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I think I'd rather ignore the fliers. As good as they are, it seems like they don't contribute much to dislodging guys from objectives, what with only being able to make 1 pass.

That method might work, except against Necron spam lists.

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:
That method might work, except against Necron spam lists.

Basically, this.

Necron fliers can cover the board in criss-crossing firing lanes, making it really hard to just ignore them and they have enough volume of fire from tesla guns to do serious damage on entrenched objective-holders.

But if it's a 3x or 6x Valkyrie list? Engage the rest of his army and then hunker down on objectives.

Which was my concern. How do you make a take-all-comers list when Necrons are so drastically different?

 DarkHound wrote:
Which was my concern. How do you make a take-all-comers list when Necrons are so drastically different?

Even in All comers list I bring alot of Auto-Cannons or a ton of MSL (long-fangs) possibly depending on your army.

Necron fliers are AV 11 IIRC, they can spam the most. Other annoying Fliers are AV12. Bring solid Str7+ weaponry that can snapfire and you should do alright. I played Lootas and they need a 5+ to hit. Attrition will work

My all comers lists now come with a solid core of either a big brick of F*ck You Terminators for Grey Knights, same with Space Wolves or Imperial Guard blobs that take and hold the middle while the rest of the army either provides distraction or fire support.

The reason this works is that the unit in the middle is in range to cover the objectives most of the time while being stationary, limits the number of fly by's and is enormously hard to kill. Necrons can put out huge amounts of wounds but with the right support that threatens their flyers, they stay honest. I also bring 2 flyers of my own in the cases of I.G. and Grey Knights while with my Space Wolves, I just roll with Missile Launchers and Aegis.

That's the trick.

Because even a reasonable amount of anti-flier weaponry is not enough against a 6+ Necron flier list.

A single quad gun isn't going to stem the tide. Nor is a pair of hydras. I've yet to see a single list that has enough anti-air firepower to properly handle a necron flying circus list without approaching list-tailoring status.

The closest thing I could imagine would be 3x Havocs squads with autocannons, which will average out eight hits per turn thanks to their twin-linked status and a pair of heldrakes for vector strikes. Both serve multiple purposes, the autocannons can eliminate vehicles on the ground even more efficiently than they can vehicles in the sky and the heldrakes can bale flamer units off of objectives and such.

But for other armies? I have no idea. I've yet to find a good solution for flying circus lists in the DE codex, even with our flier options maxed out we're still outnumbered 2 to 1 in the sky and are rapidly approaching that point where you're spending too many points on too few models.

 DarkHound wrote:
what with only being able to make 1 pass.

This assumption is flawed. It's pretty easy to get more than 2 consecutive turns of shooting, all at high to medium priority targets without flying off the board.

That method might work, except against Necron spam lists.

Sometimes I wonder how many people have actually played against all flyer lists as opposed to just thinking it is "zomg insta win goodness."

In 6th edition, you have to take flyers into account. You can build to beat them, or build to ignore them. The only army that I could see putting the "smack down" on a Cron Air Force is another Cron Air Force, going second. Luckily, 6th edition isn't about obliterating the opponent. It's about taking objectives. Coincedently (or not) flyers are quite bad at taking objectives as they normally contain small units of fragile troops. Random game length means that the Cron player has to drop their units by turn 5 and hope for the best. Which means that if you go second against Necrons, you have the rebuttal of at least one turn (most likely two) to take down or contest against typically puny troop choices. "Cron Air" is a rock. It's a very, very good rock that will steamroll people. It also has some key weaknesses that 6th edition TAC lists need to be prepared to exploit.

The key to this edition is durablity. Most armies are able to employ durablity through mass bodies. Mass bodies helps against flyers in that:
a. you can circle objectives to deny contestation
b. you can clog movement lanes
c. you simply provide too much to kill

Sure, a 10 Cron Flyer list can take out a squad of Marines a turn. The issue they face is that they will probably only able to bring this fire to bear three times, due to movement restriction. Losing 30-40 Marines isn't bad if you bring 80. Losing 30-40 Orks, Gants, or Guardsmen is even less bad.

Ultimately, the best defense is bodies. However, you should also have rate of fire st 7 (this is 6th edition after all) to deal with light transports. Those work well enough at downing or forcing a flyer or two a turn to jink. Prescience is pretty accessible and works wonders as well.

Don't be a victim of the hype. Re-evaluate your builds and tactics for the new edition. Flyers have to be accounted for, they have to be a concern, but they don't have to be feared.

 Lokas wrote:
I've yet to see a single list that has enough anti-air firepower to properly handle a necron flying circus list without approaching list-tailoring status.

Wouldnt Loota spam do this? And it isnt tailoring persay, since taking a metric ton of lootas is a good answer to anything orks might face.

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:
Which was my concern. How do you make a take-all-comers list when Necrons are so drastically different?

Even in All comers list I bring alot of Auto-Cannons or a ton of MSL (long-fangs) possibly depending on your army.

Bit of an Anti List there, you should really build a list to play all of your games with, rather than building your list after looking at your opponents, the first way, the person who has bought the most will win as he has more stuff to change his list to.

davou wrote:

 Lokas wrote:
I've yet to see a single list that has enough anti-air firepower to properly handle a necron flying circus list without approaching list-tailoring status.

Wouldnt Loota spam do this? And it isnt tailoring persay, since taking a metric ton of lootas is a good answer to anything orks might face.

yup max lootas and dakka jets with some manz might work. gotta keep the lootas alive though which would be tough. also gotta keep the death ray off the manz.

DarkHound wrote:what with only being able to make 1 pass.

This is isn't so simple as a blanket statement. Distance between the flyer and the target, what the targets is, what the flyer is and what it shoots, etc., are all variables here. My Ravens get several consecutives more than enough. People forget as well that this is no different to most units anyway, as in the case of other units you just shoot them back, usually inflicting some casualties and reducing their attacking potential.

As for the overall question, depends on your list. You can only ignore them if you have the resilience to survive their onslaught for the game. Otherwise, have enough to be able to take down a flyer a turn and I think that's plenty, as the lists that rely on their flyers really feel it every time they lose one, whereas other lists don't care as much, but it will shut down most of their air support.

 Lokas wrote:
.
The closest thing I could imagine would be 3x Havocs squads with autocannons, which will average out eight hits per turn thanks to their twin-linked status and a pair of heldrakes for vector strikes. Both serve multiple purposes, the autocannons can eliminate vehicles on the ground even more efficiently than they can vehicles in the sky and the heldrakes can bale flamer units off of objectives and such.

I think thats the best most armies can do, field flexible heavy weapon systems that can engage flyers, armor, infantry and MCs. Its a lot to ask for but plasma, autocannons and missiles (especially with flakk ammo) all fit that bill. I would think that S6 weapons like multi-lasers also help, but they start to struggle against AV12 flyers like the Helchicken.

A better question would be: How can you get anti-flying withouth sacreficing to mutch if you do not meet flyers.

Even if a Helldrake can pull a Necron flier down per turn (and that's a stretch), how valuable is that? Virtually all of my army is close combat oriented, so is it worth the effort to patch that gaping hole?

 DarkHound wrote:
Even if a Helldrake can pull a Necron flier down per turn (and that's a stretch), how valuable is that? Virtually all of my army is close combat oriented, so is it worth the effort to patch that gaping hole?

Well the Heldrake does 1.5HP to Necron flyers per turn if they don't jink. In this situation I'd go for the Doom Scythes first as an average Vector Strike has a good chance of making him Jink, meaning no Death Ray next turn.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:
Even if a Helldrake can pull a Necron flier down per turn (and that's a stretch), how valuable is that? Virtually all of my army is close combat oriented, so is it worth the effort to patch that gaping hole?

Well the Heldrake does 1.5HP to Necron flyers per turn if they don't jink. In this situation I'd go for the Doom Scythes first as an average Vector Strike has a good chance of making him Jink, meaning no Death Ray next turn.

but then if the cron fliers go after the helldrake it could be over for him. sure AV12 isnt easy for tesla but it can get there and if they ever see rear armor its dead.

 Exergy wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:
Even if a Helldrake can pull a Necron flier down per turn (and that's a stretch), how valuable is that? Virtually all of my army is close combat oriented, so is it worth the effort to patch that gaping hole?

Well the Heldrake does 1.5HP to Necron flyers per turn if they don't jink. In this situation I'd go for the Doom Scythes first as an average Vector Strike has a good chance of making him Jink, meaning no Death Ray next turn.

but then if the cron fliers go after the helldrake it could be over for him. sure AV12 isnt easy for tesla but it can get there and if they ever see rear armor its dead.

Actually, since Daemonic Possession almost ignores Stuns and Shakes, and the Helldrake has a 5++, it would take almost all the Necron's shooting to do anything meaningful. They can poach with virtual impunity, and any firepower wasted on the Drake isn't opening up a Rhino.

I'm starting to think, despite how good Bikers are, we're going to need all our FA for Helldrakes.

I'm thinking two hell drakes one biker squad and an aegis

Heldrakes x2 - 340pts
MoN Havocs w/ Missile Launcher / Flakk x4, Aegis w/ Quad Gun - 290pts

Just food for thought.

Considering they go in separate slots there's no need to pick one or the other

 Niiai wrote:
A better question would be: How can you get anti-flying withouth sacreficing to mutch if you do not meet flyers.

This pretty much...I play codex SM and I have a real hard time doing this! Spamming my own crappy flyer only works if I get second and even then a flyer spam list will bring more to bear down on my flyers than I can on his. Did I mention how fragile my flyer is?

syypher wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
A better question would be: How can you get anti-flying withouth sacreficing to mutch if you do not meet flyers.

This pretty much...I play codex SM and I have a real hard time doing this! Spamming my own crappy flyer only works if I get second and even then a flyer spam list will bring more to bear down on my flyers than I can on his. Did I mention how fragile my flyer is?

Agreed. I try to just weather and get around the flyer, but the Heldrake IS shaking things up... for MEQ at least.

If I really get concerned, I guide my wraithlords with EML and BL. Works fine.

 Niiai wrote:
A better question would be: How can you get anti-flying withouth sacreficing to mutch if you do not meet flyers.

Depends - For Orks, Lootas FTW, they hit on 5/6's as it is

C:SM, I usually bring Telion w/Sniper Scouts in an ADL and that's held up pretty well thus far (don't play against anyone who uses flyer spam). Storm Talon occasionally makes it in there, but not as often as the former.

Also against Necron flyer spam, since you are hitting on 6's anyway NO reason not to go to ground(unless you need the mobility) Take an Aegis and suddenly all of his hits are getting ignored 5/6th of the time. Sure he can kill the quad gun, but hopefully you made that death ray jink for one turn with it. That alone will be worth the points trade off. Or if you have BS 5/Twin Linking then an Icarus is also a good choice.

 DarkHound wrote:
I think I'd rather ignore the fliers. As good as they are, it seems like they don't contribute much to dislodging guys from objectives, what with only being able to make 1 pass.

Gotta beg for your life, dude. Flyer spam will win every single game they play. Ever. Trust me. I spam flyers.

Girls flock to me postgame because I never lose units. It's the life.

-TheCaptain

Speaking of defense lines, how viable is taking a pack of Cultists/Scouts/Gretchin to sit on an objective and man a comms relay? Is it worth 120 points?

JGrand wrote:You can build to beat them, or build to ignore them.

Yeah, this is what I'm finding over time. Either you build a list that will obliterate fliers and be good enough against everything else (like a necron circus, or a guard air-cav list), or you build a list that ignores fliers altogether, and really focuses hard on hammering a flier lists non-flier elements and plays to objectives, which also tends to do pretty well in those games that you're not up against fliers, as you've made no anti-flier sacrifices.

Meanwhile, if you go the middle route of having just some amount of anti-flier, it really doesn't pay off. You have too few anti-flier units to be able to stop your opponent from killing off your anti-flier stuff before it's too late, and you've generally spent a bunch of points on stuff that isn't necessarily that great against non-flier armies. There are some specific exceptions to this, but in general I've found this to be true.

I've been playing some low-point games recently, and I've been finding my games against players who bring fliers to be the easiest ones. Generally they're spending so many points on fliers that their ground game really suffers. If I double down and really try to wreck face with my ground game, I've been ending the game with an enemy flier desperately circling over a field that no longer has any friendly scoring units. In my case, that's respawning conscripts and flamer stormtroopers that are letting me dominate the ground game, and it's working pretty darn well so far.

There's only one caveat to this, and that's when you're up against an army that's a lot of transports that are fliers. You can whisk away your opponent's ground units, but they're always going to have something scoring just sort of hovering around, waiting to get dropped on an objective at the end of the game. Thankfully, this usually means that you're still only having to take down a couple of fliers, which even a list that's designed to ignore fliers is probably capable of, sans anything more useful to shoot at. Pick at the fliers that are transporting scoring units, and be really smart about defending your objectives, and you can still win it.

Put another way, you can win the game by dominating the ground game, or you can win the game by dominating the air game. Trying to do a little bit of both is just going to see you run into problems with somebody going one way or the other.