Fel + PTL + Stealth

BH + Recon

Backstabber

NightBeast

Who are you going to shoot first?

BH with double focus at range 1-2

Nightbeast with evade and focus at range 2

BS with evade/focus at range 2-3

Fel at range 3 (5 green dice) with Focus and Evade- if you have a shot on him at all.

Swap in a Rebel Captive on that BH and the choice becomes a bit tougher imho.

I've been thinking about that as well, but I think that the double focus is a more versatile option because the Rebel Captive only affects one enemy ship per turn while the double focus can help in lots of different ways.

Ultimately I think it depends more on your play style.

I am currently leaning more towards Rebel Captive, it works well at messing up one ship per turn and in the current meta, you often end up with 1-1 ship combat near the end of the game. Being stressed every time you shoot makes for a huge advantge to the Firespray in the end game.

This gets doubly so if you are using Kath.

It also synergizes well with the Squints as it can set them up for poorly defended kill shots from them or reduce the likelihood of a shot on them going through.

The Initial reason for recon was to stay in theme! But in this list it's all about survival. While rebel captive is awesome it does not keep anyone from shooting at you, nor does it help you when they do. Having double focus also meansi can use one on offense as long as the BH isn't taking all fire that round, and if it is taking all fire, double focus matters more. And, at least in the engagement round, I want my opponent to be hitting the firespray rather than the fragile ties, then disengage with the BH and make them chase him to try to finish him off with ties behind them or turn and face the ties and the BH keeps shooting out of rear arcs.

The Initial reason for recon was to stay in theme! But in this list it's all about survival. While rebel captive is awesome it does not keep anyone from shooting at you, nor does it help you when they do. Having double focus also meansi can use one on offense as long as the BH isn't taking all fire that round, and if it is taking all fire, double focus matters more. And, at least in the engagement round, I want my opponent to be hitting the firespray rather than the fragile ties, then disengage with the BH and make them chase him to try to finish him off with ties behind them or turn and face the ties and the BH keeps shooting out of rear arcs.

It keeps people from shooting just as much as stealth does. It plays mind games with them. Or, depending on their thought process, they might decide to target it first. (one out of four ships shooting it getting stressed is better than leaving it for last when one of one ships get stressed)

Khyros re-enforces my point. Either they will not want to shoot you and go after the Squints, leaving the Firespray to roam free and then you have to deal with stress end game, or they'll go after it straight away which will mess up a ship and leave your Squints time to get in close and behind where they will be harder to shift than dried concrete.

I watched two friends play last weekend and the last two ships were Kath with rebel Captive and Vader with Engine Upgrade. Can you imagine how frustrating having Vader stressed every turn is, it basically forced him to focus and evade whilst being constantly fired on.

Think what that would do to a "normal" ship.

Squints thrive on disruption in the enemy ranks so they can get better position, this helps that much better than Recon Spec does.

Rebel captive certainly disrupts things. I really like her on a Kath build where I plan on Kath being my endgame piece. In this list however, that role is for Fel. I prefer the opposition to be hitting on the beefy BH instead of Fel/Turr.

I am currently leaning more towards Rebel Captive, it works well at messing up one ship per turn and in the current meta, you often end up with 1-1 ship combat near the end of the game. Being stressed every time you shoot makes for a huge advantge to the Firespray in the end game.

This gets doubly so if you are using Kath.

It also synergizes well with the Squints as it can set them up for poorly defended kill shots from them or reduce the likelihood of a shot on them going through.

Krassis' ability and the Ion Cannon work great here as well.

I've had success with four Sabers with Push The Limit. OK your PS isn't high, but a boost and a barrel roll make it easy to get into a good position, and if you can't predict where someone with a higher PS is going to be then you can have an evade.

There's also the question of do you want to spend 4 points for Shield vs. 3 for Stealth.

Today, I was trying a list that started out as

Howlrunner +Swarm +Stealth

Saber +Swarm

Black +Swarm

3x Academy

98 points.

That was working pretty well. Thought about trying Shield on Howl and going to 99, but decided the point was better spent taking changing Saber from Swarm to PTL and going to 99. I liked the way that tuning worked.