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In 7th edition which is overall better? Who has experience with both and which one would you suggest over the other?

I would like to run 3 in an army.

I prefer the Stalker. The squadron benefit is aces, and 18 autocannon shots will put a hurt on something. It's also better shooting at ground targets than the Hunter, and it mulches Eldar and Tau vehicles.

The Hunter is a little better shooting at heavier flyers and flying monstrous creatures, so if you see lots of Hive Tyrants it would be the better pick.

What is the mathhammer against a Flyrant for both of them? The Stalker has the edge against other fliers for the most part.

Last time I looked at the math, the stalker was better most of the time.

Both at S7.
Both Skyfire
Stalker gets 3 shots to the Hunter’s 1 (although the hunter gets to re-try the next turn)
Hunter has armor bane, so that one shot should pen vehicles (nothing vs. FMCs though)
Hunter had AP2 vs. 4, better results on the damage chart and vs. things with armor saves
Hunter has more range (although 48 vs. 60 will only come up occasionally)
Stalker has interceptor.
Hunter cost 5 points less.
Stalker can TL or shoot two things at normal efficiency.

Squad of 3 stalkers ignore cover (aka jink saves)
Squad of 3 hunters can re-roll the 5+ to see if their misses reconnect.

I prefer the look of the hunter, but IMHO the advantages of the stalker are significant and many.

If fielding 3, there is also the AA formation. 1 hunter, 2 stalkers. Stalkers get +1BS if shooting at the hunter’s target. Which is not bad at all. Plus it lets you fill the aux slot in your gladius/other formation.

When building them, there is only one part in common (the antenna array) and that’s not load bearing. So just by not gluing the top on, you can swap between them. Or build 2 out of one kit if you have a spare rhino hull.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
What is the mathhammer against a Flyrant for both of them? The Stalker has the edge against other fliers for the most part.

We do not need math Hammer for analysis in the "VS Flyrant" scenario. Stalker do not have AP 3, so the Flyrant get a 3+ armor save, it is unnecessary for the Flyrant to jink, while 4 shots S7 is still not enough to force enough saves on the Flyrant. So the Flyrant can still keep its firepower and happily do whatever it wants in the incoming turns.

Even with getting the armor save, I think the stalker is still going to put more wounds on the tyrant.

crappy back-of-envelope, not enough coffee mathhammer:

3 stalker shots, TL’d at BS4 are mostly going to all hit. 2/3 wound (so 2), 2/3 save.

1 hunter shot, 2/3 chance to hit (plus bonuses next turn if it misses) 2/3 chance to wound, no save.

The differences are going to be in the to-hits. I’m handwaving the TL BS4 as all hits, but that makes the stalker a little worse, and the second chance of the hunter the following turn makes is slightly better. So in theory, I think the hunter does actually pull ahead here. But not by a whole lot.

And as the flyrant is most likely just going to take a single wound from either, and not be ID’d, he might not jink anyway.

The Hunter seems to be better as a single tank than the Stalker, but a squadron of Stalkers is better than a squadron of Hunters. 9 TL shots will put the hurt on a lot of stuff. However, stuff like Flyrants will shrug off the Stalker's shooting.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
The Hunter seems to be better as a single tank than the Stalker, but a squadron of Stalkers is better than a squadron of Hunters. 9 TL shots will put the hurt on a lot of stuff. However, stuff like Flyrants will shrug off the Stalker's shooting.

I still think the stalker is better all-around.

With S7 armorbane, the hunter is going to pen what it hits, which is going to be 2/3 of the time (plus the second chance)

The stalker is going to generally hit all the time, but will glance/pen depending more on its target. Against something like a stormtalon, (AV 11, 2 HP) you are glancing on a 4+. Even if you don’t get the pen, you are probably dropping it via HP. Against AV10 flyers the odd of just stripping off all the HP go up.

The hunter not only needs to worry about hitting, but the damage table as well. The stalker, working via HP, cares less.

I’m not sure what AV value the hunter starts to pull ahead mathematically, but flyers only get so tough.

Stalkers also get that nice built in split fire option. Accuracy goes down, but you get to shoot two things. This is very nice for squadrons, as it prevents overkill. Or just forces more things to jink. And the 3 tank bonus clearly favors the stalker.

IMHO the only time hunters have a clear lead is vs. superheavy flyers. For most day-to-day uses, the stalker is equivalent (within a few percentage points) or just better.

Incidentally, if you have a Librarian who's planning to take Divination anyway, the Stalker gets better: you can divide fire and still have your rerolls. Granted, you could then apply the same bonus to the Hunter, of course. It depends somewhat on what armies you see the most.

In my meta I see a lot of Dark Eldar - and nobody has a Cestus or anything else that would giggle maniacally at a Stalker - so I tend to favor the Stalker.