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I know this question may seem like a very vague one, so please feel free to ask for more detail about what I already have if it'd help. I'm curious from your past experience... is it worth it to just run one flyer (in my case the Nephilim Jetfighter) or one tank (Predator/Whirlwind/Vindicator) in an army? Does that give you any real advantage? Or is it better to put the money toward bolstering another unit/formation/detachment?

Thanks in advance

SG

I can see just one flyer being ran as a distraction, what with them being harder to hit by most units and all... get them to concentrate their firepower there so the rest of your units can get in to place but... well, if I'm not mistaken, these days the firepower ante's been upped so much that it's probably going to die in turn one or two.

Well the problem with having only one armour target is then it's obviously the target of all the enemy anti armour weapons. The flyer could probably get away with it easier than the predator.

Out of those I think a solo vindicator would suffer the most because of its short range.

Depends on the points size of the game. A single flyer in a 1K point game can survive for a while or at least draw a lot of fire while a single flyer in a 2k point game might not live very long. A lot of flyers are designed to show up to unload a volley of fire, jink to soak as much fire as possible, and go down in a fireball of glory.

Out of the vehicles you listed I think the Whirlwind is the most useful of the lot. Also Whirlwinds can hide behind a building and fire their barrage weapons over LoS blocking and cut down hordes of light/medium infantry. My understanding is that Predators aren't all that great while Vindicators are powerful but generally target #1 for any anti vehicle shooting. Not to say it won't be worth using but you just have to be smart about using it.

I would say it's generally a bad idea to take just one of any unit category. Make target prioritization difficult for your opponent.

There should always be redundancy in your list esp with AV models, however taking 1 flyer isn't such a bad thing, a lot of flyers are very good tbh.

No one would say you shouldn't take just one flyrant for example

You can always use just one tank as a distraction. Nothing screams shoot me like the giant flashing neon sign of one vindicator. While it might seem silly or needlessly expensive, lascannons are likely not popping my rhinos when there's still a vindicator front and centre.

My footdar army has a single nightspinner (and sometimes some war walkers) in it. It can get away with it because the barrage rules let it hide out far away from most enemy fire, and a lot of my opponent's longer-ranged weapons would rather be shooting my wraith lord anyway.

Flyers are weird. Taking just one against an opponent who built his list in flyers in mind is an expensive way to get one turn of shooting off with your plane before it dies. Against an opponent with no anti-air, the odds aren't terrible that he won't even bother trying to shoot at the flyer, especially if it's something with AV 12 or better. Against things like crimson hunters or voidravens, even small arms like bolters can hurt them, so you'll probably see a lot of potshots coming your way when your opponent has nothing better to shoot at.

In other words, it just depends on the specific army. But generally you either want to have flyer/tank redundancy to make it hard for your opponent to figure out what to send at what, or else you want to eschew certain unit types altogether. Going sans vehicles makes haywire blaster scourges, swooping hawks, and haywire cannon harlequins very unhappy. Putting everything in a vehicle makes poison spam very unhappy.

I don't think it is ever a good idea to run just one tank. Flyers can get away with it better since they tend to be harder to hit due to Skyfire and Jink.

As others have stated in this thread, one tank is just a fire magnet, begging your opponent to use all his/her anti-armor on it. One flyer will live longer in most instances and might even be ignored if your opponent has no suitable AA available and you present better targets.

A single flier can pull a lot of fire away from other stuff.
If it lasts long enough, it'll have done its job of making the rest of your army last longer.

Tanks don't do that well, unless they're AV13+.

If you don't have any vehicles or fliers, that might invalidate a lot of the enemy's options. Haywire cannot hurt foot units. AA is bad against ground targets.
But, a melta can roast anything in range, so kiting an AV units around with a single tank might do well anyway.

A single flyer is fine at most modest point values. You have at least a turn to try to silence any dedicated AA on the table.

A single tank is not the best plan. All the bored AV units opposing you are going to have one thing on their mind: killing it. Are you using rhinos? Because you should be counting them with your tanks.

I agree with everything said here, a single flyer does well, you can hide a Whirlwind out of LoS or use a Vindicator as a fire magnet.

One tank? No, unless you're playing a very small game (750p or less). One flyer is ok up to 1000p; more than that, the other side iwll be able to dispatch it pretty easily

 Vector Strike wrote:
One tank? No, unless you're playing a very small game (750p or less). One flyer is ok up to 1000p; more than that, the other side iwll be able to dispatch it pretty easily

At that many points I take three.

It really does depend the list, the tank in question and the situation.

Clova comes to mind, a list that I built when testing out the viability of Void Shield Networks before they where made even more powerful. A lone tank was the least of the Opponents worries, particularly as Longstriker is only capable of a single Strength 10 shot, as they needed to peal the onion created by the Void Shields before they can damage anything. Even when the shields dropped, or they managed to get underneath, the tank was still not worth wasting too many Shots against. Those shields protected a Tau gun-line which included such Units as a Markerlight Drone team with a control enabled Commander, an unfair number of Sniper Drones backed by an Ethereal and my favourite Unit of all... a Broadside team capable of sniping individuals, such as the warlord, from the other side of the map.

So the real question to ask yourself is thus:
Will this lone tank have to... pun intended... tank the majority of the incoming fire?
Not much can survive a coordinated attack by an entire Army, even for a single Turn.

If something is good, take two of them. If something is great, take three of them.