Ok, I’ll be the first to admit to being quite short sighted when it comes to the Firespray, I have used other pilots on the ship a fair few times, but my main focus has always been on the main man. I love the Firespray more than I love Boba though, he just happens to be the pilot that makes it tick in the most “Phil” way. 2.0 has done some great things for the chassis, I’ve already looked at how the changes to the base size and dial affect the ship in some depth so won’t really go into the chassis much in this article, and I’ve already written a whole load about Boba, and if you want to see what I think the current optimal build for him is then check out the last couple of posts.

Obviously in 2.0 the Imperials don’t have the spray anymore so the last imperial pilot, has come over to the “morally ambiguous side” and we get a whole new pilot for the ship. With a generic and the 5 named pilots there is a wealth of options to take advantage of and do quite horrid things with.

Further to these pilots there are now three titles rather than two for the ship, each giving more character to your ship and how you get to fly it.

Slave 1: Boba’s ship, this is the movey title

Andrasta: Emon’s ship, this is the bomby title

Marauder: Kath’s ship, this is the shooty title

For this post I’m going to take a look at each pilot in turn, a look at a proposed build for them, strategies and potential list options. We could be in for quite a long hall. After the Fang article I wrote a few weeks ago I found that I really enjoyed this fairly in-depth approach.

A brief overview of actions:

Focus: Generally speaking your best action. Mods are for defence first, then attack if not needed for defence.

Target Lock: Useful but not essential, most Firesprays have ways of getting re-rolls with out taking locks, only one of them really needs them to be awesome, but more on that later.

Re-Enforce: It’s not great, and on Boba it is only ever the right choice at range 2 of a swarm, but for the other pilots who don’t have defensive re-rolls, evade tokens and focus tokens it is far more useful. Very situational, and not a go to action by any means this one will do good things for you against swarms, but if you are having to re-inforce you have probably put yourself in a sub-optimal position.

Boost: When I saw this was built in I smiled, I smiled a lot. After focus this is the best action on the ship. 4 forward boost ain’t subtle but with a ship as menacing as the Firespray it could well throw your opponent off! More importantly when combined with the new hard one this is your best way of turning around. Talon rolls and K-Turns are all well and good but if you can avoid stress then that is better.

One word of warning before we begin, any Firespray, even the big man is incredibly vulnerable to focussed fire. They can take a bit of a pounding but if you let your opponent get three 3 dice attacks on you expect your ship to be in a very bad state at the end of the phase.

So if you are sitting comfortably we shall begin, starting at the bottom and working our way up to the inevitable Kath Scarlet memes… All these builds are stripped down so there is plenty of place to tweak and flavour them to taste, and as ever they are just my musing, not a definitive way to fly.

Bounty Hunter

I’ve gone for a blocker here. At I2 you look at the ship you have elected to spy on with the Informant and then adjust your move (probably a one bank) if need be. The interaction between Slave 1 and informant is really strong as it gives the perfect knowledge of what one of your opponents ships is going to do and then as slave one triggers in the movement phase there is no penalty for the adjust. The aim of the ship is to either dodge what’s coming your way or block attempt to block it. Other things worth taking would be a Rigged Cargo Chute to mess with ships trying to get position on you.

If you really want to mess with people you could run another one with a Seasoned Navigator on it, essentially giving you two re-dialing blockers for the ship you want to kill, however that’s probably too much of a points investment.

Personally I’d look to run this with an ace (so Fenn then) and a support ship to increase it’s efficiency, Torkhil could well be a good shout for that, get this big gun firing before whoever you are picking on.

Krassis Trelix

Next up we have Krassis Trelix, I like the fact that his subtitle is Imperial Deserter, as the only unique Firespray pilot from 1.0 who didn’t make it to the scum faction I think it shows a nice touch of humour that he has now left them.

Krassis is working on the same basis as the generic bounty hunter, but comes in at a somewhat more considerable price. Where the bounty hunter is dialing in banks to get blocks on people Krassis is dialing in hard turns and then aiming to get his rear arc pointing at what you’re trying to kill. With an array of munition (you really can flavour to taste) he should be more than capable of punishing an over-committed ace with a thunderous volley of special attacks. With his inherent re-roll he might not even need to spend his lock.

Against low agility ships he should be an absolute menace, and if trickshot triggers with his munitions then that’s even more pain coming your opponents way. He’s always going to be quite expensive because the Slave 1 title suits him so well, and you want munitions to make the most of his ability. For the sake of action economy he probably wants a co-ordinator in the list with him, Lock Focus is much more consistent than just a lock. You could run him with a cheap L3 and a couple of more agile fighters to deter people from getting into his flanks too much.

Koshka Frost

Oooooh a new pilot, the only new pilot in the set. Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss Frost (I literally know nothing about this character and the internet wasn’t very helpful) is the B-Class Boba. You get the re-roll but only if your opponent is stressed, so the build is fairly obviously based around stress. Between the Rigged Cargo Chute and 0-0-0 Frost has two stress causing mechanics, which isn’t enough, you’re going to want to include more in a list to make the most of this ability, more on that in a moment. Marauder title here, BT-1 is just too good with 0-0-0 not to take and the added re-roll out the back from Marauder is very welcome. Get it right and you could be looking at a 4 dice attack with 2 re-rolls and flipping 2 hits to crits in a good turn. 4-Lom is going to be great friend to Koshka, in fact, anything you can do to put stress on people is going to be really good. Rigged Cargo Chutes, debris not asteroids, anything you can think of, you want. This particular ship doesn’t care too much about being stressed as the built in efficiency comes from those re-rolls and 0-0-0 should almost always be giving you a calculate as no one in their right mind is going to take stress against Frost.

Emon Azzameen

Which brings us to one of the coolest pilots in the game. Mr Azzameen appeared as a character in a 1990s computer game, made it into the X-Wing and then has not only secured his place in 2.0 but got better! His biggest weakness in 1 was (in addition to all the other issues the Firespray had) that he didn’t have an elite pilot talent. This has changed and I think he is one of the best bombers in the game now. Why?

Well firstly he drops bombs at I4 in the systems phase, which means that he has 3 steps of initiative going before him. If your opponent is going to trigger anything it could well give a clue away as what they plan to do with their ships and let you know whether or not you want to drop anything in response.

Then there is the fact that he is the best home in the game for Proximity Mines, because now it has been confirmed that they DO in fact explode when they get dropped on peoples heads that means there are a lot of ships that won’t want to go anywhere near him.

If he decides to drop a Proton instead the threat of it alone could affect how your opponent choses to fly that round. His bomb space is massive, and the Andrasta title gives him infinite Proton with the reload action.

But aside from the bomb mechanics this version has a big trick in it. Starting with the notorious bounty hunter Cad Bane. After you drop a device you get to do a red boost action. This does one of three things:

Either leads into a green move to clear the stress and take an action as normal

Leads into a white move, keeping the stress but potentially gaining a positional advantage

Or leads into a deliberate failed action…

*unfortunately I was a mite behind on the rules here: failed actions give the stress before composure would get the chance to trigger. Thanks to the guys on Reddit for helping clarify the rules here, Angerman5000 and Rsixidor it is much appreciated! Pick another EPT – there are plenty of options!

Personally I would fly him with fighter support, a couple of Fangs is a good shout, you aren’t really able to win a game just with bombs anymore so having some agile guns about should compensate for any weaknesses in Emon. I really rate him and think he could well be the second best Spray going.

Force your opponent to use channels, block those channels with bombs and then gun them down where they stand. Easy right?

Kath Scarlet

And so we come to the last Firespray pilot. I’m gonna let you all into a little secret here: Kath was my favourite Spray in 1.0, not Boba. The problem with her was to get her to what you wanted her to be she just cost so many points. That combo of Dengar, Expertise and a heavy laser cannon was SO good, but she could never be the star of the show, Boba was just better at hitting things in a two ship list.

New Kath is so thematic to her background as the Pirate Queen. Picking her means that you have essentially decided exactly how your list is going to look. Quite simply she wants as many low PS ships alongside as you can fit in. Tobias Beckett will let you move a rock and hopefully channel your targets into your host of Z-95s and Quadjumpers, meanwhile Kath comes tearing in from a flank and unloads her big old guns into a stricken, blocked tokenless target. If you can get a tractor mean to trigger with outmanoeuvre and that additional dice then expect things to get wrecked.

In her background Kath would fly Marauder in front of something while her Pirates held it up, and then start hammering it from her rear arc, and this is no different. With the Veteran Tail Gunner she is more than happy to park in the middle of the board and start punching above her weight. If Beckett isn’t to your liking then she’s also a fan of perceptive co-pilot, one focus per shot seems good.

This archetype of list is a tricky one to fly, once Kath goes down whatever you have left on the table IS going to be up against it, and people will gun for Kath first. It’s almost tempting to run her as cheap as possible (drop outmanoeuvre) just so you can fit more ships in! An intimidating Z95 is going to be great with her….

Unfortunately this isn’t my style of list so it is likely that my beloved Kath is likely going to sit on the shelf for a very long time.

Pilots looked at now onto the practical side of things.

So how do you fly a Spray?

The Firespray at low initiative is an interesting ship to fly. A few months ago I did a video on Boba Kath with Rasta and Ash, a lot of the principles about how to fly the ship are still the same, so that’s worth a watch. However there are some things that have changed in response to the base size and dial which we’re going to run through a look at.

With good health, 2 agility and a big gun the Spray can go toe to toe with most things, at least for a turn, probably two. Low Initiative ships have the boon that they can generally just fly where they like and don’t have to worry too much about blockers. In the context of where the game is right now low initiative seems to mean anything below Initiative 5, which means that any Firespray pilot not Boba is in a pretty good spot for going where it wants to unless you run into a swarm.

There are so many ways you can use it, get in and fight up close and personal, with all the ones, or kite around and make use of a free re-roll with Marauder firing out of the back. Personally I tend to use the one banks a lot. They keep the firing arcs on the ship really open, but three banking is probably the default disengage move. I rarely Talon or K-Turn though, they make you much more predictable the following turn. You don’t have to turn around like that, you can shoot out of your arse!

Don’t be afraid to get in among the rocks, even with rocks placed just range one apart the medium base and full array of slow moves mean you can wriggle through most asteroid fields, if you have a Seismic sitting unused it is unlikely your opponent will commit anything too fragile to coming after you. However don’t let yourself get stuck in them, 4 forward boost is as acceptable when running away as when running towards.

Set your firing arcs and make it your opponents job to get out of it rather than your job to try and catch them in it. Move and take a focus, sit there and threaten. If you get get your engagement right and time your moves you can really limit your opponents options. Low initiative ships work WITH obstacles, they are your friends when it comes to limiting higher initiative ships options. High initiative ships have to navigate rocks and work around them.

The choice of title you have on your ship will also dictate how you fly the ship. If you have Marauder then get that rear arc in action as often as possible, if you’re flying with Slave 1 then make sure you can take advantage of the dial moving ability if you need it.

Low Initiative ships all have the inbuilt pilot ability of BLOCKING, and aces hate it. The key to blocking is to be able to capitalise on a good block. Fenn Rau thumping into your ship and having no focus is great, but if you don’t have a gun or two on him to take advantage of it then it’s not a good block, it’s just a block. If your block was set to deny a shot then that’s well and good but missing the opportunity to take advantage of that seems like taking the long way about things.

But the greatest thing about the Spray is that it is a really versatile ship, and it lets you do so many things. Its strength is also its weakness though, it is a jack of all trades and by definition a master of none, unless you plough a lot of points into it. However as a tool box ship you can put stuff on there, but you don’t have to use it every game. On my Boba I run Seismics and Debris Gambit, which seem counter intuitive, but actually, they’re both just really useful tools in different situations.

I’ve had a love affair with this ship for a long time and it’s great to see so many other people picking it up and having a go. The combination of slots make it an almost blank canvas for you to play with, hopefully this has given you some idea of directions you can take.

Next Time: I MIGHT TRY ONE OF THESE OUT

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