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I understand flyers are sort of a go-to of the new edition, and I'm building an army around sky-based units (because reavers and scourges just get awesome fluff). Now I'm wondering how viable would 3 razorwings be? I could easily mix any number of voidravens/razorwings, I'm just curious if the lack of ground-based heavy support would hurt, or if the points would be too, well, heavy-heavy.

I predict that the lack of anti flying will decrease as the new codexes creep in. If the missile launcher gets anti air missiles for 20 points per squad or something simular I think you will se a drop in the eficiensy of flyers.

As of right now only IG has anything to deal with them. I would say the flyers would be very eficient.

In 5th, 2-3 Razorwings could put out a fairly crazy amount of hurt.

In 6th so far, I've found the Razorwing to be great.
The flickerfield + lances make it good at dogfighting as it doesn't need to evade for the save.
And it's still mostly as good at anti-everything else, it's pretty much just a good all-rounder.

The only thing to bear in mind is, as with all flyers, the movement is large and you only get that 1 pivot, so on smaller tables especially, staying on the board is hard, and everywhere else it can be difficult to keep targets in los.

Niiai wrote:I predict that the lack of anti flying will decrease as the new codexes creep in. If the missile launcher gets anti air missiles for 20 points per squad or something simular I think you will se a drop in the eficiensy of flyers.

As of right now only IG has anything to deal with them. I would say the flyers would be very eficient.

it really depends if it is a per unit or per launcher upgrade too.

IG is not the only one to be able to do anything. everyone can get a quad gun. Other races have fliers. Orks dont care about being BS1 too much.

My opinion (as of right now) is that flyers are great to dabble with, but spamming them is a dangerously slippery slope.

Lemme splain...

Flyers don't start the game in play, and then you have to roll for them, and then, every two turns they go back in to reserve (unless your opponent spread his army both deep and wide like a tool)

So, three flyers all miss turn 1.
one of them misses turn 2
the two that made it on to the table on turn 2 will miss turn 4
the one that made it on the table on turn 3 will miss turn 5 (and possibly count as destroyed if the game ends)

So in a 5 turn game, that is three heavy support units missing two turns, or 40% of the game. Flyers are on the table longer in 6 and 7 turn games, but even in ideal circumstances, you'll be missing at LEAST two turns per flyer in a 7 turn game, which is 28% of the game.

Issue number two is the fact that flyers aren't denial units. The more you invest in this hard to kill, infrequently attending unit, the more likely your opponent is just going to pound your transports and your infantry. Once you are out of scoring and denial units you can fly around and be fancy all you want, you aren't going to win relic, emperors will, scouring or crusade.

The hovering guys are better at staying around, but also better at dying when they do that...


Its not all bad, here is what I like flyers for in 40k. When you want to take an anti-tank unit or an anti-something unit, and you only want to take one or two, because you want to spend the rest of your points elsewhere. For example, if I take two voidraven bombers, I don't need to take 3 ravagers and 3 blasterborn raiders, just so that I can guarantee I have half of that when its time to need it. I know I'll get my voidravens, and once they've shot once, I know its unlikley that I'll lose both of them.

Another example would be IG. If I take two vendettas, I don't need to buy another lascannon anywhere in my army. I can now put large blasts in my heavy support and autocannons in my troops choices.

To get this discussion back firmly on your originally stated question, I would probably cap out at two razorwings, and since razorwings are more of a blend of anti-tank and anti-infantry, I would say that you should keep the rest of your army balanced that way. Once the voidraven comes out, I'll be experimenting with two voidravens being the entirety of my ranged anti-tank. The joy of that is it frees up elite slots and points to load up on a grotesque deathstar or beastmaster packs.

Shep: very good analysis.
Razorwings have a dual role, they are both anti-tank and ant-infantry thanks to their lances and missiles. This dilutes a bit their effectiveness.

I completely agree with Shep's analysis, and his idea that you should cap out at 2 of the flyers.

Although I personally prefer my Razorwing to be specialized for the anti-infantry role. I'll only take one with disintegrators and a flickerfield. Since it's missing a few turns thanks to its movement restrictions, I don't see the need to buy the splinter cannon upgrade. Firing two missiles a turn and the twin disintegrators is usually enough to get the job done, and then it just mops up weaker units if it survives into the late game.

Especially since my opponents have been mimicking my strategy of aggressively pushing into my deployment zone to avoid the firing arc of fliers. It's easy to skirt outside of a supersonic flier's area of attack, so you're liable to miss out on one or two more turns of shooting.

Same.

Mine are kitted with Disintegrators.

I use the Razorwing as an infantry hunter, and the Voidraven as an armour hunter.

Right tool for the right job, and all that

three would be overkill, 2 might even be depending on how meched up this new meta becomes.