My favourite ship ever! Earlier this week I set myself a challenge to build triple-HWK lists for both Rebels and Scum with all the named pilots. Already tested the scum one with proxy ships and it's fun to fly if a bit hard to remember all shenanigans...

Today or tomorrow I'll get two more ships and paint them. The other is going to be a construction vehicle with "mind your head" stripes in wingtips and turret. The other is going to have some electric feedback flash lightning thingies all around.

Rey/Jan still a nice list anyway.

2 hours ago, Captain Lackwit said:

Look, they got the ship's scale right (and from Lucasfilm, yes.)

They gaffed its performance, but do you know how long I wanted a good Moldy Crow model that was official? Over half my life. I will always appreciate FFG getting every single detail about this ship correct.

Same. I bought the HWK for the model before I had even seen someone play the game.

2 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

Same. I bought the HWK for the model before I had even seen someone play the game.

I first started my collection with two OT Core Sets, HWK and TIE-Advanced. It was a good and balanced starter for two players. My first Rebel list were Luke-Biggs-Kyle.

Triple rebel hawks :

HWK-290: · Jan Ors (25)
Wired (1)
Twin Laser Turret (6)
Vectored Thrusters (2)
· Nien Nunb (1)
HWK-290: · Kyle Katarn (21)
Swarm Tactics (2)
Blaster Turret (4)
Recon Specialist (3)
· Moldy Crow (3)
HWK-290: · Roark Garnet (19)
Ion Cannon Turret (5)
Shield Upgrade (4)
· Chewbacca (4)
-- TOTAL ------- 100p. --

I want to weigh in here. Firs, context: I was 6 years old when Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight came out. At that point I was already a Star Wars fan and I was given the game by my parents. I was terrible at it, because I was young...but I loved it. It was this game that set me on my path as not just a gamer, but to become a game designer.

so I take Uxbridge at the thought that Alex and the other designers are too young to know DF. Especially considering they took over AFTER Jay Little and his team stopped playing x-Wing. So infact it was his 'fault' the HWK was made the way it is and he is a man in his 40s or 50s.

As a fan, I am glad I can use Kyle and Jan in my games as to this day Kyle is my number 1 Legends character. Although Rogue One has replaced his point in the canon, I still enjoyed Rogue One for what it is and not what people wanted it to be.

In the early days of X-Wing, options were limited and by Wave 3 they had already done every canon ship from the movies and were experimenting with support ships.

The imps were getting one and so the Rebels needed one as well. With limited options the designers probably chose the Moldy Crow because of its status as a ship flown by Rebel Agents Kyle Kathryn, and Jan Ors. Remember, that is what they were a Rebel Agents, an intelligence title and that suggests support roles.

Lore has to take a back seat to mechanics and requirements. Of the mechanics don't work but it is super fluffy you are failing as a game designer because you forgot the 'Game' part if your title.

If lore and fluff was so important, Luke, Wedge, Cherie, Lando, and Han would all add 2 evade results in the compare results step because they are the heroes, and they always win. Great for theme...terrible as a game. The dial of the HWK is terrible, just like the dial for the Y-Wing and the Shuttle. The game was still in its early days of feeling things out, as people said, a lot of things were overcosted compared to ships these days. Same for the stats. FFG have gone on record saying they regret the 1 attack dice.

With all respect @Boom Owl , and in my opinion you don't want the HWK to be just better, it sounds like you want it to be the best ship in the game and have no regard for balance or lore whatsoever. As people have pointed out...Kyle was never a good pilot, Jan was the good one, but even something like pilot skill is an important mechanic that needs to be balanced. I agree the dial should be better...at the time it was an okay dial. In today's game it is pretty poor.

I personally think Kyles ability is pretty good. In the early days of the game I see Focus as being something they use with Force users (not always the case). Luke uses it defensively, Keyan Farlander uses stresss to turn all focus up etc. Whereas Kyle uses his powers to help his allies and that combines well with the idea he is an agent providing intelligence.

Jans idea doesn't really fit in my opinion, but they can't all be winners. Knowing what I do now I would have given here an ability like Juno Eclipse to asssist in the bad dial and show that she was a fairly good pilot.

All in all...it sucks te HWK wasn't better...but hindsight is a glorious thing and I can understand what they were trying to do at the time. No need for assumptions about the design team not knowing about DF because of age. The HWK does not and should not be a godlike ship.

edit: I'd like to add that I am not saying lore means nothing...but lore should serve the mechanics and. To have the mechanics serve the lore.

@Ebak

That was a very well said post.

For the record I dont mind the Hwk having a support build. I just think its a missed opportunity that all i can do is support and turret kite. I just wish I could also set it out as a more versatile/mobile attack focused ship.

End of the day since i want to think of it as ideally more than just a crew carrier with a turret...that Dial is sort of a deal breaker

Doesnt matter much though. Just gonna use its model in place of the E-Wing and swap out the Astromech for a crew. Thats about all the fix ill need casually.

13 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

Agreed. Bad form. Bad form.

Title adjusted!

Thanks for that. It really does make the title so much more meaningful instead of just being "click bait" because views really shouldn't matter when what you really want is discussion.

I recall a big "complaint" about the HWK had been its size. Some thought it should be a lot bigger.

9 hours ago, ThalanirIII said:

I mean, it is old & crappy looking - not really arguable. I'm sure the story is great though.

For it's day, Dark Forces was actually awesome looking and set the standard for FPS to come after it. Kids wouldn't think this by looking at it.

Just now, Mep said:

For it's day, Dark Forces was actually awesome looking and set the standard for FPS to come after it. Kids wouldn't think this by looking at it.

For its day, true. But it's undeniably not great now. It comes down to nostalgia really.

10 hours ago, Captain Lackwit said:

Look, they got the ship's scale right (and from Lucasfilm, yes.)

They gaffed its performance, but do you know how long I wanted a good Moldy Crow model that was official? Over half my life. I will always appreciate FFG getting every single detail about this ship correct.

Yes, the model is excellent but I wouldn't say they got every single detail correct when you look at what the ship does in the game. It's like the looked at the wiki for the game, saw Jan was a support character and transposed that to the ship having never actually played the game or understood Dark Forces relevance to the video game industry.

@ThalanirIII Not great now no. Skyrim will soon not be "not great now" too. Time and progress does that. I don't feel that time and progress has taken anything away from that game's achievements other than people who weren't there simply don't understand where all that progress they enjoy came from and what actually drove it.

29 minutes ago, Mep said:

Yes, the model is excellent but I wouldn't say they got every single detail correct when you look at what the ship does in the game. It's like the looked at the wiki for the game, saw Jan was a support character and transposed that to the ship having never actually played the game or understood Dark Forces relevance to the video game industry.

With facetious reasoning like that, the Moldy Crow should have come with a boarding party mechanic. Wen don't see the ship except in non interactive cut scenes.

Just because it is a small based ship, doesn't mean it is a combat ship. The Moldy Crow was nothing more than a plot device to show how Kyle got from place ro place. It is a Toyota Rav 4 of space ships. The mounting of weapons is solely due to the wild west nature of star wars weapons laws.

2 minutes ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

Just because it is a small based ship, doesn't mean it is a combat ship. The Moldy Crow was nothing more than a plot device to show how Kyle got from place ro place. It is a Toyota Rav 4 of space ships. The mounting of weapons is solely due to the wild west nature of star wars weapons laws.

Fair, but it was also the ship of choice of a mercenary who frequently needed a quick extraction. Not exactly a Rav 4 nor the kind of ship the dial suggests.

Only mistake was 1 atk dice, which FFG admits to. If we ever get a major errata to a ship stat, I think the HWK will get it's extra die as well.

34 minutes ago, FlyingAnchors said:

Only mistake was 1 atk dice, which FFG admits to. If we ever get a major errata to a ship stat, I think the HWK will get it's extra die as well.

I think that was a mistake but I dont know why the 1 attack die matters with turrets. Its bad no doubt just less bad than...

The dial so unrecoverably bad. It has no easy fix other than to simply be something completely different.

1 hour ago, Mep said:

For it's day, Dark Forces was actually awesome looking and set the standard for FPS to come after it. Kids wouldn't think this by looking at it.

I guess I didn't play Dark Forces but I thought when it made it to Outcast the engine was sufficient. DFII:JK was ok but I still didn't like lightsaber combat in it nearly as much as I did the last two versions of the game. I believe DF used the same engine that Quake did.

13 minutes ago, FlyingAnchors said:

Only mistake was 1 atk dice, which FFG admits to. If we ever get a major errata to a ship stat, I think the HWK will get it's extra die as well.

I'm not really convinced that only having a 1 primary was a mistake if you assume the HWK was always going to be flown with a turret installed. I guess the mistake is that turrets weren't all that great, especially the Blaster which came with the HWK, and they were also subject to the original Weapons Failure critical.

19 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

I think that was a mistake but I dont know why the 1 attack die matters with turrets.

The dial so unrecoverably bad. It has no easy fix other than to simply be something completely different.

I fly the B-wing allot, so i've never had a problem with the HWK's dial being what it is, because it's basically the same as the B-wings minus the K-turn.

3 minutes ago, FlyingAnchors said:

I fly the B-wing allot, so i've never had a problem with the HWK's dial being what it is, because it's basically the same as the B-wings minus the K-turn.

The 2K, hard 1s and barrel roll make it much more maneuverable. And the system slot means you can get much better action economy through FCS/Adv Sensors.

The red 3-banks kill the Hwk dial. If those were white the Hwk dial would still be worse than the Y-wing dial but you could still somewhat move around.

3 hours ago, Stevey86 said:

The 2K, hard 1s and barrel roll make it much more maneuverable. And the system slot means you can get much better action economy through FCS/Adv Sensors.

Who needs action economy when you have moldy crow/recon specialist? (Or Palob, he;s popular these days.)

Also turrets lessen the need for a barrel roll (but vectored thrusters is there if your so inclined)

Two words: Torkil Mux.

Just having him in your list really screws with your opponents aces.

Personal favorite: Torkil, recon specialist, blaster turret, and title.

9 hours ago, StevenO said:

I recall a big "complaint" about the HWK had been its size. Some thought it should be a lot bigger.

20 hours ago, Captain Lackwit said:

Ahahah, god, you are so so horribly wrong. If that was really the case, do you actually think the Crow would be the proper size? It wouldn't be, it really wouldn't be, but guess what. It is.

17 hours ago, Captain Lackwit said:

Look, they got the ship's scale right (and from Lucasfilm, yes.)

They gaffed its performance, but do you know how long I wanted a good Moldy Crow model that was official? Over half my life. I will always appreciate FFG getting every single detail about this ship correct.

I remembered this scene distinctly for some reason. The ship is shown "in game", so it's not that hard to get an idea of scale

@StevenO Dark Forces had its own engine and predates Quake.

The hawk may be of proper scale but it does feel smallish for a multi-person ship, much like the Phantom feels way too small.

41 minutes ago, Mep said:

@StevenO Dark Forces had its own engine and predates Quake.

The hawk may be of proper scale but it does feel smallish for a multi-person ship, much like the Phantom feels way too small.

Well, when compared to other ships (Y-Wing and X-Wing in particular), the idea of the HWK holding two crew is actually very feasible. Not the most comfortable option, but do able.

as for the size debate, it is one that is not helped by FFG. In x-Wing, it is one size, but in their RPG, it is closer in size to a YT-1300.