The hawk is almost effectively a zero attack ship, since nobody seems to run it without a turret, but could a ship even work in a 100 point squad with zero native attack? Or even no cannon/turret slot? What kind of ability would a ship need to earn its place as support if it literally couldn't defend itself on its own?

it needs to cost less than 10pts for the highest PS named pilot

Transports work, but that kind of needs at least a 200-point Epic game.

Look to the support options that the Transport has, and downscale it a bit for a 100-point viable ship.

Probably some unique function or ability that will make your other ships capable of destroying their points worth plus the unarmed ships points.

A zero attack ship as a secondary weapon platform could work, as essentially a customization-dependent ship, could work. The HWK shows that trying to give it support capabilities with secondary weapons is a mixed bag, at least at the price of a HWK. The main issue is balance. It can't be so cheap that good secondary weapons become abusable, or that you can spam support type capabilities that devalue what things like HWKs or Squad Leader do. To that end, it could exist, but I would doubt it would be that great of an option.

Incredible support capabilities, for very cheap.

I think you could do it provided it acted as a base for some secondary weapon system(s). That would probably be the most basic level. Above that you'd be adding support capabilities. As for how much such a ship will cost that will depend on what those abilities are and how hard it is to take out that ship.

I've often envisioned a cheap "defense satellite" which has no primary weapon, has almost no hull/shield, and has only very slow maneuvers some of which may be unique but which has upgrade slots to make it useful. If many ships could take it down in a single round how much would you pay for a HLC for that ship?

Tycho in a shuttle

10 points if you know where i got that idea from

100 points if you know what his pilot ability is

EPT capable? That way it could use wingman ans squad leader. That seems kinda gross, though.

Kind of like the idea of a B-1R? Basically a refitted B-1 Lancer with air-to-air missiles instead of bombs and networked targeting systems for fighters to acquire target locks for launching BVR attacks from the Lancer once the engaging fighters have run out of missiles.

So a small ship with zero attack but can carry missiles and torps?

Tycho in a shuttle

10 points if you know where i got that idea from

100 points if you know what his pilot ability is

You got it from the X-wing Rouge SQN books - love that series and the Thrawn Trilogy

His ability could be;

• Ability to rescue EV pilots in a combat zone - not sure how this could be used.... or
• To target lock enemy ships and pass it onto friendly ships at range 1-3 allowing them to fire secondary weapons (munitions only) at range 2-5.

With the HWK it's primary attack comes from its secondary weapons aka the turret upgrade. You usually don't see a HWK without at least a Blaster Turret or Ion Turret. It has to have some way of fighting back even if it is a support ship.

Now for the Transport it has an indirect way of adding damage via jam action and slicer tools. Now it might be interesting but not exactly the best utilization of transports when you can buff all your X-wings and B-wings into 4 attack with rerolls.

Now there are other non attack effect which can add or increase the impact of damage. The bomb upgrades are not attacks or weapons so technically they just are effects that add damage. Also saboteur can flip damage cards face side up. The saboteur doesn't do any damage it just adds the effect of critical damage to damage that was already there.

If it has enough potent support ability.... yeah, why not.

Imagine a TIE scout - take a TIE fighter, strip off the lasers (or at least drop it to primary attack 1 with no additional weapon options) and give it a system slot and the Jam action straight off the transport.

Would you pay points for that? How many?