As an Imperial player who loves salad lists, I am looking with a watchful eye on what is to happen to our phantoms. Being super efficient beasts, they are ripe for a nerf. But before they get points'ed out of existence, hear my plea: Let the Empire be the OG house of swarm, but also give it a place for unique frames to shine.

The Empire's greatest strength lies in their ship abilities, behold the efficiencies of the Phantom's Stgyium Particle Array the Defender's Fulle Throttle, and Vader's fearsome ATC. Each of these ship abilities, and their respective pilots' skills can be formed to create a beautiful 4-5 ship list full of both utility and doom.

But, since we see the spamming of these delicate frames, the easiest nerf answer is to cost them so that they cannot be abused.

If we do that, then that also starts pricing them out of being a useful part of mixed lists.

So let's make it easy. Let's make it thematic. Palpatine brings his lessons learned w/ CIS: make Empire ships Limited.

You can only fly two Phantoms. Only one TIE/D, etc. Let the Imperial accountants have a breather (what Imperial Govenor sends 4 highly experimental Phantoms out on patrol?)... That way, you can keep all the base chassis cheaper, as a result, you can have more variety in list building. Empire is fun again. Whee! Do it.

No one disagrees that quad phantoms needs a nerf. And that would be one of the ways they could look at.

However, the underlying problem is that other Imp lists can't match the power level of Hyperspace legal Rebel beef etc.

Which is why people have to turn to extreme solutions. As nothing else is really viable.

Jeez! There’s nothing wrong with the Empire. Swarms are still awesome. Aces are still awesome. I count nine non-Phantom lists in the cut from UKSO, most of them (at first glance) Hyperspace legal.

If you’re struggling with your swarm go aces or just declare you’re going to base a list around your favourite list and make it work, everything is viable when flown well!

31 minutes ago, Estarriol said:

Jeez! There’s nothing wrong with the Empire. Swarms are still awesome. Aces are still awesome. I count nine non-Phantom lists in the cut from UKSO, most of them (at first glance) Hyperspace legal.

If you’re struggling with your swarm go aces or just declare you’re going to base a list around your favourite list and make it work, everything is viable when flown well!

I am aware. The 6-0 non meta one was mine. So i do speak from a level of understanding of precisely what the power level is. And the Rebel power level is too high.

6 minutes ago, Darth Seridur said:

I am aware. The 6-0 non meta one was mine. So i do speak from a level of understanding of precisely what the power level is. And the Rebel power level is too high.

A lot of us expect to see Leia go back up in price, which will reduce the Rebel manoeuvrability or reduce their power.

Meanwhile, in Hyperspace, 6 TIE Fighters or 4 plus Vader, or Vader Maarek and Vermeil are already good, competitive lists that can win Trials.

Scum are in a much worse position, relying on multiple Fang Fighters, Republic is being worked on but 2 aethersprites plus 2 Torrents has won a Trial, whilst Separatists pretty much only have 8 Vultures.

So, Empire is currently 2nd for quantity of competitive Hyperspace lists.

Btw. Why is quad phantom so strong?

Also whats the opening play? 4 in the center, decloak to one side?

Seen other Scum lists do well in the Uk. Mining swarm. Boba,Fenn/Teroch, Escape. Fenn tercoh lando. The options are there.

Dooku Maul finished 2nd in a 70-80player US HSTrial. Only losing to Duncan Howard in the final. Also, the other Separatist build of 5/6 + maul/wat is excellent.

Finally, Resistance are killing HS.

Happy to agree to disagree on our differing assessments of Hyperspace. 😇

48 minutes ago, Darth Seridur said:

I am aware. The 6-0 non meta one was mine. So i do speak from a level of understanding of precisely what the power level is. And the Rebel power level is too high.

With all due respect, if it was that high how did you go 6-0? Presumably you faced 4 ship rebels at some point in your journey?

edit, there are two 6-0 non Phantom imperial lists in the UKSO standings, and only 2 rebel lists, only one of which is ‘beef’.

I agree that leia is a little undercosted, but I don’t think that rebels are the worst thing out there, and I don’t think that the data supports the assumption that the empire is too weak. Seems to me like all the factions have been getting good time at the top, which suggests reasonable balence.

Rebel beef made 12/62 of the cut. Higher even that quad+triple Phantoms. Check the HST results and they routinely make a big % of cut.

The burden of execution is all on the opponent whenever we see Rebel Card Combo fortresses do well. Which means you have to significantly outplay your opponent to win as their base level is so high.

This is just a repeat of what we saw towards the end of 1.0 with the Miranda Lowhrick Ezra lists or 4 ship rebels.

9-12 is a nothing distinction. Empire 20/62, rebel 17/62 if you include all the lists.

might've miscounted. Looks pretty balenced unless you play other factions, no?

2 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

Btw. Why is quad phantom so strong?

Also whats the opening play? 4 in the center, decloak to one side?

4 i4 double token pseudo double mod pseudo double repositioning 3 die attackers isn't enough?

2 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

Btw. Why is quad phantom so strong?

Also whats the opening play? 4 in the center, decloak to one side?

It's 4 I4, very manoeuvrable ships, 3 of which have Juke, which means they will strip your Focus tokens and push damage through very efficiently. They are extremely unpredictable and remarkably tanky with a Focus and Evade token each. The weakness of a single Phantom is that it usually doesn't want to spend its free Evade token because it wants to cloak at the end of the turn. With 4 you can spend your Evades a bit more freely because you can disengage with an uncloaked Phantom while the others keep the pressure up. It's a very strong list, but it does require a lot of good decision making to make it work as well as it can. If you make a mistake or two your 5 total health can disappear very quickly. Most lists I've seen will start in the opposite corner if they have the Initiative advantage, or in the middle if they have to deploy first, but it really doesn't matter too much. With all the hard turns available and the ability to decloak forward in order to run and reposition against someone who sets up for a favourable joust, you can easily adjust for a bad set-up.

4 Phantoms is probably a little bit too good. Unfortunately I think the best solution would have been to limit them to 2-3 of the I4s per list, but that ship has sailed. I think an adjustment to the Sigma's points cost is the most likely and best change. I don't think Juke should go up again as it seems about right on the other ships that currently take it but I have no problem with an advanced, experimental ship not being something you can spam.