With Krennic fully spoiled, it's clear that he'll be seeing competitive play in some regard. What remains to be seen is what his best place in a squad is. I believe that the TIE Phantom is his natural home, for a number of reasons:

1. Whisper wins in the endgame against Miranda, especially with Optimised Prototype on board.
2. Whisper can solo Kanan/Fenn, given her extreme maneuverability and, again, Krennic's reliable dice.
3. At 5 hull, she can now withstand two sabine+Nym powered bombs, removing her greatest weakness.
4. She can easily reach 46 points (Sensor Jammer in the system slot) for end-game pointfortressing, even though she'll probably destroy lists entirely rather than go to time.
5. The nature of the Phantom makes it very difficult to alpha-strike, especially with clever asteroid placement.
6. Her cost matches well with non-RAC Decimators.
7. At PS 9, she equals numerous Imperial and Rebel staples such as Poe, Quickdraw, Kylo and so forth, giving her a very good chance of arc-dodging her way to victory.
8. While variance-prone, she has excellent resiliency against TLTs well into the endgame.

All this together makes me believe its time to blow the dust of my lovingly painted Phantom and try her out again in the following list:

Captain Oicunn (53)
Palpatine
Kylo
Adaptability (potentially draw their fire?)

Whisper (46)
Krennnic
Sensor Jammer
Advanced Cloaking Device
Veteran Instincts

Totalling 99 (100 with DTF) points.

At 99 points, there's a bid against typically maxed out lists with PS 9s (Nu + QD, Kylo + RAC, Poe + Dash etc) in order to give Whisper the activation order she needs. Oicunn is an ace-killer, and his sole goal before he dies is to reduce every other ship to below PS 9 using Kylo. his ability has great utility against ships like QD, who can be gamed to have no shot at all while losing that crucial shield, and is also effective against Ghost/Fenn (bump Fenn, shoot ghost or bump ghost shoot Fenn) which is made significantly easier with adaptability down to PS 3 and the initiative bid.

Whisper is where the list shines. If Whisper takes an Evade action and has Palp available, she's practically immune to damage, while dishing out 4-die blasts each turn. Now, the crucial difference between what I'll call Krisper and your standard Buzzsaw Whisper is twofold:

1: One extra shield, which on an AGI 4 ship is extraordinarily valuable. It's pobably equivalent to 4-6 shields on an AGI-0 ship.
2: The TL granted by Optimised Prototype frees the system slot for much more effective upgrades.

Sensor Jammer is unbelievably effective against both Harpoons (non-deadeye, at least) and TLTs, which are the Phantom's two main threats. Combine this with Krennic's ability to strip shields with blank results and you get a Whisper that can almost always reserve her evade+focus for defence. While she's a few points more expensive than the gunner+fcs build of yore, she's much more effective in this high shield, low agility meta.

So what do you think? Has the Phantom been given a subtle-yet-powerful boost, or is Whisper still relegated to the bottom half of tournaments?

I think you may be overestimating the reliability of 4 agility with no Autithrusters vs multiple TLT shots. I agree that Krennic is good for Phatoms, but I am not sure it's enough.

We were just having this discussion last night in our local group and as somebody put it, vs. PS9 and above Whisper is only a 2 Agility ship. VI Nym/Quickdraw with Harpoon and Proton Bombs are two things that own Whisper and are already in the meta.

Phantoms are the past. They're not coming back any time soon.

As stated, Krennic will not do much to 'bring the Phantom back', since it gets chewed up by anything higher than PS9 (of which there are plenty) and bombs (of which there are plenty), doubly so with Sabine still left untouched. One extra shield and no additional defences is not going to bring Whisper surging back.

Vader is a much better platform to boost with Krennic.

Vader/VI/X1/ATC/Engine

RAC/VI/Kylo/RebCap/Krennic/Dauntless/Engine

99 pts

Whisper will not be a thing as long as there are still a lot of ps9/ps10/ps11 aces

1. Whisper still needs arc on miranda. One round where she doesn't have arc, she could lose 2HP easily, while not punishing miranda.
2. I'd give whisper about 3 rounds against Fenn/lothal. Maybe against kanan, but lothal has been the stable the last two to three months.
Fenn takes any focus you want to make, and the lothal shoots 3x4 dice with rerolls and ezra...
3. At TWO hull and 3 shields, she can still only take 2 proton bombs (which is pretty normal on nym). and with her relatively low PS, the burden lies on her to move out of the 2 punch KO. With this she most of the time either loses arc, or risk a 33 % of being one shot.
4. She is a fortress, but with no auto-thrusters, she has a hard time surviving.
5. Agreed, but alpha-strikes aren't THAT popular anymore. Not the big ones either way. Any high PS alphastrike will crap on Whisper.
6. This is not a positive point. The kylo-RAC combo is what could potentially let your phantom live for more than 2 turns.
With lower PS you have to rely on luck on either the phantom's dice or your own reds.
7. At PS 9 she was in a solid spot, 2 YEARS AGO! Now the stable ps is 9+.
8. You hit the nail. Its variance prone. You might have a game where you roll natties all day, and you have a ball. But in those matchups where you face a ps 10/11 poe or QD or vader, or soon the X-wing aces with VI, you will find yourself heavily disfavoured.

The phantoms have enough firepower already. I cannot see why this should push it so many leagues over the edge, that it becomes competitive. The issue with the phantom is its lack of autothrusters, coupled with its high price and low PS.

But hey, I might be wrong. Give it a spin and tell us what you find out! :-)
I personally think this fits better on vader or in a defender list.

I agree that Phantoms are just not going to be optimal simply based on the fact that you are in such an uphill battle if your Phantom isn't shooting first, and that problem is compounded if you're only running two ships. You can mitigate that disadvantage somewhat but if Whisper is half your list it won't take long before your Decimator is on its own.

If you're determined to play a Phantom, I wouldn't do it in a 2-ship list. I'd consider something like Whisper/Vader/Countdown (or someone else). At setup, if Whisper shoots first, you can give her the condition and roll. If she doesn't, give it Vader or your other squad member based on the matchup. You don't have to place the condition until after initiative has been determined, so giving yourself the flexibility to put it on whoever can use it best is a pretty good advantage.

You might consider just putting it on Vader anyway since the condition will feed the Krennic'd Whisper target locks and Vader gets more from spending a blank and saving his lock. Optimized Prototype is solid for any ship, but it looks to me like it will be best on Vader and Strikers (particularly Countdown and Sabacc).

I feel like Prototype is going to be at its best given to Vader. It gives him the most compared to other good targets, and he needs the most compared to other good targets.

Which only feels appropriate given that they actually met each other.

4 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

I feel like Prototype is going to be at its best given to Vader. It gives him the most compared to other good targets, and he needs the most compared to other good targets.

Which only feels appropriate given that they actually met each other.

Vader and the Strikers, both of which are thematic for Krennic.

An extra shield is just one more painful round before she is eventually melted by a fat turret.

1 minute ago, viedit said:

An extra shield is just one more painful round before she is eventually melted by a fat turret.

One more round is plenty of time to make the difference between her killing said fat turret and not, though.

Just now, thespaceinvader said:

One more round is plenty of time to make the difference between her killing said fat turret and not, though.

Not when they've arc dodged her or mitigated damage down to negligible levels.

What about just a standard Sigma Sqd. Pilot with Krennic, LWF, and CD? That's 32 points for a 4/2.5/2/3 stat line at PS 3. Probably not meta warping, but if X-wings do become a thing, that ship will give them problems.

I've been thinking about generic phantoms with LWF for a while now. It's a solid ship with a solid statline and a crew slot.

The real trouble is that it's not getting any more than one mod per turn and it has to both attack and defend with that one mod (two if you get the lock from Krennic.

I'm just leaving here a Thweek... Just in case

5 hours ago, Astech said:

2. Whisper can solo Kanan/Fenn, given her extreme maneuverability and, again, Krennic's reliable dice.

what? do you only have evade sides on your green dice?

I think we're getting a bit too excited about a very decent crew option on a relic of former OP

Now, Miranda won't be a problem (fickle-tier dice excepted), you got the dice to punch through regen and de-cloak will let you avoid bombs if you know what you're doing, but everyone's already brought up the fact that PS 10/11 exists and will basically single-handedly ensure your pre-integrated X-wing bites the dust with all the pomp and circumstance of a drunk with his belt around his ankles

that and the amount of dice ghost/fenn throws out will still rip you apart AND fenn (PS 11) can shut down Advanced Cloaking with r3-a2.

I have been running 2 Sensor jammer PS 5 phantoms (Stygium version) for 2 months now, trying to find the right 32 point support ship. Palp is OK. Inquiitor is OK; and have tried a lot worse (everything from a third phantom to Tomax to a Punisher).

I have it now.

Krennic makes it even better.

For the first time in four years, I will fly Imperials in a tournament.

I think a lot of things like Whisper would have a chance if TLT was nerfed.

Sensor Jammer helps a lot in this case, but it's kinda a poor man's autothrusters.

Generics have a chance to be good with LWF and a shield upgrade from krennic. Essentially a 4/3/2/3 statline. Not too shabby.

Named Phantoms with ACD will never be THE meta again cause its just too easy to counter them if they become a problem.

I almost soloed my opponents VI quickdraw/VI vader/OL list on vassal last night with Krennic Whisper. Took out quickdraw and OL, but didn't fly well against vader and he eventually managed to kill me. Just needed 1 crit on him and it would've been over (he had ISYTDS with damaged cockpit on him)

20 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

what? do you only have evade sides on your green dice?

I think we're getting a bit too excited about a very decent crew option on a relic of former OP

Now, Miranda won't be a problem (fickle-tier dice excepted), you got the dice to punch through regen and de-cloak will let you avoid bombs if you know what you're doing, but everyone's already brought up the fact that PS 10/11 exists and will basically single-handedly ensure your pre-integrated X-wing bites the dust with all the pomp and circumstance of a drunk with his belt around his ankles

that and the amount of dice ghost/fenn throws out will still rip you apart AND fenn (PS 11) can shut down Advanced Cloaking with r3-a2.

Yeah. Or at least, I used to. My Vassal luck has taken a nosedive recently.

The PS 10-11 matchup is the main reason that I'm thinking of taking a Kylo+Palp deci. Oicunn can nearly guarantee the Damaged Cockpit/Blinded Pilot on QD, Poe, Nym and so on. Sure, the decimator takes a big hit, but you Phantom is now king of PS and is free to do what it does best.

While 4 TLT shots sounds impressive, the first volley does about 0.4 damage total. My win condition is to kill Fenn before Whisper takes damage, which is pretty easy. Whisper just needs 2 turns of palp-backed shots to do it, and if I bring in the Deci wingmate it could all be over on the first turn. If worst comes to worst and I trade Whisper for Fenn and a few damage on the Lothal, Oicunn is still in a good position to take the game, especially if he can swing a few rams.

On 5/1/2018 at 11:49 AM, SOTL said:

Phantoms are the past. They're not coming back any time soon.

Looking forward to their 2.0 Version, they actually might be back in August.