I'm a huge supporter of asymmetric faction design, but if Swooping Hawks were the only class in the entire game that could literally fly, as in fly like an aeroplane, that'd be pretty poor design. It could conceivably be balanced by cripplingly low durability and pathetic firepower, but that wouldn't really improve the situation. As far as I know, in the tabletop, they are jump troops, and have Skyleap which allows them to leap great distances, but they must return the following turn (and cannot fly indefinitely).Are there any stories with Swooping Hawks in it, described as flying like birds or airplanes?
The codex says they can fly, they have functional wings and grav lifters. I'm the only one who likes the Shadow Spectres? this guys really look bad ass
Oh, you're not the only one. Sad thing is, they're Forge World only. It would be very surprising to ever see them in this game.
Yes. In Void Hunter a cadre of them goes up against a squad of Raptors and does pretty well until the Idiot Ball finally catches up to them. They spend the entire combat in flight.
I see.. I guess the tabletop portrayal is simplified then, while in the fluff they can fly. And what are the Raptors doing during the entire battle?
Also...you know other factions will have firearms, right? Even if Swooping Hawks are chosen and have actual flight they're not in the slightest immune to being shot down. Table-top their statline is 4/4/3/3/1/5/9/4+, (WS/BW/Str/Tgh/Wnd/Init/Ldr/Armor), which puts right in the normal Eldar array for durability so any observations about Eldar fragility is just as applicable to them as any other unit. Furthermore they use Lasblasters which are a marked step weaker then a shuriken weapon -though with a far higher rate of fire as a compared to a Imperial Guard lasgun, and the same range as a Bolter. So let us go forward with this fact at the forefront of the discussion: Swooping Hawks match the most common weapon we're likely to face at a disadvantage, and all others do so at half that distance. Hawks choosing to loiter and strafe are not doing so from a impossibly superior position. For comparison Warp Spiders have near-identical personal performance except for bearing Astartes quality armor. Death Spinners have, like all the shuriken weapons, half the range of bolters and while I'd be surprised if that went into Eternal Crusade unaltered that is likely to factor into their performance. That's always been part of the Elder Experience: gunline tactics do them no favors. Dire Avengers do somewhat better at merely 3/4's (and with Bladestorm, hee hee), but lest we go overfond of our qualities we fight as we do to compensate for those limitations. Get into position and strike with all your ferocity because if you fail She Who Thirsts awaits us all.
Flying as well. Also, losing until the plot armor factored in. *grumble* Quoth the most recent Chaos Codex entry for Raptors: "...as their jump packs also became corrupted they melded with their wargear until the power of true flight became theirs." Raptors and Hawks both are capable of actual flight. Both are considered Jump Infantry, just like Assault Marines. Notably none of these examples are categorized as vehicles so Flying Vehicle unit rules don't apply to them. Now while that statement mostly likely cues a mental snort of "obviously" in the reader, let's pick at it a little. Why not? Because they lack the speed. And the armaments. And the performance characteristics. So while they are entirely capable of entering, exiting, and traveling like any flying vehicle they still aren't. Part of that is also that they're far more agile in flight, and thusly much more precise in operation, but not fast enough to qualify for Jink or the like.
Well, the option exists for adding an additional type (Flying Infantry) that uses similar rules to Flying Monstrous Creatures. I don't mind it staying the way it is though, and I'd prefer it if all these classes just behave as Jump Infantry in EC itself. No Rocketeer/Iron Man style action. Not that it wouldn't be cool, but it'd be so cool that it'll be hard to justify playing anything else
Rest assured the Assault Marines, who might be capable of carrying plasma rifles, meltaguns, or flamers, will thank us for that deficiency when they slam into us from the skies for years on end. And by thanks us I am implying /smashwaystone upon our broken corpses.
