Playing Swifthawks / Guardians of the Dawnspire

[Blish]

There's been a few Swifthawk threads before, but now that the Spire of Dawn rules have been out properly, I'd love to hear about your experience with them.

I mucked about with them on the table last night, and was surprised how well they stood up. Taking a unit of 15 Reavers, with the Martial Defense battalion ability, means they can fire 90 shots a turn. Spireguard, with bows and spears, provide useful bodyguards to tie up what's charging the Reavers and join the ranged attacks. Chariots are quite large models and prove handy at getting in the way, buying more time for shooting attacks, if nothing else. And Swordmasters are pretty resilient fighters on their own.

Once I buy a Skywarden, adding +1 to all wound rolls with his Pendant, those Reavers are going to pack a powerful punch.

There's a local tournament at end of Feb, and I'd love to actually put forward a competitive force with elves this time.

I bought a large Gumtree High Elf lot last summer, and with the addition of a Skywarden, 2000pts could look like:

Leaders
Archmage (120)
High Warden (220)
Skywarden (160)

Units
Swordmasters x 30 (600)
- Eldritch Council Battleline
Spireguard x 10 (120)
- Swifthawk Agents Battleline
Reavers x 15 (480)
- Battleline
Chariots x 1 (80)
Chariots x 1 (80)
Chariots x 1 (80)

Battalions
Guardians of the Dawnspire (40)

Total: 1980/2000

But thinking about it now, that doesn't fill battleline requirements (Swordmasters gain Swifthawk keyword, Swifthawks don't gain Eldritch Council) and breaking up the Reavers to meet battleline will weaken the bonus Martial Defense shooting round.

Another option available to me would be to bring in Compendium and other units, for battleline and additional heroes for taking objectives or kicking ass (Tyrion+Loremaster combo packs a punch, Shard to take out enemy heroes giving buffs):

Leaders
Archmage (120)
High Warden (220)
Skywarden (160)
Tyrion (260)
Loremaster (100)
Tenebrael Shard (120)

Units
Swordmasters x 10 (200)
- Eldritch Council Battleline
Spireguard x 10 (120)
- Swifthawk Agents Battleline
Reavers x 15 (480)
- Battleline
High Elf Spearmen x 10 (80)
- Battleline
High Elf Spearmen x 10 (80)
- Battleline

Battalions
Guardians of the Dawnspire (40)

Total: 1980/2000

Have you played Guardians of the Dawnspire battalion yet? How did it go? Any thoughts on making a competitive list with it?

[chord]

I have it but have not built it yet.

Overall by itself the guardians are not very good. I wish they would sell additional reavers on their own.

[Cinncinnatus]

I'd suggest and either/or approach to Tyrion and the Shard. I'd even be tempted to drop both and the Loremaster as well since they force you to take vanilla Spearelves. That would free up 480 points, allowing you to bring 20 swordmasters within the battalion, chariots for board control and of course more Reavers!

Martial Defense thrown on the Swordmasters will ruin someones day, giving them an effective 12" move.

Looking over both lists, I'd just take the first list, cut down the Swordmasters to 20 instead of 30 and invest that in another battleline unit (vanilla Elves), lose a chariot, and maybe even consider another skywarden. Stacking that buff is awesome!

[Grixti]

I Am currently in the middle of preparing my swifthawk agents army for a tournament at the end of the month. Played first game with them last week and I enjoyed playing with them and they did better than I expected in the match. 

This is what I am using currently.

  

Was hard to keep everything within the bubble of the 2 skywardens and the archmage, but when I did everything is wounding on 2+ which was great. And with the battalion ability the army can be very fast. Lost my first game but I competed in the game well and was leading till turn 3, had priority rolls gone my way could have won. 

Only downside was there is no rend outside of swordmasters and high warden and most everything is 1 damage. But we have a lot of attacks.

[Ravenwing]

Very interesting lists. Thanks for sharing. They are great inspiration. 

I have shared three spire of dawn boxes as well with friends from the club. I am aiming to test out the army before starting the momentous task of painting the full army.

[High Warden]

Having just picked up a box and swapping a mate with the skaven for his swifthawk portion I am also now in the early stages of building/painting and list building.  I am currently toying with taking the minimum formation (maybe adding some extra reavers) and the dragonhost formation and am wondering whether this was possible or would need to take another battle line from the 'high elves' faction.  Interesting little tid-bit with this formation is that your archmage can actually be mounted.  I was planning on running him behind the reavers or dragons for extra ward save nonsense.  I did not know about the skywardens buff stacking, that is really cool!

[NoTurtlesAllowed]

I have been trying to get feedback on my swifthawk list to no avail. It is very similar to this list. Only difference is that I was taking two skycutters instead of the extra 20 spireguard. I felt their speed would be great.

15 hours ago, Grixti said:

 

  

 

 

[Grixti]

I have not tried the skycutters so can't really comment on there effectiveness, the bolt thrower is nice to give the army some rend and multiple damage, but I am not sure it's worth it with only the single shot. Sure they are fast and can move around the board quickly but are still only a single model for objectives, and they don't offer a lot in a fight. 

This of course is just my opinion, and I have never tried them so not saying they can't work, But in saying that let me know how they go when you do use them. I do think they are lovely models though.

[Bjarni St.]

Played around with this vs my girlfriend's pretty standard Gnarlroot (w. Free Spirits and Loremaster).

Archmage (120)
High Warden (220)
Skywarden (160)
Skywarden (160)

Swordmasters x 20 (400)
Spireguard x 10 (120)
Reavers x 20 (640)
Spireguard x 10 (120)

It was quickly evident that without a way to actually kill the Treelords (the TLA is unkillable and the Durthu only quasi-vulnerable to Swordmasters and the Warden) I could not force a win on Take and Hold. She only needed to camp one of them on her own objective and I would lose on kill points. It could've been a close contest on the minor if I'd played better and/or gotten some more rolls my way. I made plenty of mistakes and gave up the Skywardens too easily and was indecisive moving the very clunky Reavers.

So far I'll stand by my initial impression that it's very powerful in good matchups but I wouldn't rate this build for tournaments. Might try tuning it and having another go.

[Grixti]

A big unit of cavalry like that does seem unwieldy. I can see the allure of using the battalion ability on them, but I found with my two units of 5 that for the most part people ignore them as other threats to worry about and use them to go up the flank and around into there backlines and just harass them or try pick off hero's. Then they can either ignore them and I can try for objectives while peppering things with arrows, or it forces them to have to react to them or deal with them, and they are quick so can get where you want them fast. 

Not much experience with the army myself either so still trying different things while I try get a feel for them. I do believe there are lists we will struggle with too as mentioned above.

[Ravenwing]

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I do not think the elves (in their various forms) are a powerful army. I do think it is pretty versatile though - and that counts for a lot when it comes to having fun games.

A lot of the magic and spells are army wide which makes it easier to combine units across the many smaller factions of Elves GW made when transitioning to AoS.

[Dangermouse425]

Great to see some more Swifthawk chat going around. I am toying with the idea of taking the following for SCGT17. It's not supposed to be madly competitive, but it should kick out a few shots and has a couple of decent heroes (Eltharion and Highwarden with items/buffs).

(Units in bold are part of the Warscroll Battalion)

Archmage	120
Highwarden	220
Skywarden	160
Skywarden	160
Eltharion on Stormwing	340
10 Swordmasters	200
30 Spireguard	360
5 Reavers	160
5 Reavers	160
10 HE Spearmen	80
Guardians of the Dawnspire	40

 

Most of the lists on the thread seem to be heavily based around the double-buff of two Skywardens.

I haven't included any because I don't own the models, but Chariots seem to be quite weak with minimal potential damage output, but perhaps good at nabbing objectives quickly? Skycutters, whilst awesome models, also struggled to make it into the list, partly as a result of the one-shot syndrome of the Bolt Thrower, but also because I only had 2 and I wanted to make them into Skywardens!

Having a huge unit of Reavers is great on paper, especially with the double shoot from the Battalion and the extra shot from their Ability, but 15-20 cavalry bases takes up a lot of room on the tabletop. Whilst this might be a good thing in some cases, I feel it leaves you unnecessarily constrained when it comes to manoeuvre over restricted ground. If you're playing in a game with a lot of terrain, or against a Sylvaneth player who is able to have a degree of control over the contents of the battlefield, I think a huge cavalry unit is going to feel cumbersome and frustrating. One of the army's key strengths is its speed and manoeuvrability,  so don't negate that by building the list wrong.

Eltharion is an expensive character, but represents a good combination of a decent fighty character as well as being a wizard. I suspect the High Warden is best being your General, and he can either take a weapon upgrade or potentially the Quicksilver Potion to enable him and Eltharion to double-tap a unit.

Dropping Eltharion and the Spearmen would allow you to bulk the Swordmasters to 20, which in itself is a decent combat unit, especially when buffed by the formation for speed and the Skywardens for +1 or +2 to wound. This still satisfies Battleline requirements, despite dropping the Spearmen, because your Spireguard now are Battleline as you maintain the Swifthawk Allegiance.

Lastly, a note on the Archmage. The FAQ recently changed the keyword/unit name fulfilment criteria of Battalions, so we can't take a dragon Archmage any more, so you might as well get a free horse! If anything, it will allow him to keep up with the faster elements of the army.

I've not yet played this list, but will be building it over the next few months with an anticipated deadline of April 17 to get it on the tabletop!

[Grixti]

Having the two skywardens allows me to spread that buff around allowing most units to benefit, and double stacking them on some units can be great. And with there speed can be where you want them. I agree about the chariots and skycutter, both don't put out much damage alone, great speed but there are plenty of fast units choices in the army that can do more, like reavers.

imo 15-20 cav is too much from my experience, for all the reasons you mentioned above dangermouse. I think 10 would do ok and want to try them soon, but I have found there manouverability there best asset.

cant comment on eltharion as have never tried him but he looks solid. Only thing for me is he doesn't have swifthawk keyword but I just like to keep my lists from one faction / allegiance.

also agree with the mount for the mage. His buff is crucial to the army I have found, and the ability to move him where you want him quickly is great, shame about the archmage on dragon though.

i am currently painting my army up for a big tournament here is Oz in 2 weeks. Looking forward to it, have had some practice games and so far the army has been a lot of fun to play!

[Ravenwing]

Thanks for the insights, guys. Really helpful.

I am going to convert one of the reavers into an archmage by combining two models from the spire of dawn box.