Sure turrets wreck face, but... why are you at R1 of a PWT without a token stack anyways? Seems counter-intuitive.

Because nothing exist to save a PS3 sigma from having it's face melted before getting to fire.

Outmaneuvering. The IRL EPT.

If you are better at flying your ship than your opponent is at theirs, you may win the game.

Cost: Lot's of practice.

anyone who doesn't know what PWTs have to do in a match-up v phantoms have either never flown Phantoms or never played in Wave 5

Yeah no, I fly Phantoms. My god do I ever fly Phantoms. Wanna see my Rebel list that I fly? It's Whisper and Echo with a bl... oh wait. That's right, all I fly is Phantoms! Lol

But seriously FGDPGS (I'm convinced you're the same person, deal with it) you need to just lay off the PWT/Palp Aces ranting because it's a serious detriment to the intelligent things you have to say.

I have flown against turrets and won. I've also flown against them and lost, so really it's got more to it than pure skill. There is some amount of luck involved too. I mean... there are dice to roll. I've seen Whisper flub out on 6 greens and die horribly, seen it happen where she flubs out and then survives on one health to solo the entire game too so...

Sigmas (Yeah Krynn, I got a little OT, but it's so refreshing to see debate about Phantoms, I guess I just got a lil crazy...) So you're at R1 of a PWT and you're rockin' one lonely evade token. Well how did you get there? Sigmas get almost no use out of ACD so you're running SPA. Why do only have one token? You don't need to BR out of arc because you don't have AT, so you should have taken a focus action. So now you have two dice, focus and evade. That's really not that bad. Against three dice you have a pretty good chance of only taking one hit. You can spend that focus freely on defense because if you're going after a PWT you had better have FCS lock, right? Right. Also, there is that nasty decloak and move into block to consider.

Look, I'm not saying it's a match-up that's favourable, but if you're conceding the game based on the presence of PWTs before you even engage, then you're always going to lose, no matter what. PWTs are not the absolute bane of Phantoms that everyone thinks. Getting shot at first should only ever happen if the attacker has higher PS than you. That is a fact. If you are planning to run Phantoms you must, I mean absolutely must, bid. The only pilots who should hit Whisper first are VI'd high PS aces. Of course with Sigs this is a little different, but if you are running PS3 Phantoms, then there are just some things you can't avoid. Fortunately you can fit three in a list with SPA and still have room for goodies. I know it's not competitive, but why on earth would anyone think it would be? Is it the fall down dead can't fly at all list that people think it is? Hell no. Would it be competitive in a U-Boat heavy meta? Yeah, probably.

A sigma with spa, and a focus token can still die very easy from a turre, and other lists before it even gets to shoot. If the turret player knows what he's doing he's not going to fly straight at the sigma. He'll kite it, so while your chasing his turret, he's still shooting at you. if you manage to block his turret, well that's one ship he doesn't have to worry about shooting at it. I've seen my fair share of rolling two green dice only to roll blanks. Something against dash, or a range 1 shot is leaving you with 1 hp, since you have a evade token, now you have just a focus, two green dice against whatever else is shooting at you. It doesn't take much to kill the sigma, and it can still die pretty easily before it even got a turn to shoot. Up against something like a dash and coran, fat Han, and Poe, decimator and interceptor/phantom, ghost and whatever else, 4 bwings, or something loaded up with ordnance (homing missiles say goodbye to that evade token) it's not going to be easy. They still can't reposition like a interceptors can, and are still pretty easy to get in arc. Especially at ps3. Intel agent helps but it can still be easy to see what's coming

Like I said before, I try to run them with something that'll make it hard for my opponent to decide, but it's still usually the phantom that dies, since it's easier to hit, or has less hp compared to whatever else is in the list, behind two green dice.

I've wished there was something like auto thrusters for them because getting shot at no matter what you do against a turret is tough for them. At least for the Generics, buy there isn't, and maybe that is a good thing. Wouldn't want them op, but it still sucks when your up against dash with 4 dice, and coran with his double tap, or 4 ywing with tlt or whatever. Sigmas going to die, unless your dice are very hot.

The phantom is like most from wave 4. Has 1 pilot most use, 1 pilot people mess around with, and you see occasionally, and generics that you barely ever see.

And whisper against dengar is a very tough match up. Especially if he has the initiative bid. Hrs going to shoot and make you reroll those two dice. I've never beaten dengeraoo with omega, whisper and yorr, but I have beaten dengeraoo with a palmobile, whisper and gamma vet on a few different occasions, and even those games whisper died very fast, but not before leaving a mark on dengar

Sure turrets wreck face, but... why are you at R1 of a PWT without a token stack anyways? Seems counter-intuitive.

Because nothing exist to save a PS3 sigma from having it's face melted before getting to fire.

Outmaneuvering. The IRL EPT.

If you are better at flying your ship than your opponent is at theirs, you may win the game.

Cost: Lot's of practice.

Wait, you know a way to arc dodge a PWT!?!? You gotta show me this, cause the only ways I know are to collide and run, and then your Sigma isn't doing a daggum thing to contribute.

I think Krynn sums up the issue I have with a Sigma as well as I could. 2 dice behind a focus and evade will likely see you clinging to 1 hull after a single range 1 shot (and this seems to be exactly where a phantom wants to be to make the best use of 4 attack). In my extensive Sigma flying, a R1 shot will usually deal more than 1 damage to you. Red dice modification is the name of the game now and it eats through your 2 defense even with tokens. Using the focus for defense also means your return fire then has no modification of your own behind it. Once upon a time 5 naked reds seemed like a good attack but nowadays in this meta it feels very subpar.

I don't mess with FCS on a Sigma because I have never had the opportunity to fire again at the same target without dying to combined fire from higher PS opponents. Unless you tuck tail and run you don't get that focus and evade that second turn which makes you insanely vulnerable that second turn. If you do duck and run, well crew like Luke, gunner, Zuck, etc. will make sure that 4 green dice and an evade will still see you taking damage. Oh, and don't forget that if you run into something that deals stress then you can't take that free evade from Stygum either.

I don't mean this as a rant, that's just the state of the game as-is and I enjoy hearing how people have managed successful builds with the Sigma. They may never be very competitive, but an Intel generic can still give a traditional ace a run for it's money. It's sooooo satisfying when you catch them too . I'd LOVE to see something to benefit the generics just because the mechanics make it such a fun ship to fly with a high skill cap. I've had a lot of success with Sigmas, but a lot of disappointing games against the likes of Dash, Han, and Chirpy because there is literally nothing you can do but close the gap and throw dice knowing the odds are stacked against you. Like Krynn said, bring something that will draw more attention.

edit: clarification

I think Krynn sums up the issue I have with a Sigma as well as I could. 2 dice behind a focus and evade will likely see you clinging to 1 hull after a single range 1 shot ( and this seems to be exactly where a phantom wants to be to make the best use of 4 attack ).

This is not remotely where a low PS phantom wants to be, unless they confidently have a block lined up, because it's where they die. The virtue of throwing four red dice lies at range three, where you're playing it safer, while still having the ability to do some damage. The range one bonus doesn't mean as much to phantoms as it does to most other ships, but the range three defense bonus for an uncloaked phantom is huge though.

This is not remotely where a low PS phantom wants to be, unless they confidently have a block lined up, because it's where they die. The virtue of throwing four red dice lies at range three, where you're playing it safer, while still having the ability to do some damage. The range one bonus doesn't mean as much to phantoms as it does to most other ships, but the range three defense bonus for an uncloaked phantom is huge though.

True, unless ordinance or cannons come into play. I typically run scopes on mine with the intent to block, so range one is usually kind of a requirement. It's also easier to arc dodge when you start at close range vs a ship with a normal arc if you want to get offensive. Versus a PWT range 3 typically would be safer though. With all the options out there to modify red dice it's still a losing matchup though.

That's kind of it with sigmas. When your getting to range 3 you want to get that shoot off, so you decloak, move into range 3 get to shoot and have an extra agility back up by (hopefully) a focus and evade. Problem is next round your decloaked and unless you cloak no evade. If you do cloak, you'll get your evade, but no focus, and If you don't re cloak, no evade, two green dice and an focus. Either way it's not overly great if your getting shoot at.

It's why I hate taking phantoms over interceptors, or something that can equip auto thrusters. Turrets are pure murder on them. Tlt, Han, dash, oicunn, cheerio, dengar, just to name a few, and I'm not talking about whisper or echo, but sigmas and shadows.