Yknow that wacky but amazing list that DarkTemplar played?

I think I get it now! The Phantom with Buzzsaw is basically guaranteed damage through even C3PO and MF title. This lets you freely take an evade, depend on your 4evade dice and use Whisper's post-generated Focus for defense.

Captain Yorr removes stress from K-turning (this... I'm not sure why this is that useful), and from Rebel Captives on opposing shuttles.

I haven't seen the videos, so i have no idea how he kept his ships that close to Yorr all the time anyway though.

It is guaranteed damage on a 44 point ship aswell. People saying that gunner isn't worth on a Phantom due to the 4 attack damage, don't realize that bad rolls happen, the phantom costs around 2/5 of your list, and more importantly, sometimes you also want to strip tokens or use defensive tokens (evade, or guard a second focus). It also synergizes perfectly with FCS and attacking from the range 3.

Yeah, i would be interested on how he played it. I normally kept only whisper somewhat close to Yorr, and used Soontir as flanker since he doesn't mind being stressed that much, except for sometimes an awesome k-turn + 2 actions from him.

I feel like the guaranteed damage in this case wasn't the main point of what he was thinking. (DarkTemplar, if you're out there, I'd love to know what you were actually thinking!)

((God, if you're out there... Its me! I could use some answer!))

Hmm. Though it does guarantee the post-attack focus.

He must have had some intent to this really unorthodox build choice. Also, Captain Yorr is again another unorthodox build choice. I don't think they are coincidental.

Again, the usefulness of both choices are extremely powerful against opposing Phantoms, but with Soontir, I feel like there must have been some recognition of how it would make the Falcon matchups harder on paper.

I think the point is that with FCS you can take Evade as Whisper's action. Then, with Gunner, your second shot (if the first one misses) is rolled with the Target Lock modifier for an almost certain Foucs (from Whisper's ability) so that you have both Focus and Evade when Whisper is getting shot at.

What can really destroy this build is PS 11 Han Solo (or anything that fires before Whisper and manages to get him/her in arc).

Imho,

The point with FCS + Gunner is action economy and token stripping, the second attack (if it happens) is just an added bonus.

Can someone elaborate on the Buzzsaw Phantom?

Can someone elaborate on the Buzzsaw Phantom?

"Whisper" — TIE Phantom 32

Veteran Instincts 1

Fire-Control System 2

Gunner 5

Advanced Cloaking Device 4

Decloak+/Move

Take your action.

Shoot at PS 9, get TL.

If you hit, gain a Focus token as well.

If you miss, trigger Gunner.

Then Cloak after performing your attack.

We interviewed Rick (DarkTemplar) on our latest episode and he explains his entire list on the show!

Check it out here: www.novasquadronradio.com

Hmmmm. ..that's pretty nifty. So in 100 points would you just take Whisper kitted like this? Would you pair Whisper up with Echo and one AP?

Personally, I prefer to have 4 ships on the board.

With an evade token you are likely to get missed or maybe 1 damage by PS 11 Han anyway. Given that C3PO is one of the biggest phantom threats out there it is no surprise that this is a thing. Activating Whisper's ability is very important too. If you miss you get no free focus for defense. It is just a phantom vs falcon arms race. Totally unnecessary against most lists but matters against fat falcons with 3PO.

We interviewed Rick (DarkTemplar) on our latest episode and he explains his entire list on the show!

Check it out here: www.novasquadronradio.com

I would but I'm one of those people who get really impatient with audio or video news. Its really slow for my taste...

Did you guys pick up the pace since the first episode?

I thought that the Yorr shuttle was included as a buffer against flechette torps, as both soontir and whisper would really hate those.

With an evade token you are likely to get missed or maybe 1 damage by PS 11 Han anyway. Given that C3PO is one of the biggest phantom threats out there it is no surprise that this is a thing. Activating Whisper's ability is very important too. If you miss you get no free focus for defense. It is just a phantom vs falcon arms race. Totally unnecessary against most lists but matters against fat falcons with 3PO.

I love this build. It's so much fun, even though Whisper is such a pain to fly due to his rigid decloaks.

I thought that the Yorr shuttle was included as a buffer against flechette torps, as both soontir and whisper would really hate those.

That was my understanding, protect the ships from un wanted stress

I don't mind chiming in.

The coolest thing (IMO) about this list winning nationals is that it was built for fun, not specifically to succeed at a national level.

I actually came up with the 1st version while on vacation with my extended family. When the wife and kids went to bed at night my brother (who also plays XWing and who I get to see about 1 or 2 times a year now) and I would stay up way too late drinking a few beverages, catching up, reminiscing about the good old days, and most importantly playing XWing!

I built this list on the very first night. I had recently won a phantom at Imdaar Alpha but hadn't been able to play it much because it was illegal in our local league for most of the season. So I definitely wanted to play it as piloting mobile ships had become an aspect of the game that was appealing more and more to me. I naturally tend to move away from hard counters so whispers ps 9 seemed an obvious choice over echo's ps 8. I then decided to pair it with the next most mobile ship, the interceptor. Again Soontir seemed the obvious choice to have 2 ships at PS9 and to mitigate some hard counters. I then put in the shuttle. It was a ship I hadn't really figured out. I played a doom shuttle and knew how to make that work but I wanted to move away from that and try to use it as the center point of my squad. With 3 red dice, a wide arc, and 0 forward maneuver I thought it could be a great board control element, if I could figure out how to fly it.

I think the 1st version had an OGP w FCS and TC on Soontir, but Whisper was decked out is (I'll come back to this later). It won our first game and to make a long story short it kept winning all week no matter what we threw at it. At the end of the week there was a regional scheduled about an hour away from where we were vacationing in Kingston ON. I had 2 first round regional byes and was already planning to go to Atlanta so this regional was a bonus. I decided I'd bring a fun list to Kingston and a competitive list to Atlanta. So towards the end of the week I made he final tweaks to the list which was dropping TC off Soontir and upgrading the OGP to a naked Yorr.

From there the rest is history. I win Kingston with my "fun list" earning a 1st round bye at Nationals. I stick to the plan and play my "competitive" list at Atlanta and go 3-3 not even making the top 16. I figure that's got to be a sign so I take my "fun list" to nationals. I barely make it past day 1, finishing 28th. And then go crazy on day 3, not dropping a game (albeit I had some close calls!).

So that's a bit of the back story. On to the questions about the list.

Now I've read a couple times where people think Yorr is overpriced, a mistake, that there are better options, etc. One of the cool things about this game is that different players can be successful with different options. For me Yorr is the best option there. He does what I want him to do as he is shuttle, he is ps4 which is nicely in the middle (I move before a lot of the things I want to move before and I shoot before a lot of the low PS stuff, minimizes predator,etc.) and his ability is critical when I need it.

I look at this like collision insurance (not liability which everyone us required to buy) on an automobile. If you are struggling to put food on the table then the money you could save by not buying collision insurance is much more important to have on-hand. So if I wasn't having the success I needed with Soontir and Whisper as they were, and needed vader, or fcs or something else out of my shuttle then it would make sense to try and get more offensive output from the shuttle. But if you can afford collision insurance then in those few very rare times that you need it...it's an absolute life saver. That's what Yorr is. He doesn't win me games I would already likely win. He wins me games where I'd almost certainly lose without him. Stress is becoming more and more prevalent in this game and is very effective against both Soontir and Whisper. That is why Yorr is there...and for the rare K-turn fun which I'll talk more about later.

So on to Buzzsaw Whisper....between games at Nationals a couple of us were chatting and Paul Heaver made the comment that when he builds a list it starts with Biggs. My response was when I build a list it starts with Gunner! It's been my favorite upgrade since I started playing and if I'm flying a list with at least 1 crew slot there almost always at least 1 Gunner in there. I think everyone agrees that VI and ACD on whisper is almost a given for tournament play. FCS is an extremely good value. It essentially gives you a certain amount of free TL actions over the course of the game and if you are taking Gunner it's really an auto include.

Like Yorr there are lots who believe that Gunner isn't necessary on a phantom and again I think it all comes down to style, how you play, the ships role in your list , etc. Again there is no one right answer. My list revolves around Gunner. Gunner supports my list in many different ways. While we may be able to pick some as more important than others, it's the sum of them all that makes it so good for me. First I want the freedom to be able to really choose my action on whisper and I think Gunner is great for that. Whisper needs to hit to get his free focus so gunner let's me BR or evade with little fear of not getting the free focus. I can't stress the importance of the evade token. With all the good players and turreted ships out there you are going to get shot and are going to need to roll green dice. In most cases you shouldn't be getting shot at by a lot of ships in a single turn. The exception may be in the case of a skilled swarm player but even then they should be 2 dice shots. So you likely don't need 3 focus tokens. There are only 2 focus results on the die in comparison to 3 blanks. My preferred mix therefore is one evade and focus when taking fire so gunner really gives me the confidence to take evade. Gunner is also great at stripping tokens / effects. Having lots of attack dice actually helps here as many times when an opponent is trying to get to that magical 1 damage number they 'll use all their tokens and effects to get there allowing Soontir and Yorr to shoot at a clean target. It also can lead to huge swings of the dice. In my finals game at one point I rolled 5 blanks / focuses I had a TL but instead of taking it I let it go and used gunner then TL on the gunner shot to get 5 hits / crits. A huge swing. We could go on and on but even in the worse case scenario gunner allows you to score one hit. My build only has 3 ships and there are times when whisper is the only one shooting at a particular target in a turn. I roll the first set of dice and rather then risk the gunner being better my opponent (wisely) just takes the 1 or 2 hits rather then focus / evade. That's huge and over the course of the game it adds up and even if you never actually roll the 2nd set of dice Gunner has paid for itself. Finally I look it at the same way as I look at Yorr. In games I'm going to lose is there a better choice that could help me win...and then if I make that change what is the effect on the match ups that were previously in my favor and am I now winning more games then before or not. For me, Gunner is the best crew option for Whisper in this list. And most importantly, it's great fun!

So briefly on to how I run the list (This post is already longer then I thought it would be). I see Soontir and Whisper both as flankers. They also both like to have their space to maneuver so in many games I'm trying to create a pincer with Yorr in the middle, Soontir on one side and Whisper on the other. Now every game has tons of different variables so it's never the exactly the same but if my opponent is coming at me in a blob i want to engage them at a spot on the mat that is most ideal for me with Yorr in the middle and Soontir and Whisper pushing in from the sides. Eventually the 3 ships get close and this where Yorrs ability can really come into play and free up potential K turns. I played one game on the final day of nationals where a VERY good player was hunting Whisper with his Soontir Fel. He was starting to gain position on me when whisper K turned allowing Yorr to pull the stress and I was now directly behind where Soontir ended up. He couldn't arc me dodge me in either of the next 2 turns and Soontir was dead sealing the game. I also had a game in Kingston where whisper was blocked in a bad position likely to get ionized off the board. I was able to K turn Soontir within mms of the board edge and directly in front of whisper. My opponent succeeded in ionizing whisper but on his next turned moved the ion turret out of range rather then face 2 R1 shots from soontir in a row. Whisper bumped soontir staying on the board before soontir moved away. He was out of range of the ion on the next turn, hard 1 turned back into the fight and I won the game. If I would have lost that game I wouldn't have made the top 8 in Kingston.

So as you can likely tell I really like this list. I make no claims about it's overall greatness or general effectiveness, etc. It's a list that is both fun for me to fly and allows me to feel like I have at least a fighting chance against most stuff currently out there. If you have a chance to fly it and enjoy it that's awesome! I also encourage you to try new things and find other lists that are both fun and effective in your hands. The more of us who are doing this, the better chance we have of facing a variety of lists in competitive settings rather then just cookie cutters of the same thing.

Best of luck and Fly Casual!

I don't mind chiming in.

The coolest thing (IMO) about this list winning nationals is that it was built for fun, not specifically to succeed at a national level.

I actually came up with the 1st version while on vacation with my extended family. When the wife and kids went to bed at night my brother (who also plays XWing and who I get to see about 1 or 2 times a year now) and I would stay up way too late drinking a few beverages, catching up, reminiscing about the good old days, and most importantly playing XWing!

I built this list on the very first night. I had recently won a phantom at Imdaar Alpha but hadn't been able to play it much because it was illegal in our local league for most of the season. So I definitely wanted to play it as piloting mobile ships had become an aspect of the game that was appealing more and more to me. I naturally tend to move away from hard counters so whispers ps 9 seemed an obvious choice over echo's ps 8. I then decided to pair it with the next most mobile ship, the interceptor. Again Soontir seemed the obvious choice to have 2 ships at PS9 and to mitigate some hard counters. I then put in the shuttle. It was a ship I hadn't really figured out. I played a doom shuttle and knew how to make that work but I wanted to move away from that and try to use it as the center point of my squad. With 3 red dice, a wide arc, and 0 forward maneuver I thought it could be a great board control element, if I could figure out how to fly it.

I think the 1st version had an OGP w FCS and TC on Soontir, but Whisper was decked out is (I'll come back to this later). It won our first game and to make a long story short it kept winning all week no matter what we threw at it. At the end of the week there was a regional scheduled about an hour away from where we were vacationing in Kingston ON. I had 2 first round regional byes and was already planning to go to Atlanta so this regional was a bonus. I decided I'd bring a fun list to Kingston and a competitive list to Atlanta. So towards the end of the week I made he final tweaks to the list which was dropping TC off Soontir and upgrading the OGP to a naked Yorr.

From there the rest is history. I win Kingston with my "fun list" earning a 1st round bye at Nationals. I stick to the plan and play my "competitive" list at Atlanta and go 3-3 not even making the top 16. I figure that's got to be a sign so I take my "fun list" to nationals. I barely make it past day 1, finishing 28th. And then go crazy on day 3, not dropping a game (albeit I had some close calls!).

So that's a bit of the back story. On to the questions about the list.

Now I've read a couple times where people think Yorr is overpriced, a mistake, that there are better options, etc. One of the cool things about this game is that different players can be successful with different options. For me Yorr is the best option there. He does what I want him to do as he is shuttle, he is ps4 which is nicely in the middle (I move before a lot of the things I want to move before and I shoot before a lot of the low PS stuff, minimizes predator,etc.) and his ability is critical when I need it.

I look at this like collision insurance (not liability which everyone us required to buy) on an automobile. If you are struggling to put food on the table then the money you could save by not buying collision insurance is much more important to have on-hand. So if I wasn't having the success I needed with Soontir and Whisper as they were, and needed vader, or fcs or something else out of my shuttle then it would make sense to try and get more offensive output from the shuttle. But if you can afford collision insurance then in those few very rare times that you need it...it's an absolute life saver. That's what Yorr is. He doesn't win me games I would already likely win. He wins me games where I'd almost certainly lose without him. Stress is becoming more and more prevalent in this game and is very effective against both Soontir and Whisper. That is why Yorr is there...and for the rare K-turn fun which I'll talk more about later.

So on to Buzzsaw Whisper....between games at Nationals a couple of us were chatting and Paul Heaver made the comment that when he builds a list it starts with Biggs. My response was when I build a list it starts with Gunner! It's been my favorite upgrade since I started playing and if I'm flying a list with at least 1 crew slot there almost always at least 1 Gunner in there. I think everyone agrees that VI and ACD on whisper is almost a given for tournament play. FCS is an extremely good value. It essentially gives you a certain amount of free TL actions over the course of the game and if you are taking Gunner it's really an auto include.

Like Yorr there are lots who believe that Gunner isn't necessary on a phantom and again I think it all comes down to style, how you play, the ships role in your list , etc. Again there is no one right answer. My list revolves around Gunner. Gunner supports my list in many different ways. While we may be able to pick some as more important than others, it's the sum of them all that makes it so good for me. First I want the freedom to be able to really choose my action on whisper and I think Gunner is great for that. Whisper needs to hit to get his free focus so gunner let's me BR or evade with little fear of not getting the free focus. I can't stress the importance of the evade token. With all the good players and turreted ships out there you are going to get shot and are going to need to roll green dice. In most cases you shouldn't be getting shot at by a lot of ships in a single turn. The exception may be in the case of a skilled swarm player but even then they should be 2 dice shots. So you likely don't need 3 focus tokens. There are only 2 focus results on the die in comparison to 3 blanks. My preferred mix therefore is one evade and focus when taking fire so gunner really gives me the confidence to take evade. Gunner is also great at stripping tokens / effects. Having lots of attack dice actually helps here as many times when an opponent is trying to get to that magical 1 damage number they 'll use all their tokens and effects to get there allowing Soontir and Yorr to shoot at a clean target. It also can lead to huge swings of the dice. In my finals game at one point I rolled 5 blanks / focuses I had a TL but instead of taking it I let it go and used gunner then TL on the gunner shot to get 5 hits / crits. A huge swing. We could go on and on but even in the worse case scenario gunner allows you to score one hit. My build only has 3 ships and there are times when whisper is the only one shooting at a particular target in a turn. I roll the first set of dice and rather then risk the gunner being better my opponent (wisely) just takes the 1 or 2 hits rather then focus / evade. That's huge and over the course of the game it adds up and even if you never actually roll the 2nd set of dice Gunner has paid for itself. Finally I look it at the same way as I look at Yorr. In games I'm going to lose is there a better choice that could help me win...and then if I make that change what is the effect on the match ups that were previously in my favor and am I now winning more games then before or not. For me, Gunner is the best crew option for Whisper in this list. And most importantly, it's great fun!

So briefly on to how I run the list (This post is already longer then I thought it would be). I see Soontir and Whisper both as flankers. They also both like to have their space to maneuver so in many games I'm trying to create a pincer with Yorr in the middle, Soontir on one side and Whisper on the other. Now every game has tons of different variables so it's never the exactly the same but if my opponent is coming at me in a blob i want to engage them at a spot on the mat that is most ideal for me with Yorr in the middle and Soontir and Whisper pushing in from the sides. Eventually the 3 ships get close and this where Yorrs ability can really come into play and free up potential K turns. I played one game on the final day of nationals where a VERY good player was hunting Whisper with his Soontir Fel. He was starting to gain position on me when whisper K turned allowing Yorr to pull the stress and I was now directly behind where Soontir ended up. He couldn't arc me dodge me in either of the next 2 turns and Soontir was dead sealing the game. I also had a game in Kingston where whisper was blocked in a bad position likely to get ionized off the board. I was able to K turn Soontir within mms of the board edge and directly in front of whisper. My opponent succeeded in ionizing whisper but on his next turned moved the ion turret out of range rather then face 2 R1 shots from soontir in a row. Whisper bumped soontir staying on the board before soontir moved away. He was out of range of the ion on the next turn, hard 1 turned back into the fight and I won the game. If I would have lost that game I wouldn't have made the top 8 in Kingston.

So as you can likely tell I really like this list. I make no claims about it's overall greatness or general effectiveness, etc. It's a list that is both fun for me to fly and allows me to feel like I have at least a fighting chance against most stuff currently out there. If you have a chance to fly it and enjoy it that's awesome! I also encourage you to try new things and find other lists that are both fun and effective in your hands. The more of us who are doing this, the better chance we have of facing a variety of lists in competitive settings rather then just cookie cutters of the same thing.

Best of luck and Fly Casual!

Awesome narrative! Thanks for all of your thoughts. And congrats on your win. I was so hyped watching the posts come in on the Nationals thread.

Was trying to figure out your build for a while, so thanks a lot for talking to me about it.

Your breakdown of how to fly is incredibly helpful. This is the part that we really can't learn unless we pick your brain. We can sometimes see it from watching, but the better part of the "why" might be lost on us.

--

As a Magic player, I really understand and appreciate your strong adherence to creating build options that help you win games you'd lose, instead of winning games you would win easier. That's something I was trying to do more as I got better at Magic too. Makes also a lot of sense of what I learn in Art of War: A good fighter puts himself beyond the chance of defeat and awaits a chance to defeat his opponent.

My initial reaction with your list was "wow! that must be hard to fly well, but it looks exceedingly interesting and effective." Now i really see how well it covers your harder games versus being great at what your list is already good at.

--

Now, Both you and Paul Heaver have talked about building your list around specific objects. How do you go about that? How do you see that being exceptionally optimal for your build style? Do you recommend learning a particular mechanic and being very good at it so that we can build like this?

I don't mind chiming in.

The coolest thing (IMO) about this list winning nationals is that it was built for fun, not specifically to succeed at a national level.

So as you can likely tell I really like this list. I make no claims about it's overall greatness or general effectiveness, etc. It's a list that is both fun for me to fly and allows me to feel like I have at least a fighting chance against most stuff currently out there. If you have a chance to fly it and enjoy it that's awesome! I also encourage you to try new things and find other lists that are both fun and effective in your hands. The more of us who are doing this, the better chance we have of facing a variety of lists in competitive settings rather then just cookie cutters of the same thing.

Best of luck and Fly Casual!

Thanks for Chiming in and winning while flying casual!

I was casually flying Echo, Turr, OGP recently. After seeing your list win I'll now dub it "Yorr only Second Best" because it's the 2nd best version of all your ships. It's fun to fly and the one time I played with Yorr and a single surprise "white" kturn was worth the 3pts by itself.

Congrats man!

FOR THE GLORY OF THE EMPIRE!

I've tried a search but couldn't really find it, so can someone please list the ships/upgrades used by D4rkt3mpl4r?

From battle report thread

Ya I may try Flickr next, just wasn't working when I was only on my phone. The lists are as follows (somewhat from memory):

For the Imperials:

Nick- 6 Obsidians and Howl with PTL

Rick- Yorr; Soontir with PTL; Whisper with VI, ACD, gunner, FCS

For the Rebels:

Paul- Han with VI, Luke, C3PO, engine, falcon title; Biggs, Tala

Jeff- Chewy with DTF, R2D2 crew, C3PO, falcon title; Lando with DTF, Han crew, Nien Numb

Thanks for that!