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Initially, I thought that the HWK-290 was a pretty bad ship as it only has one attack die, but paired with the Ion Cannon Turret, it seems decent. Has anyone use it to any success?

I was thinking

Han Solo + Milenium Falcon + NIen Numb (48)

Rebel Operative + Ion Cannon Turret (21)

Wedge Antilles + Swarm Tactics (31)

Swarm Tactics means that the Ion Turret should get to fire before my opponent gets to shoot his ships (mostly). All three of my ships will probably fire first and of course Han ans Wedge are really good.

Love my HWK. Flew Roark with Chewie and Tarn this past weekend to a 3-0 finish in a local. No turret, just tactician. Mostly use my HWK to buff my other ships, and the Tactician gives me some stress shenanigans at RNG 2, since you don't even have to hit for it to trigger.

The problem that I find with a HWK is that it tends to cost as much as other ships, which do things a bit more flexibly.

Support HWKs are expensive, and reliant on you having a ship to support.Opponent simply kills the main ship, and cleans house.

Ion HWKs run the problem of the Y-wing doing it better (more maneuverable, tougher, and with Primary weapons which can actually cause damage if needed.

Blaster HWKs run into the same problem with Y-wings, but also with X- and B-wings. XB's don't need to focus to fire, can fire at range 3, and are much more maneuverable (instead of having a turret)>

The hwks a fantastic ship, too many people look at the firepower it carries, but it's all about improving the other ships (whilst having a 360 ion turret in there too)

Problem with Support HWKs is, you are either committing to a 3-Ship list with them, or you are only running one strong ship. This means that the loss of a single ship is crippling. The alternative is to simply run two heavies, which I think a lot of people prefer.

The HWK is pretty great. It's as tough as an X-Wing, has a ton of toolboxy options and can really improve the ships around them.

Roark w/ an ion turret is the easiest plug-and-play support/control ship you'll ever see. There's never a time where jumping somebody to PS12 won't be awesome, and an ion turret won't be useful.

Jan and a Kyle are a bit more situational, but still solid. As for the Operative, a discount model with blaster turret, mouldy crow and recon specialist is a solid offensive ship.

I always run my HWK as follows:
Kyle Katarn
moldy crow
blaster turret
recon specialist


If i can spare the points I'll add a shield upgrade. The crow can actually handle itself pretty well & is a focus factory. Run it with Garven & the pair are extremely useful & hard to kill & if played right they don't miss often.

"Dutch" Vander/Y-Wing + R5-K6 + Ion Cannon Turret + Shield Upgrade
Garven Dreis/X-Wing + R5-P9 + Shield Upgrade
Kyle Katarn/HWK-290 + Elusiveness + Blaster Turret + Recon Specialist + Moldy Crow

Kyle decides to take a Focus, which gives him one to hand to Dutch and one to spend on blasting some poor sod with his turret.

Dutch gets a target lock and gives one to Kyle to help with his blaster turret.

Garven takes a Focus.

Dutch shoots at someone and uses his TL+F. He rolls and has a chance to reacquire a TL and then hand it up to Garven.

Garven fires and uses his TL as does Kyle.

If Garven takes some damage, he goes ahead and uses his Focus to heal his shields and then gives a Focus to Kyle to put in the Moldy Crow’s Bank.

Wash, rinse, and repeat.

Finally, because everyone is PS 6, you decide who acts and moves first to better put your Focus tokens to good use. However, almost everyone should be TL+F shooting.

 Flagwaver wrote:
"Dutch" Vander/Y-Wing + R5-K6 + Ion Cannon Turret + Shield Upgrade
Garven Dreis/X-Wing + R5-P9 + Shield Upgrade
Kyle Katarn/HWK-290 + Elusiveness + Blaster Turret + Recon Specialist + Moldy Crow

Kyle decides to take a Focus, which gives him one to hand to Dutch and one to spend on blasting some poor sod with his turret.

Dutch gets a target lock and gives one to Kyle to help with his blaster turret.

Garven takes a Focus.

Dutch shoots at someone and uses his TL+F. He rolls and has a chance to reacquire a TL and then hand it up to Garven.

Garven fires and uses his TL as does Kyle.

If Garven takes some damage, he goes ahead and uses his Focus to heal his shields and then gives a Focus to Kyle to put in the Moldy Crow’s Bank.

Wash, rinse, and repeat.

Finally, because everyone is PS 6, you decide who acts and moves first to better put your Focus tokens to good use. However, almost everyone should be TL+F shooting.

If you slow it down your first turn or two & just do a straight 1 with everyone since Kyle doesn't lose unused focus at the end of his turn it allows you to have up to 6 focus on Kyle to burn as he sees fit by the start of combat turn 3.