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People mostly don't like that most flyers not in hover mode have to start the game in reserve & then enter the board the same as Strategic Reserves.
So on the 2nd turn when the aircraft enters play it can't actually move anywhere.

Others will tell you that they're too expensive, too weak, etc etc etc.

Some people also don't understand how to use them once they're in play.

 Quixote wrote:
I think of Valkyries as closer to Helicopters than Jets...

(I kinda wish there was a Guard chopper.)

But I get the gist of what you are saying. In large apocalypse style games, jets could work. They just don't fit onto the smaller tables.

I've found they tend to work out pretty poorly in the local shops Apocalypse games.
But that might be how we run those games.... The tables are typically set up to be 8'wide x 24'/30' long. Usually 12+ players, each with about 2500pts.
What with all the units & terrain It gets hard to place that big flying base + there's a helluva lot of enemy fire within range almost anywhere it stops moving. So unless you're just using some pass over bomb effect, your flyers likely not getting another turn....

Though if I had the Marauder Bombers to do it? I would field 3 of them in our upcoming APoc & just do turn 3/turn 5 strategic bombing runs.

 Dysartes wrote:
I don't have my book to hand to check - does 10th have the hard limit on how many [FLYER] units you can field, or was that 9th?

Core Rules, other than the Rule of 3, no .
BUT the Leviathan & Pariah packs limit the total # of units you can place in Reserve + Strat Reserve to A) no more than 1/2 your total units, B) no more than 1/2 your total pts.
Non-hovering Aircraft have to start in Reserve, so.... Yeah, there's a limit. & you reach it pretty quick.

It'd cost me 1035pts to have Marauder Bombers x3 + 3 units. Marauder Destroyers x3 would be 1125pts + 3 units.
I could, in theory, do 3 Marauders in our coming APoc game.
The down side is that I don't own any Marauders. :(

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

BanjoJohn wrote:
me personally? I felt like they changed the game when they were introduced, and I feel like the game is better without them.

They were introduced in 4th or 5th?

I believe, at the time of introduction, they were basically just skimmers. Not proper aircraft.

Flyers were absolutely NOT "just skimmers".
The flyer rules were introduced in one of the early FW books.
They entered play on your opponents turn (end of their Movement iirc), moved in a straight line to whatever point you intended to shoot from, the opponent then got a chance to shoot at them (restrictions applied), then if they survived they shot, & either landed (for ex: a drop pod or a transport) or continued flying off the board. Flyers that left the board could return in future turns.
There's more details, but that's the gist of it.

When they were introduced into the Codexs in 6th(?), that's when we got the stupid crap that forms the basis of todays rules.
The FW rules were much better at depicting aircraft strafing/bombing the battlefield.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Couldn't there be a rule that will allow units to ignore the base for movement purposes, much like Titanic units ignore non-Titanic unit's bases?

There is. It's on P.54 of the Core Rules.

 Quixote wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Couldn't there be a rule that will allow units to ignore the base for movement purposes, much like Titanic units ignore non-Titanic unit's bases?

The issue is it still takes up space and a lot of the bases are simply larger than a lot of units can even move through. Assuming we're talking the shorter width of the base at 92 mm (about 3.6 inches) a 40 mm based model (1.6ish inches) needs to move more than 5 inches to cross a flyer base meaning it nearly needs to start its activation base to base to make it. If a flyer parks itself just a bit away, the unit is blocked from moving. If the unit has any members in a second row or anything like that, they're blocked in and have to walk around. That's what role these things end up serving and what GW can't figure out a solution for.

What if you could ignore the base all together, and allow models to end their turn on the base?

Ehhh... on second thought you would need to leave the base bare, and plus some people don't enjoy their opponents putting their models on their own.

Exactly. You will certainly not be putting your model on top of mine.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Quixote wrote:
My thought of the day:

What if Flyers that are NOT in HOVER simply place a small token of where they are and remove the model until the next turn.

The difficulty there is convincing people to pay hard earned cash for a model that spends most of its time on the shelf *even when you're using it*.

This was a major flaw with the FW rules.
You could easily play most things with the flyer rules without owning a model. Not such a great result if your GW & your business is centered on selling models....

 Quixote wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Quixote wrote:
My thought of the day:

What if Flyers that are NOT in HOVER simply place a small token of where they are and remove the model until the next turn.

The difficulty there is convincing people to pay hard earned cash for a model that spends most of its time on the shelf *even when you're using it*.

This was a major flaw with the FW rules.
You could easily play most things with the flyer rules without owning a model. Not such a great result if your GW & your business is centered on selling models....

CMIAW But didn't Flames of War suffer from the same problem?

It still does.
With the exceptions of helicopters in the Team Yankee version you don't need to spend a dime on aircraft models. (That dime could be used as the aircraft token)

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Breton wrote:

 Quixote wrote:
I really love some of the Imperial Guard aircraft like the Valkyrie and the Avenger (and I've always wanted to get an Avenger and paint her up like an A-10 Warthog).

More to the point-I'm building a Scion heavy force and am planning on buying some Valkyries to cart my Scions around in, but everything I see online says to avoid Flyers like the proverbial plague.

What am I missing? The Valkyries seem like they would be just fine hovering around like land speeders...

Because Flyers usually aren't very good. And when Flyers are good, they're usually too good. They're relatively new, and while the concept for their use isn't bad, GW has not done well balancing them.

I disagree. I think the concept is the bad part. If it were just a matter of the flyer rules working well but the points being a bit too high or low, then that would just be a Munitorum update fix. I think the problems and weirdness that we get with flyers ultimately stem from them just not being a good fit for a game of 40k's scale. Or at least, the jet planes aren't. "Helicoptors" are fine. Eldar grav tanks are capable of full on flight and usually don't get the same level of ire. (Except when GW makes them OP.)

and yet we don't have all these supposed problems while playing HH.
I don't know about you, but we play HH on the exact same tables, with the exact same mats, with same sized models (some times the exact same models!)....