HWK-290, How will it play?

By red_devil, in X-Wing

I was looking to pre-order the next wave and saw that the HWK-290 is priced the same as fighters. I am unfamiliar with this ship and did some research. I understand it is a freighter in the computer games. As it is a lighter freighter, would I field mulitples like a fighter class ship or a single one like the Falcon or Slave 1?

It's tough to say without seeing more of the upgrade cards available with wave 3. From what I have seen it appears to be more of a support ship like the y-wing. That's not to say it won't be effective with multiple of them in a squad. For me, it depends on the blaster turret. We know it can take an ion turret, which is okay but not great, and it's primary weapon is more or less useless. If it's blaster turret packs a punch then I could see having more than 1.

Even without an amazing new turret it will be a cheaper ion platform with about the same survivability as an X-Wing and the named pilots all have amazing support abilities. I kind of want to see the new crew cards more than the new turret. That and the moldy crow card. I can see it being good though I think more than two on the board might be overdoing it.

Look at the FFG news for X-Wing. You will see it is fighter sized (the exoerts argued but apparently that is the correct scale size). The skill 6 pilot, Kyle Katern comes for 22 points which i find pretty expensive for a ship with only one attack and mediocre rest of stats.

We'll see how it will play, because it is a support ship after all, but i don't know if it will be worth 1/4 and more of your points while being offensively gimped and still expensive. But perhaps it will work out fine, and the buffs will be powerful enough to make up for the point cost.

Vonpenguin said:

Even without an amazing new turret it will be a cheaper ion platform with about the same survivability as an X-Wing and the named pilots all have amazing support abilities. I kind of want to see the new crew cards more than the new turret. That and the moldy crow card. I can see it being good though I think more than two on the board might be overdoing it.

You're pretty right, because the new turret will perhaps even be nicer on the Y-Wing, and this ship can ion sonething for others to eliminate. But idk if it is that much cheaper than a Y-Wing or do you know what the base pilot's cost will be?

Well the Moldy Crow card will force the opposing team to attack before you can stack up a ton of focus tokens. After all you will have the blaster turret and it probably has Attack (focus) and B-Wings with TL and focus tokens will wreck face with their new torps…

I don't know the generic pilot's cost but Roark has been spoiled as costing 19 and having skill 4, which means one point less than a grey squadron pilot plus having a pilot skill. Jan Ors is skill 8 and 25 which I think is the same as hortan but her ability is pretty insane in my mind.

http://swcommonground.com/2013/05/04/wave-3-ships-announced/

That's the site I saw them on.

Well yeah if it wasn't for the abilities, it would be really ridiculous, and even then, 3 more hitpoints, one more attack die for theY-Wing, one less agility. The manoeuver dial and the abilities impact better be fantastic, or the ship wouldn't make a lot if sense…

There is a blown up pic on this thread with some more info about each of teh ships: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=254&efcid=6&efidt=816426

My friend and I each ordered two since it looks like it comes with some good stuff -- especially since there is a level 2 pilot which will cost less then the pilots we know about already. It looks like it also includes some stuff that might help the y-wing. Not to mention that there may not be enough enough again which seems to be a trend for X-Wing so far. So, it seemed like it was worth getting at least 2 (I'd probably want at least that many even if I don't end up using them both very often).

Iam really looking forward to it, i fell in love with the ship when i saw it first in Dark Forces: Jediknight

and in that game it was more like a large 2 person fighter/personal transport ship, so sized like an Y-wing

Later in the Star Wars Saga RPG it got light freighter stats for some reason, i have heard that in other dark forces games it was made larger again, so there are some inconcistencies concernign the source material wich explains all the various opinions about it,

tough i shall always remember it from its first pass in Jediknight!