So, I've normally flown Rebel's, often not well, but the recent article about Whisper peaked my interest.

How do you fly her? She seems so fragile now without Advanced Cloaking. What are your strategies and tactics with her? Opening setup? Opening maneuvers?

Carefully. Flank with her, don't joust. Don't rush into bad positions to engage too soon. She's a great wingperson. I like to use her to finish off whatever the rest of my squad has softened up.

2.0 phantoms are X-Wings with comm relay and a pre-move reposition. Think of them as a baby defender that can move sideways instead of 4k.

Think of that decloak evade as the most precious and delicate thing you can hold onto. Cherish it. Protect it. Don't let go of it. It's the ever beating heart you need to juke your opponents out of their shoes and maintain that beautiful token stack very few 2.0 pilots can acquire.

If you have ever advanced sensor barrel roll or boost you can basically sort out whisper.

But its more fun then even that since you have to do it in the system phase which leads to thinking and blocking and other interesting things to think about.

Below is an example of what it can do. Not necessarily how it should do, but what it can do.

Lots of 1-2 bank moves, or hard 1 turns.

2.0 Whisper has the luxury of replacing all those 2 banks with 1 banks which makes it considerably easier to stay in one spot and shoot stuff.

Also she is not fragile thanks to the ship ability basically being comm relay.

If anything she feels more durable in some situations that would have scared her more in 1.0.

Early on if your struggling to figure out how to use it and move without getting into bad spots put Advanced Sensors on her for fewer consequences.

They are no longer ships that invulnerable to sub PS9 and doomed against PS10+ (although Krennic did fix that in 1st edition). Now, they are fancy x-wings and thus costed appropriately and most be flown accordingly.

Even if you fly it naked or with just juke (which is itself a viable option), the built-in stygium accelerator and the end-phase cloaking even when stressed make it a little tankier than an x-wing. However, unlike an x-wing, you can pop the "candy-cane", which is the decloak one way and hard 1 the other, allowing you to outmaneuver merely by nature of the chassis (just as Chumbalaya has appropriately stated). You can throw on stealth device and a force crew to add extra survivability and aggression, but you are drastically increasing the cost of an already good chassis. Similarly, the system slot is to be used only if it is crucial to the list. And always throw on Juke, as with fewer mods in 2nd edition, on high-initiative ships it has roughly the same defense-reduction as outmaneuver (aside from firing at Luke).

3 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Early on if your struggling to figure out how to use it and move without getting into bad spots put Advanced Sensors on her for fewer consequences.

Or for a few points less can do Collision Detector and just be Dash 2x a game.

I never flew 1.0 Phantoms. I am not in any way a Phantom expert, but maybe no one is.

I didn't really fly them fancily or especially carefully. I just decloaked in directions that made it hard for the opposing ship to get guns on them.

I did find that I was pretty happy to take a damage instead of giving up my Evade in a lot of situations. The cloaking and subsequent efficiency and maneuverability bonuses were too good to give up for just a damage on a 5 hp ship.

It's gonna take people a few times being killed by a k-turning phantom before the learn the new ship isn't the old ship.

3 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

I never flew 1.0 Phantoms. I am not in any way a Phantom expert, but maybe no one is.

I didn't really fly them fancily or especially carefully. I just decloaked in directions that made it hard for the opposing ship to get guns on them.

 I did find that I was pretty happy to take a damage instead of giving up my Evade in a lot of situations. The cloaking and subsequent efficiency and maneuverability bonuses were too good to give up for just a damage on a 5 hp ship.

This is important. Phantoms aren't hard. There just a tiny bit unique compared to other things.

And there cheap now! So no reason to be overly cautious unless your trying to keep Sloane alive or something.

2 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

I did find that I was pretty happy to take a damage instead of giving up my Evade in a lot of situations. The cloaking and subsequent efficiency and maneuverability bonuses were too good to give up for just a damage on a 5 hp ship.

And there is the secret to Whisper. You end a round without an evade and you just gave up 1-2 rounds worth of efficiency. Sometimes eating that damage is just a better choice than burning your second evade. Once you stop the economy engine it's very hard to get it moving again. Also - really try to avoid K-turns and definitely don't hit debris.

6 minutes ago, viedit said:

And there is the secret to Whisper. You end a round without an evade and you just gave up 1-2 rounds worth of efficiency. Sometimes eating that damage is just a better choice than burning your second evade. Once you stop the economy engine it's very hard to get it moving again. Also - really try to avoid K-turns and definitely don't hit debris.

That one time that you shoot from behind a rock thinking your all smart and stuff and can just decloak next turn but then have to spend the evade not to die and dont land a hit for the next evade. Sad reacts only.

So, if I’m understanding right, keeping the evade isn’t really for the benefit of being cloaked and having two extra dice but more of being able to decloak, reposition, and get the evade then take an action (focus), get a hit resulting in a second evade?

4 minutes ago, drail14me said:

So, if I’m understanding right, keeping the evade isn’t really for the benefit of being cloaked and having two extra dice but more of being able to decloak, reposition, and get the evade then take an action (focus), get a hit resulting in a second evade?

I think so. You need to keep that train rolling.

7 minutes ago, drail14me said:

So, if I’m understanding right, keeping the evade isn’t really for the benefit of being cloaked and having two extra dice but more of being able to decloak, reposition, and get the evade then take an action (focus), get a hit resulting in a second evade?

Right and in whispers case if your running Juke/Vader Crew you can save your focus action or force charge for defense and still have some great flexibility on offense to end up with a 2nd evade.

Or just spend the force charge to burn one of your opponents tokens and then definitely get some mileage out of Juke.

Its a crazy amount of options for just 70 pts!

9 minutes ago, drail14me said:

So, if I’m understanding right, keeping the evade isn’t really for the benefit of being cloaked and having two extra dice but more of being able to decloak, reposition, and get the evade then take an action (focus), get a hit resulting in a second evade?

Bingo. That end of round evade is what lets you perpetually do "Just Phantom Things". Whisper makes it much easier to achieve since her ability can gain you a second one which is incredibly hard(impossible?) to do with the others. If you aren't starting a round cloaked you can't abuse the decloak ability.

Whisper is great because of her ability, but don't count out Echo or the Sigma Sq. Ace (both Initiative 4). Echo's crazy curved decloak can get you places Whisper can't, which depending on your play style might be more useful.

I always chuckle when people think whisper became fragile because she doesn't get Advanced Cloaking

1.) Ps 10+ meta made it a complete non-factor

2.) Green dice

Whisper is far better now (Stygium is just the ******* best) and FAR cheaper. Don't worry about her being squishy, use obstacles and your sideways decloak to deter enemy pursuers. 1v1, your free evade(s) and juke will trade well with just about anything (just not Palob...)

In fact, ALL phantoms are far better and cheaper

Oh, and I need to stress this:

YOU DONT HAVE TO STUFF HER WITH UPGRADES TO MAKE HER A CONSIDERABLE THREAT

You seriously don't need a **** thing more than Juke (for a piddly 56 point total). Everything else is a luxury

Vader's a **** good luxury, but still just luxury

Put Sloane on whisper. Bring 6 tie fighter escorts. When the dust and stress settles, let whisper clean up.

My rule of thumb for flying Whisper is that I better have a darn good reason for going into the rocks to engage. And if that reason is good enough, you need to plan your exit strategy before going in. Use the decloak and 1 maneuvers (thank goodness for the 1 bank!!!) to keep distance and "fly sideways".

I flew a triple Phantom list back in 1.0 before the decloak change and I'm looking forward to bringing it back in 2.0. My list consists of Whisper and 2 Sigmas, all with Juke. This leaves me enough points for Darth Vader, The Grand Inquisitor and The Seventh Sister as crew for the three ships. I don't know if it'll be good but it should be fun to find out.

10 hours ago, drail14me said:

So, I've normally flown Rebel's, often not well, but the recent article about Whisper peaked my interest.

How do you fly her? She seems so fragile now without Advanced Cloaking. What are your strategies and tactics with her? Opening setup? Opening maneuvers?

The tricky thing about her is knowing when to go fast and when to slow-roll.
They don't have a 1 straight so in 1.0 it was usually best to place her starting on her side to take advantage of the 1 hard turn and go slow in the opening move (like other Imp aces too) to plan your flanking approach according to your opponents opening.
Decloack and reposition every turn even if you are still far from engaging range. It confuses your opponent (and you probably in the beginning) and forces them to brake formation sometimes.
Make sure you understand how far to the side takes you decloack and advanced sensors barrel roll to the same direction!
Opposite to 1.0, decloack straight and U-turn 4 is a good option now since her recloacking ability is not an action any more (you still need to get her hit thought).
I preferred to fly Phantoms with Advanced sensor in 1.0 and will still do in 2.0 in most cases. It allows her to do the AS barrel roll 1 hard turn to flank when you are in close range.
Like other said DO NOT use her to joust, even in 1.0 that evade was adding a dice it was pretty hard to keep her alive if you got fire from more than 1 ship; and almost certainly dead if she got focused fired from 3 or more.
Practice...
Practice...
Practice...

9 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

Oh, and I need to stress this:

YOU DONT HAVE TO STUFF HER WITH UPGRADES TO MAKE HER A CONSIDERABLE THREAT

You seriously don't need a **** thing more than Juke (for a piddly 56 point total). Everything else is a luxury

Vader's a **** good luxury, but still just luxury

I think this a good rule of thumb for 2.0 in general, but totally agree when it comes to the phantom.

Juke is pretty hard to beat in the talent slot, but Vader crew on the other hand doesn't always fit in your list. What are people's other favourite crew combos so far?

Vader is obviously great, I really like the look of Kallus with Whisper, or 0-0-0 if Vader is somewhere else. Informant on Echo seems good for the points too. What have others tried to date?

I would still fly her with Krennic crew, Lock action on the phantom is valuable.

I still like Kallus. Sure, there are more ships around, but there are still some quite obvious choices for Kallus.