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Hi guys. In order to get more answers I created this thread in other forum but also wanted some advice and tips from the dakka community so here we go, hope you dont get mad


I started playing 40k and also tyranids like 6 months ago and i've played only 4 games so far: vs Dark Angels (win) Eldars (loss) CSM (win) and yesterday Dark Angels (win).

I'm not good with my strategies yet and I'm having some problems with my obscure bubble (only supplied by my Malanthrope) so, not everything get oscured and gaunts fall easily against bolters and Whirlwhind blasts ignoring cover...
As I read long time ago, a Flyrant is a nice HQ unit so I bought one and is giving me a good amount of dakka. Strategically is a GREAT unit putting pressure in key units and forcing some bikes to jink. The results are amazing, although is NOT a no brainer unit. My list at the moment is not competitive at all because I got some old tyranids I bought in 2001 and some new additions I got this summer:
-28 termagants
-16 hotmagaunts
-8 tyranid warriors
-2 zoans
-1 biovore
-18 gargoyles
-Flyrant
-Malanthrope
-2 Dakkafexes

I have little killing vehicle potential (no hive guard) and no AP weapons (no exocrine) so I find my list an average list, I need to buy more options in order to make it funnier.

The problem seems to be my Flyrant. My friends claim he is cheesy as hell just only cause he has wings. They usually dont use flyers although they have some (eldar used one and killed the flyrant), but the DA Nephilim Jetfighter was not enough to kill it in my last game, and the Chaos Space marine player dont want to play again until he get his Be'lakor...

So, what should I do? just play a walkrant next time? to be honest, I feel uncomfortable with this situation. The moment they start to lose, they start to rage on the flyrant :(

TL; DR People cry about my flyrant.

Eh, let them cry. They shouldn't really complain, I mean if that is your One Big Unit, that just makes it easier for them to target. Play what's fun!

I honestly don't see an issue here, keep it up with that list!

What point level you have? If it over 750 points they should not complain.

Sounds like they need to spend some points on some skyfire options.

 Draco wrote:
What point level you have? If it over 750 points they should not complain.

it's a 1500 point list. Nids players usually have 2 flyrants as "the way to go" options as I read.

I can understand complaining about flyers in low point games, but if you don’t have a plan for dealing with them at 1,500, you have nobody to blame but yourself. One flyrant at that point level should not be an issue, and is far from cheezy.

The problem people have with the flyrants is that they tend to disobey the vague "rules" of what flyers/FMCS tend to do.

FMCS tend to be melee oriented and therefore have to land to deal a lot of their damage, and flyers have at least one turn of not being on the board so they have less of a chance to lay down firepower.

But at the same time it's a lot like having a tau list with sniper drones, vespids, stealth teams and a riptide. Anyone who loses to that list is gonna go "omg ur list so cheeze have riptide so not fair at all" because people don't like to admit they lost due to their own mistakes and having a single unit to point a finger at is handy. I've seen people do that with such things as a single wave serpent, or one min squad of Nurgle bikers, of course they'll do it for a flyrant.

Your opponents failed to kill the Flyrant with the weakest flyer in the game and succeeded with a stronger one; I don't see that much of an issue. Flyers are an extra dimension to the game that requires you to deal with them; not playing with flyers is the moral equivalent of having a gentleman's agreement not to bring AV13-14 vehicles. You make the game simpler because you don't need to counter quite so many things, but the game doesn't really become better or worse by virtue of it existing.

(The CSM player has the right idea if he's having trouble with enemy FMCs, Be'lakor Shrieking a Hive Tyrant is pretty brutal, but if he's going to complain about the Tyrant being cheesy I'd suggest pointing out to him that Be'lakor is much, much more powerful)

(The DA player is pretty boned unless he wants to go to Forge World or find some Allies; his Codex has hands-down the worst answers to flyers/FMCs in the game right now.)

Here is what you do, add another flyrant. Give them both duel devourers.

It greatly depends on your local group, I think.

Personally, one Flying Hive Tyrant just about any army should be able to deal with. He's a tough guy, that's for sure... but he's beatable. The Flying Hive Tyrant is a highly optimized and under-costed unit, that's for sure.

However, you're only using ONE, and you don't have any other flyers in your list. If you had two flying Hive Tyrants and two Crones on top of that, I'd say maybe depending on the models your friends have available, maybe you should tone down the fliers. I've basically said that to my brother who plays Tyranids, because against my Orks, there's really nothing that I can do to kill that many fliers. Two flying Hive Tyrants can almost solo my entire army if he rolls lucky on his grounding tests.

But just one flying Tyrant? Unless your group is really full of inexperienced players who don't have much of a budget for models, they should be able to handle that.

The Malenthrope is infinitely cheesier than the Tyrant, but he's a bit more tolerable since he's a defensive unit and not so much on the offense.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
(The DA player is pretty boned unless he wants to go to Forge World or find some Allies; his Codex has hands-down the worst answers to flyers/FMCs in the game right now.)

I play both DA and Nids and I can say for sure that the DA got screwed hard on flyers and anti-flyer options, they have flakk missiles,which are ok against flying MCs but useless against most of the flyers your worry about but without forge world pretty much SoL against flyers.

The flyer the DA got is so weak and pathetic that GW tries to shove it in a formation and army boxes(like warriors in Tyranid formations). I do sympathize with the DA player he has one of the absolute worst codex's at the moment, DA termies are more expensive than other termies, the bikes are worse than White Scars bikes(no skilled rider on normal bikes), the worst flyer in the game, severe lack of AA options without Forge World.

 TheAvengingKnee wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
(The DA player is pretty boned unless he wants to go to Forge World or find some Allies; his Codex has hands-down the worst answers to flyers/FMCs in the game right now.)

I play both DA and Nids and I can say for sure that the DA got screwed hard on flyers and anti-flyer options, they have flakk missiles,which are ok against flying MCs but useless against most of the flyers your worry about but without forge world pretty much SoL against flyers.

The flyer the DA got is so weak and pathetic that GW tries to shove it in a formation and army boxes(like warriors in Tyranid formations). I do sympathize with the DA player he has one of the absolute worst codex's at the moment, DA termies are more expensive than other termies, the bikes are worse than White Scars bikes(no skilled rider on normal bikes), the worst flyer in the game, severe lack of AA options without Forge World.

A Mortis Dread and an Aegis Line with a Quad Gun can do miles to help their AA. Also, while expensive, Flakk Missiles on a Dev squad can help out.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 TheAvengingKnee wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
(The DA player is pretty boned unless he wants to go to Forge World or find some Allies; his Codex has hands-down the worst answers to flyers/FMCs in the game right now.)

I play both DA and Nids and I can say for sure that the DA got screwed hard on flyers and anti-flyer options, they have flakk missiles,which are ok against flying MCs but useless against most of the flyers your worry about but without forge world pretty much SoL against flyers.

The flyer the DA got is so weak and pathetic that GW tries to shove it in a formation and army boxes(like warriors in Tyranid formations). I do sympathize with the DA player he has one of the absolute worst codex's at the moment, DA termies are more expensive than other termies, the bikes are worse than White Scars bikes(no skilled rider on normal bikes), the worst flyer in the game, severe lack of AA options without Forge World.

A Mortis Dread and an Aegis Line with a Quad Gun can do miles to help their AA. Also, while expensive, Flakk Missiles on a Dev squad can help out.

Flakk missiles are both expensive and highly ineffective against the av 12 flyers with a full squad of 4 flakk missiles removing less than 1 hull point(0.889%) on average per turn. Quad Guns are slightly better with a 1.189%, Mortis dreads with autocannons are worse at 0.407%.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 TheAvengingKnee wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
(The DA player is pretty boned unless he wants to go to Forge World or find some Allies; his Codex has hands-down the worst answers to flyers/FMCs in the game right now.)

I play both DA and Nids and I can say for sure that the DA got screwed hard on flyers and anti-flyer options, they have flakk missiles,which are ok against flying MCs but useless against most of the flyers your worry about but without forge world pretty much SoL against flyers.

The flyer the DA got is so weak and pathetic that GW tries to shove it in a formation and army boxes(like warriors in Tyranid formations). I do sympathize with the DA player he has one of the absolute worst codex's at the moment, DA termies are more expensive than other termies, the bikes are worse than White Scars bikes(no skilled rider on normal bikes), the worst flyer in the game, severe lack of AA options without Forge World.

A Mortis Dread and an Aegis Line with a Quad Gun can do miles to help their AA. Also, while expensive, Flakk Missiles on a Dev squad can help out.

Twenty-five points for a jack of all trades gun that can shoot one skyfire autocannon shot is a bad joke, I'm sorry. The Mortis Dreadnaught is Forge World rules, with Forge World rules allowed the Dark Angels are fine since they've got access to Mortis and Contemptor-Mortis Dreadnaughts and the Fire Raptor but without them the Dark Angels have no effective AA tools at all.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 TheAvengingKnee wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
(The DA player is pretty boned unless he wants to go to Forge World or find some Allies; his Codex has hands-down the worst answers to flyers/FMCs in the game right now.)

I play both DA and Nids and I can say for sure that the DA got screwed hard on flyers and anti-flyer options, they have flakk missiles,which are ok against flying MCs but useless against most of the flyers your worry about but without forge world pretty much SoL against flyers.

The flyer the DA got is so weak and pathetic that GW tries to shove it in a formation and army boxes(like warriors in Tyranid formations). I do sympathize with the DA player he has one of the absolute worst codex's at the moment, DA termies are more expensive than other termies, the bikes are worse than White Scars bikes(no skilled rider on normal bikes), the worst flyer in the game, severe lack of AA options without Forge World.

A Mortis Dread and an Aegis Line with a Quad Gun can do miles to help their AA. Also, while expensive, Flakk Missiles on a Dev squad can help out.

Twenty-five points for a jack of all trades gun that can shoot one skyfire autocannon shot is a bad joke, I'm sorry. The Mortis Dreadnaught is Forge World rules, with Forge World rules allowed the Dark Angels are fine since they've got access to Mortis and Contemptor-Mortis Dreadnaughts and the Fire Raptor but without them the Dark Angels have no effective AA tools at all.

I think he was referring to the standard mortis dreads a.k.a. a normal dreadnaught with 2 sets of guns and no melee weapon.

DA has Black Knights. They are very good and can do some AA too with TL plasma.

 TheAvengingKnee wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
<LONG>

I think he was referring to the standard mortis dreads a.k.a. a normal dreadnaught with 2 sets of guns and no melee weapon.

Well, that's not going to help at all, it's point-for-point worse than the options they already have.

 Draco wrote:
DA has Black Knights. They are very good and can do some AA too with TL plasma.

With a squad of 4(if you take the Grenade launcher and why the wouldn't you) rapid firing you have a 0.815% chance of taking a hull point off, if you take all 5 and are in rapid fire range it goes up to a 1.019% chance. So it is better than the normal mortis dreadnought and flakk missiles and close to as good as the quad gun as long as your in rapid fire range.


Though you will almost certainly force the Flyrant to jink with plasma shots so that's a big plus against FMCs.

Well, since you're talking about the DA player, I will post his list:
1 squads of 6 bikers
1 command squad (think is the name) of 6 bikers with TL plasma and some banner which make bolters fires as salvos 2/4 and doctor for FNP.
1 Ravenwing Darkshroud
1 Venerable Dread
2 x 10 tact marines with rhinos
1 Whirlwind
1 Landspeeder
1 Nephilim Jetfighter
The guy is pretty friendly but he still thinks that the flyrant is in some way cheesy.

What I had is what you can read in the first post . I won that game (15-2) with a extreme lucky objectives (always take obj X) and I were around the map. He deployed poorly in a corner and got sorrounded pretty fast. The only thing Flyrant did is apply pressure over one squad of bikers making them jink only 1 turn.

To clarify, the one who is crying more about the flyer is the CSM player who is getting a Be'lakor in order to make it fair. The eldar brought a WraithKnight (cause I took Malanthrope), 1 serpent, 1 prism (or falcon I think) and 1 flyer (Cause I took flyrant). The T8 of the WraithKnight is hard to beat, to be honest.

 TheAvengingKnee wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 TheAvengingKnee wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
(The DA player is pretty boned unless he wants to go to Forge World or find some Allies; his Codex has hands-down the worst answers to flyers/FMCs in the game right now.)

I play both DA and Nids and I can say for sure that the DA got screwed hard on flyers and anti-flyer options, they have flakk missiles,which are ok against flying MCs but useless against most of the flyers your worry about but without forge world pretty much SoL against flyers.

The flyer the DA got is so weak and pathetic that GW tries to shove it in a formation and army boxes(like warriors in Tyranid formations). I do sympathize with the DA player he has one of the absolute worst codex's at the moment, DA termies are more expensive than other termies, the bikes are worse than White Scars bikes(no skilled rider on normal bikes), the worst flyer in the game, severe lack of AA options without Forge World.

A Mortis Dread and an Aegis Line with a Quad Gun can do miles to help their AA. Also, while expensive, Flakk Missiles on a Dev squad can help out.

Flakk missiles are both expensive and highly ineffective against the av 12 flyers with a full squad of 4 flakk missiles removing less than 1 hull point(0.889%) on average per turn. Quad Guns are slightly better with a 1.189%, Mortis dreads with autocannons are worse at 0.407%.

Against Flyrants, Flakk missiles do fine. They're pricey, but they can still do it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 TheAvengingKnee wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
<LONG>

I think he was referring to the standard mortis dreads a.k.a. a normal dreadnaught with 2 sets of guns and no melee weapon.

Well, that's not going to help at all, it's point-for-point worse than the options they already have.

I was referring to the FW variety.

Norka wrote:

To clarify, the one who is crying more about the flyer is the CSM player who is getting a Be'lakor in order to make it fair. The eldar brought a WraithKnight (cause I took Malanthrope), 1 serpent, 1 prism (or falcon I think) and 1 flyer (Cause I took flyrant). The T8 of the WraithKnight is hard to beat, to be honest.

For him there is no help, the CSM players are the biggest bunch of whiners in existence, they just got an IA book that gives them pretty much everything the standard marines get and that still isn't good enough for them.

For the Eldar, the neurothrope messes up wraithknights pretty bad, the rest of their stuff dies pretty easy to flyrants.

OP I didn't catch what type of missions your group usually plays? If you play score as you go missions (ITC/LVO rules, etc.) then your opponent's can very realistically compete without being required to kill your flyrant. Ignoring the flyers is a very good strategy.

Score at the end and kill points will both make ignoring a flyrant much more difficult. A FMC with such good ranged weapons who is also good in melee, is cheap, and can score is very hard to ignore when you are forced to deal with it for 5+ turns or kill it. Still though you can definitely play to objectives and ignore a single flyrant even in these missions.

However most players don't enjoy ignoring a model that kills their own models. People get attached to their toy soldiers and want some revenge.

The Eldar opponent is taking a crimson hunter and that seems to be working for them. They could also use warp spiders + guide and waveserpents to just overwhelm a single flyrant with sheer number of shots.

There are a few options to make it so your opponent's can interact meaningfully with your flyrant.

Custom make some AA fortifications which your opponent's can borrow before the match or you can incorporate into the terrain. I do this when I bring flyer heavy lists and let the opponent change their lists a bit to incorporate them or put down a few icarus lascannons in the middle of the board that the opponent can run onto.

Another option is your CSM and DA opponent's can get their anti flyrant options;
Your CSM opponent is almost right that Be'Lakor is one of their few options to effectively deal with a flyrant with the qualifier that they don't have the forgeworld imperial armour 13 book and proper model. Honestly though they are paying way more points for a model that your flyrant can kill in a single round of shooting. Psychic shriek on the other hand won't even average a single wound a turn on a Ld10 flyrant. Now if your opponent brings some of the forgeworld units to the mix they start having real options. Hell blade fighters are pretty good and fire raptors are incredible against flyrants.

Your Dark Angel opponent is the one who really has no reasonable options other than allies and forgeworld. Nothing in that codex or dataslates will stand up to a flyrant. The "best" option is black knights who will loose half the value of the flyrant in casualties from a single round of flyrant shooting. In return the best they can hope for is forcing the flyrant to jink and loose a wound. It is an option but is not exactly a pleasant experience for the DA player. With forgeworld (Imperial Armour 2 second edition) the DA player has a number of good to great options; mortis dreads, contemptor mortis dreads, fire raptor, storm eagle ROC, etc.

Flak Missiles are Terrible:
Str7 AP4 is a very bad way to deal with a flyrant when they cost 25 pts per shot on a fragile model. You could take them in every slot you can and still fail to kill a flyrant most of the time as the flyrant has no trouble killing power armour marines.

I really do agree flakk missiles are just terrible, there ap is junk, the strength is way to low, if they just came with missile launchers at no extra cost they would be ok but not when they over double the cost of the missile launcher they are never worth it.

I have a little saying that might help.

"Its not the screws fault you only brought a hammer." If your opponents don't bring the stuff to deal with yours its not your obligation to fix that problem. Don't bring knives to gun fights and all that.

Yes, Hive Tyrants are pretty strong. In a codex that has few other good options. Flyers can, in dynamic missions like Maelstrom, be safely ignored by playing the mission. They're also not difficult to deal with using skyfire options, of which there are plenty.

The Nephilim fighter does suck pretty badly, although a Flyrant is actually not a terrible thing for it to be attacking. It will just have trouble getting multiple turns of shooting at it because its more mobile.

There are lots of Fortifications with Skyfire that are available to everyone. And every codex has options to deal with it. It may require actually changing playstyles or buying new models, but this isn't a cheap hobby and people need to realize that.

Buy a second flyrant and see them complain about just one

Let them whine. Seriously, is their argument that you can't use units that are good?! An aegis or two could help. Every codex has access to good enough antiair and flyers have been around for a couple years. Tell them to visit this thread and make a case if you wish.

 TheAvengingKnee wrote:

Norka wrote:

To clarify, the one who is crying more about the flyer is the CSM player who is getting a Be'lakor in order to make it fair. The eldar brought a WraithKnight (cause I took Malanthrope), 1 serpent, 1 prism (or falcon I think) and 1 flyer (Cause I took flyrant). The T8 of the WraithKnight is hard to beat, to be honest.

For him there is no help, the CSM players are the biggest bunch of whiners in existence, they just got an IA book that gives them pretty much everything the standard marines get and that still isn't good enough for them.

For the Eldar, the neurothrope messes up wraithknights pretty bad, the rest of their stuff dies pretty easy to flyrants.

Just want to call you on this. WHO has claimed IA:13 isn't good enough? It's just I haven't seen a single CSM player complain about it unless it's turned out that they actually never had it and just got their information reading threads...

The DA player can:

Take fortifications (they not in the main BRB anymore, though).
Take allies - They're part of the IoM, so get a massive choice.
Ignore it.

Poly Ranger wrote:

 TheAvengingKnee wrote:

Norka wrote:

To clarify, the one who is crying more about the flyer is the CSM player who is getting a Be'lakor in order to make it fair. The eldar brought a WraithKnight (cause I took Malanthrope), 1 serpent, 1 prism (or falcon I think) and 1 flyer (Cause I took flyrant). The T8 of the WraithKnight is hard to beat, to be honest.

For him there is no help, the CSM players are the biggest bunch of whiners in existence, they just got an IA book that gives them pretty much everything the standard marines get and that still isn't good enough for them.

For the Eldar, the neurothrope messes up wraithknights pretty bad, the rest of their stuff dies pretty easy to flyrants.

Just want to call you on this. WHO has claimed IA:13 isn't good enough? It's just I haven't seen a single CSM player complain about it unless it's turned out that they actually never had it and just got their information reading threads...

More or less every chaos player that plays where FW is not accepted. The fact that their upgrades are now in a FW book give little hope that they may pop up later in a chaos space marine book, which makes the IA:13 bad for them.
Same with IG and their tempestus book. Having it means little to no chance for a formation or clan racoon style codex. Making it bad, no matter how bad or good it actualy is. And yes I know it is very bad.