17 hours ago, GuacCousteau said:

And that brings us on to Palob. The reason that Moldy Crow still costs so much. Because for the first three months of 2e, he was in lists that completely dominated.

Palob definitely is the cause. But I'd imagine Palob would greatly different in the meta now. He was great against Soontir, Phantoms, and Barrage Rocket Bombers that all loved their focuses and evades. Jedi are largely immune to him, droids are completely immune, and Barrage Rockets don't exist. I won't argue that he deserved going up in price and still deserves his price. I just wonder if he is anywhere near as effective.

Moldy Crow was also too cheap at 12 points. But 18 points feels like too much. 15 sounds reasonable, but 16 is likely fine, too.

OP, you're really abrasive but you've got this much right. The HWK-290 seriously needs more love.

The Moldy-crow title is SO powerful (aka undercosted) that FFG have had to cave-in and have designed a specific counter-upgrade to enable a jump on its carrier-menace before it reaches its full super-jedi potential.

(the fine print: FFG may concequently believe that they may reduce the Moldy-crow title cost....)

I read the OP and all I heard is that Kyle, Roark, and Jan need to be cheaper. On Kyle, I definitely agree. Roark, probably. Jan is kinda scary though.

I think the title could probably be a point or two cheaper but if the Rebel named pilots aren't good, drop their price. Not the title.

17 hours ago, Boreas Mun said:

I want to play HWKs without title, but they are overcosted, so you can play only 1 HWK in the list, with the title. Palob's ability isn't even that good with jedi and droids flying around.

Rebel generic costs as much as I3 Nantex! HWKs are like torrents with mobile 2 dice arc for 3-10 points. Even 1.0 HWKs were better than 2.0 .

The 1.0 HWK had one attack die and traded a shield for a hull. I know it had access to different upgrades but come on now.

A lot of people hitting the same points here, so I'm not going to do my usual thing of trying to reply to everyone point by point.

Instead, I'm going to try and develop some arguments based on the most common points.

Note: there's quite a lot of text here, and so it's important to stress that I'm only really talking about Rebel builds here. The Rebel vs Scum issue is still a big one, but as I said before there are some eminently obvious solutions to that (different MC pricing being the number 1) so I'll leave it for another time. Also, it's really the Rebel builds that I feel are particularly struggling.

Firstly. "Moldy Crow is fine as it is because 18 points is totally worth the upgrade it offers vs the base"

This, friends, is the crux of the matter. In isolation, you are absolutely not wrong. You look at the HWK. You look at how Moldy Crow changes the statline and enables a bunch of things like double mods and you think 18 points is maybe fair, particularly on certain pilots.

My argument will essentially boil down to something I've maintained since flexible point costs were announced: you can't necessarily balance everything by cost alone because of how certain thresholds exist. The Nantex, by the way, is currently an absolutely beautiful example of how balancing only by cost is, if not actually impossible, extremely difficult in some case.

I maintain that HWKs with Moldy Crow are too expensive, but that HWKs without it aren't good enough to be cheap enough unless you seriously start to undercut other ships. That last caveat was missing from my opening post, and so I'll stress here that I messed up not talking about.

Before we break that down further, I want people to answer a few fairly simple questions. Is Jan + Moldy Crow at 59 points worth more than Braylen Stramm at 52? Is she ever worth taking over Braylen? Is she worth more than Wedge at 55?

If the answer to any of these questions is no, then we need to look at whether this build is overcosted, and if so what is overcosted about it. There is also a target that needs to be achieved - what is a fair cost for MC Jan relative to Braylen that might make her a more attractive option? I'm open to discussion on this, but I actually believe the only way to get Jan in a favourable position over Braylen would be if she cost the same, or was cheaper. I think that, although MC Jan has wider arc coverage, better Initiative, access to boost and access to double mods, Jan's real problem is that 2A, 5HP balance. She dies really quickly if focused. For the sake of argument, though, I'll concede to what I know is coming and target 53 points for Jan + MC

The answer I'm getting back from most people is that MC is fine, and Jan is overcosted. Well, let's look at that shall we. Jan clocks in at 41 points. That's the same cost as Norra Wexley in the Y-Wing. They have a broadly comparable dial (the HWK has better blues and one fewer red basic, but lacks a k-turn), the same initiative, the same attack power. Jan has lower HP, but better agility. In this specific case, Norra protects her HP way better than your normal Y-Wing or Jan's two greens. Jan probably wins on the action bar. Both of them have red repositions, but for either ship it's more palatable to use your modification slot to make those white, rather than the talent slot. So Jan being able to get white boost with Engine Upgrade is a better setup than Norra being able to get white barrel roll with Expert Handling. Especially as Jan has two Modification slots. Jan also gets her turret built in.

That's.... a lot of advantages compared with Norra. I'd say Norra is still almost certainly better for the points, as her ability just makes her that much more effective as a standalone ship. But if we're targeting 53 points for Jan + MC, then is Jan really worth a whole 6 points less than Norra? Also, wouldn't a 35 point Jan start to look a little silly compared with some of Rebels' other small ship I5s, like Thane at 48 points? The other problem here is that Jan's ability, as discussed before, puts her in such a weird place. This cost comparison is only really valid if you're taking Jan as just an I5 HWK with a 2 die turret. You have to account for her ability to be played like that. But what if you want to use her ability? What if you want to try running her as a support ship? Is there really a valid reason to very likely sacrifice an I5 two dice attack to gain one extra die on another ship, with a stress token thrown on Jan (with weak blues)? A good player can engineer situations where Jan has arc on an enemy and a friendly both, sure. But (and this is really a topic for another thread) this is Rebels' whole problem, you have to play your list in such a specific way and have everything go right for their stuff to work. One of the main reasons Jan doesn't get played is because this is just too much of a hassle to pull off for relatively small gain.

So how do you cost naked Jan? Do you cost her like the Sheathipede? A ship that's just there for a supporting ability and a crew slot? Or do you cost her as an I5 Y-Wing / X-Wing hybrid?

How much of the overcost built into Jan + MC can actually be absorbed by Jan alone?

This problem is only compounded the more you dig down, because if you start to look at the chassis without Moldy Crow, you have to get your head around the function of the ship, and the gap between Kyle and the Rebel Scout. How cheap do you have to make Kyle so that his ability is worth using without MC to give the extra arc coverage? If you make Kyle that cheap, then what happens to the Rebel Scout? Is there even a margin where both Rebel Scout can be correctly costed relative to each other and both be worth using, depending on the situation? I.... really don't think is. I think Kyle's ability is so bad without MC that any point cost he goes down to balance this will always leave you in a situation where you're better off taking a Rebel Scout as a Leia carrier. Kyle is built with MC in mind.

Just as with Jan, I actually don't think you can ever look at Kyle by himself - you always have to ask what a fair cost for Kyle + MC is and work from there, and somehow balance it all with this idea that MC is an inherently valuable title and also that Kyle can't undercut the Rebel Scout, let alone other ships. I don't think we're there yet. I don't think Kyle + MC is currently a fair cost. He costs more than Ten Numb + s-foils, and I know for sure what I'd rather have in most lists.

This leads me onto my next point

Soooo many people are arguing based on the idea that a title should be completely optional and same ship lists should be viable. I want to challenge that.

This again is all about the cost of MC and what it offers vs the base chassis.

The idea from a lot of people is that the title shouldn't be an autoinclude and I really want to stress: why? I know that is the case for most ships, but is there really a problem with one ship in the game being built around the idea that you only ever take one of them in a list, and that that one is a special version with a unique title? Can someone answer me, in detail, about what would be so bad if the HWKs weren't viable without the title? Is it because then any HWKs you field without the title are bad? But why would you field them? Because you want more than one in a list? Why? Why is there this default assumption it must be the case?

What if FFG put a limited dot next to the ship name on the pilot card as a way of making the gameplay of a certain ship unique? Would there be major complaints (obviously FFG would never do it, because then they'd only ever sell one per customer, but that's not what I'm arguing here)?

Please note, I'm not saying one way or another what should happen here, I just want to challenge some assumptions because I'm interested in the response.

So what if MC was cheaper, and it was cheap enough that you never really considered building a list with a HWK without it, and you never fielded more than one HWK in a list because now by comparison the title-less HWKs were way overpriced? Is that really so bad? You can still field any pilot you choose, build the other mods on it any way you choose, do all the things you could have done with the cheaper build. The only difference is that now everyone treats the HWK as a 3 + 2 turret ship that you can only field one of.

This all goes back to the idea of sometimes needing other tools to balance the game instead of just point costs. You can't make the HWK a 3 + 2 attack ship and start the points for it at 45 because then you could get 4 in a list plus upgrades and they'd be insane. But make the HWK just a 2 dice turret with some arc based abilities at around 30 points and it's a lacklustre ship competing in a dense space, and even packing 6 into a list is bad. The title is an alternative balancing strategy that's separate from points. You can have a 40-50 point 3 + 2 ship. But you can't have more than one of them.

In so many threads, people advocate for making more use of multi dot limited ships. "Put two dots on TIE Defenders so Deltas can be cheaper but you still can't take three", "Put four dots on Petranaki Aces so they can stay cheap but you can't spam 6 I4s".

It's so common. And yet I'm surprised to see how many people don't view Moldy Crow as an early example of exactly this. Make a really really good ship. That you can only have one of.

The only answer I've got is that people want HWKs and MC to be fairly priced so that you don't have to bring it and you can run HWKs as cheap support ships instead of frontline fighters with a side hustle in support. Well, a lot of people have been talking about this use of the HWK in the thread and so this brings me on neatly to my final point:

The HWK is a bad support ship unless you go dangerously cheap (and even then you won't be bringing it for support).

This is the one that's probably going to ruffle the most feathers.

"But Guac, you roguishly handsome devil," I hear you say, "it was one of the two OG support ships! It came out with the Lambda as its opposite number! All of the Rebel pilots have exclusively support abilities that only benefit other ships! It has a crew slot!"

All true.

But you know what it doesn't have? Co-ordinate.

It's got a red jam action, an action that's pretty exclusively the domain of support ships. But in 90% of cases, Jam suuuuuucks. Red jam is even worse, especially on Jan. I don't believe anyone has ever taken the HWK for the jam action, and even if you tell me know you have, I still won't believe you.

Every good support ship has easy access to co-ordinate, and the best ones attach bonuses to those co-ordinates, like Sai or AP-5.

Beyond that, support ships tend to fit into one of two buckets. Larger bases, larger cost and multiple crew slots or small, incredibly cheap, single crew co-ordinate action factories.

You have your Sheathipedes and Escape Shuttles in the latter category, your U-Wings, Lambdas and arguably Lando Falcons in the former.

At first glance, the HWK fits in the latter too, right? Unless the Xi comes in with something bonkers, Spice Runner offers us the joint second cheapest crew carrier in the game, with only a L3-37 Escape Craft being cheaper. But in terms of support, that is also all it offers. A crew slot. Rebel Scout / Spice Runner offer no support abilities of their own. There's some decent Rebel support crew, sure, but many of them are expensive, and most of them don't necessarily need a dedicated support ship (Leia and Kanan, for example, work just as well if not better on self-sufficient combat ships). They don't have co-ordinate.

Kyle comes along and now we have an actual dedicated support ability. We have some token passing. Bear in mind that without MC, this ability is straight up worse than co-ordinate in every way except max range. We're now looking at 33 points just for that.

But here's the key thing. While support ships frequently sacrifice their own actions or dice mods, how many support ships in the game can you think of that have to sacrifice whole attacks? No other support ship in the game is as arc dependent as the HWK.

And where Rebels are concerned, you will always, always be comparing cheap support HWKs against AP-5 in the Sheathipede.

Is Kyle at 33 points worth more than AP-5 at 32. It's fine margins, I know, but the similarity in cost is almost part of the point. This is the other end of the scale from my first argument. You have 33 points spare in a list - do you take Kyle, or do you take AP-5?

And again, this is where the limits of point costing comes in. Kyle is a worse support piece than AP-5 and will never be taken so long as they cost the same.

But if you make Kyle cheaper, you make Rebel Scout cheaper.

And if you make Rebel Scout cheaper, you stop caring about bringing support pieces and start looking at how many discount Y-Wings you can fit in a list.

This is X-Wing's core problem when it comes to points. All you need to do to win is kill things. So all the extra gameplay goes out the window the moment you can make a more efficient killing list. If Rebel Scout goes to 25 points, you get 8 in a list.

Not as support ships, as better TIE Fighters. You could take 6 with Seismic Charges and Engine Upgrade.

As a support ship, the HWK has a higher cost than most because of the arc limitations. How do you make up for that shortcoming without putting it into a situation where it becomes a Z-95 with better HP and a turret for roughly the same cost?

And, as I said before - should you even try? Why should the naked HWK be a good support ship? The Rebels don't need it. They have AP-5. Why not put the HWK into a unique role where it's a hybrid combat / support ship that clocks in around the cost of other frontline fighters but is balanced by the fact you can only ever take one of them?

Why not see the Moldy Crow not just as a cost appropriate stat boost, but as a complex balancing system that gives you and individual but competent ship.

Rebel HWKs were great when Moldy Crow was 12 points. You could fit Jan or Kyle into a list with some really strong pieces who benefitted from their abilities and formed a great list, balanced by the knife edge the relatively vulnerable HWK sat on. I don't think anyone ever saw early Kyle as being overpowered.

With the changes in the meta, and the number of his Rebel buddies that have also gone up in cost since, that same Kyle would not be as effective as he once was.

I'm not necessarily advocating for a return to 12 points.

But I don't think Moldy Crow needs to be costed solely on the basis of its ability, I don't think cheaper HWKs are likely the solution and I don't think either naked or MC HWKs are in a good place at all right now and it sucks because the ship is cool and the support abilities have great potential to be fun.

As one final thought, I do think it would be extremely helpful if people could actually address the current performance (or complete lack thereof) of named Rebel HWKs + Moldy Crow. If people think Moldy Crow is currently costed correctly, then does that mean you think Kyle/Roark/Jan + MC are costed correctly? If not, how much are they off by? Where do those points come from to balance them? How do you deal with the bottom end of Kyle vs Rebel Scout vs AP-5 vs Airen Cracken if you do take points off the base chassis?

39 minutes ago, dsul413 said:

The 1.0 HWK had one attack die and traded a shield for a hull. I know it had access to different upgrades but come on now.

It had access to different upgrades and scum had some good cheap upgrades back in 1.0. Also TLT was much better than this 3 dice front arc attack and you could have more than 1 HWK with it.

29 minutes ago, GuacCousteau said:

In so many threads, people advocate for making more use of multi dot limited ships. "Put two dots on TIE Defenders so Deltas can be cheaper but you still can't take three", "Put four dots on Petranaki Aces so they can stay cheap but you can't spam 6 I4s".

It's so common. And yet I'm surprised to see how many people don't view Moldy Crow as an early example of exactly this. Make a really really good ship. That you can only have one of.

The reason I'm not making these points is I think they're bad ideas.

If a ship is too cheap, it's too cheap, and being limited to a single one doesn't change that fact.

29 minutes ago, GuacCousteau said:

Is Kyle at 33 points worth more than AP-5 at 32. It's fine margins, I know, but the similarity in cost is almost part of the point. This is the other end of the scale from my first argument. You have 33 points spare in a list - do you take Kyle, or do you take AP-5?

Or Zeb, since that'd be exactly 33, and Zeb can focus instead of just Calculate. Hrm. Kyle is nice and flexible, but Zeb is reliable. They seem... kinda even? I could see Kyle cheaper, but eh.

29 minutes ago, GuacCousteau said:

But if you make Kyle cheaper, you make Rebel Scout cheaper.

Doesn't have to be this way. No reason we couldn't have even a 30 point Kyle, and still have 29 point Rebel Scout.

//

Bigger picture: I don't think this is reconcilable.

I think whatever the fair price is for Kyle, Moldy Crow will always cost too much more. Kyle with MC is worth, what, 43? That'd be 3 points off the man himself, and 5 points off of MC. But 5 points off of MC is far too much to take off Torkil Mux. So just increase Torkil's price? No, then Torkil is trash. Torkil at 38 is kinda doable now.

There are pilots where the title is worth more than others, and it's priced for the best case, and there are pilots who suffer. But where MC is good, it's worth about the current cost (maybe down 1 or 2).

The big flaw was the design of making support abilities tied to attack arcs. If the Rebel HWKs were errata'd to be "in arc or at range 1" or "range 1-2," then none of this is a problem. It'd be better to fix that problem directly, reword bad abilities, than to start handing out extra firing arcs like candy.

The can just make 2 prices for each HWK pilot, with and without title(still one MC per list).

I always liked HWK-290 and Kyle Katarn of course being named Kyle myself. Always made me sad trying as hard as i do to justify using it when it always feels like a waste of points.

IMO 18 points is appropriate for Modly Crow.

Having the opportunity to carry 2 focus tokens, and to add a 3 primary frontal attack dice brings A LOT more to the original chassis.

The thing that could be done is to reduce the points of the pilots. Then the general cost would be reduced, and you can modulate the price depending of the pilots.

60 points for Palob with title (which gets 180 degress arc cover) and engine upgrade can be a good investment.

59 points for Jan Ors is a little expensive, especially that her ability cannot be triggered of herself.

All the others could have their points reduced, 3-4 points. I don't see a HWK swarm happening anytime.

On 9/22/2020 at 8:52 PM, Cloaker said:

Agreed--- If HWKs were cheaper, they could be more modification friendly. I'm even fine with them increasing Moldy Crow a point for every point they reduce the base chassis. That could be one of the best ways to give the non Moldy Crow HWKs some increased factional relevancy. Make it a favorably modular platform instead of a big red Primary 3 attack value thirstytrap.

There is presentlt room for 6 Spice runbers with <5pt crew/upgrades each, concussion bombs?

On 9/23/2020 at 3:20 AM, Sciencius said:

The Moldy-crow title is SO powerful (aka undercosted) that FFG have had to cave-in and have designed a specific counter-upgrade to enable a jump on its carrier-menace before it reaches its full super-jedi potential.

(the fine print: FFG may concequently believe that they may reduce the Moldy-crow title cost....)

Too bad pictures are broken on the forums.

27 minutes ago, Matanui3 said:

Too bad pictures are broken on the forums.

If they're pulling from the wiki they need to drop everything after .png from the url for the linking to work.

Seems like people are forgetting the Dials a bit.

The Moldy Crow title gives the Hawk the stateline of a jouster, but a khiraxz or X-wing can still fly circles around it. for example would you take Palob naked save Moldy crow vs Talonbane with 8 points of upgrades? I know I sure wouldnt, but theyre 58 and 50 respectively. How bout MC Palob vs Wedge? (58 vs 55). The only really favorable comparison i see is vs the U-wing, but the U-wing isnt exactly dominating right now.

My point is if your opponents are any good your hawk is gonna be outmaneuvered almost every game and thats worth factoring into the points. so maybe 15 points instead of 18 could be healthy for Moldy Crow?

On 9/23/2020 at 8:54 AM, theBitterFig said:

If a ship is too cheap, it's too cheap, and being limited to a single one doesn't change that fact

Hard disagree. Ships being unusually high value but in limited supply is like... how faction design generally works in games? It allows the faction to have a piece or option that is the 'draw' without letting you just run nothing but it. It is why most games allow only a limited number of high impact units in play or in your list. Its why Vader is allowed to be as good as he is: if Vader was a generic Empire would be bonkers busted, but the fact he is hard capped at 1 merely means Empire has a ship that is 'too good' for its cost that draws you to play aces for it.

A huge problem with X-wing's design is arguably the over-focus on trying to allow you to run generics, or over-nerfing faction staples that draw you to the faction. It is basically why Rebels collapsed as a faction: Literally everything that was 'too cheap' got nerfed, despite it almost all being unique stuff, and that resulted in a faction that didn't have anything that makes you want to play it.

The important thing is to make sure the stuff that is 'too cheap' is fun and doesn't accidently create so much impact the faction is utterly defined by it. I would argue Boba and Fenn, along with the Fang as a whole, were intended to be a 'draw pieces' for Scum to help define the faction, but unfortunately it was viable to run a list of entirely pieces that were underpriced and so it went out of control, compared to the much more relatively healthy Vader.

"Things are allowed to be good." Moldy Crow being really strong encourages factions with access to the HWK to strongly consider building a list that features exactly 1, which is cool because every HWK does something unique and interesting with 1 HWK due to the ship heavily focusing on unique pilot powers anyway. As a bonus, the HWK is both pretty fragile and easily out-manuvered, which is a good quality for a faction's 'chase' piece to have because it being disproportionately good for its cost creates a neat in game dynamic where you need to protect say... Kyle giving out focus like candy, or Jan giving you free I-kill setups.

On 9/23/2020 at 8:54 AM, theBitterFig said:

Bigger picture: I don't think this is reconcilable.

I think whatever the fair price is for Kyle, Moldy Crow will always cost too much more. Kyle with MC is worth, what, 43? That'd be 3 points off the man himself, and 5 points off of MC. But 5 points off of MC is far too much to take off Torkil Mux. So just increase Torkil's price? No, then Torkil is trash. Torkil at 38 is kinda doable now.

There are pilots where the title is worth more than others, and it's priced for the best case, and there are pilots who suffer. But where MC is good, it's worth about the current cost (maybe down 1 or 2).

The big flaw was the design of making support abilities tied to attack arcs. If the Rebel HWKs were errata'd to be "in arc or at range 1" or "range 1-2," then none of this is a problem. It'd be better to fix that problem directly, reword bad abilities, than to start handing out extra firing arcs like candy.

If we have to decide that only one pilot is going to have a good HWK, we have to balance the entire ship around a single pilot and accept the others will be bad, it should absolutely, 500000%, without a doubt, clear as day, objectively should not be the utter non-character of Torkil who's wookiepedia article is about the same length of this post. None of the Scum characters in the HWK are notable or important characters.

It should absolutely be balanced around Kyle, because he is a more important character in a faction that needs more access to 'hooks' that make you want to play the faction, and he has an ability that would serve as a great wide power firmly in the rebel theme that helps a lot of different rebel ships achieve more consistent results, which is the main weakness of the faction.

Prices aren't objective. They reflect a philosophy on what should and shouldn't be good. Points and mechanical changes are often spoken about in the sense of objective truth, but really one of the interesting thing about designing systems like this is that it really isn't about what things 'should' be or 'are really worth' but are about what you value and want the system to encourage. I think the system should encourage Jan and Kyle, rather than Palob, who has half their wookiepedia article flagged for being non-canonical even in legends.

The only real argument I could see for keeping the status quo is to say Jan and Torkil (And to a lesser extent Palob) are interesting enough mechanically that it is worth biasing the HWK to them, rather than Kyle or Dace. I think there is a case to be made there, but there is also just the reality that the HWK isn't a popular ship at ALL even in the context of extended tournaments on ANY character, so even if we want to focus more on Torkil doing weird stuff with allowing a swarm to I-kill a target (which I don't find interesting but hey whatever floats your boat, at least its a neat effect that changes how a list fights!), we should consider a buff to the title or pilots anyway.

35 minutes ago, dezzmont said:

Its why Vader is allowed to be as good as he is: if Vader was a generic Empire would be bonkers busted, but the fact he is hard capped at 1 merely means Empire has a ship that is 'too good' for its cost that draws you to play aces for it.

There's a reason why Vader doesn't cost 57 points. One dot doesn't let him get under-priced. Petranaki Arena Aces, even if 3 or 4 dot limited, wouldn't be fair at their current price of 30. TIE Defenders at 60 points but 2 dot limited wouldn't be fair.

To be sure, it's safer if a limited pilot is cutting it close, and off by a few points than if a generic is off, but it's still usually bad. This is why folks like Anakin and Whisper have been nerfed.

25 minutes ago, dezzmont said:

It should absolutely be balanced around Kyle, because he is a more important character in a faction that needs more access to 'hooks' that make you want to play the faction, and he has an ability that would serve as a great wide power firmly in the rebel theme that helps a lot of different rebel ships achieve more consistent results, which is the main weakness of the faction.

One issue is that Kyle just has a bad and uninteresting pilot ability. Sling a focus. Like Esege or Jake or Garven do, and there's also coordinate which simply does better.

I think the arc restrictions are kinda suspect, but even without, he'll never be good because he'll never do anything better than anyone else. He's got a zero-sum pilot ability, and his ship is simply a nice and fair one.

Underpricing Moldy Crow doesn't fix that, and probably never gets Kyle on tables. It wouldn't be worth upending the HWK to try to prop up a badly designed pilot.

It's bad 1e design, and bad in terms of weak, rather than OP. Rebels have far too many bad pilots who all kind of do the same thing, and it creates this illusion of a synergy faction, when pretty much every synergy ship that gets played is mostly selfish. Lando and Jake, most notably. They can help someone else, but mostly take care of themselves. The unselfish synergy ships that have actually worked from time to time are the non-zero-sum ones, like Dutch and Cassian. But for familiarity reasons, so many pilots simply had the same abilities as 1e, even when they were bad or boring, and that's doomed them in 2e. This is why I keep banging the table about "don't bring back Tycho with the same ability." So many 1e Rebels didn't really do anything, but they just *had* to keep the same abilities, so they don't do anything in 2e.

30 minutes ago, dezzmont said:

The only real argument I could see for keeping the status quo is to say Jan and Torkil (And to a lesser extent Palob) are interesting enough mechanically that it is worth biasing the HWK to them, rather than Kyle or Dace.

Jan's not particularly interesting, but the Scum ones all work fine for what they are. Offensive abilities keyed to arcs actually make sense. Dace, while wicked niche, is able to function for what he is--with or without the title. He's not going to dazzle, but he's functional.

The HWK is a nifty little ship, being able to rotate turret and keep mods is a nice feature for a ship like this. It's kinda disappointing that none of the Rebel pilots seem actually designed around the capacities of the ship.

Here's my Hot Take: HWK should have only be a single-turret-arc ship with no means to get an extra arc (not native, not titled), and all the pilot abilities should have been build around that.

21 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

One issue is that Kyle just has a bad and uninteresting pilot ability. Sling a focus. Like Esege or Jake or Garven do, and there's also coordinate which simply does better.

Its interesting on a few levels. One is that he can store the focus. Another is that it requires a friendly arc (I think your just flat out incorrect that the rebels were not designed around the ability to rotate arc and keep mods up). Finally, unlike Esege or Garven, the HWK is made of total tissue paper, so its a reaaaaallly good place to push the power level of focus passing.

Low key? Kyle is my favorite of the bunch because of all of this. He also feels the most 'rebel-y.' I was sold on Rebels as a synergy/teamwork faction, and that really doesn't shine through because the only focus slingers that feel right to me are Two Tubes and Jake. Esege is fun but is just too expensive for that kind of ability (Not in the sense they are overpriced, in the sense the ship it is on 'wants' to be small), and Garven just has the huge design flaw of being a massive amount of RNG for a mechanic that is about dice control.

Kyle is in some ways the perfect little rebel, and he serves as a great 'command ship' to boot with a crew slot that allows him to really be the 'weak point' of your list, contrasting to Imp command ships that tend to be the toughest and meanest ships. 5 Health doesn't get you anywhere in a ship like the HWK, your going to go down fast if your not very careful with that ship, which is interesting, and the arc requirements force you to 'be in the fight' a bit more, which also is why I think the ship getting a good gun is fine. It kinda... has to do a bit of dogfighting to live. Sloane can hang out in the edges of a fight plinking in, or even just hide in a super cheap ship. Kyle can't do that and suddenly now your trying to get value out of this thing both avoiding too many arcs at once and trying to keep your own ships in arc without rotating turret if you can too often, because if you rotate too often you run out of focus unless you do it red and, again, probably die next turn.

I would even go so far to say that Kyle edges out Esge (who I love, they just aren't easy to justify with rebels as a faction as a whole being where they are. Its like networked calculate but actually interesting and dynamic!) in terms of being an 'interesting' focus passer.

21 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

Offensive abilities keyed to arcs actually make sense

The most interesting thing about the Rebel HWK is that it forces you to consider arcs in a new light. It is basically a beta version of Sinker. Its fantastic that you need to make a value judgement on if you want to turn your turret to get a clutch support effect at the cost of stress or losing your mod, or deciding between passing the focus and taking the shot. More interestingly, despite having the ability to rotate and keep mods, doing so is crazy dangerous because the ship's dial is fantastic... until you get stress, at which point your in a world of trouble.

No, its not the default use of an arc, but that is why its good. Good 'option specific' mechanics should make you re-evaluate how you play the game. The scum abilities are in my opinion boring because there isn't this tension between offensive and supportive use of the arc: Palob especially is just kinda dull and not an interesting 'grief' mechanic because of this: he gets to shoot you, gets a free mod, and gets to deny your mod all for getting you in arc. Nothing that interesting going on there.

21 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

Here's my Hot Take: HWK should have only be a single-turret-arc ship with no means to get an extra arc (not native, not titled),

Ok, so you think the HWK's pilots should all be ability neutral and have the title be nuked, essentially.

I don't think this is strictly necessary, but it isn't the worst opinion. I could actually see that as a way to really drive home the interesting part of the rebel HWKs, and as a good way to balance the ship overall. I also think a middleground exists of a variant title that grants the focus holding but not the forward arc for Kyle specifically.

But if we want to keep the title in play, absolutely we should be balancing it around Kyle. I don't agree it isn't worth it to 'upend' the ship, or your take that the ability isn't interesting, especially because, again, the ship isn't doing well on the pilots its 'good on' anyway.

On 9/22/2020 at 7:14 PM, Gilarius said:

Adding a turret slot.

Dace Bonearm says "Yes please!". He would certainly see play if he was not restricted to try to hit with his ion bomb or not be completely dependent on a squad mate successfully hitting with an ion cannon/torp/missile.

(After last points before spamtex made the online splash, there was some inducation of the game being on way towards a large ship meta, there Dace might have seen play as he is).

On 9/22/2020 at 8:39 PM, Boreas Mun said:

Even 1.0 HWKs were better than 2.0.

No way.

1 die forward attack was stillborn. 4hull 1 shield. Dial was much worse, it had not the stop, no 3hards, 3straight was white, 4straight was red.

On 9/23/2020 at 2:51 PM, Boreas Mun said:

It had access to different upgrades and scum had some good cheap upgrades back in 1.0. Also TLT was much better than this 3 dice front arc attack and you could have more than 1 HWK with it.

That was the post wave 7 power creep upgrades though and not the Hwk290. And as you name TLT, it ate Hwk290s alive, as they never could escape it with their bad dials.

4 hours ago, Managarmr said:

Dace Bonearm says "Yes please!". He would certainly see play if he was not restricted to try to hit with his ion bomb or not be completely dependent on a squad mate successfully hitting with an ion cannon/torp/missile.

(After last points before spamtex made the online splash, there was some inducation of the game being on way towards a large ship meta, there Dace might have seen play as he is).

No way.

1 die forward attack was stillborn. 4hull 1 shield. Dial was much worse, it had not the stop, no 3hards, 3straight was white, 4straight was red.

That was the post wave 7 power creep upgrades though and not the Hwk290. And as you name TLT, it ate Hwk290s alive, as they never could escape it with their bad dials.

Dace won't see play in 2.0 until he costs the same as Spice Runner.

Did you play HWKs in 1.0? Did you play Palob with Rage, Inspiring Recruit and TLT?

On 9/23/2020 at 7:51 AM, Boreas Mun said:

It had access to different upgrades and scum had some good cheap upgrades back in 1.0. Also TLT was much better than this 3 dice front arc attack and you could have more than 1 HWK with it.

I don't think we really need to see that many HWKs on the table, but...

TLT was an equivalent 12 points from 1e and there's a reason its out of the game.

1e HWK did have access to different upgrades, but had less slots. It had talent, crew, turret. 2e has crew, device, 2 mods, talent, and a significantly better action bar - all while being comparably cheaper (take Jan Ors - 50 points equivalent from 1e, now 41 but has an arc locked ability.) The arc locking of the ship abilities is the big difference in my mind and drives the investment in Moldy Crow, but I still don't think 1e HWK was strictly better.

I think the HWK made the transition fine.

9 hours ago, dezzmont said:

Two Tubes

Dang, I forgot there's yet another one.

Rebels have FIVE of these (and that's not counting Lando). Just WHY ?

9 hours ago, dezzmont said:

I would even go so far to say that Kyle edges out Esge (who I love, they just aren't easy to justify with rebels as a faction as a whole being where they are. Its like networked calculate but actually interesting and dynamic!) in terms of being an 'interesting' focus passer.

I guess what I'm saying is... maybe it would be better if the Rebel faction didn't seem half-built around focus-passers?

Even at best, it's never that great.

I mean, Kyle was the worst 1e HWK, and they just kept his ability when bringing him to 2e. Is anyone surprised he hasn't been successful? Maybe it's because his ship ability was never good enough.

9 hours ago, dezzmont said:

The most interesting thing about the Rebel HWK is that it forces you to consider arcs in a new light. It is basically a beta version of Sinker. Its fantastic that you need to make a value judgement on if you want to turn your turret to get a clutch support effect at the cost of stress or losing your mod, or deciding between passing the focus and taking the shot. More interestingly, despite having the ability to rotate and keep mods, doing so is crazy dangerous because the ship's dial is fantastic... until you get stress, at which point your in a world of trouble.

No, its not the default use of an arc, but that is why its good. Good 'option specific' mechanics should make you re-evaluate how you play the game. The scum abilities are in my opinion boring because there isn't this tension between offensive and supportive use of the arc: Palob especially is just kinda dull and not an interesting 'grief' mechanic because of this: he gets to shoot you, gets a free mod, and gets to deny your mod all for getting you in arc. Nothing that interesting going on there.

Here's the thing, though: it just doesn't work. If you want an example of where it kinda does, Republic has them. 7th Fleet Gunner is kinda Jan Ors done right, and the LAAT is everything Kyle wishes he was.

To the extent that there is potentially design space in trading attacks for buffs, the Rebel HWKs don't get there. Payoff just isn't big enough. The wishy-washy "maybe you're giving up an attack, maybe not, and we're going to balance this around not giving up the attack" just failed. The best attack-substitution effects have results which are worth it, and penalties commensurate with attacking.

1 hour ago, Boreas Mun said:

Dace won't see play in 2.0 until he costs the same as Spice Runner.

Dace pays 3 points for 3 initiative and a Talent slot. Doesn't seem unfair. If that doesn't interest folks, I'm fine with them making that choice.

I feel like all the Scum HWKs (limited and generic) know who they are, know what they're doing, and all have a role. They've got usable statlines, usable set of upgrades. Folks can use them if they want, and if not, so be it, but it's not because they're non-functional. Are the busted-strong? Not really but they're as fair as a lot of stuff.

1 hour ago, theBitterFig said:

Dace pays 3 points for 3 initiative and a Talent slot. Doesn't seem unfair. If that doesn't interest folks, I'm fine with them making that choice.

Yeah, it's really good, that's why Dace is on 380th place and Spice Runner is on 382nd place on list fortress(386 pilots total). He is that better than Spice Runner. I would pay maybe 1 point more than Space Runner for Dace.

Jan is pretty good though?

at worst too expensive, but not in any way fundamentally non-functional...

Jan was in top16 at Worlds last year and torkhil sevvor khiraxz where (still are) great and I think made cut at worlds as well. HWKs are not useless. Kyle is mostly useless because he has a 1.0 ability in a 2.0 world. There are a plethora of coordinating ships, focus action ships, and focus tossing ships that Kyle is just kinda...meh. Roark will always be a meta ship. When i5 and i6 ships reign, Roark probably gets some play to shoot before these guys. When the meta is like it is now with i4 and below 4+ ship lists, Roark aint so hot.

On the scum side, Palob is not getting played cause the game has evolved into passive/sharing abilties. Force happened in all factions, droids and calcs are a thing, and now there is force crew all over, and LAATs now giving rerolls, and Sinkers, etc that a single focus being taken in 80% of lists is not a big deal. Dace is just dace. Kitchen table play at best.

I think the HWKs are fine and will be getting rotated in and out who is table worthy based on meta. I would not be against dropping points on the chassis to get them a little more table time, but Moldy Crow is really really good.