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Now that every army has Flyers or FMCs or both (either in Codex or through FW) and they are becoming relatively accepted, which do you think are the best and why? Which are really underrated?

As a Necron player, I've had good experiences with Night Scythes. Even after the points increase, they're relatively cheap and can drop off units across the board, which is great since we're not that mobile otherwise. However, they don't have the damage output of SM or Eldar flyers, or the specialist weapon of the Heldrake.

I feel like the AM flyers are pretty strong and relatively underappreciated. You see them show up quite a bit, but most Guard players don't use them in lieu of taking more tanks. Air Guard is pretty good imo.

Stormbrick is very effective but is costed accordingly.

Most pointless one is probably the hemlock for me

Tau Remoras are the best flyers in the game.

shrouded and stealth for a 2+ jink save and squadroned up

My vote goes to the Flyrant - the fact you can build an army around it goes to show how good it is.

 Frozocrone wrote:
My vote goes to the Flyrant - the fact you can build an army around it goes to show how good it is.

It's a fair point, the flyrant is bloody tough. The fact that it cannot be easily killed in one shot really helps. Pretty much every flying vehicle is liable to the one lucky shot kill still.

I've had good experiences with the current Doom Scythe. S10 Lance is nothing to sneeze at, and with Nemesor you can get 3-4 of them out of reserves easily.

I'm a fan of the Vendetta. 3 twin-linked lascannons makes for a solid anti-tank/anti-flyer unit. The fact that they can be taken in squadrons and still have a transport cap (albeit a small one) is just icing on the cake

Crimson Hunter is pure sex in the sky. Love the way it looks. It’s a massive front-loaded glass hammer, and a bit pricy. But I still love it. I know aesthetics are not the best metric to judge things, but the Eldar flyers (DE included) are the best things in the sky. IMHO, YMMV, etc.

I enjoy my Stormtalon. I think they are generally underrated. But they don’t cost a lot, have some nice guns, and get the job done. Scrappy little bird.

The Dark Angels fliers! Hahaha. Not really.

But in fairness, they aren't the best, but I do believe they are underrated. They can put some decent punishment on ground target, but lack anti air. The newest codex buffed them a bit. They used to be basically unusable, now they are at least decent.

I also find the nephelem jet fighter to be one of the best looking fliers. But that's just like my opinion man.

Heldrake, or daemon chicken as I call it, for CSM is pretty darn good. Yea i know they nerfd it down a bit, but they needed too lol. Bale flamer with torrent and soul blaze, ignores cover, strength 6 means wound on 2+, is pretty sweet for destroying infantry even space marines easily. Vector Strike means it can rip other flyers right out of the sky as it zips by AND still attacks a ground target. Plus Daemonic possession nullifies a good chunk of the vehicle damage table, the Daemon rule always gives it a 5+ invul save and It Will Not Die means it can possibly regenerate wounds. All this combined with a 12 armor. If bale flamers aren't your thing, roll with hades auto cannons and activate daemon forge to make sure the shots land, with pinning, although the flamer is a better weapon. Now, run two, or dare i say three, of them in a list and i've seen opponents crap themselves.

I'd say either the Elysians or the Tau have the best fliers, although the Necrons are a close follower - the Avenger Strike Fighter is almost perfect, the A-X-10 and Barracuda are some of the most points effective vehicles in the game and the Night Scythe is just cool.

Flyrants are the best. No other flyer literally makes a top tier tournament army by itself. It can engage any type of enemy from numerous and cheap to big and scary, and it can land to grab end game objectives or fight in melee. Also starting on the board t1 is super good.

Some flying daemon MC's come next. Then you get down to vehicles.

Space Marines. If you want a flying brick bristling with guns then you are spoiled for choice with Space Marines. From the Stormtalon all the way to the Thunderhawk Gunship.

My favorite is this beauty.

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-US/Fire-Raptor-Gunship

Tyranids win hands down. Not just with the Flyrant, but with the army styles for Flyer heavy armies. The Skyblight has four FMCs, all have their uses, all synergize well. It's a strong army. And as said above, Flyrants are the base for tournament lists.

If you include Apocalypse... Eldar.

 pwntallica wrote:
The Dark Angels fliers! Hahaha. Not really.

But in fairness, they aren't the best, but I do believe they are underrated. They can put some decent punishment on ground target, but lack anti air. The newest codex buffed them a bit. They used to be basically unusable, now they are at least decent.

I also find the nephelem jet fighter to be one of the best looking fliers. But that's just like my opinion man.

Exalted for truth. The Dark Talon is probably better, as its rift cannon has a chance to get a strength-D hit, potentially one-shotting a Wraithknight or something. Even without the D, it's like a flying Vindicator with less armor. Plus that stasis bomb that can do nasty things to enemy warlords (with a little luck...). It is probably one of the best flyers in the game right now.

No you are guys are all wrong. Its the Tau with the Manta. Superheavy flyer with scads of weapons plus it can transport your army.

Eldar Crimson Hunter.
4x S8 shots with the default load-out, and can turn 90 degrees before it moves too.
With precision shots, 4x S6 and 2x S8, the Exarch makes a pretty good sniper.
It's just a pity it is made of paper :(

Tho the hemlock can't shoot other flyers, i still think it's the best flyer currently, ML2, 2 d-sythes, can ignore shaken on a 2+ and stunned on a 4+, and can have a 2+ jink oh and your -2 to your moral, pinning and fear tests. All for 185pts, simply amazing

 Skinnereal wrote:
Eldar Crimson Hunter.
4x S8 shots with the default load-out, and can turn 90 degrees before it moves too.
With precision shots, 4x S6 and 2x S8, the Exarch makes a pretty good sniper.
It's just a pity it is made of paper :(

you mean after? any flyer can move 90 degrees before moving

 Vector Strike wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
Eldar Crimson Hunter.
4x S8 shots with the default load-out, and can turn 90 degrees before it moves too.
With precision shots, 4x S6 and 2x S8, the Exarch makes a pretty good sniper.
It's just a pity it is made of paper :(

you mean after? any flyer can move 90 degrees before moving

Vector Dancer means you can turn 90 before and after your move. It makes Eldar flyers extremely versatile since they don't have to fly off the board nearly as much and can almost always shoot something.

 Vector Strike wrote:
you mean after? any flyer can move 90 degrees before moving

Yeah, I forgot what was normal, and the CH has spoiled me

Requizen wrote:

Vector Dancer means you can turn 90 before and after your move. It makes Eldar flyers extremely versatile since they don't have to fly off the board nearly as much and can almost always shoot something.

I don’t think I’ve ever flown off the table. My marine flyers will just drop to hover and get more shots in, and the CH can just vector dance around.

Means you get a lot of time on target, and less loitering around in reserves.

 Nevelon wrote:

Requizen wrote:

Vector Dancer means you can turn 90 before and after your move. It makes Eldar flyers extremely versatile since they don't have to fly off the board nearly as much and can almost always shoot something.

I don’t think I’ve ever flown off the table. My marine flyers will just drop to hover and get more shots in, and the CH can just vector dance around.

Means you get a lot of time on target, and less loitering around in reserves.

Night Scythes don't get that luxury :\ I've had to fly off multiple times, or avoid it and put a Scythe in a bad position to keep it from being off the board when the game ends.

 War Kitten wrote:
I'm a fan of the Vendetta. 3 twin-linked lascannons makes for a solid anti-tank/anti-flyer unit. The fact that they can be taken in squadrons and still have a transport cap (albeit a small one) is just icing on the cake

You are paying 170 points for bs 4 3x twin linked las cannons might seem decent at first but there are some caveats.

#1 it cannot come in until turn 2, so the 170 points you're paying for wont become actualized until after the vendetta actually comes in (which might not even happen until after turn 2)

#2 Your chances of getting a hit are 75% with each shot. I'm now going to use a binomial probability formula.

(N NCR K) P^k (1-p) ^ n-k p = .75 n = 3 for number of trials K = desired result

I got 42 % chance for 2 hits. 42% chance for 3 hits. 14% chance for 1 hit. and 2% chance for no hits. So chances are that yes, you will hit, but it is more likely that you will not get 3 hits.

With those hits the enemy then has the ability to jink. With jink being 50%, chances are that you are probably only ever going to get 1 or 2 hits to go through. Then you need to roll to pen, which isn't that likely to fail, but it still introduces another dice roll. So actually downing an enemy aircraft in one turn is realistically very hard to do.

What this means is that your expensive flyer that came in on turn 2 is not going to destroy the enemy flyer. You are now faced with a decision to either continue shooting at the flyer (which will jink and continue to render both aircraft useless, but your flyer is more expensive so you are worse off), or ignore it and fire at ground targets which most likely have cover saves as well (this position also lets the enemy aircraft turn its guns on you leaving you now exposed.)

#3 The more shots you have lessens the effect that enemy saves have on your ability to kill enemies. With 3 shots 1 save is a big deal.

All in all take an avenger.

30k Crusade Army has the best and most diverse flyers. Fire Raptor is a monster. Lightnings loaded up are deadly as hell. Storm Eagles are excellent and carry 20 dudes. That new fighter that looks like a Viper looks pretty awesome although I haven't used it. Then you have the Caestus Ram, can carry ten guys and can flipping ram things with a bonus to damage and it has an in built 5++ save. The other cool part is you can run all flyer lists with Storm Eagle dedicated transports and all the other air ships flying in support from various FA and HS slots.

Requizen wrote:

As a Necron player, I've had good experiences with Night Scythes. Even after the points increase, they're relatively cheap and can drop off units across the board, which is great since we're not that mobile otherwise. However, they don't have the damage output of SM or Eldar flyers, or the specialist weapon of the Heldrake.

They also only cost 130 compared to 200+ for a Stormraven. Stormravens also have limitations as far as what it can carry (as in it has to hover, which is scurry. Can't carry as much, ext). Night Scythes also don't have to worry as much about jinking. If they die, the dudes are safe, and if they take a pen, 1-4 they ignore anyway.

Eldar Flyers are either expensive or fragile, or both. Hemlock can't shoot flyers, and if it jinks, its worthless. It is a psyker, but meh. The Crimson hunter is slightly cheaper, though more expensive than the Night Scythe. It's also still only AV10 with no transport capacity.

Heldrake is good. But again, more expensive, no transport, has weak rear armor. So comparatively speaking, my vote is for Night Scythes being the best, if not among the best, Flyers in the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Flyrants are the base for tyranid lists.

Fixed that for ya.

Fire raptor, xyphon, dark talon, these are the best flyers to me, the ceastus assault ram.gets an honourable mention for lols

 krodarklorr wrote:

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Flyrants are the base for tyranid lists.

Fixed that for ya.

Ain't that the friggin truth.

Requizen wrote:

 Vector Strike wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
Eldar Crimson Hunter.
4x S8 shots with the default load-out, and can turn 90 degrees before it moves too.
With precision shots, 4x S6 and 2x S8, the Exarch makes a pretty good sniper.
It's just a pity it is made of paper :(

you mean after? any flyer can move 90 degrees before moving

Vector Dancer means you can turn 90 before and after your move. It makes Eldar flyers extremely versatile since they don't have to fly off the board nearly as much and can almost always shoot something.

Yeah and for no reason Dark Eldar flyers only get it in the fluff and not the game Thats the problem with 7 rather than 7.5 Codexes