I've been brainstorming a scenario to play with a group of friends. Inspired by Hotac from X-wing, I'm going to be the GM playing Imperials. As of now I'm not going to use commanders. I want more skill involved game play along with adding a role playing aspect. I want to buff the Phantoms just a little bit for some fun. I'm thinking of adding a way to reroll dice and make cloak better. Any thoughts on what could make them better?

take away their weird move(keep it on whisper as her buff), give them always active obstruction the same as Ciena Ree. Boom, suddenly a viable squadron.

1 hour ago, dominosfleet said:

take away their weird move(keep it on whisper as her buff), give them always active obstruction the same as Ciena Ree. Boom, suddenly a viable squadron.

Viable to some.

Completely OP to others.

Given the variance inherent in their battery armament... you'd have to be very careful with any buffs. Honestly, I'd say the Tie Phantom averages out to "fine." But it has a lot of variance, and it doesn't spike high enough or often enough that players shy away from it (As they generally do with random effects when the risk vs reward doesn't seem attractive). You might be able to drop them down a point, but I'd be hesitant to do anything more. The other possibility would be a redesign with a more modest but reliable battery armament, like a single black dice while dropping a point or two.

Put extra rocks on the board. Maybe a second station.

Thanks for the imput. I like the idea of using combining Ciena Ree and Whisper abilities. Last week playing Sotac(scum of the Attari cluster), the GM had fun with cloaking ships by taking them off the board then place them back in another place. I thought about trying something similar, but place a token in place of the squadron to simulate it's last location and distance X (Half the squadron's speed?) from token is where it could be. Otherwise maybe a distance 1 move like it's written, but before and after squadron phase. I just want to add a few shenanigans and surprises for my players.

It could be a fun effect to just take the squadrons off the board and replace them by tokens. The players face 4 squadrons they fly toward them and disappear. Only to reappear seconds later, attack and are gone again.

Technically you could replace the phantoms at the end of Squadron Phase with tokens. A token can be activated, but not be attacked and doesn't count for engegement. They reappear when activated through Command or in Squadron Phase virtually after their movement or attack.

That's really OP! They can nearly only be attacked by rogue-squadrons during Squadron Phase. You would have to test this first, if your players are able to win against such a terrifying enemy.

But I would do this only one time! And then plan a role playing mission that your players can steal plans or technology with that they are able to detect the cloaked phantoms. After that return to the normal rules. Your players will be thankful they could tame these awful beasts!

5 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

Viable to some.

Completely OP to others.

well there is that problem of "way too many phantoms being used" right now. Geeze, i can't tell you how many times I've run into phantoms, I'm really just drowning in them. SO MANY PHANTOMS DRAS!!!!!!!

Seriously, it's existence is near non. maybe it'll make them op, but it's not like they have counter, it's strictly a defensive option for them. I think people freak out too much about red dice.

The Phantom as it is, is thematically wrong. This ship is supposed to be a devastating first strike thanks to the cloak.

Rather than move after the attack, how about- they cannot be targeted until they have made their first attack? This simulates their invulnerability until they have decloaked.

Maybe they could also be perma-obstructed as well to simulate benefits of cloak all round. May need a price increase as well tho.

In fact, given the super secret rarity of these fighters, should they not be one of the most expensive squadrons? And correspondingly powerful?

Personally I think Cloak should be along these lines.....

cloak: this sqn is equipped with a scatter token.

If you attack then scatter token is discarded.

If at the end of the sqn phase this sqn has not attacked it may recover one green scatter token

32 minutes ago, Triangular said:

It could be a fun effect to just take the squadrons off the board and replace them by tokens. The players face 4 squadrons they fly toward them and disappear. Only to reappear seconds later, attack and are gone again.

Technically you could replace the phantoms at the end of Squadron Phase with tokens. A token can be activated, but not be attacked and doesn't count for engegement. They reappear when activated through Command or in Squadron Phase virtually after their movement or attack.

That's really OP! They can nearly only be attacked by rogue-squadrons during Squadron Phase. You would have to test this first, if your players are able to win against such a terrifying enemy.

But I would do this only one time! And then plan a role playing mission that your players can steal plans or technology with that they are able to detect the cloaked phantoms. After that return to the normal rules. Your players will be thankful they could tame these awful beasts!

I've thought about doing something like this and giving a chance for the players to steal some. I have a 4 sided die I thought could add the affect of a self destruct when stolen like in the legends lore. I figured they would need to trade a squadron out to steal the Phantoms. I don't want to get overly excited and do too much in short time. My first stage may be to rescue a medical convoy trapped by an interdictor and through in these squadrons. Some how my players could get Intel about a testing facility hiding in a nebula. I've been jotting down ideas, hopefully I might get something put together for Friday night Armada.

53 minutes ago, dominosfleet said:

well there is that problem of "way too many phantoms being used" right now. Geeze, i can't tell you how many times I've run into phantoms, I'm really just drowning in them. SO MANY PHANTOMS DRAS!!!!!!!

Seriously, it's existence is near non. maybe it'll make them op, but it's not like they have counter, it's strictly a defensive option for them. I think people freak out too much about red dice.

Not that I'd agree with him... but I do think Phantoms were used to at least top8 effect recently with Sloane.

Also, one could caution you about making anything too overpowered, especially a generic. Frankly, I've thought about a small buff to the Phantom, but the way its been designed (which was really bad in Armada) makes it difficult.

As much as I love Phantoms... there are more pressing things in Armada that I think are both easier to fix and more important. Namely the power of activation and boosting under-used or single niche ships.

I'd have liked Tie phantoms better if cloak triggered at the end of their activation rather than squadron phase.

The theme of this thread isn't to fix Phantoms for Armada in general but for a casual cross-over campaign. Here you can be quite creative. Point cost and balance aren't so important. For that purpose you should do something radical to surprise and entertain the players.

For "real" Armada I got tired about all the complaints and tries to fix the game. Play it as you please -- unless you want to play in tournaments! Than you shouldn't change anything at all. Don't complain -- try harder!

Does it really need a buff? I had great success with mine when I used them. Push them with Flight controllers for a 5 blue attack on squads, use cloak to disengage or engage as needed. Shenanigans with jamming barriers can also be used. Frankly, in mass they're also not terrible against ships, especially with rhymer in play, they can jump back out of black range after assaulting a ship using cloak.

I used a set of 4 as a RLB on my boarding troop Avenger, they were peaky, sometimes only doing 2 damage for all 4, but other times they hit with maximum firepower. (One game I had them do 12 damage before BTA even rolled it's first attack).

They're not the perfect squadron, but I don't really think they need buffing. They're pretty good.

They do need a buff. They simply do not survive in any ship or squad combat for their points, compared to all other squads.

Sloane helped them but they are still severely overcosted. I don't think they will simply rewrite Cloak so we can only hope for a card that will boost them, as they do for ships (VSD). Maybe a officer that gives all squads with Cloak within range 5 Bomber? I'd use them then, mostly because BCC.

You could just give them two more hull.

I like the idea with the scatter token. To simplify it: as long as this squadron is not activated it is obstructed.

Either against attacks only or generally. The latter allows them to fly out of distance one after an alpha strike. Might be too powerful.

6 hours ago, slasher956 said:

Personally I think Cloak should be along these lines.....

cloak: this sqn is equipped with a scatter token.

If you attack then scatter token is discarded.

If at the end of the sqn phase this sqn has not attacked it may recover one green scatter token

This is probably the BEST version of cloak possible given the constraints of the game I have seen.

how about forgeting about cloak and looking at their stats, in X-wing they have more hull and attack dice than Interceptors, so why in Armada do they only roll 4 Blue Anti-squadron. If you increased it to 5 it may tempt ppl to use them. I would still use the cheaper squints because of the swarm and speed but who knows some ppl might like em.

Another option that can be thematic could be to remove the cloak abbility from them and replace it with the possibility to deploy them during the battle at distance 1 of a friendly ship or whatever you see fit. So they are "invisible" and can only be seen by the enemy when they decloak to attack them

On 3/6/2018 at 8:57 PM, EagleScoutof007 said:

I've been brainstorming a scenario to play with a group of friends. Inspired by Hotac from X-wing, I'm going to be the GM playing Imperials. As of now I'm not going to use commanders. I want more skill involved game play along with adding a role playing aspect. I want to buff the Phantoms just a little bit for some fun. I'm thinking of adding a way to reroll dice and make cloak better. Any thoughts on what could make them better?

On topic, I like the scatter token.

Slightly off topic, I would love to see the particulars of the overall scenario.

48 minutes ago, cynanbloodbane said:

On topic, I like the scatter token.

Slightly off topic, I would love to see the particulars of the overall scenario.

I have a basic idea of starting with an interdictor trapping a rebel medical convoy(Redemption with a couple of transports and a few squadrons) that strayed too close to a secret base in a nebula (thinking of using Nebula Outskirts object). The base is a research and testing facility with the nebula as the testing grounds. Rebel players start with a small ship each and some squadrons. I plan to have this scenario in stages and reset the board for each one as they are completed. I'm still working out the details, but that's what I got at the moment. I'll probably start another thread on this. :-)

The only appropriate way to make Phantoms better is to put them into the trash can where they belong because they are a trash squadron based on a trash starfighter from a trash game.

I am just thankful that in Armada at least, players realize that TIE Defenders are the true good starfighter.

23 minutes ago, BiggsIRL said:

The only appropriate way to make Phantoms better is to put them into the trash can where they belong because they are a trash squadron based on a trash starfighter from a trash game.

I am just thankful that in Armada at least, players realize that TIE Defenders are the true good starfighter.

Forget the game, what I just read was the real rebel assault.