ACD on a Shadow Squadron Pilot?

By KillingTime, in X-Wing

What are the community's thoughts on putting an ACD on a Shadow Squadron pilot?

The list I'm thinking of running is:

Vessery - HLC, Outmanouever

Shadow Squadron - ACD, FCS, Tactician

Scimitar - Fletchette Torps, Seismic

It's got TL spam for Vessery, the Scimitar has a few toys to give it some bite, and the Shadow can simply try to focus on low PS pilots and arc dodge anything that shoots before him.

It's a deliberate attempt to avoid Echo/Whisper but still try to get the most out of the decent enough PS of the shadow pilot by going with ACD instead of SPA on the cheaper Sigma pilot.

I'll certainly give this list a go at some point, but I wondered if anyone else had tried it or something similar.

I think you'd be better off with the stygion because it's unlikely you'll shoot before elite pilots and they'll go for the phantom first because four hit points with two dodge is easy to kill, at least with stygion you gain an evade token which may keep you in the fight a bit longer.

It can work surprisingly well, you just can't be as aggressive as you would with Echo or Whisper.

I prefer Stygium Particle Accelerator on non named phantom

It's harder to justify ACD on the generic pilots, as one the points of ACD is being able to cloak before anyone can shoot back and you need high PS to achieve that. If you know you are facing lots of low PS pilots, ACD will work as intended, but the second you face named pilots you will find yourself in deep manure. For this reason Stygian is generally thought of as the better choice for generic Phantoms

ACD has two benefits on high-PS pilots, as everybody knows: decloak on every turn and cloaking before others shoot. On low-PS you keep decloacking each turn but you lose cloak against most named pilots, but keep the maneuverability. How much is that worth to you? Can you play the Phantom without it?

If you expect low-PS opponents, Shadow with ACD is almost as good as Whisper, otherwise... you lose on defense. How can you compensate that? Black squadron with Squad leader can give you an evade, for instance. Fleet Officer will also help when it comes out, but it's difficult to keep Imperial crewed ships in range 2 of your Phantom, it's much easier with a black squadron.

For instance, you can have the following list:

Sigma Squadron Pilot (25)
Stygium Particle Accelerator (2)

"Howlrunner" (18)
Stealth Device (3)

Black Squadron Pilot (14)
Squad Leader (2)

Academy Pilot (12)

Academy Pilot (12)

Academy Pilot (12)

Total: 100

View in Yet Another Squad Builder

You can basically keep it in formation if you're careful, on turns where you decloak you can just do a focus + evade and give Howlrunner an extra evade (that would be the first round on engagement). On other turns, you can disengage (cloak, focus and evade) or you can focus + evade on normal shooting turns, keep the Phantom in formation as a glass cannon. I've run a similar list with reasonable amounts of success (7-0 including tournaments..)

TL;DR Anything goes on low-PS Phantom pilots, but it changes the way you have to play them dramatically.