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Did the Eldar swooping hawks get any better this edition? Seems like their haywire drop when they deepstrike in would be amazing against vehicles now that Hull points are around.

You may want to reread their grenade pack rules, as the grenade pack does not have haywire. Though one member of the squad may throw a haywire grenade in their shooting phase, but this will not usually destroy a vehicle

Swooping hawks however have gotten a lot better IMHO. They are excellent at taking out those backfield deck-chair units, such as cultists or gretchin. they also do not deviate when they deep strike in so they are very reliable. They are also wonderful if they are able to assault vehicles and use all those haywires to bring down that armour.

Units of 6 tend to be my favorite when I bring them. As it helps make their grenade pack more effective.

Hawks are very good units in today's meta.

* They don't deviate on deep strike, so you can target exactly what you need to
* Likewise since they do not deviate on deep strike you easily hide them behind LoS terrain when needed
* They have 50% more shots than the last codex. While it is STR 3, its a lot more shooting
* Battle focus has made them more mobile with shooting
* A 24" range on the gun, plus 12" move, plus d6" battle focus means they have an increidble range of influence.
* They can bring their full weight of shooting at 24" range, unlike bolters.
* They are a threat to any vehicle in a 19" range of them
* They are a great way to get linebreaker.

I would not necessarily suggest taking 3 units of them, but one unit can be extremely useful.
Don't be hyper-aggressive with them. Keep the back dancing at range, unless there is a very rich target in range, like a land raider.

#1 reason to take swooping hawks: blinding. With crons and tau being so strong, taking a ~120 point unit with sunrifle that has a reasonable amount of anti-infantry firepower that also has a great chance of rendering one unit near useless is pretty strong. Making that wraith unit WS1 really does a number on that first round of combat.

Killing units squatting in cover (usually they can be finished off with the lasblasters) is really handy.

Also, if there are vehicles near (especially squads), a unit of Hawks spell haywire for them if they don't move them away or deal with the Hawks. (Not so good vs. walkers like dreads though, for obvious reasons)

Can they still skyleap to go back into reserves? I dont have my dex in front of me. I am about to fight in a huge point game against Orks and so I was thinking those grenade packs might be handy against the horde that is most likely coming my way.

Yes they can, but you need to ask yourself.
"I'm giving up a turn of shooting. That's 30 less shots this turn I'll have. How many orks will that large blast kill?"

If the answer is less than 30 STR 3 shots, then your better off going with the guns on the hawks

I guess with the new battle focus ability to run after they shoot they can find cover pretty easily. I guess they do have their uses now. Almost as good as warp spiders but not quite there lol.

 Xerics wrote:
Almost as good as warp spiders but not quite there lol.

Comparing hawks to spiders is a very unfair. Both units are very good at what they do, but different. Spiders are generally effective against everything but hordes and Av14. What are the two things hawks are good against? Hordes and heavy armor. Hawks serve the role of crowd control and surgical removal of small units from the backfield, and hunting heavy armor once they are on the field. Hawks are great to thin out hordes of bugs, boys, guard, fire warriors etc. Spiders are better against heavier targets like MC's, light armor, rear armor, battlesuits, terminators etc.

Remember you can throw your haywire and plasma grenades, in case you find yourself close to infantry or are in the process of assaulting a tank. This is very useful.

 Xerics wrote:
Can they still skyleap to go back into reserves? I dont have my dex in front of me. I am about to fight in a huge point game against Orks and so I was thinking those grenade packs might be handy against the horde that is most likely coming my way.

Yes, but they can no longer leave the table the same turn they arrived from reserve.

Don't forget Baharroth! He has a grenade pack of his own, so you can deep strike him separately into cohesion with the rest of the hawks for two grenade attacks and to tank hits for the squad! He also forces a blind check on everything within 6" of where he lands. Afterwards he can split off and go assault things while your swooping hawks continue on their tank/clean up mission.

Bojazz wrote:
Don't forget Baharroth! He has a grenade pack of his own, so you can deep strike him separately into cohesion with the rest of the hawks for two grenade attacks and to tank hits for the squad! He also forces a blind check on everything within 6" of where he lands. Afterwards he can split off and go assault things while your swooping hawks continue on their tank/clean up mission.

This. Barry can be a superstar against the right opponent.

Hawks are a fantastic distraction. 121 points gets me 5 hawks, and an exarch with a sunrifle. Considering how much impact they can have on a game, this is a fantastic bargain. Use them to target your opponents scoring units and threaten to assault artillery. Deepstrike them directly onto an objective to deny your opponent. Multiassault vehicles with haywire.

They are best against backfield infantry. Squads like Lootas, Devastators, Fire Warriors/Pathfinders, Guardians, Warriors and Guardsmen. Don't be afraid of assaulting with them either. If you pick your targets well, you can keep them in combat during your opponents turn.

My two favourite games I had with them were both during tournaments.

I faced a Templars player with 4 Land Raiders. The hawks were responsible for destorying two of them, and then a squad of initiates holding an objective. That was just a single squad.

Against a Blood Angel army, I had two squads of them. Both picked on the half of his army he left guarding the objective behind his aegis. (Corbulo, DA Libby, Devastators, Combat squad, and a Vindicator). When they came in, they killed a single dev, and blinded the squad. They then spent 3 turns jumping around, assaulting the vindicator, and staying at 16-18' range of the devs. Corbulo left the squad and spent those turns chasing them with no result. Then I skyleapt a unit on turn 5, to have them drop down to contest his objective on turn 6 (Emperors Will). They didn't cause all that much damage in this game, T4 and 3+ really hurts their shooting. But they made a fantastic distraction for half his army, and won me the game through contesting.

The real strength of them is the No Scatter Deep Strike, coupled with battle focus. Find them somewhere with LOS to a target next to a nice peice of terrain, deep strike, grenade pack, shoot, battle focus out of LOS. Next turn, jump over said terrain, shoot (blind?) and assault.

 Gangrel767 wrote:

 Xerics wrote:
Can they still skyleap to go back into reserves? I dont have my dex in front of me. I am about to fight in a huge point game against Orks and so I was thinking those grenade packs might be handy against the horde that is most likely coming my way.

Yes, but they can no longer leave the table the same turn they arrived from reserve.

But what they can do is start on the board, hiding somewhere, skyleap turn one, then come in guaranteed turn two, instead of rolling for it, as per ongoing reserves. That's a pretty major plus in my books!

It's good, steal the initiative exists and many of my games include barrage weapons. It's not likely, but always a concern when deploying them, as they are more fragile than bikes, spiders and don't have the numbers of Guardians or Avengers, nor transports.

Yea I'm starting to regret selling them. I was so put off by S3 guns on 4+ armor and, the random chance of getting Doom. S3 ain't to bad when you can reliably Doom a unit but otherwise, even with 18-30 shots (depending on squad size), it didn't add up well, my Meta is T4 with good saves.

Granted if my local Meta was backfield Tau or backfield IG Blobs, landing exactly where you want against T3 is a pretty sweet deal.

.66 hit x .33 wound x .33 fail save = like 8% chance to kill a T4 3+

.66 hit x .50 wound x .50 fail save = like 16% chance to kill a T3 4+

Great against hordes; .66 hit x .50 wound x AP5 so no save = like 33% chance to kill T3 5+

...but like I said my Meta is overwhelmingly the first 1.

Think about it this way, a Bolter in rapid fire range or a Storm Bolter is doing just as much damage as a Lasblaster against T4. Below T4 the Lasblaster takes the lead, it also wins out against T6 due to volume of shots. It cant scratch T7, but Eldar have other answers for that.

And after firing the Hawks can run back out of range, which is a pretty big perk.

Hawks are great. For all the reasons above.

Goobi2 wrote:
Think about it this way, a Bolter in rapid fire range or a Storm Bolter is doing just as much damage as a Lasblaster against T4. Below T4 the Lasblaster takes the lead, it also wins out against T6 due to volume of shots. It cant scratch T7, but Eldar have other answers for that.

And after firing the Hawks can run back out of range, which is a pretty big perk.

This is a pretty big deal. I did the mathhammer on this quite some time ago, and realised that a single swooping hawk has the same shootiness as a terminator with a stormbolter.

Assault weapons, no-scatter, grenade pack, haywire, skyleap. Damn good value for 16 points.