The title says it all. This isn't Attack Wing; please FFG, be more careful with the game balance!

Is Captain Obvious one of the wave 5 pilots?

Not when you wiff an evade roll.

How can something be "under cost" when it doesn't really make a big difference?

I have been able to fly against them, even two at a time, and beat them with my "typical" builds!

(that should get the discussion "flying!") lmao!

Yeah, it just makes those four blank green dice that much more aggravating.

But seriously. Just because you miss them doesn't make them OP.

Rebel ships be all like:

Hit, still alive,

Hit, still alive,

Hit, still alive,

Hit, still alive,

missed

Hit, still alive,

Hit dead.

Imperial ships on the other hand, are more like:

Missed

Missed

Missed

Missed

Oh god how did i survive that?

dead.

The title says it all. This isn't Attack Wing; please FFG, be more careful with the game balance!

You might be right but don't give in to despair. You learn nothing from it. If ACD is causing you lots of trouble, take high PS shooters to get their licks in before the phantom shoots. Swarm tactics and Roark are your friends.

The title says it all. This isn't Attack Wing; please FFG, be more careful with the game balance!

You might be right but don't give in to despair. You learn nothing from it. If ACD is causing you lots of trouble, take high PS shooters to get their licks in before the phantom shoots. Swarm tactics and Roark are your friends.

Or Wes Janson + VI. Or Wedge + VI. Or Luke + VI. Or any B-Wing. Or the YT. Or turreted Y-Wings. Or Corran Horn. Or Blount with Ion Pulse Missiles.

Or, god forbid, you change your tactics. It's silly to blame FFG for making this game unbalanced when we all know that this is actually one of the best balanced games out there. (not really sure what your tactics are, so not to target you specifically, but most of the people i've heard complain have been people flying the same lists as before and wondering why it didn't work against the new wave of ships designed specifically to make people stop flying like they were before.)

Wedge is a Phantom killer for sure.

I think one thing to remember with advanced cloaking device is that FFG purposefully made the highest phantom pilot PS 7 so that the highest you can pump PS up to is 9, which leaves room for them to be countered by elite rebellion pilots.

Even with 4 evade dice the phantom is quite fragile if you don't have a focus or evade token as well.

I'm getting the impression that people don't understand why ACD is good. It's not because you get to attack and still have your cloak up for defense, although that is icing on the cake should you find yourself being shot at. No, the real benefit of ACD is being able to decloak every turn. If you can decloak every turn and your opponent is still getting consistent shots on you, you're playing the Phantom wrong.

all it comes down to is a dice roll. You can still hit anything even if they had 10 green dice. Theres still plenty of abilities you can get to alter yours or his outcome. As soon as you hit they are going to panic make mistakes and you got them.

Heck I killed one by using a sabotur on one of his damage cards. Shut it down hard with what was on the otherside

Other than that I use the cloak and ACD like how I play necrons on battlefleet gothic. Haul butt behind them and shoot where they cant hit me.

All of a sudden, Roark (HWK-290 pilot) is becoming more popular because he could give one of your guys 12 PS. Preempt the TIE Phantom before it could cause any trouble.

I'm getting the impression that people don't understand why ACD is good. It's not because you get to attack and still have your cloak up for defense, although that is icing on the cake should you find yourself being shot at. No, the real benefit of ACD is being able to decloak every turn. If you can decloak every turn and your opponent is still getting consistent shots on you, you're playing the Phantom wrong.

I know this is why it is good, however its not under costed. A good player can force a phantom to decloak in bad spots. Predict the best spot for your opponent to decloak as well as what maneuver he is likely to make and either block that spot or make decloaking there a bad idea. Which forces him into either sticking with his original plan and putting the phantom in a bad spot or decloaking the wrong way for his maneuver. If the phantom decloaks and there isn't anyone to shoot at they don't get to recloak.

I feel like all the phantoms are OP threads are from people that just don't understand how to counter them yet. Or can't adjust their list/tactics/strategy to handle them,

I have seen games where phantoms have been in the game 6+ turns and not got a single shot.

If there isn't anyone to shoot at you just take a normal cloak action...

I agree with you Waaagh. it does help action economy tremendously. But then, so do many, many synergistic rebel builds. Lando, Cracken, Dutch, Garvin and Kyle all have action sharing or token passing abilities for various point totals and build strategies. They're potent, but not broken. There's ways around good evade dice too. Tycho, Wedge, Homing Missiles (thanks to the TL pulling double duty), Ion Pulse Missiles from anyone for that same reason, Outmaneuver (the thing can only be pointing one direction at a time), Predator, Assault Missiles… the list goes on.

But honestly I think the biggest problem is rebel strategies. Many builds fly together in formation, or with one fairly negligible ship sweeping. Strategies need to be rethought, new approach scenarios tested. Tried and true strategies fail now. Biggs can be swallowed whole in a single shot. If you have at least two somewhat credible rebel threats using a pincer move, I can see having the Phantom in a few firing arcs per turn to make use of the things mentioned above. It's just that people need to come up with new strategies, and that will take time.

And this last part is directed not at you, but at everyone who has this gripe, to be said again despite my times oft repeating it: We had to deal with the YT and its turrets, which seemed to be a great counter to almost every Imperial strategy at the time, now you all can deal with the Phantom.

Those builds require different characters to work with. Whisper is a one man army in regard of action efficiency, he can get target lock, concentration token and cloak just for shooting a target, plus your regular action, those are 4 actions so to speak.

I do agree, 4xwings are very easy to fight on my own terms with the phantom for example. I haven't played against imperials yet with the list (only against different rebel lists, currently 12/0), but i expect that rebel captive would be the deal breaker in those situations.

I agree with That One Guy (hehe)

The Phantom definitely shakes up rebel flying strategy. Overlapping arcs of fire are not as good as maximizing the area covered by arcs of fire vs. a phantom.

It's a bit of a waste on pilots who aren't Echo or Whisper--there's too big a chance of running into PS 4 Pilots or PS 5 Pilots (ie Biggs), and getting shot at before you yourself shoot. And it works best usually to add Vet Instincts. So now, you're looking at a tax of about five to ten points and an EPT slot to get the most of it. And even at four agility, you won't survive too long against concentrated fire unless you stay in arc; really, it's not much more than a squint with Stealth Device. And let's not forget that you're talking about a ship that costs at least a quarter of your squad points already.

We had four people at our tourney today. 2 ran Phantoms with Advanced Cloak. 2 had PS over 9. The average pilot skill was 6 something with 4 out of 12 ships having PS9 plus.

In short. It was awesome. Named pilots were amazing. The Fettigator, Han, and Wes all ate Phantoms. Basically, the players that planned for Phantoms ate Phantoms alive. And it was incredibly fun. 4 Points is not in any way undercosted because without those 4 defense dice a Phantom is 35 plus points of wet tissue paper. The mobility, while great, doesn't exactly mean a lot with good asteroid placement, or when players consistently roll 3 hits with crits.

Under costed? Look at the ships it has to go on. There is no reason to put ACD unless it's on a high PS ship. That means Whisper or Echo with VI on them. That means 37 or 35 points respectively. So over 1/3 of your total squad points is invested into 4 Attack and 4 HPs with 2 agility with conditional applications for 4 ability... That's pretty pricey in my book. That cost equivalent is 3 Academy TIEs for 6 attack, 9 agility and 9 hull spread over three ships that can still keep coming after one is dead.

No, I don't believe it's under costed or 'broken'. It's shaking up the current meta of 4 ship rebels and 7 ship swarms that all point the same direction every round to pack the biggest punch possible. Even without high PS and turrets and other anti phantom strategies, you can still beat a phantom even if he's cloaked! I almost lost, hard, two nights ago to two PS1 defenders that just covered fields of fire. If you're flying imperials you have to avoid even getting firing at. If you joust, you lose, it's in the numbers... More evade dice doesn't equal invincibility, just staves off the inevitable failure of them to concentrated attacks.

Not when you wiff an evade roll.

Agreed. My Echo was 1-shotted by a Rookie Pilot at range 1 with Jan Ors boosting the attack by adding an additional die. 5 dice. 4 hits. 4 defense dice. No evades or eyeballs.

And yet - still a lot of fun.

Those builds require different characters to work with. Whisper is a one man army in regard of action efficiency, he can get target lock, concentration token and cloak just for shooting a target, plus your regular action, those are 4 actions so to speak.

I do agree, 4xwings are very easy to fight on my own terms with the phantom for example. I haven't played against imperials yet with the list (only against different rebel lists, currently 12/0), but i expect that rebel captive would be the deal breaker in those situations.

Yes, he's a one man army who takes up more than a third of your points. He'd better be efficient. Also you've got too many actions listed there. Target lock would be his regular action. Unless you're referring to my specific Whisper build. And in that vein, Ibtisam can take FCS with PtL and HLC and be about that effective and for two points cheaper, and pretty much the only thing you're missing is the PS.

I totally agree. He is a flanker, he needs that stuff to work. What i say it is different in the way that most rebel synergies force the rebel player to play relatively close between units.

I don't think it is overpowered, but definitly the rebel players who i had played haven't really figured it out. That's why i want to play against it with more regular lists, because i am getting a lot of flak (friendly) for it ;p

Those builds require different characters to work with. Whisper is a one man army in regard of action efficiency, he can get target lock, concentration token and cloak just for shooting a target, plus your regular action, those are 4 actions so to speak.

I do agree, 4xwings are very easy to fight on my own terms with the phantom for example. I haven't played against imperials yet with the list (only against different rebel lists, currently 12/0), but i expect that rebel captive would be the deal breaker in those situations.

Yes, he's a one man army who takes up more than a third of your points. He'd better be efficient. Also you've got too many actions listed there. Target lock would be his regular action. Unless you're referring to my specific Whisper build. And in that vein, Ibtisam can take FCS with PtL and HLC and be about that effective and for two points cheaper, and pretty much the only thing you're missing is the PS.

He is talking about FCS giving a target lock since Phantoms can't usually take a TL, 3 actions come from shooting, FCS, ACD and a focus from Whisper's ability leaving you the normal action to do whatever with

Those builds require different characters to work with. Whisper is a one man army in regard of action efficiency, he can get target lock, concentration token and cloak just for shooting a target, plus your regular action, those are 4 actions so to speak.

I do agree, 4xwings are very easy to fight on my own terms with the phantom for example. I haven't played against imperials yet with the list (only against different rebel lists, currently 12/0), but i expect that rebel captive would be the deal breaker in those situations.

Yes, he's a one man army who takes up more than a third of your points. He'd better be efficient. Also you've got too many actions listed there. Target lock would be his regular action. Unless you're referring to my specific Whisper build. And in that vein, Ibtisam can take FCS with PtL and HLC and be about that effective and for two points cheaper, and pretty much the only thing you're missing is the PS.

He is talking about FCS giving a target lock since Phantoms can't usually take a TL, 3 actions come from shooting, FCS, ACD and a focus from Whisper's ability leaving you the normal action to do whatever with

Yeah, I know. I made that build. Though I do believe I forgot that a Phantom can't normally target lock. I've only flown it twice. And really, I never had to take one thanks to FCS. Funny how that works.