I can't edit at work, or else I would edit my above...

I'd also like to throw my two cents in on the "Dark Curse invalidates entire lists" argument with the following: If you plan your list so that you REQUIRE focus tokens to shoot your only weapons, then you are failing in list building. If your list can be invalidated by a single ship, then you, the list builder, have failed to include enough variety, enough ways to handle different opponents, enough offensive options to sling at your opponent, and you deserve to watch DC swim around your helpless Y-wings/HWKs and laugh

The real question is: Why is a spam list of one ship type so incredibly powerful but if you take another type of ship it's just not good. And nobody cares about it even if it's an important question of balance.

Reading this thread you would think DC has 6 agility and a giant stack of focus/evade tokens. Dark Curse is not that hard to hit, especially if/when he has used his focus. With 3 agility and no focus he only evades one damage per shot on average. Even with a couple generic HWKs, you can get a range one hit through that. 2 dice vs. 3 dice unfocused is an even odds shot (8 pips vs 9 pips), with the distribution in favor of the attacker.

Not to mention that people were complaining about DC vs. Solo, when that is usually Dark Curse's worst matchup. 3 dice attacks with marksman and gunner demolish Dark Curse at any range. Unless something really strange happens with dice it will be one or two rounds at most before DC goes pop even if nobody else shoots at him.

Han can kill him that's true but only with another 8 points of equipment on top of what you already spend on him. And he still counters your ability, Han cosing a lot and Curse costing very little.

Let's all stop feeding this *Blackhole. It is now clear this poster feels the need to be right and not interested in discussion of posed question.

Does this help at all or did I miss the point?

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/89537-the-uses-of-the-hwk-290-and-general-hwk-290-discussion/?p=869517

Just trying here..

Does this help at all or did I miss the point?

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/89537-the-uses-of-the-hwk-290-and-general-hwk-290-discussion/?p=869517

Just trying here..

I will stop now, i can't convince you, and you can't convince me. Just one very last thing. The question in this thread was is the blaster turret working, yes or no? And there is a clear answer to this question. No it is not. Every ship with a blaster turret is a liability to your list. Because of Its inherent weakness but in a large portion also just because of the sheer possibility of meeting Dark Curse or to a lesser extent Jax when he will be out. And i find it obviously very disappointing that this upgrade just never had a chance. If you're okay with that, good. I don't like it and i don't understand the reasoning behind the ruling.

I don't like it and i don't understand the reasoning behind the ruling.

You don't have to like it, and that's not something anyone is likely to change your mind on.

But the reason behind it seems rather clear to me.

You can't use Focus in any way, shape or form when attacking Dark Curse. That would naturally include the ability to spend focus to fire on him in the first place.

Rulling otherwise would create a loophole that may have a bigger impact down the road, because then it means what a given ship does can be independent of the target of it's action.

I can't believe you're still arguing this.

Since you seem to have missed the point, what Daveydavedave was getting at (IMO) was that in a tournament setting you can easily win without EVER killing Dark Curse, if you find him so troublesome. Kill everything else, evade him until time's up, and you've got a handy win regardless.

That shouldn't be necessary because as literally everyone else has pointed out again and again, it's really not that hard to kill him, but for those with Dark Curse-related disabilities, there's still hope!

I hear all this talk about the blaster being worthless? but might i add that that this gives the HWK a 3 attack dice option opposed to its standard 1 ATK . Yeah its main goal is support but if i'm down to just the HWK i'd like an option attacking my enemy other than 1 ATK dice. That being said i'm sure that if my opponent is play curse i'm goiing to attack with the other guys in my squad without the blaster turret. I'm happy to have the turret, and dark curse and these new interceptors don't scare me away from using it.

it's really not that hard to kill him

Well to be fair ForceM is correct that a list of 4 HWK's with blaster turrets would have trouble killing DC.

They could pull it off, but it would be difficult. If he was the only thing on the board, and there were still 4 HWK's, getting him into range 1 of 1 or 2 HWK's shouldn't be impossible, and that's 2 dice v 3, which while not favorable do it enough times and you'll get the kill.

I hear all this talk about the blaster being worthless?

I don't think most of us are saying it's worthless. Just that isn't not something you'd want to build your whole list around.

He is still just a 2 atk die basic tie/ln without even a EPT. He might be harder to kill but it doesn't matter he is one of the lowest threats in the game. The fact is no matter WHICH build you are running you still would almost always kill Dark curse last. You can have two identical Dark curse builds and both players should still kill Dark Curse last. There is not a single imperial ship in the entire game that is less of a threat then Dark Curse. Even a basic Academy pilot is the exact same threat as dark curse and always easier to kill no matter which weapon system you use and guess what you should still target them before dark curse.

I agree that you can still win without killing him in a tournament, but i would hate to just avoid enemy ships till time is up because i am usually not stalling games. I find it quite unfair to do so.

I don't agree with Gungo. If i have a ship that can kill Dark Curse, like Ten Numb or Wedge for example, i would not hesitate to kill him. Especially if i have another ship with a blaster turret. So that ship will become more valuable in the endgame because the counter to it has been removed.

I did this last week. I had a remaining HWK290 and he had Dark Curse. I dodged and ran for the remaining 12 minutes of game time. The guy hates me now, calling me names. So yes this was an extreme case, but it does happen. I cannot think of any other ability in the game that completely nullifies something from being used.

And yes it was for the final game in the tournament. So I won but felt cheap! Fantasy Flight prides themselves on being balanced, which is why they don't release special pilots at Con and such. But in this case this is simply not fun. Talk about stalling, sheesh!

And you didn't turn and use your primary weapon why?

No. Because he can easily our maneuver me and I could never get a shot. I would basically be a sitting duck if I engaged him. Everyone new it too. Everyone at the store was watching me do everything I could to survive again him until time ran out. Plus with 1 die, unless I was range 1, another near impossiblity, I could never damage him, since he would always evade, and roll 3 dice on top of it.

Well but how exactly did you avoid him since his ship is at the time faster and more manoeuvrable than you. He must also have terrible dice if he could not kill the HWK during 12 minutes...

Well lets see. I moved fast and turned alot. I rolled the dice off the table several times by accident. I dared him to come get me. Several times he asked me about the ship, and how I had so many focuses. Most of it was fluff, and yes he did hit be several times, but I survived with 2 Hull points at the end.

No I didn't want to stall, but I really had no choice, because I could not even come close to getting a shot at him. I tried to keep most of his shots at range 2 and 3, many times he turned and expected me to. Normally I would, but instead I would just fly straight and then turn to keep him at long range. Plus I had some nice defense rolls and my extra focus tokens helped me evade alot.

Plus I used the asteroids to hide for alot of the time, and he was afraid to fly through them. Near the end he did, but it was too late and I had weathered the storm, and time ran out.

2 evade dice and and a 1 forward and bank could make it easy to get passed by a tie fighters even more so if Astroid are working to your favor.

Yea, but he knew I could only move 3 max, so he kept all his moves 1, or 2. smart of him really. He figured he would pick me off a little each turn. There were several times when he rolled 2 hits, but I rolled 1 evade and a focus. So I could use a token

Well but how exactly did you avoid him since his ship is at the time faster and more manoeuvrable than you. He must also have terrible dice if he could not kill the HWK during 12 minutes...

A HWK has decent, if not spectacular, odds of dodging anything dark curse can throw at it. two agility that will 100% of the time be use for defense against 2 attack that may or may not be used for attack is pretty decent. not great but decent. If the HWK hadn't taken any damage before it became 1v1 then a simple "don't die" works.

And if Dark curse is focusing on defense, he's not focusing on attack.

But anyway. The Blaster turret. Good way to give some punch when you need it, but will always be the less attractive option unless I'm scrounging for points. In much the same way that if I can afford a green Squadron pilot without changing the rest of my list why would I ever want a prototype?

Stay at range 3, put asteroids between the two of you, use focus on defense... plus the occasionally maneuvering error by the opponent. If you really want to drag things out against an opponent with only 2 attack dice, it's not that hard. Even easier if the opponent had initiative.

I agree that you can still win without killing him in a tournament, but i would hate to just avoid enemy ships till time is up because i am usually not stalling games. I find it quite unfair to do so.

I don't agree with Gungo. If i have a ship that can kill Dark Curse, like Ten Numb or Wedge for example, i would not hesitate to kill him. Especially if i have another ship with a blaster turret. So that ship will become more valuable in the endgame because the counter to it has been removed.

If you target dark curse over a bigger threat target you risk your own ships by leaving a stronger target flying.

If you have howl runner or jax or vader or heck even mailer or back stabbed or any tie int should die before dark curse, because any ship that is a bigger threat that you leave on the table is you risking a ship.

Perhaps you're familiar with Biggs. He's been around a while, and unlike Jax or DC, is a ship you actually cannot ignore, no matter what you WANT to do. Has Biggs broken the game?

THIS

Well lets see. I moved fast and turned alot. I rolled the dice off the table several times by accident. I dared him to come get me. Several times he asked me about the ship, and how I had so many focuses. Most of it was fluff, and yes he did hit be several times, but I survived with 2 Hull points at the end.

No I didn't want to stall, but I really had no choice, because I could not even come close to getting a shot at him. I tried to keep most of his shots at range 2 and 3, many times he turned and expected me to. Normally I would, but instead I would just fly straight and then turn to keep him at long range. Plus I had some nice defense rolls and my extra focus tokens helped me evade alot.

Plus I used the asteroids to hide for alot of the time, and he was afraid to fly through them. Near the end he did, but it was too late and I had weathered the storm, and time ran out.

So you gamed him for time. Because Dark Curse should beat the $h@% out of a blaster turret Hawk in 12 minutes.

Rolling dice off the table? Taking your time to dial in your move? Come on man. Was it worth it?

Twelve minutes doesn't sound at all unreasonable. My first game ever came down to dark curse vs dutch with an ion turret and lasted a good half an hour after that before my opponent finally misjudged a turn and ran slammed into an asteroid to give me the win. We were both new but still, a Hwk that's totally ignoring even a token offense isn't an easy kill, for a tie, poor dial or no.

He didn't say anything about taking his time and stated that the die rolling was an accident.

Just to update everyone. I have actually been told by other players at the store they were impressed the way I turned it into a win. Dodging and out thinking him for that amount of time.

Yesterday I played the same guy again (Random draw of 12 players, was it Karma or a setup for revenge?), all 3 of his big guys went after my Hwk just cause he was pissed. That was his undoing. I easily flanked him with my xwings, and Awing and took down his big guys, while they easily destroyed my HWK, but he was in poor position and a few protons took them down for the easy win.

But hey he got my hawk!