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One of the things I thought the new Eldar Codex would - or at least could - bring was a close combat orientated version of the Swooping Hawks. A dual box set would have been nice and Deep Striking assault units are pretty awesome too - think Stormboyz, Vanguard and the like. So, me being me, decided to come up with a new unit, the Diving Harriers. And no, it's not a UK Athletics Club.

Diving Harriers - 110pts
Unit Composition: 5 Diving Harriers

.....................................WS......BS......S......T......W......I......A......Ld......Sv+
Diving Harrier.................4.........4.......3.......3.......1......5......1.......9........4+..... Jump Infantry
Diving Harrier Exarch.....5.........5.......3.......3.......1......6......2......9........3+...... Jump Infantry (Ch)

Wargear

- Aspect Armour
- Heavy Aspect Armour (Exarch Only)
- Harrier Claw
- Flash Pistol
- Swooping Hawk Wings

Special Rules

- Ancient Doom
- Battle Focus
- Fleet
- Herald of Victory
- Skyleap
- Diving Assault

Options

- May include up to five additional Diving Harriers........................................................................................................22 pts/model
- May upgrade one Diving Harrier to a Diving Harrier Exarch......................................................................................10 pts
- The Diving Harrier Exarch may exchange his Harrier Claw and Flash Pistol for one of the following:
---Raptor Glaive.............................................................................................................................................................20 pts
---Flash Blaster...............................................................................................................................................................free
- The Diving Harrier Exarch may take a Power Weapon............................................................................................10 pts
- The Diving Harrier Exarch may take Iron Talons......................................................................................................20 pts
- The Diving Harrier Exarch may take up to two of the following Exarch powers:
---Disarming Strike.........................................................................................................................................................10 pts
---Hit & Run.....................................................................................................................................................................15 pts
---Battle Fortune..............................................................................................................................................................15 pts

Unit Specific Weapons

Harrier Claw

Range............S............AP............Type
----------------------------------------------------
..-...................User.......6...............Melee

Flash Pistol

Range............S............AP............Type
----------------------------------------------------
..12"................3............-...............Pistol, Dazzle

Dazzle: When a Diving Harrier unit shoots at an enemy unit with a weapon with this special rule, make a note of the number of wounds (before saves etc) caused. After all shots from the Diving Harriers have been resolved, roll a dice for each wound caused. If a 6 is rolled, the Diving Harrier unit count as being armed with Assault Grenades if they assault that unit in the subsequent assault phase.

Raptor Glaive

Range............S............AP............Type
----------------------------------------------------
..-...................+1............3...........Melee, Two Handed, Impact Weapon

Impact Weapon: If a model with this weapon assaults on the turn it has entered play via Deep Strike, the Strength Bonus becomes x2 for that assault phase

Flash Blaster

Range............S............AP............Type
----------------------------------------------------
..12"................3............-...............Assault 4, Dazzle

Unit Specific Special Rules

Diving Assault: A unit entirely composed of models with this special rule may assault on the turn it has entered play via Deep Strike. If it does so, each model inflicts D3 (roll separately for each) Hammer of Wrath attacks, resolved at a Strength of 4 and an AP of 4. This rule has no effect on other Hammer of Wrath attacks. If a model is equipped with Iron Talons, the Strength of these Hammer of Wrath attacks (and all other Hammer of Wrath attacks) is increased by one.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, just a little idea of mine that popped up in my head. Let me know what you think!

I'm notoriously awful at judging points values, so let me know if you think the points value, or indeed anything else, should be changed.

That's... a lot of attacks coming in from deep strike

Nice idea, but they need a little 'oomph'. They seem like a little different shining spears because they deep strike, then they charge, then they do nothing. I mean they will slaughter tau like that but after they kill first unit they then have nothing. The Harrier claw being almost worthless and the flash pistol being a glorified las pistol that MIGHT give assault grenades (they should have plasma grenades base anyway) they wont do a single thing even if they get a second charge off.

So my 2 cents would be to change the claw to something useful like shred, giving each elder assault troop a different type of weapon. Make the flash pistols assault 2 and change dazzle to fit in with the new ''roll a 6 and something good happens'' style and have every roll of a 6 to hit lowers opponents BS by 1. Doesn't sound too useful considering you will be charging that unit first turn, but then think if you get enough 6's to get BS down to 0 then they can't fire overwatch. It also makes them an annoying thing to leave un attended. Also think of some different wargear and rules rather then just throwing swooping hawk ones in. Each aspect has its own rules and such. They can still have wings, just something different, even if it is just name. Losing herald of victory is bad, but I could be OP having an instant charge with one of these units, scatter prevents people complaining that there is nothing they could do. Maybe new wings let them re-roll scatter?

my 2 cents

Agreed, number of attacks (10-30) is too many. Instead why not have them strike at Initiative 10 to represent them cleaving through neck guards from above? Otherwise it's overpowered; yiu deny your opponent the opportunity to shoot you first AND potentially to strike back.

Dazzle seems confusing too, too much note taking. Can this be simplified somehow?

Hi guys, thanks for your thoughts.

I did sort of want to give them an interesting CC weapon, Shred, for example, as Alex suggested, but I thought with Diving Assault as well, they'd be too overpowered. I was aiming for the Eldar ethos of a sort of one trick pony, but a very good one trick pony. The Harriers come in, annihilate something and that's their job done, in the same way Fire Dragons pop a Land Raider and that's them done.

I still really like the idea of beefed up Hammer of Wrath attacks on the charge, and I don't want to change that idea, but maybe reducing the Strength or raising the AP would go some way to making it fairer.

Alex's point about the wings is really good though. So, if we got rid of Herald of Victory and gave them Harrier Wings, they'd lose the no-scatter, but would gain an extra benefit from the Harrier Wings. Re-roll scatter is good, but what about "Any Deep Strike mishap suffered by a Diving Harrier unit is always treated as 'Delayed'"?

Thoughts on this, guys?

Darn it...when you said eldar are "one trick ponies" I suddenly had a vision in my head of all the eldar aspect warriors as My Little Pony characters....I've never even seen that show!

If you excuse me I need to go fetch the brain bleach now.

Their weapons seem a tad underwhelming tbh.

My advice would be to up their weapons to S user AP4 with a S4 pistol. Scrap dazzle for blind and give em plasma grenades.

You could make a charge from DS HoW at +1 S and ap4 too, but only from a deep strike charge. Maybe make the Iron Claws give the exarch impact hits at ap3, which increases to d3 hits on DS charge? Otherwise treat em as lightning claws? That gives em a bit of oomph even when it's not the first charge they do?

Harrier wings could just give them the charge from DS rule? Then you could give em to Autarchs for the unit


Von Chogg

Actually I have enormous respect for you. I do back up all the suggestions above but seriously man, this is epic. Nice try on the lining up too lol. My input would be to make them a bit more unique ya know? They seem to have ideas from swooping hawks, shining spears, howling banshees if you take the other guys I10 comment into account and their harrier claw even looks like a baby scorp chainsword :3

 kitch102 wrote:
Agreed, number of attacks (10-30) is too many. Instead why not have them strike at Initiative 10 to represent them cleaving through neck guards from above?

They already do, its called Hammer of Wrath

I was kind of expecting something different... But it's not bad. I like it, but I would change some things.

First... That's a lot of attacks. At imitative 10. Maybe just let them have hammer of wrath ( the regular hammer of wrath) and their normal attacks, which is still good, and still a "one trick ponie" as you want them to be.... Just not as op of one. Or you could make it so they have the super hammer of wrath like you said, but maybe they don't get regular attacks... Onlye the HOW.

Then like other suggested, maybe change pistols dazzle. First the name... Dazzle is to friendly. Dazzling is what your girl friend looks like at the prom, not an deadly aspect warriors pistol. Then maybe just like give it blind, or a similarly weird/cool rule.

Thanks for considering (hopefully)
Ninja

The comments about them being OP, and then the comments about their melee attacks and Dazzle being too weak, are quite conflicting. The "One Trick Pony" idea, is that the Harriers' niche is to be able to deliver a series of powerful hammer of wrath attacks to a single unit from Deep Strike, just as the niche of Fire Dragons is to take out Armour or Terminators. That's why I want the increased Hammer of Wrath attacks to stay, it's their niche. I could change it to 2 attacks or something I guess.

However, I don't want to make the OP, so making their melee weapons better, i.e. AP4 as some people have suggested, or changing Dazzle to Blind, or giving them assault grenades makes them yet more OP. Inflicting ~15 S4 AP4 Hammer of Wrath attacks is nasty. Then having 3 S3 AP4 attacks per model, against a WS 1 enemy is indeed going into the realm of OP.

I do appreciate the comments about them not actually being that "unique". I'll have a brainstorm about some name changes.

Not just name changes I said some of the stuff you incorporate them look scarily similar to a lot of the other stuff from other aspects. Hammer of Wrath is unique to Eldar, but it still needs something more. Something eye-catching. And auwsum.

In terms of power level, they aren't the strongest unit, but assaulting after deep strike seems a bit out of order, especially with the no-scatter (I know there are units that assault after Deep Strike, but there really shouldn't be, and I think they are all pre-6th books).

This sort of reminds my of my Diving Wyvern Aspect Warriors I had years ago, though they used Laser Lances.

I'd say the 2 HoW attacks thing sounds a pretty good way to make them unique but not OP.
Maybe the flash pistol could use Dazzle, -1 to WS, and the flash blaster could have Blind.
You could have grenades (which most people think assault units need) as an (expensive) option.
The specialisation seems to be many mid strength, blinding attacks from deep strike (Diving), but with little staying power. Sounds pretty Eldar to me.

Diving Harriers - 95pts

.....................................WS......BS......S......T......W......I......A......Ld......Sv......Unit Type....................Unit Composition
Diving Harrier.................4.........4........3.......3......1.......5.....1.......9.......4+......Jump Infantry..............5 Diving Harriers
Diving Harrier Exarch.....5.........5........3.......3......1.......6.....2.......9.......3+......Jump Infantry (Ch)

Wargear:
- Aspect Armour
- Heavy Aspect Armour (Exarch Only)
- Harrier claw
- Shuriken pistol
- Plasma grenades
- Diving Harrier Wings

Special Rules:
- Ancient Doom
- Battle Focus
- Fleet
- Herald of Victory
- Skyleap
- Diving Assault

Options:
- May include up to five additional Diving Harriers......................................................................................................................19 pts/model
- May upgrade one Diving Harrier to a Diving Harrier Exarch.....................................................................................................10 pts
- All Diving Harriers in the unit (excluding Exarch) may exchange their harrier claws and shuriken pistols for iron talons............6 pts/model
- The Diving Harrier Exarch may exchange his harrier claw and shuriken pistol for a raptor glaive.............................................15 pts
- The Diving Harrier Exarch may exchange his harrier claw for a thundering gauntlet.................................................................25 pts
- If the unit took iron talons, the Diving Harrier Exarch may exchange his harrier claw and shuriken pistol for poisonblades.......16 pts
- The Diving Harrier Exarch may take up to two of the following Exarch powers:
---Crushing Blow........................................................................................................................................................................10 pts
---Stalker...................................................................................................................................................................................15 pts
---Hit & Run...............................................................................................................................................................................15 pts

Weapon.......................Range.......S.......AP.....Type
Harrier claw..................---------....User.....5......Melee
Iron talons....................---------....User.....4......Melee, Rending
Poisonblades...............---------....User......4......Melee, Poisoned
Raptor glaive................---------.....+2........2......Melee, Two-handed
Thundering gauntlet......---------......x2........2......Melee, Impact

Diving Assault: A unit entirely composed of models with this special rule may assault on the turn it has entered play via Deep Strike. If it does so, each model inflicts D3-1 (minimum 1) Hammer of Wrath attacks. Roll separately for each.



How is this?