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I'm only moderately clever, so please tell me if at some point my reasoning is wrong.

Pre 6th edition, Warhammer had at it's core a "a weapon for every occassion" type of mentallity. Basically Bolters/Pie-plates for mass, Plasma/Rockets for elites, and Laser/Melta for Tanks.
There are some overlaps (Meltas can also hurt TEQ's) but every weapon had it's primary field of application. A TAC list would try to cover all of these, while a SPAM list would try to overhelm the enemies capacities.


Now 6th edition introduced flyers which add another part to the weapon spectrum.


On the field that means that it's becoming harder to field TAC lists because you to make room for anti air weapons and it makes SPAM lists more potent because the amount of weapons which can harm you has gone down.




Am I wrong to think that this really hurts tactical gameplay and further accentuates the inbalance between army books?

DrunkPhilisoph wrote:

Am I wrong to think that this really hurts tactical gameplay and further accentuates the inbalance between army books?

No.

At the moment the traditional older codex is the weaker argument is true. Everything 6th ed codex has been for the most part well balanced and good to play.

Fliers add a new tank in a system where tanks are not desirable. Races that can spam a flier as a staple for their army are usually lacking on one aspect or another (spam being greater than 2-3)

I play the "Ignore the flying thing" and still win 80% of games. Even at a recent hard core tourny the winning lists didn't have fliers. They had an answer to 1 or 2 fliers, but focused on playing the board. It works.


Fliers add more tactical flexibility. In essence more options are more tactics and makes the game better. Their is always the bad match up argument every army has one. Iyenden meets Dark Eldar, Tau meet Necron Air Calv.

I will say because of all the choices that exist in the game now it is almost impossible to bring a TAC that will beat every single army out there.

you do have a point here, but a simple solution is to not play "spammers"

but on a more helpful note, remember that basically every flyer is made of paper. An Ork dakkajet or bommer can be shot down by BOLTGUNS. Granted its hard to hit (and damage in the case of boltguns) but a few shots out of the large amount will make the grade, and a few is all you need.

I think this is where medium weapons come into play more than any other edition. Things like autocannons are the way to go if you don't have a skyfire weapon, and they prove to be useful against ground targets too. And, if you are lucky, find a skyfire nexus in an objective game - who's laughing now?!

The problem is you take a flyer and you are able to hit ground targets and other flyers.

If flyers could only fire snap shots on ground targets..... now that would be a different story.

DrunkPhilisoph wrote:
On the field that means that it's becoming harder to field TAC lists because you to make room for anti air weapons and it makes SPAM lists more potent because the amount of weapons which can harm you has gone down.

Am I wrong to think that this really hurts tactical gameplay and further accentuates the inbalance between army books?

You can cover flyer threats with guns that have lots of shots. Increase number of shots increases chances of rolling 6s needed to take out flyers without focusing too much specifically into anti-flyer weaponry at the expense of others. Despite flakk missiles not being the cheapest option, including them helps the missile launcher remain as the best multi-tool heavy weapon in the game. With the addition of flakk missiles DA devastators, CSM Havocs and the like have heavy weapons that can effectively deal with flying armored or mobbed targets. Can't beat that bang for the buck. The cost for the flakk missiles is negligible when compared to being forced to buy a flyer you don't like in your force or an ADL just for its quad cannon and the like. People complain about the cost, but I still love the flexibility of missile launchers.

Skriker

I think that a little more limitation in each flyer's role with a little bit more AAA availability would have been a good balance. Air power in it's most basic form in the game should fulfill 3 roles: ground attack, air defense/superiority, transport. A flyer in the game should at most be capable of two of these roles, yet many can easily do all three (Nightscythes, Vendettas, and Stormravens for example)

For instance, make it so as a default, flyers only snapshot against ground targets, but have the strafing run rule allow for full BS against ground targets, but snapshots against other flyers instead of what it does now. Then give this rule to the appropriate flyers (i.e., those designed for ground attack such as the Doomscythe, Valkyrie, etc.) Maybe have a rule that allows for full bs against both, but never apply it to a transport.

This coupled with a slight increase in effective AAA I think would have nicely created a sweetspot for flyers.

The flyers did add some additional complexity to the game. This added tactical gameplay to the game not reduced it.

The game is not designed around tournament play. There would be a very easy fix to this for TO's. They should consider including a "sideboard" with ~25% of your points in it. This sideboard could be used to substitute in additional AA, etc. Before the game each player could get to see the opponent's list of available units. Each player can then field the points limit out of their pool. This would require math skills that frankly some players appear to have troubles with and would make transport more difficult.

Are we seriously still having these discussions of how overpowered flyers are? Look at GT results and you will notice that flyer based armies are not winning like these discussions always seem to indicate they should. I have literally beaten a 2 vendetta, 2 vulture, artillery spam IG army with a warlock council list with no AA whatsoever. There a batreps galore showing how good positioning and target priority can make a ground list beat a flyer list. All it takes to kills a flyer is a hit with a melta- weapon or a couple hits with a lascannon.

You should look at the new 6th ed codex's. They are overall very good with the weak points being the CSM and DA dexs. Both of these are still pretty interesting to play and allies makes up for the duds.

Flyers generally die to ork shooting. And that's a 4th ed codex.

Therefore I find them a non-issue.

Most 6th ed codices have fair fliers. Heldrakes are a little bit rough, but you have to take everything in context, and the rest of the book isn't very threatening to be honest.

The real problem is in armies like Necrons, where you have a flier that is literally the best flier in the game, and one of the cheapest (if not the cheapest). It has a fantastic gun for mulching enemy fliers, infantry, and tanks, it is the safest transport in the game, and it's a Dedicated Transport so you can spam the hell out of them. It's undercosted by at least 50 points, because in 5th edition it wasn't really *that* great.

Vendettas need a slight price bump too, but bear in mind that they aren't dedicated transports, and they're packing lascannons in an edition where Mechanized infantry, and armor in general, is actually fairly rare.

So yeah...pre-6th edition codices are where you find the problems. Bump the Night Scythe by 50 points and the Vendetta by 20 and you're starting to bring back the balance.

The only super problem fliers are honestly the cron ones. And I'm not talking because of the tesla destructor. Their rules as a transport are more than busted enough that you could take them without guns at their current point cost. The gun is just gravy on top. They are the safest transport in the game by a long shot, they can put a unit just about anywhere on the board the turn they come on, and you still get full BS even after moving than a land vehicle can after 2 turns of moving. You even get the option to stop, let the guys out, then finish the move! If the faq hadn't stopped them from zooming off the board the turn they came on, they would be the best contest/scoring protector and delivery system in the game. I have played crons since shortly before 6th landed, and quite honestly, the rules are stupidly op, I can't even defend it.

I would complain more about heldrakes, if most of the rest of the dex around it wasn't so weak. It puts a hurt on your guys (unless your GK or deathwing that is), but it can't actually win the game for you. Its a mostly uphill battle for CSM, the drake is there to level the playing field.