PS2 might as well be before any dials are revealed against most lists. Even a TIE swarm list often has PS4 as its lowest.

What about Decloak at 1/2 rounded up of the Phantom's PS.

Hahahahahahahahahahaha no.

The new cloaking mechanic is not just fairer, it's more flavorful, because now you can predict where the Phantom will cloak, instead of a Shroedinger's Phantom that always declassified to the optimal location to screw you over.

It'll never happen in tourney rules, FFG will hold their case. Sure they gave into incessant whining about the X7 after it took Worlds in '16 so easily, and took the auto evade away (like that was better than Attani). But in casual games we run Phantoms all the time straight up old-school; we're not scared little girls. I've been killed by them and killed them plenty of times....I say take off the governors and let's really play this game again. Oh, and please take no offense there heychadwick, I don't want to give you more reasons for therapy, it'll be OK....this was just a bad dream.

1 hour ago, SabineKey said:

Considering the trouble the old decloaking mechanics caused, I'd prefer some in depth testing before considering going back.

Well what trouble? Phantoms didn't win a world or nationals. the PWT point superfortress took those. They were sort of like what Palp Aces was to the meta. Your list had to be this tall to be a Tier-1 (or is it 3, I forget).

Anyways that was before a lot of more turret and area denial techniques that came out. You now have a VCX that could double attack with autoblaster turrets and have AC (kills a cloaked whisper in 1 turn). A slew of quad TLT lists that can shut down ACD from stress hog, to the fast and massive coverings of thug life, even Imps are getting their own quad TLT list with possibility of a decent 5 sync turret list. To be honest I am starting to be a little curious how would a pre-nerf phantom fair up against a pre-nerf dengaroo or u-boat list? Maybe I should make up a thread about that one. Battle of the Pre nerf lists, which pre nerf would be the best. Heck I could throw in a triple tactician bus just to see which would have been the most broken.

A Phantom? What's that? You mean the ship that starts the game docked with the Ghost?

When was the last time the Phantom was something being given serious consideration? Right before the rule change if my memory serves. It seems to me that "nerf" probably killed an entire class of ship while this more recent round of targeted nerfs just damaged most of their targets but probably hasn't completely removed them and many of the reasons you'd use them.

I think I'd like to see the original decloaking rules brought back. If that is too much for you then how about a modification on decloaking that I'm guessing some would say is even stronger than the original. Allow a cloaked ship to decloak at the start of the Activation Phase as it can now using the speed 2 templates but give the ship the option to decloak on its activation as well. My initial thought had been that an activation timed decloak only allows speed 1 templates to be used which makes that decloak bubble a lot smaller. Another option could be that decloaking could also be taken as an action (separate from actually Cloaking so you could still do both with ACD) giving a ship that repositioning at activation but also meaning no Focus for them to use later.

11 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

Well what trouble? Phantoms didn't win a world or nationals. the PWT point superfortress took those. They were sort of like what Palp Aces was to the meta. Your list had to be this tall to be a Tier-1 (or is it 3, I forget).

Anyways that was before a lot of more turret and area denial techniques that came out. You now have a VCX that could double attack with autoblaster turrets and have AC (kills a cloaked whisper in 1 turn). A slew of quad TLT lists that can shut down ACD from stress hog, to the fast and massive coverings of thug life, even Imps are getting their own quad TLT list with possibility of a decent 5 sync turret list. To be honest I am starting to be a little curious how would a pre-nerf phantom fair up against a pre-nerf dengaroo or u-boat list? Maybe I should make up a thread about that one. Battle of the Pre nerf lists, which pre nerf would be the best. Heck I could throw in a triple tactician bus just to see which would have been the most broken.

There is no reason a good Whisper player should ever end up in R1 of a named VCX pilot.

While the pre-nerf Phantoms may not have won a regionals, they were still meta-distorting in that everything you built had to be able to deal with Phantoms. You had to have someone that could shoot before Whisper could cloak, stress it before it could recloak, and/or react to its extreme arc-dodging shenanigans. If you didn't have those, you were effectively done.

If you were to revert to the old rules, I would expect it to be in an Imperial Warmongers pack, and it would be a specific pilot's ability: "You may decloak prior to revealing your dial." Probably PS6 w/o an EPT.

That or as a modification. If you can't stack it with ACD, then it's not as powerful as you can't decloak, move, action, shoot, cloak every turn.

Just now, PhantomFO said:

You had to have someone that could shoot before Whisper could cloak, stress it before it could recloak, and/or react to its extreme arc-dodging shenanigans. If you didn't have those, you were effectively done.

I've shot and killed her cloaked, many times. I disagree that you must shoot first or stress her to win; helps? Yes. Have to? No. So you're not "effectively done".....are we playing the same game? Man, and not only LRS ordinance, but now with squad leader and other red dice creep? I think we all need to put our big boy pants on, it's fun.

26 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

Well what trouble? Phantoms didn't win a world or nationals. the PWT point superfortress took those. They were sort of like what Palp Aces was to the meta. Your list had to be this tall to be a Tier-1 (or is it 3, I forget).

Anyways that was before a lot of more turret and area denial techniques that came out. You now have a VCX that could double attack with autoblaster turrets and have AC (kills a cloaked whisper in 1 turn). A slew of quad TLT lists that can shut down ACD from stress hog, to the fast and massive coverings of thug life, even Imps are getting their own quad TLT list with possibility of a decent 5 sync turret list. To be honest I am starting to be a little curious how would a pre-nerf phantom fair up against a pre-nerf dengaroo or u-boat list? Maybe I should make up a thread about that one. Battle of the Pre nerf lists, which pre nerf would be the best. Heck I could throw in a triple tactician bus just to see which would have been the most broken.

Yeah, the point fortresses took that. Han could out PS Whisper.

10 minutes ago, PhantomFO said:

There is no reason a good Whisper player should ever end up in R1 of a named VCX pilot.

While the pre-nerf Phantoms may not have won a regionals, they were still meta-distorting in that everything you built had to be able to deal with Phantoms. You had to have someone that could shoot before Whisper could cloak, stress it before it could recloak, and/or react to its extreme arc-dodging shenanigans. If you didn't have those, you were effectively done.

So again, pre-nerf phantom vs pre nerf dengaroo (or contracted scouts with deadeye+R4 agro before timing)

Which one will win (or at least have the advantageous match up)?

6 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

I've shot and killed her cloaked, many times. I disagree that you must shoot first or stress her to win; helps? Yes. Have to? No. So you're not "effectively done".....are we playing the same game? Man, and not only LRS ordinance, but now with squad leader and other red dice creep? I think we all need to put our big boy pants on, it's fun.

I have to ask, and I hope I don't sound antagonistic here, but what squad(s) do you use? Do you have a favorite squad or archetype you like to run that happens to have a favorable matchup against TIE phantoms?

The reason I ask is because I felt Palpatine didn't need a nerf. Palp + 2 ships was always a good match up for my 5-ship, 15+ attack dice squad. But three aces became a lot more difficult. It wasn't until I started playing different types of squads that I realized Palpatine was REALLY powerful, and my ability to block aces was what won it for me. Basically, I was blind to how good he was because I unintentionally ran a counter, and assumed everybody could defeat Palpatine squads as easily as me (or rather, my squad). I was wrong.

1 hour ago, BadMotivator said:

PS2 might as well be before any dials are revealed against most lists. Even a TIE swarm list often has PS4 as its lowest.

What about Decloak at 1/2 rounded up of the Phantom's PS.

I had this thought also, but _hate_ any formulation that makes people do math.

Trolololololol

No!

Un-Nerf everything. See what happens.

2 hours ago, heychadwick said:

The Tie Phantom doesn't need a buff. It doesn't need anything. If it's not on the table then the world is a better place.

Show me on Fat Han where the Phantom touched you ...

37 minutes ago, Helias de Nappo said:

Un-Nerf everything. See what happens.

59 minutes ago, Hawkstrike said:

Show me on Fat Han where the Phantom touched you ...

Personally I like the decloaking rules better now than before the nerf and I fly phantoms a lot. I also fly them with advanced sensors, with my favorite maneuver being decloak and block - advanced sensors barel roll - hard 1 turn - range 1 atrack out of ark.

5 hours ago, heychadwick said:

@#$!, (%&^-ing No!!!!!

^ What he said!

Regardless, I think slamming bombing K-Wings pretty much has the phantom's number.

To bring back the old cloaking rules helps only the TIE Phantom and the few ships with illicit slots filled with primitive copies of cloaking tech. It will push all other ships further away from the new balance. What needs to happen is for the very few ships still at the top (jumpmaster, jumpmaster, and the jumpmaster) to settle down to a respectable level compared to the rest.

Balance is delicate. Consider what the change impacts beyond the ship you wish to change.

I don't fly TIE Phantoms, have no desire to... But with TLTs, Bomb crazies, more high PS ships, and Large Scum builds, it seems that the old rules should be much less threatening now....

but thank you, wise Lag, for pointing out that there are more than 1 ship in XWing. Hadn't crossed my mind.

Definitely no. Besides I've noticed that if you use intel agent on a phantom, the nerf isn't nearly as bad (and it's not that terrible anyways).

Facing them back in the day without a PWT or higher PS ace was like facing a PTL arc dodger on steroids. They could easily outmaneuver you, but then they are firing with an extra die AND often a TL from FCS. Then if you're lucky enough to get a shot on them they have a minimum of 4 defense dice plus whatever extra tokens they have, usually at least a focus if they are whisper.

I flew against double phantoms today. Hotcop and SJ on both if you can believe that. VI and ACD too. Kicked my butt. So they are still good if flown well. Eat a lotta turrets now but that was always a thing.

I'd like to see some Phantom changes. I was thinking make decloak an action that you can perform during activation, but you have to declare it before the activation phase begins. Seems fun.