Has anyone had any luck using phantoms?

I mean, I find their ability super situational, their dice are OK (even the odd-duck swingy 2 red ship dice) but they feel way too fragile and cost a good bit! Are they one of those squadrons that just will never get much play (looking at you, Lancer) or is it that its one of those you really should only ever field one of at a time?

They have some virtue in scenarios where you can fight near a healing station. The post squad fight move can rack up a some health that migh get them another turn of shots. So maybe in a fleet using Station Assault and Salvage Run.

But yeah. They are a niche squadron, not your screen's backbone

I appreciate any squadron with 4 hull and a scatter token so Whisper is a good buy in my book based mostly on her durability. She is not your best or even second best use of 20 points worth of squadrons, Vader, Steele, Jendon, etc. all make that a pretty competitive slot to go in, but she is good enough to take to tie :-) down enemy squadrons. Intel sorta ruins this though.

Phantoms are to expensive for their stat line, there for you must be getting more out of their ability to make them worth while. This is situational as you said, and so is not usually a good investment. As always, the Defender overshadows them in terms of raw stat line, and stat lines are not situational.

Cloak needs to be changed. If cloak became super Grit that worked no matter how many squadrons were on you, Phantoms would be played and worth the investment. as is, I think Whisper is worth taking for the tokens.

6 minutes ago, Space_Cowboy17 said:

Phantoms are to expensive for their stat line, there for you must be getting more out of their ability to make them worth while. This is situational as you said, and so is not usually a good investment. As always, the Defender overshadows them in terms of raw stat line, and stat lines are not situational.

I abstracted and replaced the word Phantoms for E-wings. Soundend perfectly fine to me. Best written paragrahp on this matter.

They are adept at collecting dust on my shelf.

2 minutes ago, Coldhands said:

They are adept at collecting dust on my shelf.

Best comment today!

13 minutes ago, Space_Cowboy17 said:

As always, the Defender overshadows them in terms of raw stat line, and stat lines are not situational.

Do they? Without BCC are Defenders actually better?

I actually really like the phantoms. I wish they were slightly more reliable with their attacks (since swarm isn't an option, a single black die in there would have been nice.) But their ability is actually surprisingly useful. Station healing, is one pro, as well as their potent anti-ship dice. Yes those are swingy, but I've rolled 3 damage on quite a few occasions; Sloan will only improve this. I find they need to be used in smaller numbers as flankers. Only engage them with 1-2 enemies each as your other squads tie down the rest of the force, if you have escorts so much the better. Cloak is really strong as well, if you are going intel-less, as that extra move can get you out of engagement, and sometimes back into command range. I also have dodged a fair number of Raiders' AA with that cloak move.

2 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Do they? Without BCC are Defenders actually better?

Non-bomber red is worth 0.5 damage. Bomber blue is worth 0.75 damage. Phantoms are slightly better anti-ship than Defenders, but Defenders get 2 more hull for their points.

26 minutes ago, Valca said:

Non-bomber red is worth 0.5 damage. Bomber blue is worth 0.75 damage. Phantoms are slightly better anti-ship than Defenders, but Defenders get 2 more hull for their points.

But Phantoms get cloak that can be quite useful if played properly. I have only used them a few times but to good effect each time.

The Defender have a very different use so they are not a good comparison.

The ability to reposition should not be underestimated. They are pretty good at hunting ships outside their flak range or stay close to ships and bombard them without commanding them. They can get out of engagements without Intel and more flexible with command range in mind... so many uses for cloak.

I've played against a couple of these and felt like throwing up in my mouth when my oponent got lucky and rolled three damage twice in a round ( sad face)

1 hour ago, Valca said:

Non-bomber red is worth 0.5 damage. Bomber blue is worth 0.75 damage. Phantoms are slightly better anti-ship than Defenders, but Defenders get 2 more hull for their points.

Also, Defenders are worse against Aces, and speed 4+1 is slightly more than 5.

1 hour ago, jorgen_cab said:

The ability to reposition should not be underestimated. They are pretty good at hunting ships outside their flak range or stay close to ships and bombard them without commanding them.

How are they hunting ships outside their flack range? Squadrons can only shoot at range 1 (or short range w/ Rhymer).

9 minutes ago, Democratus said:

How are they hunting ships outside their flack range? Squadrons can only shoot at range 1 (or short range w/ Rhymer).

They attack at range one and then move one range which is outside close range or black dice range. This mean they can potentially avoid close range flak. With Rhymer they can even avoid medium range flak.

I wrote a bunch about them here , but the short(er) version is:

They're effectively a mixed-role squadron with some similarities to Defenders but they're more slanted towards anti-ship (1 damage average versus 0.75 but much swingier with a maximum of 4), have better speed, can get some sneaky benefits from Cloak, and are 2 points cheaper. In return, their anti-squadron is a bit worse (except vs. scatter aces) and they lose 2 hull. They get some tech benefits being used near the station for the constant healing. I've found they need some TIE Advanced around so they don't get focused down too early (at least 1 Advanced for every 2 Phantoms, maybe more).

4 TIE Phantoms and 2 TIE Advanced is a fairly multi-role group (as the Advanced don't mind attacking ships if/when the opportunity presents itself, just like the Phantoms) with 26 total hull for 80 points. That's 4 less hull than the same 80 points spent on 5 Defenders but more offensive output (especially against ships) and with some tech abilities.

If you're interested in just splashing one in, Whisper is super legit and fairly tough to kill. She doesn't need a TIE Advanced around like the regular Phantoms do.

Quote

How do you use Tie Phantoms?

In Soviet Armata, TIE Phantoms use YOU.

35 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

I wrote a bunch about them here , but the short(er) version is:

They're effectively a mixed-role squadron with some similarities to Defenders but they're more slanted towards anti-ship (1 damage average versus 0.75 but much swingier with a maximum of 4), have better speed, can get some sneaky benefits from Cloak, and are 2 points cheaper. In return, their anti-squadron is a bit worse (except vs. scatter aces) and they lose 2 hull. They get some tech benefits being used near the station for the constant healing. I've found they need some TIE Advanced around so they don't get focused down too early (at least 1 Advanced for every 2 Phantoms, maybe more).

4 TIE Phantoms and 2 TIE Advanced is a fairly multi-role group (as the Advanced don't mind attacking ships if/when the opportunity presents itself, just like the Phantoms) with 26 total hull for 80 points. That's 4 less hull than the same 80 points spent on 5 Defenders but more offensive output (especially against ships) and with some tech abilities.

If you're interested in just splashing one in, Whisper is super legit and fairly tough to kill. She doesn't need a TIE Advanced around like the regular Phantoms do.

The issue I keep running into is point cost. Valen is 13 points. Howl is 15. Ciena is 17. Mauler is 15. And I get defense tokens and an ability. Imp Swarm aces synergize quite well together and can be boosted by FC. Phantoms are solo squads. They don't play well with any other squadron, except Rhymer, but that's been nerfed.

I have only used Whisper before, which was nice. But I think you have to use them like E-Wings and just take 1 and have them hunt down escaping squads.

My A-wings schredded 3x Phantoms within two turns, in a practice game the other day.

Situationally they never worked at all as a screen in that game, as they completely failed to delay any bombing runs my B-wing-Yavaris combo made on my opponents ships.

Borssk was with them, but there was in essence no real synergy between him and the Phantoms.

Have not played with Phantoms myself, but there has to be something out there, which they can have a good synergy with... Dengar or something

11 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

The issue I keep running into is point cost. Valen is 13 points. Howl is 15. Ciena is 17. Mauler is 15. And I get defense tokens and an ability. Imp Swarm aces synergize quite well together and can be boosted by FC. Phantoms are solo squads. They don't play well with any other squadron, except Rhymer, but that's been nerfed.

The problem with the comparison is the example squadrons you gave are all awful against ships but great against squadrons. They're going to absolutely outclass Phantoms against squadrons without a doubt. TIE Phantoms only really stack up there when you consider you're spending points towards multi-role usage, which is a rarity amongst Imperial squadrons. Whether or not they're worth it is a matter of opinion past that, but they're really tough to compare to other Imperial squadrons besides for perhaps TIE Defenders or TIE Advanced, which also dabble in being multi-role non-Rogue squadrons.

I have only used Whisper before, which was nice.

I've really enjoyed using Whisper. She's fun. She's expensive, but she's fun.

Quote

But I think you have to use them like E-Wings and just take 1 and have them hunt down escaping squads.

I think if you're planning to run a Phantom solo for harassing squadrons, I'd recommend the +6 points for Whisper every time. She's much better being used that way. That or Cieena, who is also adept at pinning down individual squads and just sticking them there in a fruitless back and forth until she wins.

Any TIE Phantom plan that doesn't plan to use them later on to harass ships as well as having a plan to get them to that later game alive is basically a bad plan. They're tricky to use well and need to be built around. I don't think they're super duper amazing, mind you, but my experience with them has been more positive than I would've guessed from just looking at the card.

Thanks for the great thoughts guys.

For the record, I already considered Whisper a solid choice, especially after seeing whisper move a total of 7 in one round (4+ 3 def tokens), I had only run Phantoms in a CC campaign to try them out and they typically melted, even when I covered them with zerttik strom (sp), most players are savvy enough to flank with A-wings and 2 shot them.

I like the Idea of pairing them with Advanced

I think however, that in the Post-rhymer, pre-sloane period we are in they likely will continue to collect dust.

2 hours ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

Also, Defenders are worse against Aces , and speed 4+1 is slightly more than 5.

Im tired of reading that stament, wich is absolutely not true. The chances for accuracies are still there. While drastically increasing the damage output makes an average of almost 3 damage, wich turns a brace use into 2 damage, or forces a burn out on scatter tokens. 4 blue dices be rolling 2 accuracies + two crits, 4 accuracies, 4 crits, 1 accuracy + 3 crits, 3 accuracies+ 1 crit.

In fact, they are WAY better against aces.

6 minutes ago, xerpo said:

Im tired of reading that stament, wich is absolutely not true. The chances for accuracies are still there. While drastically increasing the damage output makes an average of almost 3 damage, wich turns a brace use into 2 damage, or forces a burn out on scatter tokens. 4 blue dices be rolling 2 accuracies + two crits, 4 accuracies, 4 crits, 1 accuracy + 3 crits, 3 accuracies+ 1 crit.

In fact, they are WAY better against aces.

Against brace aces, you can really argue it either way but overall I'd give the edge to the Defenders as well. Better odds of getting 3+ damage naturally is better than hoping to lock down both braces (when they're healthy) or locking down a fresh brace afterwards (which is hard to really evaluate how often that will be the case, it depends a lot on the game state).

Against scatter aces, TIE Phantoms win hands-down. Defenders have a 43.8% chance of locking down the scatter. Phantoms have a 68.4% chance. That's a large difference.

Just now, Snipafist said:

Against scatter aces, TIE Phantoms win hands-down. Defenders have a 43.8% chance of locking down the scatter. Phantoms have a 68.4% chance. That's a large difference.

Whats the point of locking down a scatter if it follows with 1 or 0 damage?? he will simply save it. With the defender you are forcing at least a spend or a burn.

You can troll with them. In the squadron phase move close to the enemy and taunt. It doesnt achieve anything mind.

I run them with Avenger. They can play the squadron game until Avenger is staring down a barrel at your big ship, when suddenly I have 4 bombers guarenteed to be unengaged ready to soften those shields.

They are the opposite of investing points in Dengar and Escorts.

What do you want:

Dengar, Tempest, Black, Mauler and 4 Tie Bombers for 92 pts

Or

Jonus, Gamma, Saber and 4 Tie Phantoms for 94pts?

1 hour ago, Snipafist said:

The problem with the comparison is the example squadrons you gave are all awful against ships but great against squadrons. They're going to absolutely outclass Phantoms against squadrons without a doubt. TIE Phantoms only really stack up there when you consider you're spending points towards multi-role usage, which is a rarity amongst Imperial squadrons. Whether or not they're worth it is a matter of opinion past that, but they're really tough to compare to other Imperial squadrons besides for perhaps TIE Defenders or TIE Advanced, which also dabble in being multi-role non-Rogue squadrons.

I'll have to force myself to put them on the table like I did with E-Wings. I only own 1 Imp II pack so I guess 2 will have to do.