I've tried Hawks a couple of times and found them the same as you. Dark Reapers in wave serpents are a good fire+support FF formation. However, I almost always take Warp Spiders in a vampire. They can't take on big tough fms (I once lost embarrassingly against a CSM fm) but they're excellent for artillery/ broken fm hunting and late game blitz grabbing, plus I've managed a couple of devastating 1st activation gambles on assaulting intermingled fms. The jump packs help with keeping the vampire out of AA range and the FS plus Inspiring meant that I was 0 or +1 on the resolution against 4 Squat fms (cyclops, colossus, flying things and some guns). A very lucky dice roll put me one up and broke almost half of his army on my first activation. He was not a happy bunny. Plus the Vampire is a pretty decent tank hunter, even though it's fairly fragile.

I've used 4 strong Warp spider fms out of a storm serpent before, but it's not as flexible as the vampire option and they're often competing for gate access with my guardians

Are you taking one or two spider formations in the vampire?

just one. I play a very gate heavy assault list so I'm already at an onboard activation disadvantage plus I often struggle to get all the support fms I want with the guardian fms I take (plus I have to err on the side of cheap fms to keep my activation count high). Also, 600pts tied up in a fragile transport is a bit too scary for me

wow everyone! great discussion, lots to take in.

so here's a noob question- Yuo can mix the Aspect warriors in a single formation? you dont have to bring all of 1 kind? So does this mean you could bring half shining spears and half mounted dire avengers? ect?

Also I'm looking at using the the Yme-Loc craftworld list....is it in bad taste to stray from the beil-Tan list on the gw site?

you can mix them however you like, although there are combinations that don't play nice together (Warp Spiders and anything else is the main one). Several players add Shining Spears or Swooping Hawks to mechanised Aspect formations to save on buying wave serpents, although those 2 generally work best as single type fms (same as Warp Spiders). There are lots of threads on which combinations work well, although it depends on what you want to do with them and how they'll be transported.

Yes, you may mix and match as you see fit, limited only by the models and your imagination.

Feel free to play any of the Eldar lists. The only time you'll have issues is potentially in a tournament, and even then many tourneys allow developmental lists. I'm not sure what you are referring to regarding the GW site, but I would think that whatever website you are on, GW is used to Epic players using variant lists.

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