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Hey guys, I wanted to get a single thread here where people could discover and talk about the extreme edge of 6th, as it stands.

I'm just going to be proactive and say that no one is saying anything here is 'broken'. Only tournament data will provide that information. I'm going to list the things that I've seen that probably fall out of designer intent in certain books, and with certain ally pairings. Then we could all talk (argue) about whether this is designer intent, and whether or not it damages the health of the metagame.

#1 Necron flyerspam and elysian flyerspam - There isn't anything secret about these lists. The elysian army list and the necron codex allow for dedicated transport flyers. They also have flyers available in other slots. I have yet to face one or field one, but I have seen battle reports and have listened with an open mind to the people who say that these lists skew the game to an extreme.

Playing with a larger model count army seems to hurt these army styles. When it comes down to it, they have 5 man units as their scorers and denial units, for every objective that you get to first with a unit that can kill 5 necron warriors or 5/10 guardsmen, thats going to be 3 victory points for you. I would like to note that taking one or two skyfire units does not suddenly counter this type of "all in" army. You will kill something of theirs, but you won't be able to preserve your quad gun for more than a turn. In a nutshell, these armies have a low unit count, and an extremely limited amount of time to cripple you before turn 5 arrives and they have to reveal their weakness. Any list built to withstand the first 4 turns, and to have firepower in position to kill tiny scoring units should win big.

#2 Fortune and anything with a 2+ save - I'm sure you've all heard about it, I think for a lot of players who have experienced it, this trick is less about power level and more about breaking up the flow of the game. When piles of dice are rolled one at a time, and then rerolled, you spend so much of your own turn hoping for that statistical glitch that gets you the kill earlier than expected. It is a bit disheartening. A variation of this theme is to only have independent characters or upgrade units with 2+ saves in the front of the unit. While this introduces new vulnerabilities to fast shooty armies and to barrage weapons, it still works very well.

While annoying, this type of unit is answered by any list builder that uses forethought. Every army except daemons and CSM can take a rune priest, a farseer with runes of warding or has shadow in the warp. As soon as fortune is not in the picture, the situation becomes very easy to manage. The scariest one I've seen uses two archons with shadowfields and a farseer in front of a harlequin unit. Why I think this one is particularly noteworthy is that the whole unit could have a 2+ save as long as they managed to get into cover. What re-rolls do to the 2+ save is much more severe than what they do to 3+ or 4+. And to my knowledge we didn't have rollable 2+s in 5th. Except I guess for phoenix lords in fortuned units. And wound allocation and the old power weapons were not kind to that combo.

#3 Look out Sir and multi-wound unit abuse - People think I've lost my edge when I mention yarrick and 10 ogryn or 2 haemonculus and 10 grotesques in my "what I'm going to try" threads. Which makes me think that they haven't acknowledged this mechanic. The selection process for Look out Sir wounds ignores the requirement that wounded models keep getting wounded until they die. It would be a simple fix for GW, but I'm not sure they are the kind of company that would make that change in an errata yet. I'm hoping they are, but until then, nob bikers, grey knight paladins, and any multi-wound unit that contains independent characters is going to be stretching wounds just like before. A list of some eyebrow raisers.

heralds in front of bloodcrushers/fiends
haemonculus in front of grotesques
draigo in front of paladins (note: this trick can be used with less effectiveness with no IC)
commissars in front of ogryn
destroyer lords in front of wraiths
warbosses in front of nobs/bikers (note: this trick can be used with less effectiveness with no IC)
crisis suit commanders/etherals in front of crisis/broadside suits
and of course tyranid primes in front of carnifex units and warrior units

Some of these are more scary than others naturally, but the idea is that wound allocation abuse was something that no one really loved facing in 5th, and it is still here, except more people can do it and it is much more points efficient to do it. Fortunately, only the chaos daemon versions can stack look out sir spreading with rerolls. In terms of breaking gameflow, the nob unit and the paladin unit create an obnoxious amount of book keeping when they fire and when they fight in CC, thanks to every model in the unit having precision strikes/shots, and the sheer volume of look out sir rolls that need to happen. It isn't the end of the world. But its not a lot of fun to have your opponent monopolizing your own assault phase with his own wound management.

Aside from the two armies that can spam flyers, the only real glitches in the game come from independent characters face-tanking. As was mentioned before, slow armies can counter this somewhat with barrage fire. (as its impossible for your opponent to dictate your wound allocation to you) and armies without barrage weapons should be built to redeploy and surround with shooty units. When fire is coming in from all sides on these wound allocation tricksters, then you force them to start playing the game as was probably intended.

Any other mechanics that I'm omitting that you have seen that might be perceived as broken? Please add it to this thread, along with more discussion as to how to counter these first few anomalies of 6th.

I'm just going to be proactive and say that no one is saying anything here is 'broken'. Only tournament data will provide that information. I'm going to list the things that I've seen that probably fall out of designer intent in certain books, and with certain ally pairings. Then we could all talk (argue) about whether this is designer intent, and whether or not it damages the health of the metagame.

I think that we will really begin to see what the meta game looks like after some of the major GTs happen. Until then, it's difficult to say. The combinations and ideas you have listed here certainly stand out as the new, tough builds in 6th. As you have also stated, most of these have counters.

The problem that exists with Flyerspam right now is the "haves" and "have not" dichotomy that exists between the armies with access to flyers, twin linked st 7-8 weaponry, or both, and those who do not. The only option for other armies is allies or massing troops and hoping to ignore flyers. The latter will be easier said then done against 6+ flyers though. Still, flyers are in a precarious position as all it will take is one or two extremely good anti flyer units to render flyerwing obsolete.

Re-rollable 2+ is certainly annoying, but as you mentioned, there are counters to it. Harliestar is countered by psychic defense, barrage weapons, and templates. Fate/termie star is countered by ignoring it. Roughly 1000 points that can't score and which don't possess scary shooting (like Paladins do) isn't that big a deal.

Look out sir will continue to be an abusable dynamic of 6th. The best way to counter it is to block line of sight to the wound soaking character and shoot the unit. Transports like Rhinos which can now move in the shooting phase will be very good at this.

JGrand wrote:The problem that exists with Flyerspam right now is the "haves" and "have not" dichotomy that exists between the armies with access to flyers, twin linked st 7-8 weaponry, or both, and those who do not. The only option for other armies is allies or massing troops and hoping to ignore flyers. The latter will be easier said then done against 6+ flyers though. Still, flyers are in a precarious position as all it will take is one or two extremely good anti flyer units to render flyerwing obsolete.

Agreed in theory. I need to have that actual tabletop experience a couple of times to properly gauge the power level of flyer spam. Skyfire as a rule needs to get quickly spread throughout all codecies. If not to counter flyers, just to allow people to take comfort in the fact that they have answers available to them, should they want them. I'm going to set up an elysian game tonight just to get an understanding for myself, then I'll be back to weigh in with more confidence.

JGrand wrote:Look out sir will continue to be an abusable dynamic of 6th. The best way to counter it is to block line of sight to the wound soaking character and shoot the unit. Transports like Rhinos which can now move in the shooting phase will be very good at this.

And this is why I start threads like this. An awesome techy trick that I hadn't even thought of that requires nothing more than a 35 point vehicle. My anti-harliestar bag of tricks expands even further.

The new rules for tzeench flamers making them able to drop a squad of six down and wipe out 3x their point cost in vehicles because of auto-glancing 4+ flamer templates.

They're fearless, EW and have a 5+ invulnerable with 2 wounds which means your entire army has to shoot them on your turn which means your opponent is free to do what he wants on his turn.

yeah, I'm bitter.

The new rules for tzeench flamers making them able to drop a squad of six down and wipe out 3x their point cost in vehicles because of auto-glancing 4+ flamer templates.

They're fearless, EW and have a 5+ invulnerable with 2 wounds which means your entire army has to shoot them on your turn which means your opponent is free to do what he wants on his turn.

They are a good deal now, hardly broken though. Deep strike isn't guaranteed, less so against GK with Strike Squads. In addition, you will not be able to shoot with 6 the turn you DS because you cannon flamer over your own models. So this tactic isn't viable.

Agreed in theory. I need to have that actual tabletop experience a couple of times to properly gauge the power level of flyer spam. Skyfire as a rule needs to get quickly spread throughout all codecies. If not to counter flyers, just to allow people to take comfort in the fact that they have answers available to them, should they want them. I'm going to set up an elysian game tonight just to get an understanding for myself, then I'll be back to weigh in with more confidence.

Right now, there are armies who can't deal with flyers, which is a problem. I'd expect this will change as time goes on. Still, it may feel like a long time for some.

And this is why I start threads like this. An awesome techy trick that I hadn't even thought of that requires nothing more than a 35 point vehicle. My anti-harliestar bag of tricks expands even further.

Intentionally blocking LOS to certain models will be very important. Games have been and still will be won and lost in the movement phase.

Just got two quick games in against this flyer-spam list....

imhotek
5x immortals in night scythe
5x immortals in night scythe
5x immortals in night scythe
5x immortals in night scythe
doom scythe
doom scythe
doom scythe

As a litmus test, I brought a well rounded army with good shooting and a 400ish point deathstar, but the army had absolutely no ability to handle a flyer. Here is what I ran.

haemonculus liquifier venom blade
haemonculus liquifier venom blade
10x grotesques 1x liquifier 1x aberration 1x venomblade
5x wyches with haywire grenades in venom with extra splinter cannon
5x wyches with haywire grenades in venom with extra splinter cannon
5x wyches with haywire grenades in venom with extra splinter cannon
5x wyches with haywire grenades in venom with extra splinter cannon
ravager
ravager
ravager

I played a crusade mission with three objectives, the warlord traits were useless on both sides, and there were three objectives, two placed by the necron player and one placed by me. Things were looking pretty good, everything with an armor value on my side of the board was gone, but my wyches were in the ruins taking 2+ covers to hold the objective I placed, but unfortunately for me, the grotstar had to cross into the open to double contest the enemy objectives. two death rays, 4 twin linked tesle destructors and 18 immortals double tapping wiped them out. I lost 8 to 3.

I reflected briefly after the battle. The necron flyers firepower was a lot more powerful than I was giving it credit for. i couldn't get my grotesques into ruins and contesting the objectives, and the death rays were causing instant death. With just a little forthought, my opponent was able to converge an incredible amount of firepower in a single turn. I had the right amount of respect for the army now. Anything silly or fat is going to get crushed by the firepower. it takes a certain kind of survivibility to weather the shooting, and it would be a lot easier to survive if you could eliminate one or two flyers early.

So I challenged my opponent to a rematch, but I changed the dark eldar list to have more respect for the flyers and their firepower.

archon shadow field agonizer
archon shadow field agonizer
5x wyches with haywire grenades in venom with extra splinter cannon
5x wyches with haywire grenades in venom with extra splinter cannon
5x wyches with haywire grenades in venom with extra splinter cannon
voidraven bomber with 2x shatterfield missiles and flickerfield
voidraven bomber with 2x shatterfield missiles and flickerfield
voidraven bomber with 2x shatterfield missiles and flickerfield

farseer with runes of warding and fortune
8x harlequins with kisses and shadowseer
3x guardian jetbikes 1x shuriken cannon

Its got about the same sized deathstar, but the ravagers were upgraded to voidravens, and the deathstar relied on a different gimmick for survival. We just left the objectives in place, kept the same useless warlord traits and kept the same order of who is going first, and the game was night and day.

We had to reset twice as I got a top of turn 1 win twice in a row because imhotek couldn't hide from everything at once. Either he was in range of harlequin charges or he was too far from the los blocking terrain and got void lanced.

I gave up first blood as my bombers came on first, but I got linebreaker and an objective to win 4 to 1. the deathstar tanked a ton of wounds caused by the doom scythes, and then the necron flyers got blocked off by empty venoms and had to fly over and reset for another turn. Having a foot presence on the table was the deciding factor. Its way too risky to just deploy a single model and hope to not lose to tabling on turn 1. Successful necron builds will have to cut flyers for a foot presence. There aren't any shortages of those options for them, but i think the 9 flyer list is not something anyone needs to prepare for, because the list just doesn't work due to the flyer mechanics. It was so easy to shield my deathstar from death ray runs just by moving my venoms flat out in their way. Not only does it shield the deathstar from the shooting, but by having the venoms at the best spots 18" away, the venoms themselves are safe for yet another turn.

A BIG takeaway from this is that through bad dice rolling all I ever managed to do was penetrate a doom scythe once and a night scythe once. The doom scythe got shaken and made its living metal save, and the night scythe got stunned and made its save. So it isn't really relevant that I had an anti-flyer answer in my list. But it felt a lot better having that tool available to me.

Due to allies, most armies have anti-flyer tools, the one that doesn't (only tyranids doesn't have an ally of convenience with a flyer) could probably build something tanky enough to control the board and survive the tesla and death ray fire.

the TL : DR ... flyerspam was better than I expected, but not good enough to do anything CLOSE to breaking the game.

I agree completely with the sentiment that these are armies that exist and need to be mentally prepared for, but are in no way unbeatable by nearly any other army when the right decisions are made.

Shep wrote:Just got two quick games in against this flyer-spam list....


the TL : DR ... flyerspam was better than I expected, but not good enough to do anything CLOSE to breaking the game.

Yeah. If anything, I'd say that the stuff mentioned in this thread is much more "looking strong in early 6th" than "broken". There are a lot of fun comboes and I can't wait to see the first results off the tournament circuit.

Honestly, I'm really not concerned about flier spam. Fliers have some serious limitations to them. Limitations that can be exploited. Spamming fliers means that those lists lose that much harder against things that can handle skimmers. For example, I'd roll on the ground laughing if I ever saw a 9x hydra guard army against a flying necron circus. You mean you ignore my flyer ability AND my warriors' armor saves?

As for fortune with 2+ saves, well, that's what ally abuse is about. If you don't like it, then viciously berate your opponents on fluff grounds. I'd hesitate to say that they're OP, though. A W1 termie with a rerollable 2+ is no more survivable than paladins.

Of course, fortuned paladins aren't borderline broken. They're just broken.

Ailaros wrote:Honestly, I'm really not concerned about flier spam. Fliers have some serious limitations to them. Limitations that can be exploited. Spamming fliers means that those lists lose that much harder against things that can handle skimmers. For example, I'd roll on the ground laughing if I ever saw a 9x hydra guard army against a flying necron circus. You mean you ignore my flyer ability AND my warriors' armor saves?

As for fortune with 2+ saves, well, that's what ally abuse is about. If you don't like it, then viciously berate your opponents on fluff grounds. I'd hesitate to say that they're OP, though. A W1 termie with a rerollable 2+ is no more survivable than paladins.

Of course, fortuned paladins aren't borderline broken. They're just broken.

There's currently no way to have fortuned paladins as far as I'm aware so you won't have to worry about that being broken. You can however have fortuned crisis suits though

I touched a bit on similar topics on the GK thread first page. Came up with similar answers as you did too. Overall after much tinkering, the necron air forces tend to be much more deadly with some assault wraiths/barges as well as more ground troops than just pure flier. Balanced lists still tend to do better after the initial shock value wears off.

personal thoughts on how to win in 6th -

Overall I think the keys to success in 6th are broadly -

1) Long range shooting and getting first turn - getting first blood has been vital to several victories for me when all else has been a wash. Cotez's spy network can give you a shot at that pretty well

2) shooty is in, especially twin linked shooty, flamers are also in. Low AP guns are totally in.

3) bodies - you need alot of them. GK are just so expensive that you don't get enough of them and with rhinos no longer really benefiting from fortitude and dying easily, you'll eventually need quite a few more bodies on the field. Everyone's more killy, you just need wounds to survive or alot of nicer dice rolls. Henchmen fill this nicely as they are cheap and you really need to hold those objectives. It also pays dividends if the bodies were either really sturdy, in mass, or at least mobile. Dismounted power armor barely meets the sturdy part now a days with MEQ killing equipment so prevelant in all codexes.

4) counter flier ability - either twin link spam, fliers of your own, or turret emplacements. Even the lovely hydra can get killed from fliers just cause fliers get to alpha strike it. Spamming psycannons in foot squads just isn't as useful in test games as I've found. In theory they should do decent but I'm finding it to be unpractical to shoot everything at a flier especially as something of mine invariably dies to the flier showing up and there are often other targets I must engage or get shot/assaulted next turn. GK currently lack missle launchers in pretty much any form other than as a dread's arm replacement so we really will end up needing allies to accomplish this or twin link psychic powers if you don't have any rhinos with TL HB's left alive. (which is pretty much all the time after turn 3 now)

5) If you build assault - the assault rolls really hurt you more than help. GK really lack fleet which is numerically really really useful. Just the DK and interceptors have them, your normal troops even purifiers will be hard pressed to win many assaults with bigger squads because of overwatch, getting shot at the turn before for exiting your ride, and don't have the AP2 they used to have. Not enough bodies syndrome again. 5 man squad in a rhino trying to charge a 10man tac squad is going to actually barely break even now since you might just end up seeing 2 guys maybe 3 get into it with the 10-8 guys left alive after some traded shots.


Balancing the top 5 above I think will be key to victory.

I also have a 10 point check list on what I think TAC in 6th needs now but I left that on the main GK thread.

The important thing to remember about Look Out, Sir! is that your control over this ability is largely an illusion. In reality, it is often your opponent who-- via their movement and use of Line of Sight-- controls whether their shots even go into your character in the first place. Therefore, wound allocation is only stronger in 6th edition against naive players, as skilled players can basically negate wound allocation completely against most units.

It shouldn't take very many test games to figure out how to prevent one character at the front of a unit from absorbing hits from them, but this is an absolutely critical skill to have in 6th edition, as otherwise-- as Shep pointed out-- certain units can absorb much more damage than they could otherwise and will likely roll right through unprepared players.

Still, flyers are in a precarious position as all it will take is one or two extremely good anti flyer units to render flyerwing obsolete.

Can't imagine what that would be, as Scythes/Vendettas/Voidravens were decent enough in 5th where everything had "skyfire."

That being said, I definitely don't think they are broken in there current incarnation. As has been pointed out in this thread, good placement and understanding the limitations to their movement arc goes a long way in minimizing the impact of large flyer armies.


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Fetterkey wrote:The important thing to remember about Look Out, Sir! is that your control over this ability is largely an illusion. In reality, it is often your opponent who-- via their movement and use of Line of Sight-- controls whether their shots even go into your character in the first place. Therefore, wound allocation is only stronger in 6th edition against naive players, as skilled players can basically negate wound allocation completely against most units.

It shouldn't take very many test games to figure out how to prevent one character at the front of a unit from absorbing hits from them, but this is an absolutely critical skill to have in 6th edition, as otherwise-- as Shep pointed out-- certain units can absorb much more damage than they could otherwise and will likely roll right through unprepared players.

This is a fair point, but unless your standing all your models on each other's shoulders, you'll still end up spreading the wounds around to some degree if you move around the flanks to avoid the IC in front.

Another issue is allies:

Codices themselves can be viewed (more or less) as balanced.
Now two codices can be considered together. This may allow some nasty combinations.

In the first place, I thinking about two combos:
1) A shooty army combined with a cc oriented force. Here the assault based force could be geared towards counter-strike. For instance, IG or Tau are generally rather vulnerable once an assault based force hits their front ranks. Some counter-strike units like GK Termies, Harlies or whatnot could help the main force to stay intact.

2) A cc oriented force operating in conjuction with a shooty force. Here the advance of the assault based units could be covered by long range supression fire. For instance, the appearance of fast moving DoA, deep striking Daemons or Paladins close to the enemy front ranks could be supported by long-range fire from IG, Tau, or Eldar helping the assaulters to largely stay alive.

ShadarLogoth wrote:Can't imagine what that would be, as Scythes/Vendettas/Voidravens were decent enough in 5th where everything had "skyfire."

In 5th edition, though, they didn't have to start in Reserves, Interceptor weapons didn't exist in the cases when they wanted to start in Reserves, and their movement was unconstrained. If Flyers can be targeted normally by many weapons, being a Flyer actually becomes a disadvantage, as the severe movement restrictions and forced Reserves are likely not worth the oft-minor increase in firepower over ordinary Fast Skimmers.

Not sure how broken it is because I haven't tried it or seen it tried but from IA 11. Bel-Annath in a 2000 pt game lets you take 8 warp hunters with enough points left over for 40 guardians and an avatar. And you still have about 250 left for whatever else you think you might need.

Just pointing it out: Black Templats can't take a Rune Priest, Farseer or Shadow in the Warp either.

EDIT: And PLEASE, Fortune only works on Eldar units. RTFM.

Dont forget how badly walker lists took a hit.

Played a game vs a GK player who was able to field something like 3 Meltas and 2 Multi Meltas. Charged them with a walker and cry as he probably will destroy it. Get into combat ... and Melta Bombs and nades now hit on Weapon Skill ....

On the plus side defilers with invisibility casted on them are fun lols.

Tyrs13 wrote:Dont forget how badly walker lists took a hit.

Played a game vs a GK player who was able to field something like 3 Meltas and 2 Multi Meltas. Charged them with a walker and cry as he probably will destroy it. Get into combat ... and Melta Bombs and nades now hit on Weapon Skill ....

On the plus side defilers with invisibility casted on them are fun lols.

we are talking about Broken OP not broken, my old list's gimmick doesnt work as well anymore.

JGrand wrote:The problem that exists with Flyerspam right now is the "haves" and "have not" dichotomy that exists between the armies with access to flyers, twin linked st 7-8 weaponry, or both, and those who do not.

A bunch of armies can get some additional TL S7-8 fire using a psyker with Divination. All of the SM sub-armies except BT (Vanilla have to Ally a Battle Brother libby or Runepriest with it) have access to it; Eldar can use Guide or Divination; Dark Eldar can Ally a Farseer with Divination. Combine Prescience with a unit full of S8 shooting, or Haywire Blasters for DE, and you get a pretty good anti-flyer battery.

Exergy wrote:

Tyrs13 wrote:Dont forget how badly walker lists took a hit.

Played a game vs a GK player who was able to field something like 3 Meltas and 2 Multi Meltas. Charged them with a walker and cry as he probably will destroy it. Get into combat ... and Melta Bombs and nades now hit on Weapon Skill ....

On the plus side defilers with invisibility casted on them are fun lols.

we are talking about Broken OP not broken, my old list's gimmick doesnt work as well anymore.

Those two seem to be synonymous for a lot of people.

Just to pile on the LOS threats, you forgot the nasty as hell Space Wolves, specially Thunderwolf Lords with Thunderwolves (wolfwolfwolfwolf!)

Tyrs13 wrote:Dont forget how badly walker lists took a hit.

Played a game vs a GK player who was able to field something like 3 Meltas and 2 Multi Meltas. Charged them with a walker and cry as he probably will destroy it. Get into combat ... and Melta Bombs and nades now hit on Weapon Skill ....

On the plus side defilers with invisibility casted on them are fun lols.

Honestly I'm quite sure that would have broken your list regardless even in 5th, Melta bombs also hit at I1 so make sure to try and target them first, and krak nades hit on the front, so with a AV12/AV13 and your pretty good unless he's good at rolling 6's.

I've only just got back into 40k after a multi year break. I went a nid warrior heavy force (troop of 9 warriors) to start with, and by chance ended up with a prime as the HQ (wanted the tyrant, but didn't have him ready). So only really got to see LOS in action by accident.

It certainly caused some consternation to start with, but after a few games I have to say that it is not that scary. As noted by a previous poster, whilst you can put you prime up front you can't be sure that he will still be closest during the other guys shooting - he does have a decent amount of control on that, especially as they get closer, or if he is deepstriking around you. Instant death is still instant death.

And this is why I start threads like this. An awesome techy trick that I hadn't even thought of that requires nothing more than a 35 point vehicle. My anti-harliestar bag of tricks expands even further.

You don't even always need to fully block line of sight. You only need to give the main guy a cover save that is better than others in the unit if possible. This may be accomplished by simply having another of your units providing a cover save due to shooting through them, then you focus fire on the rest. Focus fire doesn't even require that the cover save will be used (e.g. due to better armor), only that they have a cover save. In assault of course you just challenge the main guy to keep him out the way whilst you pound the rest of the unit.

Shep wrote:#1 Necron flyerspam and elysian flyerspam - There isn't anything secret about these lists. The elysian army list and the necron codex allow for dedicated transport flyers. They also have flyers available in other slots. I have yet to face one or field one, but I have seen battle reports and have listened with an open mind to the people who say that these lists skew the game to an extreme.

You mention tourneys being your key point indicator (KPI) but these events are changing how flyers effect the game. For example, in the FoB qualifiers, flyers or units embarked on flyers can never contest quarters, and never count for being in enemy deployment zones.

This means that if you bring 9 flyers, your going to lose the primary for mission 2 automatically, and the secondary for mission 3 automatically. This is because of the point investment required to field 9 flyers. All your opponent has to do is worry about killing the troops that you have, and then go to ground in terrain.
If your planning on winning every game, you can't rely upon a list that loses 1/3 of the missions by default. You might win 1 or 2 games, but after you take a few losses you will get knocked out of the running into middle of the pack obscurity.

Flyers are extremely effective. Having a few in your tourney list can grant an advantage through mobility and fire support. Going overboard on them will prevent you from winning the tourney.

Shep wrote:#2 Fortune and anything with a 2+ save - I'm sure you've all heard about it, I think for a lot of players who have experienced it, this trick is less about power level and more about breaking up the flow of the game.

A good tactic, but this is also match dependent. Sure, your 2+ archon can absorb all the LCs an enemy can throw at them, but what happens when you face a deathwing army that deep strikes on the back of the unit and lights them up from behind?

With my flying circus army I faced something like this over the weekend -- a wolfstar with Logan, and a SS wolflord taking the hits. I pavaned them to the back of the squad and proceeded to roast all his other models.

Shep wrote:#3 Look out Sir and multi-wound unit abuse

I'm with you on this one. Were going to see a lot of draigowing and nob bikers in the near future.



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agnosto wrote:The new rules for tzeench flamers making them able to drop a squad of six down and wipe out 3x their point cost in vehicles because of auto-glancing 4+ flamer templates..

How do you drop 6 models and fire flamer templates without hitting your own models? Ive seen a way to get 3 templates down, but not 6.

labmouse42 wrote:You mention tourneys being your key point indicator (KPI) but these events are changing how flyers effect the game. For example, in the FoB qualifiers, flyers or units embarked on flyers can never contest quarters, and never count for being in enemy deployment zones.

This means that if you bring 9 flyers, your going to lose the primary for mission 2 automatically, and the secondary for mission 3 automatically. This is because of the point investment required to field 9 flyers. All your opponent has to do is worry about killing the troops that you have, and then go to ground in terrain.
If your planning on winning every game, you can't rely upon a list that loses 1/3 of the missions by default. You might win 1 or 2 games, but after you take a few losses you will get knocked out of the running into middle of the pack obscurity.

Flyers are extremely effective. Having a few in your tourney list can grant an advantage through mobility and fire support. Going overboard on them will prevent you from winning the tourney.

In my playtest games against the necron flyer spam, I first attempted to just ignore them and win through the fact that they don't have any scoring units, or any contesting units for that matter. But then I learned something. The twin linked tesla destructor is a POWERFUL gun, perfectly versitile in target choice, and extremely effective at killing everything. The death rays were much more controllable and effective than i first expected as well, many times hitting multiple vehicles per shot. In the end of that first game, my grotesque deathstar was simply removed from the table with mass shooting from immortals and all of the tesla, every ravager was dead the moment any flyer looked at it, and the venoms as well. They didn't need more than 4x5 immortals, because I was essentially tabled on the bottom of turn 5. 20 immortals walked on to two objectives, I was 'allowed' to score the third one, and he had first blood, warlord slay, and could have taken linebreaker if he had wanted to move one of the night scythes 36" and then deploy a unit. But he didn't need to, he more than doubled my VP for the massacre. He lost no models.

I don't think I'll build a tournament list that will lose to "all flyers + imhotek" again. But I tell you what. Any new player or mediocre tournament player will be curb stomped and will most likely proclaim the game broken beyond fixing.

The problem is that I imagine you'll see that many flyers in a necron list of 1750 or 1850, simply because the quality of the night scythe as a FAST transport, unbelievable that an immortal can be moved to an objective 42+D6" in a single turn. And why not take 3 doom scythes as well, the death ray is bonkers and causes instant deaths on any multi-wound unit that isn't tyranid or daemon.

If I played necrons, I would definitely start any list that I wanted to go home a winner with with 4x5 immortals in night scythes and 3x doom scythes. I wouldn't add another flyer until 2000 points, but I would prepare to face 7 flyers at tournaments, and it isn't as easy as you might think to stay alive for those first 5 turns before your objective plan bears fruit.

labmouse42 wrote:A good tactic, but this is also match dependent. Sure, your 2+ archon can absorb all the LCs an enemy can throw at them, but what happens when you face a deathwing army that deep strikes on the back of the unit and lights them up from behind?

With my flying circus army I faced something like this over the weekend -- a wolfstar with Logan, and a SS wolflord taking the hits. I pavaned them to the back of the squad and proceeded to roast all his other models. .

Yep. I'm running two different IG lists, in one list I spam manticores and vendettas, and in the other I spam hydras and devildogs. I use barrage or heavy flamers on fast vehicles to circumvent the IC tanking. It works really well except you do have to remember something about your wolf guard trick. Harlequins in even a crater have a 2+ cover save. Fortuned, they don't need anything "tanking" for them. Only about 1 in 36 wounds will kill one. You'll want a heavy flamer back there if its harlequins. I've been screwing around with an IG blob with Azrael in it. And the blob doesn't really care which direction you are coming from. It has a 4++ and is fearless.

The two surefire ways of beating multi-independent character specail weapon stacking units are to build one yourself, they nearly always require an ally so you can have 3 HQs, and fight them fair, or to go mobile and MSU and to never allow them to gain more than 100 points per turn. Then you can just melt their support staff, and win through tactics. Fighting these units with 250 point boy mobs and 5 man THSS is just going to frustrate players and make them cry cheese.

labmouse42 wrote:I'm with you on this one. Were going to see a lot of draigowing and nob bikers in the near future..

These ones are not quite so bad. They've got a lot of wounds, and a lot of ways to spread them. But no re-rolls. They are competitive options. The nobs are fast which is great, and the paladins have excellent firepower, but they don't trigger those moments of "take 47 saves." "Ok, passed them all sorry"

Some great discussion there labmouse. I'm not really arguing against you. Nothing is really uncounterable, I just want to make sure that there is some perspective on shrouding+stealth+fortune and also how much excellent firepower that necron airforce has. It cleanly outshoots a 3 vendetta 4 valkyrie elysian army, and their transport rules need to be toned down, they are incredible and completely unmatched by any other transport. No one dies when the transport dies, and you can debark your troops over 40" away from where they started.

You could do that but you have to remember that the list will only be good for a few months until anti flyer stuff starts showing up(who knows flakk missiles might be white dwarfed in soon as a upgrade). At that point any flyer spam list will be rendered sort of obsolete. At that point you will have spend a couple hundred bucks on a gimmick list that is no longer effective.

Still for the short term it can be very scary. If your opponent doesnt have any of the counters to it.

There is a cheeky little manuver that Tyranids can manage (don't know about other armies) using Iron arm Psychic power plus a unit of swarmlord/hive tyrant, Parasite of Mortex and a Tyrant guard. Using Iron arm to raise Swarmlord/Hive Tyrant Toughness by D3 makes the entire unit that toughness (Tyrant Guard T6 PoM T4 SL/HT T7-9) now placing the 2 IC's up front you have a unit that has a 3+ armour save (so makes all save first before allocating) and a Toughness of 7-9 (T8 means bolters can't hurt you) with wound allocation shennanigans if you also get Endurance cast on it you get FNP and It will not die. A lesser version of this is possible with Zoanthropes in units of 2 but is by no means borderline broken.

As far as I can see this is whining in disguise. Build a new army list and get over it

Shep, do you think reserve manipulation is a legitimate way to try and counter flyer lists? I play mostly guard, so I'll give examples from there:

1.) Starting only cheap infantry on the board, and leaving your firepower units off the board in hopes of ensuring shots against the Necrons.

2.) Master of the Fleet (I'm not sure if other armies can do similar things, although Allies make it possible). If you can reduce the number of fliers zooming on first turn it would make it a little easier to deal with piecemeal. Do you think it would be enough to matter?

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