So maybe Phantoms are going out of vogue now that S & V are out in full force and have brought interesting upgrades for other ships to take advantage of (autothrusters!), but I've been looking more and more at trying different phantom builds.

So far, I've been struggling with Sigma. Far too often I find my 1 (or 2) sigma(s) getting focussed down hard due to an inability to dodge arcs. They truly are glass cannons, but unlike a PtL interceptor, they don't have the ability to escape return fire as easily. While their impressive offense can help make up for their squishiness by killing low health enemies quickly, their relatively low PS means they don't often get to shoot first when facing non-generics, and they draw a lot of enemy attention.

My question is then, what tips do people have for running Sigmas effectively? I'm looking more at 'on the table' advice rather than 'list building' advice, but I'm open to any suggestions.

For reference, I typically deploy them in the middle of the table and try to engage @ range 3 for the first turn of shooting, but even with the extra green from range (sometimes 2 greens with an asteroid), the evade from stygium and the focus as action, I find damage gets through and they are sometimes finished off the following round...

Sensor Jammer and Stygium. Dont decloak into the firing arc of all their ships, if need be go to the right or left when doing the decloak.

Vader with decoy.

The only setup I've found to like was...(as borrowed from others...)

Sigma + Enhanced Scopes + Intel Agent + Stygium Particle Accelerator

29pts

It becomes a control ship, blocking up the field. It works best as a support for high PS ships that will end up taking more heat, or gaining an arc dodge from your block. I like it cuz the Sigma is still just as deadly as any old Phantom, AND is an amazing blocker. Dropping any of the upgrades makes the ship feel lackluster, even Enhanced Scopes.

The only setup I've found to like was...(as borrowed from others...)

Sigma + Enhanced Scopes + Intel Agent + Stygium Particle Accelerator

29pts

It becomes a control ship, blocking up the field. It works best as a support for high PS ships that will end up taking more heat, or gaining an arc dodge from your block. I like it cuz the Sigma is still just as deadly as any old Phantom, AND is an amazing blocker. Dropping any of the upgrades makes the ship feel lackluster, even Enhanced Scopes.

That is really cool.

ACD is useful even if everything that's shooting at it is higher PS. The advantages of the decloak maneuver are massive.

Fly it with something that has squad leader. Decloak the phantom, do focus/evade, then move up the Squad Leader and give it the other token. Keep it at range 3.

Sensor Jammer isn't worth it, everyone always focuses anyways.

I run Chilligan's Sigma swarm, it's a pretty good build. It's weakness is other super Phantoms, so it should do well while everyone is trying scum instead of super phantom.

It's

Howlrunner

3x AP's

Black Squadron + Squad Leader

Sigma Phantom + ACD

99 points. Best use of the remaining point is Intel Agent on the Phantom, bur Adrenaline on Howl is also cool. Placed top 8 in a 46 person SC with it.

The only setup I've found to like was...(as borrowed from others...)

Sigma + Enhanced Scopes + Intel Agent + Stygium Particle Accelerator

29pts

It becomes a control ship, blocking up the field. It works best as a support for high PS ships that will end up taking more heat, or gaining an arc dodge from your block. I like it cuz the Sigma is still just as deadly as any old Phantom, AND is an amazing blocker. Dropping any of the upgrades makes the ship feel lackluster, even Enhanced Scopes.

Yeah if you've got a Particle Accelerator on your Sigma, Into Agent and Scopes will make you a beast of a blocker. Still under 30 points too! You're Cloaking manually, which is a very different game to ACD, but once you get the rhythm of it for the match, it's hard to beat. What's that, Soontir? You're doing a 2-Turn left? Be a shame if I decloaked and barrel-rolled right into that very spot, eh?

That said, I've found even just ACD on a Sigma can work very well. It costs the same as the above block-machine, but trades action economy for the usual movement shenanigans. Of course, at PS3, you're higher than most played generic pilots, and that makes the Sigma exactly as good as freaking Whisper against them. Heck of a lot cheaper, too; an ACD Sigma can wreck fodder or support something fierce, and if you pair it with something of high enough Pilot Skill to actually face off against named Phantoms you've got a potent combo.

So maybe Phantoms are going out of vogue now that S & V are out in full force and have brought interesting upgrades for other ships to take advantage of (autothrusters!), but I've been looking more and more at trying different phantom builds.

So far, I've been struggling with Sigma. Far too often I find my 1 (or 2) sigma(s) getting focussed down hard due to an inability to dodge arcs. They truly are glass cannons, but unlike a PtL interceptor, they don't have the ability to escape return fire as easily. While their impressive offense can help make up for their squishiness by killing low health enemies quickly, their relatively low PS means they don't often get to shoot first when facing non-generics, and they draw a lot of enemy attention.

My question is then, what tips do people have for running Sigmas effectively? I'm looking more at 'on the table' advice rather than 'list building' advice, but I'm open to any suggestions.

For reference, I typically deploy them in the middle of the table and try to engage @ range 3 for the first turn of shooting, but even with the extra green from range (sometimes 2 greens with an asteroid), the evade from stygium and the focus as action, I find damage gets through and they are sometimes finished off the following round...

Not my list, but it beat me enough to have my head around it, I think. A player at our FLGS loves this list:

Sigma Squadron Pilot

++Stygium Particle Accelerator

++Sensor Jammer

++Intelligence Agent

Sigma Squadron Pilot

++Stygium Particle Accelerator

++Sensor Jammer

++Mara Jade

Carnor Jax

++Push the Limit

++Stealth Device

++Targeting Computer (Now he runs it with Autothrusters)

Carnor is a pest that makes those Phantoms quite durable. And against aces, he uses that Intelligence Agent to move to block or to position for a shot before his opponent moves.

Stay cloacked until you are almost sure youll get wn easy shot. Cloack every turn until you get your rival ships tail

Sigma

*FCS

*Intelligence Agent

*Stygium Accelerator

30 ponits

ridiculously action efficient and terrifyingly powerful, but unlike Whisper they're actually real squishy so you have to use your int agent and whatever experience you can get to judge when it is safe to engage. Generally, you never want to trade dice without Stygium's evade + focus, but int agent lets you do all sorts of crazy things such as 1.) barrel-roll to block 2.) not re-cloak if you know you won't be shot 3.) de-cloak like you're whisper 4.) know when you have to duck and cover (cloak w/free evade) etc. etc etc

In my experience, Sensor Jammer is almost entirely an offensive upgrade rather than defensive (especially if your ship is low-PS). Make them burn the focus to attack you, then when you fire they don't have a token. Or play like I do and force them to take some K-turns or other stress maneuvers, then they don't have the option of a focus token to shoot you with. Also works well with Rebel Captive.

Here's a list I've been wanting to try:

Sigma+Intelligence agent+FCS

Sigma+Intelligence agent+FCS

Patrol Leader+Fleet Officer+Tactical Jammer

The idea here is to use the Patrol leader to shield the Sigmas with Tactical Jammer and use Fleet Officer to hand them focus tokens. This frees them to use their action to evade, or cloak, or barrel roll for defense since they should have a target lock and focus token already. Also, since they're all PS3 I can choose the order to activate them.

I plan to use cloak only sparingly, when my Intelligence agents tell me I'll be in a bad spot and need the defense more than I need to get a shot off. I had thought of using SPA rather than FCS, but realized that rather than getting a free evade only when I cloak or decloak I could instead just take evade for my action if I really need to and get a free target lock instead.

I'm hoping I can keep the sigmas alive long enough to do significant damage so that the patrol leader doesn't have too much left to finish off after they're gone.

Stygium is huge

Considering they're Z-95s, you want every point of mitigation you can get on them. For 2 points, it's basically a steal for how much damage it negates over the course of a game (hell, just one already makes it more effective than a shield upgrade). I would take it before FCS, but I'd also much rather have both.

Also, I don't find Patrol leader very effective in general (and that's apart from being a bloody turret) apart from the Decivader. It's only 3 dice that might not even modify itself and could well be limiting itself to its greens if using fleet officer too often. It'll definitely be the weak link in the list.

Intelligence Agent is a must for non-Whisper phantoms. You'll know where higher PS ships will end up and can respond accordingly. Having the choice to uncloak every round gives the phantom more arc-dodging capabilities. Even at lower PS levels, ACD helps keep the phantom less predictable.

Also, with two hull and two shield, the phantom is not as fragile as the other ties. Just keep it from being shot at multiple times in a round and it should be fine.

My brother won a store tournament a couple of weeks ago playing 3 Sigmas with FCS, Stygium, and RecSpec on each. I can't quite wrap my head around the planning phase (I've never played as Imperials) but it was a lot of fun to watch this championship game.

A few turns later, and he was cleaning up without having lost a ship.

Intel + Stygium makes 'em really useful as flankers. I've had a good amount of success with that build.

I'm the guy that Engine25 was referring to above, and I can't overstate the importance of any one particular component in my list. Except for that Targeting Computer/Autothruster swap, there's really nothing in the list that I would be comfortable trading out right now.

Plan A against things without a turret goes as follows:

1. Carnor goes in hard & fast from the flank, deny Focus actions, take shots if he can.
2. If you must engage with the Phantoms at long range, do so at range 3. One extra defense die helps the uncloaked Phantoms a lot more than it helps the enemy. Combine that with Sensor Jammer and a lack of enemy focus, and you'll do just fine in that exchange.
3. If the opportunity presents itself, take a huge move on the Phantoms' approach. My personal favorite is the 7-K (Decloak forward then take a 4-K turn), but a Decloak forward, 3-bank towards the middle of the enemy formation, and then a Barrel Roll back to the outside can get you a shot while denying some firing arcs and/or blocking movements in return. The important thing is that Mara Jade's ship survives that first round of fire and gets in close.
4. Stay glued to the enemy with Mara Jade. Not shooting is better than letting them end the turn without stress. Take shots when you can, but never be afraid to Barrel Roll out of a shot, or stay cloaked to keep good position based on what you're learning from Intelligence Agent. Keep applying that stress and don't let the victims turn around.

If there's a significant turret on the field, you have to go to plan B, which isn't as clearly defined.

1. Get a clear shot at that pilot and punch them in the face.

11-14 (depending on range) attack dice should make short work of any YT or Decimator. You'll take damage in the process, no way to avoid that entirely, but you should be able to clear that big threat and rely on your improvisation skills (referencing plan A, above) to finish off the rest of the list.

ACD is useful even if everything that's shooting at it is higher PS. The advantages of the decloak maneuver are massive.

Fly it with something that has squad leader. Decloak the phantom, do focus/evade, then move up the Squad Leader and give it the other token. Keep it at range 3.

Sensor Jammer isn't worth it, everyone always focuses anyways.

I run Chilligan's Sigma swarm, it's a pretty good build. It's weakness is other super Phantoms, so it should do well while everyone is trying scum instead of super phantom.

It's

Howlrunner

3x AP's

Black Squadron + Squad Leader

Sigma Phantom + ACD

99 points. Best use of the remaining point is Intel Agent on the Phantom, bur Adrenaline on Howl is also cool. Placed top 8 in a 46 person SC with it.

I would love to fly against you. Every person that has that mentality about SJ finds out how wrong they are. Literally all it needs to do is block 1 hit. Which is low balling it for that upgrade.

I run Chilligan's Sigma swarm

It's

Howlrunner

3x AP's

Black Squadron + Squad Leader

Sigma Phantom + ACD

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, huh?

I don't think Phantoms are going out of style. They are still one of the best Arc dodging Glass cannons out there. The Interceptors just got an assist against HLCs and turrets but nothing more.

I don't think the generic Phantoms are OP. I still think ACD should be banned but on a ps 3 ship it s not that big of a deal. I'm the only one of my group that runs swarms, so pretty much anyone gets to shoot before it recloaks. I'd be fine running that list with Stygium instead.

Generic Phantoms actually bring a lot of interesting options to the game. It's obnoxious FCS Gunner 9 pilot skill 4-5 hits on 4-5 dice on every attack shenanigans with 4 agility and a defensive focus move wherever the hell I want to crap that ruins the game. The cloak action should not be free, or at least it should activate at the end of combat.