March 18, 2014

The HWK-290 for EotE, a second look

Quite a while back, I took a stab at converting the HWK-290 from WotC's RCR/Saga Edition to FFG's Edge of the Empire, and posted it to the Gamer Security Agency here.

For those not familiar with the ship, you can read up on it here:
HWK-290 on Wookieepedia

There's also some "controversy" on the ship's size, as new information has put the 29 meters that WotC used as incorrect, and that going by the information that FFG was provided by the Lucasfilm Archives, the HWK-290 is about half as big as WotC listed, measuring in at somewhere around 16.5 meters.

Well, I've been going back through a number of some of my earlier conversion work, both for starships and alien species, and trying to take a fresh look at my work now that FFG has released more material to be used as points of reference.  A lot of my earlier starship work was done when the only material available was the EotE Beta rulebook, so I was probably a bit more conservative than I needed to be.

One of the ships that got changed was the HWK-290, which at least until FFG publishes their own stats should work for small player groups:





HKW-290 Light Freighter
Hull Type/Class: Freighter/HWK-290
Manufacturer: Corellian Engineering Corporation
Hyperdrive: Primary: Class 2
Navicomputer: Yes
Ship’s Complement: One pilot, one co-pilot/engineer
Passenger Capacity: 1
Encumbrance Capacity: 25
Consumables: 3 months
Cost/Rarity: 95,000 credits/5
Silhouette: 3 
Sensor Range: Short
Speed: 4 
Handling: +0
Defense: 1/0 
Armor: 3
Hull Integrity: 15 
Strain Threshold: 12
Customization Hardpoints: 3

Weapons
Ventral Turret Mounted Twin Heavy Blaster Cannon (Fire Arc All; Damage 5; Critical Hit 4; Range [Close]; Linked 1)


Compared to the GSA version, the ship has a lower Silhouette, matching it up with starfighters such as the Y-Wing as well as the video images from the Dark Forces game.  This also results in a much lower Encumbrance Capacity and Passenger Capacity since it doesn't have that extra 10 meters of length that the WotC write-ups gave it.  The consumables got chopped in half as six months seemed a bit more for a ship that's under 20 meters in length, but that should still be plenty to get from destination to destination.

I also updated the onboard weapon to be a turret mounted blaster cannon.  Also from the various visual references I could find online as well as the model for FFG's X-Wing game, I also added Linked 1 since it's a presented as having twin barrels.  Strain Threshold got a boost as well though Handling was reduced a notch.

For the price, I opted to take the average of the "new" and "used" price points listed on the Wookieepedia article; given the overall speed and maneuverability of the ship in comparison to the YT-1300 (which is bigger and packs more firepower), this seems about right.

Overall, it makes a decent ship for a small group, being roughly on par with the Firespray.  It'd also make a nice ship for a two-person Alliance Mission Ops group, as proven by the duo of Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors of Dark Forces fame.

1 comment:

  1. This is a good revision Dono. Everything seems to make sense given the updated information. Until FFG contradicts it, if they do, I'd say this is the go to version to use.

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