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Rare to see this kind of thing happen for FFG and the Phantom is a very common ship so thought this was worth posting.

https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/47/23/47235202-b9a8-413f-91be-24b40de724dc/xwingfaq_v30.pdf

TLDR version: Decloak now happens at the start of the activation step rather than just before you execute your manuver. While this means you can't block decloak positions with low PS ships you now have a much better idea about where a Phantom will be - low PS ships with repositioning actions will get a huge boost from this.

Thank god. Maybe now we can finally see an end to mandatory VI on everything and make some of those mid-PS pilots useful again.

 Peregrine wrote:
Thank god. Maybe now we can finally see an end to mandatory VI on everything and make some of those mid-PS pilots useful again.

Could we possible see Xixor become more useful if vet instincts loses popularity? He'd still have trouble with guys like Soontir, but maybe he can handle a slightly lower PS meta.

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:
Could we possible see Xixor become more useful if vet instincts loses popularity? He'd still have trouble with guys like Soontir, but maybe he can handle a slightly lower PS meta.

Maybe? It won't help him at all with Corran/Fel/etc, but maybe if a lower percentage of Xizor's potential opponents have those high-PS arc dodgers taking a gamble on not having to play against them becomes a bit less suicidal? On the other hand autothruster Fel is still popular and Vader is getting a huge boost soon, so I'm not really convinced that Xizor's bad matchups are going to be rare enough to justify taking him.

This certainly makes a Phantom a great blocker. Decloak him in the way, let everyone bump him and each other (losing Actions all around), then fly him away from the crash. Doing a K-Turn in this situation can give you a nice round of shooting.
Or, add Navigator as crew so he can have several options to move himself into or out of line of fire.

KellyJ... you are talking about a wildcat list that appeared at worlds last year. It had 4 Sigma squadron pilots.

Now, if they would only errata turret ships...

My proposal is that the primary weapon on (Primary) turret ships (Falcon, Decimator) is one less damage die outside the firing arc. so still 3 dice in the front arc, but only 2 in the sides and rear.

Really sick of facing Fan Han or Fat Chewie or Fan Lando all the time...

Hopefully a weaker Phantom means fewer turrets (which means stronger Interceptors, which means...)

 Riquende wrote:
Hopefully a weaker Phantom means fewer turrets (which means stronger Interceptors, which means...)

Probably, but I'm not sure how significant the change will be. IMO the people who like turret ships for their own sake will continue to fly turret ships, but the people who hate them and only took them because they were afraid of phantoms will move to something else. They'll still be around in large enough numbers to be relevant in the metagame and IMO that makes autothrusters the much bigger metagame changer.

Azeroth wrote:
Now, if they would only errata turret ships...

My proposal is that the primary weapon on (Primary) turret ships (Falcon, Decimator) is one less damage die outside the firing arc. so still 3 dice in the front arc, but only 2 in the sides and rear.

Really sick of facing Fan Han or Fat Chewie or Fan Lando all the time...

Turret ships don't need any changes now that phantoms are nerfed. There's no longer as much pressure to bring a turret ship to every game just in case you encounter a phantom, and some of the anti-turret lists that phantoms had easy wins against should start coming back into the metagame. For example, Corran is almost an auto-win against fat Han because Han can't break through his shield regen and the double tap negates Han's damage reduction abilities. The only downside to Corran was a bad matchup against Whisper, and now that bad matchup is a lot less of a problem.

Exactly. Making Phantoms handle-able with 'normal' ships for a sufficiently gifted player means that the phantom's traditional prey - swarms and heavy fighter groups - have more of a fighting chance - and they, in turn, can handle turreted ships well.

 Anpu-adom wrote:
KellyJ... you are talking about a wildcat list that appeared at worlds last year. It had 4 Sigma squadron pilots.

Nice. Last month in a Store Champ my first matchup was with 4 Sigma's. I was Flying Thug Life (5 Ys with Auto Blasters). Crushed the poor things; lost 1 Y.
Saturday we did a FLGS de-escalation Tourny (the Escalation rules...but you run the rounds highest points to lowest) using the new FAQ/errata.
The last (60 points) Round had me flying 3 Thugs (all with Blasters, 1 Warthog) vs an Omicron Shuttle and Whisper. I went after Whisper hard and he had to decide
1: would he decloak for a shot? Answer: Yes.
2: Would he decloak 2 strait, then do a turn hoping I run strait, or decloak to the side and hope I turned poorly on him. Answer: decloak to the side.
HOWEVER: He also brought 2 "wreckage" counters as part of his 3 pack. His side decloak was just off, so when he did his maneuver the template just hit the wreckage...giving him a Stress.
I set my 3 Ys to split so no matter which way he went (I assumed he would decloak for a quick shot) he would bump 1 and the other 2 could shoot him.
He missed the bump but had no shots due to arc AND and he could not recloak while I had 2 Ys (1 a Warthog) both in range 1.
I spent the next 10 minutes chasing the shuttle and plinking it to death.

Sad lesson learned: Against lower PS ships you can no longer react to their movements. You have to commit and hope you out-guessed your opponent. High PS ships then get to react to whatever you did. Kind of a catch 22 for the Phantoms now.
Probably the 2 best uses for them now are to either use them as "cheap" 4 shot TIEs as part of a Swarm or to just decloak to the side, move up 1, barrel roll for a clean shot while moving backwards 1/2 base, then throw 4 dice at range 3 and hope to pick someone off on dice overload. Cloak, rinse, repeat.

I just bought two Aggressors and I think the double IG-2000 list is going to be nasty against anyone that wants to bring Phantoms now

 bocatt wrote:
I just bought two Aggressors and I think the double IG-2000 list is going to be nasty against anyone that wants to bring Phantoms now

The first time I ever used a Phantom (in fact, the first game I played since before they had been released) was Whisper, Fel, and Phennir v double IG-88 and, while this is in no way conclusive, Whisper et al won very easily. In this game, at least, the errata was a non-factor and my ships felt safe the entire time.

 tomjoad wrote:

 bocatt wrote:
I just bought two Aggressors and I think the double IG-2000 list is going to be nasty against anyone that wants to bring Phantoms now

The first time I ever used a Phantom (in fact, the first game I played since before they had been released) was Whisper, Fel, and Phennir v double IG-88 and, while this is in no way conclusive, Whisper et al won very easily. In this game, at least, the errata was a non-factor and my ships felt safe the entire time.

I'm not a dedicated Phantom player but I do use the ship quite often but... I wasn't worried about Brobots before the errata and I'm still not worried about them now.

tomjoad wrote:

 bocatt wrote:
I just bought two Aggressors and I think the double IG-2000 list is going to be nasty against anyone that wants to bring Phantoms now

The first time I ever used a Phantom (in fact, the first game I played since before they had been released) was Whisper, Fel, and Phennir v double IG-88 and, while this is in no way conclusive, Whisper et al won very easily. In this game, at least, the errata was a non-factor and my ships felt safe the entire time.

The biggest weakness of the IG-2000 list is high PS arc dodgers. Three of them is probably too much for them to handle. At least for the build you faced. There are four pilots and a range of loadouts that can be taken. Some will fight with arc dodgers better than others.

ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 tomjoad wrote:

 bocatt wrote:
I just bought two Aggressors and I think the double IG-2000 list is going to be nasty against anyone that wants to bring Phantoms now

The first time I ever used a Phantom (in fact, the first game I played since before they had been released) was Whisper, Fel, and Phennir v double IG-88 and, while this is in no way conclusive, Whisper et al won very easily. In this game, at least, the errata was a non-factor and my ships felt safe the entire time.

I'm not a dedicated Phantom player but I do use the ship quite often but... I wasn't worried about Brobots before the errata and I'm still not worried about them now.

Whisper lived and died by arc dodging with her decloak maneuver. She can still do so against ships that have no re-adjustment actions (boost/barrel roll) as they're still locked into their maneuvers and you can change yours at the beginning of the activation phase. Now after the decloak maneuver any ship that can change course during their activation has a reasonable chance of catching Whisper as she can only do whatever maneuver is on her dial (unless you want to take Navigator?) plus maybe a barrel roll. Even with FCS/Gunner she's still going to want to take a focus action most of the time. There are times when that barrel roll might save her, but I wouldn't count on it. I would count on your phantom ending up in your opponents arc a lot more and taking a lot more fire. Even if she does have someone in arc, is able to to shoot first, and get her recloak and focus token, eventually she's going to take damage

 bocatt wrote:

ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 tomjoad wrote:

 bocatt wrote:
I just bought two Aggressors and I think the double IG-2000 list is going to be nasty against anyone that wants to bring Phantoms now

The first time I ever used a Phantom (in fact, the first game I played since before they had been released) was Whisper, Fel, and Phennir v double IG-88 and, while this is in no way conclusive, Whisper et al won very easily. In this game, at least, the errata was a non-factor and my ships felt safe the entire time.

I'm not a dedicated Phantom player but I do use the ship quite often but... I wasn't worried about Brobots before the errata and I'm still not worried about them now.

Whisper lived and died by arc dodging with her decloak maneuver. She can still do so against ships that have no re-adjustment actions (boost/barrel roll) as they're still locked into their maneuvers and you can change yours at the beginning of the activation phase. Now after the decloak maneuver any ship that can change course during their activation has a reasonable chance of catching Whisper as she can only do whatever maneuver is on her dial (unless you want to take Navigator?) plus maybe a barrel roll. Even with FCS/Gunner she's still going to want to take a focus action most of the time. There are times when that barrel roll might save her, but I wouldn't count on it. I would count on your phantom ending up in your opponents arc a lot more and taking a lot more fire. Even if she does have someone in arc, is able to to shoot first, and get her recloak and focus token, eventually she's going to take damage

I'm well aware of all of this.

Still, I'm not that concerned with Brobots... I've found them to be pretty predictable and not nearly as powerful as people thought they were going to be when the were first spoiled. To me, the Phantom is still a good ship especially in capable hands.

Fair Enough, It's just my impression that the Phantom is now much more balanced than it was, and that the Aggressor in all its forms is fairly balanced.

My hope is that maybe the game will come down to which player is more skilled. So that a Phantom flyer will not get an easy win even though they have no idea what they're doing (as you said, let it be good in skilled hands) and that dual IG-2000 player with sufficient skill will have a fair chance of winning a tournament. Which I think (with this errata in place) is the case.

I'll be playing in a tournament next Saturday, with the errata (TOs elected to use it even though it's four days early) and I'll be bringing brobots. We'll see how I feel about Phantoms after the fact but I think we're in a good place with the ship, and pretty much every other ship as well.

I don't know if I stand a chance of winning, as my self evaluation skills are pretty poor and my club record is even poorer, but I also haven't ever flown a competitive/net list and I really just want to stand a chance so I get in a few good games before being knocked out of the tourney.

 bocatt wrote:
The biggest weakness of the IG-2000 list is high PS arc dodgers. Three of them is probably too much for them to handle. At least for the build you faced. There are four pilots and a range of loadouts that can be taken. Some will fight with arc dodgers better than others.

No, the biggest weakness of the list is stress: R3-A2, rebel captive, tacticians, etc. Once you get stress on an aggressor all of its fancy tricks disappear, and if you get multiple stress on it you've completely crippled it for several turns. And the second biggest weakness is the humble academy pilot, since most of the maneuvering tricks require a ton of clear space. High-PS arc dodgers just add insult to injury.

Now after the decloak maneuver any ship that can change course during their activation has a reasonable chance of catching Whisper as she can only do whatever maneuver is on her dial (unless you want to take Navigator?) plus maybe a barrel roll.

So let me get this straight: a low-PS b-wing has a good chance of catching Whisper because of its barrel roll ability, despite the fact that Whisper's maneuver is still hidden when the b-wing has to make its barrel roll choice. But Whisper, despite having the ability to move after the b-wing has committed and then barrel roll, can't escape? Why is the low-PS ship better at maneuvering actions than the high-PS ship with the same maneuvering action?

(The correct answer is that Whisper is still going to be a difficult ship to catch, and the new rules just put more emphasis on player skill and anticipating maneuvers instead of auto-dodging simply because of PS 8-9.)

Such things will come down to skill. Everything else being equal Brobots/Terminators/Double Agressor lists will struggle against 999 or such really good arc dodging lists (just like swarm).
I'm hoping that bidding up to pilot skill 8+ won't be as big of a thing anymore though.