Here comes the cavalry!
Today is another Epic sized ship, but this time I'm not tackling something as massive as an Arquitens or Nebulon-B!
The Sphyrna-class Hammerhead corvette has its roots in legends with some old republic ships, the cannon refers to those original ships, saying that this version of the Hammerhead takes inspiration from those ancient designs. Since its first appearance in Rebels season two, we've seen this ship pop up may times, most notably in the Rise Of Skywalker and Rogue One, where it played a pivotal role in the Battle of Scarif. This is when when the Lightmaker rammed a disabled Star Destroyer into another Star Destroyer and a shield gate.
So like that little Hammerhead, let's get stuck in!
The Overall Design:
Unlike my other two epic ships, the Hammerhead isn't a powerhouse that can take on a handful of squadrons alone, its more like a repurposed small cargo carrier that the Rebellion took and made into a decent picket corvette.
Because of this, I went with something between a Gozanti and a CR90 as its solidly in the middle, size-wise being around 110 meters long.
The Stats:
As I said before it's between a Gozanti and a CR90, so the same will go for its hull, shields and energy, however being a little more comparable to the Gozanti due to its age compared to the CR90.
The agility, like with any epic ship, is easy with it staying at zero where the attack was a little complicated. If you look at the ship's Hammerhead, it has a pair of guns on either side that look to be able to rotate, and that's how I had them for a long time while designing it, until I reread the Wiki. They are forward-facing cannons, so this means the poor Hammerhead again gets stuck with a similar stat to the Gozanti, with the same front attack arc. This ended up with the Hammerhead having the following stat line:
Front: 3
Agility: 0
Hull: 13
Shields: 5 (Recovering once per round)
Charge: 3 (Recovering twice per round)
Energy: 4 (Recovering once per round)
The Ship Ability:
The Hammerhead's Hammerhead, hammers home how handy its hammerhead is!
(I'm so sorry...)
The ability lets us use this ship as a massive battering ram against small and huge ships alike without you crippling yourself in the process. As its tough head is one of the selling points of the Hammerhead (there's a story of a group of pirates attaching a massive vibroblade to its head for ramming!), it feels fitting to add in here to let us sort of recreating that scene in Rogue One.
The Actions:
As I learnt the first time I made epic ships, they all have the same five actions: focus, reinforce, lock, coordinate and jam as they are the only actions that make sense for these massive ships. However, I did make the coordinate and jam red as this isn't equipped to be a command ship with superior communication or electronic warfare systems.
The Dial:
Like the CR90, the Hammerhead has large engines compared to its size, because of this it can perform much faster manoeuvres giving it a pretty good dial for an epic ship.
The Upgrades:
The Hammerhead is a small cargo transport so it's not very weapon heavy, with only one additional turret on its top. This means most of its upgrades are crew or cargo based bar the one hardpoint upgrade.
The pilots:
As there are no named pilots for capital ships in X-Wing, we only have the generic you've seen. I have included both a Rebel and Resistance Hammerhead as the Resistance did use Hammerhead despite their age (and its the only other faction I could find with a named Hammerhead). Points wise I'd say this ship is probably solidly 70-80 points. The Gozanti is very similar and it sits at 60 points, so I feel an increase of ten for two extra hull and an additional energy is about fair!
The Upgrades:
Lightmaker:
I couldn't make this article without making the most famous Hammerhead! The Lightmaker takes the Hammerhead ability and runs with it, giving you the ability to shove epic ships out of the way! This is a risky ability to give any ship as no other effect, bar basic movement, can move an epic ship, this makes it very expensive at about 9-12 points.
Duchess Senna:
Another of the three Hammerheads given to Phoenix Cell by Alderaan, we know little about it so I took inspiration from Armada's Hammerhead titles, giving it a version of the Task Force Organa ability. This lets it give deplete tokens to friendly ships nearby to ensure your dice get the best results possible. I was originally going to make it give out disarm tokens, but as it would mostly engage last, it would have been a somewhat redundant ability. Points wise I'd say its about 5-8 points.
Amity's Arrow:
The last of the three Phoenix Cell Hammerheads, again we know next to nothing on the Arrow. I used the Armada title Task Force Antilles for inspiration, letting this ship become a massive version of Biggs, however, it only works on its shield tokens. Points wise I'd say its about 4-7 points.
Sterdic Star:
This is the only named Resistance Hammerhead we know of, it was used by the resistance to capture a droid, O-MR1, who knew where the First Order was holding Admiral Ackbar. During its mission, it was destroyed with all the crew lost except the droids, who included C-3PO. While shipwrecked the droids were picked off one by one until it was just 3PO who got his new red arm from O-MR1 to remember him by, after befriending him. The ability of the Sterdic is inspired by Resistance 3PO's ability, letting him use this ship as a hub for his droid spy network. Points wise I'd say its cheapish at about 3-6 points.
Kado Oquoné:
The captain of the Lightmaker, Kado sacrificed himself and a skeleton crew for Admiral Raddus' plan to push a disabled Star Destroyer into its allies. I designed this with both the Hammerhead's ship ability and the Lightmaker title in mind. He can give you a massive boost to attempt to ram an enemy ship at great speeds.
Points wise I'd say he's 7-11 points.
Cham Syndulla:
Cham may seem a little out of place here, but I'm taking a lot of inspiration from the armada Hammerhead pack, and this is where he makes his appearance in Armada! His ability is reminiscent of his Armada ability where he's a boarding team, but it also reflects is very selfish nature as he can steal a token from any ship even an ally as he only cares for his cause and not the whole Rebellion. Points wise I'd say he's a little expensive as he works with standard ships as well as huge, so he's about 7-9 points.
Charting Team:
This upgrade shows how with careful planning you can avoid damage from obstacles even if you hit them. Rotating your ship so you glance obstacles off the hull instead of just ramming it can be advantageous, especially as it's still around to hinder your opponents as well. Points wise I'd say it is only 3-5 points as you need to have the obstacle locked for it to work, and it could end up with your allies hitting the obstacle instead making it a little risky.
External Missile Racks:
This is an idea I've had for a while. I always felt that ships with munitions on board should explode like a bomb when they die. For this card I've adapted that idea to both give the Hammerhead, or any ship with cargo space, some additional missiles, but also show the risk of storing your missiles on the outside of your ship. So when you both get critically damaged and the epic 'precision shot' effect goes off, there is a chance that you and all ships nearby get an explosive surprise!
Because of this risk, I'd say it would be very cheap at 1-2 points.
Combat Pods:
You may have wondered why the Rebels TV show Hammerhead and the Rogue One Hammerhead look different. Although a little bit of the answer is down to the translation from animation to live-action, the two massive pods on the sides were additions the Rebellion made. I originally assumed they where just fuel pods, but they are actually additional turrets that are
just docked to its sides, taking the Hammerhead from one turret to five! To put this in the game I decided on adding an ability that isn't seen in-universe, but I can imagine it working never the less. The front side of the card gives you two additional three dice attacks per round, making this a much heavier hitting ship. But then during the end phase, you can drop two Turret remotes as if you have undocked the pods and left them behind as defensive emplacements. This is very useful if you're about to be destroyed or are playing a scenario where you are protecting an area and could do with some emplacements. As this adds two extra tough attacks and remotes, its an expensive configuration at about 20-25 points!
The Example List:
Hammering Home:
Alderaan Relief Corvette (70)
Combat Pods (20)
Kado Oquoné (8)
Cham Syndulla (7)
Lightmaker (11)
Ship Total: 122 Half Points: 61
Alderaan Relief Corvette (70)
Combat Pods (20)
Duchess Senna (6)
Ship Total: 102 Half Points: 51
Alderaan Relief Corvette (70)
Combat Pods (20)
Amity's Arrow (5)
hip total: 101 Half Points: 51
Blue Squadron Escort (38)
Ship Total: 40 Half Points: 20
Blue Squadron Escort (38)
Ship Total: 38 Half Points: 19
Blue Squadron Escort (38)
Ship Total: 38 Half Points: 19
Starbird Slash (1)
Ship Total: 29 Half Points: 15
Starbird Slash (1)
Ship Total: 29 Half Points: 15
Total: 499
This list is relatively simple to run, with a decent set of X and A-Wings to be a fighter escort, and three solid huge ships to deal out massive amounts of damage.
The Duchess Senna Hammerhead can stick with the A-Wings to give them deplete tokens to make its heavier attacks more potent.
The Amity's Arrow Hammerhead can stay with the X-Wings to keep them alive for even longer so they can be more effective.
The Lightmaker can target down an enemy's huge ships, smashing into them and pin them down while Cham steals away any needed reinforce tokens from the enemies ship to keep the Lightmaker even harder to kill!
Conclusion:
The Hammerhead was very interesting to make as I struggled to come up with ideas at first as I'd become used to making the massive Arquitens or Nebulon-B. This threw me off at first because of its much smaller size, but when I started to have an idea I finished all the cards in just a couple of hours (god that was a late night...).
Its design is definitely meant to be a ship that will most likely not survive the battle, but will do a colossal amount of damage before it goes down, with it literally using its whole frame to cause damage to your opponents!
As normal feel free to use the cards in friendly games to show the rest of the X-Wing community that you can win any battle by just using your head!
Thank you all for reading,
Watcher Leader out.
Oh, I'm also almost ready to set up the Battle Of The Titans epic game I've talked about.
It will be 400 points for each sides capital ship that's under joint control and 200 points per player for any other ships they want to fly!
I'm aiming for two vs two, but if there is enough interest I can increase the number of players, but it will make the playtime even longer (which isn't a bad thing to me!).
If you are interested please leave a comment or message me on my Instagram to reserve a place!