I murdered echo tonight with 2 academy pilots and 2 naked saber squadron interceptors. Murdered her earlier today with vader, proton rockets.

Murdered whisper saturday with 2 bandits and 2 rookies. Made top 4 of the store championship with that list.

Phantoms aren't the problem.

I'm sorry you aren't having fun. I just read the article by Sable Griphon about his Bomber Prox mine list. It's got me thinking about what I cad do with my three bombers.

I say hang onto your stuff. I've kept my Magic and Jyhad cards years after I stopped playing. Having them still makes me happy.

It reads to me like you may be too triggered to see past the current meta. A few months off and new tourney results could shine light into the gloom.

Thanks for the reply and well wishes. I don't know what triggered means in this context, but I reckon I'd be something like "annoyed"?

It's too much money to sit on in the hopes it'll become interesting again. I don't like having stuff sitting around, it bugs me.

Thanks for the reply and well wishes. I don't know what triggered means in this context, but I reckon I'd be something like "annoyed"?

Pretty much, it's the poncy version of annoyed.

It's really simple. You want to get better against any list, with any list? Play more.

Why do you think Alex Davy can win a highly competitive tournament with 6 A-Wings? Why to you think the same people end up in the top tiers of major tournaments? Practice, practice, practice. Get miniatures on the table. Wave 6 is gonna blow this sucka wide open. Better be ready.

Started last June. Don't really get the complaining over turrets. It still matters how you maneuver, it's just different. The extremeness of good and bad phantoms is frustrating, but they can generally be outflown if you work at with a dedicated list. If your opponent is doing well with a phantom then they didn't just pick it up today. Scum will have some answers for some of these, but if you really don't enjoy the game then I don't see what that would matter.

In general the "I used to be able to bring everything." complaint is just a complaint that the level of play is steadily rising.

Anti phantom tactics aren't enough. A given list without a very specific plan for phantoms is dead against one.

Since anti-phantom lists and tactics include:

Ps9

Ps10

Ps11

Ps12

Stress

Blocking

Turrets

Gunner/Luke

Vader crew

Swarms

Ion

4+dice attacks in general

Many of those things can be included in multiple ways and all of them are also needed to deal with other ps9, ultra-maneuverable ships. If that's not enough list diversity to keep you entertained then you are trying to play a much more boring game than the rest of us lol.

If I was going to put together an honest list, I would say it is made up of:

1. High PS, ideally with activation phase movement adjustment (Boost/Barrel Roll/Stay On Target) if you don't want to play the guessing game

2. Gunner/Vader/Stress/4-dice/Ion with turret or high PS

3. Blocking

Doesn't look so diverse when we don't list the same thing 4 times or if we don't list things that aren't actually a counter unless paired with one or more other things.

Sure, sure, sure, anything could beat anything. But anecdotes are just anecdotes. Just because unlikely things happen doesn't mean there is no issue. For me at least, I'm not talking in absolutes. Things have shifted slightly from 80% skill/10% matchup/10% luck, to something like 65% skill/25% matchup/10% luck. (Numbers obviously total fabrications just to indicate that things have moved in the wrong direction.) I don't think most would say lists totally determine results, just that the scales are further tilted that direction than they have been.

It's really simple. You want to get better against any list, with any list? Play more.Why do you think Alex Davy can win a highly competitive tournament with 6 A-Wings? Why to you think the same people end up in the top tiers of major tournaments? Practice, practice, practice. Get miniatures on the table. Wave 6 is gonna blow this sucka wide open. Better be ready.

Gee, the designer of the game? Yeah dunno how he could do that.

And why does such a big deal get made out of this single example? Look at every other tournament result for a much much more compelling reflection of. What is actually happening in this game. You'll. See that it is absolutely NOT tournaments being won (ignoring the fact the person who flew it was the game designer) by a wing builds, or any other novelty builds.

It's the exception that proves the rule.

Why do you think, far and away more than the same people, we see the same list archetypes at tournament finals?

Maybe it's what people play around me. I haven't played against many phantoms, but I've never had a problem with it when I see it. I've even beat Echo before with a full swarm. I think it definitely comes down to good piloting more than hoping your list beats your opponent's. I've definitely been shut down before, but in most cases I knew I was flying a list that I didn't know how to fly very well, or one that was really dumb on my part to build anyways. With a list that I know how to fly I've never just been demolished except in those outlier games where the opponent can't roll a blank on attacks or defenses and I'm rolling below the unmodified average while having predator on my ships.

Now, that echo game was one time. I tend to like flying aces normally anyways so I can normally hunt them down pretty well, but I just wanted to put that out there since I know it's seen as almost impossible to do. The key word is almost. It is truly possible, and doable, to give them no good decloak options and then just hit them where it hurts.

I think this game is in a great place right now. Before world's almost every single tournament winning list I saw was fat Han or phantoms. It seems like wave 5 really shook things up. I'm so happy looking at the multitude of different tournament winning lists that are being flown right now.

Started last June. Don't really get the complaining over turrets. It still matters how you maneuver, it's just different. The extremeness of good and bad phantoms is frustrating, but they can generally be outflown if you work at with a dedicated list. If your opponent is doing well with a phantom then they didn't just pick it up today. Scum will have some answers for some of these, but if you really don't enjoy the game then I don't see what that would matter.

In general the "I used to be able to bring everything." complaint is just a complaint that the level of play is steadily rising.

Anti phantom tactics aren't enough. A given list without a very specific plan for phantoms is dead against one.

Since anti-phantom lists and tactics include:

Ps9

Ps10

Ps11

Ps12

Stress

Blocking

Turrets

Gunner/Luke

Vader crew

Swarms

Ion

4+dice attacks in general

Many of those things can be included in multiple ways and all of them are also needed to deal with other ps9, ultra-maneuverable ships. If that's not enough list diversity to keep you entertained then you are trying to play a much more boring game than the rest of us lol.

That is a bit of a disingenuous list. The first 4 items are all the same thing. And without high PS or a turret, most of the others are usually useless. Gunner, Vader, stress and 4-dice attacks are all pretty useless if you can't get the Phantom in arc.

If I was going to put together an honest list, I would say it is made up of:

1. High PS, ideally with activation phase movement adjustment (Boost/Barrel Roll/Stay On Target) if you don't want to play the guessing game

2. Gunner/Vader/Stress/4-dice/Ion with turret or high PS

3. Blocking

Doesn't look so diverse when we don't list the same thing 4 times or if we don't list things that aren't actually a counter unless paired with one or more other things.

Sure, sure, sure, anything could beat anything. But anecdotes are just anecdotes. Just because unlikely things happen doesn't mean there is no issue.

Thank you. Funny enough, the post this list of phantom counters was replying to said mostly that.

There are certainly phantom counters but they are all completely reworking your list. Simply throwing an ion canon turret or a ps10 ship, or a stress mechanic is not enough. Yiu need a combination of things: multiple arcs above ps9 or with initiative, stress and Ps advantage, blocking only works if you can maneuver the phantom into a side of the board or exactly in the middle of an asteroid field, there is just no way to effectively block all the decloak lanes otherwise.

Yiu either have an anti phantom list or you get railroaded by phantoms. Boring game dynamic.

Here in Dunedin NZ we have quite a lot of eager new players who rarely netlist and instead come up with their own lists and card combinations. Its a lot of fun (especially considering I'm fairly new myself, though I grasp a lot of the game mechanics and subtleties of list building a little better) and people come up with some crazy stuff. More importantly, no fat turrets or phantoms in sight.

Here in Dunedin NZ we have quite a lot of eager new players who rarely netlist and instead come up with their own lists and card combinations. Its a lot of fun (especially considering I'm fairly new myself, though I grasp a lot of the game mechanics and subtleties of list building a little better) and people come up with some crazy stuff. More importantly, no fat turrets or phantoms in sight.

That sounds awesome. I should host a tournament with a no net-list requirement.

I'll be bouncer, you bring your list to me and if it's some unoriginal lame ass Internet phenom like super dash or whisper chiraneau, I throw your collection into the ocean.

Force Kin I get what you are saying but I think the key to what you feel is in the last line of your post. "The game started great but....". For me the game started great also. I won a store championship early on and was usually in the top four in a tourney.

However now at a tourney I am a mid level player on a good day. So what has happened? I do not think the introduction of more ships and upgrade cards is the problem. In fact there is no problem at all. What you and I are seeing is players who really spend a lot of time practicing their craft (pun intended). I am in the Chicago area and there are a lot of good players. They play way more than me and are better at the game.

So what has worked for me is I will play a list I like and the meta be dammed. If I draw one of my areas "good" players I find the challenge of trying to beat them is really fun. If I loose oh well.

Force Kin take a break them come back to the game with the attitude that it is a fun game. Just relax and enjoy. Win or loose does not really matter because in the end all the prizes are for sale on ebay anyway.

I see a lot of people saying that good piloting can beat a phantom. This is true, but the big difference with wave3 is this: in wave3, good piloting WOULD win you the game, 99% of the time.

Now, if I don't have a tailored-made list to counter certain threats, I have to fly like a god, hope that my opponent makes mistakes, AND have good dice. Mighty unfair, mighty unfun.

Started last June. Don't really get the complaining over turrets. It still matters how you maneuver, it's just different. The extremeness of good and bad phantoms is frustrating, but they can generally be outflown if you work at with a dedicated list. If your opponent is doing well with a phantom then they didn't just pick it up today. Scum will have some answers for some of these, but if you really don't enjoy the game then I don't see what that would matter.

In general the "I used to be able to bring everything." complaint is just a complaint that the level of play is steadily rising.

Anti phantom tactics aren't enough. A given list without a very specific plan for phantoms is dead against one.

Since anti-phantom lists and tactics include:

Ps9

Ps10

Ps11

Ps12

Stress

Blocking

Turrets

Gunner/Luke

Vader crew

Swarms

Ion

4+dice attacks in general

Many of those things can be included in multiple ways and all of them are also needed to deal with other ps9, ultra-maneuverable ships. If that's not enough list diversity to keep you entertained then you are trying to play a much more boring game than the rest of us lol.

That is a bit of a disingenuous list. The first 4 items are all the same thing. And without high PS or a turret, most of the others are usually useless. Gunner, Vader, stress and 4-dice attacks are all pretty useless if you can't get the Phantom in arc.

If I was going to put together an honest list, I would say it is made up of:

1. High PS, ideally with activation phase movement adjustment (Boost/Barrel Roll/Stay On Target) if you don't want to play the guessing game

2. Gunner/Vader/Stress/4-dice/Ion with turret or high PS

3. Blocking

Doesn't look so diverse when we don't list the same thing 4 times or if we don't list things that aren't actually a counter unless paired with one or more other things.

Sure, sure, sure, anything could beat anything. But anecdotes are just anecdotes. Just because unlikely things happen doesn't mean there is no issue.

Thank you. Funny enough, the post this list of phantom counters was replying to said mostly that.

There are certainly phantom counters but they are all completely reworking your list. Simply throwing an ion canon turret or a ps10 ship, or a stress mechanic is not enough. Yiu need a combination of things: multiple arcs above ps9 or with initiative, stress and Ps advantage, blocking only works if you can maneuver the phantom into a side of the board or exactly in the middle of an asteroid field, there is just no way to effectively block all the decloak lanes otherwise.

Yiu either have an anti phantom list or you get railroaded by phantoms. Boring game dynamic.

To be fair, Phantoms are not a problem in and of themselves. The generics and Echo are actually quite fair and fun to fly against. The only "problem" is when Whisper, VI, and ACD all come together. If any one of those three was missing, it would also no longer be a problem.

Here in Dunedin NZ we have quite a lot of eager new players who rarely netlist and instead come up with their own lists and card combinations. Its a lot of fun (especially considering I'm fairly new myself, though I grasp a lot of the game mechanics and subtleties of list building a little better) and people come up with some crazy stuff. More importantly, no fat turrets or phantoms in sight.

That sounds awesome. I should host a tournament with a no net-list requirement.

I'll be bouncer, you bring your list to me and if it's some unoriginal lame ass Internet phenom like super dash or whisper chiraneau, I throw your collection into the ocean.

A lot of it is just due to the fact that NZ in general is a bloody long away from anything, and dunedin further still so things like the wave five ships took a bit longer to get here and no many people have them. The falcon is quite rare, our local supplier almost never has them, and the other store in town sometimes has them but they are way too expensive there (big mark up at Toy World, whereas our other supplier has no overheads so his prices are very reasonable)

Started last June. Don't really get the complaining over turrets. It still matters how you maneuver, it's just different. The extremeness of good and bad phantoms is frustrating, but they can generally be outflown if you work at with a dedicated list. If your opponent is doing well with a phantom then they didn't just pick it up today. Scum will have some answers for some of these, but if you really don't enjoy the game then I don't see what that would matter.

In general the "I used to be able to bring everything." complaint is just a complaint that the level of play is steadily rising.

Anti phantom tactics aren't enough. A given list without a very specific plan for phantoms is dead against one.

Since anti-phantom lists and tactics include:

Ps9

Ps10

Ps11

Ps12

Stress

Blocking

Turrets

Gunner/Luke

Vader crew

Swarms

Ion

4+dice attacks in general

Many of those things can be included in multiple ways and all of them are also needed to deal with other ps9, ultra-maneuverable ships. If that's not enough list diversity to keep you entertained then you are trying to play a much more boring game than the rest of us lol.

That is a bit of a disingenuous list. The first 4 items are all the same thing. And without high PS or a turret, most of the others are usually useless. Gunner, Vader, stress and 4-dice attacks are all pretty useless if you can't get the Phantom in arc.

If I was going to put together an honest list, I would say it is made up of:

1. High PS, ideally with activation phase movement adjustment (Boost/Barrel Roll/Stay On Target) if you don't want to play the guessing game

2. Gunner/Vader/Stress/4-dice/Ion with turret or high PS

3. Blocking

Doesn't look so diverse when we don't list the same thing 4 times or if we don't list things that aren't actually a counter unless paired with one or more other things.

Sure, sure, sure, anything could beat anything. But anecdotes are just anecdotes. Just because unlikely things happen doesn't mean there is no issue.

Thank you. Funny enough, the post this list of phantom counters was replying to said mostly that.

There are certainly phantom counters but they are all completely reworking your list. Simply throwing an ion canon turret or a ps10 ship, or a stress mechanic is not enough. Yiu need a combination of things: multiple arcs above ps9 or with initiative, stress and Ps advantage, blocking only works if you can maneuver the phantom into a side of the board or exactly in the middle of an asteroid field, there is just no way to effectively block all the decloak lanes otherwise.

Yiu either have an anti phantom list or you get railroaded by phantoms. Boring game dynamic.

that last bit is wildly untrue.

It takes 3 ships to block ALL the decloak lanes. But you only need to block one. The dial is still only one manuever at a time, and the best decloak is handcuffed to that manuever. If you kill the beat decloak lane, you kill the whole turn. Phantom will either stay cloaked, make the wrong move, and end up facing the wrong direction. Or best case, uncloaked, facing the wrong direction.

It's really not hard to figure out which lane is the most ideal, in the same way it's not hard to block any other ship.

It's really simple. You want to get better against any list, with any list? Play more.

Why do you think Alex Davy can win a highly competitive tournament with 6 A-Wings? Why to you think the same people end up in the top tiers of major tournaments? Practice, practice, practice. Get miniatures on the table. Wave 6 is gonna blow this sucka wide open. Better be ready.

Ive only recently gotten into the game and found that the local meta is very heavily phantom, yt, and decimator focused lists. I'm not big on just copying the meta so I'm just playing oddball lists and trying to improve my ability to fly the ships I take competently.

I think though that the big issue for a lot of the people who are complaining is a bit of the burnout and the fact that phantoms drastically changed the meta. Some may argue that isnt a big deal, but the meta has a great deal to how a game feels when you play it. A big change in meta can make a fun game be not so fun, or a not so fun game become fun with the same rules.

I hope that people who are finding it not so fun find a way to either make it fun again, take a breather to see if time away changes their view, or if they intend to walk away make it a quick clean departure.

I see a lot of people saying that good piloting can beat a phantom. This is true, but the big difference with wave3 is this: in wave3, good piloting WOULD win you the game, 99% of the time.

Now, if I don't have a tailored-made list to counter certain threats, I have to fly like a god, hope that my opponent makes mistakes, AND have good dice. Mighty unfair, mighty unfun.

What's unfair is that Soontir Fel died in a training exercise and now he's just a robot replacement. Even gods of piloting lose.

To be honest, I felt the same way for a while, but then I realized I just had to adapt to so much more. With every little thing that's added to this game there's another wrench that get flung into the gears of every strategy. More options is always going to make it harder to find a way to win against everyone. I think this is more of the problem you're looking at, you may just be interpreting it the wrong way.

Sorry pal but I find it no trouble to block Dash, Stress out Phantoms and Zap Decimators off the table.

You say it is too paper rock sicisors, Not as much when Wave 4 was launched. But if you listened to some podcasts (Nova Squadron) actually Super Dash hasn't been placing top it in the tournaments.

Started last June. Don't really get the complaining over turrets. It still matters how you maneuver, it's just different. The extremeness of good and bad phantoms is frustrating, but they can generally be outflown if you work at with a dedicated list. If your opponent is doing well with a phantom then they didn't just pick it up today. Scum will have some answers for some of these, but if you really don't enjoy the game then I don't see what that would matter.

In general the "I used to be able to bring everything." complaint is just a complaint that the level of play is steadily rising.

Anti phantom tactics aren't enough. A given list without a very specific plan for phantoms is dead against one.

Since anti-phantom lists and tactics include:

Ps9

Ps10

Ps11

Ps12

Stress

Blocking

Turrets

Gunner/Luke

Vader crew

Swarms

Ion

4+dice attacks in general

Many of those things can be included in multiple ways and all of them are also needed to deal with other ps9, ultra-maneuverable ships. If that's not enough list diversity to keep you entertained then you are trying to play a much more boring game than the rest of us lol.

That is a bit of a disingenuous list. The first 4 items are all the same thing. And without high PS or a turret, most of the others are usually useless. Gunner, Vader, stress and 4-dice attacks are all pretty useless if you can't get the Phantom in arc.

If I was going to put together an honest list, I would say it is made up of:

1. High PS, ideally with activation phase movement adjustment (Boost/Barrel Roll/Stay On Target) if you don't want to play the guessing game

2. Gunner/Vader/Stress/4-dice/Ion with turret or high PS

3. Blocking

Doesn't look so diverse when we don't list the same thing 4 times or if we don't list things that aren't actually a counter unless paired with one or more other things.

Sure, sure, sure, anything could beat anything. But anecdotes are just anecdotes. Just because unlikely things happen doesn't mean there is no issue.

Thank you. Funny enough, the post this list of phantom counters was replying to said mostly that.

There are certainly phantom counters but they are all completely reworking your list. Simply throwing an ion canon turret or a ps10 ship, or a stress mechanic is not enough. Yiu need a combination of things: multiple arcs above ps9 or with initiative, stress and Ps advantage, blocking only works if you can maneuver the phantom into a side of the board or exactly in the middle of an asteroid field, there is just no way to effectively block all the decloak lanes otherwise.

Yiu either have an anti phantom list or you get railroaded by phantoms. Boring game dynamic.

that last bit is wildly untrue.

It takes 3 ships to block ALL the decloak lanes. But you only need to block one. The dial is still only one manuever at a time, and the best decloak is handcuffed to that manuever. If you kill the beat decloak lane, you kill the whole turn. Phantom will either stay cloaked, make the wrong move, and end up facing the wrong direction. Or best case, uncloaked, facing the wrong direction.

It's really not hard to figure out which lane is the most ideal, in the same way it's not hard to block any other ship.

Nope. There are more than three decloak areas to block with whisper and for more with echo. Even whisper, you need to position yourself perfectly to block the side decloak, as the template has some flexibility in where you place it on the side of the ship.

And the obvious decloak lane is obvious to your opponent too. Now it is not just the obvious decloak lane, it's the obvious block position too. Phantom player can see your blocks a mile away and still get to choose after you've moved to block.

Plus, Advanced sensors barrel roll clears up even more potential space for decloaking.

It's categorically different than blocking any other ship, I'm surprised to read such a patently false statement.

Some of you guys must be blessed with really poor phantom players for opponents.

I've definitely experienced a growing lack of interest lately. But I think it has more to do with just the fact that Wave 5 wasn't all that exciting to me. So it's been a while since anything really fresh has been thrown into the mix for me personally and in result I've realized I'm losing interest.

When Wave 6 was first announced, (waaay back when), I was really excited! But now, I don't really care nearly as much. Wave 6 will be the very first wave, besides Wave 1, that I haven't pre-ordered. I'm not even sure if I'm going to buy much of it. I want Most Wanted and one Star Viper, but I'm not rushing out to get any of it like I usually am.

I'm not even sure about getting a Raider! Even though the Advanced is now going to be amazing. Idk what it is. Maybe I just need a small break, then jump back in with Scum for a whole new experience. We'll see!

Nope. There are more than three decloak areas to block with whisper and for more with echo. Even whisper, you need to position yourself perfectly to block the side decloak, as the template has some flexibility in where you place it on the side of the ship.

And the obvious decloak lane is obvious to your opponent too. Now it is not just the obvious decloak lane, it's the obvious block position too. Phantom player can see your blocks a mile away and still get to choose after you've moved to block.

Plus, Advanced sensors barrel roll clears up even more potential space for decloaking.

It's categorically different than blocking any other ship, I'm surprised to read such a patently false statement.

Some of you guys must be blessed with really poor phantom players for opponents.

Alternate theory for which more evidence exists: some people are just plain bad at flying. Phantoms exacerbate that trait but are not inherently /different/.

Edit: okay, I lied, they are different.

But it's actually a negative for the Phantom, not for people flying against it.

When you block a ship, that ship bumps the blocker and you are down a gun on that ship.

When a Phantom's decloaks are blocked (and this is not as hard as it seems, learn to fly) it DOES NOT MOVE.

It is possible to choose blocks that permit blockers to fire on the Phantom, meaning you get to pull double duty.

Sorry pal but I find it no trouble to block Dash, Stress out Phantoms and Zap Decimators off the table.

You say it is too paper rock sicisors, Not as much when Wave 4 was launched. But if you listened to some podcasts (Nova Squadron) actually Super Dash hasn't been placing top it in the tournaments.

I placed 2nd in my first tourney of the season with a Super Dash build....

It isn't so much that some of these lists are too powerful (although that's part of the problem), but the fact that everybody acts like sheep and uses them because of that fact instead of trying other builds. With all respect to Paul Heaver who I've never met or played with, I was very disappointed that he won World's with a Fat Han list. If he had won with something less common, or dare I say unique even, then I'd be very impressed. But the fact that he took it shows how powerful (or even overpowered) it is.

I swear at least every other game on vassal lately is a decimator and phantom list if not more. It's getting to be really boring. You look at all these SC reports and it's turret and support, turret and phantom, turret and turret, turret and support again, etc. Boooooring. I hope scum shakes things up a bit, but I'm worried it will be more of everyone wanting to try them out for awhile, but then when they realize there's no big turrets or any ship comparable to a phantom, they'll go back to what they were using before scum.

Sorry pal but I find it no trouble to block Dash, Stress out Phantoms and Zap Decimators off the table.

You say it is too paper rock sicisors, Not as much when Wave 4 was launched. But if you listened to some podcasts (Nova Squadron) actually Super Dash hasn't been placing top it in the tournaments.

I actually miss the threads where the suggestion that Armada was going to destroy X-Wing was made.

Oh, the good ol' days.