I don't mean this as in "run away, regroup and make another attack." But I've heard quite on these forums recently about how the strategy to beat that list is to kill the Decimator and run away from the Phantom until time is called, or just plink off an Academy and then run away for 55min with your faster ships.

But I've been to dozens of tourneys, probably totaling over 400 unique players, and I've never really seen this, or heard of it. I've seen it when a single TIE fighter will run away at the end of a fight or something, but I've never seen anyone play the "strategy" of running away for the rest of the match.

So, do other locations do this? I've played in multiple regions, in PA where a lot of the NOVA guys and WV guys came to play, in OH, where the OH, and Indy folks came, in Ontario, the X wing hub of Canada, in MI, where we have probably about 60 tourney going players, and at Gencon, where people from all over came. So I find it hard to think that it's just that my local MI group doesn't do this since I've cross played in several other areas. But yet people seem to always bring it up online.

Good luck running from a Phantom. I haven't really seen it except when games are really close to time and one player has a ship that is faster, can turtle, and try to wait it out for whatever reason. Generally, though, it's not something I have seen either.

Never seen it happen.

Can't imagine doing it.

Is it even possible to run away from a Phantom? In a 90 by 90 centimeters (or 3 by 3 feet if you prefer to stay out of the glorious metric system) game area?

i've done it, but on the following turn after disengaging i turned back too keep the last round of firing at range 3.

its probably lame to do that for a whole match, but for one turn, to maintain a dice advantage, yeah i'd do it again.

Never seen it happen.

Can't imagine doing it.

Is it even possible to run away from a Phantom? In a 90 by 90 centimeters (or 3 by 3 feet if you prefer to stay out of the glorious metric system) game area?

its a little less about "running away" and more about being unpredictable. especially if you're stressed. no one expects a stressed ship to 3-hard or to 4 straight way out of the fight.

Came up for me one time. A store championship this past weekend actually...

My Echo, Whisper, and Yorr versus his 5 A wings with prockets. With about 5 minutes left in the round we were down to Whisper versus 2 As. When the TO came and told us there were 5 minutes left, my opponent realized he had more points on the board than I did. He then announced, "We might as well call this game then, because I'm just going to run away." I was surprised at his brazenness about it, but I told him I wanted to play it out anyway. I promptly blew up an A wing on the very next turn. He wanted to concede after that. I tried to reason with him that he had a very maneuverable ship and Whisper only had a hit point left. He insisted (for some reason) and I shook his hand and took the win. The whole match was strange, but that was another story...

Came up for me one time. A store championship this past weekend actually...

My Echo, Whisper, and Yorr versus his 5 A wings with prockets. With about 5 minutes left in the round we were down to Whisper versus 2 As. When the TO came and told us there were 5 minutes left, my opponent realized he had more points on the board than I did. He then announced, "We might as well call this game then, because I'm just going to run away." I was surprised at his brazenness about it, but I told him I wanted to play it out anyway. I promptly blew up an A wing on the very next turn. He wanted to concede after that. I tried to reason with him that he had a very maneuverable ship and Whisper only had a hit point left. He insisted (for some reason) and I shook his hand and took the win. The whole match was strange, but that was another story...

But even that's not running away as a strategy, that's adjusting tactics to the time remaining. I've seen that done and I don't have a problem with it. I personally think it's bad sportsmanship, but it's also the strategic thing to do.

But has anyone ever seen someone try to run away for 20+ min or so as part of the actual list strategy. The type of thing where you dump your Prockets with your A wings and then just disengage until time is over type of a thing.

I only have one thing to say based on my experience:

I just saw this last week at my FLGS weekly organized play.

The player ran fat Whisper + fat Echo only. An 84 point list.

Their intention was to destroy regular lists by being named Phantoms, but when up against fat turret lists to simply deal with the escort(s) and avoid for the rest of the time limit if necessary.

Thankfully I didn't have to play against it since I'm in the former category (3 named rebel fighters), but I think it worked reasonably well. I know that player got at least a win or two.

I'm guessing that it was born out of frustration or boredom of all the new players fielding fat Han, Dash, or the Decimator de jour.

Out of the 12 players that played that night, I saw large ships everywhere.

I faced a Decimator/Firespray, Decimator/2xInterceptor, and a 2xB/E.

I killed every ship I faced except the two Decimators.

I've seen this happen occasionally, but significantly less lately. I first began playing around Wave 3's release. At that time, a really common strategy to beat Han Shoots First was clear the escorts and run away til time is called. That changed when the score difference needed for a modified win was reduced to 12 points instead of 33.

Came up for me one time. A store championship this past weekend actually...

My Echo, Whisper, and Yorr versus his 5 A wings with prockets. With about 5 minutes left in the round we were down to Whisper versus 2 As. When the TO came and told us there were 5 minutes left, my opponent realized he had more points on the board than I did. He then announced, "We might as well call this game then, because I'm just going to run away." I was surprised at his brazenness about it, but I told him I wanted to play it out anyway. I promptly blew up an A wing on the very next turn. He wanted to concede after that. I tried to reason with him that he had a very maneuverable ship and Whisper only had a hit point left. He insisted (for some reason) and I shook his hand and took the win. The whole match was strange, but that was another story...

If offered a concession, especially in a tournament, you should always take it. Even the most outrageous things can happen especially when a random factor like dice gets thrown in. This is just crazy that he expected you to concede and then refused to adjust when you did not and actually showed him why you wouldn't.

While "running away" can be a valid short term strategy, also called point/lead preservation, it can be very hard to make work unless an opponent allows it. In a lot of ways it is like Fortressing except at the opposite end of the movement spectrum. One mark against running away is that seeing it turn into illegal stalling can become a fine line; avoiding attacks may be something that requires thought but when taking extra time clearly benefits you two ways (better maneuvering and less turns to worry about them) so having an official watch for actual stalling could be expected.

Yes, I have seen this tactic and used it.

No, it does not consist of solely running away for 20 plus minutes, unless your opponent cooperates. That would be boring as hell, frankly, and fortunately I have only witnessed that one time at any level of play (and ironically the opponent cooperated with him, so it worked despite the "runner" not having initiative in an elimination round).

What "running away" looks like as an effective strategy is forcing your opponent to come to you / chase you. Once you are ahead on points (or if you began with initiative in an elimination round), you are free to decline engagement until you find the most opportune moment to engage. For example, if faced with a swarm you may simply decline to fight him on his board edge, and force him to fly through the rocks to you. Fat Han makes a living off this strategy, it is the key to the success of this list.

Once ahead on points, if your opponent is unable or unwilling to eliminate ships that is a deficiency either in his remaining ships/list, or his play, and exploiting that is how you force them to make mistakes.

Going evasive as an over strategy is not going to work most of the time. In many cases you will be making poor plays just to satisfy what you cuffed yourself into as a result of that strategy.

As a tactic it can be very valid. If a situation presents it self you can certainly get on your bike for a decent period of time. But you will never been able to run forever, the board is not big enough.

That said running from a Phantom isn't always about avoiding it, but forcing it to overextended itself. A Phantom is most dangerous when it can be unpredictable. Forcing it to chase means you are going to limit the number of options it has as far as placement. If you are up on points thar Phantom needs to get kills so in many cases that will eliminate a large swath of manure or decloack patterns from being viable option. And if you have an idea of where a Phantom is going to be then you can always set up to trap them in. If they don't take the bait, that's fine because you aren't the one that needs more kills.

Came up for me one time. A store championship this past weekend actually...

My Echo, Whisper, and Yorr versus his 5 A wings with prockets. With about 5 minutes left in the round we were down to Whisper versus 2 As. When the TO came and told us there were 5 minutes left, my opponent realized he had more points on the board than I did. He then announced, "We might as well call this game then, because I'm just going to run away." I was surprised at his brazenness about it, but I told him I wanted to play it out anyway. I promptly blew up an A wing on the very next turn. He wanted to concede after that. I tried to reason with him that he had a very maneuverable ship and Whisper only had a hit point left. He insisted (for some reason) and I shook his hand and took the win. The whole match was strange, but that was another story...

Toledo?

Nothing against disengaging, trying to get a better position and go back in. But if with running away you mean litterally avoiding any combat because you lead with 12 points.. Nah...

I've gone to time after killing everything but whisper. Wasn't trying to run, just kept my squad so that whisper had to either be in multiple arcs or not have a good shot.

Came up for me one time. A store championship this past weekend actually...

My Echo, Whisper, and Yorr versus his 5 A wings with prockets. With about 5 minutes left in the round we were down to Whisper versus 2 As. When the TO came and told us there were 5 minutes left, my opponent realized he had more points on the board than I did. He then announced, "We might as well call this game then, because I'm just going to run away." I was surprised at his brazenness about it, but I told him I wanted to play it out anyway. I promptly blew up an A wing on the very next turn. He wanted to concede after that. I tried to reason with him that he had a very maneuverable ship and Whisper only had a hit point left. He insisted (for some reason) and I shook his hand and took the win. The whole match was strange, but that was another story...

If offered a concession, especially in a tournament, you should always take it. Even the most outrageous things can happen especially when a random factor like dice gets thrown in. This is just crazy that he expected you to concede and then refused to adjust when you did not and actually showed him why you wouldn't.

While "running away" can be a valid short term strategy, also called point/lead preservation, it can be very hard to make work unless an opponent allows it. In a lot of ways it is like Fortressing except at the opposite end of the movement spectrum. One mark against running away is that seeing it turn into illegal stalling can become a fine line; avoiding attacks may be something that requires thought but when taking extra time clearly benefits you two ways (better maneuvering and less turns to worry about them) so having an official watch for actual stalling could be expected.

If anything, the A-Wing player was a fool to offer a concession there. If you concede, it's as good as total destruction. If he tried to drag it out, he could at least have gotten 20 points out of his surviving A-Wing.

I've only conceded once to my recollection, and it was when I was down to a Patrol Leader three hull, staring down two Talas, an ORS and within arc of Etahn with 15 minutes left on the clock. The Patrol Leader had just been inflicted with a Blinded Pilot, and I had no Gunner. I think we can all agree that there was no amount of dice luck that would have saved me.

i have absolutely done this. say you have 3 APs and Dark Curse left vs whisper. you are slightly ahead on points with only 15 mins remaining. you cannot possibly kill him, so you simply scatter to the four corners of the table and evade like hell. if he kills one tie you still win, and its very unlikely he can kill two to win himself. its just sensible play.

I've only conceded once to my recollection, and it was when I was down to a Patrol Leader three hull, staring down two Talas, an ORS and within arc of Etahn with 15 minutes left on the clock. The Patrol Leader had just been inflicted with a Blinded Pilot, and I had no Gunner. I think we can all agree that there was no amount of dice luck that would have saved me.

There was a chance but it was so small that it really couldn't compete with a 15 minute break.

i have absolutely done this. say you have 3 APs and Dark Curse left vs whisper. you are slightly ahead on points with only 15 mins remaining. you cannot possibly kill him, so you simply scatter to the four corners of the table and evade like hell. if he kills one tie you still win, and its very unlikely he can kill two to win himself. its just sensible play.

Why do you think you won't get lucky once or twice with 4 attacks per round? I think we've all seen 2 attack hit 4 defense a few times. And in 15min, you should have a few opportunities to give it a try.

My last game the phantom ran away from me. No I wasn't using a Big Ship with a turret.

i have absolutely done this. say you have 3 APs and Dark Curse left vs whisper. you are slightly ahead on points with only 15 mins remaining. you cannot possibly kill him, so you simply scatter to the four corners of the table and evade like hell. if he kills one tie you still win, and its very unlikely he can kill two to win himself. its just sensible play.

Why do you think you won't get lucky once or twice with 4 attacks per round? I think we've all seen 2 attack hit 4 defense a few times. And in 15min, you should have a few opportunities to give it a try.

if i am in a decent position, sure, but i have played scores of games with my swarm and i know when i have an even chance and when i dont. against whisper or echo i usually dont at this point, so i'll take my chances and cut and run for the minor victory.

I don't mean this as in "run away, regroup and make another attack." But I've heard quite on these forums recently about how the strategy to beat that list is to kill the Decimator and run away from the Phantom until time is called, or just plink off an Academy and then run away for 55min with your faster ships.

It's not that you run away, it's that you're flying 8 ships and it takes you forever to move so you just focus down the Decimator, and then you run for the mere handful of turns after it's dead. The Phantom Decimator player has lost a 50-60 point Decimator and you've lost 2 - 3 of your Swarm because it legitimately takes forever to move all of them. In a 60 minute game there isn't much of a run phase.

Phantom has the ability to one shot a swarm ship every shot. Your two attack dice swarm ships do essentially nothing, and that's IF you have a shot, IF. And should the Phantom player be somewhat decent, you won't get any.

I do.

It's mainly the purview of the faster ships (the ones with 5 forwards and/or 3 turns), possibly also with barrel-rolls and/or boosts.

The ships that benefit from it the most are ones with a regenerative factor, though.

The amount if time it takes to fly a swarm is being vastly exaggerated. Along with the Phantoms capabilities.