What will be interesting is to see what the rebels get in response to the Phantom in Wave 6.

The Imps can't be the only ones to get a highly evasive and maneuverable ship.

Let the speculation begin.

You mean like the hyper mobile E-Wing, which can boost and barrel roll immediately before clearing the stress with any 1 or 2 maneuver?

E-wing will need an engine upgrade to do that, and that puts a PS 1 E-wing at 31 while Echo's base cost is 30. I think the E-Wing will not likely be an effective counter.

What will be interesting is to see what the rebels get in response to the Phantom in Wave 6.

The Imps can't be the only ones to get a highly evasive and maneuverable ship.

Let the speculation begin.

You mean like the hyper mobile E-Wing, which can boost and barrel roll immediately before clearing the stress with any 1 or 2 maneuver?

E-wing will need an engine upgrade to do that, and that puts a PS 1 E-wing at 31 while Echo's base cost is 30. I think the E-Wing will not likely be an effective counter.

While I am a HUGE fan of the E-Wing in all things Star Wars, in X-Wing Miniatures it is underwhelming at best in my experience so far.

E'Tahn is great for a mini swarm of Z-95's, which oddly enough entered the game at the same time as the ship who completely renders low PS ships useless.... but whatever.

Boost / BR / Clear stress is cool - but your maneuver is locked in by then. Hopefully you didn't choose wrong in planning phase, of course, since the Phantom can cover an entire range ruler worth of distance before you boost/roll/reveal your 1 left bank, or all those points you put in to hunt down that Phantom with your high PS aren't going to help.

I've been trying to run Corran using the forwards as an additional boost, so you try to line up the shot with the Boost / BR, but I'm telling you - if you haven't played it on the actual game board yet, you're in for a surprise.

The E-Wing is not in any way shape or form a hard counter for the Phantom. You can ruin his day with stress droid, but of course then you lose your greens.

You can try to Flechette him with Blount and then hunt him down with E'Tahn or Corran, but most likely he breaks away before you can kill him.

Anyways, all this is fairly meaningless, what's done is done. If it's overpowered, it's going to remain overpowered until the next wave unless FFG thinks it's "working as intended."

I honestly think that if the Echo / Whisper takes over meta as I personally assume that it will, we will see a 4 dice turret for the rebels.

That, or a rebel ship with an ability to K-Turn at the end of the movement phase, white 1 K's, or a new rebel ship with 4 dice and front-side 180 arcs.

I could also see rebels getting a ship that can boost or barrel roll using any of the "2" templates.

There will eventually need to be answer to the maneuverability of the Phantom at some point, that doesn't revolve around building your entire list to deal with one ship.

Come to think of it - a PS9 with "2" Boost or BR ability seems like a decent answer without being grossly overpowered like the aforementioned 4 dice 360.

I honestly think that if the Echo / Whisper takes over meta as I personally assume that it will, we will see a 4 dice turret for the rebels.

That, or a rebel ship with an ability to K-Turn at the end of the movement phase, white 1 K's, or a new rebel ship with 4 dice and front-side 180 arcs.

I could also see rebels getting a ship that can boost or barrel roll using any of the "2" templates.

There will eventually need to be answer to the maneuverability of the Phantom at some point, that doesn't revolve around building your entire list to deal with one ship.

Come to think of it - a PS9 with "2" Boost or BR ability seems like a decent answer without being grossly overpowered like the aforementioned 4 dice 360.

I honestly think that if the Echo / Whisper takes over meta as I personally assume that it will, we will see a 4 dice turret for the rebels.

That, or a rebel ship with an ability to K-Turn at the end of the movement phase, white 1 K's, or a new rebel ship with 4 dice and front-side 180 arcs.

I could also see rebels getting a ship that can boost or barrel roll using any of the "2" templates.

There will eventually need to be answer to the maneuverability of the Phantom at some point, that doesn't revolve around building your entire list to deal with one ship.

Come to think of it - a PS9 with "2" Boost or BR ability seems like a decent answer without being grossly overpowered like the aforementioned 4 dice 360.

You mean the already revealed Outrider, Correct?

Range 1 limitations will be interesting on Dash / HLC.

A LOT of shots occur at range 1 once the game furballs, and the Phantom LOVES range 1.

Also, it's possible a new 4 dice secondary with no range 1 limitation is in the works?

What will be interesting is to see what the rebels get in response to the Phantom in Wave 6.

The Imps can't be the only ones to get a highly evasive and maneuverable ship.

Let the speculation begin.

You mean like the hyper mobile E-Wing, which can boost and barrel roll immediately before clearing the stress with any 1 or 2 maneuver?

E-wing will need an engine upgrade to do that, and that puts a PS 1 E-wing at 31 while Echo's base cost is 30. I think the E-Wing will not likely be an effective counter.

You'd also need an EPT to grant PTL, which means you're looking at a minimum of the PS3 Blackmoon with R2-D6. However, Echo is PS6-8, meaning you'll probably need Corran Horn moving and shooting second. Corran with PTL, EU and Adv Sensors comes in at 45 points.

And even then, you're using your Astromech slot for the EPT, and not clearing stress with 1 or 2 maneuvers via an R2.

The build he described comes in at a minimum of 43 points, using Etahn as the pilot.

I reckon they playtested it to death and I don't think it's undercosted. I think they intended to end the joust and get players really thinking much more about positioning. I think they've done a stellar job. The Phantoms are exciting. They shake up the meta and get us all out of the rut. They challenge our expectations. And they can also be taken down.

If anything the one thing that concerns me most about the Phantom is the resurgence of twin Falcon builds.

I reckon they playtested it to death and I don't think it's undercosted. I think they intended to end the joust and get players really thinking much more about positioning. I think they've done a stellar job. The Phantoms are exciting. They shake up the meta and get us all out of the rut. They challenge our expectations. And they can also be taken down.

If anything the one thing that concerns me most about the Phantom is the resurgence of twin Falcon builds.

I am inclined to believe this as well.

I do think it's undercosted, but purposefully, to ensure the death of the old meta.

I think it was a carefully engineered design decision to bring about change.

Of course, there is always that side of the argument where the guys playtesting aren't as skilled/inventive as the guys actually playing and nobody saw this coming

There have been several infinite combos in MTG that I bet WoTC saw in a Grand Prix and went "....well, ****."

The only thing I truly dislike about the Phantom is the Advanced Cloaking Device. That is the card that makes a mess, in my opinion.

As for you, Tusken Raider, I have a great deal of respect for your opinion. Your posts are always well thought out, and whether or not I agree with you I learn from the discussion. Hopefully we can indeed play one another at Regionals or Worlds, I'll buy the first pint at the after action review. :-)

I think Advanced Cloaking device is good, and necessary on the named Phantoms, but at the same time, if the Phantom can't attack, they don't get to recloak. That can cause some real problems if exploited. I know that's killed my Phantom before. It likely will again. By your logic any Phantom with Advanced Sensors is just as powerful. They can cloak move every turn as well, but I don't think anybody sees that option a broken. Which... Implies that the 4 dice is the problem. At least in conjunction with all the free focuses and whatnot.

Beyond that, Advanced Cloaking Device was necessary. Without it the named Phantoms are decidedly meh. Cloaking needed a way to work every turn.

It might have been better to have an EPT that allowed the recloak after firing so that Vet Instincts wasn't as big an issue. I'm not sure. But I think if Phantoms were any less powerful they would be awful.

Probably the only reason Advanced Sensors won't be as powerful is you spend your action to cloak, so no action for offense. You'd need PTL or clever use of FCS to mark it work.

While I am a HUGE fan of the E-Wing in all things Star Wars, in X-Wing Miniatures it is underwhelming at best in my experience so far.

E'Tahn is great for a mini swarm of Z-95's, which oddly enough entered the game at the same time as the ship who completely renders low PS ships useless.... but whatever.

Boost / BR / Clear stress is cool - but your maneuver is locked in by then. Hopefully you didn't choose wrong in planning phase, of course, since the Phantom can cover an entire range ruler worth of distance before you boost/roll/reveal your 1 left bank, or all those points you put in to hunt down that Phantom with your high PS aren't going to help.

I've been trying to run Corran using the forwards as an additional boost, so you try to line up the shot with the Boost / BR, but I'm telling you - if you haven't played it on the actual game board yet, you're in for a surprise.

The E-Wing is not in any way shape or form a hard counter for the Phantom. You can ruin his day with stress droid, but of course then you lose your greens.

You can try to Flechette him with Blount and then hunt him down with E'Tahn or Corran, but most likely he breaks away before you can kill him.

Anyways, all this is fairly meaningless, what's done is done. If it's overpowered, it's going to remain overpowered until the next wave unless FFG thinks it's "working as intended."

Low pilot skill just got a boost from decoy. One high ps ship can pass its skill to the low one with a shot to kill their echo. Spread out your tala squads to gain arcs with homing missiles and decoy them the ps to shoot first. Craken with decoy is great for this. People are underestimating decoy. It makes your pilot skill more useful if you get to pick which guy gets to use it. 5 Z's will likely be a decent list with missiles and decoy. 5 homing missiles is going to brutalize a lot of lists. Phantoms are good but not great. There is a counter for them that can be added to almost any list, and if you aren't planning your lists to counter the best options it is a mistake.

It is a meta changer. Sort of like Unleash the Hounds from Hearthstoen when it was a 2 cost card. I know that it is Apples and Oranges but I think players will learn ways to move around it.

Stress control meta still seems to be the weakness of Echo and with any phantom if it cannot cloak it is dead. So I expect to see more flechette torpedoes and even more on a stress control meta. Double stress + ion equals dead phantom.

It is a meta changer. Sort of like Unleash the Hounds from Hearthstoen when it was a 2 cost card. I know that it is Apples and Oranges but I think players will learn ways to move around it.

Stress control meta still seems to be the weakness of Echo and with any phantom if it cannot cloak it is dead. So I expect to see more flechette torpedoes and even more on a stress control meta. Double stress + ion equals dead phantom.

Yup. It's no coincidence that the phantom was released shortly after a cheap autostress torpedo and at the same time as a cheap ion giving missile.

And tactician.

And r3-a2.

And r7-t1.

None of which are auto wins but can all tip the balance.

While I am a HUGE fan of the E-Wing in all things Star Wars, in X-Wing Miniatures it is underwhelming at best in my experience so far.

E'Tahn is great for a mini swarm of Z-95's, which oddly enough entered the game at the same time as the ship who completely renders low PS ships useless.... but whatever.

Boost / BR / Clear stress is cool - but your maneuver is locked in by then. Hopefully you didn't choose wrong in planning phase, of course, since the Phantom can cover an entire range ruler worth of distance before you boost/roll/reveal your 1 left bank, or all those points you put in to hunt down that Phantom with your high PS aren't going to help.

I've been trying to run Corran using the forwards as an additional boost, so you try to line up the shot with the Boost / BR, but I'm telling you - if you haven't played it on the actual game board yet, you're in for a surprise.

The E-Wing is not in any way shape or form a hard counter for the Phantom. You can ruin his day with stress droid, but of course then you lose your greens.

You can try to Flechette him with Blount and then hunt him down with E'Tahn or Corran, but most likely he breaks away before you can kill him.

Anyways, all this is fairly meaningless, what's done is done. If it's overpowered, it's going to remain overpowered until the next wave unless FFG thinks it's "working as intended."

Low pilot skill just got a boost from decoy. One high ps ship can pass its skill to the low one with a shot to kill their echo. Spread out your tala squads to gain arcs with homing missiles and decoy them the ps to shoot first. Craken with decoy is great for this. People are underestimating decoy. It makes your pilot skill more useful if you get to pick which guy gets to use it. 5 Z's will likely be a decent list with missiles and decoy. 5 homing missiles is going to brutalize a lot of lists. Phantoms are good but not great. There is a counter for them that can be added to almost any list, and if you aren't planning your lists to counter the best options it is a mistake.

Just went 1-2 with a loaded Echo, a Doomshuttle, Lorrir and an Academy TIE.

Echo's going to take some work. First game, she was fine. Second game, I crashed into a rock on my first move and into the Lambda on the second. There was no third move.

Third game, she again managed to crash herself into a rock on decloaking, at range 1 of two Defenders and another Echo.

Rocks seem to be her biggest nemesis.

With all due respect, if you're consistently crashing echo on decloak when there are 90 different options to choose from, it is bad flying and not his (echo is a male clone trooper) fault.

In fact, its terrible flying considering you could have stayed cloaked.

I don't dispute that my flying in those matches was terrible (especially the second match). A good deal of it could have been avoided by remembering that I had taken Advanced Sensors and could have cloaked before ever flipping my first movement dial. But that's the thing with the Phantom. To possibly an even greater extent than an Interceptor, all it takes is a single mis-gauged position or a single forgotten dial maneuver to lead you to disaster, as you don't have the natural 3 green dice to protect you.

It was a good match. I was very concerned about letting Echo run wild. Luckily I was able to put him down quickly. It also helped that my rolls were on fire. My counter to Echo was to basically spread my 3 ships out as much as possible. That way at least one of them would be able to put fire into the Phantom. Now I would have been in trouble if I wasn't able to take out the Phantom when I did. Also, my strategy doesn't really give you the benefit of focus fire, so that's the trade off. But I think with the Phantom, especially a named one, you have to shoot at it if you can. Otherwise those 4 or 5 attack dice are going to make your ships explode very quickly.

I am seriously not trying to be sarcastic or rude.

PLEASE do this if you ever face me at a tournament. I will obliterate the first pair of your ships using the Phantom as a jouster and then hunt down your other two.

I'm not sure who started the Thatch Weave mentality on this forum, but it is a strategy that does not work effectively in this game on the scale you are describing.

At a spread of maybe 2-3 ship bases, it MIGHT work on an opponent of low skill level. Otherwise, what you are providing me is a potentially 4-5 v 2 on one side of the board. By the time your "weave" completes, you will be down two ships.

Huh, I've had decent success with baiting bunched ships with one half and flanking with the other. Heck, given that the Phantom tends to excel at doing just that and people are crying out against it, I'm not entirely sure why it would be a weakness.

Honest question, I'm really wondering.

Splitting your force is OK so long as both forces are engaging that first initial round of combat.

If not then your only firing with half your squad which will probably not be enough to kill your opponent ships.

The phantom, and echo in particular display their greatest strength in being able to rapidly engage / disengage, demonstrated by this image:

That is what makes this ship really unique. Now you give a ship with that capability a savage bite in form of 4 attack dice, and then add it to a squadron with a miniswarm and you suddenly have a very challenging to fly but dangerous force. You put your opponent in the difficult situation of deciding between engaging multiple ships in a nasty furball or split his force and risk being isolated and hunted down by a very maneuverable and dangerous ship.

Now is it the best ship? I don't believe in such things. It's a glass cannon. It's advantages are tampered by it's vulnerabilities. One mistake can be very costly for you with the phantom, and mistakes with the phantom are VERY easy to make.

You using that graphic as proof of an argument brings a smile to an old Tusken. Thanks.

Just got back from an event in Tacoma where the winning build seems positioned to handle basically anything the Phantom could throw at him:

Chewbacca w/ Veteran Instincts, C3P0, Falcon Title, Recon Specialist

Lando w/ PTL, Nien, Han

With two pilots shooting at PS7, both with Focuses and Target Locks, they get initiative over everyone but the named ones. Even the named ones have to deal with 8 hull and 5 shields per Falcon. Chewie is tanky as heck, avoiding at least one damage per turn.

It's not a cheap list to run, requiring cards from the CR90 as well as two YT-1300s. But it flat-out murders Phantoms.

I will have to say, "no, they aren't the best ship!" It still comes down to the person at the table piloting the ships!

I took on two Imperial squadrons today with two Phantoms each! They aren't really very scary at all now as I beat them both.

Phantoms are like glass hammers! If they get to hit you, they might hurt, but eventually all glass can be broken!

IMHO, play the game the way you normally have been, if it's been working for you, concentrate on your flying and learn how those Phantoms fly and you'll be fine.

Plainsman

I played a few games yesterday against the phantom with a mini swarm

Whisper , vi, recon specialist, ACD

Howlerunner

2x AP

Alpha

I ran

Han, vi, C3PO,gunner, falcon title, EU

Wedge, R2D2, outmanoeuvre , EU

Imperials had initiative in 4 games and I played the avoid the swarm and hunt the phantom, basically the phantoms mobility seamed very predictable ( would probably be different with echo) and the phantom went down very quick followed by wedge. I won 3 out of 4 games and the game I lost was when the swarm got to close ranks on wedge an Han faster than I predicted they would. I only just won each game and this was a list that was tailored to take out the phantom.

The big thing I expected was this huge movement on the phantom and not being able to predict where it would go and that was not the case. With out taking the phantom right out of the mix ( which I would have then focused on the mini swarm ) the movement was the same as with any list , move said ship into most idea position to fire on best/most vulnerable ship this round or next. Maybe not having the falcon would make a big difference but I'm not sure the mobility of the phantom is that unpredictable with whisper and with echo you are going to lose the PS bid rather easy.

Not saying I know all just stating what I experienced

Just got back from an event in Tacoma where the winning build seems positioned to handle basically anything the Phantom could throw at him:

Chewbacca w/ Veteran Instincts, C3P0, Falcon Title, Recon Specialist

Lando w/ PTL, Nien, Han

With two pilots shooting at PS7, both with Focuses and Target Locks, they get initiative over everyone but the named ones. Even the named ones have to deal with 8 hull and 5 shields per Falcon. Chewie is tanky as heck, avoiding at least one damage per turn.

It's not a cheap list to run, requiring cards from the CR90 as well as two YT-1300s. But it flat-out murders Phantoms.

That seems like a fairly all-round YT list too. Aside from maybe Veteran Instincts, I don't see any real distinct "this was taken purely to counter Phantoms" cards.

Just got back from an event in Tacoma where the winning build seems positioned to handle basically anything the Phantom could throw at him:

Chewbacca w/ Veteran Instincts, C3P0, Falcon Title, Recon Specialist

Lando w/ PTL, Nien, Han

With two pilots shooting at PS7, both with Focuses and Target Locks, they get initiative over everyone but the named ones. Even the named ones have to deal with 8 hull and 5 shields per Falcon. Chewie is tanky as heck, avoiding at least one damage per turn.

It's not a cheap list to run, requiring cards from the CR90 as well as two YT-1300s. But it flat-out murders Phantoms.

That seems like a fairly all-round YT list too. Aside from maybe Veteran Instincts, I don't see any real distinct "this was taken purely to counter Phantoms" cards.

Oh yeah. It murdered everything and is a solid build. Chewie in particular is a beast. Lando's really there as more of a "Super Cracken" to feed Chewie actions.

basically the phantoms mobility seamed very predictable ( would probably be different with echo) and the phantom went down very quick followed by wedge. I won 3 out of 4 games and the game I lost was when the swarm got to close ranks on wedge an Han faster than I predicted they would. I only just won each game and this was a list that was tailored to take out the phantom.

The big thing I expected was this huge movement on the phantom and not being able to predict where it would go and that was not the case. With out taking the phantom right out of the mix ( which I would have then focused on the mini swarm ) the movement was the same as with any list , move said ship into most idea position to fire on best/most vulnerable ship this round or next. Maybe not having the falcon would make a big difference but I'm not sure the mobility of the phantom is that unpredictable with whisper and with echo you are going to lose the PS bid rather easy.

Not saying I know all just stating what I experienced

I agree with the movement comments above! I was expecting all kinds of unpredictable moves and eventually was able to predict the most likely moves and either counter or totally negate them! My opponent had both Whisper and Echo!

In my two wins, I was running Colonel Vessery, Turr Phennir and Tetran Cowell. One game I lost one Interceptor and had one shield remaining on the Defender and two hull on the other Interceptor. The other game I only lost the Defender. Neither was close in my book.