The lowest point phantoms are 25 points, so you could fly four of them in a 100 point game. With 16 attack dice that should provide a good alpha strike even if they are brittle. How well would a four phantom list do? Would it just go to show the phantom was undercosted?

Depends on what the opponent brings, I think they'd kill 4 rookies, but not do as well against 3 hlc dagger b wings

The best strategy that I've seen is to slow-game it. You have 2 of them cloaked at a time to block with, attack with the uncloaked pair, and then alternate. Start of next turn, the cloaked ones decloak and reposition to lay out some damage, and the uncloaked ones cloak to block.

You would have to fly them pretty well. It would be hard to de-cloak four ships and get them all into a good firing position. I think a possible strategy would be to essentially sacrafice one Phantom a round by making it an easy target in front of your opponents squad. The trick would be not letting him get all his guns to bare on any of your other Phantoms. With any luck, by the time you are down to one ship so is your opponent and 1 v 1 favors the Phantom.

But they probably do well against any swarmy list that's bringing PS 1 or 2 pilots. Against named pilots they will die rather quickly.

I have tested the 4 Phantom build many times. It performs well, very well at times. As JoJo pointed out the High Pilot Skill bid that is currently going on with the game makes it hard to keep one of them around for the initial attack. you are heavily reliant on the dice and it can go south real quick. The build is not so much on cloaking and decloaking as it is jousting since it loses the PS bid war.

Another benefit of using blockers is they live longer. Even if you can't always arc dodge, you can manipulate which targets your enemies have to focus on.

TIE Phantoms have almost exactly the same jousting efficiency as TIE Interceptors, so flying 4 PS3 Phantoms is very similar statistically to flying 5 PS3 Interceptors.

Any specific matchup will obviously depend on what the opposing force brings.

I don't know about 4... 1 maybe. BIG DISTRACTION.

Had a 4 phantom list at our latest local event, killed an "anti phantom" list in 2 rounds of shooting didn't win the event but the pilot said he can see the potential in it. Personally I like to tool my ships up so its not for me

The best strategy that I've seen is to slow-game it. You have 2 of them cloaked at a time to block with, attack with the uncloaked pair, and then alternate. Start of next turn, the cloaked ones decloak and reposition to lay out some damage, and the uncloaked ones cloak to block.

This.

I took Chewie, Kyle and a gold squadron y-wing to regionals and got squashed in my first match to 4 naked phantoms.

It's very viable, especially if they all drop in to range one and hit the falcon with 20 straight attack dice. You just don't survive that.

Had this flown against me in a friendly match and it did surprisingly better than I expected. Ton's of firepower!

4 Phantoms is nasty.

Cloaking is bad enough, but barriers, phase disruptors, dodging and dat sync-kill is a pain off host. Especially on objective rounds.

ohwaitwrongforum

How are 4 PS3 Phantoms any good? Unless you are fighting lists with generic pilots as well, rolling 2 defense dice just doesn't seem like a very good idea on a ship with 4HP. Sure, they'll hurt once they get their turn to fire, but you better pray that the green-dice-gods are in your favor!

How are 4 PS3 Phantoms any good? Unless you are fighting lists with generic pilots as well, rolling 2 defense dice just doesn't seem like a very good idea on a ship with 4HP. Sure, they'll hurt once they get their turn to fire, but you better pray that the green-dice-gods are in your favor!

It's really not that good:

TIE Phantoms have almost exactly the same jousting efficiency as TIE Interceptors, so flying 4 PS3 Phantoms is very similar statistically to flying 5 PS3 Interceptors.

... neither of these 2 squads has any real tricks they can play, and their jousting value is only mediocre, which is probably why neither one ever shows up at Regionals or Nationals.

I clicked this thread expecting something different.

I'm interested in how they'll compare to 4 HLC M3-A Interceptors. My guess is the 3 Agi M3-As might do better as long as they kerp at range 2-3 most of the time.

I'm interested in how they'll compare to 4 HLC M3-A Interceptors. My guess is the 3 Agi M3-As might do better as long as they kerp at range 2-3 most of the time.

Correct, they would be about even except the HLC negates defensive range bonuses. If the opposing squad gets in close then the M3-A's are dead.

x/2/2/2 is almost identical durability to x/3/2/1, although in this case with super high attack, 2/2/2 should get the nod for being more durable.

The whole idea of the Phantom IMHO is to be able to decloak, shoot, and re-cloak before getting shot at, or preferrably kill the target to AVOID getting shot at.

With a PS3 build, especially with 4 NAKED Phantoms, you will need to decloak if you want to attack but at PS3, most ships will be higher PS meaning they shoot first.... so rolling 2 attack dice isn't really a smart move. Against one ship with 3 attack, well, one Phantom will survive, but if there are two or more ships that are shooting at it, bye-bye Phantom!

Without the Advanced Cloaking device, you need to alternate your attacks. One turn is for move-cloak, next turn is decloak-move-attack, then next turn is move-cloak, and so on. You don't want to risk moving un-cloaked as your target may very well do a K-turn and get the Phantom in his sights. What this means is that even with the 4 attack dice, it'll take a while before they actually kill anything, unless the player is very good at setting up firing arcs and can get 2-4 Phantoms to fire at one target. Unfortunately, with a standard 6-asteroid table and fighting 4 opponents, there might not be enough space to decloak and still end up where you want to be.

Whisper and Echo, kitted out properly, will be more effective, fun, and will be scarier for your opponents to go fight against.

Kited out Whisper and Echo are undoubtable good, but they play very differently than the sigma and shadow pilots. I'm always interested in seeing when a ship can work outside it's designated role. I had a lot of success using naked scimitar bombers as dogfighters, so the idea of using phantoms for something other than cloaking shenanigans is interesting. They're pretty much the opposite of the bombers, with high cost, high damage and low survivability, so I don't know if it would work well.

Any thoughts on Howlrunner w/ Determination + 3 Sigmas with Stygium? Extra defense, similar firepower.

Any thoughts on Howlrunner w/ Determination + 3 Sigmas with Stygium? Extra defense, similar firepower.

I'm not sure that is extra defence. Yes, you'll have Evade tokens to use, but keeping everyone in range of Howlrunner basically kills your ability to arc dodge, so you'll end up taking more fire in the long run.

3 Sigmas with sensor jammer, stygium, and a recon specialist or rebel captive has done better for me then 4 naked phantoms, but the 4 naked phantoms alpha strike like nobody's business when the dice gods favor you.

but the 4 naked phantoms alpha strike like nobody's business when the dice gods favor you.

You'll eventually find out that you've very quickly ran out of virgins to sacrifice at the altar.