I needed some **** cheese with all the whine in this podcast. Good God you would think that the sky has fallen!

They are comparing a ORS against a Phantom? No **** the Phantom should rock it. Its more expensive and way harder to fly. Ban ACD? Are you high? Without ACD the Phantom is just a fancy Interceptor with 4 attack die that will probably die even faster. You would either have to not cloak at all after the first engagement or cloak every other turn. Esentially making you Corran Horn that can't attack twice in a turn. It would make the Phantom semi worthless.

Whenever I build Imp lists prior to wave 4 I had to always account for gunner turrets. I'd argue a gunner on Han is just as stupid as ACD on Whisper/Echo. At least the Phantoms are more fun to fly.

You can take my ACD when you ban gunners with turrets

Wow, some harsh feedback on the Phantom talk. For what it is worth, I didn't think it was especially "whiny", and I think there is a valid concern that the Phantom limits the number of viable competitive lists more than any ship(s) have in the past.

Whenever I build Imp lists prior to wave 4 I had to always account for gunner turrets. I'd argue a gunner on Han is just as stupid as ACD on Whisper/Echo. At least the Phantoms are more fun to fly.

You can take my ACD when you ban gunners with turrets

I don't want to start any argument, just food for thought - I think the primary difference is that almost any 3-4 ships can focus fire down a gunner turret if they need to. They are going to take some hits, but they'll do it. So the list building options are wide open. Any 3-4 ships cannot take down a Phantom. I don't ever recall hearing about Han singlehandedly wasting entire squads, but I do see and hear about Phantoms doing it.

I'm also finding it somewhat odd that people with such hatred for turrets are supportive of the Phantom. There are going to be lots more turrets because of the Phantom. There isn't really a point to be made there, I just find it ironic.

Let's just hope it all pans out to be either a temporary or non-existent problem that can be solved by flying differently rather than building your list around countering it.

Woot woot

Whenever I build Imp lists prior to wave 4 I had to always account for gunner turrets. I'd argue a gunner on Han is just as stupid as ACD on Whisper/Echo. At least the Phantoms are more fun to fly.

You can take my ACD when you ban gunners with turrets

I think the primary difference here is that almost any 3-4 ships can focus fire down a gunner turret. They are going to take some hits, but they'll do it. So the list building options are wide open. Any 3-4 ships cannot take down a Phantom. I don't ever recall hearing about Han singlehandedly wasting entire squads, but I do hear about Phantoms doing it.

I'm also finding it somewhat odd that people with such hatred for turrets are supportive of the Phantom. There are going to be lots more turrets because of the Phantom.

Let's just hope it all pans out to be either a temporary or non-existent problem.

Gunner turrets effectively erased high skill interceptors even a fair amount of named ties so we could fit more AP fodder, from play because it made them easy to kill so we were left with heavy ships or swarms meanwhile all of the terrorist ships could take hits and kill it off so they were uneffected. Now all of their fun builds are gone so they can bring turrets. Yeah, we have to deal with turrets, but we're use to it. Now we have something to irritate rebel lists and constrict what they do.

All the phantom builds still seem to have shuttles or multiple ties to go after the turret ships.

Basically, welcome to our world.

Whenever I build Imp lists prior to wave 4 I had to always account for gunner turrets. I'd argue a gunner on Han is just as stupid as ACD on Whisper/Echo. At least the Phantoms are more fun to fly.

You can take my ACD when you ban gunners with turrets

I think the primary difference here is that almost any 3-4 ships can focus fire down a gunner turret. They are going to take some hits, but they'll do it. So the list building options are wide open. Any 3-4 ships cannot take down a Phantom. I don't ever recall hearing about Han singlehandedly wasting entire squads, but I do hear about Phantoms doing it.

I'm also finding it somewhat odd that people with such hatred for turrets are supportive of the Phantom. There are going to be lots more turrets because of the Phantom.

Let's just hope it all pans out to be either a temporary or non-existent problem.

Gunner turrets effectively erased high skill interceptors even a fair amount of named ties so we could fit more AP fodder, from play because it made them easy to kill so we were left with heavy ships or swarms meanwhile all of the terrorist ships could take hits and kill it off so they were uneffected. Now all of their fun builds are gone so they can bring turrets. Yeah, we have to deal with turrets, but we're use to it. Now we have something to irritate rebel lists and constrict what they do.

All the phantom builds still seem to have shuttles or multiple ties to go after the turret ships.

Basically, welcome to our world.

Interceptors still were plenty viable with turrets out there. I flew them. Heck I'm going to fly the Phantom because I like winning.

But the meta is shrinking and you can ignore it all you want... doesn't change the fact that it's happening.

Maybe I don't play enough - I've only played four games since Wave 4 hit. My personal meta is still expanding. Gonna play a couple matches tomorrow, and I just printed out six very different lists in preparation. I can't wait to try them out.

Sure, the lists are all built to hopefully be able to beat the Phantom. But they're also built to hopefully be able to beat 3-4 rebel ship lists, and dual Falcon lists, and HSF type lists, and TIE and Z-95 swarm lists, and Biggs (gee I hate Biggs). The Phantom is one more among many things that list building needs to take into account.

If that wouldn't be the case, if no ship of wave 4 would be something you'd need to take into account when list building, then we'd have a sad state of the game. Because then the game would be stale and wave 4 would be redundant.

You can play interceptors all you want, they're not viable in a tournament setting as your core ships because HSF lists will beat them somewhere.

You can play your 4-5 ship rebel list all you want but a good phantom player will beat it in tournament play somewhere.

Phantoms aren't invincible against non turrets the same way turret gunners aren't invincible against squints. You're just fighting an uphill battle in either situation.

The thing that will absolutely kill a Phantom is the Phantom hype. As more and more people jump on the it's broken bandwagon, the more people will show up with list that fight them off. If the popular opinion is that you have to be able to beat Phantoms in order to compete in tournaments that will be very bad for the Phantom players. If you have just 30% of the field loaded with anit-phantom builds then you have a tall hill to climb as a phantom player. If that percentage reaches 50% it's near impossible to win as a phantom player. A truly broken card has no counter, the phantom has a few but not many. It may not be the most open format we have played in X-Wing but it is certainly different.

Now I have not played in the competitive side of X-Wing from the beginning. Have we ever had a Squad become outdated? What I Mean by that is a squad that was deemed very good for competitive play become unplayable due to a new release?

I'm new to this but after flying with and against phantoms, I can say 2 things

1. it does "restrict" the meta because FFG wanted to push the higher pilots and on that i would say Congrats! as of right now they have succeded.

2. During my for fun list building, mostly casual player, in playing against a phantom I found my new favorite Firespray pilot, and he is in your opening song. "I'm Boba the Fett!" gotta problem with whisper or echo, me and my navigator and instincts can handle your problem. Cause Fett's fire arcs can cover so much of the potential battlefield its hard for the phantom to hide, and still be in range at least.

Also I do enjoy the podcast guys, I hope you can stick to a more regular schedule, cause I really enjoy listening, but as above I think you should always try to focus on the positive, or how to beat the negative. IMHO it makes for a more enjoyable show.

Lastly, being a lifetime miniature games player and how much I enjoy this game I encouage you to be patient. I trust that FFG gave us a balanced game, as much as possible, and I am confidant that they knew what they were doing with the Phantom. Also, If the Phantom is too OP I trust they will adjust it as needed.

You can play interceptors all you want, they're not viable in a tournament setting as your core ships because HSF lists will beat them somewhere.

You can play your 4-5 ship rebel list all you want but a good phantom player will beat it in tournament play somewhere.

Phantoms aren't invincible against non turrets the same way turret gunners aren't invincible against squints. You're just fighting an uphill battle in either situation.

I'm new to this but after flying with and against phantoms, I can say 2 things

1. it does "restrict" the meta because FFG wanted to push the higher pilots and on that i would say Congrats! as of right now they have succeded.

2. During my for fun list building, mostly casual player, in playing against a phantom I found my new favorite Firespray pilot, and he is in your opening song. "I'm Boba the Fett!" gotta problem with whisper or echo, me and my navigator and instincts can handle your problem. Cause Fett's fire arcs can cover so much of the potential battlefield its hard for the phantom to hide, and still be in range at least.

Also I do enjoy the podcast guys, I hope you can stick to a more regular schedule, cause I really enjoy listening, but as above I think you should always try to focus on the positive, or how to beat the negative. IMHO it makes for a more enjoyable show.

Lastly, being a lifetime miniature games player and how much I enjoy this game I encouage you to be patient. I trust that FFG gave us a balanced game, as much as possible, and I am confidant that they knew what they were doing with the Phantom. Also, If the Phantom is too OP I trust they will adjust it as needed.

Thanks for the feedback. I think I let my fear's run a little rampant in this last cast, going to check that now. No doubt Phantoms are a killer, but not immortal.

You can play interceptors all you want, they're not viable in a tournament setting as your core ships because HSF lists will beat them somewhere.

You can play your 4-5 ship rebel list all you want but a good phantom player will beat it in tournament play somewhere.

Phantoms aren't invincible against non turrets the same way turret gunners aren't invincible against squints. You're just fighting an uphill battle in either situation.

This very podcast discussed a list with a squint. It is the list everyone predicted to win the current vassal tournament which features many of the world's best x-wing players. It is a wave 3 tourney.

I would like to see Dom attempt to tackle a strong phantom list with that list.

You can play interceptors all you want, they're not viable in a tournament setting as your core ships because HSF lists will beat them somewhere.

You can play your 4-5 ship rebel list all you want but a good phantom player will beat it in tournament play somewhere.

Phantoms aren't invincible against non turrets the same way turret gunners aren't invincible against squints. You're just fighting an uphill battle in either situation.

This very podcast discussed a list with a squint. It is the list everyone predicted to win the current vassal tournament which features many of the world's best x-wing players.

I think Soontir is a viable anti Phantom, but your going to want to win the initiative bid. Interceptor dial is pretty fantastic.

You can play interceptors all you want, they're not viable in a tournament setting as your core ships because HSF lists will beat them somewhere.

You can play your 4-5 ship rebel list all you want but a good phantom player will beat it in tournament play somewhere.

Phantoms aren't invincible against non turrets the same way turret gunners aren't invincible against squints. You're just fighting an uphill battle in either situation.

This very podcast discussed a list with a squint. It is the list everyone predicted to win the current vassal tournament which features many of the world's best x-wing players. It is a wave 3 tourney.

I recall it also having lots of shuttles. The squint plays cleanup to a core of large ships, which is what I said earlier. See any 3 or 4 squint lists in there? No? See a turret based list? Huh.

Wow a lot of hate against the phantom. Open the ears folks... It's ACD that most people are hating. ACD not the phantom. I love running a phantom with Stygian, Jammer, and a recon: fun and potent and not nearly as "immortal". Requires even more skill to get the points out of. Get off the net lists and give the PHANTOM a true try...not just whisper/echo + VI + ACD. The Phantom is great; I reserve my own judgement on ACD till we see what goes down at GEN CON.

Always a good listen, guys.

If nothing else, Wave 4 is certainly creating a lot more discussion than anything before. I'll see how our Regionals goes in DFW before I can make a better call.

Always a good listen, guys.

If nothing else, Wave 4 is certainly creating a lot more discussion than anything before. I'll see how our Regionals goes in DFW before I can make a better call.

When is that regional? I'm curious to see if the Phantom makes its mark like I suspect it will.

Nice to have another episode.

Regarding the Phantom Pain (I couldn't resist), we all sometimes need to get a little bit of flaming out of the system (I'm still expecting to do this when Farlander is released). Then we adapt to reality (I foresee me realizing Farlander still is a 1 agility ship).

Once we learn to fly and fly against the ACD/VI Echo/Whisper we'll see how drastically the build holds us hostage.

I have a Wave 4 Regionals coming up in two weeks and am contemplating running a Whisper list.

Will be interesting to see how many Phantom builds there are.

Always a good listen, guys.

If nothing else, Wave 4 is certainly creating a lot more discussion than anything before. I'll see how our Regionals goes in DFW before I can make a better call.

When is that regional? I'm curious to see if the Phantom makes its mark like I suspect it will.

July 19th

MajorJuggler is keeping the regional information. I believe the wave 4 regionals have either been Phantom or Falcon so far right?

MajorJuggler is keeping the regional information. I believe the wave 4 regionals have either been Phantom or Falcon so far right?

I rolled all four wave 4 Regionals to date into one stats summary. Post is here (or in post #3, open up the appropriate spoiler tag):

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/105107-2014-regionals-results/?p=1149099

Individual results are here, you'll want to string search by "wave 4":

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/105107-2014-regionals-results/?p=1066845

MajorJuggler is keeping the regional information. I believe the wave 4 regionals have either been Phantom or Falcon so far right?

I rolled all four wave 4 Regionals to date into one stats summary. Post is here (or in post #3, open up the appropriate spoiler tag):

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/105107-2014-regionals-results/?p=1149099

Individual results are here, you'll want to string search by "wave 4":

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/105107-2014-regionals-results/?p=1066845

From what I'm seeing from your posts that the tournaments where wave 4 is legal, the winners are either Falcons, or Named Phantoms so far.

• Phantom + VI + ACD has not lost to YT-1300 without Gunner
• YT-1300 + Gunner has not lost to Phantom