Yes they just made a good run. Yes they can be successful. No they are not "only imperial because Scum didn't exist yet". But are they something the Imperials can build around? In it's current iteration, I do not think so.

So what other large base ships exist that are competitive and buildable?

-Scum: Jumpmasters. 25pts Hear me out! This ship shares much with the FS-31- Same agility, expanded arc, and shields; similar Hp and action bar and even slots; the moves on the dials are even similar! It is noted that the Jumpmaster is probably too good for its cost.

-Scum: Iggys. 36pts. Still deadly. Might be a good place to start. Superior in most ways and "same cost" is you take away PS, elite, abilities. Better dial. 1 more Agility. Similar upgrades and HP. Better action bar. Illicit.

-Scum: Firespray. Sees more play but still meh. Better pilot abilities, all have EPT, illicit.

-Rebels: YT-2400. 30pts. Not exactly tearing things up. Again, shares Agility, expanded arc, and HP; similar action bar and upgrades, dial.

both other factions: Scurrg. Similar enough but whether or not it's good is still up for debate.

Imperias: Defender. 30pts. Small base but similar stats. Due to large base "cost reduction" it probably should cost less Add in a superior dial and pilot abilities and it's hard to imagine taking the FS ever.

So the two options, as I see it, are improve by options and cost reduction, or keep it similar and add value. Very seldom has "keep cost and add value" been successful- see Advanced, Scyk, xwing vs. Defenders, Awings.

Also, remember the "Rebranding" in the title. So let us explore improve options and cost reduction.

3 Red, 2 Agility, ~10 HP; TL, Focus, other; expanded arc; missile, crew, other slot; decent dial- all on a large base ship- appears to be worth between 26-31pts. A long while ago I really thought the FS-31 should cost 31pts.

The game has grown past this. The FS has a worse dial, no re-positional action and no slot to help action economy even if it did, worse slots, and less slots often. But it does have that 3rd red and 10th hp. Doesn't even come close to making up for it.

We can't fix the dial. We can change slots, cost, and make that arc better. Let's do that, not with a title, but with the mod slot!

-Prison Transport Retrofit, mod, Imperial Firespray only, -5pts. Reduce your attack to 2; you may att with a cannon using your Aux arc. Remove your missile slot. Add 1 crew slot and Systems slot.

So, 28pts gets you a 2/2/6/4 with an expanded and special arc, 2xcrew, bomb, systems. TL, Focus, Evade. Below average dial. I don't know that'll do it but I suspect it's close(r). 31pts for mangler that can go out of both arcs. Double crew and systems still open but mod is taken.

What say you all?

Reserved

@Rakky Wistol the problem is any change you make to the Firespray is going to be universal most likely. Since as you said the Skum versions are just a bit more expensive but all around better your looking at a bigger uphill challenge than you might think.

The biggest challenge for Firespray in an Imperial list isn't the cost or the pilots. It's the roll it's wanting or trying to fill. The Shuttle and Decimator are successful because they are either cheap enough and have the crew capacity to make it worthwhile to bring hard hitting support, or have enough health to take a beating long enough for the support ship or two to crack the opponent.

The fire spray wants to be aggressive, but as noted needs help to do it efficiently. You can try to build it defensively but again, not quite the points to stay in long enough to make the wingmen count in the modern game. The best use I've had for the Firespray was as aggressive support. It was a Bounty Hunter loaded with Ion Weapons and an Ion Projector and some Strikers to assist. In the end of most of my matches the Bounty Hunter was the last ship standing and escorting an opposing ship off the board or just destroying them.

I don't think there is a fix outside of thinking a bit outside the box, giving it a more defined roll, and perhaps with Aggressors also being flexible they can find a niche.

That's why I was building a 3*/2/10 at 31pts. It's a happy medium with 2 crew and a system to fill the role or go big with HLC out of both arcs for a gun ship.

I think the most likely "fix" is something similar to x7 and chardaan where you lose some or all of your secondary weapon slots and get a point reduction, and possibly some other bonus as well.

Bombs other than emon are rarely used on them, cannons are used somewhat, but aren't always worth the points. Missiles also rarely used, though clusters on boba can be wicked.

The amount of the point reduction would depend on how many of those slots are lost, and if you get any other benefits as well, like a free token like x7, or maybe additional crew slots or a systems slot or whatever. There's actually a lot of crew that work great on the firespray, problem is it can only take one.

Definitely a lot of good options, just a matter of FFG pulling the plug and giving the aces/vets treatment to the ship. My secret wish is they do it with a Jango Fett painted Slave 1 with clone wars era pilots, but that's not likely.

This may not quite be what you had in mind, but here's a variation of a six Crack Shot swarm I've been running lately.

Howlrunner w/Crack Shot

Black Squadron x3 w/Crack Shot

Bounty Hunter w/Recon Spec

This comes in at 100 points.

I came up with this just to see if a firespray could be put into a build and be reasonably competitive.

I don't have too much experience with it yet, but I think it'll end up working okay.

Kevin

I am not a big fan of recon spec on firesprays. At first look it seems great. Use one for offense and one for defense. Or two for defense even.

But the last time I used it in several games I made a record of how many times I spent both focus in a round. On average it was only abkut once a game i believe. Which isn't horrible I guess but seems like points could be better spent elsewhere.

We can sort of fix the dial somewhat like how the new Falcon title adds a 3 SLoop to the YT-1300 dial as the inspiration.

Title

Navy Refit: When you reveal a 2-Turn manoeuvre, you can treat it as a 1-Turn manoeuvre of the same direction.

OR

SPC Refit: When you reveal a 1-bank manoeuvre, you can treat it as a 1-Turn manoeuvre of the same direction.

The second option may interact oddly with Imp Boba's pilot ability and may need to add "treat this manoeuvre as white" or else it is a green 1 Turn.

1 hour ago, markcsoul said:

I am not a big fan of recon spec on firesprays. At first look it seems great. Use one for offense and one for defense. Or two for defense even.

But the last time I used it in several games I made a record of how many times I spent both focus in a round. On average it was only abkut once a game i believe. Which isn't horrible I guess but seems like points could be better spent elsewhere.

That's true to a point.

I don't have a lot of experience with this build yet, but the way I'm looking at it is that if I still have one or even both of the focus tokens at the end of the turn then the turn probably went okay. I could be convinced to try a different crew or upgrade though. The bottom line is that Howlie and the three Blacks, with all of them having Crack Shot, come in at 64 points. So the firespray needs to be no more than 36 points.

Thus the need for it to be reduced in cost.

How can you not compare it to the Shadow Caster?

33 minutes ago, Calibri Garamond said:

How can you not compare it to the Shadow Caster?

The Shadow Caster is a wholly other beast among all large ships, and anyone who's flown one can tell you that.

I think a point reduction card for the Firespray is a step in the right direction, but I would provide it with something a bit more like the Shuttle.

Bomb, Missile, & Cannon slot

-2

Firespray Only

Rotating Hardpoint

You may equip a cannon, paying the normal cost. This weapon can be fired using your auxiliary arc.

The rotating arc is kinda like the aux arc flavorwise but not in game. If you ever had to fly the FS against Turr/Fel or other arc dodgers back in the old days you felt the pain of not being able to shoot into those side arcs. The shadow caster never has that issue.

Double illicit is also somthing special. And since I'm more of an imperial player it's doubly special.

Ive actually been running a scarlet and whisper build lately that does fairly well. Mangler canon + a score to settle + tactician to potentially double stress. And rebel captive on whisper. I have a 98 pt initiative build and while i prefer whisper being my last ship left scarlet is capable if they do target whisper first and goes down. Ive beaten a pretty capable scum player and imperial player, as well as a few others though they are newer players. I'm looking forward to playing and testing it out more

Id love to know that full build Gokuja04. Been messing around trying for a decent imp firespray squad and that is really promising.

On 6/4/2017 at 2:46 AM, Zucch10 said:

Id love to know that full build Gokuja04. Been messing around trying for a decent imp firespray squad and that is really promising.

Hey sorry i didn't see any new responses to this post til now. Idk about really promising but its done well, been fun and easy to fly.

Whisper - VI, acd, fcs, rebel captive

Kath - slave 1, long range scanners, a score to settle, tactician, mangler cannon

Academy tie

Academy tie doesnt care what it does. Try to block and absorb shots. Use ASTS on the ship that stress will benefit most. Mangler + ASTS gives you a decent chance to maybe do damage and stress (deal multiple crits and only one gets evaded) , and there's been very few rounds where neither tactician or kaths ability kicks in. If they go for whisper first and take stress from RC then make them pay by targeting them with kath.

LRS isnt always that helpful but so far ive found the amount it gets used is still worth the 0 cost and id rather be focusing for attack or defense.

I think this list is effective on a multitude of lists. If you double stress someone in a round then keep on them and keep them stressed unless its really beneficial to switch targets and stress/damage another ship

Tell me what u think. Havent gotten enough games with it but have won most. i went 1-1 with it against a good scum player and list. The other loss was the first time i flew it and both whisper and fenn 1 shot each other lol. But i brought whisper in too close so that was a manuever error.

Those are the kind of lists that the Firespray was good at a LONG time ago...Scarlet Cowgirl: Turr's Hunting Party(and Fel's too, then even Carnor's); Heck even Triple FS and FS + Howl runner used to be good all comers lists. The game went beyond them and they have received no real help since.

Yup! I have the same problem whenever I try's to use a Han Solo build; the Falcon, like the Firespray, is outmatched at what it was supposed to do.

The difference between the two is that 1) the Falcon was super OP in its day, and 2) the Falcon needs a power/efficiency boost to bring it back, while the Firespray just needs to be put into a more focused role. It's got an ok maneuver dial, and a decent stats, but it's generics are very expensive ( the unique pilots aren't really that overdosed). The biggest problem is that it's upgrade bar is just a random collection of...stuff. It doesn't really push the ship in any particular direction, and "a little of everything" just doesn't work these days. Finally, Imperial Firespray got stuck with really, really bad pilot abilities. So the solutions are:

1) Cost reduction, via a title (so the generics can be used asa support ships effectively)

2) focus the upgrades, via a mod or a title OR release a title/mod/pilot that lets you effectively use the hodgepodge of upgrades

3) release better pilots, via an "aces" pack

8 hours ago, Rakky Wistol said:

Those are the kind of lists that the Firespray was good at a LONG time ago...Scarlet Cowgirl: Turr's Hunting Party(and Fel's too, then even Carnor's); Heck even Triple FS and FS + Howl runner used to be good all comers lists. The game went beyond them and they have received no real help since.

I only started playing over a year ago but i could see them being more competitive back b4 i played. im not saying my list would win any tournaments (though i think it can) but it has done well in the games ive played and they weren't against bad players. I want to get games in with other opponents but i haven't been able to make it to xwing Tuesdays.

Kath+ shuttle+ ties

interceptor of choice + BH + ties

they were all good. Good times. So long ago.

On 2017-05-30 at 1:30 AM, Drakeheart said:

The Shadow Caster is a wholly other beast among all large ships, and anyone who's flown one can tell you that.

I think a point reduction card for the Firespray is a step in the right direction, but I would provide it with something a bit more like the Shuttle.

Bomb, Missile, & Cannon slot

-2

Firespray Only

Rotating Hardpoint

You may equip a cannon, paying the normal cost. This weapon can be fired using your auxiliary arc.

OP was compairing the firespray to similar but successful large base ships. In that context, one might think that it would make sense to mention the other ship with 2 arcs, a similar dial, similar stats and a similar point cost. I can't really tell if "anyone who's flown one can tell you that." was supposed to be snarky, so I will just assume it was not.

Compare the FS and the SC, and it quickly becomes evident that the Shadow Caster gets the mobile firing arc pretty much for free (a huge advantage over the fixed rear arc). On top of that, Assaj at least has a far superior pilot ability to the FS pilots of the Empire.

19 minutes ago, Calibri Garamond said:

On top of that, Assaj at least has a far superior pilot ability to the FS pilots of the Empire.

So does Ketsu. And basically every other pilot post Wave-6

It's always felt like they expected the FS to have so many upgrade options (comparatively, at the time) that they made sure the pilot abilities couldn't be comborific by making them terrible. Fettigator and stress control Kath were fun and gimmicky but at over 50pts each they never made a big splash and some people made them work, most likely, because even in thier hayday, just like today, they are good but no one practices against them.

The Shadowcaster: I just haven't flown it enough and it's mobile arc takes care of (one of) the FSs biggest problems- small based arc dodgers fit in those side arcs too easily.

On 5/28/2017 at 1:29 PM, underling said:

This may not quite be what you had in mind, but here's a variation of a six Crack Shot swarm I've been running lately.

Howlrunner w/Crack Shot

Black Squadron x3 w/Crack Shot

Bounty Hunter w/Recon Spec

This comes in at 100 points.

I came up with this just to see if a firespray could be put into a build and be reasonably competitive.

I don't have too much experience with it yet, but I think it'll end up working okay.

Kevin

How has this build been working for you? I want to try this but swap the RecSpec with Andrasta title and bomblet generator.