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I'm really enjoying reading and studying the new Eldar Codex. However, I'm mystified by the grav-tanks not being flyers? Even the fluff reads, "All grav-tanks are capable of true flight...."

What do you guys think?

They can fly a bit if they want to (Well at least fluff wise). But it's quite dangerous for them to do so and it makes them really vulnerable from the underside and stuff. That's why they don't count as flyers. Plus it's due to ballance. Immagine if you need to shoot down and entire flying army.

They are skimmers I believe (maybe fast skimmers). And of course, there is the balance issue.

Balance didn't suffer the Necrons!

Yes, but even the Necrons didn't get a codex where 50% of the units would be Flyer(Hover) and the other 50% would be Infantry(Shenanigans) or Monstrous Creature.

And as much as people complain about necron flier spam, the more codices that get released (with AA) the less OP they are.

People get pissed by the whole 'They can drop troops off when zooming with no penalty' or 'the troops aren't destroyed when its destroyed!', however the first one is balanced by the fliers not being able to hover.

I'll agree, the other one doesn't really have anything to balance it out, but still, they aren't hard to take down (compared to the vendetta and heldrake).


An army of flier transports with a 2+ pen-to-glance shield would be very unbalanced

Considering how overpriced all 6th edition fliers are (except Helldrakes), would you really want to pay 250 points for a Falcon or Wave Serpent?

 thunderingjove wrote:
I'm really enjoying reading and studying the new Eldar Codex. However, I'm mystified by the grav-tanks not being flyers? Even the fluff reads, "All grav-tanks are capable of true flight...."

What do you guys think?

They can operate as flyers but when they fight they operate as grav tanks, they basically only operate as flyers when moving long distances and not engaging in combat (i.e. when they move *to* the battlefield). They're capable of it but aren't designed to fight as such.

Consider the difference between a transport helicopter and a fighter jet.

The transport can fly at reasonably high altitude, but it's a slow and vulnerable target so if it's anywhere near potential AA threats it's going to be flying as low as possible and using the terrain for cover.

The fighter can only fly at high speed, but has the speed, maneuverability and altitude to not instantly die as soon as it gets above the tree line.

This is only broken in 40k where fighter jets slowly float along the battlefield but carry tank-level armor. If 40k did things even remotely sensibly then skimmers would be able to move like flyers do now (possibly at the cost of giving enemy units a shot at their fragile underside) and flyers would be represented by off-table air strikes (since the actual flyer moves too fast to bother putting on the table, or bombs from high altitude).

IMO the introduction of fliers to the game was a mistake, it's just not the right scale to properly represent that element of warfare. Epic was the place to do it, but that ship has sailed.

Totally agree with Peregrine's write-up above, tank level armour on a hover-capable fighter jet is just wrong.

 Peregrine wrote:
Consider the difference between a transport helicopter and a fighter jet.

The transport can fly at reasonably high altitude, but it's a slow and vulnerable target so if it's anywhere near potential AA threats it's going to be flying as low as possible and using the terrain for cover.

The fighter can only fly at high speed, but has the speed, maneuverability and altitude to not instantly die as soon as it gets above the tree line.

This is only broken in 40k where fighter jets slowly float along the battlefield but carry tank-level armor. If 40k did things even remotely sensibly then skimmers would be able to move like flyers do now (possibly at the cost of giving enemy units a shot at their fragile underside) and flyers would be represented by off-table air strikes (since the actual flyer moves too fast to bother putting on the table, or bombs from high altitude).

Good analogy.

I do not think flyers ruined the game, but a new element. Everything has anti-flyer capabilities, Tau being over-represented. The anti-flyer stuff is usually expensive and usually not worth it. I think the only thing eldar is War Walkers and maybe Dark Reapers...
I usually rely on tons of shots vs sky fire. My last tourney I got best overall with old Eldar and had no flyers or Aegis..

 Peregrine wrote:
Consider the difference between a transport helicopter and a fighter jet.

The transport can fly at reasonably high altitude, but it's a slow and vulnerable target so if it's anywhere near potential AA threats it's going to be flying as low as possible and using the terrain for cover.

The fighter can only fly at high speed, but has the speed, maneuverability and altitude to not instantly die as soon as it gets above the tree line.

This is only broken in 40k where fighter jets slowly float along the battlefield but carry tank-level armor. If 40k did things even remotely sensibly then skimmers would be able to move like flyers do now (possibly at the cost of giving enemy units a shot at their fragile underside) and flyers would be represented by off-table air strikes (since the actual flyer moves too fast to bother putting on the table, or bombs from high altitude).

Poor analogy: You're making potentially unwarranted assumptions about the length of a turn in 'real-time' and about the stall speed of 40k fighters in relation to modern-day ones.

I believe there's an Apocalypse formation that lets your Falcons move as Flyers for a turn, but can't shoot any weapons. The Lynx superheavy also has that rule.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Poor analogy: You're making potentially unwarranted assumptions about the length of a turn in 'real-time' and about the stall speed of 40k fighters in relation to modern-day ones.

No I'm not. There is no sensible scaling that makes it work. Infantry movement distance is 6". The world record sprinting speed (over short distance, without a full load of combat gear or enemy fire) is less than 30mph, so to be very very generous to you we'll say that 6" per turn = 30mph. Minimum flyer movement speed is 18", while maximum speed is 36". So flyers have a stall speed of 90mph and a maximum (normal) speed of 180mph. If we instead assume that infantry are moving the average running speed of 8mph then instead we're looking at a speed range of 48-96mph. Now, let's take a look at the operating handbook for a Cessna 152 (not exactly a plane known for its amazing performance): stall speed of 49mph, cruising speed of 115-130mph depending on how much fuel you want to burn.

So yeah, I think it's pretty obviously stupid to suggest that 40k fighters are out-performed by 1970s single-engine civilian aircraft. And of course this was the generous assumption, if you assume that infantry moving 6" are actually moving between pieces of cover, stopping to use covering fire, checking for threats, etc, you quickly get to the absurd point where an average person can walk faster than a 40k fighter.

(Fluff-wise even the slowest 40k aircraft have top speeds well over 1000mph.)

Peregrine actually summed it up pretty damn well.
And from the OP on this one, it just seems your pissed because you dont get to spam flying vehicles.

The apocalypse formation / Lynx special rule would've been a fairly nice thing to have as the special ability for Star Engines and would've made a lot of sense fluff-wise.

Since this is the proposed rules forum...

House rule (Star Engines, anti-grav version): a model with this upgrade may instead of moving normally become Type: Flyer for one turn. This move counts as having moved flat-out in terms of what weapons may be fired in the following shooting phase.

(Naturally the walker version of Star Engines remain unchanged, can't have flying Walkers unless they are Wasps)