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I think most of us agree that the meta of Warhammer 40k has changed with the introduction of the 6th edition. This change is one from mechanized armies to infantry heavy armies. Against infantry, I think most of us would agree to this too, templates have fantastic power. Given these assumptions, I would argue that swooping hawks may have a place in Eldar army lists in 6th ed. Consider that, with an Autarch, a minimalist squad with skyleap only costs 132 pts & can fairly reliably drop a large blast marker on any enemy unit on the battlefield that is str. 4 ap. 5. This can be done every turn after the first and there is essentially no chance for the enemy to harm this squad. Not only that, but given that one of the secondary objectives is linebreaker, ie to have a squad in the enemy deployment zone, swooping hawks are ideal for scoring this point since they can be dropped into enemy terrain on the 5th turn in hopes of scoring that necessary extra point. So... do you agree? Do you think that swooping hawks have a place in eldar army lists in the 6th ed?

They all have Haywire Grenades I believe? If so they might have a use destroying the occational vehicle but they're still at the bottom of the competitive list when it comes to other Eldar units.

They suffer from the fact that they either:
a) deepstrike and throw 1 grenade before dying. If they could all throw a grenade (really GW, why..?) they might be useful.
b) have to jump across the board for turns to actually be able to assault something and so usually get shot to pieces unless you play very terrain heavy.

They are also fairly expensive pointswise and have glorified flashlights to shoot with.

I keep trying to use them with my Eldar but they rarely do anything apart from dropping their big template on deepstrike and jumping back.

 Shandara wrote:
They suffer from the fact that they either:
a) deepstrike and throw 1 grenade before dying. If they could all throw a grenade (really GW, why..?) they might be useful.
b) have to jump across the board for turns to actually be able to assault something and so usually get shot to pieces unless you play very terrain heavy.

They are also fairly expensive pointswise and have glorified flashlights to shoot with.

I keep trying to use them with my Eldar but they rarely do anything apart from dropping their big template on deepstrike and jumping back.

I envision them as nothing more than an unkillable (because of sky leap) piece of artilerly that can stick around on the board if necessary. Guck using them to fight (if possible) haha


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm referring to their grenade pack that drops on entering from reserves...which they can do every turn after the first thanks to skyleap.

I'm hoping that the new Eldar book gives them the ability to assault flyers, since it'd make a lot of sense in the context of the fluff and make them decent units in their intended role (wrecking the enemy's fast-moving units) instead of overpriced and finicky artillery.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I'm hoping that the new Eldar book gives them the ability to assault flyers, since it'd make a lot of sense in the context of the fluff and make them decent units in their intended role (wrecking the enemy's fast-moving units) instead of overpriced and finicky artillery.

I hope so too. The Eldar badly need help in that department.

Chaos jumpers didn't get the aerial assault so I wouldn't count on it.

But then again Eldar usually gets toys no one else has. Depends on who is writing the codex I guess.

Do they come from Codex Eldar and are not a Farseer (for purposes of allying)? If yes, then the answer to the original question is no.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Do they come from Codex Eldar and are not a Farseer (for purposes of allying)? If yes, then the answer to the original question is no.

Aha nice answer. That said, Farseers aren't exactly the greatest allies since their most important inherent Eldar blessings, Guide and Fortune, only affect Eldar (not even DE) units.

 Shandara wrote:
They suffer from the fact that they either:
a) deepstrike and throw 1 grenade before dying. If they could all throw a grenade (really GW, why..?) they might be useful.

try working out 5+haywire grenades against a single vehicle. I'd like to see the mighty nugget of a vehicle that can survive 10 of them. If they could all land+throw haywires, they would eat armor better than anything in the game

 Jihallah wrote:

 Shandara wrote:
They suffer from the fact that they either:
a) deepstrike and throw 1 grenade before dying. If they could all throw a grenade (really GW, why..?) they might be useful.

try working out 5+haywire grenades against a single vehicle. I'd like to see the mighty nugget of a vehicle that can survive 10 of them. If they could all land+throw haywires, they would eat armor better than anything in the game

Agreed. After all, if they allowed each model to throw a grenade then the game would break. Can you imagine if anyone with Krak grenades could throw them before assaulting? RIDICULOUS I SAY!

I believe there is an Apoc formation where if you take Barraoth and 2+ units of Hawks, you can assault Flyers (despite the Flyer rules) and attack it with your Haywires. Could be useful in larger games with plenty of Flyers.

warpspider89 wrote:

Agreed. After all, if they allowed each model to throw a grenade then the game would break. Can you imagine if anyone with Krak grenades could throw them before assaulting? RIDICULOUS I SAY!

Don't haywires eat a hullpoint on a 2+? And most vehicles have 2-4 hullpoints

It's not krak's that would break the game. And It wouldn't break the games, but would nullify vehicles out of the game pretty damn quickly

Swooping hawks got better with 6th. HWG's being throwable, tanks easier to assault, intercept auto hitting, hammer of wrath should they need to assault in a pinch. Not to mention an exarch getting called shots with a sunrifle. 6 potential prescision shots at BS5!

Thing is, their nastier, cooler older brothers the warp spiders also got better. Warp spiders love to play the glance things to death game, but get more shots and can do it without sitting on the board for a turn getting shot to pieces. Better armor and JSJ means you can use them for another turn.

I sometimes use my hawks, but other than skyleap yo-yo they just dont do much. I have only had them survive a more than one turn on the board once. They fall to a stiff breeze, and warp spiders do their job better.

As far as the haywire grenade thing... Dark eldar allies covered that. 5 wytches+hwg's+venom cost less and are better in almost every respect. Hell, even scourges are better.

Two min squads of five dropping a template each per turn will drive your opponent up the wall when you're hitting transports and stationary tanks. Played against gun line guard, enjoyed popping russes that simply couldn't get away from the templates. He became more obsessed with shooting the hawks on the final turn when I left them on the table rather than sky leap, and I won by objectives thanks to my pathfinders hunkering down.

Paint them black.
Give 2 of them heat lances.
Call them Scourges.
Save 3 points.
Seriously, 5 scourges with 2 heat lances are 3 points cheaper than 5 swooping hawks with the exarch with his special rules.
For tank busting, Scourges are better. For anti-infantry, 18" range, assault 3 poison4+ is much better than S3 24" range assault 2.
To add another slap in the face, the dark version gets 4+/6++ armor, instead of just 4+.

Can't find a good reason to use the light blue and white paint.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:
Paint them black.
Give 2 of them heat lances.
Call them Scourges.
Save 3 points.
Seriously, 5 scourges with 2 heat lances are 3 points cheaper than 5 swooping hawks with the exarch with his special rules.
For tank busting, Scourges are better. For anti-infantry, 18" range, assault 3 poison4+ is much better than S3 24" range assault 2.
To add another slap in the face, the dark version gets 4+/6++ armor, instead of just 4+.

Can't find a good reason to use the light blue and white paint.

-Matt

I wouldn't use them for their guns haha obviously those are brutal.

Its their inability to be killed (due to skyleap), the consistent (esp. with an autarch) large blast str 4 ap 5 grenade pack that can hit any unit (you choose which unit and which armor side for vehicles), and their ability to drop down and stay on the board on the final turn for that game winning (ideally) linebreaker point.

Letting anyone throw grenades wouldn't break the game?

My 30 choppa/slugga boyz with a warphead and 1 point stikkbombs disagrees.

I can just imagine 'ere we go then 30 small blast templates: "ok, so after an hour and a half of scatter dice, I've got 90 hits, fives to wound..."

the_scotsman wrote:
Letting anyone throw grenades wouldn't break the game?

My 30 choppa/slugga boyz with a warphead and 1 point stikkbombs disagrees.

I can just imagine 'ere we go then 30 small blast templates: "ok, so after an hour and a half of scatter dice, I've got 90 hits, fives to wound..."

haha yea buddy thats what i was getting at. Clearly that gak would be so broken XD

I am yet to play a game of 6th (or read the new rulebook), but I always thought that the aim of SH was to take out tanks-
Give the exarch intercept and skyleap.
Let them land behind some terrain, then next turn jump and assault the armour (always hitting on atleast a 4+).

I would have thought that the new hull-points business would make this an even more effective tactic (HwG automatically removing a hull-point on 2+?).

I've been playing with 2 squads of 7, and found that to be a good number in terms of points/bang.

(Sure SL War-walkers have more utility, but I always assumed that SH were better at hitting high AV vehicles).

There is a place for swooping hawks, you have to maneuver with them though, and play tactically with the squad they are super fragile but could be fairly effective against vehicles.

I've used my 5-6 man hawks squad in 4 games (I don't get to play very often :( ) and they've taken out a vehicle every time. If they've charged a vehicle, they've never failed to kill it.

Another point I'd like to make (some seem to be aware of this already) is that once the hawks skyleap they count as ongoing reserves and so re-enter play automatically the next turn. So why do we need an autarch to make them reliable?