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The double dakka flyrant or the singel dakka/bone sword lash whip flyrant just seems VERY expensive to me.

However, it also strikes me that Nids are one of the armies that can start with "flyers" on the table turn one, letting us get them into the air and be agressive. I wonder how people feel about the flyrant and the harpy? The flyrant is a nid players best awser to flyers, but he is very fragile (t6, 4 wounds, 3+ save) for what you pay for him. Also, the harpie cant really take out flyers with all her weapons being blast weapons. :-/

In what list do you use your flyrant? And what do you back it up with?

The majority of the lists I play use the Flyrant. If I'm pressed for points I go 2x Scything Talons and have him go on a rampage otherwise I go Dakka Flyrant. I use the Harpy if I'm feeling competitive and go heavy FMC.

Yes we can start with a lot of FMC on the board but unless you are going first, it is kind of risky especially against gunline armies that have a lot of range. You can always hide them behind buildings of course. Also, if your opponent has flyers, they will be protected until they come in from reserve meaning they can deep strike in next to your FMC and skyfire it.

Recently, I've always chose to go 2nd and keep most of my stuff in reserve to deep strike in and blast whatever my opponent is threatening me with. This strategy came about because I just felt like my army was so slow on the board and faster units could easily out pace your slower support units, leaving them vulnerable. I run a Dakka Flyrant with Hive Command so I know the majority of my reserves will come in turn 2 plus I outflank one of my Tervigons. The Tervigon is meant to come in and threaten other areas of the board it would never be able to walk too in time. I load up my Harpy with the HVC and Cluster spines and use it for Anti-infantry/Anti-armor. The stinger salvo just isn't enough to really threaten vehicles and it isn't enough shots to do much against infantry. I usually also run a Spore with 20 Devilgaunts to lay down some massive fire against entrenched enemies, other FMC, gunlines, etc.

 Niiai wrote:
The double dakka flyrant or the singel dakka/bone sword lash whip flyrant just seems VERY expensive to me.

However, it also strikes me that Nids are one of the armies that can start with "flyers" on the table turn one, letting us get them into the air and be agressive.

Yes. Fly your expensive MC beyond the rest of your army at full speed towards me. Yes, separate your FMC from your army, its a good idea. fly into range of their entire army and all their small arms and heavier weapons. Yes, I'm sure those 50 odd lasguns that would rather not FRFSRF and ground your FMC instead of single shotting gaunts.

If you wait a turn or two, your not giving a PRIME TARGET to all of their small arms fire. Think of footslogging shoota boyz- not shooting much in the first turn OH WAIT SOME GUY FLEW HIS FLYRANT OVER 90 SHOOTAZ *Dakkadakkadakkadakka*

 Jihallah wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
The double dakka flyrant or the singel dakka/bone sword lash whip flyrant just seems VERY expensive to me.

However, it also strikes me that Nids are one of the armies that can start with "flyers" on the table turn one, letting us get them into the air and be agressive.

Yes. Fly your expensive MC beyond the rest of your army at full speed towards me. Yes, separate your FMC from your army, its a good idea. fly into range of their entire army and all their small arms and heavier weapons. Yes, I'm sure those 50 odd lasguns that would rather not FRFSRF and ground your FMC instead of single shotting gaunts.

If you wait a turn or two, your not giving a PRIME TARGET to all of their small arms fire. Think of footslogging shoota boyz- not shooting much in the first turn OH WAIT SOME GUY FLEW HIS FLYRANT OVER 90 SHOOTAZ *Dakkadakkadakkadakka*

Sarcastic, but true! You don't want to fly anywhere near mass dakka armies. In fact it maybe be better to use them as jump troops in those situations. They are good anti-flyer and can take out isolated tanks etc, but you do have to treat them carefully.

Depending on how cheap they are, though a basic flying tyrant can be a good lure. No-one can ignore the thing, and if a gunline army is firing all of its ordnance at the thing to prevent it from opening them up, then it covers your other CC troops as they advance. If you can get one of the Biomancy toughness buffs then the thing can be extremely hard to hurt!

 Flinty wrote:
Depending on how cheap they are, though a basic flying tyrant can be a good lure. No-one can ignore the thing, and if a gunline army is firing all of its ordnance at the thing to prevent it from opening them up, then it covers your other CC troops as they advance. If you can get one of the Biomancy toughness buffs then the thing can be extremely hard to hurt!

at last.... somebody mentions the biomancy powers... If you got the +d3 toughness.. you got a real badass!

Depends, ill either run a dakka flyrant if im against flyers, or a basic flyrant for hunting down elite units.

Allways take a screen of gargoyles though.
2 units of 20 can give you enough coverage to block out a flyrant with ease.
Also, its nice against guard players when they decide to run blob squads.
Throw the gargs at them and tie up shooting 1st, then think about letting the flyrant have fun.

The harpy, well, its pretty hit or miss i guess.
Ive tried running 3 and still dont have any consistant results with them.
About the main use i get is for double assaults against high initiative units, and thats simply to make sure i kill them before they strike.
Other than that, they are pretty much anti-infantry.
Before someone suggests HVC's for tank hunting, look at its BS and the size of a small blast, now imagine trying to hit a transport with that. (doesent work well)
Also, its a T6 4W MC with a 4+ save.
It wont last long.

If you do want a fast, hard hitting army, consider 3 screens of gargs, 2 units of ravs (double up on FO) 2 flyrants and some shrikes.
If points permit, the odd trygon wont go amiss either.
Throw stealers in as troops or some horms for slot fillers.
Its fragile if you dont make a good use of screening, but it hits quickly and does plenty opf damage.

 ruminator wrote:

 Jihallah wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
The double dakka flyrant or the singel dakka/bone sword lash whip flyrant just seems VERY expensive to me.

However, it also strikes me that Nids are one of the armies that can start with "flyers" on the table turn one, letting us get them into the air and be agressive.

Yes. Fly your expensive MC beyond the rest of your army at full speed towards me. Yes, separate your FMC from your army, its a good idea. fly into range of their entire army and all their small arms and heavier weapons. Yes, I'm sure those 50 odd lasguns that would rather not FRFSRF and ground your FMC instead of single shotting gaunts.

If you wait a turn or two, your not giving a PRIME TARGET to all of their small arms fire. Think of footslogging shoota boyz- not shooting much in the first turn OH WAIT SOME GUY FLEW HIS FLYRANT OVER 90 SHOOTAZ *Dakkadakkadakkadakka*

Sarcastic, but true! You don't want to fly anywhere near mass dakka armies. In fact it maybe be better to use them as jump troops in those situations. They are good anti-flyer and can take out isolated tanks etc, but you do have to treat them carefully.

Mass dakka armies?

If you fly over 2 rhino's, that is 44 (20 rapid firing bolters+4 stormbolter shots from rhino's) bolter shots. In addition to any say dreads or preds or devastator squads or speeders or etc etc etc. Those marines normally will maybe fire at full range on the first turn. Even against a smaller force like marines your flying into the teeth of the enemy if you fly up aggressively on turn 1. I only have to hit statistically 3 times to ground you (bit shaky on the rolls there, but the point is the same).

 Flinty wrote:
Depending on how cheap they are, though a basic flying tyrant can be a good lure. No-one can ignore the thing, and if a gunline army is firing all of its ordnance at the thing to prevent it from opening them up, then it covers your other CC troops as they advance.

Ok so lets look at this-
Gunline army isn't going to be shooting any ordnance at it. Since Ordnance weapons and other templates cannot target fliers. Bugger.

So I *could* fire at full range and snap off some lasguns at your CC troops like gaunts and stealers etc etc as you advance, or I could FRSRF 100+ lasguns into your expensive HQ which has a decent chance at being your warlord/worth200p or more/BOTH. Then I will use my ordnance, which cannot target your flyrant, to hit your CC troops. That is if i DON'T ground your Flyrant (trust me, I will ) and then I can target it with all my tasty ordnance!
So your model that's meant to cover your CC troops gets shot out of the sky and riddled by flashlights (because they don't have any other effective target), and your ordnance your trying to avoid is going to hit you anyway or the leman russ's or manticores or whatever are going to go "hmmmm take single wound off isolated tyrant that's about to die...take chunks out of CC troops. hmmmmmm. Choices..."

Look, if you think that flying your Tyrant aggressively on the first turn into the enemies face is a good idea- go for it. Try it out several times. You'll see what happens. How do I know? It's happened to many of my FMC's. Your providing targets to guns that don't have targets- the positives of the extra vector strike hits or shots your get from flying closer is outweighed by the negatives of you just gave ALL of their small arms a big fat target that's very effective if they all shoot it.

Target saturation is key. On turn 2 or 3 you'll start hitting the enemy, and THIS is the time to take to the skys. You're presenting a variety of targets for the enemy, not one big "shoot me shoot me now" target. Now you're flyrant can fly into the maw of the enemy, and they have CHOICES to make- "Do I turn my guns on the FMC's to bring them down? Or do I turn my guns on the warriors, gaunts, stealers, horrible horrible gribblies in my line?" Suddenly, putting all those guns into the FMC seems silly, since they will get little return, and won't do anything about the units swarming them. In the first situation, the FMC dies horribly turn 1. In the second situation, It provides valuable target saturation to get the army there, THEN becomes an absolute nuisance to shoot down with ridiculous mobility that tears up the enemy army and is ridiculously hard to hide from.


Which Tyrant do YOU want? The one riddle with holes turn 1, or the one mauling the enemy army?

I probably need to elaborate. I'm happy to take shooting attacks from one unit as I only need to take a single grounding test regardless of the number of hits. Worst case is where more than one unit can shoot the tyrant as then I might have to take 2-3 grounding tests. Bad. With sixes to hit, even in single shot range most rapid fire units will have 10 shots and so a decent chance of forcing a grounding test.

I understand target saturation, but the tyrant is often 280 pts and your warlord. So enemy can get a bonus point for killing him, remove a good chunk of your army in one model and deprive you of some synapse. No doubt my trygons are more dangerous in assault (especially is he had the full dakka package) but losing the tyrant to get them there unscathed is not always a win in my book.

This is what makes him such a difficult proposition. I have resorted to a foot tyrant at the moment as the ability to take a 2+ armour save and guard makes him signficantly tougher but equally slower. However, probably only as slow as the rest of my army.

Jihallah wrote:If you fly over 2 rhino's, that is 44 (20 rapid firing bolters+4 stormbolter shots from rhino's) bolter shots.

Rhinos only allow 2 models to fire out, not 5.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

Jihallah wrote:If you fly over 2 rhino's, that is 44 (20 rapid firing bolters+4 stormbolter shots from rhino's) bolter shots.

Rhinos only allow 2 models to fire out, not 5.

Assumption is they pile out and shoot. No problem with snapfiring heavy weapon as the units snapfiring anyway ...

If the Marines are in the Rhinos in the first place there's probably a good reason for it, so I'm not sure the Nid player will be too upset that two units of them unloaded just to take out a single model.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
If the Marines are in the Rhinos in the first place there's probably a good reason for it, so I'm not sure the Nid player will be too upset that two units of them unloaded just to take out a single model.

Wow. Just Wow mate.

it is the FIRST TURN of the game. I deployed my marines in my rhino. The Flyrant has flown into the maw of the marine army. That is the "good reason" to be in the rhino. If you want to throw over 200+p of model at me that's potentially your warlord and give me 2 VP's (first blood+slain warlord) just so you can get 2 tac squads to dismount in their deployment zone... wow. It's like this-

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

Jihallah wrote:If you fly over 2 rhino's, that is 44 (20 rapid firing bolters+4 stormbolter shots from rhino's) bolter shots.

Rhinos only allow 2 models to fire out, not 5.

Did you "forget" you can dismount, or did you just want to go "aHAH!"? Maybe try to work out with logic how all my marines in the rhino's are shooting, before going "only two can fire out of the hatch not 5"
and by the way, i said TWENTY, 20 bolters, not 10, not 5, where did you get that from, oh god bad posters like you leave me in despair

 ruminator wrote:
I probably need to elaborate. I'm happy to take shooting attacks from one unit as I only need to take a single grounding test regardless of the number of hits. Worst case is where more than one unit can shoot the tyrant as then I might have to take 2-3 grounding tests. Bad. With sixes to hit, even in single shot range most rapid fire units will have 10 shots and so a decent chance of forcing a grounding test.

Go to a table. Set up a 1500p army of marines or whatever. Now set up in the opposite deployment zone your flyrant. Try to fly into the enemy aka you can vector strike/strike next turn. Look at where the enemy have to deploy for this. Look at how many marines will be in range.

Now fly on the edge of the board. Notice you cannot vector strike. But you will be in range of your shooting attacks. But you suddenly are not in the range of 20-40 tac marines+friends.
My proposition- IF you fly your tyrant into an enemies army on the first turn, you will lose it. IF you fly off to the side, you will not lose it on the first turn, but provide a nasty target for them as well as isolating its sphere of synapse. The second turn onwards is when it flies over/into the enemy army. The third idea is to walk it/act like a jump MC for turns 1 & possibly 2, THEN launch it from the swarm to fly over the enemy (It's like a shooting attack your army performs, vomiting FMC's onto the enemy ), vector strike juicy targets, and get over the enemy army to engage soft/valuable targets hiding behind the bulk of their forces, and get rear shots on tanks which is oh so valuable when your pumping out so many S6 shots.

So If you think that dismounting 20 tac marines on the first turn in their deployment zone is worth the value of a flying tyrant- please come play me. You clown I like winning, its fun If you don't want your FMC butchered like the fowl it is, don't go balls to the walls into them on turn 1, or hide in army till the time is right.