Just started to tweak my next store tournament list and tried this today:

100 pts

Echo + ACD + Outmaneuver + Intel Agent

OGP + Vader

BH + Gunner

vs

100 pts

Han + C-3P0 + PTL + MF title + Engine Upgrade

Airen + Wingman + Hull Upgrade

Tala + Assault Missile + Munitions Failsafe

Rebels line up their 3 ships on my right edge, I put my BH there (before he placed since Tala is PS4), my Doomshuttle in the middle, and Echo on the left.

Asteroids pretty tight (1-2 range) in the middle

Turn 1:

He zooms everyone 4 forward

I turn BH 2-Left, move shuttle forward into an opening in the asteriods, and send Echo off on the left flank to stay away from the Falcon.

Turn 2:

He banks everyone 3-right (my left) towards the center

I move the shuttle 1 bank right into the asteroids, and send my BH 4 forward across my side of the table edge (horizontal) to get away. Echo moves to the center left side outside of the asteroid field.

His Airen and Falcon is able to shoot me at range 3, takes shots and rolls 2 hits and 2 hits, I eat 2 damage. I shoot at Airen, rolled 2 hits and he rolls 2 evades. I knew the Shuttle wasn't going to survive, so used Vader and tooke 1 shield off Airen. He has 1 shield and 3 hull left (Hull Upgrade). I have 5 hull and 1 shield left.

Turn 3:

I bank the shuttle again and face him while he starts crashing into his own ships (no action for Tala and Falcon) but all end up facing the shuttle.

BH banks 3 to the right, starting to go along my left bottom edge. Echo is now at his side of the table.

He shoots at me mostly in range 1 and 2, but rolls 2 hits/crits each for his Tala and Airen, and 3 hits with Han (without having to use any rerolls or TL). I eat 4 hits and 1 crit, the crit was a Direct Hit, so SHUTTLE DIES!

Turn 4:

He bumps his Falcon against his own ships again, denying actions. Airen moves forward towards the BH,

BH had a hard decision, to bank 3 and run away along the left side of the board, or do a 3 right turn to face the aggressors. There were two asteroids about 1.5 range from each other that I eyeballed the BH could fit, so I decided to take them on.

Unfortunately, I land 1mm on the freakin' asteroid AND rolled a hit on myself (6 hull 3 shields left). =( Airen was smack right in front of me and I couldn't shoot him with my guns.

Falcon fires, 2 hits 1 crit, I eat a hit and a crit (6 hull 1 shield left)

Airen fires, 1 hit and 2 crits, I dodge NONE, and take 2 crits, Direct Hit and lose actions (3 hull left.

Tala fires, 2 hits and I dodge NONE, 1 hull left. Tala chose not to use Assault Missiles since Airen would get splashed.

Echo does a crazy u-turn maneuver to have a R3 shot at Airen. Deals 3 hits and he doges 1, so he's at 2 hull left (with hull upgrade).

Turn 5:

BH flies 4 forward to try to run away and maybe shoot one more time

Tala and Falcon chases. Airen can only turn right 90 degrees and BH not in range. If only I can fire my BH gun one more time.

Echo chose a wrong move that moves it along the opponent edge of the board towards my right, where the BH is going.

Unfortunately, the good rolling on his part continues, and Han destroys the BH before the BH can shoot (rolls 2 hits and a crit AGAIN, though this time with Han's reroll everything).

At that point I conceded because Echo could not kill Han at 13 HP.

Looking back, a few things went very wrong, here's my list:

• BH and Shuttle should have full strength ganged up on the Falcon, instead of trying to kill Airen
• The way I moved, the Shuttle and BH were each focused fired on without being able to fire back.
• Low PS really hurt this list since everyone shoots before the BH and Shuttle.
• Intelligence Agent is useless against this list since Echo has to stay R3 away from Falcon.
• Forgot to use OUtmaneuver on Airen, might have taken 1 more hull off
• Echo needs FCS or focus to really get the most out of his attack die
• Should have kept the BH running and force the enemy to fly through the asteroids, instead of risking landing on an asteroid myself (and actually doing it)
• His rolling was ridiculous. I think he missed a total of 1-2 times on the red dice and I was mostly average. To burn through 19 HP in THREE rounds of shooting, including 2 Z-95 and a Falcon with no focus nor TL (just using Han's skill once), that was ridiculous.

Anyway, I did some changes and played another game where he played Vessery and 1 BSP+3AP all with Targeting Computer. I destroyed him with this modified list in 4-5 turns.

100 pts

Echo + ACD + VI + RS

OGP + Vader

BH + Gunner

I like having VI and focus tokens. I don't think I need the RS since I always only use ONE focus token (stay out of arcs enough to never need a defensive one). I think Rebel Captive would be better since the tournament will definitely have other Phantoms, most likely Whisper.

Any thoughts on this list? most of the meta in our area are:

1 Falcon with 2X, 2B, or 2-3Z

TIE/Interceptor swarm (usually 6 ships)

3 Amigos (Soontir, Turr, Vader/Whisper/Echo)

Biggs walk the dogs (2X2B)

I think I can deal with the swarm decently well (Doom shuttle can probably kill 1-2 ties each turn if the crit cards are lucky), and Echo will destroy them end game.

3 Amigos I've played with before. It was VERY tough, but Rebel Captive on Echo will help, and I learned how to really spread the arch of my Shuttle and BH to get a hit or two. All I need is one lucky hit or 2 hits to kill an interceptor.

Biggs walk the dogs will probably die to Echo.

It's just the Falcon. I'm going to try to take the Falcon head on with my BH and Shuttle early on, and snipe the 2X, 2B, or 2-3Zs with Echo if I can.

Any thoughts?

i like rebel captive over recon specialist on echo and id also find room for sensor jammer of i could, its keep ur phantom around longer i like the rest of ur list but if u go with sensor jammer i guess ud have to lose gunner form ur BH which would hurt ur offense a bit.

i like rebel captive over recon specialist on echo and id also find room for sensor jammer of i could, its keep ur phantom around longer i like the rest of ur list but if u go with sensor jammer i guess ud have to lose gunner form ur BH which would hurt ur offense a bit.

Agreed, I'm worried about the Doomshuttle and the BH not being offensive enough to keep the opponent's attention while Echo does her stuff. Wish I could put Recon Specialist or Flight Instructor on any one of the three ships (they all hold crew, hmm... I may need to come up with a name for this list. Dreamliner? )

Honest truth, I find I have more luck with Recon Spec on a BH, rather than Gunner. That would free up 2 points right there, and you'd have one focus for attack, and one for defense, which should help its survivability.

Honest truth, I find I have more luck with Recon Spec on a BH, rather than Gunner. That would free up 2 points right there, and you'd have one focus for attack, and one for defense, which should help its survivability.

Yeah, if I need those last 2 points I may do that. The biggest problem is, I almost never use the 2 tokens the few times I took RS. I always take focus with the BH and usually just use it either for attack or defense (mostly because I only roll eyes for one or the other). Gunner kicked in twice in that 2nd game whereas RS (for Echo) didn't get used at all.

I never use Vader against shields on a Doom Shuttle. I think its just a waste. Unless you have 1 or 2 hitpoints left and you are going to die next turn anyway. Still I think I much rather use up another of your opponents attack on the Shuttle and use the shuttle for blocking the next turn.

I like taking on the escorts of a Falcon list first, but thats if they are X-wings. Agianst Zs I think the better plan is to ignore them. focus on the Falcon first, epecially Han and with any luck you have your Phantom or BH left to kill the Zs off. Unless you got a range 1 shot with the Phantom on a Z with a missile, but you need to take that big ship out. Otherwise he'll do decent damage on you for 3 or so turns while you try to kill his fighters.

Good points Jo jo. Yeah, I wanted to take out Airen since he was destressing Han, but looking back I should have just taken them head on and take the falcon out asap and leave the rest to echo.

Agreed on not using Vader on shields, but I knew I would not survive another round of shooting so I had to do it.

Let's just say I can get 3 hits on Falcon from BH with gunner and focus, and 2 from shuttle. He evades 1 per round with C-3PO. I'll need 3-4 rounds of fire to kill the falcon while ignoring the escorts. I might get lucky with Vader giving a good critic on the falcon once the shields are down. But not sure if the shuttle and BH can stay alive 3-4 rounds from focus fire and without Echo helping.

I think if cracken didn't have the hull upgrade, going for him first was the correct move, as two 3 dice attacks (as long as you have a focus/target lock for both) plus a vader crit would have a good chance of killing him.

I think having echo out of the fight for too long hurt you the most. He's your heaviest hitter. Also probably want VI instead of outmaneuver on him.

EDIT: Looks like bh was out of the fight for awhile as well, whereas your opponent had all 3 ships firing every time. You actually might have benefitted from jousting your bh and shuttle together. 20 hit points normally won't go down super fast against one 3 attack and two 2 attack ships. If you were worried about the splash damage from the assault missile it would only be 1 ship and they are both tanky so not a big deal.

I think if cracken didn't have the hull upgrade, going for him first was the correct move, as two 3 dice attacks (as long as you have a focus/target lock for both) plus a vader crit would have a good chance of killing him.

I think having echo out of the fight for too long hurt you the most. He's your heaviest hitter. Also probably want VI instead of outmaneuver on him.

EDIT: Looks like bh was out of the fight for awhile as well, whereas your opponent had all 3 ships firing every time. You actually might have benefitted from jousting your bh and shuttle together. 20 hit points normally won't go down super fast against one 3 attack and two 2 attack ships. If you were worried about the splash damage from the assault missile it would only be 1 ship and they are both tanky so not a big deal.

Yeah, that extra Hull Upgrade really screwed me a little, but not as much as my tactical mistakes and his die rolls. :\

The issue with Echo when HSF Falcon is around is that she cannot even get close and can only try to position for R3 pot shots against the Z's or maybe one daring snipe against the Falcon at R3 and pray that han's reroll or any gunner/Luke shenanigans don't hurt her too much. With any other lists, even Y-Wings or HWK with turrets, this is easy since they can't shoot R3 with their turrets, it's only the Falcon that causes so much frustration.

But you are correct, I should have just had my 20HP joust with the Falcon or Airen first, try to take out either one and hurt the other before they both die, and then have Echo clean up the mess.

I always take Rec Spec on Echo as oppose to Rebel Captive), I find its better to have extra focus and not need it than need it and not have it, so many times I have rolled blank, eye, eye, evade against 3 incoming damage and been ever so thankful to have the focus.

additionally it allows to to be more aggressive with Echo because you will have focus on defense, as pointed out by others Echo was trying to hard to arc dodge and was out of the first 2 rounds of firing meaning your doom shuttle gets focused down without backup from Echo.

the falcon is always an uphill battle when flying phantoms, there is no way to sugar coat it, really.

you just have to hope that your defense dice don't completely crap out on you

the best thing i've found for myself when fighting falcons is to pick your time to strike with your phantom. especially when it's echo vs han. sometimes not shooting and staying cloaked is your best option while keeping a focus to withstand a han punch and take an average of one damage to no damage in the exchange while your other ships wear him down

having rebel captive is really big also on echo because having a falcon shoot at him will mean that the falcon is very predictable on where it will be going the next turn or taking a gamble and not de-stressing to get a better shot on you.. either way helps you survive longer as they either don't have any other dice modification (other than his ability of course) or you get to range 3 or even out of range to maximize the survival time to get him to late game

also remember when it comes to a ship like echo, you only need to eliminate the target(s) that either shoot before him or the target(s) that he can't arc dodge

once those targets are down you should have no problem winning your game if you have good instincts about where your opponent is likely to put his ships

i wish i could be more help with your list but i personally don't like shuttles and will never fly one in a list because they don't fit my playstyle

but that doesn't mean you can't make it work and that your list isn't solid

hope this helps and good luck to you

I always take Rec Spec on Echo as oppose to Rebel Captive), I find its better to have extra focus and not need it than need it and not have it, so many times I have rolled blank, eye, eye, evade against 3 incoming damage and been ever so thankful to have the focus.

additionally it allows to to be more aggressive with Echo because you will have focus on defense, as pointed out by others Echo was trying to hard to arc dodge and was out of the first 2 rounds of firing meaning your doom shuttle gets focused down without backup from Echo.

Very true, though in a tournament setting, I still have to think about lists with Whisper and other Echo. Having Rebel Captive then is priceless. I wish the Phantom can take 2 crew... then again, I wish it could take 3 crew, since Intelligence Agent will help a lot against Whisper and PS9 Interceptors.

That's the ultimate tradeoff:

Recon Specialist vs Rebel Captive

decisions decisions.

the falcon is always an uphill battle when flying phantoms, there is no way to sugar coat it, really.

you just have to hope that your defense dice don't completely crap out on you

the best thing i've found for myself when fighting falcons is to pick your time to strike with your phantom. especially when it's echo vs han. sometimes not shooting and staying cloaked is your best option while keeping a focus to withstand a han punch and take an average of one damage to no damage in the exchange while your other ships wear him down

having rebel captive is really big also on echo because having a falcon shoot at him will mean that the falcon is very predictable on where it will be going the next turn or taking a gamble and not de-stressing to get a better shot on you.. either way helps you survive longer as they either don't have any other dice modification (other than his ability of course) or you get to range 3 or even out of range to maximize the survival time to get him to late game

also remember when it comes to a ship like echo, you only need to eliminate the target(s) that either shoot before him or the target(s) that he can't arc dodge

once those targets are down you should have no problem winning your game if you have good instincts about where your opponent is likely to put his ships

i wish i could be more help with your list but i personally don't like shuttles and will never fly one in a list because they don't fit my playstyle

but that doesn't mean you can't make it work and that your list isn't solid

hope this helps and good luck to you

Love the tips man! Really helpful.

Only clarification is about "staying cloaked" around the Falcon. You can't really strike while cloaked, so generally I would just keep beyond R3 of the Falcon and only decloak when I have a shot at his wingmen without risk of getting shot at.

I do like RC for the same reason you mentioned, and have never played with one before, so I'll give it a try and then compare it with RS.

Totally hear ya on the Shuttle. I'm definitely trying it out and am liking it so far. What list do you run with your Echo?

Cheers!

I always take Rec Spec on Echo as oppose to Rebel Captive), I find its better to have extra focus and not need it than need it and not have it, so many times I have rolled blank, eye, eye, evade against 3 incoming damage and been ever so thankful to have the focus.

additionally it allows to to be more aggressive with Echo because you will have focus on defense, as pointed out by others Echo was trying to hard to arc dodge and was out of the first 2 rounds of firing meaning your doom shuttle gets focused down without backup from Echo.

Very true, though in a tournament setting, I still have to think about lists with Whisper and other Echo. Having Rebel Captive then is priceless. I wish the Phantom can take 2 crew... then again, I wish it could take 3 crew, since Intelligence Agent will help a lot against Whisper and PS9 Interceptors.

That's the ultimate tradeoff:

Recon Specialist vs Rebel Captive

decisions decisions.

rec spec is still better on whisper in my opinion as he's a different kind of monster than echo.. echo is an arc dodging machine

whisper can't dodge arcs nearly as well so the extra focus is great for defense or even great at deterring your opponent from shooting because you're likely to evade everything anyways with 4-5 dice with a focus

and because of this you are forced to somewhat joust with whisper, and trying your best to attack from the flanks

i'm up in the air on which ship i like better

whisper seems more satisfying to me as a ship that says come and get me, but you're going to pay if you do

where as echo just says try and catch me, but echo is still hands down the better choice of the two

just remember that they play completely different from one another and you can't fly them the same

as for shadow and sigma squads.. well i have yet to try those bad boys out.. but that time will come eventually

rec spec is still better on whisper in my opinion as he's a different kind of monster than echo.. echo is an arc dodging machine

whisper can't dodge arcs nearly as well so the extra focus is great for defense or even great at deterring your opponent from shooting because you're likely to evade everything anyways with 4-5 dice with a focus

and because of this you are forced to somewhat joust with whisper, and trying your best to attack from the flanks

i'm up in the air on which ship i like better

whisper seems more satisfying to me as a ship that says come and get me, but you're going to pay if you do

where as echo just says try and catch me, but echo is still hands down the better choice of the two

just remember that they play completely different from one another and you can't fly them the same

as for shadow and sigma squads.. well i have yet to try those bad boys out.. but that time will come eventually

Nice summary of the two. That's pretty much how I felt about playing Whisper. I actually think RS is overkill on Whisper, having 3 focus tokens in the end. Ultimately, I did play Whisper more as an arc dodging ship rather than jousting, since with 2 agility dice versus PS9+ pilots (if you "win" initiative), those focus tokens won't keep you alive, and it's probably better to get an evade just to survive and use the TL from FCS and the focus from hitting something.

I'm easily an Echo person, since that's one of the reasons I play Imperial, the maneuverability. Before the Phantom I always took an interceptor with me, and tried (and failed) at a few 3-4 interceptor lists.

I did Sigma/Shadow once, but played them wrong. They fly completely different than even Whisper. I realized the best way to fly them is like a more powerful Interceptor who is more survivable (2 AGI dice with 1 evade token plus 4 HP is not too shabby). Just gotta make sure no more than 1 person is shooting you at a time. Cloak only when you need to get the extra boost from decloaking, and Adv Sensors is almost worth getting on them to cloak and decloak on the same turn to get the evade from Stygium and the extra movement.

the falcon is always an uphill battle when flying phantoms, there is no way to sugar coat it, really.

you just have to hope that your defense dice don't completely crap out on you

the best thing i've found for myself when fighting falcons is to pick your time to strike with your phantom. especially when it's echo vs han. sometimes not shooting and staying cloaked is your best option while keeping a focus to withstand a han punch and take an average of one damage to no damage in the exchange while your other ships wear him down

having rebel captive is really big also on echo because having a falcon shoot at him will mean that the falcon is very predictable on where it will be going the next turn or taking a gamble and not de-stressing to get a better shot on you.. either way helps you survive longer as they either don't have any other dice modification (other than his ability of course) or you get to range 3 or even out of range to maximize the survival time to get him to late game

also remember when it comes to a ship like echo, you only need to eliminate the target(s) that either shoot before him or the target(s) that he can't arc dodge

once those targets are down you should have no problem winning your game if you have good instincts about where your opponent is likely to put his ships

i wish i could be more help with your list but i personally don't like shuttles and will never fly one in a list because they don't fit my playstyle

but that doesn't mean you can't make it work and that your list isn't solid

hope this helps and good luck to you

Love the tips man! Really helpful.

Only clarification is about "staying cloaked" around the Falcon. You can't really strike while cloaked, so generally I would just keep beyond R3 of the Falcon and only decloak when I have a shot at his wingmen without risk of getting shot at.

I do like RC for the same reason you mentioned, and have never played with one before, so I'll give it a try and then compare it with RS.

Totally hear ya on the Shuttle. I'm definitely trying it out and am liking it so far. What list do you run with your Echo?

Cheers!

when i said staying cloaked i mean not decloaking, and letting your support wear down the higher pilot skill falcon so that you don't have to un-necessarily take risks that could get him one shotted

a friend of mine lost his echo twice to han, two games in a row because the han rolled 2 hits and a direct hit crit because his defense flopped on him

4 defense with a focus has a much higher chance of surviving a falcon onslaught than 2 dice with a focus on a ship with only 4 hit points

now i know the direct hit two games in a row is a very rare occurance, but it proves that it can and does happen.. and that can be the difference between winning and losing a match.. and in a tournament setting that can be the difference between winning prizes and going home with nothing but the satisfaction that you enjoy the game, no matter the outcome

I hear ya. Yesterday I dealt 2 Direct Hits in one round of shooting on Vessery with Echo, so these things definitely happen and can ruin your tournament experience. Agree with the goal is to NOT get shot at by Han, which is why I don't even get in range of Han and am always just moving to try to get in range of his support ships and take pot shots. That's why until Han is near dead, Echo won't be contributing much to the battle, which puts a lot more burden on the BH and Shuttle. Granted, the 2-3 AP I can get from dropping the Shuttle or BH isn't going to do that much better against Han I think.

Will just have to keep practicing and hope that the dice gods don't screw me again like this battle report.

Oh @executor, what's your Echo list you take to tournaments?

i took echo with VI, ACD and RC with 5 Academy pilots

i took echo with VI, ACD and RC with 5 Academy pilots

Oh yeah, good stuff. Who knows, maybe I'll end up with that list or potentially with one upgraded AP and take 4 (since I only have 4).

i took echo with VI, ACD and RC with 5 Academy pilots

Same as this list eh? Looks like it does very well.

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/111342-spokane-regionals-batrep/#entry1163549

i took echo with VI, ACD and RC with 5 Academy pilots

Same as this list eh? Looks like it does very well.

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/111342-spokane-regionals-batrep/#entry1163549

the poster of that thread is my friend Mark Douglas and plays with me at our local playgroup in Vancouver BC

he created that list that i won with and in all retrospec it should have been him that deserved that win over me but placed top 4 instead when he was eliminated in the semi final round by the runner up Jonas Malapas

he taught me how to fly it (but i still fly in my own style that differs from his) and we even faced off together when we were both 4-0 in the final round of the swiss

he won the initiative roll and my defense dice went cold on me (rightfully so) and forced my hand to make a dangerous maneuver of putting my echo at range one of his echo in an attempt for me to get lucky as i'd already lost a few ties in the initial exchange and was way behind because of it

i took a chance and lost echo for it and i called the game as is.. but it worked in the end because we were both exhausted and hungry to boot and making plenty of errors because of it, plus we both had already made the top 8 so we went and got dinner and discussed the opposition and what we were likely to run into

Very cool. I just read the entire BatRep of the Spokane Regionals and saw that. Congrats on the win again and the strategies you guys use to deal with the different lists and Falcons have been invaluable to me. Thanks!

Trying to take on the Han list with Bounty Hunter and Doom Shuttle can be difficult, because it forces you to make some hard decisions.

First off - some observations: Definitely drop Opportunist out of your build. Opportunist just works completely against ACD - I can't stress enough how bad getting stress is on a ship like Echo who wants to perform that cloak. As has been discussed, the power of having Rebel Captive is huge, especially since the Meta seems to have moved away from Nien Numb - if that Falcon is getting stressed trying to shoot at you, you should be able to cripple his movement dial.

This leads us to how to use the shuttle in this matchup. To be honest, I haven't tried the shuttle as a pairing for Echo, but my suspicion is that you'll get your best results picking off Han's support asap to reduce the number of guns pointed back at you. Use Echo to bait Han away from the rest of the fight, trash his support, and then once it gets down to Han vs. (a likely badly damaged) Echo, you will hopefully be able to use the BH and Shuttle to finish him off.

The thing to keep in mind is that the shuttle without AdvS or Engine is really hard to maneuver and will have a hard time dealing with ... well, anything, especially if it can get behind it. If you run it so that your opponent has to choose between trying to get behind the shuttle and taking abuse from the BH, or staying in front of the Shuttle to deal with the BH, you're likely going to win. I'd drag out the movement of the Shuttle as much as possible so that you're able to get as many rounds of fire in as possible.

I suspect that any attempt to jam Han will be very hard unless you can set it up so that your BH crashes into your Shuttle from behind, with the shuttle up against Han - and to be honest, there are so many problems with trying to set that up without the requisite tools, I just can't recommend it.

As a quick aside, if you're going to go with 4 TIEs, try something like:

Echo w/ Sensor Jammer, Rebel Captive, Advanced Cloaking Device, Veteran Instincts

Howlrunner w/ Determination

3x Academy Pilots

I won't say it will work wonders, but it will give you the best bang for your buck with what you're looking at using.