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Has anyone had any success running two phantoms?
I had a strange idea for a list which is this
TIE Phantom: •Echo (42)
Advanced Cloaking Device (4)
Veteran Instincts (1)
Fire Control System (2)
Gunner (5)

TIE Phantom: •"Whisper" (44)
Advanced Cloaking Device (4)
Push The Limit (3)
Fire Control System (2)
Weapons Engineer (3)

TIE Fighter: Obsidian Squadron Pilot (13)

Total: 99/100

I've had moderate success with a more defensive build on echo, and a more aggressive build on whisper.

"Echo" (41pts)
Advanced Cloaking Device, Sensor Jammer, Veteran Instincts, Agent Kallus
"Whisper" (44pts)
Advanced Cloaking Device, Fire-Control System, Gunner, Veteran Instincts
Academy Pilot (15pts)
Stealth Device

Personally, I would like to have an Intel agent somewhere in this, but you can't have everything.

Wouldn't you rather keep a few points for initiative, around 2, in order for Whisper to shoot first?

An interesting phenomenon happened about a year and a half ago: people were bringing 86 point double Phantom lists to tournaments, and winning. Phantoms were just that good. So good, in fact, that taking an extra TIE Fighter to round the list out to 98 or 100pts would actually hurt the list more than help. Why? Because it put your initiative bid at risk, and lowered your MoV when your TIE Fighter was inevitably destroyed. The decloak nerf mostly put this to bed, though it's still a potent list if you are confident in your ability to predict your opponent's maneuvers.

Taking a look at your list: what is your intent with Whisper's upgrades? In particular, I don't like PTL on Whisper: your only real window of opportunity is to trigger it off of ADC's free recloak action, otherwise the stress is going to screw you. While that's interesting in principle (e.g., if you wanted to barrel roll), having it happen at PS7 is a severe penalty, and will leave you vulnerable to PS8+ pilots. The only way I could see this working is if you paired it with Decoy Vader to bump you up to PS9. But even then, I'm not sure it's worth it compared to regular Whisper builds, which already have great action economy.

If you want to experiment with alternate Phantom builds, then Echo is where I would do it. The types of builds that are best on Whisper are comparatively less useful on Echo, due to the lower PS and the lack of a token-generating pilot ability. So here is where you might try to use PTL+ADC to re-position Echo into odd locations every turn, and make her a very slippery target for your enemy. And against low-PS generics, she can be a more straight-forward jouster.

For your third ship, I would suggest Dark Curse as a baseline. If you're playing your Phantoms correctly, your opponent will find himself in situations where his decision is "do I shoot at tokened-up Whisper... or the TIE Fighter". A lot of opponents will instinctively shoot at Dark Curse, which is sometimes not the correct decision. If you free up a bit more points on your Phantoms (e.g., forgoing crew on Whisper), you could look into using a pocket ace such as Zeta Leader.

Another thing you could look into using using generic Phantoms. They're strong shooters, and cheap enough on their own that you can sometimes squeeze in a true ace as a third ship.

I've found that the basic phantoms are better carriers for stygium particle accelerators than the named pilots. Being so far down the PS line hurts, but you play the waiting game, staying cloaked and tokened up until you can really strike. Then you have an evade to help a little with any return damage.

Sigma Squadron Pilot
Intelligence agent, stygium particle accelerators, system jammer
Sigma Squadron Pilot
Intelligence agent, stygium particle accelerators, system jammer
Sigma Squadron Pilot
Intelligence agent, stygium particle accelerators, system jammer

I guess if you wanted to be sneakier, you could swap Intel agents out for saboteurs, BUT Intel agents really help identifying when the best times to decloak are.

Some rather interesting ideas and frankly i'm probably going to be picking up another phantom tonight

I would never use either of the Phantoms without ?Veteran Instincts, personally. And the few times I ran 2 Phantoms, I did better with less upgrades on them and bringing another ace such as Turr Phennir.

 krodarklorr wrote:
I would never use either of the Phantoms without ?Veteran Instincts, personally. And the few times I ran 2 Phantoms, I did better with less upgrades on them and bringing another ace such as Turr Phennir.

Generic Phantoms are a thing.

There's a guy at the FLGS that runs this list

TIE Phantom: Sigma Squadron Pilot (25)
Sensor Jammer (4)
Advanced Cloaking Device (4)
Intelligence Agent (1)
TIE Phantom: Sigma Squadron Pilot (25)
Sensor Jammer (4)
Advanced Cloaking Device (4)
Intelligence Agent (1)
TIE Interceptor: · Carnor Jax (26)
Push The Limit (3)
Autothrusters (2)

He did well (top 8? Of 28 players) at store champs and taken 1st in two small tournaments we've had as just a club (6 players) And I've personally gotten wrecked by it.

Even uncloaked Phantoms are really hard to hit when they have sensor jammers and you can't take/spend focus. The finesse that makes it work is that by abusing decloak repositioning it can be very difficult to get a bead on the Phantoms at all. The ACD is just to provide free recloaks so the Phantoms can continue to reposition. The two agility from being cloaked is not important. Maybe against a low PS swarm list it matters but for the most part it doesn't get used.

Mr ghoti wrote:
I've had moderate success with a more defensive build on echo, and a more aggressive build on whisper.

"Echo" (41pts)
Advanced Cloaking Device, Sensor Jammer, Veteran Instincts, Agent Kallus
"Whisper" (44pts)
Advanced Cloaking Device, Fire-Control System, Gunner, Veteran Instincts
Academy Pilot (15pts)
Stealth Device

Personally, I would like to have an Intel agent somewhere in this, but you can't have everything.

Thanks Mr Ghoti i actually had some success with this slightly modified list.
i swapped Kallus for an Intel Agent and the sensor jammer for a FCS and then upgraded the Academy pilot to a TIE F/O Epsilon squad pilot (not much of a difference but the ability to do the 2 bank u-turn was an interesting twist) then i chucked on weapons guidance. in the end i had 1 point spare.

 captain bloody fists wrote:

Mr ghoti wrote:
I've had moderate success with a more defensive build on echo, and a more aggressive build on whisper.

"Echo" (41pts)
Advanced Cloaking Device, Sensor Jammer, Veteran Instincts, Agent Kallus
"Whisper" (44pts)
Advanced Cloaking Device, Fire-Control System, Gunner, Veteran Instincts
Academy Pilot (15pts)
Stealth Device

Personally, I would like to have an Intel agent somewhere in this, but you can't have everything.

Thanks Mr Ghoti i actually had some success with this slightly modified list.
i swapped Kallus for an Intel Agent and the sensor jammer for a FCS and then upgraded the Academy pilot to a TIE F/O Epsilon squad pilot (not much of a difference but the ability to do the 2 bank u-turn was an interesting twist) then i chucked on weapons guidance. in the end i had 1 point spare.

No problem! I like a defensive phantom more than an aggressive one. It always has that 4 red primary, so the extra offense is nice, but not needed. One of the top lists in my meta is whisper set up how I set echo up above, teamed up with a decimator with Intel agent and the emperor.

The extra defense helps a ton, and whisper still puts the hurt on whatever she wants.