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Now, I just started playing in August, so I am more than just new at this, but I really want to know if I am the only one who just plain loves these guys. The Hawks are the ones who made me want to start an Eldar army, but I do understand that they are fragile and die in seconds if you aren't protected. I love using them to fly in and attack, but their point cost makes me tear up because I know I could run a stronger, longer lasting strike force in their place. So, I am at the point where I can only run them if there is a tank on the board, so they at least so some sort of damage.

I want to know if anyone has any fun tips on how to use these beautiful winged men, or if I should just keep them in my tote and just accept that they sort of suck.

Use em like Scourges; arrive via Deep Strike, Haywire something to death, then get out or suicide. But Hawks have an ace in the hole; Skyleap! With changes to Reserves in 6th, Skyleap works awesome now! They will always come in on 3+, so use that to your advantage. You can also use it to leave combat if you get mucked up and assaulted.

Other than that, I suggest you use them for hunting armor and assault weak units. If you can lock up and assault 20 fire warriors, your 5 Hawks will likely slaughter them all, considering. Well, maybe not all, but at least lock em up for a few turns!

They are pretty awesome units, I love their lore; waiting to see if there are new models coming out, but I want to buy myself 10 or so to complement my Scourges; would be awesome to do a red/blue theme kinda like this;

Well...they look cool. That's about all the positive things I can say about them though.

They run in the same build as they did in 5th really. 5 birds, exarch with sunrifle and skyleap. They have gotten better now as mini snipers with the exarch having lots of potential prescision shots and bombs from the sky.

Intercept makes them insane against armor. With intercept, 5 birds will almost certainly wreck any armor they come across. You can throw an autarch in with em to have a sneaky melta delivery system for extra AT.

They still compete with spiders,who have better guns, movement and armor saves, and are more likely to make their points back. Also we can now get scourges with dark eldar allies, which are better in most respects.
Best use is probably a min 5 squad dropping bombs and leaping back up until a prime target shows up for killing. Best used with an autarch for a 2+ to enter play. This mitigates their incredibly fragile and expensive nature.

I have been taking a 5 man unit with exarch and skyleap. This brings them in at about 130 points... so cheap.

I deploy them hidden, then immediately skyleap (unless there is a vehicle to hunt), every turn they return from reserve it's a free grenade pack drop, so it's like your very own Whirlwind. If there is a tank nearby the turn they land, then they can haywire it to death next turn, or they can skyleap again and drop more grenades.

I use them for vehicle destruction, added barrage, late game contesting, and linebreaker. So for a very few points, treated carefully... they can yield some excellent results without ever directly engaging the opponent. Very aggravating to play against.

Good Luck!

They're somewhat too expensive. If they were 18 a dude, they'd at least have be justifiable, but still far from a bargain.

Hawks in general are a hard unit to price. Skyleap and an autarch can be frustrating for infantry heavy armies, and I believe wound allocation comes from the center. They also have those haywire grenades, which are great this edition. Of course 4+ and high price means they have trouble surviving if you leave them in.

If you want to take them you almost need an autarch to abuse skyleap. I like giving the exarch the sun rifle- 6 shots with the new precision shot rules can be cool. Generally you repeatedly skyleap for the first 4 or so turns, then use them on the ground to help in the end to contest objectives, and generally be another threat for your enemies to deal with.

Personally I think war spiders are stronger [s6 guns, 3+ saves, and jsj] for only one point more. The only real advantage hawks have is skyleap and the grenade pack- so you really need to utilize it to justify them.

 akaean wrote:
Skyleap and an autarch can be frustrating for infantry heavy armies, and I believe wound allocation comes from the center.

Their grenade is not a Barrage.

I think you should play them if you like them! I personally like them as well. You can gear them for AI or AA, or a good mix of both. And for what you get in terms of a wild card, with Skyleap, the cost really isn't that high!

The Sunrifle can be useful as well, pinning is very underrated!

I love them, one of the main things that ever made me want to play eldar was Swooping Hawks and partially Warp Spiders.

I've found them to be pretty effective if used correctly, generally against high infantry armies, one of my mates uses them constantly and we both came to a similar conclusion, that they are a bit too expensive for what they can do but out of sheer fanboyism we'd never see the table without em

I have been playing mostly Grey Knights and Space Marines, so after I Deep Strike in I am often dead in two turns, which sucks but since they do damage with grenades on their way in I don't mind loosing them as sacrifices too much. Plus, when I see a land raider or rhino I can haywire those until they explode as well.

Honestly, I am glad that I have been playing correctly and am not missing some key component that would make them slightly more effective.

Also to be noted one thing that makes me love Hawks is with the latest faq Interceptor now allows hawks to hit any vehicle in close combat (minus zooming fliers of course) automatically! glancing on a 2+ 5 man hawks will wreck vehicles....all of them lol. Skyleap is great for grenade pack as well as getting out of a hot spot. And Autarch makes those reserve rolls even better (2+ on turn 2). Spiders have a diifferent roll than hawks and are tricky to use. Vs space marines and especially grey knight i think you would find warp spiders wont last much longer than hawks.

One thing i will say is if you are new-ish to 40k then it is no surprise your hawks die alot. Its the nature of learning the army, Eldar in general have a steep learning curve. I spent my first 4 months of 40k losing or eaking out a draw only winning vs the crappiest of opponents. But then i hit the....the time of change lol. The rules became quite familiar and all of a sudden i was winning half of my games vs anyone. A year and a half later, most people will be hard pressed to get a win vs my Eldar (i can usually draw any game i cant win, though 6th has set me back a bit).

All in all keep with it, i love the Eldar models i think you do too. You will get better and Eldar is still a competitive army. In time you will be able to kick any opponent in the teeth and skyleap away only to drop a grenade pack on 'em

I know this is not the most competitive option, but I like running a pair of squads w/ an autarch and using them as backfield hunters, I find it works well because then they have to take their attention off the advancing army to deal with them.