I know that gunner is supposed to be a really great card to use, but I can't seem to figure out how to effectively use it. Also what exactly do Buzzsaw builds entail? I know they are mainly a lambda thing but do they work with other ships? Thanks for helping a noob out

Gunner is a handy, if a somewhat expensive upgrade. Paired with the right ship, it can be really effective. Check out Han Solo in the Millennium Falcon + Gunner, or even Luke, as he functions in the same fashion.

Have a read of this thread:

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/120786-han-and-luke/

I like to pair gunner with fire control system if possible, It makes the opponent think twice about spending that evade/focus. or strips it for the follow up attack.

it can also work well with tactician to stack on the stress.

I like to pair gunner with fire control system if possible, It makes the opponent think twice about spending that evade/focus. or strips it for the follow up attack.

it can also work well with tactician to stack on the stress.

Yeah I was liking the sound of using ion cannon + gunner + tactician and just annoy the hell out of my friends lol

Gunner is great for a few reasons.

The first, which has already been addressed, is the re-roll of a missed attack. The fewer attacks your list has, the more important it becomes to land those attacks. So gunner adds consistency in the event of a missed or evaded attack. In this situation, gunner is functioning as an insurance policy for your expensive ship to guarantee (or attempt to guarantee) damage each round. Note that even though the lambda is cheaper, gunner serves a purpose on it due to the (usual) difficulty of maintaining a consistent set of attacks.

The second reason is that gunner creates difficult choices for your opponent, which usually net you consistent damage. If your ship with gunner is attacking with, say, three dice (I feel like gunner on a HWK is silly. Stock outrider as well) and you roll such that your opponent is taking between one and zero hits depending on tokens spent, this creates a dilemma. In this case, the opponent must weigh the benefits of avoiding one attack to face a reroll (possibly without token) versus the idea of taking one damage.This decision also exists at other damage ranges, but is most compelling at the one to zero damage dealt. Based on enemy evade die and/or tokens available, as well as ships left to fire, you *may* find that the presence of gunner causes your opponent to let damage they could otherwise mitigate through. This is, once again, consistency, though this consistency is created through the threat of future attacks.

Buzz-saw, to my understanding involves ships that have a fire control system (FCS) and gunner (or Luke). Because these ships receive the target lock after the first attack, they have a possible target lock for the second one. These ships exemplify the threat created by a missed or evaded gunner shot by adding an extra target lock into the equation. It tends to make that one damage more acceptable to let through.

TLDR: Gunner gives you consistency through either re-rolling missed attacks or by creating situations in which the opponent allows damage through.

Buzz-saw is a ship with a gunner or Luke and an FCS. Works on any ship that can take it (Phantoms, Lambdas, future stuff).

EDITED: Font/sizing. Cleaned up paragraph rambling.

you can use gunner to break up say evade and focus tokens on agility dice. You fire 1 attack and your oponant spends the focus and evade you then use gunner to fire the attack again, your opponent has no tokens this and if you also have FCS you got a target lock you can spend so your second attack that turn does more damage than the first which was just canceled.

It shuts down things like C-3PO focus and evade which can only be used once per turn.

The counter to gunner is simply letting only 1 hit through, and if you have any tokens save them for the second gunner attack if your dice evades or other attacking ships that do not have crew so you can be sure when you cancel all of their hits they don't come back. Nothing is more irritating than spending your evade or focus to stop 3 attacks only for gunner FCS to hit and then score 2 hits and a critical and you no longer have any tokens to stop them.

Gunner is awesome because the ships that can take gunner normally represent a substantial percentage of your points. If you spend 50+ points on a Falcon you really want it to be dealing damage every turn, otherwise you're not going to kill stuff fast enough and you're going to be overwhelmed and wiped off the table. Gunner makes it a lot more likely that you deal damage, both by acting as an insurance policy against bad dice and by forcing your opponent to burn tokens and leave their ship open to the second attack. In the second case it effectively allows your Falcon to act like a pair of x-wings: the first one uses up the defender's resources, the second one gets the kill. Contrast this with a gunner-less setup where you're only acting like a single x-wing: you force your opponent to try very hard to avoid damage, but you don't have anything to follow it up with and the turn is wasted.

The bad side of gunner is the high cost. You're spending 5 points and a valuable crew slot (even more valuable in the era of super-tank Falcons) for that second attack, and if you're already doing damage with your first shot (and no threat of a second shot to force your opponent to take a single point of damage instead) that investment is wasted. So gunner's value can depend heavily on the metagame. In a world of phantoms and inteceptors it is almost mandatory, if you're facing b-wings and shuttles instead then it's a pointless waste.

Your Buzzsaw Opaque Celestial Manatee is a simple affair

Lambda

FCS

Gunner

Engine Upgrade

The real meat of the Buzzsaw is the Gunner and FCS. but on a Shuttle you want EU for maneuverability..

It is reliable and helps against high agility stacking defensive tokens ships.

Gunner helps to reinforce the attacking output of expensive ships - specifically ships like YT's, Firesprays, Decimators benefit greatly, and it's a key part of the Buzzsaw Shuttle build (combined with FCS).

Essentially, it allows you to make a second attack if the first misses. Normally, if you miss, that would be it - but with Gunner, you now get to try again, possibly after having stripped defensive tokens from your target.

It shines when combined with upgrades which work on multiple attacks - Marksmanship, for example. Or the Fire Control System, which gives you a target lock for the second attack.

It is an investment, to increase the chance of you doing damage - in a game that is all about doing damage.