for Scum, I don't have much faith in a single pirate's ability to acomplish much of anything, but I know I'd prefer that feedback array to be Kath's ptl

I seriously thought about it, and it's a stronger build (although more expensive, of course). But it leaves Kath at PS7, which makes me fret about how I'll deal with 35-point Fel or even Whisper + VI + ACD.

You have four firing arcs, a blocker, and a Tactician. You'll be fine. Besides, you have no bid so they'll give you initiative and move second, so aside from shooting first against Whisper I don't think VI gains you a lot, anyway.

Have you given any thought to IG88B + Kath?

Forgot to add,

One is super tanky and counters thrusters , the other is great vs turrets.

Both can be built to have above average positioning abilities vs swarms/BBBBz

I practiced last night with this version of the Scum list against a friend's TIE bomber swarm (Jonus plus 4 Scimitars with Flechette Torpedoes, plus a couple of Seismic Charges scattered around), and got beaten up pretty badly. The Mercenary took seven damage from the torpedoes on his approach and then died on Round 3, and the Pirate expired soon after. That left Kath to take on the four remaining Bombers alone; she killed one and forced another off the board before she was killed.

My attack dice were cold and my opponent's were hot, but mostly I just got swarmed to death. It was frustrating, and I think some tweaks are necessary; the Headhunter in particular accomplished very little.

But I'm also not sure how to get rid of it. My experience with double Firesprays is that they don't do well without support, so I don't want to cut the third ship entirely. Also, if five TIE Bombers can beat me then BBBBZ is going to tear me apart; I need to either be dodgier to beat swarms, or go ahead and ram them to remove some potential attacks from the pool while Kath does some damage.

Have you given any thought to IG88B + Kath?

All of those considerations I just mentioned that makes this a definite possibility. The problem is that I haven't flown IG-88 in a while, and I had a hard time getting the hang of it then; it's not a ship that rewards players who just drop it on the table and start a brawl.

If I were to consider it, what kind of builds would you suggest?

Something like this:

I'd go with Pred on Kath over VI, as PS 7 is fine - imho.

Alternatively, if you want to free up a point, downgrade the adv. sensors on IG88 to FCS and drop the dampeners (though they are nice).

Other than that, as above.

e.g.

Kath Scarlet (Scum) — Firespray-31 38
Predator 3
Gunner 5
Engine Upgrade 4

IG-88B — Aggressor 36
Predator 3
Fire-Control System 2
Heavy Laser Cannon 7
Autothrusters 2
IG-2000 0 (you know why!)

Hell, you could even lose the Gunner (I've never had issues hitting anything with Kath) to play around with the last 5 points - in which case I'd advocate for Recon Spec for when you don't want to/cannot use Engine.

If you're going to drop Gunner, pick up K4 droid instead. Recon Spec would come in a close 2nd.

4x Phantom. Take half their list off the table in one volley.