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I've got my first tournament this weekend and it is an all small ship tournament. That's right people, no Super Dash or Fat Han, etc. I really want to make a list with two Y-Wings work, as I think the Ion Turret can be used better to control a small ship list. My fears are in Phantoms. Two Y's don't have enough damage output on their own, so I need stress inducing ships. I know I want this:

Gold Squadron Pilot (18)
+Ion Turret (5)
+Flechette Torpedoes (2)
+Flechette Torpedoes (2)
+Munitions Failsafe (1)

Gold Squadron Pilot (18)
+Ion Turret (5)
+Flechette Torpedoes (2)
+Flechette Torpedoes (2)
+Munitions Failsafe (1)

That brings me to 56 points leaving 44 left for other ships, preferable with more damage output. The only bad thing about this list is the low pilot skill. If I'm going to use the torpedoes to their full capacity to stress an uncloaked phantom I'll need Swarm Tactics and a PS10 pilot to get initiative on Whisper. Any suggestions on what to add?

How do you get Whisper into your Y-Wings' front arc?

I wonder if you could use Corran as if the Y-Wings were Dash.

The problem I have with Coran is that in order to make him a higher PS than Whisper with VI I need to give him VI, which is ok but then I still run into the problem of Whisper cloaking before the Y-Wings get to shoot.

I'd need VI and Swarm Tactics to get what I want, and the only way to do that is Tycho with VI and use the A-Wing title to gain another EPT slot for Swarm Tactics. Its cheaper than Coran but lacks the punch of his "double-tap" which would almost certainly take out an uncloaked Phantom.

Can you describe your game plan assuming you have a PS10 fighter all the way down initiative to your Gold Squadron guys?

Essentially I want to fly everything close together so that when the time comes and Whisper gets close enough, I can shoot with the Flechette Torpedoes and Ion Cannon from the Y-Wings, essentially making it so that Whisper cannot recloak, and I will know where the phantom will be next turn. Hopefully this will allow the squad to pull a K-turn and blast Whisper away.

Simple solution: take Roark. Split your arcs to cover different areas of the table, and make whichever y-wing has a torpedo shot on Whisper PS 12. The stress stops the re-cloak, and then the rest of your ships can kill/ion Whisper against only two defense dice.

Does an ion token freeze a Phantom into cloaked/decloaked until its next turn?

 Manchu wrote:
Does an ion token freeze a Phantom into cloaked/decloaked until its next turn?

An ion token will stop it from decloaking because decloaking happens before you reveal your dial, and if you are ioned you don't set a dial at all (the same is true for advanced sensors). An ion token will not stop it from cloaking (whether as an action next turn or with ACD) because cloaking is just an action like any other action, and the ion token has no effect on the perform action step. Of course if the phantom is stressed as well as ioned then it will not clear its stress with the 1-straight maneuver and will be unable to perform actions, including the cloak action. And of course if the ion maneuver causes the phantom to hit an asteroid or other ship it will lose its perform action step as usual and will not be able to cloak.

What this means in practical terms is if you hit an ACD phantom with a high-PS ion cannon the phantom player will have to choose between staying uncloaked and more vulnerable to damage in exchange for being able to shoot next turn, or recloaking with ACD and giving up next turn's shot. And of course if you manage to hit a cloaked phantom then it's not going to be shooting next turn.

You could just up one of the Y-Wings to Horton, take the EPT slot giving Astromech (R2-D6), and slap VI on him to get him to PS10 for the Ion or Torpedo shot on Whisper.

I really don't understand what this tournament is supposed to be about, though. The large reason for things like Fat Han, and Super Dash showing up in the meta over the last 6 months is because they are one of the few ways to stay competitive with a high PS Phantom flown by a competent player. By taking the majority of things that give the Phantom pause out of the picture, you still end up with the same question for 100% of lists "How does this list beat a Phantom?" When that is the main question having to be asked, isn't that a sign of imbalance? At least with large turrets in the mix you have to think of what you can do against them as well.

Anyway, here is what I came up with. I figure if you're going to go with idea of playing the PS Game, really go with it.

Horton Salm (36) Y-Wing (25), R2-D6 (1), Flechette Torpedoes (2), Flechette Torpedoes (2), Ion Cannon Turret (5), Veteran Instincts (1)

Wes Janson (32) X-Wing (29), R3-A2 (2), Veteran Instincts (1)

Wedge Antilles (32) X-Wing (29), R7-T1 (3)

Wes and Horton screw with Phantoms to the point that by the time it's Wedge's turn to shoot he should be rolling his attack dice against something that doesn't have defensive tokens, and isn't cloaked (so 1 agility at Range 1-2 if no rocks in the way). R7-T1 can be anything else really, had 3 points to play with, and the idea was that a boost could potentially be useful for getting in for a range 1 shot, or even arc dodging.

Thanks Peregrine, I appreciate the cogent analysis as always.

derek, maybe the concern is that phantom lists can still be tricky where as turrets don't require a lot of practice by comparison.

Thing is, Phantoms really aren't as tricky to play as they appear. They require practice to master like anything else, but once you have them down, they're relatively easy, just not Turret easy of course. Maybe I'm biased because my store championship was also the one with the 3 double phantom lists in the top 4, two of which were flying 86 point lists (video I took is on youtube of many of their matches if you want to track it down), and have been flying against DeciVader + Phantom lately as well (flown by another store championship winner). Don't misunderstand though, I'm not putting down the format, I'm just wondering why not go a step further and pull the Phantom as well.

I'd give Wedge Veteran also. Then use the 2 points for either an R2 or R7 mech...or use the points as an initiative play (unless your local Phantom Meta will use just Whisper and Echo decked out with a lot of points unused to ensure Initiative.
Then Wedge can shoot first and force the Phantom to spend Focus/Evade tokens. Then Wes can follow up to remove TL and apply stress. This gives Horton a clean shot with the Ion...assuming a 2 dice Phantom survived the X-Wings, in which case he can take a pot shot at the other Phantom or High Value Target sticking an Ion on them (making it easier to know EXACTLY where the other pesky Phantom will be).

I'd really thought about giving Wedge VI as well, but I wanted him to shoot after Wes strips their Focus/Evade, the -1 Agility seems better for lining up when they don't have those available.

Depending on when the event occurs, you can also try 5 Y-Wings with Autoblaster turrets. You will take a pounding the first few turns (loosing a ship or 2 perhaps), but once you've boxed him in at Range 1 it will be game over.

I like Wes, however I do not have him in my collection. And the reason I hadn't considered Horton was because I didn't want to put too many points into something that won't give me damage. But thinking about it, having him be my ion platform And having the high pilot skill, I can devote other ships to damage only. That may work.

 derek wrote:
Horton Salm (36) Y-Wing (25), R2-D6 (1), Flechette Torpedoes (2), Flechette Torpedoes (2), Ion Cannon Turret (5), Veteran Instincts (1)

Wes Janson (32) X-Wing (29), R3-A2 (2), Veteran Instincts (1)

Wedge Antilles (32) X-Wing (29), R7-T1 (3)

The problem with this list is that, while it has a good chance of killing a phantom, it's not very good against anything else. This is the trap with phantoms: you can't tailor your list so heavily against one ship that you lose 100-12 against a TIE swarm/BBBBZ/etc. Three exepensive ships with no maneuverability or tank is just too far across that line.

Since I just realized that I don't have R2-D6, here is my proposed list:

Wedge (29)
+VI (1)
+Flechette Torpedoes (2)

Dutch (23)
+R2 Astromech (1)
+Flechette Torpedoes (2)
+Flechette Torpedoes (2)
+Ion Cannon Turret (5)

Airen Cracken (19)
+VI (1)
+Proton Rockets (3)

Bandit Squadron (12)

Total 100 points

I could however switch out Cracken and the Bandit for Biggs, but I think I'd rather have the ability to give out free actions. Thoughts?

 Peregrine wrote:


The problem with this list is that, while it has a good chance of killing a phantom, it's not very good against anything else. This is the trap with phantoms: you can't tailor your list so heavily against one ship that you lose 100-12 against a TIE swarm/BBBBZ/etc. Three exepensive ships with no maneuverability or tank is just too far across that line.

I'm not going to say I disagree with your point Peregrine, cause I really can't. But it is also pretty meta dependent, and if he's asking about Phantom's I would bet that's his biggest meta concern. It's also not like these kinds of ships aren't still showing up in the Top tables at some store championships either. I'm sort of boggled by it, someone ran Porkins to top 4 in the Store Champs thread, and I'm still seeing Jan (She might be the better choice for a PS10 ion platform since no access to R2-D6) plus 2 named X/Bs show up in top 8 a fair amount.

I should also ask, will Scum be out in your area OP? Out and legal? Here's an idea we've been tossing around in testing for the next few Champs locally that even fits this event's criteria.

Ten Numb (39) B-Wing (31), Advanced Sensors (3), “Mangler” Cannon (4), Veteran Instincts (1)

Blue Squadron Pilot (24) B-Wing (22), Fire-Control System (2)

Bandit Squadron Pilot (12) x 3

There are a few variants, one of the more popular ones (and possibly better) removes 1 Bandit, upgrades the Blue, and Bandits to their PS4 versions, and adds an HLC to the B-Wing for a 4 dice attack from any range. PS4 is pretty irrelevant, but it would let you get shots in before the Obsidian swarm, and also the 5 ship rebels.

 derek wrote:
But it is also pretty meta dependent, and if he's asking about Phantom's I would bet that's his biggest meta concern.

But that's exactly my point: you can't let yourself be so concerned about one aspect of the metagame, even a major one, that you leave yourself vulnerable to everything else. Beating all three phantom players you face doesn't help you very much if you lose two games to TIE swarms/BBBBZ/etc and don't make the top-8 cut or win any prizes. You have to be able to deal with phantoms while still handling all of the other potential threats.

It's also not like these kinds of ships aren't still showing up in the Top tables at some store championships either.

It's not the individual ships that are a problem, it's the list as a whole. Each of those three pilots can be good in their own lists, but they need the right support. If you take Wedge as a phantom counter then you need to spend some of the rest of your points on swarm counters, turret ship counters, etc. You can't just bring two more phantom counters that share Wedge's weaknesses against turret ships and "jousting efficiency" lists.

 Peregrine wrote:

It's also not like these kinds of ships aren't still showing up in the Top tables at some store championships either.

It's not the individual ships that are a problem, it's the list as a whole. Each of those three pilots can be good in their own lists, but they need the right support. If you take Wedge as a phantom counter then you need to spend some of the rest of your points on swarm counters, turret ship counters, etc. You can't just bring two more phantom counters that share Wedge's weaknesses against turret ships and "jousting efficiency" lists.

Misunderstood, my quote was referring to exactly that type of list, where it is three pilots of a similar skew. Don't ask me how they're making it work, I have no idea. I wouldn't try it in a major event as I usually only bring X-Wings out for fun games because as they are I feel they are overcosted (maybe they'll get the treatment A-Wings got and the Advanced is getting), but some people are bringing them to their Store Champs and finding success. Maybe they're dodging swarms (which still aren't showing up that often, at least not in the top spots), or getting paired against sub-par opponents, I don't know. Again, I'm not disagreeing with your points, the list I originally posted was all about hurting Phantoms, because that was the question the OP posed.

Anyway, when you start bringing any named Rebel pilots into the mix, regardless of the ship it really starts to lessen the amount of support you can bring to the table. Z-95s are okay, but two red dice vs a bunch of 3 green dice ships can get very frustrating, very fast. When it comes to small ships, Rebels just don't have anything murderface like the Phantom, or like Soontir/Interceptors in general can be as of Scum, and it really comes down to them having both a high number of attack dice, high maneuverability, and adding in a high number of defense dice with manipulation shenanigans. I'm not sure I would want Rebels to have one like that (I read enough complaining about the Falcon), and while the E-Wing has some of those tools, but it just doesn't quite get over that bar. An argument could be made for Corran, but he still lacks the overall maneuvering that the "similar" Imperial ships have.

Ok, here's an example of what I'm talking about. This is a list that I've been using:

Blue squadron b-wing with fire control x2
Rookie x-wing with R3-A2
Roark with Chewbacca and ion turret

It counters phantoms by spreading out its arcs and giving PS 12 to whichever ship has the best shot at the phantom, and it has enough red dice and/or stress to deal with the phantom pretty quickly. But it's still good against other lists. FCS b-wings are nasty against big ships, the stressbot x-wing shuts down elite targets like Fel/Corran/etc (since they depend on PTL to stay alive) and sets them up for a b-wing to kill, it has good jousting math against BBBBZ and similar setups (and an ion cannon to negate a b-wing in that particular matchup), etc. So no matter what my opponent brings I'm confident that I have at least a decent chance of winning. And that's the approach the OP needs to have success at their tournament, not a tailored anti-phantom list that falls apart against anything but its single target.