Now I have close to ten games with Echo, not the greatest sample but still quite a few. I have met almost everything on both sides except the YT that is regarded here as the premium counter for Phantoms.

It's a fun ship to fly for sure, but with all this talk of counters and stuff regarding the Phantom my biggest concern is the barrel roll.

Again, it's new and it will take some time for ppl to adjust. But when I Decloak and move, to be able to barrel roll on top of that is just insane. Especially regarding that I'll probably roll 5 dice for the incoming onslought.

I know about YT and stress related things and Ion aswell, this WILL hurt me.

Thoughts?

P.S.

English is my second language.

D.S.

It's crazy and fragile, but awesome.... Ty echo with advanced sensors and engine upgrade

It can also be used as a distraction, people will go after the phantom out of fear ignoring your other ships which can be just as fatal.

Last game I played I took five ships against five rebs it felt weird, I sent my phantom up the left flank while two defenders and two ties went up the centre, my friend sent an x-wing and a z-95 after the phantom but thanks to the unique movement I was able to skip behind them out of their fire arcs and in range of wedge.

You don't have to wade in every turn to make the phantom effective, you just have to keep it in a threatening position to worry the enemy then strike when the moment presents itself.

what was the list with 2 defenders, 2 ties and a phantom?

It can also be used as a distraction, people will go after the phantom out of fear ignoring your other ships which can be just as fatal.

Last game I played I took five ships against five rebs it felt weird, I sent my phantom up the left flank while two defenders and two ties went up the centre, my friend sent an x-wing and a z-95 after the phantom but thanks to the unique movement I was able to skip behind them out of their fire arcs and in range of wedge.

You don't have to wade in every turn to make the phantom effective, you just have to keep it in a threatening position to worry the enemy then strike when the moment presents itself.

You won't be able to give the Phantom that much of an escort in a standard 100pts game.

It's not because there is one on the table that you should forget all the other opponent ship. Consider his moves but, don't act stupid too and rush him no matter the situation. If he stay out of fight, you can take that moment to thin his escort. Wait for your opponent error.

what was the list with 2 defenders, 2 ties and a phantom?

150 point game vassey with hlc, onyx with hlc and predator, echo and two ties with targeting computers I don't have the list to hand, basic idea is ties lock on multiple target letting vassey take his pick in the attack phase while echo goes alone up the flank hopeing to draw fighters away from the main group then you use the decloak to move out of their fire arcs using barrel roll if needed and hit another of his ships from the flank.

It worked well vassey was taken down to one hull because of a two damage crit result but in return I killed wedges x-wing and etahns e-wing after a k turn and had all my fighters behind his remaining three, which is when he called it.

While it is insane, even at 4 attack dice an unmodified attack is far from frightening. At range 1 you're doing about the same damage as a focused ship with 3 attack dice. At range 2 and 3 you're doing less.

At that point your less bee and more butterfly. Evading everything but harmless. FCS modifies this a little, but also forces you into a predictable path to stay on the same target.

Unless you take Weapons Engineer.

Unless you take Weapons Engineer.

That is one if the least likely upgrades I would ever put on a Phantom. Rebel Captive, Recon spec, and intelligence agent are much better options. I can see the combo potential, but at that point Echo costs 40 points.

Screw that, I put it on Whisper, point cost be damned. It makes him incredibly lethal because with FCS and Weapons Engineer it allows you to take evasive actions every turn and still deliver punishing hits.

Whisper + FCS + Weapons Engineer + ACD + VI makes him fire at PS 9. If you hit (highly likely with a target lock and focus) then you get to refill your focus token if you even needed to use it at all. At that point you've already gotten your two focus tokens for the turn that recon spec would have given you, but you're much more likely to remove other ships from the equation entirely before they can ever hurt you.

And if you take Vessery with you, then you're completely golden. Still have points left over for a good TIE fighter as well.

Whisper + FCS + Weapons Engineer + ACD + VI makes him fire at PS 9. If you hit (highly likely with a target lock and focus) then you get to refill your focus token if you even needed to use it at all. At that point you've already gotten your two focus tokens for the turn that recon spec would have given you, but you're much more likely to remove other ships from the equation entirely before they can ever hurt you.

Please explain how you get multiple focus from this build... Am I reading this wrong?

Edit: Disregard. Doh!

Whisper + FCS + Weapons Engineer + ACD + VI makes him fire at PS 9. If you hit (highly likely with a target lock and focus) then you get to refill your focus token if you even needed to use it at all. At that point you've already gotten your two focus tokens for the turn that recon spec would have given you, but you're much more likely to remove other ships from the equation entirely before they can ever hurt you.

Please explain how you get multiple focus from this build... Am I reading this wrong?

Edit: Disregard. Doh!

Not to make fun of you by drilling the point home, more for the benefit of those not paying attention:

Use your focus token to modify your attack along with your target lock to be almost assured to hit something, then get a focus token thanks to being Whisper. ( after you perform an attack that hits, you may assign one focus token to this ship )

Since ACD allows you to recloak, you just popped in, attacked with a focus and TL, then got your 4 evade dice back with a focus token.

Played a few more games with Echo now and didn't barrel roll as much as I did when I started this thread. I still think the roll is broken though.

Close to 15 games with Echo and still haven't lost a game. Can't recall that Echo has even died yet. I played it with and without V.I. and it is a beast with that BR.

I've flown Echo and Whisper a lot and imho you can really tell when a person has adjusted to flying against them and when they haven't.

(Not taking hard counters into account) I find that it is also the latter which usually calls them broken.

Had my first game against phantoms yesterday and **** those things are agile. Squeaked out a win purely on time.

Phantoms:

• Echo, Veteran Instincts, Advanced-You-Know-What
• Shadow Squadron Pilot, Advanced-Do-Hicky
• Shadow Squadron Pilot, Advanced-Do-You-People-Not-Take-Anything-Else?

Black Squadron:

• Mauler Mithel, Predator, Stealth Device*
• Backstabber, Stealth Device*
• Dark Curse, Stealth Device*
• Black Squadron Pilot, Veteran Instincts*, Stealth Device*
• Black Squadron Pilot, Veteran Instincts*, Stealth Device*

* Can you guess what my other squad is?

My first impressions were that phantoms are stupidly manouvrable BUT manouvrability is something you can deal with. It's the ability to change the manouvre at high pilot skill, and to add turns into it, that makes them really powerful.

With PS5 vs PS6, the Shadow squadron pilots went down in the first couple of turns. They took one Black squadron pilot with them and Echo killed a second. However, the three named TIEs versus Echo felt like a very difficult fight - maybe I haven't adapted to phantoms yet but I was reduced to starburst manouvres with the TIEs covering as much of the board as possible to get a shot on it. The difference in effectiveness between an advanced cloak phantom with a lower pilot skill and a higher pilot skill seems massive, even compared to other manouvre-dependent fighters like Push The Limit interceptors

The single thing which makes the biggest difference - get behind them. I don't mean 'tailing' them. That doesn't work because they won't be where you expect - I mean well back so your arc covers as much space as possible. But phantoms can't come more than 90 degrees round in a turn (except echo), and even echo can only do so using his manouvre, which he needs to pre-plan. If you can force him to koiogran, he can't recloak that turn. If you can deny him a shot, he can't recloak that turn. I nearly killed him because he didn't quite get into arc, and Dark Curse and Mauler Mithel were able to sit on his arse for a turn applying green lasers.

It was a really tense and fun game. The dice luck on both sides was nuts; one black squadron pilot went down to a phantom rolling four criticals and a hit. A turn later, his wingman neatly decloaked, focused and rolled five focus results....in front of Dark Curse. You could almost hear a jubilant " Meep Meep " as the TIE jinked out the way....

2 games with it yesterday. The learning curve on echo is really sharp. By the half way point on the first game I was getting my head round it but it's tricky.

dumb question, with adv sensors on a cloaked phantom, can you BR before your decloak action, after, or whichever you want?

dumb question, with adv sensors on a cloaked phantom, can you BR before your decloak action, after, or whichever you want?

Your choice.

dumb question, with adv sensors on a cloaked phantom, can you BR before your decloak action, after, or whichever you want?

yup, they resolve at the same time so you can do what fits best...

2 games with it yesterday. The learning curve on echo is really sharp. By the half way point on the first game I was getting my head round it but it's tricky.

Agreed. The fact that you cannot decloak pointing in the direction you started the turn facing is more awkward than you first realise....

Whisper + FCS + Weapons Engineer + ACD + VI makes him fire at PS 9. If you hit (highly likely with a target lock and focus) then you get to refill your focus token if you even needed to use it at all. At that point you've already gotten your two focus tokens for the turn that recon spec would have given you, but you're much more likely to remove other ships from the equation entirely before they can ever hurt you.

Please explain how you get multiple focus from this build... Am I reading this wrong?

Edit: Disregard. Doh!

Not to make fun of you by drilling the point home, more for the benefit of those not paying attention:

Use your focus token to modify your attack along with your target lock to be almost assured to hit something, then get a focus token thanks to being Whisper. ( after you perform an attack that hits, you may assign one focus token to this ship )

Since ACD allows you to recloak, you just popped in, attacked with a focus and TL, then got your 4 evade dice back with a focus token.

Not at all, genuine face palm moment, the OP is about Echo and you ninja'd in with Whisper. Gotta learn not to skim read...

Not at all, genuine face palm moment, the OP is about Echo and you ninja'd in with Whisper. Gotta learn not to skim read...

Appear suddenly and unexpectedly? Eh. Phantom pilots do that.

And I maintain that the roll is so OP for the Phantom