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Yaho,

So thanks to Forgeworld it looks like the Vendetta is going to survive a bit longer and has quite possibly become the best flyer in the game. Here's why:

Firstly, the Wing leader traits are seriously good.
1. 'take vendettas, score free points' function with a bonus of a slightly screwy preferred enemy component.
2. Ignore non-portable cover, also shooting at buildings will be 17% more effective.
3. "bounce off the edge of the table" 50% chance

Secondly, it's an attack flyer which means bs 4 twin linked lascannons and a 3+ jink save against ground targets
Thirdly, It's a hover transport, which means ObSec
Fourthly, POTMS has been declared as working on jinking flyers, so techpriests can quite happily park themselves somewhere (or indeed ride along and jump out every so often to smack the cogitator) whilst the flyer is objective camping with a 3+ cover save and lascannon away for as long as it needs, before powering off to the next tactical objective.
Fifthly, they're second hand all over the place, which adds IWND and a 4+ invul if you can score 4 of them, which is not hard or *that* expensive.

Now i'm not going to turn around and say the DFTS stuff is now a must have since I personally benefit from it in quite a big way, but for where it applies I can see this shaking things up quite significantly, because with all the supplemental goodies, i'd almost say it's undercosted.

Any other insights?

Step 1: Tau.

There is no Step 2.

I think Vultures are going to be far more prolific in a Death from the Skies using meta.

They are very good for their forgeworld points and can take down almost any armoured target but they aren't so good at non vehicles. They can't take on horde armies effectively and are the whimpering prey of FMC with an invul/FnP.

Fifth, Vendetta Wings cap at 3 models, meaning you cannot form the 4 flyer wings.

 Happyjew wrote:
Fifth, Vendetta Wings cap at 3 models, meaning you cannot form the 4 flyer wings.

That's questionable; as written you can't actually take them as a flyer wing at all, but DFTS calls a flyer wing 1-4 models with the same datasheet.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Selym wrote:
Step 1: Tau.

There is no Step 2.

Would you care to elaborate? Last I checked tau skyfire was an upgrade that prevented other wargear options, and would cost more to match the 48" range the vendetta rocks as standard.

Tau also have Barracudas and other wonderful AA such as Sky Rays.

 Verviedi wrote:
Tau also have Barracudas and other wonderful AA such as Sky Rays.

Skyrays don't have access to Interceptor, though. So that relies on them surviving the initial attacks of the Vendettas.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
Tau also have Barracudas and other wonderful AA such as Sky Rays.

Skyrays don't have access to Interceptor, though. So that relies on them surviving the initial attacks of the Vendettas.

Touché.

And Vendetta's are suddenly amazingly good how? they are still pricey for what they do.

This is great...

For the two people who actually play DFTS. No one uses those rules

 master of ordinance wrote:
And Vendetta's are suddenly amazingly good how? they are still pricey for what they do.

So I take it you disagree with points 1-5?

3 Twin linked Lascannons within the attack pattern silliness is non-trivial, the free wing leader traits they've issued, and a vanished likelihood of the vendetta being discontinued combine to make it a considerable improvement, certainly on anything in the IG codex. I'd suggest over any non-eldar flier - possibly even then.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CrownAxe wrote:
This is great...

For the two people who actually play DFTS. No one uses those rules

I quite agree, though now at least IG players have something resembling a reason to do so.

 CrownAxe wrote:
This is great...

For the two people who actually play DFTS. No one uses those rules

I'm one, who's the other?

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
Tau also have Barracudas and other wonderful AA such as Sky Rays.

Skyrays don't have access to Interceptor, though. So that relies on them surviving the initial attacks of the Vendettas.

Interceptor + skyfire on a heavy burst cannon riptide.

Only takes 2 markerlights 6s and coordinated firepower to drop any flyer ever.

Barracuda will gut flyers

Also skyfire broadsides and crisis suits are an okay option.

Tau warlord trail that can give skyfire is pretty okay sometimes.

Tau have options when dealing with flyers.

The Vendetta/Valkyrie spam you mention won a massive ITC tournament and even stopped all the Deathstars in its tracks, but now all the big tournaments are looking into not allowing DFTS since its even more OP than space marine death stars.

 Gamgee wrote:
The Vendetta/Valkyrie spam you mention won a massive ITC tournament and even stopped all the Deathstars in its tracks, but now all the big tournaments are looking into not allowing DFTS since its even more OP than space marine death stars.

Which event was that?

 Jaxler wrote:

Interceptor + skyfire on a heavy burst cannon riptide.

Vendetta is A12-12-10 - by all means overcharge your non-optimal assault cannon option to give it gets hot, for an 8~% chance of a glancing hit.

 Jaxler wrote:

Only takes 2 markerlights 6s and coordinated firepower to drop any flyer ever.

Flyer formation granting ignores cover and a 3+ jink save or a 4++ - can the markerlight delivery systems stop all four individual units before they're wiped out, and do they have interceptor to do it when they arrive?

 Jaxler wrote:

Barracuda will gut flyers

Again, without interceptor?

 Jaxler wrote:

Also skyfire broadsides and crisis suits are an okay option.

But would you ever take them without having explicitely tailored anti-flyer?

 Jaxler wrote:

Tau warlord trail that can give skyfire is pretty okay sometimes.

This i'll concede easily, it's stung me before.

 Jaxler wrote:

Tau have options when dealing with flyers.

Sure they have all sorts of options, but from what i've read they're all with the opportunity cost of something more optimal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gamgee wrote:
The Vendetta/Valkyrie spam you mention won a massive ITC tournament and even stopped all the Deathstars in its tracks, but now all the big tournaments are looking into not allowing DFTS since its even more OP than space marine death stars.

I can easily believe this having a. seen it and b. to a limited extent done it. Vendettas have portable invisibility and three twin linked lascannons, and cannot be assualted unless the owning players wants them to be. To get the same with reliability you'd need to spend nearly 300 points on biker librarians, and then something to shoot back, or take Tiggie at the expense of mobility in which case the Vendettas become even more dangerous since they can insta-kill the lynchpin of the strategy with one lucky break turn.

Since one Vendetta with the twin linked is going to hit an invisible target once every turn statistically with s9 ap2, and now with direct and major rewards on taking them in multiples, armies would need to invest in a hard anti flyer counter of which few are guaranteed to the same level as the V-force damage output to counter the counter.

And of course that's not including the -2 to hostile reserves if you go second.

Transport and attack fliers still can't use full bs against one another, which dosen't make sense as 2 similarly performing aircraft should be able to do so. Sure not against super sonic aircraft but other slower ones for sure. T
I'll continue using the normal rules as even with this the vendetta is still nerfed from what it was.

Do they still only come in on turn 2 at best?

 koooaei wrote:
Do they still only come in on turn 2 at best?

Yes, though you can still take the Skyshield to have one on the table to start with. Combined with, say some grav mechanicus that could be quite viable, especially since on turn two the ally could then embark.

 CrownAxe wrote:
This is great...

For the two people who actually play DFTS. No one uses those rules

Not sure how many of them still want lascannons as well though.

Yes Tau need to pay something in order to deal with flyers, hell every army does. And yes it might not be as good as another unit in fighting ground troops, but here is the thing.

If you take a unit that can blow 3 of your enemy flyers outta the sky, yeah thats gonna ruin their day, AND more then make up their point cost. If a model can kill more points then they are worth, they were well worth taking.

And lastly, this whole argument is moot, because no one, and i mean NO ONE uses death from the skys. The only people that use it, are WAAC players, who specifically want to take it to abuse the flyer rules in there. Hell even our GW store owner recommends not to use it in the damn store unless you are playing the side game, or you both agree to use it.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Hell even our GW store owner recommends not to use it in the damn store unless you are playing the side game, or you both agree to use it.

I find this absolutely hilarious. Thank you for sharing.

I quite agree with the DFS disguising WAAC material behind silly subgames, and that's why I wanted to highlight it. IG actually has something that is relevant in that space, so if you're wanting to play WAAC v WAAC (which can be quite rewarding) then by all means buy yet another book to get the most out of the army, as it's almost always been for IG.

That being said, Escalation and Stronghold Assault were treated almost exactly the same way before 8th ed, so it's possible IG has something to look forward to in the power creep lottery.

malamis wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Hell even our GW store owner recommends not to use it in the damn store unless you are playing the side game, or you both agree to use it.

I find this absolutely hilarious. Thank you for sharing.

I quite agree with the DFS disguising WAAC material behind silly subgames, and that's why I wanted to highlight it. IG actually has something that is relevant in that space, so if you're wanting to play WAAC v WAAC (which can be quite rewarding) then by all means buy yet another book to get the most out of the army, as it's almost always been for IG.

That being said, Escalation and Stronghold Assault were treated almost exactly the same way before 8th ed, so it's possible IG has something to look forward to in the power creep lottery.

Oh yeah its great, every store owner i know fully admits that its a money grab item. Even though it specifically says there are the new rules, everyone laughs and ignores it.

Wait...when did an IG vendetta spam army win a major event? And who uses DFTS anyway?

While mildly interesting, and despite owning multiple Vendettas and Valkyries, a DFTS update for Vendettas isnt going to make IG majorly viable or make me want to run out and buy the book and start using it.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Wait...when did an IG vendetta spam army win a major event? And who uses DFTS anyway?

They were a part of the old "Leaf Blower" lists in 5th edition which won an 'Ard Boys and was fairly competitive at the time (I think it might have been Valkyries and not Vendettas), but that was obviously well before DFtS.

 kronk wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Wait...when did an IG vendetta spam army win a major event? And who uses DFTS anyway?

They were a part of the old "Leaf Blower" lists in 5th edition which won an 'Ard Boys and was fairly competitive at the time (I think it might have been Valkyries and not Vendettas), but that was obviously well before DFtS.

It was valkyries, not vendetas.

That was during that weird time when GW put out flyers with nothing to shoot them down aside from the agis defense line.

I should mention the tournament might not have been ITC. I think the ITC guys went to it though and it had similar rules. They also modified out the dogfight phase of the rules as well. And since no one expected the IG player to do this no one had any flyers or enough skyfirer to counter him. Next time they said everyone is going to be more prepared for air spam since this tournament will continue to use DTFS. With his build he was putting out enough firepower to blow away any army. Those he couldn't he out scored on capping and mobility. Overpowered doesn't even begin to describe it. I kind of feel great for the IG player to come up with this and have some glory, but you know everyone is going to ban that cheese book. Once the other top flyers start getting spammed it will be a nightmare. Ugh Corvus Blackstar spam would be disgustingly powerful. Same with Tau Barracuda.

It was on one of their recent episodes on youtube. Their signals from the frontline.

Edit
An all Barracuda 1750 list right now will put out 99 Str 7 ap4 shots at BS5 on ground targets and then start stacking on the DFTS formation buffs. Which leaves you with just enough to put something else on the table. In some ways they have more advantages than Riptides. Flyers are "out of meta" so most people don't bring a lot of skyfire or flyers. So any Tau list that brings these is putting out more firepower than a Riptide. They do lost the blast but more than make up for it in shots fired. I think it would be interesting to see a Tau list utilizing the Firestream Wing, Ta'unar, Drone Net, and Barracuda spam. In some workable form.

 Vaktathi wrote:
And who uses DFTS anyway?

My group does, at least the updated rules portion. As for dogfighting, we've yet to have two people play each other with both using Flyers. Furthermore, as an Eldar player (meaning I am pretty much guaranteed to win the Dogfight), I would let my opponent choose whether or not to do the dogfight.

 Gamgee wrote:
I should mention the tournament might not have been ITC. I think the ITC guys went to it though and it had similar rules. They also modified out the dogfight phase of the rules as well. And since no one expected the IG player to do this no one had any flyers or enough skyfirer to counter him. Next time they said everyone is going to be more prepared for air spam since this tournament will continue to use DTFS. With his build he was putting out enough firepower to blow away any army. Those he couldn't he out scored on capping and mobility. Overpowered doesn't even begin to describe it. I kind of feel great for the IG player to come up with this and have some glory, but you know everyone is going to ban that cheese book. Once the other top flyers start getting spammed it will be a nightmare. Ugh Corvus Blackstar spam would be disgustingly powerful. Same with Tau Barracuda.

It was on one of their recent episodes on youtube. Their signals from the frontline.

Edit
An all Barracuda 1750 list right now will put out 99 Str 7 ap4 shots at BS5 on ground targets and then start stacking on the DFTS formation buffs. Which leaves you with just enough to put something else on the table. In some ways they have more advantages than Riptides. Flyers are "out of meta" so most people don't bring a lot of skyfire or flyers. So any Tau list that brings these is putting out more firepower than a Riptide. They do lost the blast but more than make up for it in shots fired. I think it would be interesting to see a Tau list utilizing the Firestream Wing, Ta'unar, Drone Net, and Barracuda spam. In some workable form.

Thank you very much for the Ride of the Valkyries on repeat, Gamgee.