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I have a tournament Tommorow. I am an eldar player and slightly worried about running into a stupid flyer list. But when I think about it.... My mobility will win me the fight. If I see they will be trying to have 3-6 flyers come in turn 2, I'll just turbo boost/ go all out with my entire army to their side of the board. Then why they come in they will basicly overshoot me and everything they shoot at anyway will have a 4+ cover save. Fortuned items will have a rerollable 4+.

So if I go first, I move forward and blast away. They go, and don't have much to shoot with since a ton of points are invested in flyers. Then on my turn two I get everyone to their table edge and their turn two they overshoot with every flyer. My turn 3 I blast at all ground troops. Their turn 3 is spent trying to survive with their groud troops and trying to turn their flyers around or zooming them off the board. I you have the mobility to get to their table edge, am I not correct in thinking that a zooming flyer can do nothing to you unless they manage to
Turn all the way around?

Remember they can come on from any point on their edge at any angle.

If they want to shoot something in their deployment zone they can usually do so.

One thing i would like to point out.
Lots of people who have responded to this have done so by posting specific lists that would work. The problem being, not everyone has the models on hand or the money to buy them so that they can feild that specific list. This same issue arises when people post an army in the army list section and you get responses like "you should take this and this". What if you dont have this and this. wouldnt tactical advice be better than advocating that the player goes out and spend hundreads of dollars to buy models so they can beat the afformentioned list be more effective advice. Otherwise, does not 40k only amount to who can afford to buy the right model to win. Just saying.

a lot of it will be balanced once the new codexs are out. IE some of the units that use ML will be able to use flakk missiles

with good tactics there are ways to kill you for sure. i say run all 6 and then come talk to us.

sennacherib wrote:Lots of people who have responded to this have done so by posting specific lists that would work. The problem being, not everyone has the models on hand or the money to buy them so that they can feild that specific list. This same issue arises when people post an army in the army list section and you get responses like "you should take this and this". What if you dont have this and this.

Well, as I said...

Ailaros wrote: Fliers really are only good against a couple of things. If you're really having such problems against them, then don't take those few things fliers are explicitly good against.

It doesn't cost you a dime to not field something.

Iur_tae_mont wrote:Mass TL Autocannons( and Autocannon equivs) glancing seem to be the best way to deal with Flyers.

Mass TL lascannons( and Lascannon equivs. Broadsides ftw) Penning, while riskier due to fewer shots, could work as well.

Any list that had long distance solutions to Tanks in 5th should be ok for Flyers in 6th.

An what do you think dies first? I am talking Ravens here not Vendettas, PoMS allowes you to fire one weapon at a seperate target, an please remember that all of the Raven's weapons are TL.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

White Ninja wrote:I take your 6 flyer list and raise you 12 hydra flak tanks. It costs me the same but gives me more targets then you can easily take out. And since all of your flyer are coming in piece meal and my flak tanks are in 6 different squads very few of your planes will survive more then one turn in contact with me. Add lots of terrain to protect my stuff and that's more or less game over.

Would you really take 12 hydra flak tanks in a tournament?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lokas wrote:Flyer-based armies are hilariously easy to ignore.

My game yesterday was incredibly amusing for me, because I spent the majority of it with my tiny little Venoms using ruins to block line of sight, my Reavers turbo-boosting for their 3+ cover and my Ravagers picking their noses while my opponent tried uselessly to maneuver his stormravens into a good firing position. Any time he got even close, I just flat-outed into his rear arc so he couldn't fire on me next turn. The only shots he got were when he deep-striked, and trying to deep-strike every other turn resulted in some nasty scatters and caused him to lose a whole third of his army thanks to a 1 on the mishap table.

The only army that can flier spam to a frightening level is Necrons, and that's only because Tesla are good for killing troops and infantry. If my opponent tries to spam vendettas, kay. He'll kill the crap out of the skimmers he can get shots at. My troops claim the objectives. If he tries to spam stormravens? Kay. Same story. The skimmers he manages to shoot at die, the troops claim objectives.

I haven't run into DE flier spam yet, but dear god that's a horrible idea.

In other words, if my opponent spams fliers, I'm going to smiiile, because that's going to be a very frustrating game for him and it's going to be hilarious for me. I'm going to download benny hill music to my phone just for situations such as this.

Ummm why were they deepstriking Storm Ravens? An if you did that with your skimmer, I would unload my troop of choice, (Purifiers with Incinerators) to negate your cover save an cook you.

sennacherib wrote:One thing i would like to point out.
Lots of people who have responded to this have done so by posting specific lists that would work. The problem being, not everyone has the models on hand or the money to buy them so that they can feild that specific list. This same issue arises when people post an army in the army list section and you get responses like "you should take this and this". What if you dont have this and this. wouldnt tactical advice be better than advocating that the player goes out and spend hundreads of dollars to buy models so they can beat the afformentioned list be more effective advice. Otherwise, does not 40k only amount to who can afford to buy the right model to win. Just saying.

Wraithlords are OP, I can't hurt them with my bog-standard Black Templars without wargear! Arguing that something's OP because you don't have the right weapons or units to counter them when they're available to everyone doesn't work, the game isn't balanced around whether someone can afford something IRL or not.

punkow wrote:I think that OP's concerns are legitimate but I do not agree with him... Flyers are very powerful, without dubt but they have an essential limit: They aren't too much useful at taking objectives... So a Flyer spam list risks to run short of bodies to get these damn objectives... For example 3 Stormravens are 600/615 points without any upgrade... Considering that there aren't cheap units that you can ride in them, you soon end with a 1500 points army composed exclusively by these 3 flyers and the transported troops. all the enemy has to do is to wipe out the transported units then your flyers are useless...

For this reason I prefer a single storm-raven, and a single flyer can absorb a lot of fire but it can be taken down by almost every army...

You always have to consider the objective based missions before stating and how the supposedly Broken unit relates to them... For example, my Draigo unit in this edition is nigh unstoppable... Those pallies can tke down almost everything (wraithlords, Daemon princes, hordes, walkers, even TH/SS Termies, given the absurd fire power they can dish before an assualt) and will survive to almost everything... But I keep losing games... because this uber unit, even if it's very funny, is pretty much useless in Objectives missions... The same applies to flyers...

Do you honestly think I would take 3 Storm Ravens at 1500pts? My point total of choice for game is 1999+1. If I wanted three fliers in a list I would run Imp guard as primary, 1 command squad, 2 melta vet squads, 3 independant Vendettas and then prolly Wolf or Grey Knight allies to get a hammer CC unit.

sennacherib wrote: does not 40k only amount to who can afford to buy the right model to win. Just saying.

You have hit upon the dirty little secret of competitive 40k. I have played since 3rd edition and this has always been the case.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

sennacherib wrote:One thing i would like to point out.
Lots of people who have responded to this have done so by posting specific lists that would work. The problem being, not everyone has the models on hand or the money to buy them so that they can feild that specific list. This same issue arises when people post an army in the army list section and you get responses like "you should take this and this". What if you dont have this and this. wouldnt tactical advice be better than advocating that the player goes out and spend hundreads of dollars to buy models so they can beat the afformentioned list be more effective advice. Otherwise, does not 40k only amount to who can afford to buy the right model to win. Just saying.

Wraithlords are OP, I can't hurt them with my bog-standard Black Templars without wargear! Arguing that something's OP because you don't have the right weapons or units to counter them when they're available to everyone doesn't work, the game isn't balanced around whether someone can afford something IRL or not.

Depending on the situation of course it does why wouldn't it. You could move to a new town with 10k points loads of flyers and other uber units, but those people only have maybe a few thousand points and not a lot of disposable income you could go in a wipe the floor with them an they should just take it, because its not your fault they can't spend whatever they want on 40k.

Would flyers break the game for them then? I corrected my OP in the World Series of Warhammer flyers haven't broken sh*t because someone can go out and blow hundreds of dollars on uber armies.

Just because I can take 6 flyers doesn't meen that I should.

valace2 wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

sennacherib wrote:One thing i would like to point out.
Lots of people who have responded to this have done so by posting specific lists that would work. The problem being, not everyone has the models on hand or the money to buy them so that they can feild that specific list. This same issue arises when people post an army in the army list section and you get responses like "you should take this and this". What if you dont have this and this. wouldnt tactical advice be better than advocating that the player goes out and spend hundreads of dollars to buy models so they can beat the afformentioned list be more effective advice. Otherwise, does not 40k only amount to who can afford to buy the right model to win. Just saying.

Wraithlords are OP, I can't hurt them with my bog-standard Black Templars without wargear! Arguing that something's OP because you don't have the right weapons or units to counter them when they're available to everyone doesn't work, the game isn't balanced around whether someone can afford something IRL or not.

Depending on the situation of course it does why wouldn't it. You could move to a new town with 10k points loads of flyers and other uber units, but those people only have maybe a few thousand points and not a lot of disposable income you could go in a wipe the floor with them an they should just take it, because its not your fault they can't spend whatever they want on 40k.

Would flyers break the game for them then? I corrected my OP in the World Series of Warhammer flyers haven't broken sh*t because someone can go out and blow hundreds of dollars on uber armies.

Just because I can take 6 flyers doesn't meen that I should.

This is the case for any game that doesn't force you to use some standard set of equipment, eg. Magic the Gathering, or even sports like Tennis or Softball. People who have more money to spend can beat people who don't. If you can run 6 flyers, and you think your regular opponents can't handle them, then by all means don't field 6 flyers. To imply that this situation implies GW ruined the game or something is nuts. As pointed out above, the fact that a random collection of models bought for $300 can't beat something more optimized is not surprising and not a sign of a flaw in the game.

By the way, a slightly different situation could arise in 6th even if flyers had never existed. It looks like psyker spam and 2+ armor might be very powerful in the 6th edition meta. Suppose I play with a group of people who all have 5th edition armies, and mine happened to be Deathwing. We are all broke, and nobody can afford to update their army much. In 5th, we were roughly balanced, because the others had lots of Power Weapons in their lists, and ran high models counts so they could win by attrition. Now, they can't touch me. Does this mean GW broke the game? Draw your own conclusion.

MrEconomics wrote:This is the case for any game that doesn't force you to use some standard set of equipment, eg. Magic the Gathering, or even sports like Tennis or Softball. People who have more money to spend can beat people who don't.

I'd actually take issue with this.

40k is NOT like tennis. The people who win tennis games are the better tennis player. So long as they have good enough basic equipment (a decent racket, shoes not falling apart, snugly fitting headband, etc.), the equipment itself is pretty marginal with regard to who wins the game. It really is skill against skill, not pocketbook against pocketbook.

40k is also rather different from MTG. 40k has at least some semblance of balance put in place to restrict people from buying victory. In the case of 40k, games have a points value, and the rich person is forced to play at the points level of the poorer. Likewise, codices are internally balanced rather well, and the difference between two codices isn't THAT bad, compared to MTG, which has to create banned cards lists in order to prevent flagrant abuse, and only allow cards published in the last year - requiring you to purchase more over time to stay competitive.

Throw in "counts as" and outright proxying, and 40k is rather blind to the income of its players. It's certainly within the margins where player skill and your particular luck will make much more of a difference to the outcome of any particular game.

The only advantage rich people appear to have in the world of 40k is how quickly they can adapt to change. If a new codex or a new rules set comes out and makes something good, the rich player can buy it faster. This, however, is seriously mitigated by time. I personally am far from rich, but over years and years of slowly collecting my guard army, when there are changes I likely already have a miniature lying around, so this same kind of flexibility is simulated by other means.

My point was not to make implications that GW broke the game, or any of the nonsence that some of the above posters are carrying on about. I just pointed out that posting posts like " buy 12 hydra flak tanks" are of little to no use with respect to the original post.

OP - as long as you dont wish to be TFG i dont see any problem with fielding three flyers in your list. Its people who will rush out and buy whatever possible so that they CAN be TFG that are the problem. As one of the wiser posters earlier on pointed out, flyers are new to the game and as new codex come out they will contain stuff in them that is designed to kill flyers. Chaos is reputed to be getting a new dex with a flying demon engine that will eat other peoples flyers for breakfast (literally).

Ailaros wrote:

MrEconomics wrote:This is the case for any game that doesn't force you to use some standard set of equipment, eg. Magic the Gathering, or even sports like Tennis or Softball. People who have more money to spend can beat people who don't.

I'd actually take issue with this.

40k is NOT like tennis. The people who win tennis games are the better tennis player. So long as they have good enough basic equipment (a decent racket, shoes not falling apart, snugly fitting headband, etc.), the equipment itself is pretty marginal with regard to who wins the game. It really is skill against skill, not pocketbook against pocketbook.

40k is also rather different from MTG. 40k has at least some semblance of balance put in place to restrict people from buying victory. In the case of 40k, games have a points value, and the rich person is forced to play at the points level of the poorer. Likewise, codices are internally balanced rather well, and the difference between two codices isn't THAT bad, compared to MTG, which has to create banned cards lists in order to prevent flagrant abuse, and only allow cards published in the last year - requiring you to purchase more over time to stay competitive.

Throw in "counts as" and outright proxying, and 40k is rather blind to the income of its players. It's certainly within the margins where player skill and your particular luck will make much more of a difference to the outcome of any particular game.

The only advantage rich people appear to have in the world of 40k is how quickly they can adapt to change. If a new codex or a new rules set comes out and makes something good, the rich player can buy it faster. This, however, is seriously mitigated by time. I personally am far from rich, but over years and years of slowly collecting my guard army, when there are changes I likely already have a miniature lying around, so this same kind of flexibility is simulated by other means.

A poor choice of words. What I meant was "can purchase an advantage". Maybe Tennis isn't a good example, as I'm not sure how much rackets matter, so swap golf for tennis. There's a pretty big difference in golf clubs, especially from ten years ago or whatever.

At any rate, the real implication is that it's far easier to be good at these endeavors if you have money to spend. Hell, even games like Bridge can be an example, even though the equipment is meaningless, as you can spend money on lessons or even pay someone good to play with you (this is pretty common for people who are trying to get good at Bridge, and Bridge is a partners game, so having a good partner is a massive advantage).

Saying "flyers have broken the game because I can't afford a counter to them" is like saying "land raiders are over powered because I don't have meltaguns in my list, and I can't afford to buy them". You may have a hard time against them, but that doesn't mean that they are broken.

What is this about flyers being broken, they can be countered by free weapons. Your basic tac squad ml has a round that takes them down easy.

broodstar wrote:What is this about flyers being broken, they can be countered by free weapons. Your basic tac squad ml has a round that takes them down easy.

Not yet they don't. The book says some missile launchers may have the OPTION to take flak missiles, but no dex gives that as an option, so no flak missiles on SM yet.

Armadeus wrote:

broodstar wrote:What is this about flyers being broken, they can be countered by free weapons. Your basic tac squad ml has a round that takes them down easy.

Not yet they don't. The book says some missile launchers may have the OPTION to take flak missiles, but no dex gives that as an option, so no flak missiles on SM yet.

Yeah key word "yet". once the books come out everything will be koshir. In other words, "don't worry about it."

broodstar wrote:

Armadeus wrote:

broodstar wrote:What is this about flyers being broken, they can be countered by free weapons. Your basic tac squad ml has a round that takes them down easy.

Not yet they don't. The book says some missile launchers may have the OPTION to take flak missiles, but no dex gives that as an option, so no flak missiles on SM yet.

Yeah key word "yet". once the books come out everything will be koshir. In other words, "don't worry about it."

This is getting off topic, but marines cant expect a new dex until AFTER the CSM and DA, and even then, we DON"T KNOW what will be in the next dex, so plan for what we have now, at least until we get some solid rumers.

Armadeus wrote:

broodstar wrote:

Armadeus wrote:

broodstar wrote:What is this about flyers being broken, they can be countered by free weapons. Your basic tac squad ml has a round that takes them down easy.

Not yet they don't. The book says some missile launchers may have the OPTION to take flak missiles, but no dex gives that as an option, so no flak missiles on SM yet.

Yeah key word "yet". once the books come out everything will be koshir. In other words, "don't worry about it."

This is getting off topic, but marines cant expect a new dex until AFTER the CSM and DA, and even then, we DON"T KNOW what will be in the next dex, so plan for what we have now, at least until we get some solid rumers.

Like anything in this game, they're still going to die to volume. The MC assault is Tyranids greatest answer to tanks, you think im not upset that my FMC's can't assault flyers? Tyranids don't even get skyfire so our answer to them in Dakkafexes and Dakka Flyrants. I'm sure if Stormravens and Stormtalons are such a huge threat to your army, then I'm sure you'll have no problem throwing every shot you have at them.

I don't think flyers are breaking anything but I do think they are a poor addition to 40k.

The mechanics make it hard or inefficient to interact with flyers from the ground without oddball units or allies or fortifications. A lot of list variance and unique army builds get shaved away in the pursuit of balancing out an all comers list and now needing to make sure you can interact with flyers profitably is one more check on the list of must-have points sacrifices before you're allowed to dip into the obscure synergies and unit/wargear redundancies that reflect your personal tastes and preferences.

It used to be flyers were the realm of battlefleet gothic and mission fluff, controlling a mid board coms tower objective or taking an airfield in a longform campaign would give you strafing run rolls on subsequent turns/games not far different from orbital bombardments or artillery strikes. Flyers were unseen forces far above the player interactions on board and that felt pretty right. Now they marginalize what used to be the very unique signature role of fast skimmers. There's essentially a second game being played 15" above your 40k board that can freely interact down at you but you can't very freely interact upwards at it. It feels very detached and unfun for me, regardless of how many games flyers are or aren't winning for people.

Testify wrote:

KingCracker wrote:

hotsauceman1 wrote:Fortifications, Nuff said.
Also don whine, we are a month in. No new codex releases. We will see more models with skyfire from now on.

Agreed, a couple quad guns would make quick work of those, same with a bunch of lootas and mass shooting

I love it when people say things like this.

1)you can have one quad gun at <2000 points, the overwealming majority of games

2)S7 vs AV12, even assuming they all hit, has a 50% of a penetrating hit, at AP4. So on average you'll get one or two hull points

3)One quad gun vs 3 AV12s. Go figure.

So your saying you hate it when people give some ideas on how to beat the question at hand? WTF are you doing on this forum then?

Ok, this hobby is an expensive one. Complaining that "I can't afford to buy stuff" is not a good way to deal with the situation. Save up your money.

valace2 wrote:Ummm why were they deepstriking Storm Ravens? An if you did that with your skimmer, I would unload my troop of choice, (Purifiers with Incinerators) to negate your cover save an cook you.

Could not get any shots otherwise. I had aggressively pushed up the board and into his deployment zone, so no matter where he came in on his board edge or what angle, he would not have a shot at any of my models. Rather than spending 3 turns making minimum moves and 90 degree turns, he deep struck into my deployment zone/the middle of the board to try and line up a few shots.

Also, please hover your fliers near my venoms full of wyches.

Please do this. It's a fantastic idea. Oh yes, please do that. I am absolutely begging you to do that. It will teach me what for, I assure you. Oh yes, that's a great tactical decision!

Oh my god I'd love to turn that Stormraven into a fireball with just 60 points of wyches.

Never gonna get to do the BA+ IG flier spam personally but I do face necron flier spam locally and ran the numbers over on the GK post anyway. For your consideration:

AC dread has a 7.22% chance to take down (explode/wreck w/e) a flier per 4 shots

Roughly it will take you 11-10 psycannon shots (non-twin linked) to achieve the same same kill ratio at around 7.98 to 7.07% chance to destroy. With 4 shots each, that's about 3 psycannons! (if they jink save themselves of course)

casting divination on them will just require some 3-4 psycannon shots (or 1 psycannon) to get almost 7 to 9.8% kill chance

Quad gun with someone with BS 4 shooting it - about 18.16% chance to down an AV 11 flier.. You will need exactly 8 shots from combined 2 AC dreads to equal that kill chance. (with them jink saving for a 5+ of course)

It will take some 20 psycannon shots to equal that at non-twin linked (or roughly 5 psycannons - 2 to 3 squads of purifiers or 3 large squads of strike squads) without divination to equal that.

------------------------------------

BTW just ran the numbers for a squad of 10, shooting 20 shots, you can get 38.66% of a wreck off on AV 11. If you are shooting at a Jink'ing skimmer, that's cut down to 18.13% wreck.

Vs shooting at a flier - 1.72% of a wreck, if they Jink, that's cut down to 0.57% wreck.

------------------------------------------------

Not very good odds :/

Bottom line though, good chance or at least decent of wrecking a rhino in a single round.

Just for comparison - for that 20 points, you can get say get 2 hunter killer missles for your anti-tank - and then get roughly 7.27% of a wreck for 2 shots with jink/5+ save. or 10.80% without a cover save.

Vs flier - 2.76% of wreck for those same 2 shots. Down to 1.84% to wreck with jink save.

Overall, pretty decent investment for a 20 point investment at 10man shooting 20 shots.

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The break even point appears (where you tie with the 2 hunter killer missles) - on non-fliers (damn fliers lol) is around 9 to 10 shots fired (so 5 man or 6 man with a psycannon, or 7 man with 2 psycannons if say using purifiers)

at 9 shots it's 6.89% vs 10 shots at 9.06%. With jink, it drops to 15-16 shots to break even. (so like 8 guys, or 10 guys with 2 psycannons, and less useful the more psycannons you take)

Quite interesting after running the math.

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Just for fun, Psycannons - 1 psycannon 4 shots shooting at fliers - 3.86% to destroy, 2.51% vs Jink save
2 psycannons -9.36% 5.57% with jink

Vs non-fliers:

1 psycannon - 2 shots ( assault mode) - 7.27%, vs 4.88% with jink
4 shots - 23.57% vs 12.83%
8 shots - 65.38% vs 38.91%

I know this is a bit OT and I apologize, but given some of the discussion in this thread I feel compelled to say this.

As a new player, I can confirm without a doubt that real life money is an obstacle that allows a significant advantage to anyone who has spent more money than I have in this hobby. I am neither rich nor poor, but I am limited in my budget for 40k models, as such I have to run lists that are based as much on what models I own as opposed to what models I would run if I could pick the army out of my codex. I'd love to run two AC/Las preds in my list, or two CC Ironclads in drop pods, but hell if I am dropping 100 bucks on plastic tanks right now.

40k can in no way be compared to a real sport because in real sports it is talent and athleticism that the individual brings to the game, and that talent and athleticism is what makes the difference. In 40k tactics are what makes the difference and tactics are what the individual brings to the table; problem is some tactics are pricey.

I 100% believe that strategy and tactical skill trump all when the players have similar army resources. And I believe completely that there are tactics and counters to combat any type of enemy you encounter, but that doesn't mean squat (wish those short buggers where still around) if you can't invest the required money to keep up with GW's top of the line in awesome looking plastic army men. A year or two from now maybe I will have enough models built up that I can change lists and wargear to suit different threats. But right now, an opponent can easily buy himself/herself (ha, like girls play 40k) a victory over me simply by having things I can't afford to field a counter for.

Am I complaining, no, this game is fun even when I lose. Just seeing awesome painted armies and painting/planning my own is fun enough.

But lets not lie to ourselves here and pretend real life money doesn't make a difference in this game. Don't feel bad that you have a kick-ass collection, but also don't take too much pride in yourself for winning with a $500-$600 list you've picked out from your $1000 dollar collection when your opponent clearly is playing with every single model they own to reach the game's points level.

That, and anyone who isn't naive can tell that GW is simply letting fliers run a little rampant for a while to get people to blow their cash wads on a ton of new models and fortifications. As soon as new codices come out, things like flakk missiles will be made available and the real list building can start. Fliers aren't broken, they are just enjoying a bit of a free reign.

I've seen everything proxied before. heck someone here posted a b-rep with literally a piece of sheet metal and chalk drawn circles representing units before.

Someone recently just used a bottle of lysol as a flier and personally I've seen salt and pepper shakers subbed in as infantry and foam cups as dreadnaughts (or soda cans)

You can really do just about w/e. High priced models are no bar to an enjoyable game. If you guys ever see some of those POW camps stories, we've had guys make dice out of tooth paste and old bread dough to get a game.

Tournaments are really just a small part of the game.

I've done that before...the woodpolish droppod.

I've had the UPS box land raider before. It was very awesome. In fact even before warhammer, I used to make fortifications out of old size D batteries and golf balls manned by green army men.

Technically still useful as stand in guardsmen!