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Hi all,

I'm theorycrafting my next army (Blackshields), and was wondering how other people viewed Anti-Air, and whether or not it is important to always include a way to deal with flyers.

My new 2500 pts list will be a melee focused army dropping in via Dreadclaws. I currently only have a Contemptor-Mortis with 2xTwin-Autocannons, due to points constraints, as my source of AA.

Would this be enough to handle most lists at events? Should I bother at all?

Would gladly like to hear your thoughts.

Cheers.

Do the people you regularly play with use flyers? If your concern is at some narrative (or other) event then yes, bring along at least 1 mortis (or equivalent) since someone will likely bring a flyer.

In my experience, as long as you have something to deal with aircraft, then you should be good against most lists. That something can be a Sicaran, a Deredeo, a Mortis-Contemptor or something in that sphere.

Most aircraft are fairly vulnerable if you can hit them, and if you don't destroy them, you can always keep them jinking.

Frankly, any 'more' skyfire than that and I find it takes some of the fun out of the game. There are some aircraft that are a little anti-fun in my opinion (namely the Lightning) as they tend to be one use alpha strike tools that either destroy something huge or immediately get intercepted/shot down, but the vast majority are cool additions to the battlefield that frankly I'd rather survived for a turn or two.

One autocannon Contemptor-Mortis should be enough for most games; it won't be enough if your opponent has a lot of aircraft but it's enough to ward off lighter planes, and if you're playing a drop pod list not a lot of your stuff is immensely vulnerable to airplanes anyway, since most Heresy planes are set up around killing vehicles.

Flyers in general are AV12, so anything that can glance/pen that level you should be fine. Forcing your opponent to jink with a flyer greatly reduces their effectiveness. Threatening an area of the board with anti-air will make your opponent rethink how they deploy the flyer.

Unless you know you are facing an "air wing", having a single model/unit for anti-flyer duty is often enough.

Better to have it and not need it, then to need it and not have it.

-Franz Kafka

 AnomanderRake wrote:
One autocannon Contemptor-Mortis should be enough for most games; it won't be enough if your opponent has a lot of aircraft but it's enough to ward off lighter planes, and if you're playing a drop pod list not a lot of your stuff is immensely vulnerable to airplanes anyway, since most Heresy planes are set up around killing vehicles.

Agreed. Drop pods and claws aren't a big threat. Stormbirds, Fireraptors, Lightnings and even Jetbikes. If your meta is like that. You need more than just 1 dread. It its just flying transports, don't stress too much.