Swooping hawks + coven

I've been struggling for a long time with my coven army. I run a load of grots who I find the most fun unit I have used in years, and a dark artisan formation. The issue I have is anti armour ESPECIALLY bloomin walkers!

There's nothing more demoralising than see a mauler friend or deadnought happily prance into my 350pt grot unit and I can't do squat!

After trying to add in dark eldar cads and harles I think the answer may lay in the eldar book, specifically, aspect formation.
Swooping Hawks! The colour full, laser pen weilding kin, these babies are what wyches used to be. They can deepstrike an drop the blast, ( ok anti infantry not needed in the coven army but meh! ) and shoot bb guna at units, most interestingly they all carry haywire, can reliably kill fliers, have a massive assault range, can Drop down or fly to grab objectives grots are too slow to get and cherry on top, exarch can carry a power axe to help out grotesque vs high armour save targets.

I think they synagise well with coven ( and de to a degree) plus I have a ton of recently aquired scourge models that (should have been in the dam coven codex!) need to see the table

Have I found the answer? What do you guys think?

What about fire dragons?

Ugh! Sorry for that, but the idea of Hawks allying with Covens is just... wrong... (subjective ofc). Why dont you use scourges? Or Ravagers? We have not bad AT so I actually dont see the point of looking into CWE dex for that. However if I were to look there I would probably look to the Reapers. I cant see even Fire Dragons wanting to have anything with a Coven. Or Harlies - Falochu's Wing formation.

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Why dont you use scourges? Or Ravagers?

Probably because neither of them have haywire grenades (and the threat range of a Maulerfiend is big), neither of them have any Anti-Air and neither of them have any use if the armored targets are down.

I agree fire dragon jumps to mind when thinking eldar AT, but foot slogging fire dragons are expensive enough that with transports they would be too much investment in points. Footslogging they would probaly work behind the grots walking up as it would add target satiation, still not brilliant vs fliers and long range armour.

Reapers would look brilliant with dark eldar, but there more expensive than grotesues with the krak missles and too static, also people think there good anti air but I dont see it without spending ungodly amount of points on the exarch

Aurynn I would love a pure de army but to get three scourge squads with cad and haywire cost 100 points more than the Hawks who would be fully kitted out. I just don't have faith in de AT capability :0. I would use my scorge models as the Hawks so at least it would look dark eldar-ary!

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but foot slogging fire dragons are expensive enough that with transports they would be too much investment in points.

Fun fact: 5 Dragons in a Venom are CHEAPER than trueborn while havin better stats and better equipment.

180 points for 5 trueborn with 4 blasters in a Venom with dual splinter cannons, BS4 and a 5+ armor save.
5 Dragons with 5 Meltas and Meltabombs in a Venom with dual Splinter cannons, BS5 and a 3+ armor, Battletrance and Assured Destruction (+1 to damage table) is 175 points.

For a mere 10 points you get an exarch which is an extra wound and a reroll on hit/wound/AP.

Not to sure where this is too much investment when trueborn are one of our staple AT and anti-TEQ.

Also reapers are not static.
They are slow and purposeful and may move and shoot without having to snapshot.
Add a Venom and they are as fast as everything else while not suffering any downsides.

kuzzuk wrote:

I agree fire dragon jumps to mind when thinking eldar AT, but foot slogging fire dragons are expensive enough that with transports they would be too much investment in points. Footslogging they would probaly work behind the grots walking up as it would add target satiation, still not brilliant vs fliers and long range armour.

Reapers would look brilliant with dark eldar, but there more expensive than grotesues with the krak missles and too static, also people think there good anti air but I dont see it without spending ungodly amount of points on the exarch

Aurynn I would love a pure de army but to get three scourge squads with cad and haywire cost 100 points more than the Hawks who would be fully kitted out. I just don't have faith in de AT capability  :0. I would use my scorge models as the Hawks so at least it would look dark eldar-ary!

Well... just because there are better options with our "battle brothers" it does not mean our options are not enough. It really depends on what you build for and the rest of your list. For friendly competitive games its more than enough. I too am thinking of the Aspect Host benefits and in time I will get a CWE contingent, so I a was more concerned about the apparent issue of using noble Hawks with mutated Coven army...

As for scourges - I use mine in 5-man/3HWB squads and am pretty happy with what they can do for 100 pts. I know they are not Fire Dragons, but you know... Is it really necessary to use the (arguably) best option out there? I think not...

Never realised the comparison of dragons and blaster born, that's just sad, I realy think our codex needs an update.
Do you find three haywire blasters enough? I can't help but think scourges are going to get one chance to shoot something before being focused of the board and 4 haywire blasters have good chance of only getting 2 haywire hits, bad rolls to hit or a lucky Jink and the vehicle is unphased ( albeit 2 hull points less)

Back to Hawks though, a real selling point except the solid anti tank and air is their versatility, something no other aspect exept maybe spiders have.

kuzzuk wrote:

Never realised the comparison of dragons and blaster born, that's just sad

Sadly, the same comparison can be made for pretty much any unit in our codex. You'll find a Craftworld version that does the same job better for fewer points.

I don't understand what's the problem. It's logical to use the best options to be competitive. You like the stats of a unit, you like the price - take it! You like Dark Eldar, not craftworlders - make the guys Dark Eldar way! Convert them and play for you pleasure and for the Dark Kin's glory! Your trueborn can become Fire Dragons, you scourges are Swooping Hawks, Wyches can be converted to Banshees and so on. Windriders? Make them reaver-like. There is minimum of converting and painting job here. Other thing if you are going to make wriath construction look like coven creatures. Open your mids, guys!
I have a firend who is a Space Marine player and he is a Raven Guard fan He alwas complains, that the chapter rules is crap and he is forced to play Ultramarines tactics. I don't know why but he refuses to paint his Tigurius black and play his beloved Ravenguard at better rules. 40K is unballances as crap, but I can't understand what is wrong with the players.

SERAFF wrote:

I don't understand what's the problem. It's logical to use the best options to be competitive. You like the stats of a unit, you like the price - take it! You like Dark Eldar, not craftworlders - make the guys Dark Eldar way! Convert them and play for you pleasure and for the Dark Kin's glory! Your trueborn can become Fire Dragons, you scourges are Swooping Hawks, Wyches can be converted to Banshees and so on. Windriders? Make them reaver-like. There is minimum of converting and painting job here. Other thing if you are going to make wriath construction look like coven creatures. Open your mids, guys!
I have a firend who is a Space Marine player and he is a Raven Guard fan He alwas complains, that the chapter rules is crap and he is forced to play Ultramarines tactics. I don't know why but he refuses to paint his Tigurius black and play his beloved Ravenguard at better rules. 40K is unballances as crap, but I can't understand what is wrong with the players.

Amen. This is the best way to go when you absolutley need an allied unit but don't want to break up the look of your army. As long as you don't have True Born AND proxy Dragons in the same army, painted the same way there is no problem. I have a proxy army just to get everything looking the way I like it. Kitbashing is your friend!

S'funny, I'm similarly mystified by the recalcitrance to run Eldar and Dark Eldar side by side. Given their inherently racist nature, I never had a problem with it.