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Hey guys,

I just thought I would report on a battle I played last night. It was a fun 100pt list.

Dash (doughnut)
Kyle
PTL
Outrider
HLC
Engine Upgrade

Farlander
E2 -C-3PO
VI
Adv Sensors
Autoblaster

I must say I was very pleased with Farlander and the Autoblaster. It took out 2 Interceptors on its own and did more damage than dash the entire game.

Has anyone else had similar builds/experience?

Don't get too optimistic about the autoblaster. Yeah, it hurts high-agility targets if you can get them in your arc, but most of the time you're paying a lot of points for a weapon that is no better than your primary attack.

Yeah, looking at the actual maths for the autoblaster, I remember it being pretty darn shocking how awful it was. If I remember right, it got even worse when you had Ten Numb. In a lot of cases, you were better off just going for the 4th attack dice.

So, thumbs down from me too, sadly.

Farlander with VI is a non-starter. Keyan feeds on stress. PTL is the way to go with him . Then change out Kyle for Jan Ors. Now Keyan can TL and Focus. Jan turns the Focus into an evade. C3PO gives you an auto-evade (guess zero on 1 dice). Keyans ability is essentially a Focus, but you have to be stressed to use it (hence, PTL). This makes your Autoblaster much more effective since your rolling eyes into non-cancellable hits.
The other side is putting Ors on the B-Wing. Now she can turn Kyles Focus into an Evade.

dkellyj wrote:
Farlander with VI is a non-starter. Keyan feeds on stress. PTL is the way to go with him .

Have you seen the dial on a b-wing? If you can't put stress on Farlander every turn without PTL you aren't trying very hard.

Then change out Kyle for Jan Ors.

Why would you do that? You're putting all of your eggs in one basket with Farlander by taking one of Dash's best upgrades away.

This makes your Autoblaster much more effective since your rolling eyes into non-cancellable hits.

Oh, you want to use an autoblaster on your PTL Farlander? Good luck getting autoblaster shots (at least on anything where an autoblaster is better than your main gun) at only PS 7.

Farlander with Stay on Target would be pretty helpful as well. I like the autoblaster as it is the best way to combat the darn Phantom at the moment.

Any other useful tips for taking out the Phantom?

 Falco wrote:
I like the autoblaster as it is the best way to combat the darn Phantom at the moment.

Not really. Yeah, you're taking away the phantom's defense dice, but only at range 1 and inside your arc. That's just way too easy to dodge, especially on a slow ship like a b-wing. And that's the part about countering a phantom that people often forget: it's not enough to counter the defense dice, you have to be able to consistently deliver your shots to one of the most elusive targets in the game.

Although, on the other hand, a Keyan Farlander B-Wing isn't actually that slow. - Because, well, stress isn't a big deal.

But yeah, I find it's not the 4 defence dice that's the problem with the Phantom in the games I've played. It's the range and arcs to the damned thing. The defence dice become a worry when it goes up to 5 or 6.

A phantom with a focus, will dodge 2 shots from you. Which yeah, is a pain, but still, that's not the problem. The problem is getting 2 ships in arc of the thing at a suitable range, with a suitable gun in the same turn.

The phantom's defense dice were never it's strength.

It's strength was never being in Arc to begin with. If it has a pilot skill advantage on you, you're done no matter what.

If it has a pilot skill advantage on you, you're done no matter what.

Well, the new autoblaster should go a long ways towards equalizing that. Granted you have to get into R1 to shoot...but the Y-Wing (in particular; and en masse) is tanky enough to survive a few rounds to get into position if you bum-rush the phantom and lock him into a corner or edge.
It's a turret, so much for arc. You cant cancel <hits> so your extra dice for being cloaked are irrelevant. And at 4 hits to kill a phantom, 3 shots should be more than enough (unless the dice gods hate you).
In short, if your going to play Rock Paper Scissors with a Phantom build, someone is bound to bring a Y-Wing Rock to smash your Phantom Scissors.
Once Autoblasters become more common the Phantom should fade back into the support role it should always have been.

KellyJ wrote:
If it has a pilot skill advantage on you, you're done no matter what.

It's not quite that bad, especially if you're in a spot where you can use the asteroids and/or table edge to narrow down their decloak options. You'll probably need a bit of luck to get through the defense dice when you finally get a shot, but it's not an auto-loss.

In short, if your going to play Rock Paper Scissors with a Phantom build, someone is bound to bring a Y-Wing Rock to smash your Phantom Scissors.

Except that's not even close to a hard counter. Remember that the phantom isn't the only ship in your opponent's list, and a single y-wing isn't all that hard to kill. And even if the phantom has to "joust" with your y-wing and can never get out of range it takes at least 2-3 turns to kill the phantom. Meanwhile the phantom is killing a y-wing in about 3 turns, and the phantom gets to shoot first. And of course if the phantom does get out of range or their support puts some damage on the y-wing before you get in close then the phantom is almost guaranteed to win that fight.

The best use for a single autoblaster turret y-wing is area denial in combination with your other ships. You probably won't kill the phantom with your y-wing, but you can control your opponent's maneuvering and target priority choices and set up the rest of your ships to win the game. Or you could take five autoblaster y-wings and cover the whole table with overlapping shots.

Once Autoblasters become more common the Phantom should fade back into the support role it should always have been.

No. If PS 10-11 turret ships that can kill a phantom at any range haven't taken it out of the metagame then there's no way a range-1 turret is going to do it.