Tala Squadron Z-95s lead by Lt. Blount vs. Whisper and two Shadow Squadron Tie Phantoms!

Game 1:

Originally I wasn't going to post this game since not a single ship even goes into hull damage, however, I wanted to share it with everyone as a reminder that while the Tie Phantom is an amazing ship, it doesn't take much to have them in the wrong place at the wrong time. Furthermore, Z-95s are not as fragile as Tie Fighters, mostly due to their shields and ability to take critical hits. On top of that, Z-95s are not bound to Howlrunner and can move freely on the board, creating a much larger foot print. Between resilient Z-95s that are not clumped together, asteroids, the board edges, and the Phantoms inherent dislike for K-Turns the board starts feeling awfully small for the imperial player very quickly.

On to game 2, the re-match!

Tala Z-95s vs Tie Phantoms, The Best Ships of Wave 4 Square off again! Game 2, The Rematch!

Turn 6 follows:

Continue from previous post, Turn 6:

Victory for the Tie Phantoms, bringing the score to 1:1. As a footnote however, the game did take longer than 1 hour, so if it was timed the Z-95s would have had a win or a minor win.

So which ship do you feel came on top? The surprisingly durable and numerous Z-95s or the nimble and bristling with guns Tie Phantoms!?

very cool report again! I'm kind of wondering why the Phantoms got that close to the Z's. Z's are super dangerous at R1 with their 3 dice, but at R2-3 and if the Phantoms are cloaked, I can take hits all day.

very cool report again! I'm kind of wondering why the Phantoms got that close to the Z's. Z's are super dangerous at R1 with their 3 dice, but at R2-3 and if the Phantoms are cloaked, I can take hits all day.

Thanks! Well in both games phantoms were getting hit through the cloak at range 3. From what I could gather, a Z-95 has a 56% chance of doing damage with both attacks if it has a focus token. A Tie Phantom at R3 that is cloaked, so 5 evade dice, has about 10% chance of not rolling a single evade die (if someone can check my math on that it would be great). So as long as you are shooting at the phantoms every turn, you will damage them.

The other reason for getting close is that the Phantoms don't really want to K-Turn due to stress and inability to re-cloak. Therefore you have to come up with some creative ways to be approaching and firing at the Z's while not crashing into their formation. Echo can mitigate most of that by being able to travel backwards but the regular Phantoms are not so lucky.

Victory for the Tie Phantoms, bringing the score to 1:1. As a footnote however, the game did take longer than 1 hour, so if it was timed the Z-95s would have had a win or a minor win.

So which ship do you feel came on top? The surprisingly durable and numerous Z-95s or the nimble and bristling with guns Tie Phantoms!?

I don't really know if the questions asked can be answered over the sample of games. Also, I would suspect that James had more consecutive games with the Z-95's than Gus did with straight Phantoms, but I could be wrong about this. Plus, the Z has a more familiar dial and mechanic as opposed to the Phantom which might have contributed to any piloting errors Gus might've made. It's understandable, it's a really new ship with a novel mechanic.

Otherwise, very awesome write up and looking forward to seeing other GameKastle'ers featured!

Victory for the Tie Phantoms, bringing the score to 1:1. As a footnote however, the game did take longer than 1 hour, so if it was timed the Z-95s would have had a win or a minor win.

So which ship do you feel came on top? The surprisingly durable and numerous Z-95s or the nimble and bristling with guns Tie Phantoms!?

Once again, great report Bobby. Excellent product in terms of visuals and I appreciate the "algebraic-like" movement notations.

I don't really know if the questions asked can be answered over the sample of games. Also, I would suspect that James had more consecutive games with the Z-95's than Gus did with straight Phantoms, but I could be wrong about this. Plus, the Z has a more familiar dial and mechanic as opposed to the Phantom which might have contributed to any piloting errors Gus might've made. It's understandable, it's a really new ship with a novel mechanic.

Otherwise, very awesome write up and looking forward to seeing other GameKastle'ers featured!

Thank you! I just really wished that higher image quality made it to the board! All the pictures look significantly better at higher resolution!

I believe you are correct about the Z-95s having being played in more consecutive games! Both players were commenting that when you are moving the phantoms on the other side of the board you really need to get up and physically move to the other side (especially the way we play with 2 tables under the board).

very cool report again! I'm kind of wondering why the Phantoms got that close to the Z's. Z's are super dangerous at R1 with their 3 dice, but at R2-3 and if the Phantoms are cloaked, I can take hits all day.

Thanks! Well in both games phantoms were getting hit through the cloak at range 3. From what I could gather, a Z-95 has a 56% chance of doing damage with both attacks if it has a focus token. A Tie Phantom at R3 that is cloaked, so 5 evade dice, has about 10% chance of not rolling a single evade die (if someone can check my math on that it would be great). So as long as you are shooting at the phantoms every turn, you will damage them.

The other reason for getting close is that the Phantoms don't really want to K-Turn due to stress and inability to re-cloak. Therefore you have to come up with some creative ways to be approaching and firing at the Z's while not crashing into their formation. Echo can mitigate most of that by being able to travel backwards but the regular Phantoms are not so lucky.

ahh yes, I'm more used to playing Echo and actually only played Whisper/unnamed phantoms twice. I can definite see that issue. With regards to the statistics, I think it's definitely <10%, if not <5% based on this mathwing:

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/915146/math-wing-hit-probabilities

especially if the phantom takes a focus and chooses not to use it.

One fun thing to try (if you guys are going to do a few more battles), is to bring Echo instead of Whisper, and then equip everyone with Fire Control System (so they can save the focus for defense), and see how that does. It seems to work a lot better when I can save the focus for defense against 3 attack dice, so it should work even better against 2.

Or you can do:

Whisper + ACD + FCS = 38

Echo + ACD + FCS = 36

Sigma + VI = 26

And see how that does? Whisper gets a focus for defense if she hits, so you can potentially drop the FCS on Whisper and give it to the Sigma, or give it Stygium.

Just some fun brainstorming. I really want to try this out, but need to find someone with 7 Z-95s...

ahh yes, I'm more used to playing Echo and actually only played Whisper/unnamed phantoms twice. I can definite see that issue. With regards to the statistics, I think it's definitely <10%, if not <5% based on this mathwing:

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/915146/math-wing-hit-probabilities

That is a great link! Thank you very much! So this is exactly what I thought, Z-95's with focus have 35% to score a hit on a cloaked phantom with no focus or evade at R2. In both games I didn't list all attacks that stripped focuses or evades. When facing this many Z-95's the Phantoms started loosing their defensive tokens very quickly!

IronTau is currently working on several lists that have Echo and Whisper together! From the early testing, it looks like a great combination! Another thing to keep in mind while loading up the ships (and the obligatory tie fighter fillers) is the introduction of Wave 5 Imperial Crew. The Phantoms have a mostly empty crew slot, that will be HUGE in the near future!

Yup, on the other hand, a Phantom with TL (from FCS) can deal 3+ hits to a Z95 with no focus or evade with almost a 50% chance. It'll all come down to the Phantom only being in the arc of 2 Z95's (by coming in from 3 different directions, forcing you to fire in 3 directions like some of your pictures), and then it can probably kill 1 every 2 turns (or one per turn pretty easily) while the 2 Z95's can only deal 1 hit reliably at a Phantom that's cloaked with 1 focus token. Just based on that, phantoms should have an advantage, but cannot afford to make a mistake in flying.

Yup, on the other hand, a Phantom with TL (from FCS) can deal 3+ hits to a Z95 with no focus or evade with almost a 50% chance. It'll all come down to the Phantom only being in the arc of 2 Z95's (by coming in from 3 different directions, forcing you to fire in 3 directions like some of your pictures), and then it can probably kill 1 every 2 turns (or one per turn pretty easily) while the 2 Z95's can only deal 1 hit reliably at a Phantom that's cloaked with 1 focus token. Just based on that, phantoms should have an advantage, but cannot afford to make a mistake in flying.

From what I have seen, and IronTau should comment on this, it's really difficult for the Phantoms to approach a non-clumped up swarm from 3 directions. The board is not all that large and a swarm, be it T/F or Zs should be able to accelerate or turn and completely envelope a Phantom, scoring an easy kill. Another issue is if you are attacking from 3 directions at the same time, at least 1 of the phantoms won't be able to turn away from the enemy formation. This is why your brainstorming for having Whisper and Echo in the same list is so appealing! There is more than enough space for 2 phantoms and the remaining Imperial space can be filled with ships designed to smash into turreted opponents.

Phantoms with TL, Focus at range 1 are such a joy to play against, it makes the game go soooo much faster (they kill you, lots of time left to play another game)! In the beginning I was dead against fire control systems on Phantoms but now I am starting to like it!

Great report. Each one of yours seems to be getting better and better. Would you ever be at all interested in doing a video BatRep?

I feel that a swarm, especially a z-swarm like this, is one of the other real options to countering the pain train that are the phantoms.

It's also kinda ironic how the X-wings replaced the Z95 in universe but here, at least with unnamed ships, it seems to be the exact opposite.

Actually, in that match up, the ones having less margin of error are the Z's, every ship counts to be able to block and kill phantoms. You are on a clock, while the phantoms play the try catch me and get shots whenever they can.