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How many flyers to you bring to a 1,500 point game? How many flyer do you think you need to bring to be effective in a 1,500 point game? What is your transport to gunship ratio?

Lately, my number at 1.5K has been zero. But I'm not Necron, IG, or CSM.

What army do you play? that might give us a better idea as to what is available for you.

 Der Metzgermeister wrote:
How many flyers to you bring to a 1,500 point game? How many flyer do you think you need to bring to be effective in a 1,500 point game? What is your transport to gunship ratio?

I run Necrons and orks and can be effective without any flyers at that point range. How do you feel flyers will make you more effective in the games you are playing? Do you see yourself using flyers for a specific purpose (like to counter other flyers) or do you want to just play with a flyer? What army do you play?

I know an IG player that runs 2 flyers at 1500 and loses about 60% of his games yet I know a Space Marine player that runs 1 and wins a lot but is considering removing his flyer.

Flyers are good but they are not a means to victory and if you don't have a plan when you add them, you'll almost surely lose.

If you are worried about other flyers, get an Aegis.

Here's a list I'm running right now in an escalation league and at local tournaments. At 1500 I'm running 6 flyers. About the only army that gives me grief is Tau and that's only if they think to get EWO and skyfire. When Tau has these two systems I get shredded.

I will say that just having flyers won't guarantee you a win. It's what you do with them. For instance two of my flyers haul around deathmarks+despairtek units. The flyers are just a delivery system for a very nasty unit. Granted the tesla destructors it brings to the party are handy. The other two NS that carry troops are there to protect the HQ from giving up slay the warlord and also provides a turn 5 troop drop onto objectives or for linebreaker. The doom scythes are really the only obvious ones.

HQ: Overlord, Warscythe, Mindshackle Scarabs, Sempiternal Weave

Royal Court
1 Harbinger of Despair
1 Harbinger of Despair
1 Harbinger of the Storm

Elite: 5x Deathmarks, Night Scythe
Elite: 5x Deathmarks, Night Scythe

Troops: 5x Warriors, Night Scythe
Troops: 5x Warriors, Night Scythe
Troops: 5x Warriors
Troops: 5x Warriors

Heavy Support: Doom Scythe
Heavy Support: Doom Scythe

Aegis Defence Lines, Comms Relay

To over simplify your question:

If you take a lot of fliers, they will have a hard time dealing with it at 1500.

If you don't, you better have at least TWO ways to deal with fliers or you'll have a hard time dealing with them (one threat v. air is easily killed).

But, if we're being completely honest, only you know your local meta, so take this very basic advice with a few grains of salt.

Exalbaru wrote:
What army do you play? that might give us a better idea as to what is available for you.

I play Tyranids and Necrons. But I asked this question with Necrons in mind.


Just everyone seems to love the Necron flyers, but I think any army with flyers or skyfire will rip my AV 11 out of the air pretty quickly unless I had a swarm of flyers, but I do not want to buy 6 flyers.
Plus with flyers, you start with less of your army on the board, less shots at the beginning.

Unholy llama asked how they would have a role in my list. The only role I can see them doing besides the obvious gunship and linebreaker roles, is to drop a model with a 4 shot haywire weapon and 5 warriors who have rapid fire weapons, glancing any armor on 6's. I could also choose to give this unit tank hunters using an ability from my HQ.

Another good point by floraljetbike, I have 3 annihilation barges for anti-air. That's 3 AV 13 threats. I would be astonished if my opponent was able to destroy all 3 of them on turn one.

If you guys want to look at my current list:

HQ (400pts)
Destroyer Lord - MSS, Sep Weave (160pts)
Nemesor Zahndrekh (185)
Harbinger of Destruction - solar pulse (55pts)

Troops (463pts)
10x Necron Immortals (tesla) (170pts)
5x Necron Warriors (65pts)
(Ghost Ark - 115)
9x Necron Warrior (117pts)

Fast Attack (365pts)
8x Canoptek Scarab Base (120pts)
6x Wratihs, 3x whipcoil - 240


Heavy Support (270pts)
Annihilation Barge - 90
Annihilation Barge - 90
Annihilation Barge - 90

Total: 1,497

After seeing your list, looks really solid for a 1.5k list as long as you keep the Ghost Ark alive (not too hard generally speaking). I like Scarabs though, and seem to be in the minority on the internet so some people might have other opinions on the list.

floraljetbike wrote:
After seeing your list, looks really solid for a 1.5k list as long as you keep the Ghost Ark alive (not too hard generally speaking). I like Scarabs though, and seem to be in the minority on the internet so some people might have other opinions on the list.

Hey thanks! Yeah, I already have 10 scarab bases, and 8 painted. They are fast tar pit and anti tank units. So I threw them in there rather than spending $50 for a doomscythe or something.
About 1/3 of the motive of my question is to see if I really should buy flyers and how many. Buying 2 more annihilation barges for a total of 3 is about $25-sih less than buying 2 scythes. I have 3 of the old metal wraiths, and am going to proxy tyranid warriors for the other 3. That also makes it easy to tell which ones have coils and which ones do not.

I just do not know if the flyers will synergize well with this list, and how many I would need. I am a Noob Necron player (as can be scene by my W-D-L in my signature) and have not had much experience against any opponents other than Imperial Guard. (contrary to my sig, I have played countless games with Tyranids against many armies back in 5th edition. I had not begun to record WLD back then.)

One thing to keep in mind and tryout is that you can take dedicated transports for your units but still deploy it empty. So instead of the ghost ark (for example), you could put a scythe in reserve but still keep the warriors on the table. Obviously this cuts the transport out of having a scythe but allows you to get a feel for using one without the fear of not having boots on the ground. Using one this way pretty much turns it into an anti-air and anti-infantry vehicle to accompany the barges. Worst case scenario, it turns into a 100pt distraction for your opponent to try and spend shots on.

I too agree that you have a pretty solid 1500pt list already.

Annihilation Barges function as great anti-air, so no you don't need any scythes. They're a lot of fun and very handy units to bring to the table, but not necessary if you dont want them.