There is a simple way to answer this:

Using Points:

6 Headhunters 72 pts.

1 Phantom 35-42 points

Who are you more afraid of?

I have seen 1 Whisper take down 6 headhunters without breaking a sweat many times. In game balance should this be?especially with the points difference. We all know it shouldn't, but we know it is.

I challenge you to take any other 42 point ship or less and fight 6 headhunters, without so much as breaking a sweat.

That answers your question.

Without seeing the game, I can't really say. I've seen Fel kill over twice his value before. Does that mean Fel is a problem?

No. But not without breaking a sweat. I have seen many players surrender with the loss of one ship early (their phantom Hunter), this never happened much previously, because you always felt like you had a chance. Now they quit because even though they outnumber and out points the phantom by a large majority they feel it's hopeless to play for an hour knowing that they cannot win. They would rather restart and play again.

This is not good for the game, and everyone knows it.

FFG will give us some counter to the phantom, but we just have to wait. Remember the OP question here is does the Cloak ability do too much. So the from my stats and everyone else who is truthful about it, the Answer is 'Yes'

On that note, I have now been to two tournaments where the phantom was banned, but it is clearly stated before hand. I have also been to 3 tournaments that clearly stated the Phantom is not banned ,but that it has Attack 3.

The communities are showing that the Phantom and cloak ability is overpowered. FFG will take notice and fix it.

Because if they don't then you now have a GW issue with the Game. People will start making their own rules and their own tournaments. It's already started with Phantoms. GW's stubbornness to admit anything was wrong is what made them fail. Hopefully FFG won't go down the same road with X-wing. So far they have done a good job fixing issues, and hopefully they'll keep it up.

Now if this is a ffg event and the TO are banning phantoms and making adjustments to its attack.

Well that's probably the worst T.O out there.

They cannot ban ships that are tournament legal. Phantoms are tournament legal.

2 adjusting a ships attack that is not sanctioned by ffg I think may fall under the cheating or poor sportsmanlike conduct or something.

Sounds like the players and TO who agree with these rulings are poor players if they're that scared of a phantom.

I destroyed whisper 3 games with a 2 ship build 3 times now once on vassal and another with my friend who is good with phantoms

Jan Ors with veteran instincts flying along side dash is a great little build and deals with phantoms very well.

I know I for one would not play at such a tournament even though I haven't flown a Phantom in quite some time.

If it was a ffg tournament I would also inform ffg/the supplier of which store this is taking place at and the T.O name as well. As i don't think they should be running these events if all of a sudden something they don't like appears and they feel as though they can make any changes they want.

Being a T.O does not give you the right to ban ships that are tournament legal, and especially changing any stats on any ship.

That is just piss poor organizing.

Maybe these people should learn how to play the game it's ment to be, rather than flat out break/change game mechanic for their own personal satisfaction. Because apparently they know they will lose if they come across a Phantom in this example. So they hinder others to benifit themselves.

Honest to God some people should not be in charge of anything

Especially if there is a bye into a regional invloved.

All the more reason why I would report it, and get rid of such a T.O

Actually should be chased out of the store.

I'm very grateful to my community and friends who play. Who don't quit at the site of one ship blowing up.

Quite honestly sounds like some poor players who need to lighten up and learn how to build better lists and fly them better

It's one thing if you want to house rule such a thing that's fine, but if your hosting FFG tournaments you better know how to properly run and play. If you can't beat specific builds and is the concerned with it, then maybe they should stick to their house and not play ffg tournament

Personally speaking, I don't think the cloak is too powerful an ability. I share the opinion of others on this forum that ACD + cloaking may be a little exaggerated because it's pretty easy to ensure a 4 red dice and 4 green dice ship, which are unequaled stats throughout the whole of X-wing.

It's a vicious cycle, though. Without the essentially 4 agility, phantoms (re: whisper) would never see the light of day with all these fat turrets running around. That's my theory as to why FFG threw in ACD and the +2 agility while cloaked.

I know from experience that Z-95s don't do very well against turrets, least of all 30+ point ones

There is a simple way to answer this:

Using Points:

6 Headhunters 72 pts.

1 Phantom 35-42 points

Who are you more afraid of?

I have seen 1 Whisper take down 6 headhunters without breaking a sweat many times. In game balance should this be?especially with the points difference. We all know it shouldn't, but we know it is.

I challenge you to take any other 42 point ship or less and fight 6 headhunters, without so much as breaking a sweat.

That answers your question.

Without seeing the game, I can't really say. I've seen Fel kill over twice his value before. Does that mean Fel is a problem?

No. But not without breaking a sweat. I have seen many players surrender with the loss of one ship early (their phantom Hunter), this never happened much previously, because you always felt like you had a chance. Now they quit because even though they outnumber and out points the phantom by a large majority they feel it's hopeless to play for an hour knowing that they cannot win. They would rather restart and play again.

This is not good for the game, and everyone knows it.

FFG will give us some counter to the phantom, but we just have to wait. Remember the OP question here is does the Cloak ability do too much. So the from my stats and everyone else who is truthful about it, the Answer is 'Yes'

On that note, I have now been to two tournaments where the phantom was banned, but it is clearly stated before hand. I have also been to 3 tournaments that clearly stated the Phantom is not banned ,but that it has Attack 3.

The communities are showing that the Phantom and cloak ability is overpowered. FFG will take notice and fix it.

Because if they don't then you now have a GW issue with the Game. People will start making their own rules and their own tournaments. It's already started with Phantoms. GW's stubbornness to admit anything was wrong is what made them fail. Hopefully FFG won't go down the same road with X-wing. So far they have done a good job fixing issues, and hopefully they'll keep it up.

Does your group ban HLC as well?

No it's not my group. But 6 of my locations have very own rules. You kidding me. I love using a 3 phantom list, with Whisper and two sigma's.

People don't like playing against it. I have gotten many complaints.

My group itself allows all rules, always. We don't use comp, we believe if it's written down in the book, then it's legal. I just pointing out that many venues in my area feel the Phantom is overpowered and have taken steps to reduce it.

Heck OT, but one time I took space marines and no vehicles or special units. Just basic marines, rolling 10 dice per unit, sometimes 60 dice in one turn focused fire, or 70 Long bow wood elfs. I love spamming dice and poorly edited rules. We call it Ra?ing the Rule book. I can't post what we really call it or I will get a notification.

Back on topic, I can even see the 4 dice attack of the phantom, has made other ships weaker, and that the cloak mechanic makes it more powerful. That's why X-wings, are weaker now. Their two defense dice cannot stand up to the 4 attack dice of the phantom. Really, IMO the cloak mechanic would be fine with 3 dice, but 4 attack dice makes the cloak mechanic to good.

eagletsi

Personally speaking, I don't think the cloak is too powerful an ability. I share the opinion of others on this forum that ACD + cloaking may be a little exaggerated because it's pretty easy to ensure a 4 red dice and 4 green dice ship, which are unequaled stats throughout the whole of X-wing.

I agree with you; having played Phantoms and played against Phantoms I don't think the Cloak mechanic is fundamentally overpowered, but the combination of low-cost ACD plus the high attack rating makes the total package a bit on the strong side. FFG needs to keep the "iron triangle" of firepower, protection, and maneuverability in balance and with the Phantom they boosted all three; ship cost isn't a sufficient barrier to balance. But the ship isn't broken to the point of needing to be banned IMO -- it just requires some careful planning to address by an opponent.

I do wonder how we'd see this if Decloak were an action instead of "not an action". Phantom movement wouldn't change except that now Decloak could be prevented by stress, and the Phantom player would have to find a way to gain another action to Focus while attacking (PTL, probably).

Personally speaking, I don't think the cloak is too powerful an ability. I share the opinion of others on this forum that ACD + cloaking may be a little exaggerated because it's pretty easy to ensure a 4 red dice and 4 green dice ship, which are unequaled stats throughout the whole of X-wing.

I agree with you; having played Phantoms and played against Phantoms I don't think the Cloak mechanic is fundamentally overpowered, but the combination of low-cost ACD plus the high attack rating makes the total package a bit on the strong side. FFG needs to keep the "iron triangle" of firepower, protection, and maneuverability in balance and with the Phantom they boosted all three; ship cost isn't a sufficient barrier to balance. But the ship isn't broken to the point of needing to be banned IMO -- it just requires some careful planning to address by an opponent.

I do wonder how we'd see this if Decloak were an action instead of "not an action". Phantom movement wouldn't change except that now Decloak could be prevented by stress, and the Phantom player would have to find a way to gain another action to Focus while attacking (PTL, probably).

Very interesting. I agree if Decloak were an action, that would go along way to toning down the Iron triangle as you called it. Since they assume you are not where your model is when decloaking, they could have just said, "While cloaked, if you are not stressed, and you Overlap a ship or obstacle you can still use the Decloak Action"

Another question came to my mind though. Will we possibly see another ship use stealth mechanics? With different modifications and no ACD of course because thats Phantom only.

Almost certainly.

One thing this thread hasn't touched on is that, broken or not, the Cloak-ACD combination perfectly represents the canon Phantom (well, canon for EU, but the Phantom is EU-only so that's fine).

The whole point of the Phantom, and the reason it was so important for the Rebels to quickly shut down its production, was that it was a ship with a cloak that had no downsides. I have scarcely seen such a lore-accurate representation in games like this.

It seems pretty obvious to me that it's the reason ACD is Phantom-only, and also so cheap, because it's assumed to be built into Phantoms, but allows other ships to have cloak without being as strong as the Phantom's cloak.

Rogue shadow had cloaking

I so want to see that in this game someday

Vessery was already the only slightly viable Defender. There isn't anything on the horizon that is all of a sudden make the Defender competitive. The new cannons will be 'meh' on the Defender.

Oh look, someone else who doesn't know what do do with the Defender! Hai there!

Well yes, for 30 points we can take a basic naked PS1 defender ... Or Vader PS9 - double stressless actions - ATC autocrit - Better maneuverability - Evade action - Better stress management - EPT.

Yes, the future of Defenders is very bright, indeed...

Actually Jokubas, I believe it is the opposite. We won't see another ship with the cloaking ability. The only reason ACD has 'Phantom Only' is because of the wording.

"After you perform an attack, you may perform a free cloak action." without the Phantom Only prerequisite, it would mean it could be put on any ship and that ship would then be able to cloak after an attack, since when you are told you can perform a free action, you don't actually need it on your action bar to perform it.

Whereas the Sygium Particle Accelerator says "When you perform a cloak action, you may assign an evade token" to use this card, you already need the cloak action for it to work, it doesn't grant you in any way the ability to use the cloak action.

It is my opinion, and I believe the actual reason why ACD has 'TIE Phantom Only' attached to it.

Actually Jokubas, I believe it is the opposite. We won't see another ship with the cloaking ability. The only reason ACD has 'Phantom Only' is because of the wording.

"After you perform an attack, you may perform a free cloak action." without the Phantom Only prerequisite, it would mean it could be put on any ship and that ship would then be able to cloak after an attack, since when you are told you can perform a free action, you don't actually need it on your action bar to perform it.

Whereas the Sygium Particle Accelerator says "When you perform a cloak action, you may assign an evade token" to use this card, you already need the cloak action for it to work, it doesn't grant you in any way the ability to use the cloak action.

It is my opinion, and I believe the actual reason why ACD has 'TIE Phantom Only' attached to it.

Or to prevent Fat Han from having a cloaking Falcon.

Here's a version for a deep reconnaissance A-wing. Trade the missile slot for a cloaking device.

Deep Recon [MISSILE] (A-wing only) {4} You gain the Cloak action on your action bar. Your ship may equip Modifications previously restricted to TIE-Phantom only.

I don't recall any instance in any of the star wars lore I am aware of to account for this.

Secondly...with how much people around here complain and whine about the acd the last thing the game needs is something else that utilizes it...you wanna constantly shoot at a 5 def die Tycho who will ALWAYS be cloaked...and have vi plus some other nasty ept...methinks you didn't think this idea through completely.

Personally I don't want to see anything else utilize the cloak action at all...but that may or may not happen. If anything else gets cloaking...the acd should remain phantom only...

I don't recall any instance in any of the star wars lore I am aware of to account for this.

Secondly...with how much people around here complain and whine about the acd the last thing the game needs is something else that utilizes it...you wanna constantly shoot at a 5 def die Tycho who will ALWAYS be cloaked...and have vi plus some other nasty ept...methinks you didn't think this idea through completely.

Personally I don't want to see anything else utilize the cloak action at all...but that may or may not happen. If anything else gets cloaking...the acd should remain phantom only...

True for the A-wing, though based on it's design it would make an appropriate stealthed recon ship -- fast, maneuverable, byt lightly armed and armored (which I what the Phantom probably should have been). There was the StealthX, though, a stealth X-wing.

As to the rest ... you have a point.

Forget to take the cloak action after performing your attack - you die.

(happens often across skill levels, esp. after a long day full of games)

Don't have a ship in arc - you die.

Meet a higher Pilot Skill enemy with actions - you die.

Shooting at a Rebel Captive - you die.

Dual stressed from a Stressbot/Flechette/Debris Field/Captive, etc. - you die.

Meet a Turret/HLC/Oicunn/Ruthlessnesss (shooting at a range 1 Friendly ship ofc) - you die, slowly, but surely.

Meet low PS enemies with Mines - you die

Fickle dice - you die

Etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.

In short, no.

Krassis with Recon Spec and HLC scares me more than any Phantom.

Facing a Fat Whisper and you didn't specifically build your list to counter it? - you die, no et cetera involved.

It's one of the reasons my gaming group that fielding Phantoms is fine, you simply must inform your opponent of the piloting skill that they have after which he is allowed to change his list.

The Cloaking mechanic is fun and interesting, it is just the ACD + high PS that makes it broken, and no game can entirely avoid broken stuff. I for one wouldn't mind at all more ships with the Cloak action as long as they did not also have access to the ACD or ACD-like mechanics.

I don't recall any instance in any of the star wars lore I am aware of to account for this.

Secondly...with how much people around here complain and whine about the acd the last thing the game needs is something else that utilizes it...you wanna constantly shoot at a 5 def die Tycho who will ALWAYS be cloaked...and have vi plus some other nasty ept...methinks you didn't think this idea through completely.

Personally I don't want to see anything else utilize the cloak action at all...but that may or may not happen. If anything else gets cloaking...the acd should remain phantom only...

True for the A-wing, though based on it's design it would make an appropriate stealthed recon ship -- fast, maneuverable, byt lightly armed and armored (which I what the Phantom probably should have been). There was the StealthX, though, a stealth X-wing.

As to the rest ... you have a point.

Except the Phantom lore wise is not lightly armed. It had 5 cannons each of a stronger yield than a standard Ties.