I love the Idea of the Tie phantom a Glass Cannon that can cloak to make them harder to hit. I think in X-wing they got it right... roll lots of offensive side not much hull but if you cloak you get to roll more defense dice making them harder to hit.

But in Armada it seems they missed the mark to me. You till roll 4 dice ya that seems about right.. does not really have a a ton of hull 4 is middle of the road, 4 speed so that is about right. So what about the cloak ability? at the end of the squadron phase you can move up to distance 1 which depending on what is going on in the battle MIGHT get you disengaged. That really does not seem worth the cost of the ship to me. Why take them when you can take Dengar or a JumpMaster give everything in the area intel and just move all your fighters. It also does not really follow the lines that the fighter is cloaked making it harder to see to harder to hit.

What I think would have been better to kind of follow the theme that a cloaked ship is harder to hit would have been.

"Cloak - If you have are activated reduce the damage taken by 1" This way if the ship has not activated... is it is still cloaked making it harder to hit but once it has fired it is uncloaked making it easier to hit. Even if they would have reduced the anti ship die to 1 I think it would have make it a squadron I would be willing to take... but as of right now I do not know if I would ever take them.

which sucks because I love them.

A similar rule as ciena ree would have worked nicely as well. Still need to see if Sloane makes the phantom better, otherwise still overpriced and meh..

It would of made phantoms almost impossible for ships to kill if they were obstructed or took 1 less damage.

I dunno about thematic but a nice benefit of the phantom's special rule is it can keep up with slow ships even without squadron activations, it can keep blipping 1 and bombing

7 minutes ago, Jukey said:

A similar rule as ciena ree would have worked nicely as well. Still need to see if Sloane makes the phantom better, otherwise still overpriced and meh..

While you are defending, if you have activated/not activated (one or the other), the attack is treated as obstructed.

For one point more than an X-Wing, you get:

The same attack dice - this is a neutral

+1 Speed - This is a Boon.
-1 Hull - This is a Bane.

+1 Red Dice instead of Bomber. - This is a Neutral in effect . If your aim is to do something , its not bad, and of course, you can't discard the possibility of doing a LOT as well, as rare as it is...

This means that, overall, boons and bains included... You are spending....

1 point for Cloak.

The cloak ability is good for a point, especially when it can mean the difference between bombers getitng away or having to engage you, or breaking from engagements and making someone go after you rather than taking free shots...

Its just more than anything, the Imperials are kind of spoiled by their normal synergies of squadrons, and the Phantom lacks those. Being, undeniably, a flexible jack-of-all trades in comparison.

Especially when a lot of people seem to think that Escort is actually a negative for X-Wings and Aces in particular.

TIE Phantoms are tricky to use well and the 4 hull is tough to play around. I've found they like having TIE Advanced buddies around and they particularly like fighting near the station to abuse Cloak for free healing. Cloak also gives them slightly better than speed 5 for total threat range, which is pretty respectable. In short, I sympathize with folks who look at them and aren't really sure about the whole everything, but on the table they've done all right for me. Nothing amazing but better than I expected.

Side note: Whisper is amazing. She's not cheap, but she's very difficult to kill. Super annoying to deal with and gets a lot of free moves. I assume we're talking about the generic Phantom, though.

All that said, if Cloak gave them permanent or conditional obstruction instead of its current effect I think it would be more thematically appropriate. The problem there is I think it would create more problems than it would solve:

• How do you balance for obstruction across numerous generics? Against lower-attack-dice squadrons like Y-Wings or A-Wings it's crazy good. Less so against X-Wings. Against ships counting on flak it's very strong.
• How do you internally balance Imperial squadrons with one of them having an ability like that? Would Phantoms be taking jobs away from other Imperial squadrons they just outcompeted due to a very good special rule?
  • This is a particularly strong question given the Phantom's ability to go after ships and squadrons reasonably well (although very swingy individually against ships, of course)
• How do you balance for that with Whisper, who would be even crazier with some kind of obstruction?

Never broke it down like that before, thanks dras. I still believe I will find a spot for phantoms in my playstyle. Just hard to risk 14 points on something that can die in one attack. I think a perfect 'fix' for them would be to move the cloak ability to after activating though.

30 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

For one point more than an X-Wing, you get:

The same attack dice - this is a neutral

+1 Speed - This is a Boon.
-1 Hull - This is a Bane.

+1 Red Dice instead of Bomber. - This is a Neutral in effect . If your aim is to do something , its not bad, and of course, you can't discard the possibility of doing a LOT as well, as rare as it is...

This means that, overall, boons and bains included... You are spending....

1 point for Cloak.

The cloak ability is good for a point, especially when it can mean the difference between bombers getitng away or having to engage you, or breaking from engagements and making someone go after you rather than taking free shots...

Its just more than anything, the Imperials are kind of spoiled by their normal synergies of squadrons, and the Phantom lacks those. Being, undeniably, a flexible jack-of-all trades in comparison.

Especially when a lot of people seem to think that Escort is actually a negative for X-Wings and Aces in particular.

But the X-wing is a mediocre squadron to begin with. Only synergies introduced later makes it worth the points.

2 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

But the X-wing is a mediocre squadron to begin with. Only synergies introduced later makes it worth the points.

I wouldn't say its Mediocre, its a solid "do most things, but none of them really well" baseline. When viewed at by itself.

But to each their own.

I still have nightmares of @LegionOfBOOM 's PhantomSwarm...

The problem with your comparison Dras is that you aren't counting escort, which is bloody useful and worth at least 1 point (black squadron)

Just now, Dr alex said:

The problem with your comparison Dras is that your u aren't cunting escort, which is bloody useful and worth at least 1 point (black squadron)

But I did count escort.

I counted it as a negative, as a lot of people do (and even said that).

I consider Black Squadron an overvalue based on the fact it not only has Escort, it also has counter . In the fact that Counter 1 might be worth one point, but on a ship with Escort, its worth 2-3 points sort of deal... Then give it a discount for making it Unique, because uniqueness seems to do that, too... It'd cost more if you could take multiples.

Proofread @Dr alex

10 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

But I did count escort.

I counted it as a negative, as a lot of people do (and even said that).

I consider Black Squadron an overvalue based on the fact it not only has Escort, it also has counter . In the fact that Counter 1 might be worth one point, but on a ship with Escort, its worth 2-3 points sort of deal... Then give it a discount for making it Unique, because uniqueness seems to do that, too... It'd cost more if you could take multiples.

Escort is a bonus. You take squadrons because you want to use their escort ability, knowing that yes, there is also a downside. But at least you control what dies first. And especially on the rebel side it's become hugely useful.

Counter 1 and no swarm on a 3 hull escort likely to get one-shited? Not worth a lot.

Just now, Green Knight said:

Escort is a bonus. You take squadrons because you want to use their escort ability, knowing that yes, there is also a downside. But at least you control what dies first. And especially on the rebel side it's become hugely useful.

Counter 1 and no swarm on a 3 hull escort likely to get one-shited? Not worth a lot.

Worth a sizeable percentage of a squadron only worth 8 in the first place.

11 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

But I did count escort.

I counted it as a negative, as a lot of people do (and even said that).

I consider Black Squadron an overvalue based on the fact it not only has Escort, it also has counter . In the fact that Counter 1 might be worth one point, but on a ship with Escort, its worth 2-3 points sort of deal... Then give it a discount for making it Unique, because uniqueness seems to do that, too... It'd cost more if you could take multiples.

it's so weird that people count escort as a neg. on Aces then yes, it's bad, but on gen fighters? it's amazing. it keeps your better fighters alive(Z-95's w/blout). While i agree that the Xwing isn't an end all people shouldn't look at it as such, it's an escort fighter where its job IS to protect other fighters and keep them alive. it's far more comparable to a advanced than the phantom.

The Phantom's best direct comparison is to the Defender (Being both close in points, in-faction and generic), and you find more often than not, when you make that comparison, the Phantom loses.

But to be fair, when you make any comparison to a Defender, the Not-Defender Loses.

Simple as that.

9 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

I counted it as a negative, as a lot of people do (and even said that).

That is curious. If you don't want him shooting your X wings, he probably does so the lack of escort wouldn't change anything.

I agree about aces but that happens just because there are other escorts than doesn't protect what you want protect.

But with generics? Would that people take yt1300 to protect X wings? That's the only reason I can imagine.

3 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

The Phantom's best direct comparison is to the Defender (Being both close in points, in-faction and generic), and you find more often than not, when you make that comparison, the Phantom loses.

But to be fair, when you make any comparison to a Defender, the Not-Defender Loses.

Simple as that.

are swarms of defenders really worth anything? They seem a bit over cost to be effective in more than 1 or 2. I've grown to love steele though.

2 minutes ago, dominosfleet said:

are swarms of defenders really worth anything? They seem a bit over cost to be effective in more than 1 or 2. I've grown to love steele though.

The (average) Killing Power and Staying Power of two TIE Fighters, in a Faster, Single-Activation Package!

Even more survivable against Ship-Based Firepower, too!

I realize that with my idea of Cloak it will make them harder to kill.

But I think a couple of things are being missed...

1. they would only gain the ability if they have not activated... so if they are activated and a ship fires at them they will have full damage. This means that if you activate them to early they will get blown up. meaning if you take a ton of them they are going to die quickly this would keep the number of them on the table to a couple at a time most likely.

2. I also realize that with the red dice that would make them too deadly which is why I said a red dice should have been removed.. 1 red dice with no bomber is the lowest chance of getting a hit. Heck they could have even put on the text that the double hit only counts as 1.

3. They might have even had to reduce the hull value to 3 with my idea of the cloak ability... but I think would the reduction of the red dice that would have make it worth the points.

I think that this is also opening up an idea of for a cool upgrade. Have like a squadron targeting team, that your damage or dice value when attacking a squadron can't be reduced. So if somebody parks a squadron behind a ship or behind a debris field waiting to jump at you hoping to reduce your dice and you have that equipped well too bad they are still going to get shot.

Again just spit balling ideas.

How to make phantoms better.

Make cloak work work at the beginning of the squadron phase.

Just now, TallGiraffe said:

How to make phantoms better.

Make cloak work work at the beginning of the squadron phase.

ugh, that would be amazing.

Amazing, yes. That would be absolutely broken.

So not without a points increase there...

I mean, people here are already commenting on how much good it would be to be obstructed... Being immune by virtue of never being in range to any non-ship-commanded-or-rogue attack is glorious .

24 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

The (average) Killing Power and Staying Power of two TIE Fighters, in a Faster, Single-Activation Package!

Even more survivable against Ship-Based Firepower, too!

i can see the durability vs ships, which is obvious, though two ties are going to blow a single defender out of the water. it's faster and that's cool, but idk that the difference between 4 and 5 is THAT important, even with alpha taken into account. a single defender vs squads has an avg damage of 2.0, a tie should have 1.5. I can understand your point of 1 activation but that isn't THAT important either if you're flying something like an ISD or a quaser. add to it that with a quaser you're only getting 1 bonus die from flight controllers whereas 2 ties end up with 2 dice. mehhhh.

2 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Amazing, yes. That would be absolutely broken.

So not without a points increase there...

I mean, people here are already commenting on how much good it would be to be obstructed... Being immune by virtue of never being in range to any non-ship-commanded-or-rogue attack is glorious .

bring on the glory!!!