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Are swooping hawks now the overlooked amazing fast attack choice? Everyone is talking about the warp spiders, but what about swooping hawks? ignore cover large blast with six man squad, they always land where you want from deepstrike, and have haywire grenades if you want to kill a tank as well. So why are people not auto-including one squad of six at a measly 96 points?

Because they cannot assault out of DS meaning the haywire either requires 1 turn of the hawks being fired at or 1 haywire grenade thrown. This means they are really an anti-horde unit with optional tank hunting capability. For anti-horde they have their lasblasters which are about equivalent to storm bolters, so not bad but not good, and their ignore cover blast. The ignore cover blast is good but CWE already have Waveserpents and nightspinners both of which are more survivable and deal more damage.

They are pretty decent anti-horde but anti infantry is not something eldar particularly suffer against. As opposed to spiders which are like short range mobile warwalkers and crimson hunters which is some of the most effective AA in the game (assuming it gets to fire). Interestingly spiders and crimson hunters are the two best AA in the dex.

Note that spiders are excellent against anything but AV14.

Two units of Spiders + Swooping Hawks. I think that's a decent setup.

Thing about Swooping Hawks isn't their wargear, though it's versatile and good. It's that they don't scatter. Need someone to get behind the enemy aegis and reliably take down those nasty snipers firing their quad gun at you? Swooping Hawks are it. Also, Exarch with Sunrifle is fantastic against three other toughest matchups for Eldar. Tau, IG and Necrons with their initiative 2. Blind those Markelights and suddenly they can't reliably take away your cover. They have a lot of shenanigans to them that aren't apparent on paper, I think. I plan on using them for a few games, see how they do.

Just so you are aware the blacksun filter on all the Tau suits blocks blind.

I agree that hawks are useful they just aren't as obviously useful as spiders. They would be fantastic if they had the option to take template weapons but without that the no scatter DS is not as useful as you might like. It is still nice to drop behind cover so you can reduce incoming return fire.

It's wasted potential that the Autarch can't DS with them with no scatter. I was very disappointed when I read that.

I've taken them twice now (both times full squad, no exarch) It's not an expensive choice and it give you pin point accuracy reach across the board. I like the tactical options it gives you against a lot of armies.

Can't they all throw their haywire grenades? so a squad of six will be throwing six haywire grenades the turn they come in? So use the large blast on infantry, then deepstrike out of sight behind a vehicle and throw your grenades at the vehicle. Isn't that a viable tactic?

No, one per squad.

I find them to be an amazing value for the points.

Having a three shot gun makes them very good at clearing out T3 targets. A squad of 10 hawks is pumping out 30 shots per turn at 24"

Since they can move 12" and shoot that's a 36" effective range. Since they are fleet and have battle focus that another 4" of range. In summary swooping hawks can effect nearly anything on the board.

With their haywire grenades -- it's not like they have to deep strike in front on the land raiders guns! You can place them behind terrain, a wall, etc. As they can move 12" ignoring cover then assault, and are fleet, they have an effective threat range of 20". Just by keeping the hawks hidden you can dictate that land raiders movement by the threat of haywire

As people mentioned spiders are amazing -- and hawks are also great utility pieces

What page in the BRB says you may only throw one haywire grenade?

Grenades page (under shooting attack for each grenade type)

Okay thank you. I thought it was one per model which would obviously make them insane.

If hawks could toss haywire 1 per model they would be the best AV crackers in the game bar none. If only.

I would agree with alot of what you are saying labmouse42 but with everyone taking aegis lines the number of barrage weapons has greatly increased. This is bad news for hawks as barrage weapons usually do a good job of killing them. I still think they are a good value for the points they just are not something you can drop into any list and they will work great.

If used right they can be an almost guaranteed line breaker point and a decent harassment unit. Interestingly enough they can be useful against squads to kill the special/heavy weapons by DS them at the correct position so the weapon is closest. They can also be really fantastic for clearing lootas out of cover or messing with artillery (remember that if you are within 1.5" of the enemy they cannot place blast templates on you as they will touch their own models).

I just came back from a terrific game with a squad of them. 6 SH, Exarch with Sunrifle. And just. Wow. I didn't fight hordes either. It was DA Deathwing, so they had nothing to shoot at except some marines.

They were amazing. They killed two dreadnoughts, got me the linebreaker and just generally were a nuisance for the enemy. I can easily see their potential and their combination with other units, even against an army that they're not supposed to be useful against.

I can only imagine what they'd do to hordes.

Used them last night, for the first time with an Exarch and sun rifle.

The squad was good, he was useless. Didn't cause a single wound in the entire game against Orks, doubt I'll pay the 25pts for him again.

 shamikebab wrote:
The squad was good, he was useless. Didn't cause a single wound in the entire game against Orks, doubt I'll pay the 25pts for him again.

Blind works on hits, rather than wounds.

With a Str 3 Assault 3 weapon, 6 hawks will average 4.1667 dead boyz each round of shooting.

I'm taking two identical squads of hawks to an upcoming tournament. 6 strong, with a sunrifle exarch.

Does it? Damn I read that wrong :(

 ansacs wrote:
Just so you are aware the blacksun filter on all the Tau suits blocks blind.

I agree that hawks are useful they just aren't as obviously useful as spiders. They would be fantastic if they had the option to take template weapons but without that the no scatter DS is not as useful as you might like. It is still nice to drop behind cover so you can reduce incoming return fire.

Blind is best used on Pathfinders anyway, and only their sergeant can get the filter (it doesn't apply to the squad).