Swooping hawks, the complete edition

From thread: http://www.librarium-online.com/forums/eldar/205849-repairing-our-codex-one-unit-time-part-iii.html

Post 1;

Today's unit to hit the spotlight is the Swooping Hawk. Yes. *that* one.

What is there to say? This is potentially the single least used unit in our current codex. Like the Shining Spear, this unit is situational, poorly defined, has counter-intuitive stats to it's suggested role and is otherwise a very poor use of 21pts.

Let's break down what the unit is designed for. How well it does it, and what it needs to improve.

The unit is a jump-pack, anti-horde, shooting focused GEQ. It possesses anti-tank grenades, much to the confusion of every human being alive.
Well you can't really argue with jump-packs. They're fine. Good maneuverability. The unit does possess a metric ton of shots at very acceptable range. The haywire grenade is also a nice addition that makes the unit a bit more flexible. These guys can really ruin someones day.
Unfortunately this is where problems begin to emerge. Because the unit gets a bonus attack on deepstriking, it's very tempting to use. Unfortunately under 5e rules this bonus attack scatters, and is also rather weak. Then the unit itself scatters. Joy, now they're twice as unreliable. The number of shots these guys put out is impressive for the range.. but only because of the range. The shots themselves are weak, but arguably sufficient in their role. Until you remember that they have to roll to hit first. So on raw mathematics alone, a full squad of 10 Swooping hawks kills an average of 6 IG guardsman a turn. It then takes up to 24 shots in return. Not very efficient. For these guys to do their job better, they need at least guide. Lastly you have the haywire grenade, which would be perfect if these guys actually ever got to assault a tank.

So a couple of quick fixes are in order. Without making adjustments to the units points, and remembering these guys are specialists some simple ideas come to mind.

Hawks scatter only 6" after arriving from deepstrike. Similarly their grenades only scatter 6". Give hawks a shorter ranged, but more powerful gun. 18" assault 3. Finally, to facilitate the use of haywires properly, Hawks may fleet&charge after deepstriking.

Bam. Now they're instantly better, through only a few small adjustments.

What does everyone else think?

Post 2;

because in 40k today 24" is the range where you get a heavy flamer in your head and you die..... 24" is close range now

Yea but he meant like.. for example swooping hawks had 12" s3 assault 4 weapon. Deepstrike 6", unload 40 shots, skyleap. They're never actually meant to get hurt.

Post 3;

Eh. It's been said before, and I'll say it again. I wouldn't really care if Hawks were given the golden handshake. They "kind of" have a purpose, but you can see they were obviously much more useful during 4th edition back when vehicle rules were crap and there were more big ork foot lists.

Post 4;

What about just making hawks ignore cover? - MrBenis

That'd be cute but then you have an AP 5 weapon that ignores cover that's strenth 3 for some reason I still dont like those odds. then again that would make them light infantry superkillers. - fombat

Post 5;

Well this thread kind of went how I expected. Hawks are an unpopular unit.

Popular suggestions seemed to be
Improve haywire grenades to pen on 5 & 6.
Give hawks more shots
Reduce their scatter from deepstrike
Ability to assault after deepstriking

Undiscussed options were increasing their armour save. Which I don't think is entirely necessary, but it's an option.

Post 6;

That said, ignoring cover saves-- even as an expensive exarch power--is too much. Maybe forcing a re-roll on successful cover saves would be reasonable though.

That seems like a reasonable compromise. I theory these guys are flying around, shooting down onto units. In theory, noone is getting coversaves unless they're in a forest or building.