Including a good bit of the information people have posted. My internet is a bit wonky today, so if I've missed something, feel free to let me know!

I would argue about Jan. I have her in a 3 ship list. She has ion and nien numb.partners to Biggs and wedge. Biggs has R2-D2 and a shield upgrade. Wedge has marksmanship and a shield upgrade. Works ok. Only play it in friendlies so far but it holds its own. Wedge + Jan + marksmanship = lots of pain

I play this build often. It works, and works well!

Kyle: Useless. Regardless of what people say. He's a gimmick that costs wayy too many points.

Jan: Useless. Regardless of what people say. She's a gimmick that costs wayy too many points. (Khyros)

I HIGHLY disagree with Jan and Kyle being useless. Heck I would say its because of Jan that I fell in love with HWKs in the first place. There really is nothing like seeing your opponents face drop when they have to face 4-5 dice on a constant basis when she is paired up with any amount of X or Bs. Kyle is very useful as well, coming in at 31 points (same as most Jan set ups) to set him up still gives you enough to run 3 Red squadron Xs, that alone is a massive amount of dice going down with extra focus going around. When people say the HWK is useless, I smile because I have a hard time not including one into my lists.

Agreed. Talk of a ship being useless doesn't help anybody and is just inserting an opinion where a fact should be. Even if it is hard to squeeze a ship into a 100 point list, consider that not everyone plays tourney style. I've been playing for near 2 years and have only started using 100 point lists in the past few months.

Okay... you want more than just "opinion" fine then. Let's take the example of Blue thunder that was mentioned earlier. For simplicity sake, lets say everyone has a focus token. And lets look at vs. a TIE swarm and vs. a BBBB squad.

So against the swarm, at R3 blue thunder will do 1.23 damage for each HLC attack. And then the rookies will each add .35. Then the next turn at R1, the Blues will do 1.23 again, as will the rookies. For a two turn damage total of 8.08.

Now lets sub out Jan. One blue will do .35 damage, as will the rookie. The Jan modified blue will do .79 damage now because the opponent gets an extra attack. Jan does a measly .01 damage. Then on turn 2, when everyone is at R1, the rookie and one blue will do 1.23. The third will do 1.91, and Jan will have a 46% of ionizing someone and doing 1 damage. We'll consider that .46 damage. This totals a two turn damage total of 6.33, with a 46% possibility of an ion token. This is a good 22% less damage than the previous squad.

But maybe Jan does better against low agility ships than high agility. So lets look at that now.

Blue thunder at R3 does 2.38 with the HLCs, and .91 with the Rookies. At R1, they then all do 2.38 damage. Totaling 16.1 damage.

Sub out Jan, and at R3, the Blue + Rookie do .91, the Jan enhanced does 1.77, and she does .11 herself. At R1, the blue and rookie do 2.38, and the jan enhanced does 3.13, and she has the same 46% to ionize... totaling 12.05 damage, which is 25.2% lower than the blue thunder squad.

Yes, there is definitely shock and awe associated with having 5 dice at R1. But if you really want that, I would suggest getting an APT for 6 points, instead of Jan for 30. Note: This is not an endorsement for the APT, just math behind why Jan is pointless.

So, in case you don't follow everything, yes, she buffs someone and that's nice, but the opportunity cost of taking Jan far outweighs the extra damage she dishes out. Heck, for 30 points, you might as well take Wedge and have a point for init so you make sure that you shoot first.

As for Kyle, he hands out an extra focus, presumably coupled with MC or Recon Spec. This puts his total at 31 points. If you don't have MC or RS, then you might as well take Luke w/ SL, though that is 2 points more. But there are other alternatives such as GSP w/ SL for PS2 ships, or Garven for PS6 and under ships.

But the extra focus handed out increases a R1 4 dice attack (with a previous TL) from 3 hits to 3.75 hits. Against a TIE w/ a focus, that changes the expect 1.23 damage to 1.64 damage. Against a B it increase it from 2.38 to 2.61. Meanwhile, he has the same 46% to do 1 damage and an ion token (on a B wing it is 90%) so, you've now taken one person up ~.3 damage and you get to do <1 damage... and you traded that for Luke or Wedge or someone who can shoot at a high PS and do the same or more damage. Still not seeing his use.

As for Kyle, he hands out an extra focus, presumably coupled with MC or Recon Spec. This puts his total at 31 points. If you don't have MC or RS, then you might as well take Luke w/ SL, though that is 2 points more. But there are other alternatives such as GSP w/ SL for PS2 ships, or Garven for PS6 and under ships.

But the extra focus handed out increases a R1 4 dice attack (with a previous TL) from 3 hits to 3.75 hits. Against a TIE w/ a focus, that changes the expect 1.23 damage to 1.64 damage. Against a B it increase it from 2.38 to 2.61. Meanwhile, he has the same 46% to do 1 damage and an ion token (on a B wing it is 90%) so, you've now taken one person up ~.3 damage and you get to do <1 damage... and you traded that for Luke or Wedge or someone who can shoot at a high PS and do the same or more damage. Still not seeing his use.

While I get your point, you're missing out on a lot of other useful factors.

Assume a ship is going to get Kyle's focus. They now have a free second action to do with as they please. This could get them into/out of firing range, Target Lock for missiles, Evade, Barrel Roll... and the list goes on. Use Kyle in a set of PtL'ing Green Squadron pilots and you've got someone sport two Foci, and a TL/Evade/or Boost. While your damage calcs are certainly something to be aware of, they are not the only factor to consider.

Yes, there is definitely shock and awe associated with having 5 dice at R1. But if you really want that, I would suggest getting an APT for 6 points, instead of Jan for 30. Note: This is not an endorsement for the APT, just math behind why Jan is pointless.

He's right.... everyone should see how pointless Jan (or any HWK) is. Send me you HWKs. I will do the selfless thing and help your rid yourself of these pointless ships. The math behind how much you spend on shipping to send me your pointless HWKs far outweighs the expense of how much room is being wasted by keeping the HWK in your collection.

For me the big thing with Jan is that if you're up against 3 AGI ships, that one extra die increases 1) the likelihood of getting a single shot through (or am I totally wrong?) and 2) the likelihood of one-shotting the enemy, thus preventing a return shot.

If I don't have a Focus on Wedge, I'm still going to use Jan's ability, but you can bet I'll try my best to have TL's and Focus tokens on all my ships to maximize the extra die she grants.

I HIGHLY disagree with Jan and Kyle being useless. Heck I would say its because of Jan that I fell in love with HWKs in the first place. There really is nothing like seeing your opponents face drop when they have to face 4-5 dice on a constant basis when she is paired up with any amount of X or Bs. Kyle is very useful as well, coming in at 31 points (same as most Jan set ups) to set him up still gives you enough to run 3 Red squadron Xs, that alone is a massive amount of dice going down with extra focus going around. When people say the HWK is useless, I smile because I have a hard time not including one into my lists.

Agreed. Talk of a ship being useless doesn't help anybody and is just inserting an opinion where a fact should be. Even if it is hard to squeeze a ship into a 100 point list, consider that not everyone plays tourney style. I've been playing for near 2 years and have only started using 100 point lists in the past few months.

Okay... you want more than just "opinion" fine then. Let's take the example of Blue thunder that was mentioned earlier. For simplicity sake, lets say everyone has a focus token. And lets look at vs. a TIE swarm and vs. a BBBB squad.

Khyros: Wow, that's a lot of math. Thanks for working all that out.

Still, I disagree with you and have an issue with the "useless" comment. I appreciate your point, and in terms of damage output vs. point value, you're right. If I played you in a 100 point deathmatch with a Jan or Kyle list, you'd probably smile and wipe me off the board.

However, judging the value of a ship on mathmatics of damage output alone isn't the full picture. So yes, despite the math, it is still "opinion" (as strong as it may be). I don't want to speak for the OP, but I feel the point of this thread is to point out what each ship is good at to people unfamiliar with them. Just because it's damage output doesn't fit well into 100 point deathmatch lists (which it sounds like you're benchmarking with) mathmatically doesn't mean it's useless. The pilots have strengths and there is a reason they are in the game...embrace that.

Also, I will share the burden in housing anyone's unwanted HWK's ;-)

For me the big thing with Jan is that if you're up against 3 AGI ships, that one extra die increases 1) the likelihood of getting a single shot through (or am I totally wrong?) and 2) the likelihood of one-shotting the enemy, thus preventing a return shot.

If I don't have a Focus on Wedge, I'm still going to use Jan's ability, but you can bet I'll try my best to have TL's and Focus tokens on all my ships to maximize the extra die she grants.

@Khyros: Jan is at a massive disadvantage in that setup, since her ion cannon basically leaves her out of a Range 3 engagement, and the HLCs gain a substantial advantage. Things look a lot closer if you look at starting at Range 2, or if you just run things beyond the second round--the more Range 1 shots you include, the better Jan looks in comparison to those comparatively more expensive HLCs.

Oh, and you also left out the effect of the Blue's FCS in my list.

Fair enough on that. So if we just look just at the R1 engagements, where Jan does her best work, 4 rookies/blues/whatever with a single action are doing 1.23 damage each against a focused TIE, for a total of 4.92 damage. Meanwhile, Jan boosts one to 1.91 and reduces her own to .46 for a total of 4.83 damage. Now there's also a chance that she ionizes someone, which is a token that I absolutely love to hand out. And she's a higher PS, so there's that going for you as well.

But now what happens as soon as you lose a ship? If it's Jan, then the squads are equal. If it's an attacker though, the first list is reduced to 1.23 x3 = 3.69 damage. For Jan's list, it's 3.6. Again, pretty much equal. And then you lose your second ship, and you're doing 2.46 and 2.37, pretty much equal. But then you lose your 3rd ship, and you're left with a HWK with a useless ability (and I feel like everyone will agree Jan's ability is useless when she has no one to buff).

Furthermore, Jan (and Kyle) are susceptible to many crits. Damaged engine makes their dial just as bad as the Lambdas, Kyle doesn't like Damaged sensor array, Jan doesn't like Thrust control fire, neither likes Munitions failure, nor Injured pilot. These are all crits that have a much more damaging effect to the HWK/pilots than their point replacement. Even if Wedge get's injured pilot, he's still a PS9 X wing that puts out the hurt. If Jan/Kyle gets that, then they're a point sink Ion Cannon Turret, with a high PS, which I might add, would be better as a lower PS. If a Y wing gets a munitions failure, at least he has a primary attack of 2, where an attack is ~50% likely to connect against a unfocused defender.

And no, math doesn't take into account things such as superior location and giving the extra focus or attack die to someone who is set up for that kill shot.

For me the big thing with Jan is that if you're up against 3 AGI ships, that one extra die increases 1) the likelihood of getting a single shot through (or am I totally wrong?) and 2) the likelihood of one-shotting the enemy, thus preventing a return shot.

If I don't have a Focus on Wedge, I'm still going to use Jan's ability, but you can bet I'll try my best to have TL's and Focus tokens on all my ships to maximize the extra die she grants.

You are correct. If we take a look at 3 attack vs. 3 defense (R2 on a TIE) both with focuses... The base % hit is 46%, for an average damage of .64, if it was Wedge attacking, it increases to 70% average damage .91. If it's Jan increases a non-Wedge, it is increased to 70% average damage of 1.23. If it's Jan increasing Wedge, it is increased to 87% average damage 1.77.

This would be more useful to look at stripping stealth device though. So lets take a look at 3 attack vs. 4 defense, both with Focuses. Base hit is 27% for .35 damage. Jan increases it to 50%. And she herself has a 27% chance. So, in this instance, Jan + Blue have a 64% chance to strip stealth. Which is greater than the Blue + Blue chance of stripping stealth of 47%.

For comparision though, lets look at Wedge + Blue for stripping a stealth. Wedge has a 46% to hit, and then the Blue has a 27%, for a total chance of 61%. Basically too close to call, especially once one starts looking at % chance to keep focus on defense for the Blue's attack. My gut first thought that Jan would have a higher % of stripping focus for the Blue since the defender will be rolling more dice and therefore have a higher probability of rolling focuses, but there's also a higher probability of rolling enough evades as to not need the focus token. And I'm too lazy to do that math.

And the only reason that one could consider math an opinion is if you disagree with the underlaying assumptions that go into the model. For example, I'm assuming that you want to maximize your chances of winning, and the best way to win is to kill your opponents ships. I'm also assuming things like the maneuver dial have no implications on how the HWK plays vs. other ships. Or how long the ship lives.

But I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone that would say that HWK dial is better than any other rebel ship. One could potentially make an argument for it over the YT because it has a larger base and therefore more difficult to fly through asteroids, but I haven't mentioned the YT at all in my comments.

One could also make the argument that the HWK has two agility and will live much longer than a B wing. In that case, I would once again pull out the math and say that ignoring the effects of crits, the B wing will live longer. And the HWK is more susceptible to crits, so including those would just hamper it's survivability even more.

One could argue with the goal is to win. Some people would rather sacrifice win % to play more enjoyable games. And in those games they could have more fun rolling 5 dice at R1, regardless of whether it's the best thing to be doing or not. My response to those is that they should couple expose with Jan to roll 6 dice then. Because no amount of math is going to make you rethink how fun it is to roll that many dice and see how your opponent reacts.

And then there's also the psychological warfare aspect of Jan that I'm not accurately including in the math. Which I stated as a disclaimer. Though I would like to think that by spreading FACTS about her, instead of opinions and stories, that reason will tamper the panic . After all, one should never plan on his opponent making a mistake, but rather capitalize on the mistakes one's opponent makes.

Fair enough on that. So if we just look just at the R1 engagements, where Jan does her best work, 4 rookies/blues/whatever with a single action are doing 1.23 damage each against a focused TIE, for a total of 4.92 damage. Meanwhile, Jan boosts one to 1.91 and reduces her own to .46 for a total of 4.83 damage. Now there's also a chance that she ionizes someone, which is a token that I absolutely love to hand out. And she's a higher PS, so there's that going for you as well.

Also, handing that extra die out to the ship that's in the perfect position and/or action state to land a kill shot is one of Jan's major advantages, although I agree that it's hard to model.

But regardless, the conversation we're having here places a list with Jan + 3 generics on an approximately even footing with one of the most headlong offensive lists the Rebels can muster. Surely that demonstrates to you that--even if she's not the pilot for you, or even if the HWK isn't your ship at all--she's something other than an overly costly gimmick?

God, I hate jousting math. For the most part, those numbers are not near as important as positioning, people focus to much on alphas in this game. Let's put this in perspective. Jan is withing range 3 of friendly ship, let's say she is flying with 3 reds against a TIE swarm. First engagement, the front 2 ties of the column are in range of the 3 front vangaurd of Xs, you now have firing, you have a raw advantage of damage at this point now, 4+3+3 at range three. OK so that is the perfect situation and not applicable in all situations, so let's talk end game. Say Jan lives through the "joust alpha" due to flying her away but still in range of her turret weapon. Let's say turn 5 at this point formations dissolve and you now have one of those Xs facing down a TIE or 2 with slight to no damage. This is where the boost in damage shines the most. That X now stands a much more reliable chance against those TIEs by either destroying one out right or severely crippling it.

Hwk 290:

Rebel Op: Cheapest ion platform. Dial is basically only missing a K turn when compared to the Y wing (not actually true, but close enough). It is not quite as survivable, but can take a crew, which allows for different customization than the Y wing.

Roark: Cheaper than a Gray and provides a PS12 boost. This is the reason no one should ever take a Gray. His ability makes him much more useful as a ICT platform. Fly him like a conservative Y wing.

Kyle: Useless. Regardless of what people say. He's a gimmick that costs wayy too many points.

Jan: Useless. Regardless of what people say. She's a gimmick that costs wayy too many points. (Khyros)

I HIGHLY disagree with Jan and Kyle being useless. Heck I would say its because of Jan that I fell in love with HWKs in the first place. There really is nothing like seeing your opponents face drop when they have to face 4-5 dice on a constant basis when she is paired up with any amount of X or Bs. Kyle is very useful as well, coming in at 31 points (same as most Jan set ups) to set him up still gives you enough to run 3 Red squadron Xs, that alone is a massive amount of dice going down with extra focus going around. When people say the HWK is useless, I smile because I have a hard time not including one into my lists.

I'm 3-0 with a list featuring Jan, Biggs and a pair of blues. She's definitely far from useless

I think what most people see is the problem with the HWK is they try to throw a support ship in as a substitute for another ship in a list its not designed for, instead of finding which other pilots work well with the support ability. True, since its not a jousting ship you have to think a little outside the box, but saying a square nail sucks just means you've only hammered it into a circle hole.

I'm currently pondering a Kyle + Garven list. Affectionately calling it 'Focus Pocus.'

I'm currently pondering a Kyle + Garven list. Affectionately calling it 'Focus Pocus.'

I've tried the build and found it to be overkill. In a bigger game, with more than 100 pts, it might be a great way to keep B-wings and Falcons in the game longer though.

I'm currently pondering a Kyle + Garven list. Affectionately calling it 'Focus Pocus.'

I've tried the build and found it to be overkill. In a bigger game, with more than 100 pts, it might be a great way to keep B-wings and Falcons in the game longer though.

Is overkill good or bad in this statement?

Like 'I overkilled the enemy and my opponent sobbed in the corner?'

or 'All that Focus was overkill and I had nothing good to do with it?'

I'm currently pondering a Kyle + Garven list. Affectionately calling it 'Focus Pocus.'

I've tried the build and found it to be overkill. In a bigger game, with more than 100 pts, it might be a great way to keep B-wings and Falcons in the game longer though.

Is overkill good or bad in this statement?

Like 'I overkilled the enemy and my opponent sobbed in the corner?'

or 'All that Focus was overkill and I had nothing good to do with it?'

I found myself not needing TWO Focus factories. Kyle was enough, and better at it. If anything, he was ignored the first half of the game (which I took advantage of) and then when my opponent shifted tactics to target Kyle in the second half it lead to further disaster for him. I think there is a psychological factor to the HWK that most do not consider.

I think Garven is better suited in a build that needs all its pieces to be fast and preposition quickly. Such as:

Garvin+R2

Green+PtL+Stealth

Green+PtL+Stealth

Red Sqd

This way everyone should be prepared to attack and defend every round, but not at the cost of speed or position.