Or: how not to overfeed the Hawk and make it too fat.

Been playing Imperials for the past however-long-it-has-been-since-I-started, so the HWK-290 is very much new territory for me. But, with a nice order of Scum soon to be delivered, I was looking into the (many) options, and it's role in the army. My main issue is how many upgrades to put on it, before it become too unwieldy, too expensive for what it does and for how easily it may be destroyed.

A build I came up with is (34pts)

Palob Godalhi

-Opportunist

-K4 Security Droid

-Blaster Turret

-Moldy Crow

In the first turns, Palob can Focus and store those in his stolen Crow. As the fleets close in, he'll take Focus tokens whenever possible, both to charge his Blaster Turret and to trigger Opportunist - his own ability combines perfectly with the 'no focus or evade' clause. As that Talent gives a stress, he'll often want to do a green move, which resulted in the inclusion of the K4 Droid, which adds a Target Lock to his 4-attack turret attack for extra punishment. Not sure if he risks running out of Focus too soon (especially if nearby enemies use different actions), so the Droid may be replaced by a Recon Specialist.

Any thoughts on this build?

Another idea was to swap the Blaster for an Autoblaster Turret and add an Engine Upgrade, possibly dropping the Title (for 36 or 33 points respectively).

Could he do enough to warrant spending over a third of the available points?

As for a full list, the following crossed my mind:

Serissu, Stealth Device

Kaa'to Leeachos, Bodyguard

Black Sun Soldier

Black Sun Soldier

Palob Godalhi, Opportunist, K4 Security Droid, Blaster Turret, Moldy Crow

Kaa'to can take additional Focus from Palob to further protect Serissu, who in turn protects the rest of the gang. Recon Specialist could be better here, and I contemplated putting Stealth on the HWK, but that would make Serissu very reliant on Kaa'to while making the HWK even more points heavy.

Any advice very much appreciated!

it's a nice looking list, problem is Leechos can't bodyguard Palob since it's higher PS only. It would've been absolutely perfect if he could

on that note, scrap Leechos. The points you save on turning him into another black sun (4) will turn two of your Zs into bug-zappers and really force your opponent's hand when it comes to positioning.

Imo, you're getting far more out of more reliable head-hunters than a glorified pirate that only exists to give Seirussu + 1 agility, all the while eating focus that Palob needs to both attack and defend himself with. I've flown non-recon HWKs with crow before, and while you can secure enough focus on the opening turns to last a while, Palob's completely dependent on his focus to even attack and there's no guarantee the enemy will perform focus actions knowing that you're losing out on either +1 agility or Palob's ability to attack at all.

Worse still, the synergy between opprotunist and security droid (legit though it is) is going to force Palob to be incredibly predictable in order to keep generating focus reliably. This'll lead to bumps, which'll lead to no focus, which'll lead to no shots (which'll lead to suffering, just not your opponent's).

In short, if you're running crazy palob he needs all the focus he can get. This is scum, baby, you don't ever want to share!

I'd just add even more menacing others to the list so that they have to choose.

Palob in that config looks utter fun. You could always make it a fatter HWK and give it a hull for safety.

HWKs are amazing ships. People underestimate them very much. Their flying is also tricky to master, but has numerous options in that seemingly bad dial.

Thanks for the ideas.

Was indeed playing around with adding a second dangerous ship to the list: luckily, I was also looking forward to giving new Kath a try. List would be:

Kath Scarlet

-Calculation

-Recon specialist

Palob Godalhi

-Opportunist

-Blaster turret

-Recon specialist

-Moldy Crow

2 x Binayre Pirate

Rather like the idea of Recon+Calculation on Kath, allowing a crit if rolling just a singe eyeball, or a crit and X hits if rolling several - spending both tokens, alternatively keeping one focus token for defence of course.

If Opportunist isn't quite as fun or useful as it sounds, I'll simply drop it and give Kath the Engine Upgrade she always likes to have.

pablo+BT+K4+opp

Kavil+unhinged+opp+BT

3Xpirate

HWK's are one of my favorite platforms. Typically HWK's are flown as a very effective support ship. You must give the opponent somtething else to shoot at that can be effective if your opponent kills the HWK. you dont want the whole thing breaking down once the HWK is killed.at first glance it looks like in the above list that Pablo doesnt generate enough foci to be effective. the only list that ive flown against that gave me problems was dueling another pablo(in which case you dont want initiative so that you can steal his focus)or carnor jax. generally i run my ships up 3 from the corner then easy 3 which is a red for pablo (half the time ive been able to TL with Kavil at this point). next round i do a green manouver giving me a TL and a focus for action. on my attack i have 9 red dice between kavil and pablo usually both are TL'd as well. Pablo isnt too fat and kavil serves as a difficult choice to shoot at first.

Here's an idea,

Leave Palob naked and put opportunist on other guys in the squad (Tensari Point Vets with Mangoer or HLC). So either the opponent has to target Palob not reducing your firepower at all or ignores him to keep Palob hounding him till the end.

Here's an idea,

Leave Palob naked and put opportunist on other guys in the squad (Tensari Point Vets with Mangoer or HLC). So either the opponent has to target Palob not reducing your firepower at all or ignores him to keep Palob hounding him till the end.

I hope you mean "naked" as in "no ept" because a HWK with no upgrade is like a ship without a keel (and, funnily enough, without a kill...not with that sh*tty one die attack)

I would agree that Palob doesn't need an ept, his pilot ability is plenty devastating enough as it is.

Opportunist on Palob is a great find, it actually hadn't occurred to me and it works so well with his ability. Expensive upgrade at 4 points though. I've used Calculation to really good effect, the crits overall aren't as devastating as the extra die could be but it still gives him a bit extra mileage.

Only thing I'd say is that Rec Spec is definitely the better choice for Moldy Crow. By the time shooting starts, you'll likely have banked at least 4 Focus, and after that you can Target Lock on rounds you want to do maximum damage. With K-4, you're still getting action economy but you're stuck with the HWK's green moves which may make it difficult to hide the HWK or keep up with faster teammates. Also, on a turn that you bump, you'll be stuck with the HWK's stellar 1 die attack since you won't have focus to activate the turret (your opponent is unlikely to oblige you with a token, and will probably just do another action, or nothing, instead.)

No I mean naked. Purely a support ship. Save those points to boost offense elsewhere. Either your opponent has to focus down on something that isn't hurting him by dice, only by an ability, or ignore it and focus on other more offensive ships and he HWKs ability stays until late game. It's a unique point of view but I've seen it work to great effect. If your HWK has a great ability it's going to draw biggs like focused fire anyways, might as well save the points for another ship in your squad.

No I mean naked. Purely a support ship. Save those points to boost offense elsewhere. Either your opponent has to focus down on something that isn't hurting him by dice, only by an ability, or ignore it and focus on other more offensive ships and he HWKs ability stays until late game. It's a unique point of view but I've seen it work to great effect. If your HWK has a great ability it's going to draw biggs like focused fire anyways, might as well save the points for another ship in your squad.

it's an idea, but you really don't have to spend much to make the HWK something other than useless on its own (hell, 4 points triples your offense, albeit situationally). Hell, just give the poor bastard an Ion cannon at least.

Bottom line for me is that paying 20 points for a walking vacuum cleaner is not something I can ever see being worth it, especially when said vacuum cleaner is wasting half of its ability (that focus/evade you steal is pretty **** when you can't use it to shoot anything, because you won't do **** for damage, or against being shot, because no one in their right mind would bother with a crappy un-upgraded HWK).

Opportunist on Palob is a great find, it actually hadn't occurred to me and it works so well with his ability. Expensive upgrade at 4 points though. I've used Calculation to really good effect, the crits overall aren't as devastating as the extra die could be but it still gives him a bit extra mileage.

Only thing I'd say is that Rec Spec is definitely the better choice for Moldy Crow. By the time shooting starts, you'll likely have banked at least 4 Focus, and after that you can Target Lock on rounds you want to do maximum damage. With K-4, you're still getting action economy but you're stuck with the HWK's green moves which may make it difficult to hide the HWK or keep up with faster teammates. Also, on a turn that you bump, you'll be stuck with the HWK's stellar 1 die attack since you won't have focus to activate the turret (your opponent is unlikely to oblige you with a token, and will probably just do another action, or nothing, instead.)

If you are using Opportunist you are going to be pretty much stuck on green moves as well.