Echo + Veteran Instincts + Rebel Captive + Sensor Jammer + ACD (42pts)

its not been extensively tested by me yet but i can see how its going to be good vs other phantoms (rebel captive) and the Sensor Jammer is nice defense.

FCS is a good counter to turret ships, which is your main weakness.

if you're talking about the YT-1300 then that's what the rest of the list is for. I'd just want to keep my echo outside of range 3 of it or cloaked. echo can hunt the support ships whilst the my HLC defender and doom shuttle take down the YT. However, that's just theory. The one game I played against HSF did not go well :-( - it taught me to just keep echo outside of range 3 of it because there's nothing you can do about it. Don't know how it'd cope with a double named YT list, although I guess there's less upgrades and lower pilot skills, right?

You can have Lando and Chewie leaving 14 points for upgrades.

Even 2x gunner added leaves another 4 for added goodies.

A 'proper' swarm would likely tear it to pieces but with the current meta leaning to fewer and fewer ships...

For the record; anyone fielding 2x YT 1300 is a [deleted for security reasons]

eurgh that's a horrible list. But then I guess we are using echo, so who are we to talk, right?

Now I need to find someone with 2 falcons so I can try out against it. I'm thinking outmanoeuvre takes out c3po and even echo would be cloaked against chewie's shot back. Just need to keep lando at a distance. Tricky, but what a challenge.

The more I think about things the more I think I want anti pursuit lasers on my shuttle blocking things up and getting free attacks.

I don't doubt that against players who know what they're doing against echo it won't be as easy, but "lots"? how many ps 7+ pilots could someone field in a competitive environment? 3 at most, but more likely 1 or 2. that's then something that you can deal with using the rest of your list. Example from one of my games: Jax manoeuvred himself into position vs echo, but realised he was also in the arc of the HLC defender with a target lock on him, so he barrel-rolled, ended up out without a shot on echo. He shot the defender and took down a shield or two, then echo shot him back and the doom shuttle finished him off. Whilst echo is certainly powerful, he needs to be well supported by other threats in the list that can deal with things echo is weak against.

Yes echo is a beast, but pay off why is because of her maneuverability.

If she can move after most ships then she can change coarse if needed.

If she is moving before others then your not getting tosee your opponent move.

At ps6 your at a bigger disadvantage

It will work for some games but Imo if your to try competitive she'll get esteem alive since more and more players will have higher ps

I've been to 2 regionals and read all the Regional Results thread. The only PS 7+ pilots that see regular tournament play are:

Rebels

Wedge

Han

Luke

Lando (much less than above.)

Imperials

Fell

Whisper + VI

Howlrunner

Turd (much less than above.)

Mauler (much less than above.)

Oh those pilot, the only ones that are hard to predict where they will be going are:

Whisper

Fell

Turd

To that end, I don't think Veteran Instincts is worth it on Echo or Whisper. You dont need to fire first, you need to arc dodge and camp evades instead of relying on 4 green dice.

This is my idea:

Echo/Whisper + Push the Limit + Advanced Sensors + Advanced Cloaking Device + Intelligence Agent

You find out the dial of your biggest threat and then you move around it. PTL will let you barrel roll and evade, or focus and evade as you see fit. Advanced Cloaking will give you defense against the bulk of most lists, the PS1-2 filler. Evade/Focus + green dice will protect you from incoming fire.

Plus the evade token will let you choose to deny the activation of Gunner on Han. You can tank 1 hit to avoid being reshot through gunner. A good opponent will know this and will use his Han ability premptively, to get the best first shot possible. You should be able to avoid that through evade and focus.

There are lots of possible ships, yes, but my point was how many would you likely encounter in one list?

Plus, not knowing what's going to happen and pitting your wits against your opponent makes the game fun.

like I said, I'm not saying VI isn't good, just that, in the games I've played so far, it wouldn't have made much difference. On whisper where you can get up to PS 9 I can see the point, but with echo I think if someone's built a list to take on Phantoms you might be better off not bothering and giving yourself something to make the attacks you do get off before you die pay off.

When it comes to PS 7+ pilots! I run a lot of them almost every game I play! I have three VI cards and often have all three in a squadron! I get to shoot first with a lot of ships and it's effective anti-Phantom medicine!

Pilots I run, not necessarily all at once, and all of them would be PS 7+ with VI.

Rebels - Biggs, Garven, Luke, Wes, Wedge, Etahn

Imperials - Vessery, Carnor, Turr, Tetran, Soontir, Howlrunner, Mauler

Yesterday, I was in an 150 point Escalation Tournament (finished in the top four) and I brought the following:

Vessery PS 8

Howlrunner PS 8

Mauler PS 7

Turr PS 9

Soontir PS 11

It was anti-Phantom and early shooting against swarms hoping to knock out ships early with heavy firepower! It worked for the most part, but my nemesis, the Tie Swarm was too much for me yesterday and kept me out of the championship game!

I have had luck with VI, Recon Specialist, and ACD on Echo. Also, a VI, ACD, Echo paired with a VI, ACD Whisper, and a supped up OGP. I have also had good results pairing SPA and Advanced Sensors together. Being able to Cloak and Decloak immediately before movement can be nifty.

Ooh I like this idea a lot. What do you put on the OGP? My initial thought was APL and Rebel Captive perhaps. Run it as interference while the Phantoms fly on the flanks at RB3.

Plainsman, I think the way escalation works you'll get a lot of high PS pilots, but at 100 points, how many of them will there be? And how many of them will actually be PS 9+ after you've put VI on them? The discussion is about whether VI should be an auto include on echo, so if you're running VI Wes, wedge I might as well have outmanoeuvre and try to out think you with the dials. If I can hit your flanks at range 1 with a focus then I've got a decent chance of one-shotting an xwing. It would be a challenge to out think 3 pilots, but then I've got other ships in my list too.

I run Echo + VI + FCS + Gunner.

Howlrunner + Stealth , 3x APs

I make FCS work with Gunner, If i get a bad roll i don't spend my focus and let it be evaded, then on the second turn I can get 4-5 dice with TL + focus In some crowded games you might get the Howlrunner aura:

I once had 5 dice 1 hit -> rerolled into 0 hits -> gunner + fcs -> 5 hits with crits mixed in = insta-kill on a cloaked interceptor.

Can you explain to me how you get a cloaked interceptor?

Also Gunner is not really worth it as chances of not getting even 1 hit with 4 or 5 dice is unlikely.(Although chilligan's idea is intriguing) A better crew is Rebel Captive or Tactician to give out stress, because a stressed opponent is generally pretty predictable which helps you know where to put your phantom to be out of arc. And if they do not clear their stress, then they get no action, which makes them easier to kill so win-win.

So I tried some more games with VI + Gunner + FCS + ACD at our local tournament. High PS pilots were Wedge, Soontir, Corran Horn and Carnor Jax. I had a 99pt list and VI allowed me to shoot and recloak before Carnor or Corran could retaliate, which was quite big.

I've found new use for Gunner + FCS as well: In lists with high PS and high firepower, I positioned myself directly behind an asteroid, shooting from there (escaping the asteroid with decloak the following turn). What this means is that you're allowing your opponent an extra green dice so that Gunner triggers more easily (which you more than offset with the extra Target Lock) and you have extra defense in case they decide to go for the phantom. This is especially good on the initial approach, because it's very difficult to get behind them then.

I have had luck with VI, Recon Specialist, and ACD on Echo. Also, a VI, ACD, Echo paired with a VI, ACD Whisper, and a supped up OGP. I have also had good results pairing SPA and Advanced Sensors together. Being able to Cloak and Decloak immediately before movement can be nifty.

Ooh I like this idea a lot. What do you put on the OGP? My initial thought was APL and Rebel Captive perhaps. Run it as interference while the Phantoms fly on the flanks at RB3.

I gave it Engine Upgrade and FCS. I ran it more offensive and "in your face" so that it could not be ignored, but neither could the Phantoms. My opponent was very frustrated.

I don't doubt that against players who know what they're doing against echo it won't be as easy, but "lots"? how many ps 7+ pilots could someone field in a competitive environment? 3 at most, but more likely 1 or 2. that's then something that you can deal with using the rest of your list. Example from one of my games: Jax manoeuvred himself into position vs echo, but realised he was also in the arc of the HLC defender with a target lock on him, so he barrel-rolled, ended up out without a shot on echo. He shot the defender and took down a shield or two, then echo shot him back and the doom shuttle finished him off. Whilst echo is certainly powerful, he needs to be well supported by other threats in the list that can deal with things echo is weak against.

I don't doubt that against players who know what they're doing against echo it won't be as easy, but "lots"? how many ps 7+ pilots could someone field in a competitive environment? 3 at most, but more likely 1 or 2. that's then something that you can deal with using the rest of your list. Example from one of my games: Jax manoeuvred himself into position vs echo, but realised he was also in the arc of the HLC defender with a target lock on him, so he barrel-rolled, ended up out without a shot on echo. He shot the defender and took down a shield or two, then echo shot him back and the doom shuttle finished him off. Whilst echo is certainly powerful, he needs to be well supported by other threats in the list that can deal with things echo is weak against.

No your not going to see them all in one squad but your open to a lot more variety of lists that can exploit this weakness.

The title of your thread suggests that this is our maybe the best / perfect echo build. I'm just saying is far from it.

While having other upgrades on echo is nice like outmaneuver. It's far from perfect. And in fact you are going to be weaker against more and more lists.

If you were to lose initiative then that only increases the amount of lists you'll be weak against.

Plus your not even taking Roark or swarm tactics into consideration.

Luke skywalker

Wedge

Wes

Jek porkins

Garven Dreis

Ibtisam

Ten numb

Dutch

Horton Salem

Coran Horn

Cracken

Howlrunner

Mauler Mithel

Backstabber

Sontir Fel

Jax

Tetran Cowell

Turr phennir

Lando

Han

Darth Vader

Boba fett

Kath scarlet

Major Rhymer

Captian jonus

Jan Ors

Kyle Katarn.

Col Vessery

Rexlar Brath

Maarek steel

Captian Kagi

Col Jendon.

I know you don't see some of these in play, but if you have a ps of 8 plus initiative, how many ships do you cross off this list.

That means you get to see where they move before you which increases your chance to arc dodge.

On a glass canon ship you want to increase your odds-on survival. Imo as tempting as it is to put something like outmaneuverv or push the limit is on echo your kind of taking a gamble because on one ship as fragile as it is, that's a lot of points that can easily go boom with one or two wellv place shots

The listv listed above is not including pilots from rebel aces and wave five plus thats probably not all the pilots that are out and im sure I've missed some, and how many of those pilots can equip swarm tactics.

You're argument is well you can put them all in one list. That's obvious. What you seem to not realize is that if yout don't have initiative any one of those plus some will get to move after echo

Meaning echo will not get a chance to change coarse and they will get to shoot.

I've played with echo a lot. Maybe 20-30-40 games. I dont know for sure but after you know the moves its not hard to look at the board. See where she is in relation to asteroids and other ships around her, and have a good idea what her target is going to be.

We set our dials. You move right where I knew she was going to go. After specific ship, now I move and line up my shot, and maybe even use swarm tactics or Roark to get more shots off.

If I have Rex or a number of ships shooting at me, you bet I'm going to take the shot at echo. Especially with two evade dice.

Echo is priority number one

I'm sorry but the build is far from perfect.

I wont argue that it maybe fun, but like I said if that was in a tournament scene, it'll get chewed up and spit out.

As I think your going to be seeing more named pilots and etc

Just for the fact that your allowing the the mere chance of X amount of ships to move after and shot before echo is a huge weakness, and something you can bet your opponent is going to take full advantage of

An experienced player is going to know echo very well.

My build with echo

Echo - VI, Recon specialist, ACD

Soontir - PTL, Targeting comp

Defender (PS1)

Mine is usually:

VI+ACD (for sure) - completely agree with Krynn007, the few times I took Outmaneuver instead and kept Echo at PS6, I have a bunch of PS8 pilots that I have to spend a lot of time guessing. I've won and lost a few from good and bad guesses, but going at PS8 and "losing" initiative helps a LOT, because I only have to worry about fewer pilots.

The remaining ones can be:

Crew:

RC or RS - when I take these, I use neither, but I like the idea of RC better because it's a good counter if I mess up and get shot at, or against Whisper+VI

I've taken Intel Agent a few times, but I keep my Echo so far away (usually R3 and beyond), that I rarely need to look at someone's dial. It is good if I can't fit in RC or RS in some lists, just to throw 1 pt of insurance in.

System Upgrade:

FCS or Sensor Jammer - I generally take FCS if I have the points. Sensor Jammer is a bit expensive and while it forces the opponent to focus (and lets me deny actions with APs), it's a bit too hard to fit in and too situational.

I find that I usually want 2 focus with echo so recon spec is a must for me.

I would love to run echo with out maneuver but against my usual opponents I need vi or echo is likely to be one of the lowest ps pilots on the table