Had a game last night with me running a bounty hunter Firespray with gunner and engine upgrade. I didn't use the gunner once, never could, I always had at least one hit, and I was also Target locking when I could, in case of rolling only one hit. I hear that Firespray plus gunner is the "way it should be" but what are some other good options, as I "wasted" the points to have the gunner on board when I could have had something to use more.

Looking to keep him at the same amount of points and keep the engines I think.

I am a fan of a Recon Specialist as the focus in attack and defense is awesome. I also like Rebel captive for the stress it causes the enemy.

These two currently find there way onto my Firesprays.

Thanks Englishpete! If you check out the battle reports you'll see a fought against Han with 2 Recon Specs. It did work well for him, and some focus boost would have been nice.

I used TL alot of the time and if I knew a big shot was coming or if I didn't use my TL I had an evade.

Navigator's also pretty choice, even if you're not running Fett. Nothing quite like going "Hmm... nope, I'm just gonna scoot right past ya and blow you away with my butt-gun". Pretty useful at the 3 PS of the BH too, as you'll tend to move after the other unnamed pilots.

Intelligence Agent

Not bad with low PS and boost.

Flight instructor

Works well with 2 defense dice.

Recon Specialist

2 focus tokens.

Weapons Engineer

Shoot with TL+focus more often.

I love the Rebel Captive and it works great on the Firespray, since it often means your enemy will be attacking a different ship instead of your highly mobile, heavy hitting ship with great arcs. Plus, you can also add a seismic charge, which is always fun.

The Firespray may bring the Gunner into the game but unless you're fighting blue on blue it really is NOT a good choice for it. This is pretty simple really, Rebel ships are generally much easier to hit and tougher to boot so they would rather take one hit than spend any resources to turn that into a miss and give you another shot at it. A small example:

Firespray shoots at X-Wing: 3 Attack vs. 2 defense that can take 5 hits. Would the X-Wing spend a focus to save 1 damage to its shield and then watch it happen all over again? Probably not so the gunner is useless.

Han shoots at Stealth Equipped Interceptor: 3 attack vs. 4 defense. Now the attacker has a much harder time hitting the defender the first time and if he does he hit the defender IS likely to spend a token if it means keeping the Stealth Device. In this situation that Gunner is FAR more useful.

Although it may cost too much to really be effective Gunner is an upgrade that works best on a low attack ship that is shooting at a high defense target. Let's be honest, if you put a Gunner on a HWK and flew against TIE Fighters you are VERY likely to use it every round although it will still probably result in misses more often than not. As attack goes up the value of "trying again" also goes up but the chances of actually getting to use it goes down.

I am a fan of a Recon Specialist as the focus in attack and defense is awesome. I also like Rebel captive for the stress it causes the enemy.

These two currently find there way onto my Firesprays.

Recon Spec is great, especially on a ship with 2 agility.

I haven't tried it yet, but I really like the idea of a BH with a Rebel Captive and an Ion Cannon.

The only time I really see it (Firespray with Gunner) being especially useful is for A-Wings with Stealth Device, or X-Wings with R2-F2 and possibly Stealth Device. Otherwise... meh. There are way more useful crew members out there.

I seem to maybe misinterpreted the card for gunner. I took it as you roll and miss with all dice. You use gunner to reroll the attack. But now I see it as you attack, they defend fully, and then you can use gunner to attack again. Which is the right one? Dang cards being able to be taken different ways.

If you deal no damage to your opponent, you launch a new attack.

That is to say, even if you roll 3 hits, if they roll 2 evades and use an evade token, you get that second attack.

I seem to maybe misinterpreted the card for gunner. I took it as you roll and miss with all dice. You use gunner to reroll the attack. But now I see it as you attack, they defend fully, and then you can use gunner to attack again. Which is the right one? Dang cards being able to be taken different ways.

gunner activates if your shot misses, and that includes rolling hits which are successfuly evaded.

I also recommend the seismic charge. it's inexpensive, and the enemy tends to forget you have it until it suddenly blows up in his face.

IMO the Gunner is better on a YT-1300 than on the Firespray simply becasue you are more likely to be shooting at those high defense TIEs. If your enemies primary defense is not getting hit then Gunner's are much better than if your enemies stay alive by soaking up fire.

Also if you are playing an expereinced player they will likely choose not to spend a focus or evade token if it means they will only take one damage, rather than spending the token and giving you a good shot. It these cases it was still good that you had the gunner, because your enemy probably would have avoided any damage if you didn't have it.

On the Firespray I still like the HLC best. 4 attack dice vs 2 can be very punishing. Of course I also always put that HLC on Krassis.

What Dracon said above me: it's if the attack "does not hit". The only downside is you use your primary weapon so you can't really use those HLC or Ion Cannon attacks again, but such is life.

The fact that Gunner can only use the ship's primary weapon also contributes to it being being good on a Falcon (turret), fair on a Firespray (front and back arcs), mediocre/poor on a Shuttle (3 damage ok but still forward only), and horribly on a HWK with its pathetic 1 die primary.

I actually can visualize situations where having the second attack being a primary attack may be beneficial.

Had a game last night with me running a bounty hunter Firespray with gunner and engine upgrade. I didn't use the gunner once, never could, I always had at least one hit, and I was also Target locking when I could, in case of rolling only one hit. I hear that Firespray plus gunner is the "way it should be" but what are some other good options, as I "wasted" the points to have the gunner on board when I could have had something to use more.

Looking to keep him at the same amount of points and keep the engines I think.

Hmm like I said (just saw the post after the message) I apparently wasn't paying much attention to how you were running things on your side and didn't notice that you were never using gunner. Although, as you pointed out, I was at least occasionally letting 1 hit through in order to prevent gunner shots.

I still think Gunner is a good choice for a Firespray. I think the main problem was that in this matchup you were facing a squad of 1 agility ships, so yeah - statistically speaking you're going to average 1 hit per attack getting through in the long run, I think. Meaning against a bunch of 1 agility ships yes; Gunner is a bit iffy simply because you're going to hit more often than not anyway.

Now, I do think with the Falcon stacking focus and evade via 2x RecSpec and the Falcon title, via Push the Limit, if you'd been playing your cards right you could have used the TIEs to burn some defense off Han, fired with the BH, and then had some chances to use gunner if Han still managed to dodge the first shot. He's going to run out of focus, evade, or luck eventually.

But yeah, I think unless you were flat out not realizing how to use it properly, which I didn't catch but will watch for next time, you just happened to fight a squad where Gunner wasn't terribly necessary, which of course will make it feel like a waste of points. I think if I'd been running some 2 or 3 agility ships in that list (Han with a couple of X-Wings, or A-Wings even) it would have been a godsend. It was just sort of overkill with 1 agility targets across the board.

Slightly off topic, but 2 Recon's on Chewie with PtL and the Falcon title would make him a tough nut to crack?