Twice now this thing has taken out a good chunk of my forces. I usually go after it, but my opponent takes Lando and Autoblaster Turret, with Determination and Moldy Crow title for good measure, and it's usually a big chore to kill it. I will usually focus fire on it, but Lando's ability plus the Crow title makes it difficult to get this thing to die. The two defense dice are usually not a big problem, but combined with at least one Evade token (which he gets a lot of the time) and it can be a problem to land even one hit.

Last night I took this list:

Oicunn + Darth Vader + Mara Jade + Ysanne Isard + Expose + Dauntless

Backstabber

Obsidian Squadron Pilot
Obsidian Squadron Pilot

He took the following

Wedge Antilles + Hull Upgrade + R3-A2

Horton Salm + Ion Torpedoes + Proton Torpedoes + R5-K6

Kyle Katarn + Lando Calrissian + Autoblaster Turret + Determination

I flew my ships in formation toward his clump of fighters, and when we were in range he unloaded his torpedoes into my Decimator. I took out Wedge as quickly as I could because I knew he'd wreck my fighters if I didn't, and I got a fair amount of damage on the Y-wing before the Decimator was destroyed. Part of the reason it went so quickly was that I used Darth Vader a couple of times to cause crits under shields, hoping to give him a crit that was useful somehow (Munitions Failure on the Y-wing would have been fun). Unfortunately, the Ion Torpedo hit at just the right time and kept my TIEs from doing any major damage to his forces.

After that my TIE Fighters lured the HWK into the asteroids because I figured his poor dial would work against him there, and it did for the most part. He found it hard to maneuver there, while my TIEs reveled in the tight turns and using their maneuverability to gain an advantage. I got Backstabber behind him several times to line up a great shot, but I had to stay out of range 1. That Autoblaster will shred a TIE Fighter easily. And each time he would roll at least an Evade result when using Lando. Twice in a row he got two Evade results. And it made him nearly invulnerable. I did manage to give him a crit, but as luck would have it, it was taken out by Determination and thus did no damage at all (I am gaining a little respect for that card). I tried using my other TIEs to block in order to keep him from using Lando, but all this did was make them more vulnerable to Autoblaster fire.

In the end, both his HWK and his Y-wing survived. The HWK didn't even have hull damage.

It's not great on its own and I'd NEVER take one naked or even with just a turret. But with the right combo this little ship can be a challenge to destroy thanks to that crew slot and the fact that it can mount a turret.

That's a cool story, but I think this is a story of a medium fish in a small pond, and I wouldn't draw any conclusions from it. It may be that your local community is small so there's nobody that's really strong to play against, but if you can I would recommend seeking out the players in your community that have won Regionals or Store Championships and play against them or watch what they play to get a sense of what the rest of us are actually up against. You could also watch youtube videos of the finals and semi-finals of recent championship tournaments if you can't find anyone in your area. To be honest, it looked like both of you were playing with randomly generated squads. I saw several problems with both lists, like running Expose on a Decimator or Horton not having a turret. The rest of us who are playing in tournaments are playing against much much stronger squads that are much more efficient and optimized.

There's also a logical train that you can follow here. If a HWK with 75% chance at an evade token is invulnerable, than the Firespray which has twice the HP and can evade without rolling die would be completely indestructable. And then there's the Falcon with C-3PO and the MF title to prevent 2 damage every turn.

I think HWKs do have a place in the competitive meta, but it's Jan Ors alongside Dash Rendar or Han Solo, not Kyle Katarn with Lando Calrisian crew. I would never describe a HWK as invulnerable, although with Chewbacca crew they can be about as tough as a Y-Wing and the things Jan Ors does through a super turret can be pretty brutal.

no matter how brutal a hwk is, nothing is more brutal than it taking a munitions failure crit

but yeah, hwks aren't bad. Mostly, moldy crow is such an absurd title that it makes the worst profile in the game somewhat decent

the scum hwks in particular are actually somewhat badass. Palob especially hits as hard as some of the dedicated combat characters in the game, mostly because what he's shooting at probably won't have its focus/evade to take on 3 dice + focus and possibly a target-lock

Yeah, I have gotten so enamored of HWKs that I had to institute a no HWK policy after having one in a list for every game I flew for about 3 months. I particularly like Roark, Jan, Dace and Paolo.

I don't particularly like that build above for Kyle. You need to spend a focus to fire the Autoblaster turret and with Lando, the chances of getting one is about 45% of the time . I actually wonder how he made it work (tremendous luck maybe). If i was flying against it, I would just ignore the HWK, take out everything else and then just cleanup.

edit fixed turrets name.

I love hawks and they have their place, it is brutal when you lose your secondary weapon and then decrease your primary attack value by 1 due to crits. They usually melt pretty quickly under concentrated fire though.

Also Vader hits shields, just fyi.

That's a cool story, but I think this is a story of a medium fish in a small pond, and I wouldn't draw any conclusions from it. It may be that your local community is small so there's nobody that's really strong to play against, but if you can I would recommend seeking out the players in your community that have won Regionals or Store Championships and play against them or watch what they play to get a sense of what the rest of us are actually up against. You could also watch youtube videos of the finals and semi-finals of recent championship tournaments if you can't find anyone in your area. To be honest, it looked like both of you were playing with randomly generated squads. I saw several problems with both lists, like running Expose on a Decimator or Horton not having a turret. The rest of us who are playing in tournaments are playing against much much stronger squads that are much more efficient and optimized.

There's also a logical train that you can follow here. If a HWK with 75% chance at an evade token is invulnerable, than the Firespray which has twice the HP and can evade without rolling die would be completely indestructable. And then there's the Falcon with C-3PO and the MF title to prevent 2 damage every turn.

I think HWKs do have a place in the competitive meta, but it's Jan Ors alongside Dash Rendar or Han Solo, not Kyle Katarn with Lando Calrisian crew. I would never describe a HWK as invulnerable, although with Chewbacca crew they can be about as tough as a Y-Wing and the things Jan Ors does through a super turret can be pretty brutal.

You act like he said this was an unstoppable juggernaut. I think MF knows what a Fat Han is and how to deal with it.

I usually go after it, but my opponent takes Lando...

Haha, at first, I thought this meant Lando pilot. Which, actually, might not be such a bad combo....

I love HWK's. Everytime new upgrades come out, I always go back to my HWK lists and see how it improve things. I have a softspot for Roark, but I think scum HWK's are the way to go.

...

I think HWKs do have a place in the competitive meta, but it's Jan Ors alongside Dash Rendar or Han Solo, not Kyle Katarn with Lando Calrisian crew. I would never describe a HWK as invulnerable, although with Chewbacca crew they can be about as tough as a Y-Wing and the things Jan Ors does through a super turret can be pretty brutal.

Try Biggs and Kyle

...

I don't particularly like that build above for Kyle. You need to spend a focus to fire the Autoblaster turret and with Lando, the chances of getting one is about 45% of the time . I actually wonder how he made it work (tremendous luck maybe). If i was flying against it, I would just ignore the HWK, take out everything else and then just cleanup.

I think you're confusing Autoblaster Turret with the Blaster Turret

Part of the reason it went so quickly was that I used Darth Vader a couple of times to cause crits under shields, hoping to give him a crit that was useful somehow (Munitions Failure on the Y-wing would have been fun).

Slightly off topic, but... That's not how Darth Vader works is it? He deals a critical damage so you still have to hit the shields first. It would say to deal a face-up damage card if it was meant to penetrate shields. Or am I just misunderstanding your use of "under shields"?

Correct Vader hits shields first, or any least he should. I have seen this misunderstanding before though.

Brutally bad.

You act like he said this was an unstoppable juggernaut. I think MF knows what a Fat Han is and how to deal with it.

He was being pretty hyperbolic. "Nearly invulnerable". The way he was describing the HWK is how I would describe Fat Han. And the fact that he was running Expose on a Decimator without EI made me think he was pretty new to the game, since a Target Lock or Focus gives you higher average damage than Expose and don't cost 4 points + your EPT.

I probably should have checked his post count, but considering the lists he was playing with and the conclusions he was drawing from a single game, I feel like I'm not completly out of line for assuming he was a newer player. But honestly, from what I read, I still think the OP could benefit from the advice I gave, even if he's been playing this game longer than I have (Wave 2). I stand by my opinion that the game described is a poor showcase of what the HWK can really do.

You act like he said this was an unstoppable juggernaut. I think MF knows what a Fat Han is and how to deal with it.

He was being pretty hyperbolic. "Nearly invulnerable". The way he was describing the HWK is how I would describe Fat Han. And the fact that he was running Expose on a Decimator without EI made me think he was pretty new to the game, since a Target Lock or Focus gives you higher average damage than Expose and don't cost 4 points + your EPT.

I probably should have checked his post count, but considering the lists he was playing with and the conclusions he was drawing from a single game, I feel like I'm not completly out of line for assuming he was a newer player. But honestly, from what I read, I still think the OP could benefit from the advice I gave, even if he's been playing this game longer than I have (Wave 2). I stand by my opinion that the game described is a poor showcase of what the HWK can really do.

If you read his post, it is clear this was only 1 game in which he's seen this Hawk destroy.

And you don't have to have the most maximum efficiency list to have fun.

EDIT: And Fat Han is old news, pretty much everything in the meta is designed to take him down.

If you read his post, it is clear this was only 1 game in which he's seen this Hawk destroy.

And you don't have to have the most maximum efficiency list to have fun.

EDIT: And Fat Han is old news, pretty much everything in the meta is designed to take him down.

going by regional results, they're not doing that good a job

And it kinda bites that HWKs just suck against fatties. The range limitation on both the turret and the scum hwks abilities means that any ship that can easily keep them at range 3 (not overly difficult for turrets who don't care about facing and laugh at the hwk's dial) renders them exceptionally worthless (back to that 1 die primary). This is probably why we don't see too many of them.

anything with arcs can't exploit their maneuverability to the same degree, meaning that with proper positioning on the hwk's part they'll either have to manuever into range 1-2 or run away, void their shot, and then come around for another pass

I once saw a loaded up Roark (MC, RS and blaster turret) single handedly take on 5 TIEs and win, so I can see how he can seem invulnerable at times XD

I once saw a loaded up Roark (MC, RS and blaster turret) single handedly take on 5 TIEs and win, so I can see how he can seem invulnerable at times XD

this specifically is what we call "the luke skywalker effect'

Luke Skywalker (the x-wing) has an ability to turn one *focus* into an *evade* every attack that gets made against him (regardless of his action). This often results in at least one evade per roll, which pisses off basically every single two dice ship

Moldy Crow's bank of focus basically turns your hwks into Luke Skywalker

I've also seen a HWK one-shotted off the board before. Landed 3 hits and a crit to 0 evades. Of course the crit was a direct one.

Honestly, having played HWKs to death, I think the Rebel HWKs are significantly better than the Scum HWKs precisely because of what Millennium Falsehood is alluding to. If you add an evade token to a HWK (Rebel only), they become a significantly harder target. Yet the opponent always assumes they can take out the HWK quickly, but this doesn't happen. When your opponent mistakenly places target priority on your HWK on the assumption that it will die and it doesn't he has played into your hands. The HWKs can be troublesome when ignored due to their support abilities and medium damage/control antics, so it becomes win/win. Lando crew works well, so does Jan Ors (on Kyle or Roark), but it only works because the Moldy Crow is one of the best cards in the game.

On the Crow without evades tokens, being able to focus on all your defence rolls is good, but not great. You are going to take damage a lot and can at most save 2 damage if you roll no blanks (shout out to Lonewolf on a HWK, it is pretty cool, but stifles your support abilities). Often it will be 1 or 2 damage on a 5 HP, which adds up fast. This is why I don't like the Scum HWKs s much. Sure Pablo is brutal when flinging 4 red dice, but he is going to die really quickly. If you are willing to use a wrecking ball who you know is going to die fast but do a chunk of damage first then Pablo is great. If you are more conservative, he probably isn't. He is great for sure, just don't except him to live long, unless you kill everyone shooting him first.

I would love to see the following crew card for Scum,

Outlaw Engineer [Scum Only. Action: regain a shield] [3pts]

I think this has some nice implications across the board (particularly with Xizor), but it helps HWK, who can afford to use the action if they have enough focus already (I am making the assumption that every HWK has the Moldy Crow because they should). The Firespray already has evade, so it's not a huge leap to give it this as well, since evade is technically better. Bossk in the Bus might also need a little damage mitigation but given it requires an action and doesn't stack, I don't see a problem.

If you read his post, it is clear this was only 1 game in which he's seen this Hawk destroy.

And you don't have to have the most maximum efficiency list to have fun.

EDIT: And Fat Han is old news, pretty much everything in the meta is designed to take him down.

going by regional results, they're not doing that good a job

And it kinda bites that HWKs just suck against fatties. The range limitation on both the turret and the scum hwks abilities means that any ship that can easily keep them at range 3 (not overly difficult for turrets who don't care about facing and laugh at the hwk's dial) renders them exceptionally worthless (back to that 1 die primary). This is probably why we don't see too many of them.

anything with arcs can't exploit their maneuverability to the same degree, meaning that with proper positioning on the hwk's part they'll either have to manuever into range 1-2 or run away, void their shot, and then come around for another pass

Because people that go to regionals are a bunch of idiots who refuse to see the true power the Tie Defender brings out. :D

I bought a hwk for scum but haven't flown it yet I'm gonna change that though.

...

I think HWKs do have a place in the competitive meta, but it's Jan Ors alongside Dash Rendar or Han Solo, not Kyle Katarn with Lando Calrisian crew. I would never describe a HWK as invulnerable, although with Chewbacca crew they can be about as tough as a Y-Wing and the things Jan Ors does through a super turret can be pretty brutal.

Try Biggs and Kyle

...

I don't particularly like that build above for Kyle. You need to spend a focus to fire the Autoblaster turret and with Lando, the chances of getting one is about 45% of the time . I actually wonder how he made it work (tremendous luck maybe). If i was flying against it, I would just ignore the HWK, take out everything else and then just cleanup.

I think you're confusing Autoblaster Turret with the Blaster Turret

Yes I did, my mistake. I haven't had the balls to use an autoblaster on a HWK yet. I am unsure that an an opponent would let me get into Range 1, although its easier said than done, since it is such a large bubble.

I have been trying to work illicit tech onto a HWK, I think getting a focus when you do reds (even when you bump) will really open up the ships dial.

My biggest issues is large ship bases with boost. Those things can get out of HWKs range 1-2 band really quick and still lay down fire.

For more HWK love.

I came in second in a store championship with the following list:

Roark, Moldy Crow, Blaster Turret, Recon

Blue Squad Pilot, Ion Cannon, FCS

Rookie Pilot, R3A2

Cracken, Squad Leader

It did real well, I even beat the guy who won the tourney. We both went 4-1 (it was all swiss), I was his one loss but his 4 wins were 200 MOV. I am not sure how necessary/effective it would be post cloaking rule change, but it does well against a surprising variety of lists.

If you read his post, it is clear this was only 1 game in which he's seen this Hawk destroy.And you don't have to have the most maximum efficiency list to have fun.EDIT: And Fat Han is old news, pretty much everything in the meta is designed to take him down.

going by regional results, they're not doing that good a job And it kinda bites that HWKs just suck against fatties. The range limitation on both the turret and the scum hwks abilities means that any ship that can easily keep them at range 3 (not overly difficult for turrets who don't care about facing and laugh at the hwk's dial) renders them exceptionally worthless (back to that 1 die primary). This is probably why we don't see too many of them. anything with arcs can't exploit their maneuverability to the same degree, meaning that with proper positioning on the hwk's part they'll either have to manuever into range 1-2 or run away, void their shot, and then come around for another pass

Because people that go to regionals are a bunch of idiots who refuse to see the true power the Tie Defender brings out. :D

Took a defender to the regionals here at FFGs event center. Won my first three games 100-0, 100-28, 100-32. Then Fel and RAC showed up....

If you read his post, it is clear this was only 1 game in which he's seen this Hawk destroy.And you don't have to have the most maximum efficiency list to have fun.EDIT: And Fat Han is old news, pretty much everything in the meta is designed to take him down.

going by regional results, they're not doing that good a job And it kinda bites that HWKs just suck against fatties. The range limitation on both the turret and the scum hwks abilities means that any ship that can easily keep them at range 3 (not overly difficult for turrets who don't care about facing and laugh at the hwk's dial) renders them exceptionally worthless (back to that 1 die primary). This is probably why we don't see too many of them. anything with arcs can't exploit their maneuverability to the same degree, meaning that with proper positioning on the hwk's part they'll either have to manuever into range 1-2 or run away, void their shot, and then come around for another pass

Because people that go to regionals are a bunch of idiots who refuse to see the true power the Tie Defender brings out. :D

Took a defender to the regionals here at FFGs event center. Won my first three games 100-0, 100-28, 100-32. Then Fel and RAC showed up....

Honestly, having played HWKs to death, I think the Rebel HWKs are significantly better than the Scum HWKs precisely because of what Millennium Falsehood is alluding to. If you add an evade token to a HWK (Rebel only), they become a significantly harder target. Yet the opponent always assumes they can take out the HWK quickly, but this doesn't happen. When your opponent mistakenly places target priority on your HWK on the assumption that it will die and it doesn't he has played into your hands. The HWKs can be troublesome when ignored due to their support abilities and medium damage/control antics, so it becomes win/win. Lando crew works well, so does Jan Ors (on Kyle or Roark), but it only works because the Moldy Crow is one of the best cards in the game.

On the Crow without evades tokens, being able to focus on all your defence rolls is good, but not great. You are going to take damage a lot and can at most save 2 damage if you roll no blanks (shout out to Lonewolf on a HWK, it is pretty cool, but stifles your support abilities). Often it will be 1 or 2 damage on a 5 HP, which adds up fast. This is why I don't like the Scum HWKs s much. Sure Pablo is brutal when flinging 4 red dice, but he is going to die really quickly. If you are willing to use a wrecking ball who you know is going to die fast but do a chunk of damage first then Pablo is great. If you are more conservative, he probably isn't. He is great for sure, just don't except him to live long, unless you kill everyone shooting him first.

That's a great point, but I do love that Torkil Mux. "Oops, you spent upgrade points plus the pilot points trying for PS 10+. But you are PS 0 this turn and the next, until you kill this HWK."

Honestly, having played HWKs to death, I think the Rebel HWKs are significantly better than the Scum HWKs precisely because of what Millennium Falsehood is alluding to. If you add an evade token to a HWK (Rebel only), they become a significantly harder target. Yet the opponent always assumes they can take out the HWK quickly, but this doesn't happen. When your opponent mistakenly places target priority on your HWK on the assumption that it will die and it doesn't he has played into your hands. The HWKs can be troublesome when ignored due to their support abilities and medium damage/control antics, so it becomes win/win. Lando crew works well, so does Jan Ors (on Kyle or Roark), but it only works because the Moldy Crow is one of the best cards in the game.

On the Crow without evades tokens, being able to focus on all your defence rolls is good, but not great. You are going to take damage a lot and can at most save 2 damage if you roll no blanks (shout out to Lonewolf on a HWK, it is pretty cool, but stifles your support abilities). Often it will be 1 or 2 damage on a 5 HP, which adds up fast. This is why I don't like the Scum HWKs s much. Sure Pablo is brutal when flinging 4 red dice, but he is going to die really quickly. If you are willing to use a wrecking ball who you know is going to die fast but do a chunk of damage first then Pablo is great. If you are more conservative, he probably isn't. He is great for sure, just don't except him to live long, unless you kill everyone shooting him first.

That's a great point, but I do love that Torkil Mux. "Oops, you spent upgrade points plus the pilot points trying for PS 10+. But you are PS 0 this turn and the next, until you kill this HWK."

I usually spend the points on higher PS for the Activation phase and not the Combat phase, so that doesn't bug me much.