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So today during a planet strike game with me as defender i had 2 Vendettas come in and pop two Defilers , A Little Later on i had my Vets in their ( triple Melta , Demoitions doctrine ) Grav Chute out to pop some Eldar Armor that was throwing lance shots at my Fortress of Redemtion -- A Bit Later after the game ended ( in Victory for the Guard ! ) one of the Chaos players mentioned something about if my Gunship is shot down , all the occupants suffer a Strength 10 no Armor Saves allowed wound -- I knew this but as one of the Space Marine Transports later that same Game ( Stormraven if i recall carrying Death Company and a Dred ) suffered that fate loosing all Hands aboard it made me wonder . Is the danger far to high for the deploment ability ? i don't really want to see 260 Points disappear down a drain from a lucky hit on one of my gunships . However i do like the ability to bascialy pick something i want dead and destroy it in one turn --

Thoughts everyone ?

It's the Imperial Guard! Nothing is too risky

This whole game is a series of risks. Sometimes they pay off, sometimes they don't. What if said gunship isn't shot down and the gunship and the infantry destroy twice their points? Was it worth the risk? Hell yes.

Risk as expensive squad if enemy ack ack is weak.

Load inexpensive troops such as a pcs or nakid infantry squad if enemy ack ack seems risky.

Leave it empty if the ack ack is overwhelming such as 3 annihilation barges + night scythes.

Let the passengers disembark when the flyer moves in from reserves if the enemy has some anti-air guns.

No, it's not too risky. AV:12 on a flier is very, very resilient, especially when you can Jink if you need to.

If you're really concerned about it, you can try to focus down your opponent's AAA, which in my experience is a quadgun and maybe 1 or 2 fliers. If you're going 1st, the fliers won't be an issue, since you can ditch your troops before they arrive. Similarly, if you're going second, you can blow the fliers out the sky before they do anything.

I thought it was quite ironic that you're willing to grav-chute your men in, which is far more risky than simply keeping them on board a Vendetta.

Current Meta - I hold dominance in air power , my only rival is an Eldar player who has two Razorwings , I was looking for everyone's thoughts , the most AAA , I see is an Icarus or a Quad Gun . So with the suggestions , I can assume it would be best to keep those Vets on board for maximum firepower where I need it . I guess what kinda threw a kill switch was that Stormraven Getting downed along with its dred and troop compliment. But overall they're safer in the gunship rather then grav-chuteing

For IG it's not too risky.

For Marine players, they are usually carrying a couple hundred points, that is far too risky.

IG are carrying a fireball PCS or some vets. If those die, "meh".

I thought Marine playes could not embark anything into allied IG vehicles...

Marine players in their Stormravens, I should have said.

Like others have said, keep the squad inside cheap. I've certainly lost several squad due to lucky BS1 hits on my rear AV10 with AP1 or 2.

Can't most AP 1 or 2 weapons go through the AV 12 sides as well? The big obstacle is BS 1, not AV 12 I think.

Well, flyers with AV 12 have the best protection they can get. The anti-air weapons are usually S 7 and so have a low chance on average to glance or penetrate a flyer. I wouldn't be too worried about this. As said, it makes sense to deploy the passengers during the movement of the flyer onto the table.

While zooming, they can't disembark I thought. And I thought they had to enter in the zooming mode.

Martel732 wrote:
While zooming, they can't disembark I thought. And I thought they had to enter in the zooming mode.

Not with Valkyries/Vendettas, thanks to the Grav-Chute insertion rule.

Oh. I didn't know that little detail. I don't think I've evern seen anyone actually use that. So not only are they cheaper than Stormravens, they are safer for the passengers too, since they are not trapped in it for a turn. If I could just drop my dudes and not assault with them after zooming on, without having to use the horrible skies of blood rule, that would be nice.

Martel732 wrote:
Oh. I didn't know that little detail. I don't think I've evern seen anyone actually use that. So not only are they cheaper than Stormravens, they are safer for the passengers too, since they are not trapped in it for a turn. If I could just drop my dudes and not assault with them after zooming on, without having to use the horrible skies of blood rule, that would be nice.

The rule is exactly the same as Skies of Blood. Well, not exactly, but it works the same.

I guess most IG players are going to hover mode so their guys don't scatter and most of my stuff to shoot AV 12 is already dead after the Vendettas are on the board for a couple turns.

Martel732 wrote:
I guess most IG players are going to hover mode so their guys don't scatter and most of my stuff to shoot AV 12 is already dead after the Vendettas are on the board for a couple turns.

Pretty much. The only reason to use Grav-Chute insertion is if an unexpected situation pops up where you desperately need those passengers to kill something.

Examples:

Opponent's Harliestar is on its way to kill my Blob, Grav-Chute in a fireball PCS

Opponent has some nasty tanks in their backfield, Grav-Chute in some Meltavets

If its lategame, and not Kill-points, hovering is the better option. Grav-chute is like an emergency-deployment, IMO.

you can put in a PCS or a cheap infantry squad. You can also take a special weapons squad without any special weapons. Just 30 points, think of it as a vehicle upgrade.

 Exergy wrote:
you can put in a PCS or a cheap infantry squad. You can also take a special weapons squad without any special weapons. Just 30 points, think of it as a vehicle upgrade.

I tend to go with A Detta with Meltavets, A Detta with a Fireball PCS, and a Detta with Plasmavets

All three types of Emergency have a flying, air-dropping solution in this situation.

If I don't need them to drop in and save the day, they are simply used to score downfield objectives.

 TheCaptain wrote:

 Exergy wrote:
you can put in a PCS or a cheap infantry squad. You can also take a special weapons squad without any special weapons. Just 30 points, think of it as a vehicle upgrade.

I tend to go with A Detta with Meltavets, A Detta with a Fireball PCS, and a Detta with Plasmavets

All three types of Emergency have a flying, air-dropping solution in this situation.

If I don't need them to drop in and save the day, they are simply used to score downfield objectives.

and if your detta gets shot down then your plasmavets make it a 255 point loss

fireball PCS are great because they are cheap enough to lose. There are things that can bring vendettas down, like other vendettas.

 Exergy wrote:

 TheCaptain wrote:

 Exergy wrote:
you can put in a PCS or a cheap infantry squad. You can also take a special weapons squad without any special weapons. Just 30 points, think of it as a vehicle upgrade.

I tend to go with A Detta with Meltavets, A Detta with a Fireball PCS, and a Detta with Plasmavets

All three types of Emergency have a flying, air-dropping solution in this situation.

If I don't need them to drop in and save the day, they are simply used to score downfield objectives.

and if your detta gets shot down then your plasmavets make it a 255 point loss

So? The utility of Vendetta-mounted vets far outweighs the possible loss.

That's not much more than what an empty stormraven costs.

Martel732 wrote:
That's not much more than what an empty stormraven costs.

Exactly; for the cost of a SM operating as a dedicated gunship, we get a fantastic flyer filled with a killy scoring unit.

 TheCaptain wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

 TheCaptain wrote:

 Exergy wrote:
you can put in a PCS or a cheap infantry squad. You can also take a special weapons squad without any special weapons. Just 30 points, think of it as a vehicle upgrade.

I tend to go with A Detta with Meltavets, A Detta with a Fireball PCS, and a Detta with Plasmavets

All three types of Emergency have a flying, air-dropping solution in this situation.

If I don't need them to drop in and save the day, they are simply used to score downfield objectives.

and if your detta gets shot down then your plasmavets make it a 255 point loss

So? The utility of Vendetta-mounted vets far outweighs the possible loss.

255 is 1/6 of a 1500 point army. It can be crippling. If you have your vets tooling around in a Chimera,
you lose a flier, not a flier and a squad. Plus the benefits you gain from adding the Chimera are worth
the 55 pt. investment, IMHO. If you throw your fireball PCS or SWS or whatever in the Chimera, then the Vendetta
is shooting it's full potientel every turn it's alive. You're also creating two threats to target instead of giftwraping
255 points in one.

 alarmingrick wrote:


255 is 1/6 of a 1500 point army. It can be crippling. If you have your vets tooling around in a Chimera,
you lose a flier, not a flier and a squad. Plus the benefits you gain from adding the Chimera are worth
the 55 pt. investment, IMHO. If you throw your fireball PCS or SWS or whatever in the Chimera, then the Vendetta
is shooting it's full potientel every turn it's alive. You're also creating two threats to target instead of giftwraping
255 points in one.

If you're depending on delivering the squad inside, Chimeras are far too fragile and easily singled out, especially in non-chimera-using builds.

A fireball PCS will never make it cross-field in an IG Gunline list. In a Vendetta, it will.

The same goes for Meltavets, Demovets, Plasvets, et-cetera.

Your flying your vets around in a vehicle that has more or less the survivability of a land raider for half the points. The real question you should be asking is if it's too risky NOT to put your veterans in your vendetta.

LOL, risk is weighted by what you stand to lose. The squad you are carrying around now sits at 130 points? Not much risk.

Don't forget you can throw even cheaper units in there like PISs or, even better, special weapon squads. A Vendetta can take down whatever it needs to with its lascannons, just put scoring units in there to, well score objectives.

 TheCaptain wrote:
IG are carrying a fireball PCS or some vets. If those die, "meh".

This. Melta vets are 100 points. Do I want them to die? Of course not. Am I willing to risk a 100-150 point unit aboard an AV 12 unit that is only hit on 6s? Yes.

If you aren't willing to take some risks and are terrified of your units dying then IG is the wrong army for you.

Im really glad for the Response that you all have given me on this and i think this insight is extremely useful . a Little help i think might apply here is i run a full Mech IG army with 5 Vet squads the works ect, -- - Now as for other Air Hazards as we have pretty much beaten Ack Ack with a dead horse my other question is what would i have to worry about for other fighters ?