Getting back to the original subject matter:
I had the privilege of helping run (as we ended up with an odd number, the last person in got to help the judge. Serves me right for being late!) the large 14-man July Chicago tournament. We did run with a couple of experimental rules, one of which was League -- not Drazi or Abbai or what have you, but League fleets. How did it do?
Mixed bag. We had one Drazi player (Ripple) who did quite well, got third, one of which was a negociated draw when it was found that the Minbari opposition did not use a Tourney-Legal Tigara -- way too much Precise -- and we didn't have time for a restart. Left the judging ground in a awful bind. He could have asked for more points but didn't; he was being a good guy. Could have had second or first. The core of the force was Drazi -- a mass of Warbirds and Strikehawks -- and a couple of Varrls. Now, one thing we did see in that tournament was that the Varrl effect was drastic -- we allowed the ISA it's one point of allies, and boy, did the Varrls augment that force! The Drazi player used Sunhawks and the Varrls consistently to get the initiative sinks he needed to get boresight opportunities for his fleet. Warbirds and Strikehawks consistently had targets, a few of them augmented. The effect was dramatic. It was an escalation tournament, and the effect at the 5 Battle-level (round 3) was very dramatic. In round 3 the Varrl sinks and focussing allowed the Stormfalcons to do horrible things. I can't imagine this not continuing in other environments -- he was facing a tourney Centauri beamstack of doom, and still won in Space Superiority. I don't know if this would have happened, of course, if we were running the 4-beam Sullust or the Prefect, mind you! (Edit: as I read this, I realize that I didn't include in the description two relavant factiods .. in general the Drazi player was pretty adept during this tournament, only really making one gaffe -- forgetting the points given for sectors in Space Superiority, and kind of lucky, during the Skirmish level of the escalation, parking a Secundus -- 4/5 of the Centauri player's fleet -- in turn 1. Quality of play was in general high, which may have had something to do with them winning, too, of course. My apologies.).
On the other hand, we had a second League entrant, and in this case he had an amalgam of stuff ... many Abbai, some Brikortas -- guess what, Vree Scouts (shocker! not.) -- and not much Drazi that I could remember. His fleet sort of had multiple ideas running in it. Didn't work, this player took last. Centauri ripped it apart at range, Minbari danced out of range after criticals and used a planet to separate fleet elements. The fact that the fleet didn't have a co-ordinated doctine didn't seem to help. My first analysis -- with no firm proof at all mind you! -- is that a League fleet needs to be one fleet's main idea, with other League elements supplementing gaps, such as scouting or close-in defense. Use of Abbai needs to be considered very carefully, as the -2 initiative hit is an absolute killer to a mixed fleet.
Second question:
As to Drazi variants? The Solarhawk is a risky, risky ship. You'll probably get to fire it exactly once, as that thing needs to die, and is very killable. It's very hard to get better than a return on investment on it due to its high PL (Raid), total lack of staying power (18:20??), and single slow-loading beam line (6 dice in one boresighted line mean you're not firing at two targets, period). With scout support (assuming mixed fleet, above, or Rbax's Eyehawk), this thing WILL kill something. You need it to kill something Raid. It ... can. Sometimes. Hiding this thing with Maneouver to Shield Them is a core concept, and by no means a guarantee. Think you can get two firings with it? It's a winner ship. If you can't, it will at best be breakeven and maybe, should it fail to kill its assigned victim, end up being a loser ship. Very very risky selection. In an escalation tournament, at battle level, 3-squadrons of these things could be ridiculous, and should be considered for dealing with bad things such as War-level ships with scout support. Never buy these with Abbai in the same fleet, as something has a great chance to kill it with no fire ever coming from its guns -- again, that -2 is just killer, both on Turn 1 and Turn 3.
My local Drazi player's use of the other Sunhawk variants are limited. I haven't seen him field Guardhawks ... I assume there's a good reason. Jumphawks are very rare, but are very cheap initiative boosters, and intriguing idea. I've seen Darkhawks, but they tend to go BANG far too easily for my liking. He tried to use them as improved initiative sinks and limited bombardment vessels. Didn't work out great, to expensive for 4 missiles every other turn on a race that often leaves interceptors with nothing to do and too easy to kill. If they had access to Flash and Heavy Missiles, I's sure change my mind, but not as is.