Been seeing a bunch of custom card league post and wanted to give it a shot and maybe enter them to the league after getting some critique and adjusting the power balance for it.

Submission Form Aces 2:
Expansion Name: Imperial Specialist
Faction: Imperials

A cheaper punisher for a cheaper price and lower ps

SHIP 1: TIE Punisher
New Generic Pilot 1:
Cutlass Novice Pilot
PS 1
20 pts

A decent generic ps punisher for an 'ok'ish price that can use the new title further below

New Generic Pilot 2:
Black Eight Vets
ps 5
24 pts

Another "dedicated" bomber with another effect that breaks the rules with bombs, able to drop a reveal bomb and do an action bomb in the same round, pretty solid choice for the ps 0 sensor slot that doesn't see much use

Unique Pilot 1:
"DeathWind"
PS 4
You may drop up to two bombs per round.
24pts

Nas Ghent was part of the black eight squadron and while was never shown in a punisher did qualify for a shot at using one. He has shown his piloting skill by being given a "defective" tie fighter and then being forced to kill two other tie fighters that where his squad mates that were ordered to kill him

Unique Pilot 2:
Nas "Upstart" Ghent
PS 8
After you perform a <boost> or <roll>, you may acquire a target lock.
27pts

One of the only small ships of the empire with no ept that competes with the most DOA ship released. These two fixes (a title and a systems slot) are aimed to give the punisher new life as a heavy assault craft where you don't have the room for two kitted out bombers but seriously need an ordnance platform that can live a round.

‘Fix’ Upgrades (specific to Tie Punisher) 1:
Black Eight Elite
Title. Tie Punisher only.
Your may equip a second different modification upgrade that cost 1 point without paying for it.
You cannot equip this card if your Pilot value is "4" or lower.
0 pts

‘Fix’ Upgrades (specific to Tie Punisher) 2:
Twin Linked Ordnance Launchers
System. TIE Punisher only.
Once per turn, If a game effect instructs you to spend a target lock, you may ignore it.
Once per turn, after an attack with a secondary weapon, you may make another attack with a different secondary weapon.
You can not equip bombs,missiles,or torpedoes that cost "5" or more
0 pts

Phantoms just seem about due for something since they have only 4 pilots to fly, the generics are almost entirely "pointless" and out of the two named pilots whisper is the one that gets the main praise ever since their super nerf to decloaking (which at the time was entirely necessary). But now the game has over twice as many waves since they were introduced and there are plenty of ways to counter them now they could see another look over.

First up a generic with an EPT, I feel every ship in the game should have at least 1

SHIP 2:Tie Phantom
New Generic Pilots 1:
Shadow Sq. Elite
PS 6
has an EPT
28 pts

Sentinel is simply the old style phantom where it can decloak when it activates instead of at the start of the phase. The middle of the road PS keeps him from becoming the old school powerhouse the old phantoms once where but at the same time with all the new firing arcs, ways to toss stress out like candy, and tractor tokens. I think it can return to the old way of decloaking if its only just a single pilot that can do it

Unique Pilots 1:
"sentinel"
PS 5
You now can decloak immediately before you reveal your maneuver dial, instead of at the start of the Activation phase.
has an EPT.
28 PTS

Silence is meant to be a high ps phantom that would rather take PSA then ACD because of its ability. Being able to recloak is nice as well but already clocking in at 34 pts CAD has a hefty point cost to it that wouldn't get much gain from it. PSA on the other hand lets it pretty much always have an evade when it decides to move with decloak or even decloak and as an action recloak and still fire away but with less potential damage

Unique Pilots 2:
"Silence"
PS 8
You may attack while you have a cloak token. If you do, roll 1 less attack die.
has an EPT
34 pts


The "fix" upgrade is more of a buff to the theme of the phantom's cloak ability which was being nearly impossible to keep track of. The ability to remove targetlocks when it cloaks or decloaks is perfect for generics to help them live a little longer as well as keep the thematic of what the cloaking system did for the tie phantom. It does have the downfall of removing your own target locks too. Which hurts the normal nearly auto include of fire control systems but opens it up for other system slots like collision detector, sensor jammer, or even advance sensors

‘Fix’ Upgrades (specific to TIE Phantom) 1:
Mk. III Stygium Cloaking Device
Modification Tie Phantom only
You must equip "Stygium Particle accelerator" and pay its squad points.
When you perform a cloak action or decloak you may remove all target locks from your ship (red and blue).
0pt

My take on what a mag pulse warhead should be like, doesn't do damage but drains energy from the target's weapons good for a punisher's one two punch, or even toss on rhymer with VI for high ps weapon lockdown

Mag Pulse Torpedo
Torpedo
3 attack
range 1-2
Attack[Target lock]: Spend your target lock and Discard this card to perform this attack. If this attack hits, the defender receives 1 weapons disabled token. Then cancel all dice results.
3pts

Just a plain ol High explosive missile, no fancy tricks to it aside from keeping the TL. An alternate option from homing missiles if you'd like to fight large ships.

HE Missile
Missiles
5 attack
Range 2-3
Attack[Target lock]: Discard this card to perform this attack.
4pts

Early warning systems
System slot
When defending, if the attack is a secondary weapon and the attacker is at range 3, you may roll 1 additional evade die.
0pts


Attentive co-pilot
Crew
When you reveal a straight maneuver, you may rotate your dial to a bank maneuver with the same speed. If the selected bank maneuver is green treat it as a white maneuver instead.
2pts


Edit:changed name and added some new upgrades.
Edit: punisher name changed from payload to "DeathWind" to keep the Death___ motif for bombers
Edit: Early warning systems and Attentive Co-pilot added and would like feed back on them please.
Edit: changed the MK3 cloaking device and added my views of the options.
Edit:changed the punisher title from an ept to extra free 1 point upgrade

Edit:Changed points of mag pulse and HE Missiles

34 pts

‘Fix’ Upgrades (specific to TIE Phantom) 1:

Mk. III Stygium Cloaking Device

Modification Tie Phantom only

You must equip "Stygium Particle accelerator" and "Advance Cloaking device" and pay their squad points.

0 pts

Will finish later has 4 upgrades left to make.

WTF

Seriously, what the hell is this?

34 pts

‘Fix’ Upgrades (specific to TIE Phantom) 1:

Mk. III Stygium Cloaking Device

Modification Tie Phantom only

You must equip "Stygium Particle accelerator" and "Advance Cloaking device" and pay their squad points.

0 pts

Will finish later has 4 upgrades left to make.

WTF

Seriously, what the hell is this?

Since you have 3 different things quoted I'm not sure if I can answer your question. Could you be a little more specific?

Everything about the Phantoms is way too good here.

Everything about the Phantoms is way too good here.

Could you go into detail about what is "way too good" and maybe a change?

Everything about the Phantoms is way too good here.

Could you go into detail about what is "way too good" and maybe a change?

You do realize Named Tie Phandoms dont need fixing? Certiantly not on the level of a free evade token every round from decloaking after ACD?

Everything about the Phantoms is way too good here.

Could you go into detail about what is "way too good" and maybe a change?

You do realize Named Tie Phandoms dont need fixing? Certiantly not on the level of a free evade token every round from decloaking after ACD?

Not to mention a PS10 Phantom that can shoot while cloaked.

Everything about the Phantoms is way too good here.

Could you go into detail about what is "way too good" and maybe a change?

You do realize Named Tie Phandoms dont need fixing? Certiantly not on the level of a free evade token every round from decloaking after ACD?

Whisper might not need fixing but echo does, and the mod would bring whisper to 39 points before anything else and echo to 37. And it isn't a free evade token, it is an evade action so if they are stressed then they won't get it. This mod is more for the generics so they are actually use able and could survive. x7defenders are cheaper, more durable, put out just about equal damage for much less.

Everything about the Phantoms is way too good here.

Could you go into detail about what is "way too good" and maybe a change?

You do realize Named Tie Phandoms dont need fixing? Certiantly not on the level of a free evade token every round from decloaking after ACD?

Not to mention a PS10 Phantom that can shoot while cloaked.

Would removing the EPT make it more balanced or a point increase? What is wrong with ps 10 phantom that shoots with only 3 dice (4 at range 1) at the cost of 42 points with only VI + MK3SCD, you are looking at what they can do but not at their point cost that goes with it. That is a decimator in points.

What fixes or changes would you do if you feel something is "too good"?

Phantoms don't need a fix. They really don't. Maybe diversification of their role, but that fix title won't do it. Echo is actually pretty usable. Not God tier but plenty usable. Maybe give that title a points cost in addition to the points cost of SPA and ACD.

I'm not particularly bothered by the 3/4/2/2 ship though at the hefty points cost. Sentinel wouldn't be used.

Also, Black Eight Captain needs a new name. Something more generic sounding like "Veteran".

Can we give Payload a "Death______" name please?
Deathsplosion?

Phantoms don't need a fix. They really don't. Maybe diversification of their role, but that fix title won't do it. Echo is actually pretty usable. Not God tier but plenty usable. Maybe give that title a points cost in addition to the points cost of SPA and ACD.

I'm not particularly bothered by the 3/4/2/2 ship though at the hefty points cost. Sentinel wouldn't be used.

Also, Black Eight Captain needs a new name. Something more generic sounding like "Veteran".

Can we give Payload a "Death______" name please?

Deathsplosion?

In my original post there was a 1pt cost on the mod for phantoms which I thought I fixed in this post. But there is a +1pt for the MK3 bringing the total point cost to a +7 for both SPA and ACD.

For sentinel I wanted to give him the old school phantom decloak because that was made them powerful and i felt that it could be brought back as a pilot ability. As for Silence he isn't suppose to use the MK3 mod I wanted to make a high PS phantom that would want to use SPA over ACD since SPA is pretty much never used with phantoms.

I like the veteran name better than captain

As for payload aside from the deathname idea what do you think about it? (i do like Deathload as an idea but don't know if that would come off as crude.

What do you think would make Sentinel better? Not a must-pick but more of "if I have the points sure"

Added HE Missile and Mag pulse torp

HE missiles aren't really significantly different than Assault Missiles. You're just trading the ability to do multiple damage to surrounding ships for an extra red die.

'Silence' has an ability that is for the most part useless. With the ability to get PS 10, ACD will be an autoupgrade and he'll have fired and recloaked before the majority of other fighters get to shoot back.

Or just slap Swarm Tactics on him and drop ACD and run him with Sentinal and you have one PS 8 fighter that is permacloaked and another PS 8 that is the pre-nerf Phantom that caused so much salt.

Heck, forget the ST and put Swarm Leader on Silence then use Decoy and the Mk III mod on Sentinal. Sentinal now gets to cloak after attacking at PS 8 and Silence can leach the evade token in order to attack at full strength with no chance of being shot at while uncloaked.

That's 72 points. Lose the SL and you can get a Palpmobile and really aggravate people and still have a one point to give Silence VI and therefore give Sentinal that much more of a boost.

HE missiles aren't really significantly different than Assault Missiles. You're just trading the ability to do multiple damage to surrounding ships for an extra red die.

'Silence' has an ability that is for the most part useless. With the ability to get PS 10, ACD will be an autoupgrade and he'll have fired and recloaked before the majority of other fighters get to shoot back.

Or just slap Swarm Tactics on him and drop ACD and run him with Sentinal and you have one PS 8 fighter that is permacloaked and another PS 8 that is the pre-nerf Phantom that caused so much salt.

Heck, forget the ST and put Swarm Leader on Silence then use Decoy and the Mk III mod on Sentinal. Sentinal now gets to cloak after attacking at PS 8 and Silence can leach the evade token in order to attack at full strength with no chance of being shot at while uncloaked.

That's 72 points. Lose the SL and you can get a Palpmobile and really aggravate people and still have a one point to give Silence VI and therefore give Sentinal that much more of a boost.

That's kinda the point for HE missiles, a single target, potent attack. Also unlike assault missiles you keep the TL to re-roll the attack.

As for silence I wanted to make a high PS Phantom that would rather have SPA than ACD since ACD is an autoupgrade on the other named phantom pilots already. SPA lets silence decloak, get an evade, then cloak as an action and now has 4 dice and evade at decent PS making EPTs like Juke a good choice.

As for the swarm tactics and such......I don't see the problem if it makes next to unused cards a lot more usable but swarm tactics is range 1 only and can be a problem to keep both phantoms so close. That SL tactic is pretty solid and i didn't even think about it since its so new but once again uses a highly underused card (decoy) but still leashes the two phantoms together keeping them at range 1-2 of each other.

While I'm skeptic on the palp +silence+sentinal since it is a little bit hand holding between the two phantoms and have next to zero attack mods, what would you recomend as a change? decrease Silence's ps to 7 but keep the points?

HE missiles and the Torpedo should probably swap slots. Mag Pulse is canonically a missile in various sources, and getting N'Dru up to a 6 die well modified long range shot would be hilariously broken. At least in the torp slot only Miranda can boost its dice easily.

And yeah, echoing the 'TIE PHANTOMS DON'T NEED FIXING ARE YOU CRAZY' sentiment above.

If you can't win with Echo, that's because Echo is probably the single hardest ship in the game to fly well. Once you can fly her well, she's fine. There's a reason that a common phrase with echo is that no-one knows where she's going, not even her pilot a lot of the time...

I'd like to see an elite generic phantom, but that's the only thing it really needs.

HE missiles and the Torpedo should probably swap slots. Mag Pulse is canonically a missile in various sources, and getting N'Dru up to a 6 die well modified long range shot would be hilariously broken. At least in the torp slot only Miranda can boost its dice easily.

And yeah, echoing the 'TIE PHANTOMS DON'T NEED FIXING ARE YOU CRAZY' sentiment above.

If you can't win with Echo, that's because Echo is probably the single hardest ship in the game to fly well. Once you can fly her well, she's fine. There's a reason that a common phrase with echo is that no-one knows where she's going, not even her pilot a lot of the time...

I'd like to see an elite generic phantom, but that's the only thing it really needs.

Mag pulse are missiles (as is anything that is launched even torpedos) but they are called either mag pulse warhead and mag pulse torpedos in the canon plus lets the B-wing use them (as they have done in canon). As well as N'Dru its realistically not any different from him/her with a homing missile if the target has a evade token and no one really crys "OP" on that. In fact it does less average damage on 3 agi with evade.

Some people don't think the phantoms don't need fixing but with the way the current meta is as well as all the new ships/upgrades that have came out I think they could use some fresh air and new pilots since the only one really worth considering is buzzsaw whisper, echo is dandy and all but is outclassed in the current age by other ships and builds as well as with PWT and turrets they don't care as much about decloak.

Moot point arguing on why I'm picking phantoms to work on. Do you have any cunstructive feedback for anyelse else rather then the lore issue about the mag and HE missiles?

Early warning systems and Attentive Co-pilot added and would like feed back on them please. I think they are priced and worded right but I would like to get a second opinion on them.

"Silence" is deadly and really overpowered in my opinion, which is not everything, but the tie phantom has 4 attack, that means stay cloaked, and you are constantly 3 attack, 4 defence.That is really powerful!

"Silence" would be good but I think others are over stating how good 34 points for 3/4/2/2 is... Soontir with shield upgrade and stealth is 3/4/3/1 already but Soontir gets a stack of focus evade token and way better greens for 36 points. Your still going to want the option to decloak to get 4 dice sometimes so you still need ACD (+4 points) and if you have ACD your going to want VI (+1). Now phantoms do still get crew and system but they also pay to fill those slots.

The "old school" phantom rules pilot will max out at ps7 that alone should probably keep it in check.

I cant be as easy on the Mk. III mod its expensive I'll give you that but 3 more points isn't enough for what you get in my opinion. I think it's just to good to be something they do it's also not fair to compare the defender title, phantoms are agile and one of the hardest hitting ships in the game you cant make them tanky too its just a recipe for OP.

Early warning systems and Attentive Co-pilot added and would like feed back on them please. I think they are priced and worded right but I would like to get a second opinion on them.

EWS is fine and the wording is fine and the price is also fine.

Attentive is fine, and probably appropriately priced, but I'd say 'may not change to a red manoeuvre, skip the check pilot stress step' for the wording.

For attentive co-pilot I would leave the first line the same then say "If the selected bank maneuver is green treat it as a white maneuver instead."

"Silence" is deadly and really overpowered in my opinion, which is not everything, but the tie phantom has 4 attack, that means stay cloaked, and you are constantly 3 attack, 4 defence.That is really powerful!

Which is not as powerful as x7 tie defender who have two more total health, 3 red 3 green all the time with evade+ focus 90% of the time. If Silence wants to get an evade token he has to decloak and then spend his action to re-cloak with PSA and have zero offsense mods for 36 pts, or if has MK3 41 pts

"Silence" would be good but I think others are over stating how good 34 points for 3/4/2/2 is... Soontir with shield upgrade and stealth is 3/4/3/1 already but Soontir gets a stack of focus evade token and way better greens for 36 points. Your still going to want the option to decloak to get 4 dice sometimes so you still need ACD (+4 points) and if you have ACD your going to want VI (+1). Now phantoms do still get crew and system but they also pay to fill those slots.

The "old school" phantom rules pilot will max out at ps7 that alone should probably keep it in check.

I cant be as easy on the Mk. III mod its expensive I'll give you that but 3 more points isn't enough for what you get in my opinion. I think it's just to good to be something they do it's also not fair to compare the defender title, phantoms are agile and one of the hardest hitting ships in the game you cant make them tanky too its just a recipe for OP.

Think I should increase the price to MK3 to 2 pts? That is sitting at 8 points for an upgrade that is palp level there for a single ship. its also perfectly fine to compare it to x7 title with x7 title its -2 pts and that means they could get a stealth device if they wanted for 4 green+evade+focus for only 1 point more then their normal cost. Without doing any special tricks the phantom can't do that at that point range at all

Think I should increase the price to MK3 to 2 pts? That is sitting at 8 points for an upgrade that is palp level there for a single ship. its also perfectly fine to compare it to x7 title with x7 title its -2 pts and that means they could get a stealth device if they wanted for 4 green+evade+focus for only 1 point more then their normal cost. Without doing any special tricks the phantom can't do that at that point range at all

Ask yourself this could a ship that cost 100 but could fire 15 attack dice be balanced?

Raising the price will help but in my opinion its just not a good upgrade for the game. There are only so many balance points. maneuverability(M), Ability to evade attack(E), ability to kill a target(D), hull/shield value(H), Customization options©, and cost($).

The best ships in the game excel in a few of these areas but not all. Lets look at a couple on a 1-5 scale

Soontir - M-5 E-5 D-3 H-1 C-2 $-4 (20) - For a relatively cheap 35 points you get top tier maneuverability and evasiveness. Mid-range on attack helped by his maneuverability because there's a good chance you can get some range 1 shots while still being able to focus. Health is bottom tier and there is some customization but at a cost. For instance you can take targeting computer which will up your ability to kill but you give up AT or SD and are now easier to hit.

Ryad - M-3 E-5 D-4 H-4 C-1 $-4 (21) - I know there will be disagreement on some of this but I'm going to give Ryad a mid level in her maneuverability green K-turns are awesome and she can do them at near every range. but she lives on 3 speed maneuvers and moves at ps5. the key to beating her is knowing where shes going to go 90% of the time. besides that she is a killer hard to kill, hard hitting, beefy, she got very little customization but she doesn't need it. In all honesty though she walks that thin line already from being great to being OP.

Lets look at whisper though with your upgrade.

Whisper M-5 E-5 D-5 H-3 C-5 $-2 (25) - Decloak means phantoms start in 3 different places before they even start to move and still have a late ps barrel roll. Your suggesting a free evade and whisper gets a free focus if she hits plus a focus action that's Soontir level evasiveness with one of the strongest guns in the game. Health is the weak spot but still respectable. Crew and system (some of the best upgrades in the game live here) and arguably while you want FCS to keep the ship deadly crew can be whatever you want. Cost is an important limiter but if your ship can literally do everything else cost isn't enough.

TL;DR - I know i went off on a tangent filled with 90 % opinion and probably 10% nonsense but the point I'm making is you cant make something all powerful and just hope cost alone will balance it out.

Let's not forget the phantom already taught us this lesson not sure how long you've played but remember in the old school phantom days there was an 86 point list that was just echo and whisper it won a regional. Why not put a tie in their instead of a crazy bid like that he said it wasn't needed, it got in the way and left other phantoms something to shoot to re-cloak.

How are you doing your calculations? Because it seems pretty flawed and bised towards the phantom and against the others. Customizable for the phantom is no where a 5 there is pretty much only 1 build for whisper even with my upgrade it would still be limited to a very specific build. Health also shouldn't be a 3 is soontier is only a 1 and ryan only a 4 there are only 2 other small ships that the empire has that has as much or more and that's the bomber and punisher. And for ability to kill a target whisper would only have a focus to modify until next turn with fcs with while ryad has tl and focus 1 red dice is not the same as a tl

Also there is a ship that can do 20 dice in a single turn quickdraw, and no one is crying op on it you don't even need a all 100 points.

Whisper would hardly be all powerful and there are several ways of crippling him that don't even need to roll attack dice for.

I know about the horrors of fathan and double phantom list but that was also where there was a. Lot less upgrades and ships and no scum. With all the pts and abilities that don't care as much where you are as well as phantoms are still more predictable than their prenerf States Which Is What Ended Their Reign Of Terror To Begin with. Phantoms in the current state even with the mk3 is hardly all powerful.

Everything about the Phantoms is way too good here.

Could you go into detail about what is "way too good" and maybe a change?

I don't know what to tell you that hasn't been echoed here already. These are too strong, and that's not bias against the Phantom, its not wanting to see a ship even "arguably" as good as the Defender that can be 4 times as many places.

Everything about the Phantoms is way too good here.

Could you go into detail about what is "way too good" and maybe a change?

I don't know what to tell you that hasn't been echoed here already. These are too strong, and that's not bias against the Phantom, its not wanting to see a ship even "arguably" as good as the Defender that can be 4 times as many places.

Can you show with your own words why certain parts are "too strong" because people are, to me and at least one other person, either overestimating ability or underestimating cost +action economy. Even something as simple as rephrasing what has been echoed could shed new light to the situation.