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When making an imperial faction competitive list a weakness always comes up and it's dealing with enemy FMCs. Whether its flying demons, hive tyrants, or now Magnus, FMCs always present quite the problem. Flyers are little use and that's what the imperials have in spades. If you can choose between any imperial option from any imperial army what would you take as a good counter?

Onager Dunecrawler with Icarus array.

Librarius Conclave with Psychic Shriek. No to-hit roll!

 JimOnMars wrote:
Librarius Conclave with Psychic Shriek. No to-hit roll!

Shooting attacks that don't roll to hit can't be Snapfired sadly. Or fortunately, if you use FMCS.

If your meta allows mysterious objective, go Admech. There is a relic allows you to choose the result instead of rolling to see what that mysterious objectives are. Choose the sky fire objective for your Cataphron Destroyer with Heavy Grav Cannon.

I rather like the flyer formation from Death From the Skies - 2 Stormhawks and 2 Stormtalons. It's a little pricey but at under 600 points it's easy to fit into 2000 point armies. The sheer flexibility and power of the attack patterns is really great, and it can knock around multiple Hive Tyrants.

If you don't like flyers, then the cheapest answer is to take a Gladius Strike Force to gain access to multiple doctrines, and then use those doctrines to get rerolls for grav cannon in your tactical squads. Three grav cannon (and some plasma and bolter shots) is enough to seriously threaten a flying Hive Tyrant. Obviously they are less good against Tzeentch daemons, but the problem with Tzeentch daemons is that they might have rerollable 2+ invulnerable save and at that point it's not even worth shooting at them.

Put that new fall of Cadia relic that can give Skyfire on an IC. Attach to unit. Profit.

Mavnas hit it on the head I think. Outside of that:

- Onagers w/AA option in skitari maniple
- Prescience on a grav unit and point skywards
- Raptor Wing formation

The first one is probably the best but also least useful outside of dedicated AA duties with the other 2 being highly effective at anything you point them at. There are definately other answers, but those would be my top 3. Honourable mention to the Stalker & Hunter AA formation but the lack of interceptor and the existance of the raptor wing and its increased performance against everything else while being around the same points means that despite it being pretty focused, it's still outperformed.

Seconded with the Icarus Array on the Onager Dunecrawler. Mine has bought many Flying Hive Tyrants down.

The Xiphon Interceptor is also an excellent option if you don't mind paying Forge World prices (it is an excellent model, after all).

The biggest thing I have for FMC defense in my IG list is a Vulture, which is easily capable of generating a fair amount of wounds to get that grounding check. It's also insanely maneuverable so it's quite easy to stay behind the FMC so you'll always get shots off.

My backup would be Paskisher with Prescience if they manage to get withing 24 inches of him.

Use an imperial knight Baronial Court Formation. Make the Baron a knight with an avenger gatling cannon. Take Cawl as an allied detachment HQ choice, then give the Baron (who is a character now) the Cawl's relic that allows him to pick between skyfire, monster hunter, tank hunter, or overwatching at BS2.

Now you have a BS5 skyfire knight dumping 12 str 7 ap3 rending shots on some poor FMC every turn. For even more dakka, give him an ironspear rocket pack and dump 4 krak missiles into that FMC too. Once they land or are grounded, switch the rule to monster hunter and let the good times roll.

Extra points if you use Cawl to give your Baron IWND for a turn too.

Assumming you dont want flyers then ..
IG ..2 Hydra batteries (ie 6 Hydras) Cheap effective..
SM ..Full air defence formation (3 hunters + 3 Stalkers) Watch them drop

A full squadron of SM Stalkers pumps 9 TL Str 7 AP4 Ignores Cover Shots into the air. Not too shabby.

From the perspective of a Chaos player - ignoring the FMC while it's in the air is the best strategy for Imperials. Part of the reason a FMC is in the air is to get you to waste shots so the real threats can advance.

Think of it as a scary looking kite. Other than Magnus, FMCs are usually going to trigger at most one scary psychic power a turn, and it will have a marginal impact on the game. This is because most of their dice are going to go to buffing other units and they will eventually run out.

It's cheaper and more efficient to invest in weapons that overcome buffs on ground-based units - like grav - then to spend on things to take out the FMC. A Chaos player who sees an army all kitted out for skyfire always has the option to keep the FMC on the ground, but your list doesn't get to change.

 techsoldaten wrote:


It's cheaper and more efficient to invest in weapons that overcome buffs on ground-based units - like grav - then to spend on things to take out the FMC. A Chaos player who sees an army all kitted out for skyfire always has the option to keep the FMC on the ground, but your list doesn't get to change.

Just an FYI, sky fire still works on hopping FMCs.

Gravstar with the new relic from Fall of Cadia that grants Skyfire to a unit.

If you want something solo, then the Stormwolf is pretty good. 4 twin-linked S8 or S9 shots, all penetrating any armor, one of which will cause a S test or instant removal.

 jifel wrote:

 JimOnMars wrote:
Librarius Conclave with Psychic Shriek. No to-hit roll!

Shooting attacks that don't roll to hit can't be Snapfired sadly. Or fortunately, if you use FMCS.

I'm pretty sure psychic shriek needs to roll to hit. It's a witch fire power, and there's nothing in it that says "Don't roll to hit."

Of course... that just means it's pretty mediocre against flyers.

 Lansirill wrote:

 jifel wrote:

 JimOnMars wrote:
Librarius Conclave with Psychic Shriek. No to-hit roll!

Shooting attacks that don't roll to hit can't be Snapfired sadly. Or fortunately, if you use FMCS.

I'm pretty sure psychic shriek needs to roll to hit. It's a witch fire power, and there's nothing in it that says "Don't roll to hit."

Of course... that just means it's pretty mediocre against flyers.

No it doesn't. You should probably check the FAQ. Witch fires without weapon profiles hit automatically. But abilities that hit automatically can't be Snapfired. Which means Shriek can't hit a flyer.

 Lansirill wrote:

 jifel wrote:

 JimOnMars wrote:
Librarius Conclave with Psychic Shriek. No to-hit roll!

Shooting attacks that don't roll to hit can't be Snapfired sadly. Or fortunately, if you use FMCS.

I'm pretty sure psychic shriek needs to roll to hit. It's a witch fire power, and there's nothing in it that says "Don't roll to hit."

Of course... that just means it's pretty mediocre against flyers.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/01/20/faqs-for-every-codex-live-now/

For your convenience.