You teleport away , as a warp spider you are the predator its hit and run plus you cannot expect that they win every fight they encounter. you play them to there strengths
Another jump so soon after the first one? Unless I were an exarch I wouldn't take that risk (rather die in the physical world than in the warp!) I could be stuck with a cooldown problem as well... It's the kind of tricky situation that I can imagine for a Spider to get trapped in (not sure if the sentence is well-formed, as you may have guessed I am no native english speaker ^^)
Dealing with open ground at some point is a given, however my point was that if you are trying to adapt Hawks to an anti-heavy role by making their grenades a powerful and essential part of their role then you run the risk of having this advantage entirely removed by a common building type. Furthermore on hypothetical perfectly open ground Warp spiders could still be effective as they are covering distance relatively safely, how you shield them or Hawks as they move towards jump range is a different matter and may involve tanks or screens of troops, and is a problem for either aspect. This situation however is non-ideal and as such assaulting an army across what amounts to a killing field would be tactical insanity. Choosing the ground you fight the battle on is part of the virtue of fast mobile armies - why would you give up such an advantage? If you can see a target coming you can target it, plus we have no idea how agile they are. What we do know is that they have honking great rainbow coloured wings making them really damn easy to spot. Add to that the fact that many weapons have a random spread and you can see that they are going to get hit a lot just as a result of blind luck - unless they can dodge individual bullets Neo style. How do you propose not getting shot while flying right up to your opponent? Magical imaginarium armor? If you assume that they can fly about while still firing down with a weapon that has the same range as a bolter without risking being hit in return then you are frankly having a laugh, not least for imagining that anyone would buy the idea that a flying unit that is fast enough to avoid fire and can't be engaged in H2H isn't grotesquely OP. We know that at present many weapons have a cone of fire and that shots spread out randomly, so high ROF weapons such as Heavy bolters actually become more dangerous at closer ranges since more shots hit. So how do you prevent them becoming overpowered against H2H troops? Minimum ranges are one way of doing this, another way is to make the trooper have really slow aim speed, but that would be no fun at all. Nope. In TT Warp Spiders have a much longer 'in play' jump range than Hawks (36" compared to 18" assuming the Hawks don't charge into H2H), but the overall distance is random and they typically split that jump in two, one there (up to 24") and one back afterwards. That changes when Hawks fly high, at which point they disappear from the table and act as reserves allowing them to deepstrike back again on a later turn if they make a random reserves roll. In theory that effectively gives them an infinite movement range, but in reality on a standard sized gaming table they come in about equal - Hawks win out in range mainly due to having a better range on their weapons. Oh I got what you were imagining, but you are imagining something really, really silly. Firstly you are assuming that they can fly in relative safety over an emplaced enemy army that is expecting and prepared for an assault (which is why you need anti-heavy troops in the first place so you can remove them to give your vehicles and troops the ability to advance on their position) without getting shot down on the approach by weapons with double the range of the ones you are carrying. Having done so you expect them to loiter above and 'distract' the remaining heavy weapon troops by firing at them with weapons that in TT have such awesome stopping power that they have earned the nickname 'Flashlights' and the same range as a standard marine issue bolter, long enough for other friendly troops - armed with weapons that have a range somewhere between a pistol and a bolter - to miraculously get close enough while also being fired on in a hypothetical open area (you decided that this would be the ground of choice) by the Tactical marines that any smart general would place upfront to protect the HW troops - in order to finish them off with massed fire. So by that reckoning we have a troop type that can: Remain permanently airborne Fire in flight - meaning that it can't be assaulted or otherwise engaged in H2H. Can deal sufficient damage with grenades to kill a large proportion of the Heavy weapon troops. Flies fast enough to avoid suffering significant casualties from supposed ranged superiority troops despite having weak armor, being relatively frail and having medium range weaponry. and all while being in the open and without any cover due to being airborne - yeah that's not OP at all. And that's assuming that the Heavy weapon troops aren't in a fortified structure of some kind which would completely mess up the grenade bombing in the first place making them completely useless as a counter.
You can try and choose but what if the objective we want is in the middle of the killing field? Besides as I said the Jump generator is short range so in the open hawks are better. There's a difference between SEEING and NOTICING things and most people are surprisingly bad at noticing these things. I propose the idea of speed so you just cant be aimed at accurately. As you said they'll die when hit so being hit balances it. Hawks can appear anywhere without scattering so thats opinion. The issue is looking at Hawks as if they're going to be alone. If you're going to attack something fortified you bring heavy weapons which heavy weapon teams target. I don't mean they won't get shot down but I do mean there's going to be enough of them so they can take being shot at because they won't be the sole target. This ISN'T TT if it was I'd never play it. They're not built to KILL they're built to DISTRACT. I repeat the point of them not being seen being important. Not permanently but certainly for a long period and there's no reason they can't fire in midair. Some of them yes with large amounts of grenades the point is to harass not slaughter. I direct you to Assault Marines in Space Marine which aren't easy to hit in midair and that's with a predictable jump path. No it's not OP hence why I like it. Part of my point was that Hawks are suited for harassing open areas while things like Spiders do inside. At this point I think we may as well agree to disagree.
Ahh, this one elusive thing is something that should be said out more often, and what is a missing concept in most multiplayer games. If trooper A doesn't kill as many guys as trooper B it doesn't mean trooper A is worse, because there are other things to compare. Amount of kills mean only how much and how quickly one can cause damage or simply how long has someone been on the field, not the efficiency. Swooping Hawks that are peppering the enemy flank may not get any kills, but the enemy gets distracted by the new target, forcing them to shoot them (because otherwise, the hawks definitely would get kills), while causing someone else not to be fired at. Slightly off-topic, but I wanted to remind people of that. Warp Spiders may have be killier but that is not everything.
The bait argument is kind of BS, everyone can act as distraction, this is not a turn based game, the killing potential matters a lot, if the hawks can't kill people/vehicles (I think their nades were kind of good against vehicles, correct me if I'm wrong) easily with their grenades or lasblaster they will be trash. Why would anyone use a light armored class as a "distraction" instead of bigger threats like vehicles/wraithguard? wouldn't be better to use the heavier classes/vehicles as distraction so the hawks can easily flank the enemy (because they can fly)?
Swooping Hawks got haywire grenades (suberb-stuff that can trash tanks no matter how durable, a TT-unit with at least 5 guys can literally wreck any vehicle they get in close combat with), meaning that they would be perfectly balanced with low strength lasblasters effective only at light infantry, being light infantry themselves, and being more easily hit (due to wings) than other eldar. Fast units that can damage something valuable (vehicles) are a much better distraction than a lumbering wraithguard that is slowly advancing at you. Every player has some sort of target priority in their head that tells them to first shoot at the guy blowing up your vehicle next to you instead of the guy somewhere over there behind the trench. This includes heavy weapons. And while killing potential matters, it also matters not getting yourself or others killed, and making the enemy waste shots. Or simply softening them up (one haywire grenade may not wreck a vehicle but it sure as hell will weaken it a lot)
The devs aren't likely to place objectives in the middle of a wide open plain as that would make them far too easy to defend, it's poor design. Typically you would expect important areas to offer natural cover so that play to take, defend and retake these points would be more of a dynamic back and forth and less of a meat grinder. As I said the warp spider jump generator isn't short ranged - quite the opposite infact since it offers the longest on table jump range of any troop type, up to 36" total movement. In TT this is balanced by the fact that it is dangerous to use. Anyway I'm not going to beat my head against the rest of this post as I'm already risking coming off as anti-Swooping hawk and that really isn't my stance at all. My point is that the most pressing need I can see in the Eldar army is for a counter to Heavy weapon troops and that is something that Swooping Hawks simply cannot do without becoming grossly overpowered as a result. Now I've heard your arguments for how you think Swooping Hawks should operate, so it's only fair that you hear mine. As I have said I believe that Swooping Hawks should be light harassment units operating in a first response role. Which is a nice bit of word salad, so what does all that mean? Basically I imagine it working as follows: A Farseer (commander) gets a number of pings on their map indicating possible locations of enemy forces. Since they don't know which is real and which is a potential future (the skeins of fate are tricky and reading the runes is as much an art as a science!) they need to send units to reconnoiter in order to find out for sure. This is where Swooping Hawks come in. Activating their skyleap ability (a long cooldown special ability) the Swooping Hawk are able to deepstrike to another area using the main map. They skyleap, rocketting up into the air and disappear from view. A short time later and far away they swoop down with pinpoint accuracy near their objective. Quickly they fly to the objective and begin their sweep, confirming the presence of the Mon'Keigh. To be precise a fast attack column comprised of Rhino and Razorback transports, several Predator tanks and a contingent of assault troops that are acting as fast escorts and scouts, all heading towards a weakly defended communications tower - obviously their assault objective. The message is sent out and command diverts more Hawks to join them, their mission - to slow and disrupt the enemy advance to allow Eldar reinforcements time to deploy on the objective. The Hawks then set about ambushing the scouting assault marines, kiting them to their deaths using their superior speed, range and grenades to wear them down hoping that the enemy commander will break up the enemy column to deal with the frustrating and elusive Eldar. At this point a message comes in telling them that they will need to deal with the transport vehicles as a priority since command fears that they may contain heavy weapon troops and tactical marines that are set to garrison the objective making it likely that a great number of precious Eldar lives will be lost in an attempt to retake it. It's a sound plan since by depriving them of their transport vehicles the heavy squads would have to slog it on foot and so wouldn't be able to make it to the Comm tower before Eldar reinforcements arrive. However should the Marines stop their transports and deploy the transported troops in a defensive perimeter (tac marines and heavy marines counter Hawks) that would also be a win for the Eldar since all they need to do is to delay the column, and stalling their advance just by the threat they pose to the vehicles is really a best case scenario since then no Eldar life need be lost. Unluckily for all concerned the Marine commander places too much faith in the assault marines and the tanks and forges on recklessly knowing that time is of the essence and the swift Eldar forces have surely divined his plans and are racing to reinforce the objective. However this gamble doesn't pay off since despite being weakly armored the Swooping Hawks are fast and equipped with haywire grenades that can immobilise and incapacitate the vehicles with ease. The fight is swift and bloody, but through skill, speed and the right weaponry for the job the Hawks are able to disable the transports, though they suffer terrible losses as a result. Nevertheless their mission was a success and the Marines find themselves stranded in enemy territory, their vehicle's machine spirits snuffed out by the strange Eldar warrior's weapons. Though many of their number have died the Hawks achieved much. The assault marines have been kept chasing ghosts and drawn away from the column, the marines transports were disabled and as a result the Eldar reinforcements are able to arrive in time and the comm tower is held.
Even with cover having to get close means you'll lose way more going on ground than air. Again this isn't TT and it can also give you 8" movement making it very short and dangerous. I doubt it's going to be a large jump as it allows you to make "tiny jumps". At the end of the day that's my opinion and there's no point arguing in circles. That role seems quite good apart from the heavy losses part. I suppose how many die comes down to players though.
