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As the title says, what is the most point efficient way to kill heavy tanks (AV13+) sticking to either dark or craftworld eldar.

I try to stick mostly to dark eldar these days for casual games because I get less complaints then tau/eldar and its more fun to me overall. The only problem I really have is lists with a lot of heavy armor where my poison weapons do nothing.

I don't mind allying in a small detachment of CWE to give the rest of my force some extra punch.

Blastborn can be a good choice, or finding platforms with lance will do fine.

If you don't mind in allying in corsairs which are kinda like Dark eldar, they can take jetbikes with all dark lances or a unit of jetpacking darklance. Their bikes are troop choices and using their special detachment means all troops are objective secured so thats never bad. Their regular troops can take 2 special weapons per 5 and include blasters, shredders, fusion guns, and flamers and with a 5ppm upgrade all can take jetpacks and deepstrike.

For DE, as noted, Blaster trueborn are pretty solid. Scourges can be made functional. Ravagers used to be a good call but theyre just so damn easy to kill now that Im not sure there is much point.

DE have some great tools for killing heavy tanks, the problem DE have is killing large numbers of medium (AV11/12) tanks.

As for CWE, throw a dart at the codex and run with it, they have a large number of almost auto-win anti vehicle units to play with between Fire Dragons, D weapons, etc.

 Vaktathi wrote:

As for CWE, throw a dart at the codex and run with it, they have a large number of almost auto-win anti vehicle units to play with between Fire Dragons, D weapons, etc.

Damn, beat me to it.

I'm thinking a unit of Scourges with 4 haywire blasters. Planning on them being my main anti-tank unit in my burgeoning DE army.

Hawks, dragons, wraith guard, wraithknights....these put to shame any anti tank weapons that the dark cousins bring to the field. You don't need DE if you're cwe unless you want the portal.

Hawks are pretty bad if you use the FaQ.

Crispy78 wrote:
I'm thinking a unit of Scourges with 4 haywire blasters. Planning on them being my main anti-tank unit in my burgeoning DE army.

I've been running into the exact same problem you have with my dark eldar. So here's the thing about haywire scourges. They're very good at what they do, but a unit of 4 haywire blasters won't last you long in a game of 1500+ points. A squad of 4 haywire blasters will have pretty decent odds of killing anything with less than 4 HP and no cover/invul save, and their ability to deepstrike mixed with the long range of the haywire blaster means that you'll probably get your sucker punch off no problem. But then the scourges will get shot to death, and you'll have nothing left over for the three other vehicles you're up against.

Also, dark eldar anti-tank is not as good as eldar anti-tank. All you have to do is miss with two out of your four haywire blasters, and you're guaranteed to not kill an unwounded rhino. What I've ended up doing is focusing on squeezing as many dedicated anti-tank weapons into my army as I can to have a little AT everywhere. I like disintegrators on raiders just fine, but a dark lance gives me another way to try and open up a rhino. So that's a dark lance. My kabalite warriors mostly want to poison infantry, but gosh golly if I'm not going to give them blasters when I have the points to spread out my AT.

Depending on the kind of list you're running, I suggest looking at a couple squads of blaster born in venoms (gives you lots of AT and lots of poison all in one place) backed up by scourges. I favor haywire blasters on scourges because I already have the trueborn there to try and get lucky and one-shot vehicles and because the extra range helps scourges avoid dying. Also the haywire blasters are cheaper, so... Other options to look at include heat lances on talos (they'll take forever to get there, but they'll probably get there), blasters OR heat lances on reavers, or even good small grotesque squads in raiders. The grotesques will probably get shot up and start running away, but they have decent odds of tearing open rear armor, and they don't care overly much about overwatch.

But for raw firepower, you'll want scourges and true born, and you'll still feel like you don't have enough AT even if you bring all that. >.<

Eldar AT is much better. Scatter lasers are good at hull pointing out light vehicles. Dragons will blow up anything if they don't flub their to-hit rolls, and D-weapons will... be D-Weapons. Swooping hawks *were* good, but the unofficial FAQ nerfs them pretty hard. Oh, and Dark Reapers can be a solid option too.

I have used blasterborn in the past but 200 points feels like a lot to pay for such a fragile unit with 4 S8 lance shots.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
How do people feel about war walkers with double bright lance.

Scourges with 4 Heat Lances. The problem with the Haywire is that more often than not I only ever seem to get 2 hits which means the target vehicle will most likely survive, 2 hits with a melta means a good chance to blow it up. And Deep Strike them, they're a suicide unit so you want them to get up close straight away, Deep Strike them into Melta range.

In a pure DE list I take 2 units of Scourge with Heat Lances and a unit of 6 Reavers with Cluster Caltrops. 2D6, S6 Hammer of Wrath with Rending will take down most vehicles, though don't go after transports with them unless you have something else to shoot/charge whatever comes out.

Blasterborn can work, particularly with the Purge Cotorie formation giving them Preferred Enemy, but given the requirements of that formation I prefer to run them after elite infantry or MC units instead.

A squad of Talos will do the job in close combat, maybe in shooting with Haywire or Heat Lances but not as likely as other units. Best in a Corpsthiefe Claw Formation so that they have Scout.

pm713 wrote:
Hawks are pretty bad if you use the FaQ.

I'm not aware of any official FAQ, what changed for them?

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Hawks are pretty bad if you use the FaQ.

I'm not aware of any official FAQ, what changed for them?

One grenade attack in close combat so now they can do 2 HP of damage at best.

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Hawks are pretty bad if you use the FaQ.

I'm not aware of any official FAQ, what changed for them?

One grenade attack in close combat so now they can do 2 HP of damage at best.

Whelp, back to the garbage pile they go then. Good job GW

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Hawks are pretty bad if you use the FaQ.

I'm not aware of any official FAQ, what changed for them?

One grenade attack in close combat so now they can do 2 HP of damage at best.

Whelp, back to the garbage pile they go then. Good job GW

We have different ideas of garbage.

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Hawks are pretty bad if you use the FaQ.

I'm not aware of any official FAQ, what changed for them?

One grenade attack in close combat so now they can do 2 HP of damage at best.

Not quite true.

The FAQ made Hawks even better.

Read the wording for Intercept. Each model in the unit has it.

That means that Hawks are still exceptionally good at killing flyers as Intercept overrides the 'one grenade' rule at least in that respect.

Add to that the fact they still have a respectable output of firepower, still have grenade packs and still fit into CWE Reserve Shenanigans and they're still not bad.

Really, Hawks shouldn't be used to take out tanks. They're Flyer hunters at best. CWE have a lot more specialist units that do the job better.

 DarkStarSabre wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Hawks are pretty bad if you use the FaQ.

I'm not aware of any official FAQ, what changed for them?

One grenade attack in close combat so now they can do 2 HP of damage at best.

Not quite true.

The FAQ made Hawks even better.

Read the wording for Intercept. Each model in the unit has it.

That means that Hawks are still exceptionally good at killing flyers as Intercept overrides the 'one grenade' rule at least in that respect.

Add to that the fact they still have a respectable output of firepower, still have grenade packs and still fit into CWE Reserve Shenanigans and they're still not bad.

Really, Hawks shouldn't be used to take out tanks. They're Flyer hunters at best. CWE have a lot more specialist units that do the job better.

In what way are they better...

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Hawks are pretty bad if you use the FaQ.

I'm not aware of any official FAQ, what changed for them?

One grenade attack in close combat so now they can do 2 HP of damage at best.

Whelp, back to the garbage pile they go then. Good job GW

We have different ideas of garbage.

How are they not garbage? They were usually taken to spam Haywire, being significantly cheaper than dragons since you don't need a transport. Haywire was also a little more...I'm going to say automatic than dragons against most targets. I was reasonably confident my hawks would destroy any tank in the game unless it was a super heavy, and even then they did a ton of damage. And so cheap, quite fast with battle focus...they were good.

I can't see taking them for anti troop. Bikes, Avengers, and Spiders do it so much better, especially spiders and bikes. Tbh before I noticed the haywire I had no idea why they were appearing in tournament lists at all and had to ask someone here why they were so frequently chosen.

Oh well, I haven't used my Hawks since 3rd up until recently. No big loss.

pm713 wrote:

 DarkStarSabre wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Hawks are pretty bad if you use the FaQ.

I'm not aware of any official FAQ, what changed for them?

One grenade attack in close combat so now they can do 2 HP of damage at best.

Not quite true.

The FAQ made Hawks even better.

Read the wording for Intercept. Each model in the unit has it.

That means that Hawks are still exceptionally good at killing flyers as Intercept overrides the 'one grenade' rule at least in that respect.

Add to that the fact they still have a respectable output of firepower, still have grenade packs and still fit into CWE Reserve Shenanigans and they're still not bad.

Really, Hawks shouldn't be used to take out tanks. They're Flyer hunters at best. CWE have a lot more specialist units that do the job better.

In what way are they better...

Agreed. Between easy missile spam (and I do love me some Eldar Missile Launcher spam), Crimson Hunters, and even the Hemlock with its high Pursuit/Agility should easily win a dogfight.

 Happyjew wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 DarkStarSabre wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Hawks are pretty bad if you use the FaQ.

I'm not aware of any official FAQ, what changed for them?

One grenade attack in close combat so now they can do 2 HP of damage at best.

Not quite true.

The FAQ made Hawks even better.

Read the wording for Intercept. Each model in the unit has it.

That means that Hawks are still exceptionally good at killing flyers as Intercept overrides the 'one grenade' rule at least in that respect.

Add to that the fact they still have a respectable output of firepower, still have grenade packs and still fit into CWE Reserve Shenanigans and they're still not bad.

Really, Hawks shouldn't be used to take out tanks. They're Flyer hunters at best. CWE have a lot more specialist units that do the job better.

In what way are they better...

Agreed. Between easy missile spam (and I do love me some Eldar Missile Launcher spam), Crimson Hunters, and even the Hemlock with its high Pursuit/Agility should easily win a dogfight.

I think you misunderstood me. I was asking how the Hawks got better after the FaQ not how they were a better AA unit. Although I thought the Hemlock couldn't target flyers?

pm713 wrote:

 DarkStarSabre wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Hawks are pretty bad if you use the FaQ.

I'm not aware of any official FAQ, what changed for them?

One grenade attack in close combat so now they can do 2 HP of damage at best.

Not quite true.

The FAQ made Hawks even better.

Read the wording for Intercept. Each model in the unit has it.

That means that Hawks are still exceptionally good at killing flyers as Intercept overrides the 'one grenade' rule at least in that respect.

Add to that the fact they still have a respectable output of firepower, still have grenade packs and still fit into CWE Reserve Shenanigans and they're still not bad.

Really, Hawks shouldn't be used to take out tanks. They're Flyer hunters at best. CWE have a lot more specialist units that do the job better.

In what way are they better...

Because each one gets a S4 AP4 haywire attack on a flyer or FMC they move over in addition to any shooting they may have. Intercept specifically negates the 'Only one grenade' rule in that respect. A lot of people pan them because they don't read through the codex first. And the fact you are complaining about what is effectively a nice cheap 100 point unit with an Exarch 'because it doesn't kill heavy armour' suggests you don't quite understand the Eldar philosophy either.

You want heavy armour dead? Fire Dragons.
You want fast moving skimmers or bikes/jetbikes dead? Upgraded Dark Reapers (read the Rangefinder rules).
You want flyers or FMCs dead? Hawks will do that for you (They murder Harpies and Crones).

I never considered Hawks tank hunters. There is nothing in their kit that suggests they are designed for this. The Haywire grenades specifically work with Intercept. The unit has no real anti-tank capability anywhere else. They've always been more of a disruption unit - respectable small arms firepower, the grenade packs, the ability to hop in and out.

For what Hawks actually do they are rather good. Intercept actually makes them better because of the fact it ignores the one grenade rule in terms of their role. Even if units were introduced in other books that did the same, unless they had an Intercept equivalent specifically worded to allow each model an attack then they will be subpar to Hawks because of the FAQ.

Lesson here though?

Haywire grenades =/= Tank Hunter.

As I have already mentioned CWE have units that hunt different types of tanks far better than hawks ever will.

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Hawks are pretty bad if you use the FaQ.

I'm not aware of any official FAQ, what changed for them?

One grenade attack in close combat so now they can do 2 HP of damage at best.

Whelp, back to the garbage pile they go then. Good job GW

We have different ideas of garbage.

How are they not garbage? They were usually taken to spam Haywire, being significantly cheaper than dragons since you don't need a transport. Haywire was also a little more...I'm going to say automatic than dragons against most targets. I was reasonably confident my hawks would destroy any tank in the game unless it was a super heavy, and even then they did a ton of damage. And so cheap, quite fast with battle focus...they were good.

I can't see taking them for anti troop. Bikes, Avengers, and Spiders do it so much better, especially spiders and bikes. Tbh before I noticed the haywire I had no idea why they were appearing in tournament lists at all and had to ask someone here why they were so frequently chosen.

Oh well, I haven't used my Hawks since 3rd up until recently. No big loss.

18" move, 3 shot ap5 guns and skyleap is good. Good for objective grabbing, manoeuvrable enough and good enough guns to pick on vulnerable units with T3, can leave the board to get out of bad situations and drop blasts on their no scatter DS. On top of that you can finish off weakened vehicles with the Haywire if you don't want to waste proper anti tank.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DarkStarSabre wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 DarkStarSabre wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Hawks are pretty bad if you use the FaQ.

I'm not aware of any official FAQ, what changed for them?

One grenade attack in close combat so now they can do 2 HP of damage at best.

Not quite true.

The FAQ made Hawks even better.

Read the wording for Intercept. Each model in the unit has it.

That means that Hawks are still exceptionally good at killing flyers as Intercept overrides the 'one grenade' rule at least in that respect.

Add to that the fact they still have a respectable output of firepower, still have grenade packs and still fit into CWE Reserve Shenanigans and they're still not bad.

Really, Hawks shouldn't be used to take out tanks. They're Flyer hunters at best. CWE have a lot more specialist units that do the job better.

In what way are they better...

Because each one gets a S4 AP4 haywire attack on a flyer or FMC they move over in addition to any shooting they may have. Intercept specifically negates the 'Only one grenade' rule in that respect. A lot of people pan them because they don't read through the codex first. And the fact you are complaining about what is effectively a nice cheap 100 point unit with an Exarch 'because it doesn't kill heavy armour' suggests you don't quite understand the Eldar philosophy either.

So they aren't actually better at all. I'm not complaining at all.

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Hawks are pretty bad if you use the FaQ.

I'm not aware of any official FAQ, what changed for them?

One grenade attack in close combat so now they can do 2 HP of damage at best.

Whelp, back to the garbage pile they go then. Good job GW

We have different ideas of garbage.

How are they not garbage? They were usually taken to spam Haywire, being significantly cheaper than dragons since you don't need a transport. Haywire was also a little more...I'm going to say automatic than dragons against most targets. I was reasonably confident my hawks would destroy any tank in the game unless it was a super heavy, and even then they did a ton of damage. And so cheap, quite fast with battle focus...they were good.

I can't see taking them for anti troop. Bikes, Avengers, and Spiders do it so much better, especially spiders and bikes. Tbh before I noticed the haywire I had no idea why they were appearing in tournament lists at all and had to ask someone here why they were so frequently chosen.

Oh well, I haven't used my Hawks since 3rd up until recently. No big loss.

18" move, 3 shot ap5 guns and skyleap is good. Good for objective grabbing, manoeuvrable enough and good enough guns to pick on vulnerable units with T3, can leave the board to get out of bad situations and drop blasts on their no scatter DS. On top of that you can finish off weakened vehicles with the Haywire if you don't want to waste proper anti tank.

No offense, but all I'm seeing here is "much weaker than spiders and bikes" outside of the anti-tank, and 1 HP on average just isn't enough. My most common enemy is marines or necrons, if they bring tanks, heck if anyone does, its in numbers. I liked hawks because I could destroy a tank a turn with them pretty reliably. The squad was cheap and even 2 hawks were a threat to a tank, so you had to wipe them. Dragons couldn't keep that up since they needed a transport and after half the squad gets destroyed in shooting they lose a lot of their punch.


3 Str 3 Ap 5 shots isn't impressive, at all. It's practically a bolter with a better range (-1 shot, +1 str).
Just to compare, a hawk will do
3 shots, 2 hits, 1 wound if no cover for a guardsmen, 2/3 wounds if a 5+ cover. So it'll take 3 rounds of constant firepower to kill same points of guardsmen, 4-5 turns if in cover. That's awful, and its possibly their best target.
3 shots 2 hits, 4/6 wounds, 2/9 failed saves against marines. It takes 4.5 hawks to kill a marine. It'll take nearly the whole game for them to earn their points back against basic marines.
The blast obviously pushes this in their favor, but its not great and they are quite fragile.

Compare to bikes
6 shots, 4 hits, 20/6 wounds, ~2 dead guardsmen per turn per bike. Takes about 3 rounds to earn points back, guardsmen or no. This is one of their worst targets.
Against marines, 20/6 wounds, ~7/6 dead marines. Each one kills a marine, earning their points back in 2 turns.
Against Cents it gets much worse for the hawks compared to the bikes.
+1 toughness, +1 save, longer range, troops.


Haywire made a big difference. Losing that is a deathknell.

I'm not seeing how they compete within the eldar dex. The lasers were nice to score some kills if there wasn't a tank in range, I basically used them as skirmishers to finish off weakened squads since they were so fast and long ranged. Now they can't really do that against the stronger units.
It's a shame, they are easily my second favorite aspect after the spiders. In 3rd they basically were a delivery service for a character/exarch, but they had some use. I can't see using them competitively now, they seem outclassed. Avengers seem better for the points, and that's saying something.

Personally I don't have problems with most flyers as eldar. Scatbikes seem to do fine with guide on them, IMO. Very few flyers have enough AV to ignore the bikes. I don't see flyers spammed either tbh, outside of crons on occasion.

 Vaktathi wrote:
As for CWE, throw a dart at the codex and run with it, they have a large number of almost auto-win anti vehicle units to play with between Fire Dragons, D weapons, etc.

With OP's luck, he will hit Howling Banshees, with predominantly S3 and nothing more than S5 on the the Exarch's Executioner, so that's not at all good advice.

Realistically, if one is intent on cracking AV13+ Preds and LRs, take a WraithKnight and paint it EmoGothDark to fit in with the rest of the DEldars. With the S(D) guns or S(D) sword, the WK has good odds to crack any tank.

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Hawks are pretty bad if you use the FaQ.

I'm not aware of any official FAQ, what changed for them?

One grenade attack in close combat so now they can do 2 HP of damage at best.

Whelp, back to the garbage pile they go then. Good job GW

We have different ideas of garbage.

How are they not garbage? They were usually taken to spam Haywire, being significantly cheaper than dragons since you don't need a transport. Haywire was also a little more...I'm going to say automatic than dragons against most targets. I was reasonably confident my hawks would destroy any tank in the game unless it was a super heavy, and even then they did a ton of damage. And so cheap, quite fast with battle focus...they were good.

I can't see taking them for anti troop. Bikes, Avengers, and Spiders do it so much better, especially spiders and bikes. Tbh before I noticed the haywire I had no idea why they were appearing in tournament lists at all and had to ask someone here why they were so frequently chosen.

Oh well, I haven't used my Hawks since 3rd up until recently. No big loss.

18" move, 3 shot ap5 guns and skyleap is good. Good for objective grabbing, manoeuvrable enough and good enough guns to pick on vulnerable units with T3, can leave the board to get out of bad situations and drop blasts on their no scatter DS. On top of that you can finish off weakened vehicles with the Haywire if you don't want to waste proper anti tank.

No offense, but all I'm seeing here is "much weaker than spiders and bikes" outside of the anti-tank, and 1 HP on average just isn't enough. My most common enemy is marines or necrons, if they bring tanks, heck if anyone does, its in numbers. I liked hawks because I could destroy a tank a turn with them pretty reliably. The squad was cheap and even 2 hawks were a threat to a tank, so you had to wipe them. Dragons couldn't keep that up since they needed a transport and after half the squad gets destroyed in shooting they lose a lot of their punch.


3 Str 3 Ap 5 shots isn't impressive, at all. It's practically a bolter with a better range (-1 shot, +1 str).
Just to compare, a hawk will do
3 shots, 2 hits, 1 wound if no cover for a guardsmen, 2/3 wounds if a 5+ cover. So it'll take 3 rounds of constant firepower to kill same points of guardsmen, 4-5 turns if in cover. That's awful, and its possibly their best target.
3 shots 2 hits, 4/6 wounds, 2/9 failed saves against marines. It takes 4.5 hawks to kill a marine. It'll take nearly the whole game for them to earn their points back against basic marines.
The blast obviously pushes this in their favor, but its not great and they are quite fragile.

Compare to bikes
6 shots, 4 hits, 20/6 wounds, ~2 dead guardsmen per turn per bike. Takes about 3 rounds to earn points back, guardsmen or no. This is one of their worst targets.
Against marines, 20/6 wounds, ~7/6 dead marines. Each one kills a marine, earning their points back in 2 turns.
Against Cents it gets much worse for the hawks compared to the bikes.
+1 toughness, +1 save, longer range, troops.


Haywire made a big difference. Losing that is a deathknell.

I'm not seeing how they compete within the eldar dex. The lasers were nice to score some kills if there wasn't a tank in range, I basically used them as skirmishers to finish off weakened squads since they were so fast and long ranged. Now they can't really do that against the stronger units.
It's a shame, they are easily my second favorite aspect after the spiders. In 3rd they basically were a delivery service for a character/exarch, but they had some use. I can't see using them competitively now, they seem outclassed. Avengers seem better for the points, and that's saying something.

Personally I don't have problems with most flyers as eldar. Scatbikes seem to do fine with guide on them, IMO. Very few flyers have enough AV to ignore the bikes. I don't see flyers spammed either tbh, outside of crons on occasion.

There's your "issue". Hawks aren't bad. They just aren't hideously broken like scatbikes are.

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Hawks are pretty bad if you use the FaQ.

I'm not aware of any official FAQ, what changed for them?

One grenade attack in close combat so now they can do 2 HP of damage at best.

Whelp, back to the garbage pile they go then. Good job GW

We have different ideas of garbage.

How are they not garbage? They were usually taken to spam Haywire, being significantly cheaper than dragons since you don't need a transport. Haywire was also a little more...I'm going to say automatic than dragons against most targets. I was reasonably confident my hawks would destroy any tank in the game unless it was a super heavy, and even then they did a ton of damage. And so cheap, quite fast with battle focus...they were good.

I can't see taking them for anti troop. Bikes, Avengers, and Spiders do it so much better, especially spiders and bikes. Tbh before I noticed the haywire I had no idea why they were appearing in tournament lists at all and had to ask someone here why they were so frequently chosen.

Oh well, I haven't used my Hawks since 3rd up until recently. No big loss.

18" move, 3 shot ap5 guns and skyleap is good. Good for objective grabbing, manoeuvrable enough and good enough guns to pick on vulnerable units with T3, can leave the board to get out of bad situations and drop blasts on their no scatter DS. On top of that you can finish off weakened vehicles with the Haywire if you don't want to waste proper anti tank.

No offense, but all I'm seeing here is "much weaker than spiders and bikes" outside of the anti-tank, and 1 HP on average just isn't enough. My most common enemy is marines or necrons, if they bring tanks, heck if anyone does, its in numbers. I liked hawks because I could destroy a tank a turn with them pretty reliably. The squad was cheap and even 2 hawks were a threat to a tank, so you had to wipe them. Dragons couldn't keep that up since they needed a transport and after half the squad gets destroyed in shooting they lose a lot of their punch.


3 Str 3 Ap 5 shots isn't impressive, at all. It's practically a bolter with a better range (-1 shot, +1 str).
Just to compare, a hawk will do
3 shots, 2 hits, 1 wound if no cover for a guardsmen, 2/3 wounds if a 5+ cover. So it'll take 3 rounds of constant firepower to kill same points of guardsmen, 4-5 turns if in cover. That's awful, and its possibly their best target.
3 shots 2 hits, 4/6 wounds, 2/9 failed saves against marines. It takes 4.5 hawks to kill a marine. It'll take nearly the whole game for them to earn their points back against basic marines.
The blast obviously pushes this in their favor, but its not great and they are quite fragile.

Compare to bikes
6 shots, 4 hits, 20/6 wounds, ~2 dead guardsmen per turn per bike. Takes about 3 rounds to earn points back, guardsmen or no. This is one of their worst targets.
Against marines, 20/6 wounds, ~7/6 dead marines. Each one kills a marine, earning their points back in 2 turns.
Against Cents it gets much worse for the hawks compared to the bikes.
+1 toughness, +1 save, longer range, troops.


Haywire made a big difference. Losing that is a deathknell.

I'm not seeing how they compete within the eldar dex. The lasers were nice to score some kills if there wasn't a tank in range, I basically used them as skirmishers to finish off weakened squads since they were so fast and long ranged. Now they can't really do that against the stronger units.
It's a shame, they are easily my second favorite aspect after the spiders. In 3rd they basically were a delivery service for a character/exarch, but they had some use. I can't see using them competitively now, they seem outclassed. Avengers seem better for the points, and that's saying something.

Personally I don't have problems with most flyers as eldar. Scatbikes seem to do fine with guide on them, IMO. Very few flyers have enough AV to ignore the bikes. I don't see flyers spammed either tbh, outside of crons on occasion.

There's your "issue". Hawks aren't bad. They just aren't hideously broken like scatbikes are.

In a casual game, you can take nearly anything in the eldar dex. Maybe not guardians or rangers...haven't tried them, but the vast majority of the dex does okay. I was clearly talking about competitive lists, I even mentioned the hawks appearing in tourney lists.
I doubt you'll see them now, barring flyers suddenly making a major comeback. I regularly see cent stars, TWC hordes, WKs with WG and spiders, Necrons in formations, Riptides in formations. I can't really justify taking the hawks any longer.

We can compare them to avengers or spiders if you want. I'd imagine its roughly the same.

Akiasura wrote:


In a casual game, you can take nearly anything in the eldar dex. Maybe not guardians or rangers...haven't tried them, but the vast majority of the dex does okay. I was clearly talking about competitive lists, I even mentioned the hawks appearing in tourney lists.
I doubt you'll see them now, barring flyers suddenly making a major comeback. I regularly see cent stars, TWC hordes, WKs with WG and spiders, Necrons in formations, Riptides in formations. I can't really justify taking the hawks any longer.

We can compare them to avengers or spiders if you want. I'd imagine its roughly the same.

Still decent objective grabbing for competitive. Rangers do alright for holding backfield objectives if your opponent mistakes them for a threat in my experience.

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:


In a casual game, you can take nearly anything in the eldar dex. Maybe not guardians or rangers...haven't tried them, but the vast majority of the dex does okay. I was clearly talking about competitive lists, I even mentioned the hawks appearing in tourney lists.
I doubt you'll see them now, barring flyers suddenly making a major comeback. I regularly see cent stars, TWC hordes, WKs with WG and spiders, Necrons in formations, Riptides in formations. I can't really justify taking the hawks any longer.

We can compare them to avengers or spiders if you want. I'd imagine its roughly the same.

Still decent objective grabbing for competitive. Rangers do alright for holding backfield objectives if your opponent mistakes them for a threat in my experience.

Is your experience competitive? Because bikes are in everyway superior to hawks and rangers. With their increased speed, better toughness, and better gun, there is no reason to take either of these units. You certainly don't see rangers of all things in competitive lists.

Hawks were only taken because they were cheap AV killers, and AV isn't common so you don't want to invest a WS+dragon into it. And hawks could kill transports round after round after round if nothing targetted them, and they were so cheap not many things would unless it had split fire or something.

I'll be shocked if they show up in tournaments that use the FAQ. This certainly is a step backwards, I wonder why they made this change.

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:


In a casual game, you can take nearly anything in the eldar dex. Maybe not guardians or rangers...haven't tried them, but the vast majority of the dex does okay. I was clearly talking about competitive lists, I even mentioned the hawks appearing in tourney lists.
I doubt you'll see them now, barring flyers suddenly making a major comeback. I regularly see cent stars, TWC hordes, WKs with WG and spiders, Necrons in formations, Riptides in formations. I can't really justify taking the hawks any longer.

We can compare them to avengers or spiders if you want. I'd imagine its roughly the same.

Still decent objective grabbing for competitive. Rangers do alright for holding backfield objectives if your opponent mistakes them for a threat in my experience.

Is your experience competitive? Because bikes are in everyway superior to hawks and rangers. With their increased speed, better toughness, and better gun, there is no reason to take either of these units. You certainly don't see rangers of all things in competitive lists.

Hawks were only taken because they were cheap AV killers, and AV isn't common so you don't want to invest a WS+dragon into it. And hawks could kill transports round after round after round if nothing targetted them, and they were so cheap not many things would unless it had split fire or something.

I'll be shocked if they show up in tournaments that use the FAQ. This certainly is a step backwards, I wonder why they made this change.

I would imagine it's because they intended grenades to be 1 attack per phase. Makes you wonder why they made it so unclear.

Hawks aren't meant to be anti tank anyway. It was a bonus thing from the beginning.

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
In a casual game, you can take nearly anything in the eldar dex. Maybe not guardians or rangers...haven't tried them, but the vast majority of the dex does okay. I was clearly talking about competitive lists, I even mentioned the hawks appearing in tourney lists.

Still decent objective grabbing for competitivecasual play (only).

Rangers do alright for holding backfield objectives if your opponent mistakes them for a threat in my experience.

FTFY.

Rangers are pure casual play. They are *only* good for camping on a backfield objective, and even then, only one that has decent sight lines to stuff that won't be in charge range.

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:


In a casual game, you can take nearly anything in the eldar dex. Maybe not guardians or rangers...haven't tried them, but the vast majority of the dex does okay. I was clearly talking about competitive lists, I even mentioned the hawks appearing in tourney lists.
I doubt you'll see them now, barring flyers suddenly making a major comeback. I regularly see cent stars, TWC hordes, WKs with WG and spiders, Necrons in formations, Riptides in formations. I can't really justify taking the hawks any longer.

We can compare them to avengers or spiders if you want. I'd imagine its roughly the same.

Still decent objective grabbing for competitive. Rangers do alright for holding backfield objectives if your opponent mistakes them for a threat in my experience.

Is your experience competitive? Because bikes are in everyway superior to hawks and rangers. With their increased speed, better toughness, and better gun, there is no reason to take either of these units. You certainly don't see rangers of all things in competitive lists.

Hawks were only taken because they were cheap AV killers, and AV isn't common so you don't want to invest a WS+dragon into it. And hawks could kill transports round after round after round if nothing targetted them, and they were so cheap not many things would unless it had split fire or something.

I'll be shocked if they show up in tournaments that use the FAQ. This certainly is a step backwards, I wonder why they made this change.

I would imagine it's because they intended grenades to be 1 attack per phase. Makes you wonder why they made it so unclear.

Hawks aren't meant to be anti tank anyway. It was a bonus thing from the beginning.

I don't think it was unclear, unclear would imply that it could be viewed either way. It was pretty universally played the way that made hawks a good unit. I have never even heard it suggested it be played any other way, unlike some of the other things they touched on. It's just a nerf.

Hawks may not have been meant to be anti-tank, but that's how they got used. Because they are bad for everything else.
It was the same in 3rd. In 3rd, they were describe the game, as a light skirmish unit, but that's a garbage role in 40k and they weren't good at it, like now. Instead, in 3rd, they delivered characters with sustained assault special rule, which was broken beyond belief and could lead to a small squad wiping units at a time. I had a swooping hawk squad kill 30 marines in CC over the course of a game in third, it was hilarious, but probably not playing as intended. Still, it was all they were good for...if they nerfed it, they would never see play.

Still, thanks for letting me know about the change, I completely misread it. I'll have to change my list for my next game.