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I keep staring at the Dark Angels aircraft (and I don't play Space Marines)... and wanting to build an airwing... or at least an all flyers Ravenwing.

I really like the 40k plane esthetic (and am one of the 263 people worldwide who gets excited everytime they redo Aeronautica Imperialis)...

But before I buy some aircraft for 40k, what are the odds that these toys will be usable in the next edition?

100%
They are minis GW sells, so they will make rules for them.

If nothing else they will have Legends rules. At some point I'm sure GW will feel like taking another crack at the idea, though I feel like 11th is going to focus more on reinventing Mounted or Psychic over Aircraft.

I've made two aircrafts, the Vaykire and Hemlock.

They are fun to play but the standard table is quite small.

My biggest issue with them is moving them and placing them but that goes for all airborne models.

I noticed the Dark Angels plane has hover mode, so it's essentially a big skimmer.

When was the last flyer made? I could see them sunsetting flyers with a move to legends for an edition or two.

Anything that hovers should be fine rules wise. They are just big fast skimmers. It’s the supersonic jets that have rules issues.

 Nevelon wrote:
When was the last flyer made? I could see them sunsetting flyers with a move to legends for an edition or two.

Anything that hovers should be fine rules wise. They are just big fast skimmers. It’s the supersonic jets that have rules issues.

Admech got it's flyer in early 9th, I think. Around the same time they got the ponies and birdmen of catrazza. The fliers are sneaky old, with the first big wave back in 5th (valkyrie, necron fliers, hemlock/crimson hunter, stormraven, drukhari fliers) and most of the rest in 6th/7th (heldrake, marine birds, wolf thing, tau fliers, orks, nids, DA plane, and corvus).

Custodes, sisters, knights/chaos knights, demons, GSC, and votann don't have one. all of these aside from demons (more likely to not be in 11th than aircraft) are relatively new armies who have all gotten multiple waves. (Yes, sisters weren't actually new, but it was the biggest range refresh GW has ever done at once). Reading the tea leaves, it does look like GW has cooled on making fliers.

Rules-wise, they are a mess, and have always been a mess. It's very hard to make fliers good but not broken, and I think GW has just decided to stop trying. They still make rules and points and sell the kits, and if you want to run them, you can, but they're intentionally weak/overcosted to prevent them from being a negative play experience for your opponent.

GW is slowly walking back the decisions of 6th edition, which added aircraft, fortifications, and super heavies to the basic core game, to mixed results. And GW still makes (and has rules) for several fortifications, including the tau tidewall, and the AM aegis defence line which came out int he last days of 9th.

Custodes have 2 aircraft (from IA, where most of their army comes from these days).

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Custodes have 2 aircraft (from IA, where most of their army comes from these days).

That's true, and they're really the only army left with a substantial IA roster. I'm guessing it's mostly an artifact of custodes being a 30k army ported into 40k. Given what's happened with all the other 30k stuff, I'd be surprised if the custodes IA survive.

 Polonius wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Custodes have 2 aircraft (from IA, where most of their army comes from these days).

That's true, and they're really the only army left with a substantial IA roster. I'm guessing it's mostly an artifact of custodes being a 30k army ported into 40k. Given what's happened with all the other 30k stuff, I'd be surprised if the custodes IA survive.

I see the dreadnoughts and Caladius Grav-tank surviving as that's all people ever use. I've never see a Pallas Grav-Attack ever used, or the Sisters of Silence transport.

All the other resin stuff - including the resin aircraft (of every faction) dissapearing.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:


But before I buy some aircraft for 40k, what are the odds that these toys will be usable in the next edition?

Odds are high - wether Codex or as Legends.
Probably higher to remain Codex if the model has Hover mode, but obviously not guaranteed - see the SW flying rectangles for an example....
(I have to imagine those two ugly ass things went Legends simply due to low sales #s - in all the years they've been available I've only met ONE player who had one. And he bought it used, so....)


But play your games in the here & now.
If you want a Ravenwing airforce? Do it asap, buy it as cheap as possible (preferably already built & painted to an acceptable standard), & play with it often.
If you can afford to do it by Thanksgiving? Then they absolute worst that'll happen is you get 7 months of play out of it. On average, how many games would that be for you?

14 games?

I play more WarCry than 40k these days.

Maybe it's not worth it...

The thing with painted models is that they don't just disappear. There will be legends, or fanmade rules, or a counts as, or some way to use them if you want. I have two vultures which got booted to legends and have terrible rules while being overcosted, but if I played a big enough apocalypse game I'd want to get them on the tabletop. Under an absolute worst case scenario I just use them as another flyer.

 Polonius wrote:
The thing with painted models is that they don't just disappear. There will be legends, or fanmade rules, or a counts as, or some way to use them if you want. I have two vultures which got booted to legends and have terrible rules while being overcosted, but if I played a big enough apocalypse game I'd want to get them on the tabletop. Under an absolute worst case scenario I just use them as another flyer.

Your Vultures aren't working? Do you have the missiles/rocket pods on them per chance?
Mine, with 2 Gatling cannon & the HB, is doing fantastic in our current Crusade. It got added to the roster about 1/2 way through, so all it has two upgrades (wich took a few weeks to get) - AP1 on each of it's gatling cannon. But it was doing well before the upgrades. It LOVES picking on infantry. To date it has 17 kills (mostly infantry), 2nd highest count in my roster.

I love them and keep building Imperial Dakka Jets even if I may never use them. I may never use anything so it's all good.

But I note the Marauder Bomber is OOP and the Thunderbolt fighter has disappeared from rules, even though the model is still in production.

FWIW the new Horus Heresy set included a gigantic anti-aircraft battery.

So who can say.

Considering how the space wolves flier simply ceased to exist despite being a fairly recent plastic kit, there is a very real chance of GW just giving up on fliers and axing them all.

If you make a purchase you absolutely need to keep that in mind.

The last time fliers had healthy rules across the board was in 5th... when there was no difference between a wave serpent, storm speeder, dakka jet or doomscythe.
They should just make everything hover and be done with it. Writing simulationary aircraft rules for models that still take up space on the ground and are completely out of scale for 40ks battlefield sizes is a fool's errant.

 Jidmah wrote:
Considering how the space wolves flier simply ceased to exist despite being a fairly recent plastic kit, there is a very real chance of GW just giving up on fliers and axing them all.

They disappeared for a few weeks right when the Codex dropped. But they're back in Legends as of that last faction pack format update.

Most of them are 14/11 years old.

We will have flyers for the next 2 editions at least.

Maybe they will go into Legends, but i doubt the rules team has the authority to basically put those kits into the not-selling-well hole by writing them out of competition.

ccs wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
If you make a purchase you absolutely need to keep that in mind.

That's just the general warning label that should be applied to any GW purchase.

There is a difference between recognizing GW's reoccurring capitalism driven patterns and and bs paranoia.

I honestly think flyers should be part of a honest go of GW doing another large game mode.
Not a full stupid like put down 20k points a side, but rules for like 3000-6000 points.
With things like flyers being a big cost points, but being very potent, so the bigger points actually encourages use of these units that really struggle to find a place in a standard game.

Marine aircraft might be some of the least likely to remain in circulation, since they all have Firstborn pilots...

I'd be very sad to see aircraft go, despite how hard it is to balance them. I really like the models.

 LunarSol wrote:
If nothing else they will have Legends rules.

People don't buy models for Legends units.

 Apple fox wrote:
I honestly think flyers should be part of a honest go of GW doing another large game mode.
Not a full stupid like put down 20k points a side, but rules for like 3000-6000 points.
With things like flyers being a big cost points, but being very potent, so the bigger points actually encourages use of these units that really struggle to find a place in a standard game.

Is there an Apocalypse equivalent nowadays, or are the rules still valid? I played it just once during 40k's 9th Edition at a demo game at my GW store and I quite liked the concept, with less granularity in order to keep things going. Unfortunately, it never took off among the people I play with. The need for extra Stuff (like tokens and so on) was definitely a barrier to entry.

.

Much as I’m not one who believes fliers suit 40K scale (and barely fit Epic scale)? I don’t want to see people have to relegated long since built and painted models to the Dusty Shelf.

So I’d hope so. I just won’t buy or field any, like a responsible person.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Much as I’m not one who believes fliers suit 40K scale (and barely fit Epic scale)? I don’t want to see people have to relegated long since built and painted models to the Dusty Shelf.

So I’d hope so. I just won’t buy or field any, like a responsible person.

Re...spons...ib...le?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Much as I’m not one who believes fliers suit 40K scale (and barely fit Epic scale)? I don’t want to see people have to relegated long since built and painted models to the Dusty Shelf.

So I’d hope so. I just won’t buy or field any, like a responsible person.

Yeah. Given that the genie has already been let out of the bottle by selling flyers to people in the first place, I kind of think 10th's approach is a weirdly decent one. Let people field the models if they want; just give them bad rules so that you never have to worry about balancing them in a more competitive environment. It lets people who value fluff over balance use them in casual games, but it also means that flyers are usually kind of a non-concern for most players.

Sticking them all in Legends would have a similar effect.

Flyers were a mistake. And as cool as the models are, they've just never really fit 40k.

at least most flyers looks good as terrain

 kabaakaba wrote:
at least most flyers looks good as terrain

4th edition says hello.

Crashed fliers are also a classic scenario objective.

They made the crashed Valkyrie Forgeworld models so your Elysians could play Blackhawk Down scenarios (if you were rich).