Once people are used to flying against it, the Phantom won't be as tough to defeat. It flies way differently than every other ship out there - people need time to learn to counter it. Also, the metagame will adjust to Phantoms. We'll see way more PS 8-9 with VI in lists, because its a hard counter to Phantoms. Rebel Aces, Imperial Aces, and the Transport pilots give more options for high PS pilots as well, improving the list of potential pilots whom can counter the named Phantoms.

im trying to imagine what that maneuverability would be like with a tie swarm hogging the board

between the number of ships and asteroids, you are going to need to be one hell of a flier to not hit anything and lose your actions

A good Phantom pilot can easily avoid a true swarm.

Echo is the only ship that can fly backward

MathWing perspective.

TIE Interceptor:

• A TIE Interceptor is worth about 16 points of raw jousting value (PS1 equivalent).
• To get a PS9 Ace, it costs 30 points (Soontir Fel + PtL).
• You are effectively paying an 87.5% premium (14 points) to:

1. go from PS1 to PS9
2. get Fel's ability + PtL
3. Get the added maenuverability afforded by the Interceptor.

TIE Phantom:

• A TIE Phantom with perma-cloaking (4/4/2/2 stats) is worth about 28.5 points of jousting value. (PS1 equivalent)
• To get a PS9 Phantom Ace, it costs you a minimum of 37 points (Whisper + VI + ACD).
• You are effectively paying a 30% premium (8.5 points) to:

1. go from PS1 to PS9
2. get Whisper's ability
3. get the added maneuverability afforded by the cloaking action + ACD.

Given that:

1. The cloaking action is significantly better than the boost action
2. The true cost above the raw jousting value is fairly low in the case of the Phantom

... it's hard to see the PS8/9 ACD Phantoms as anything short of spectacular.

[Edit] For reference, a named YT-1300, 3/1/8/5 statline has a PS1 equivalent jousting value of about 26 (pre upgrades). So without gunner, Chewie/Lando have about the same firepower*durability as the Phantom, assuming the Phantom shoots first to activate ACD. With gunner, the balance shifts towards the YT, but it costs much more and I would have to run the numbers to see exactly how much that improves its damage output specifically against a 4 agility target.

This is all theory crafting from your resident nerd that has yet to actually play with the ship. Stay tuned for another episode of MathWing with MajorJuggler....

I've played both with the Phantom and against it. Yes it's a good ship, yes it will see lots of play, No it is not broken. It will be interesting to see what the coming weeks of tournaments bring us. If the popularity of the ship is as high as it seems, it will be time to break out the double YT list and ruin everyone's fun. Even in the current meta the YT-1300 is seen at a 9% popularity among all ships. 14% of the winning rebel squads had a YT in it while 4.6% had double. The Double YT build is not a build that is solving good at beating the phantoms as seen from he past meta. Now Turrets make up almost 8% of the upgrades seen in the current meta out side of the YT-1300. This is not a very friendly environment for the Phantom. Whisper will do better than Echo as Whisper will have a focus to help defend off all these turrets. Echo will just get crushed, as the only effect he has is his maneuverability. I've spent years studying Meta's in games and you can not ignor the current meta the Phantom is entering and declare it broken. If the whole meta was Biggs walks the Doggs and Tie Swarms, Yes the Phantom would rule. My prediction of the result for the first week end of regionals in Germany, Poland and Arazona will be no more the 6 phantoms in the top 8 combined of all 3. Partly due to limited distribution and the current meta they have to run through.

im trying to imagine what that maneuverability would be like with a tie swarm hogging the board

between the number of ships and asteroids, you are going to need to be one hell of a flier to not hit anything and lose your actions

A good Phantom pilot can easily avoid a true swarm.

Echo is the only ship that can fly backwards

A good Phantom pilot can avoid a swarm that isn't willing to break formation, but 7 ships can pretty easily cover everywhere a phantom can move with 2-3 shots. That said, it'll take a list with only 2 attack dice ships, even with Howlrunner accuracy an average of 6 shots to kill a 4 defense focusless Phantom. That's rough to see happening.

I've played both with the Phantom and against it. Yes it's a good ship, yes it will see lots of play, No it is not broken. It will be interesting to see what the coming weeks of tournaments bring us. If the popularity of the ship is as high as it seems, it will be time to break out the double YT list and ruin everyone's fun. Even in the current meta the YT-1300 is seen at a 9% popularity among all ships. 14% of the winning rebel squads had a YT in it while 4.6% had double. The Double YT build is not a build that is solving good at beating the phantoms as seen from he past meta. Now Turrets make up almost 8% of the upgrades seen in the current meta out side of the YT-1300. This is not a very friendly environment for the Phantom. Whisper will do better than Echo as Whisper will have a focus to help defend off all these turrets. Echo will just get crushed, as the only effect he has is his maneuverability. I've spent years studying Meta's in games and you can not ignor the current meta the Phantom is entering and declare it broken. If the whole meta was Biggs walks the Doggs and Tie Swarms, Yes the Phantom would rule. My prediction of the result for the first week end of regionals in Germany, Poland and Arazona will be no more the 6 phantoms in the top 8 combined of all 3. Partly due to limited distribution and the current meta they have to run through.

Any predictions on if Phantoms will nueter Tie Swarms? It'll be interesting to see how many people pack Vet Instincts Han Solo or Roark and Chewie.

Yes it's the new best ship, are you kidding? In the hands of a skilled player it hard counters any ship with a Pilot Skill lower than it has, and does it with room for up to 5 other ships on the table to deal with the odd pesky YT-1300 that shows up to ruin the party. Absolutely hard counters them, even more thoroughly than the YTs used to hard-counter Interceptors. I have repeatedly defeated entire 100 point lists using a single Phantom.

In the rock, paper, scissors game it is like ROCK to everything else being paper and scissors. It isn't enough to bring paper, you need to devote your entire list to paper just to have a chance. Otherwise, you are depending on your opponent to screw up because in a remotely even playing field the Phantom dominates everything. Don't start with anecdotes about how you killed it this one time at band camp, of course it isn't invincible. It is however far, far, FAR, FAR!!!!! more effective for it's points than any other ship.

Maybe if they realize how badly they screwed up and ban Advanced Cloaking Device, things will trend back towards balance. As they stand, Echo and Whisper are so much more powerful for their points than anything else in the game it's not even funny.

In other words:

Your anecdotes > other people's anecdotes

It's not invincible, but she brings friends

I always feel people forget that. As if the Phantom is by itself

For every round the Phantom lives and her back up ignored,means more dead ships

But the Phantom can die easily. But even so it can already have done is damage

Nothing is unbeatable.

The Phantom is not an easy adversary.

A good Phantom pilot will see his opponent split his force and adjust accordingly.

Actually they may expect it

I wonder if TIE swarms will start giving VI to Howrunner (or Mauler Mithel). Probably not - Howlrunner couldn't do much damage to an uncloaked Phantom and needs to stay with the Swarm anyway, being Howlrunner. It might be worth the usually wasted one point, choosing to fly out of formation with your TIEs if you're facing a Phantom. Howlrunner should be able to better arc dodge the Phantom while making sure she can get an attack in against it while decloaked, while the rest of your TIEs deal with the rest of the list. It won't make fighting a Phantom much easier, but it will give the swarm a chance.

Here we go again - only now I'm in to the tune of about 44 games with / against the Phantom.

There are really a few simple rules.

If you move first, you will never get a shot on the Phantom with cloaking upgrades. Unless the Phantom pilot sucks or makes a huge mistake, you can count on the fact that Echo will obliterate anyone with a lower PS unless you manage to get shots on him while he kills something else at range 1.

I have seen 100 point squad list WIPES with Echo. Yes - one ship takes out a 100 point list. A TIE swarm flown in formation will never have a shot on you - period. By the time they realize the mistake, two are dead because 5 dice is obscene.

If you move after the phantom - the shots are not automatic, but with boost / barrel roll / turret, etc, you can make up for the defense dice by maneuvering cautiously.

Obviously turrets help, but make no mistake, you had better be bringing one or the other to a tournament.

High PS or Turrets.

You will be Phantom bait otherwise.

I have changed my previous stance - I don't think they are broken at all. I think 4 dice was too much, but it was probably the only way FFG could ensure that the ship could capitalize on it's facerollwtfbbq movement abilities.

Personally, I'm going to try to use high PS, since I really dislike flying Falcons.

Without a good player using it no ship is an autowin, and you can always have one really bad turn of dice rolling.

Is it strong yes but in a vacuum, you have to build around it which means people can build lists to counter.

IMHO I think it's a novelty. You have to be one hell of a great pilot to maneuver it and I think a even better tactician. If you are a five move ahead type of player you will win everything, otherwise it is just a cool novelty.

spoken like a true rebel.

It's pretty forgiving, though. You could fly it straight forward and never cloak once and it would still be shootier and cheaper than a Blue with HLC. Obviously it would quickly get eaten alive if you did that, because of the 4 HP/2 Ev, but the point is that no one is going to be that bad with it, and even if they were they could stand a good chance of one-shotting something before they went down.

It's the 4 attack stat that pushes the Phantom into ridiculous territory for me. It would have been a great ship with 3 attacks. The extra one just pushes it into the smoking hot category.

I might be a little flustered, because I just got home from a nasty game against an Echo+Whisper list. Despite me maneuvering fairly well, and the Imperial player repeatedly flubbing the cloaking rules and positioning himself poorly, I still got crushed.

In the rock, paper, scissors game it is like ROCK to everything else being paper and scissors. It isn't enough to bring paper, you need to devote your entire list to paper just to have a chance. Otherwise, you are depending on your opponent to screw up because in a remotely even playing field the Phantom dominates everything. Don't start with anecdotes about how you killed it this one time at band camp, of course it isn't invincible. It is however far, far, FAR, FAR!!!!! more effective for it's points than any other ship.

This is a good representation of how I felt playing against the Phantoms. They really kill casual/fun lists, and can dominate anything not specifically geared towards dealing with them. I hate setting up a game and feeling like you've already won/lost in the deployment phase, before a turn is even taken (see: Warhammer Fantasy Battle).

I arrived with five different lists tonight, and randomly selected the one I was going to use, but I don't feel like I would have stood a better chance with any of the four I didn't use.

Ah well, time to finally buy myself a Millenium Falcon, I guess.

I look forward to seeing some new lists and it would be nice to see a break from the ever so popular swarm and biggs walk the dogs

Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I'd like to see the meta change some. These lists that offer high success rate may change.

I welcome change

Edit

I remember seeing posts asking what is better? More ships or higher ps pilots with upgrades.

It really seemed the census was more ships. So a lot of competitive lists were low PS.

I hope the Phantom changes that. There are some awesome pilots that just don't see much play in tournaments due to their costs

To me there is one ship that has often been talked about but has never really shown up. A heavy Phantom meta would create the perfect environment for ...................The Fettigator !!

Boba Fett + Heavy Laser Cannon + Veteran Instincts + Navigator (50)

yes it's 50 points but it will eat all the phantoms for lunch as a hard counter. you still have half the squad to play with and you have a great counter in place. oh your decloaking that way, no problem. you could even effectively stay out of it's arch while it tries to find a target to recloak. lets give the Phantom a target.

Kath Scarlet + Proton Bombs + Marksmanship + Rebel Captive (49)

yup at 99 points this build would be a nightmare for all Phantoms. While Boba darts around with you wherever you go your only shot leaves you stressed and the that advanced cloaking device worthless. Dont get to close to the lady in red as she has a gift for you!

See

I like this

Ships that don't see much play may become more useful

Fett is my favorite and it's a **** shame I've never used nor seem him used yet

I'd go for predator over marksmanship, but do what you will. Seems like a decent counter.

Yeah I forgot about Fett. That's not a bad counter either.

But I would like to point out that the Phantom is the only ship that nearly requires a large base ship to counter it effectively.

The 4 dice do push it over the top.

Echo is the most efficient small base ship in the game whether he has hard counters or not.

One ship (even with the PS advantage) is not likely to kill Echo flown by someone with a lot of spacial awareness.

Maybe one large base, but still, those green dice, lol.

Actualy take off proton bombs and put Tacticianb on both

Lots of stress

Or better yet, Mara Jade

To me there is one ship that has often been talked about but has never really shown up. A heavy Phantom meta would create the perfect environment for ...................The Fettigator !!

Boba Fett + Heavy Laser Cannon + Veteran Instincts + Navigator (50)

yes it's 50 points but it will eat all the phantoms for lunch as a hard counter. you still have half the squad to play with and you have a great counter in place. oh your decloaking that way, no problem. you could even effectively stay out of it's arch while it tries to find a target to recloak. lets give the Phantom a target.

Kath Scarlet + Proton Bombs + Marksmanship + Rebel Captive (49)

yup at 99 points this build would be a nightmare for all Phantoms. While Boba darts around with you wherever you go your only shot leaves you stressed and the that advanced cloaking device worthless. Dont get to close to the lady in red as she has a gift for you!

Agreed. This is just it. Mobility just became important. In the past it hasn't been because the Falcon murdered mobility. Pilot skill became important where it never was because pilot skill cost too much.

Suddenly crazy lists with Homing missiles might just work.

Fettigator became useful. Holy crap, the Fettigator is useful. I wonder if I can squeeze Whisper in with him...

If you can't get Whisper, try echo, she two points less

The only reason it "requires" a large base to counter is because of fett's ability. Some of the named interceptors could work too.

The only reason it "requires" a large base to counter is because of fett's ability. Some of the named interceptors could work too.

Soontir Fel will be a great Phantom chaser with an initiative bid against Whisper lists.

So

Boba Fett Vet instincts Navigator. Nice and simple.

Whisper Vet instincts and Advanced Cloaking

Scimitar Squadron w/ two Flechette Torpedos.

Not the greatest list ever, but it looks fun. I might try it at my next tournament as a "I know the Phantoms are coming" list.

Really the best part is 2 Firesprays is nothing to scoff at. They can beat other squads too.

Ya, I love Recon specialist in them.

I really can't wait to have Mara jade on one

Another thought. Rebel Captive basically murders Phantoms. Force them to shoot your captive ship. Then when they can't recloak Murder them the following turn.

Does a ship have to shoot if it has a shot?

The only reason it "requires" a large base to counter is because of fett's ability. Some of the named interceptors could work too.

Soontir Fel will be a great Phantom chaser with an initiative bid against Whisper lists.

So

Boba Fett Vet instincts Navigator. Nice and simple.

Whisper Vet instincts and Advanced Cloaking

Scimitar Squadron w/ two Flechette Torpedos.

Not the greatest list ever, but it looks fun. I might try it at my next tournament as a "I know the Phantoms are coming" list.