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This would not be a competitive list, and is in fact mostly theoretical.
I was just wondering if this would ever work, and how to make it maybe slightly better w/o changing the theme.

HQ

Autarch
Swooping hawk wings
fusion blaster
power weapon -- 110

Autarch
Swooping hawk wings
fusion blaster
power weapon -- 110

Troops

3 Guardian jetbikes Warlock Embolden -- 96
3 Guardian jetbikes Warlock Embolden -- 96
3 Guardian jetbikes Warlock Embolden -- 96

Fast Attack

10 Swooping Haws
Exarch, hawk's talon
Skyleap, intercept -- 252

10 Swooping Haws
Exarch, hawk's talon
Skyleap, intercept -- 252

10 Swooping Haws
Exarch, hawk's talon
Skyleap, intercept -- 252

Heavy Support

Fire Prism -- 115
Fire Prism -- 115

Total: 1,494

Now I know at first this looks like the worst list on the planet, and it might be, but before coming to a decision just think about how it would work.

The Fire Prisms would be there to take out heavily armored infantry, or vehicles the hawks dont get to.
All the bikes would start in reserve and avoid enemies and turbo boost to claim objectives at the last second.

The autarchs would each go with a swooping hawks squad, and boost all my reserves roles by 2 (unless I wanted to hold the bikes back). The hawks would probably start off the battle on 1 side of the field and either move forward to shoot troops while out of range of rapid fire weaponry, or just skyleap 1st turn. The first moment the hawks were threatened they would skyleap, and remember that they get a large blast maker every time they do so. They will almost always return next turn due to autarches. Any heavily armored weaponry would fall immediately to their grenades, or they would just plain avoid them.

With this in mind all comments and criticisms are welcome.

This is just my opnoin but i really have bad experinces with swooping hawks were they've done almost nothing the entire game
I don't know if they work for you but i really don't like them

I know, the point of this list is to take them in such numbers that they are not a worthless support unit, but the main infantry.

I guess it could work Ive only used them a couple times so i might have just been using them in the wrong way

It has merit, but you've spent so much points on Hawks that your troops lack any sort of viability. I don't care if you think you'll just turbo them around to 'contest' like everyone seems to parrot on forums... You want an Emboldenlock with Spear with them. Drop to 3 squads of GJB and run a lock in each.

Also, I prefer the Sunrifle, but that's just me. If you don't plan to play the yo-yo shenanigan, a Jetseer with doom/fortune may actually do you some good. Doom makes for interesting synergy with Swawks.

Ok, I have updated the list at to your suggestions.

Not the most competitive list, but it's possible to make it work like this. Finding points for spears on the warlocks and cannons on the GJB would be nice. That's 36 points which might require you to drop a squad entirely and bump up the other two to fit it into 1500 though. If you did that, a Sunrifle upgrade or two could be bought with extra points.

Lol.

If you have the units go for it.

Its a glass hammer. If you get a bad drop in and loose a squad its game over.alot of mech and you loose.

If you find this list fun to play go for it.

I agree, a doom farseer would be awesome in this list. But for that I have to kill an autarch

Well Eldad would be the best because he could do double doom. But that wouldn't work because he would change your list dramatically. He needs a squad to be with and can't get a jetbike.
I would find a way to fit shuirken cannons on your jetbikes. You could really dish out a lot more damage this way. Maybe drop a fusion blaster and intercept from 1 of the squads.

You should play a friend, using whatever models you have now to represent this army. See how it might pan out before investing
I really don't know how it would do, I haven't had much experience with Hawks.

Yo-yo Hawks aren't really that reliable and they are a gimmik that people wont want to play against more than once or twice.

That said, the army would look amazing and if you were going all out and going to make a backstory it could be very interesting.

I think this is one of those lists that sounds really good in theory but would really take some careful planning to make work, i think this list would perform well to be honest.. they have alot of offensive with templates and also they have alot of shots themselves. i think a sunrifle is worth it in this type of list. and against those armys that spam transports or low infantry counts and lots of transport such as blood angels Razor spam, i think you would do very well since you never need more then a 4+ to hit and you all have grenades.. i might try this type of list out aswell just for the intrest of trying new things
Though ill run it at 2k and let you know how it pans out

Don't forget Hawks have a very good chance of hitting vehicles. They could do fairly well against mech - if you get enough of them around a Rhino you could potentially kill everyone inside by blocking all the exit points.

I like this - it's silly, expensive and would look amazing on the table. I say go do it. You might want to look into converting your own plastic hawks though - that's a lotta metal!

Try 3 units of 5, exarchs with skyleap and nothing else.They can jump in and jump out in the same turn so they drop a bomb every turn.

Dont go tank hunting, they will have to survive 1 or more turns of fire before they get in there, to hard for these t3 birds.

They would do horrible against a mech list. They're to fragile to be effective. Muli-lasers and auto cannons that are usually standard would tear them apart. They would do good against players and armies that use few vehicles. Necrons and Tau and such.

I feel the hawks would be effective at taking out heavier tanks. the main purpose of the prisms would be to deal with transports. Although they would be able to take out transports without the bigger guns or AP 4.

Looks interesting. Make a bat rep or something if it works? I'd love to see the outcome

ok mate played it last night at 2k points against a mates ork army, used 2 autarcs, 3 fully kitted out 10 man squads with sunrifles as exarch weps, 2 prisms, 3 war walkers, and 2 units of avengers inside transports with EML, he used something like 4 units of boys inside truks, 2 units of nobs, 40 boys on foot, a warboss and a mek, 4 battle wagons and kans, something like that anyway, it was alot of models, i had so much fun tearing away at his army, and them hawks really do wreck vehicles when used in such numbers, and all those templates dealt with the orc boys superbly. i ended the game with loosing a unit of hawks and an autarch and i think 1 of my walkers went down and the others were missing arms, so other then that it worked out awsome for me, i only lost like 600 points of models and tabled him.

im not saying base everything on this battle, but how it turned out was like excelent. the hawks got something stupid like they do a blast template dmg, then they get 24 shots (including the sunrifle) and whatever the autarch has.
and thats each unit. very good for hoard killing, im goingake it against a mates salamander army and tell you the outcome of that so you have an idea of how it fares against MEQ and horde.

on a whole.. awsome.

Looks like a fun list to play with.

Off the top of my head - I would have thought your toughest challenge would be large numbers of marines. Their toughness 4 3+ armour will make even the huge amounts of shots you can level at them next to useless (prob kill 5-7 marines with all 30 hawks) , and if they have gone for lots of them your tanks won't be able to take them down quick enough.

Tanks aren't so bad if there is large buildings on the table, as you can deepstrike out of sight, then use your long movement to assault them with your haywire grenades... however if you scatter out into the open your gonna get shot up.

Just my opinion - would love to see pics of the army, I reckon it would look great!

Sounds like a good horde killer cant wait to hear how they fair against some elite troops. I always loved the swooping hawk model.

Wow dude, sounds awesome. Ok so I'm going to play a battle just against a friend with the list I posted (but maybe with some dire avengers in tanks instead of the jetbikes) and I was just wondering if it would be worth it to swap one of the Autarches out for a Doom Farseer as the reserves rule for 2 of them stops mattering after 1 turn anyway. The Doom seer may be the only way this army can take out MEQ armies.

If you (and your opponent) have a whole day to kill, then maybe do one list with, one without and run two games one after the other. It will give you a better idea of the strengths/weaknesses of the rest of your army too.

It went really well for me actually, we did have a few buildigns and i barley scattered on any of my deepstrikes, to be honest i didnt even have to dart away that often, your so fast that you can easily outrun your oponent, and my plan when i face the meq is to take baroth and an autarch just to give my army the Real swooping hawks champion. im also gunna take the heavy but i might try get sum scorps, he doesnt use many tanks so fire dragons would be a waste, tbh fire prisms do so much more then i was expecting

Also, what's great is that even if you role a REALLY bad scatter and scatter out into an open gun line and no cover in sight, you can simply use the blast marker and deepstrike again to come back the next turn.

Indeed i scattered about 5" away from an orc nob battle wagon with 7 nobs and a warboss in *ZIP* and im gone xD

@ Rivers64: Your absolutely right - I always assumed that they couldn't sky leap the same turn they deep striked, but GW errata has proved me wrong. I may start using swooping hawks more myself

I play similar lists quite often as it is basically the theme to my Craftworld fluffwise. That being said, it is not competitive.

Orks, Nids, gunline IG, and Tzeench heavy will be your ideal matchup due to you horde swatting abilities, but when you hit Marines heavy you'll faulter hard.

If you are really interested in playing a list like this I suggest cutting back to 1 Exarch 4 regs and dropping intercept. Also, drop one autauch due to his additional +1 only helps you on turn 2, but turn 3 you are already maxed at a 2+ to come in due to the "1 always fails autauch clause". This will give you 3 yo-yo bombers that enter on 3+ turn 2 and 2+ all after. With a HT on the Autuach unit to give it tank popping ability and sunrifles on the 2nd two you can effectively drop in round 5 with all three units and attempt to clear an objective.

30 Swooping hawks will indeed make a mess of Horde, the major issue is in competitive play you'll be hitting a lot of armor and elite FNP units. Sure swarm firing may take down 1 here or there and you MAY survive to make contact with a vehicle to pop it, but for 250+ pts there is MUCH better options. In friendly play you'll prob find that your opponent gets annoyed very fast by yo-yo hawks since it is the only unit in the game that can kill stuff while staying off the board the whole game... and that leads to no fun for anyone.

hey i know this would contradict the whole point of hawk spam but have you tried replacing 10 hawks with 10 banshees for meq killing?

Against MEQ armies this army might not do as well, but the idea would be that the army would literally never get within rapid fire range, and massed fire with outmanuvering and cover saves will be able to eventually take them down. Also, instead of the jetbikes avengers in serpents could bladestorm and take down MEQs.