I was actually disproved today by a swordwind player that won conflict montreal I think it was last year.
This is in response about the singing spears being "rare"
I'll be the first to admit, the actualy "spears" are useless, what you want is the exarch.
3 spears, skillfull rider, brightlance,evade
Total: 200 points about
A vyper with bright lance and holo field: about 90 points (you need to have atleast a holo field, or else you are getting smoked by a pistol.
By itself, the spear exarch will hit twice as often as the vyper (4+ as opposed to 2+), And after that, try taking down a 3 man squad of 3+ armour saves, and then the exarch with a 2+ invunerable.
The guy I talked to said that in most games it took out its points worth, (which means only really needing to take out a large tank on average, although he said it took out 2 which is slightly....) and the rest of the time, he blasted units to get them below 50% strength for victory points.
This is not to mention chargin, which on the first turn is still trouble....
I'll admit, before the guy said it to me like that, I would rather take a 20 point grot over these guys...well almost:P
And about the hawks agian, I took rapid fire into account, meaning the guardsmen only took one shot, meaning, they can be even better than in my example. And considering the hawks best feature is taking out guardsmen, and the guardsmens best feature is cannon fodder, the guardsmen still have one up on the hawk then.