Edit: @VanorDM

Yeah alight, my idea was a bit pants, but I still think the OP idea is a good one

They're done individual cards before. Was it Daredevil where the card says it's a red manoeuvre and they made it white, then you take a stress? That was a change, not a clarification, and they did that. I know this is a bigger change, but it's not unprecedented, and it would be easy to remember, which I think is important.

Also your advice for me bettering myself seems to consist of 'learn to play better'....gee thanks!

It's good advice, you can't deny you'd win more if you played better.

but I still think the OP idea is a good one

But how do you word it so it fits on the current card? Looking at the card there's a fair amount of space...

"TIE Phantom Only. Modification.

After all simultaneous fire, you may perform a free cloak action."?? No sure I like that wording, but you'd have to have some way of making it clear while still fitting on the card.

Does it need to fit on the card? It's not as though they reprint them with the changes included is it? You could just make it an FAQ entry, even if it's just for tournaments.

"Ships with a pilot skill value equal to the yours may attack before this occurs." I think that would fit anyway.

Here's the thing about phantoms, you still gotta roll green dice. Even four green dice will fail you fairly quickly if enough shots head your way. Don't be scared to shoot the phantom, one or two lucky rolls will take it off the map.

Han with C-3PO on the other hand.... Well he's just plain broken and ruining the game for everyone and the sky is falling, dogs and cats living together, etc.

Love the ghostbusters quote

The Simultaneous Attack Rule (Page 15 Core Rule Book) states that...

Although ships perform their attacks one at a time, ships with a pilot skill value equal to the active ship’s pilot skill value have the opportunity to attack before being destroyed.

Consider a situation where a TIE Phantom with Advanced Cloaking Device was shooting first at an enemy ship with equal Pilot Skill who could in turn shoot back at the Phantom...

Wouldn't it make sense that the Phantom could only trigger its cloak once the enemy had fired back being as presumably the shots are supposed to be happening at the same time?

Would seem to me like a good way of perhaps slightly curbing the power of the TIE Phantom / Advanced Cloaking Device combination while still leaving the majority of its advantage untouched.

Thoughts?

This would also get rid of Turr Phennir's party piece.

Does it need to fit on the card? It's not as though they reprint them with the changes included is it?

Yes they do.

the "ships with a pilot score" could cause confusion, does that mean the natural PS, or the PS based on things like VI or swarm tactics or a crit?

I know the answer to the question but I could see it causing problems.

But the change is doable. ACD could potentially be errata'd. There would be a wording somewhere that would service. That's the bottom line.

Or we can trade ban Threepio and ACD together and be done with it. Never happening I know but it would be sooo simple.

Does it need to fit on the card? It's not as though they reprint them with the changes included is it?

Yes they do.

the "ships with a pilot score" could cause confusion, does that mean the natural PS, or the PS based on things like VI or swarm tactics or a crit?

I know the answer to the question but I could see it causing problems.

Well it's the same phrasing as the Simultaneous Attack rule, so if it causes confusion we've got bigger problems!

There is supposed to be some advantage in shooting first. If PS are tied the player with initiative shoots first and gains all the advantages of shooting first except the ability to kill a ship with the same PS and hence denying it the chance to attack (because it is already dead)

In general for this reason you DON'T want initiate. The advantages for moving second are usually much greater than the advantages from shooting first.

However this is not true for a Phantom, specifically if it has Advanced Cloak. The Phantom wants to be able to shoot first so it can re-cloak before his opponent get's to shoo back.

The Simultaneous Attack Rule (Page 15 Core Rule Book) states that...

Although ships perform their attacks one at a time, ships with a pilot skill value equal to the active ship’s pilot skill value have the opportunity to attack before being destroyed.

Consider a situation where a TIE Phantom with Advanced Cloaking Device was shooting first at an enemy ship with equal Pilot Skill who could in turn shoot back at the Phantom...

Wouldn't it make sense that the Phantom could only trigger its cloak once the enemy had fired back being as presumably the shots are supposed to be happening at the same time?

Would seem to me like a good way of perhaps slightly curbing the power of the TIE Phantom / Advanced Cloaking Device combination while still leaving the majority of its advantage untouched.

Thoughts?

This would also get rid of Turr Phennir's party piece.

Turr was the first ship I thought of here. Being able to barrel roll out of an arc immediately after firing is the entire reason for him to want initiative.

FAQ: "Effects which are triggered after you perform an attack are triggered after all pilots at the same pilot skill have performed their attacks"

Something like that.

There goes FCS and Gunner then...

Turr was the first ship I thought of here. Being able to barrel roll out of an arc immediately after firing is the entire reason for him to want initiative.

No, only my idea would do that (expanding the idea out to a general rule rather than a one card errata), which I retract. The OP's idea would affect nothing more than the ACD card.

FAQ: "Effects which are triggered after you perform an attack are triggered after all pilots at the same pilot skill have performed their attacks"

Something like that.

There goes FCS and Gunner then...

OKOK, I said I took it back!

As some one who doesn't get many chances to play a game that doesn't involve a Phantom, and has become rather adept with it myself though I absolutely hate flying the blasted thing, my stance on the issue is the same as it has been for months. You could have breathed funny on the design of the Phantom and it would have been a world more balanced.

Your fix could be an errata to the wording of ACD that changes it to say "at the end of that initiative step in which you fire..." or something to that effect. So the issue of could it be done is a decided yes, there are options for implementation that don't affect other ships at all except to how they interact with the Phantom. You would not need to overhaul the game. How many people glossed over that obvious route of repair I don't know, but it is a Monday morning so we'll blame that, LOL.

The Phantom is a spike. I'm making this language up as I go along, because I don't know anything else to describe it, and this seems as apt as anything else. It's a spike because you can easily get around it if you know it's there, but you don't want to ignore it and trip over it.

It's not unbalanced; it can be beaten, and there are obvious and reliable ways to do so. It also had an obvious goal, which was to reduce the dependence of the metagame on cramming as many ships as possible into every tournament list, largely ignoring upgrades and issues of pilot skill. And it succeeded!

The problem, though, is twofold:

(1) Having succeeded, the need for something like the Phantom is hidden. There appear to be relatively few of us old-timers around who remember how barren competition appeared in Waves 1 and 2 and even late Wave 3, when a brief round of innovation with the B-wing was giving way to five-ship Rebel spam lists.

The Phantom is Batman: if it succeeds in its goals, no one will remember they needed Batman in the first place.

(2) From this perspective--that is, now that it's been out in the wild for months--the Phantom looks like an overcorrection. The list of counters is just too narrow. (Not incidentally, part of this is a real problem: the set of Phantom counters really is fairly narrow. Part of it, though, is also netdecking/groupthink: Large ships with turrets are an obvious solution, and they've been relatively successful, so a large group of people just keeps doing that instead of looking for other counters.)

As far as the OP's particular fix is concerned, it has two problems. The first is that it's not really enough: all it does is remove the need to have initiative at PS9 (or PS8 against Whisper). The existing counters at PS9 will get a bit better, which they don't really need, but the set of counters doesn't grow. The second is that it makes the game more complicated: it's either a complex one-time exception to a general rule, or it's a change to a general rule with a lot of consequences.

Will it happen? No. Because of FFG's stick in the mud stance on errata. Which is %*&$(#* stupid at this point in the extremely specific case of the Phantom.

The biggest problem with errata is that you are changing how cards in the game work, without changing the cards themselves. That's a problem when someone who doesn't know the card changed runs into someone who does know. It creates unfair and frustrating situations, and it makes sense to avoid it where you can.

...I love the policy of 'we don't errata our product, we try and correct imbalance in future releases'. It's a noble stance to stand behind your product like that.

It's also the perfect formula for power creep. Because too often the way to deal with an overpowered game component is to introduce something comparably powerful targeted at the problem, but with a lack of thought as to how that new component just stabilizes the flaw at the flaws benchmark of power. Happens. No stopping it. Which is why we're getting the strictly-better-than-Threepio Autothrusters. Here, have a cheaper, non gamble based, ever triggering Threepio of your own, Imps. That will solve the problem. Hur Dur, guys.

You seem to be saying "I love FFG's approach to game design, I just hate that their designers are so stupid and thoughtless." I'm not sure how you resolve the dissonance, there.

But speaking of thoughtlessness, you should probably reconsider your comparison of Threepio to Autothrusters. The first issue is that you see Threepio as a major balance problem, which is a very popular idea, but a fundamentally silly one. He's a minor balance problem, at worst.

The second issue is that Autothrusters weren't designed and developed as a reaction to Threepio. They're a patch for the vulnerability of Interceptors and other highly maneuverable fighters to turrets, which substantially predates Threepio and is fairly well understood.

But even setting those things aside, Threepio's power comes from two things: he has an unusually high rate of return for an upgrade that doesn't require an action, and his use doesn't come with any restrictions. Autothrusters is very different because it has an explicit and fairly restrictive set of conditions under which it operates.

Never forget that even Paul Heaver looked at the meta last year and said screw this, I'm flying a FAT Han to deal with the swarm of Phantoms. Our very own master of maneuvering broke down and flew a turret. That to me says volumes.

I would suggest you talk to him about that, because it's clear from his build that it was developed in reaction to other Fat Han lists.

It also completely stops me from even bothering to give advice on how to 'deal' with Phantoms. Because there really is no advice for how to fly your ships 'better' that will allow them to deal with the busted as all heck Phantom. What I can offer you is that you build list X, Y, or Z, and get the initiative drop on them. Which unintentionally validates the Rock-Paper-Scissors argument we've been having on this forum for almost the same amount of time that the Phantom has been out. Gee guys, I wonder why that could be?

Well dang. I've just incited the wrath of the whole forum, it's only Monday morning, and I haven't even had my tea yet, let alone breakfast. This day is going to be greeeeaaaat.

I'm not wrathful, I'm just annoyed. And that's not unique to your comments about the Phantom; I pretty much get annoyed any time people just repeat whatever the shallow conventional wisdom says, and don't bother thinking twice.

FAQ: "Effects which are triggered after you perform an attack are triggered after all pilots at the same pilot skill have performed their attacks"

Something like that.

There goes FCS and Gunner then...

OKOK, I said I took it back!

At this point, when the Phantom nerf comes (and whether I believe it needs a nerf or not, I do believe a nerf is coming) it'll be something along these lines, in order from largest to smallest.

1) You cannot Cloak in the same turn that you decloaked.

2) Decloaking is no executed at the start of the Activation phase,

3) You cannot decloak if the maneuver template would overlap an obstacle or another ship (as opposed to just obstacle).

#1 would probably kill the ship in all formats. #2 would keep decloaking strong and arguably make you tougher to block, but would also reduce the amount the Phantom can maneuver when it actually reveals its dial to make it easier to hunt with cards like Stay On Target. #3 would make the Phantom easier to block, but otherwise wouldn't change much.

The problem is that it really isn't a thought out idea. Screwing with how the attacks resolve throws off a ton of established interactions. And making it so it is only ACD is a bad precedent. We are still having issues with Clusters Missiles. Why add another rules mess when there are plenty of simpler ways to fix the issue.

Now let's be honest, that's not really what your post:

Yes, let's rewrite the rules and screw over quite a few ships that are NOT a problem just to fix this. Not too mention the mountain ton of unintended consequences that you will find once you actually analyze it.

said is it? You haven't mentioned a single unintended consequence, on account of there not being any. At all. I'm not really sure what your argument is - don't change this card, cos you're not changing other cards? Is it the slippery slope you're afraid of? Cos I'm afraid cards have already been changed

What I don't want is another phase to complicate things. Clusters Missiles are already a cluster *(&& of exceptions, so why do we need to add another for Advanced Cloaking Device. It screws up the simplicity of the timing of "after you attack", for meaningless benefit. You literally gain the same benefit for going for an initiative bid. So why the hell do you need to complicate the timing for something a player can already plan for when building a squad? Simplicity has been a valued thing in this game. Does something need to be done with the Phantom, but not this.

Also, everything VorpalSword said.

At this point, when the Phantom nerf comes (and whether I believe it needs a nerf or not, I do believe a nerf is coming) it'll be something along these lines, in order from largest to smallest.

1) You cannot Cloak in the same turn that you decloaked.

2) Decloaking is no executed at the start of the Activation phase,

3) You cannot decloak if the maneuver template would overlap an obstacle or another ship (as opposed to just obstacle).

#1 would probably kill the ship in all formats. #2 would keep decloaking strong and arguably make you tougher to block, but would also reduce the amount the Phantom can maneuver when it actually reveals its dial to make it easier to hunt with cards like Stay On Target. #3 would make the Phantom easier to block, but otherwise wouldn't change much.

I would bet that a Restricted List, similar to the LCGs would be in the talks about what to do with the Phantom. Take away VI, and suddenly, a LOT more pilots can handle Echo and Whisper.

I think we will just see more and more counters to Phantoms than out right nerfs to it.

Also, everything VorpalSword said.

Vorpal does make some very good points as always. I agree, it may very well be a poor return on investment as it were.

I think it could change things but as Vorpal points out, all it would really do is give the current phantom counters the option to be even better than they are now. A Fat Han with Pred or PtL instead of VI is just a better Fat Han, not really a whole new option.

My issue with the Phantom isn't the phantom itself, it's Whisper + VI + ACD. Do anything to limit any one of those 2 upgrades and you'd see a lot more counters to Phantoms. You might even see PS 5-7 being worth something again.

Hey heres some help from an echo pilot. Want to ruin my day? Use ion weapons. I can't decloak and if you have all your ships track to me the dice will eventually fail me. What else? Fly smart. This isn't a wave 2 joust fest! If you setup for that you will lose. Use a spread and/or staggered formation, it makes it much harder for me to dodge arcs. Always watch out for intentional bumps. If I limit you maneuverability it makes my job easier. And you can do all of that without a large base turret ship!

The phantom uncloaked has four hit points and two agility the chances of it getting one shotted are quite high I've blown many z-95s away in one turn.

If your going to change ACD you also have to reduce the phantoms cost because very few people will take a 40+ point ship that can be killed that easily, then it becomes the new advanced and will need buffing and we go around and around.

If your going to change ACD you also have to reduce the phantoms cost

The cost of a ship can't be based on what upgrade it can take. It might have something to do with what slots it has, but any given upgrade is not and can not be a factor into the cot of the ship itself.

ACD doesn't seem as much trouble without vi, as more ships fire first, I wonder how acd that reduces your pilot skill by 2 would work...