the SableGryphon.

I think this is pretty much spot on. Up through Wave 3, there wasn't quite enough variation in possible lists, so it was still possible to build something mathematically efficient and fly it in about the same way against all opponents. Once Wave 4 hits general distribution, though, people will have to adapt their maneuvering to the lists they face far more than they are used to, and learn to mitigate their weaknesses rather than just minimizing them.

Exactly more emphasis on how you fly your ships than what ships you fly, (a bit opposite of the Wave 5 ships but those might be preemptive releases to scare people into not going full phantom)