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Target wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
I see the whole thing about flyers' movement coming up a lot, and several months in it still hasn't come up for me, both for and against. Some basic movement skill and adapt tactics allow your flyers to do something every turn of the game; it's al about planning ahead. Even with a crowded sky it has been the case. Last game of my last tournament, there was 6 flyers in the sky, and they were able to shoot at something every turn. I think a lot of the underwhelming opinions is just people expecting too much out of them; surely if someone expects the move on and win the game reaction that was supposed before 6th edition's release they will be disappointed. Not that this applies in all situations, but I just think a lot of reaction these days is based on people not using their flyers right.

There is definitely some truth to what you said - the fact that fliers were/are a bit overhyped/expected to do too much, and so it's easy to be disappointed. But I think the bigger issue is that, while you're right with proper planning you can "shoot at something every turn of the game" (minus t1! ), you can't usually shoot at what you want/need to in later turns. Having a target is great, but if you specifically need to bring all guns to bear on one key situation, you may not be able to, which is where I've been fliers fall short.

But that's the thing, not allowing yourself into a situation where you need all guns to bear at a specific target, because at that point you have usually lost. And I've rarely had to compromise on targets; tool out your flyers right and think several turns ahead; a lot stays static in 40k or at least can't move fast enough to dictate your movement. It all comes down to the basics really; aside from what I've already said, the rest of your list needs to compliment the flyers well or what you have suggested above will likely happen.

I just wanted to say thanks for all of the suggestions. I have a good base to work with and I'll definitely be trying out the suggestions thrown out here. Hopefully over time I can see what tweaks work and which tweaks don't.

With regards to the stormravens, it really depends on the list itself. Don't look at the raven - with or without hurricane bolters - in a vacuum. Rather, look at the rest of the army and see what role it needs to fill. Both the vanilla raven and the souped-up raven (with psybolt hurricane bolters) is a viable choice. In the case of Red Comet/Target's build, the list has enough anti-infantry in the form of psybolt-stormbolters and the IG blob squad. What it lacks is AT and anti-air firepower. The psybolt hurricane bolters, while is an obviously good upgrade, isn't really necessary in that list. For it's role, the TL-MM and TL-Lascannon is good enough. In such a finely-tuned list, you don't need every unit to be a jack-of-all-trades unit. Rather, it is better to specialize units to fill certain "roles" in the army. That is a way to make the army more efficient.

True, the hurricane psybolters are no needed, but they do help and there is no real downside to slapping them on there besides the point cost.

It's not really the downside to having them, but rather, the $50 price tag. That cost isn't really negligable.

But more importantly to me, you're investing an extra $50 to a single-point-of-failure unit that will easily get shot down by some of the more shootier armies out there (or by other flyers). In such a case, I'd rather keep it cheap. It comes in for maybe 1 turn of alpha-strike shooting. Then next turn, it gets shot down if the opponent has even a modicum of shooting.

 jy2 wrote:
It's not really the downside to having them, but rather, the $50 price tag. That cost isn't really negligable.

But more importantly to me, you're investing an extra $50 to a single-point-of-failure unit that will easily get shot down by some of the more shootier armies out there (or by other flyers). In such a case, I'd rather keep it cheap. It comes in for maybe 1 turn of alpha-strike shooting. Then next turn, it gets shot down if the opponent has even a modicum of shooting.

Not really. You not only need a lot of shooting to get those 6's, you need a lot of high strength shooting to break that AV12, and that doesn't come along too often in the game. The Raven is suitably sturdy for the flyer role and is the best thing in the Codex for taking out other flyers. The only other unit that matchs up to it in the AA role is Purifiers with 4 Psycannons and they need Prescience on them to do so.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
It's not really the downside to having them, but rather, the $50 price tag. That cost isn't really negligable.

But more importantly to me, you're investing an extra $50 to a single-point-of-failure unit that will easily get shot down by some of the more shootier armies out there (or by other flyers). In such a case, I'd rather keep it cheap. It comes in for maybe 1 turn of alpha-strike shooting. Then next turn, it gets shot down if the opponent has even a modicum of shooting.

Not really. You not only need a lot of shooting to get those 6's, you need a lot of high strength shooting to break that AV12, and that doesn't come along too often in the game. The Raven is suitably sturdy for the flyer role and is the best thing in the Codex for taking out other flyers. The only other unit that matchs up to it in the AA role is Purifiers with 4 Psycannons and they need Prescience on them to do so.

I'm kind of spoiled by my necrons. With the amount of tesla destructors in my necron list, I can usually take out AV12 armor....including flyers....with just 1 or 2 annihilation barges or scythes. And my crons are only semi-shooty. There are other armies/builds that are even more shooty (i.e. MSU armies, space wolves, grey knights, etc.). Those are the types of armies that can and will easily take down just 1 AV12 flyer. And in competitve, tournament play, these are going to be the types of lists you will probably encounter. Thus, it is my preference to keep my raven as cheap as possible. That has 3 benefits - 1) it's not as big a loss when it does get shot down, 2) less upgrades makes it a slightly less high priority target, thus increasing its survivability and 3) it gives me an extra 50pts to spend on my army.

Of course, if I knew that my local tournament meta was more flyer-lite and infantry-heavy, then I'd go with the psybolt hurricane bolters. Otherwise, I prefer to keep it vanilla instead.

I'm kind of spoiled by my necrons. With the amount of tesla destructors in my necron list, I can usually take out AV12 armor....including flyers....with just 1 or 2 annihilation barges or scythes. And my crons are only semi-shooty. There are other armies/builds that are even more shooty (i.e. MSU armies, space wolves, grey knights, etc.). Those are the types of armies that can and will easily take down just 1 AV12 flyer. And in competitve, tournament play, these are going to be the types of lists you will probably encounter. Thus, it is my preference to keep my raven as cheap as possible. That has 3 benefits - 1) it's not as big a loss when it does get shot down, 2) less upgrades makes it a slightly less high priority target, thus increasing its survivability and 3) it gives me an extra 50pts to spend on my army.

Of course, if I knew that my local tournament meta was more flyer-lite and infantry-heavy, then I'd go with the psybolt hurricane bolters. Otherwise, I prefer to keep it vanilla instead.

So does that mean you are now going with the AC + MM or MM + LC version now Jy2?

or maybe just the psybolts + AC and forget the hurricane?

For me personally I've stuck with the MM + LC just cause it's a dedicated anti-tank unit for me as purifiers is usually enough anti-horde/infantry but I can see AC still being useful in that AT role though alot more dependent on facing I suppose and the still ongoing quibble about the line of sight thing too I guess with the short barrel AC's

 jy2 wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
It's not really the downside to having them, but rather, the $50 price tag. That cost isn't really negligable.

But more importantly to me, you're investing an extra $50 to a single-point-of-failure unit that will easily get shot down by some of the more shootier armies out there (or by other flyers). In such a case, I'd rather keep it cheap. It comes in for maybe 1 turn of alpha-strike shooting. Then next turn, it gets shot down if the opponent has even a modicum of shooting.

Not really. You not only need a lot of shooting to get those 6's, you need a lot of high strength shooting to break that AV12, and that doesn't come along too often in the game. The Raven is suitably sturdy for the flyer role and is the best thing in the Codex for taking out other flyers. The only other unit that matchs up to it in the AA role is Purifiers with 4 Psycannons and they need Prescience on them to do so.

I'm kind of spoiled by my necrons. With the amount of tesla destructors in my necron list, I can usually take out AV12 armor....including flyers....with just 1 or 2 annihilation barges or scythes. And my crons are only semi-shooty. There are other armies/builds that are even more shooty (i.e. MSU armies, space wolves, grey knights, etc.). Those are the types of armies that can and will easily take down just 1 AV12 flyer. And in competitve, tournament play, these are going to be the types of lists you will probably encounter. Thus, it is my preference to keep my raven as cheap as possible. That has 3 benefits - 1) it's not as big a loss when it does get shot down, 2) less upgrades makes it a slightly less high priority target, thus increasing its survivability and 3) it gives me an extra 50pts to spend on my army.

Of course, if I knew that my local tournament meta was more flyer-lite and infantry-heavy, then I'd go with the psybolt hurricane bolters. Otherwise, I prefer to keep it vanilla instead.

Well yeah, you've probably seen my lists in my reports, I never take just one Raven and it is always as cheap as possible; I will never taken the sponsons. But I've never lost a Raven to anything on the ground except Lootas, and I've played against all the lists you have mentioned; especially in the case of Space Wolves, they have no AA at all, and even 5 Missile Launchers Long Fangs with Prescience get less than a Hull Point on average. As for the whole Necron thing, they just everything easily

I think I play my flyers pretty cagey but they still go down. i use three Nurgle FMCs at 2000. By turn three I sometimes have one left against opponents that have decent firepower. I've learned to hide them in cc on occasion - something that is almost counter-intuitive. It lets me finish off a weakened squad and then take to the air again to finish the game. I don't think flyers are all that scary to be honest - they work agaist lists that have no defense against them (mine is weak I confess) but you can ignore them if need be.

FMCs are a totally different story though, as they can be grounded and can't jink unlike flyers. While good, they still aren't as good as flyers. I also find a struggling duality in their role in that MCs' usually are taken for combat, but they can't charge until they come down.

 felixcat wrote:

I think I play my flyers pretty cagey but they still go down. i use three Nurgle FMCs at 2000. By turn three I sometimes have one left against opponents that have decent firepower. I've learned to hide them in cc on occasion - something that is almost counter-intuitive. It lets me finish off a weakened squad and then take to the air again to finish the game. I don't think flyers are all that scary to be honest - they work agaist lists that have no defense against them (mine is weak I confess) but you can ignore them if need be.

Yeah, FMC's are not as tough as most people think. As I play both with and against FMC-heavy daemon lists, most of the time they get shot down/grounded and then can be assaulted. Flyers, on the other hand, can't. Also, FMC's can be affected by small-arms fire while flyers can't.

However, FMC's in a daemon list are extremely viable....especially once you include flamers and screamers into that list. Then the FMC's aren't the most important targets anymore.

Flyers can be ignored but only if you design your list with enough resiliency to survive their onslaught (especially in the case of the Necron Airforce). Otherwise, flyers are usually there specifically to deal with certain targets (i.e. armor or infantry) and to perform "surgical" strikes against specific targets. If your list doesn't happen to have the targets that they are looking for (i.e. vendetta vs a horde army), then yeah, you can pretty much ignore them.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 sudojoe wrote:

I'm kind of spoiled by my necrons. With the amount of tesla destructors in my necron list, I can usually take out AV12 armor....including flyers....with just 1 or 2 annihilation barges or scythes. And my crons are only semi-shooty. There are other armies/builds that are even more shooty (i.e. MSU armies, space wolves, grey knights, etc.). Those are the types of armies that can and will easily take down just 1 AV12 flyer. And in competitve, tournament play, these are going to be the types of lists you will probably encounter. Thus, it is my preference to keep my raven as cheap as possible. That has 3 benefits - 1) it's not as big a loss when it does get shot down, 2) less upgrades makes it a slightly less high priority target, thus increasing its survivability and 3) it gives me an extra 50pts to spend on my army.

Of course, if I knew that my local tournament meta was more flyer-lite and infantry-heavy, then I'd go with the psybolt hurricane bolters. Otherwise, I prefer to keep it vanilla instead.

So does that mean you are now going with the AC + MM or MM + LC version now Jy2?

or maybe just the psybolts + AC and forget the hurricane?

For me personally I've stuck with the MM + LC just cause it's a dedicated anti-tank unit for me as purifiers is usually enough anti-horde/infantry but I can see AC still being useful in that AT role though alot more dependent on facing I suppose and the still ongoing quibble about the line of sight thing too I guess with the short barrel AC's

While I like the AC+MM loadout, I normally equip my raven with LC+MM primarily in the role of anti-tank/anti-flyer/anti-MC. I usually have enough anti-infantry and a lot of psycannons in my lists such that the AC isn't as necessary. However, my shooting is starved for AP 1/2 weaponry.

 felixcat wrote:

I don't think flyers are all that scary to be honest - they work agaist lists that have no defense against them (mine is weak I confess) but you can ignore them if need be.

I agree with felixcat, in fact my first post on this thread was:

 CKO wrote:
After taking my hiatus I am ready to start back playing again! 6th edition has rolled around and I am building a grey knight list but I am worried that I dont have enough anti-air weaponry. I only have 4 psycannons and 1 dreadnaught in 2k? Besides the doomscythe I dont see their damage output being to much of a concern, or am I missing something?

I dont think one flyer can win the game and spam list have weaknesses that you can exploit. Flyers are good when you pepper in 1 - 2 just to give your opponent somethig to think about. Ofcourse my list has drastically change to create mismatch problems.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
I see the whole thing about flyers' movement coming up a lot, and several months in it still hasn't come up for me, both for and against. Some basic movement skill and adapt tactics allow your flyers to do something every turn of the game; it's al about planning ahead. Even with a crowded sky it has been the case. Last game of my last tournament, there was 6 flyers in the sky, and they were able to shoot at something every turn. I think a lot of the underwhelming opinions is just people expecting too much out of them; surely if someone expects the move on and win the game reaction that was supposed before 6th edition's release they will be disappointed. Not that this applies in all situations, but I just think a lot of reaction these days is based on people not using their flyers right.

I played against a few flyer heavy lists at NOVA and the movement restriction is a very real thing. Even great opponents will have difficulty getting everything into place for optimized strafing runs because you can deny them advantageous movement by spreading out units or abusing their inability to make multiple turns and pivots. As Target pointed out, the flyers may be able to shoot but its damn near impossible to bring all your firepower to bear. Average rolls from a tesla destructor nets you less than 2 dead marines, so while they are great guns, they must still be focus fired to be effective.

I am pretty damn sour on Flyers especially in limited quantities. Solo Storm-Ravens or even dual Ravens seem like a very pointless investment. If you happen to run into an army that heavily spam Flyers you will probably lose your Flyer(s) with them having VERY little impact (unfortunately Flyer vs Flyer match-ups are almost entirely dependent on who gets their Flyers on the board second). The Raven also lacks the offensive firepower to make up for its incredibly hefty price-tag. For similar points you can get a DK which I think is far, far better. Ignoring Flyers is the best possibly thing anyone can do, IMO.

(unfortunately Flyer vs Flyer match-ups are almost entirely dependent on who gets their Flyers on the board second).

I've used this to my advantage a few times recently since this thread got me trying out grand master Modrak builds again. With just him and a ghost knight for stealth, he's not that huge looking of a threat so he's actually helped with psy communion giving me a -1 to my reserves to get my flier in later on to go into the anti-air role. It was kind of fun to use him that way and I had never tried it that way before.

LValx wrote:Ignoring Flyers is the best possibly thing anyone can do, IMO.

Except it doesn't work. I've seen people try this countless times at various tournaments and the fact is it just can't be done so easily. So imagine I'm playing jy2's Necrons and I decide I don't need to worry about his 4 TL Tesla Desrtuctors and more importantly his 2 Death Rays, are you telling me that isn't going to clean up a lot of models that will make winning on the ground less likely? People forget so much when they talk about this topic. They say you will have more bodies on the ground so you have an advantage if you ignore flyers, but they forget that by ignoring them they kill enough to even the odds on the ground. They say just ignore them and gimp their movement, but they don't seem to realise by doing that you aren't ignoring them, as they are now partly dictating your movement; sure he flies off the board instead of crashing, but losing ones unit's shooting isn't half as bad as having a unit out of place in a disadvantagous position.

Since 6th edition started I've consistently placed high at all the tournaments I've attended, and this is partly due to games where people brings no dedicated anti-air and try to ignore my two Ravens. Then my two Ravens with their 'not enough firepower' as you put it, clean up house, with what in actuality is plenty of firepower, especially over 4-6 turns. I've never had to fly off the board because the simple fact is most armies don't have the bodies to block you up, or as mentioned above, it goes against their strategy and moves them out of position, plus the only way this is going to happen is if the person using the flyer moves it to a spot where next turn they know the opponent can block up its movement. In this game of movement between the flyer and the ground, it is much easier for the flyer to dictate one spot it needs to land than it is for the ground to dictate all of the ones it can't. The only armies that should feasily be able to dictate your flyer movement without screwing themselves in the process are Orks and Nids, for obvious reasons.

Lastly the idea that dual Ravens is a waste of points because they are automatically beaten by 4 Necron flyers is a fallacy. Considering I've both won and lost this match-up in the past, I think I have a right to say it is not so cut and dry. And like all dog fights, it is greatly decided by who shows up first. A Storm Raven has a high enough chance of blowing up a Necron flyer off the bat, at which point it becomes 2 on 2, and the Storm Ravens easily win that one. Grey Knights also have means of dictating their reserves to a degree, Necrons don't.

I appreciate that flyers are far from overpowered, but as jy2 said above, it you don't prepare for them and try to ignore them with a list that doesn't have the man power to sustain such damage (and most of them can't) then you are in trouble. They are not overpowered, but they just simply are not ignorable.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

LValx wrote:Ignoring Flyers is the best possibly thing anyone can do, IMO.

Except it doesn't work. I've seen people try this countless times at various tournaments and the fact is it just can't be done so easily. So imagine I'm playing jy2's Necrons and I decide I don't need to worry about his 4 TL Tesla Desrtuctors and more importantly his 2 Death Rays, are you telling me that isn't going to clean up a lot of models that will make winning on the ground less likely? People forget so much when they talk about this topic. They say you will have more bodies on the ground so you have an advantage if you ignore flyers, but they forget that by ignoring them they kill enough to even the odds on the ground. They say just ignore them and gimp their movement, but they don't seem to realise by doing that you aren't ignoring them, as they are now partly dictating your movement; sure he flies off the board instead of crashing, but losing ones unit's shooting isn't half as bad as having a unit out of place in a disadvantagous position.

Since 6th edition started I've consistently placed high at all the tournaments I've attended, and this is partly due to games where people brings no dedicated anti-air and try to ignore my two Ravens. Then my two Ravens with their 'not enough firepower' as you put it, clean up house, with what in actuality is plenty of firepower, especially over 4-6 turns. I've never had to fly off the board because the simple fact is most armies don't have the bodies to block you up, or as mentioned above, it goes against their strategy and moves them out of position, plus the only way this is going to happen is if the person using the flyer moves it to a spot where next turn they know the opponent can block up its movement. In this game of movement between the flyer and the ground, it is much easier for the flyer to dictate one spot it needs to land than it is for the ground to dictate all of the ones it can't. The only armies that should feasily be able to dictate your flyer movement without screwing themselves in the process are Orks and Nids, for obvious reasons.

Lastly the idea that dual Ravens is a waste of points because they are automatically beaten by 4 Necron flyers is a fallacy. Considering I've both won and lost this match-up in the past, I think I have a right to say it is not so cut and dry. And like all dog fights, it is greatly decided by who shows up first. A Storm Raven has a high enough chance of blowing up a Necron flyer off the bat, at which point it becomes 2 on 2, and the Storm Ravens easily win that one. Grey Knights also have means of dictating their reserves to a degree, Necrons don't.

I appreciate that flyers are far from overpowered, but as jy2 said above, it you don't prepare for them and try to ignore them with a list that doesn't have the man power to sustain such damage (and most of them can't) then you are in trouble. They are not overpowered, but they just simply are not ignorable.

I think like most things, the answer in the discussion you two are having lies somewhere in the middle, but before saying "the just simply are not ignorable" you may want to consider the proof being in the pudding, so to speak:

Ole Kopach wins both NOVA events pretty much off of the back of ignoring fliers, and using zero
I go 7-1 at NOVA and take the top bracket - with no fliers and a list designed to ignore them
I go 6-0 at BFS and win - with no fliers and a list designed to ignore them

Now, I'm not saying fliers are terrible (and anyone who is is making too generalized of a statement), but ignoring them is a very real, and very valid strategy. While you may place high at your local events, remember that the level of competition sky rockets at GT's, which is really more where you should be thinking - at local events being the one guy that brings a good list, or being one of the few good tactical players can win you the day, despite your list, which can make you falsely believe "omg this list is good" when it's really something else - trust me, I've been guilty of this many a time myself.

My general rule of thumb for fliers is that for the necron variety, their movement screws them, and for the stormraven/vendetta variety (hovering is an option), I ignore them as they can't put out enough damage to change what I'm doing, and if they unload some sort of cargo, I'll kill it then. Do they hurt? Definitely! Do they hurt enough? Not that I've seen so far for lists sporting 100+ bodies.

now that I own green tide as well enough fliers to try this vs myself I've seen this argument from both your sides and I think what you guys are both arguing is true cept you have to take into consideration your own army build.

The fewer bodies you have or weak leadership or in essense MSU with expensive units such as GK's, it gets much harder to ignore fliers as they can do relatively more damage vs your expensive units vs say...

100 sized ork mobs or IG platoons with a lord commisar or heck even necron warrior blocks with rez orb or ghost ark support tend to be able to igore the fliers much more reliably and do not really care that they lose 5 models a turn.

I've literally not cared that a void raven dropped a bunch of missle plates on my 30 man boyz mob just cause at the end of all their lances and pie plates, because I got cover, even with 5+ cover, I'll probably only lose 10-12 guys and my unit will still be deadly enough to hold objectives, shoot or charge something useful.

Fairly similar with the IG mob, it's just too big and has wayyy too many bodies and likely with a 4+ or 2+ GtG save (that they will get up from with get back in the fight) that it can easily absorb storm raven or even necron flier fire and not care.

Personally, I think the critical mass for "survivable" troops seem to be at around 20+ or better at 30 model sized units. It's just so easy to ignore fliers with that many bodies. I really find that I don't care when I play horde orks. I often have to plan and get really screwed over vs say my purifier lists.

Godless tends to use few units and fairly expensive ones so he's right in that he can't afford to ignore them
Target tends to have some of the above from what I've seen of his lists so he is in fact designing his lists to not care about fliers.

I think when looking at what each of you guys are talking about from your perspectives, it makes good sense from a list build perspective.

Target wrote:Ole Kopach wins both NOVA events pretty much off of the back of ignoring fliers, and using zero
I go 7-1 at NOVA and take the top bracket - with no fliers and a list designed to ignore them
I go 6-0 at BFS and win - with no fliers and a list designed to ignore them

Doesn't NOVA put alternate scenarios on the table that give you several different types of objectives to play for? That means that no matter what type your list is you have a chance. It is a great balancing tool, but it's not standard 40k rules, which is what a general discussion is. Or am I thinking of a different US tournament?

Also some notes in that analysis; for both your own lists you mention this phrase, 'a list designed to ignore them'. Now go back and read my posts, specifically the parts about needing enough resilience on the ground to weather the storm. The problem is people are underestimating flyers and putting the 'ignore them' strategy forward as a general idea. This is not a plausible general idea. You have to be tooled out specifically to do it, which is what you were, and why it worked. In other words since I have said this already, you are actually agreeing with me, not disagreeing, or at least what you posted is anyway.

On another note, what were the three lists from the examples above, and how many flyer heavy armies did each face?

Target wrote:Do they hurt? Definitely! Do they hurt enough? Not that I've seen so far for lists sporting 100+ bodies.

Which again, is what I've been saying already. The problem is 100+ bodies is not something that Grey Knights put out in your average competitive list, and that's what the discussion has been about, GK anti-air and flyers.

Target wrote:While you may place high at your local events, remember that the level of competition sky rockets at GT's, which is really more where you should be thinking - at local events being the one guy that brings a good list, or being one of the few good tactical players can win you the day, despite your list, which can make you falsely believe "omg this list is good" when it's really something else - trust me, I've been guilty of this many a time myself.

I respected all of your post right until this bit right here; this is nothing more than an elitest assumption, one that unlike regular assumptions only makes an ass of you, and not me. You seemingly are assuming because I disagree with you the tournaments I have done well at must only be small local ones and you are assuming that US tournaments are harder than others. In other words you are making blind assumptions to put yourself ahead as a superior competitive player to make your argument.

I don't play small local tournaments because the local tournaments aren't very competitive and the guy that runs the shop here is not a particularly nice person. I play my regular games in our own private club at a mate's house with a group of like-minded and similarly skilled individuals, most of which are tournament regulars who place well also. We travel to tournaments only, and only to the large successful ones over here.

So please don't make assumptions like you have above because it is quite offensive, and IMO diminishes your otherwise good point. If you were just making a general observation then I apologise and ignore this, but I advise to make that clearer in future. I have no problem with you and never have as I think you are good poster, which is why I find this bit of the post out of character.

For the record as well, you should look at some tournament statistics based on general GTs and Master style events. It is proven that is harder to win at a smaller event of predominently good players, than at a larger event with a mix which mostly pushes on fun gamers, which is the catagory that most GTs fall under. On another note, calling something a GT doesn't make it better or harder, and notibly most of the tournies in the US have attached the phrase GT to their name for publicity sake.

At nova I went 5-1. Eliminated in the top 8. I faced two lists sporting 9 flyers and EASILY beat both. The fact of the matter is that the damage output on them simply hasn't impressed me. This is largely due to the fact that they rarely bring all their firepower to bear on units. Ive faced lists with a few ravens and have always ignored them with great success. Most of the anti-air available to older codices is incredibly poor and far too easily killed. Id rather focus on pure durability and the ability to kill whatever ground units may appear.

You say that GK cannot easily field enough bodies, that may have held true in 5th but in 6th allies have helped alleviate such issues. SW can provide cheap 3+ saves and IG can provide mass bodies.

I've seen Ravens used and personally I dont find them to be a good investment. IMO, the risk of running into a cron list fielding 4-5+ flyers is too high to take solo or even dual AV-12 flyers. 2 Tesla destructors have a fair chance of killing a Raven and from what I have seen Necrons are easily the most popular army around.

I will acknowledge that NOVA nerfed Flyer armies a bit with their style of missions but even in games using book missions I have had complete success against flyers.


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BFS and Nova both draw the highest competition. I had to face quite a few highly ranked players in later rounds and without a doubt faced a higher level of competition at NOVA than any local tournament ive been at. But this is just what I have experienced.


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This list clocks in at around 1850:
Coteaz
6x 10 strike squads with 2 cannons
SM detachment:
Librarian
2x 10 tactical squads with plasma, combi plasma

At 2k you can sprinkle in a few more things. 80 MEQ bodies is quite durable. I'm not endorsing this list as particularly good but it goes to show that GK can mass bodies quite well.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

Target wrote:Ole Kopach wins both NOVA events pretty much off of the back of ignoring fliers, and using zero
I go 7-1 at NOVA and take the top bracket - with no fliers and a list designed to ignore them
I go 6-0 at BFS and win - with no fliers and a list designed to ignore them

Doesn't NOVA put alternate scenarios on the table that give you several different types of objectives to play for? That means that no matter what type your list is you have a chance. It is a great balancing tool, but it's not standard 40k rules, which is what a general discussion is. Or am I thinking of a different US tournament?

Also some notes in that analysis; for both your own lists you mention this phrase, 'a list designed to ignore them'. Now go back and read my posts, specifically the parts about needing enough resilience on the ground to weather the storm. The problem is people are underestimating flyers and putting the 'ignore them' strategy forward as a general idea. This is not a plausible general idea. You have to be tooled out specifically to do it, which is what you were, and why it worked. In other words since I have said this already, you are actually agreeing with me, not disagreeing, or at least what you posted is anyway.

On another note, what were the three lists from the examples above, and how many flyer heavy armies did each face?

Target wrote:Do they hurt? Definitely! Do they hurt enough? Not that I've seen so far for lists sporting 100+ bodies.

Which again, is what I've been saying already. The problem is 100+ bodies is not something that Grey Knights put out in your average competitive list, and that's what the discussion has been about, GK anti-air and flyers.

Target wrote:While you may place high at your local events, remember that the level of competition sky rockets at GT's, which is really more where you should be thinking - at local events being the one guy that brings a good list, or being one of the few good tactical players can win you the day, despite your list, which can make you falsely believe "omg this list is good" when it's really something else - trust me, I've been guilty of this many a time myself.

I respected all of your post right until this bit right here; this is nothing more than an elitest assumption, one that unlike regular assumptions only makes an ass of you, and not me. You seemingly are assuming because I disagree with you the tournaments I have done well at must only be small local ones and you are assuming that US tournaments are harder than others. In other words you are making blind assumptions to put yourself ahead as a superior competitive player to make your argument.

I don't play small local tournaments because the local tournaments aren't very competitive and the guy that runs the shop here is not a particularly nice person. I play my regular games in our own private club at a mate's house with a group of like-minded and similarly skilled individuals, most of which are tournament regulars who place well also. We travel to tournaments only, and only to the large successful ones over here.

So please don't make assumptions like you have above because it is quite offensive, and IMO diminishes your otherwise good point. If you were just making a general observation then I apologise and ignore this, but I advise to make that clearer in future. I have no problem with you and never have as I think you are good poster, which is why I find this bit of the post out of character.

For the record as well, you should look at some tournament statistics based on general GTs and Master style events. It is proven that is harder to win at a smaller event of predominently good players, than at a larger event with a mix which mostly pushes on fun gamers, which is the catagory that most GTs fall under. On another note, calling something a GT doesn't make it better or harder, and notibly most of the tournies in the US have attached the phrase GT to their name for publicity sake.

If you took that much offense to a rather innocuous comment, you should reconsider if the internet is for you.

GT's in the U.S., which is where my experience lies, are much more competitive (than smaller/local events in the US), and are the only metric worth using in the states. Local events due to the lower population density don't attract enough good players to be truly competitive, and usually boil down to, at best, a shoot out between one or two locally competitive players. GTs here are attended primarily by competitive players and are quickly distilled down into purely tough opponents at the upper end. That's not a knock at local events, just an assessment. I enjoy local events as much as anyone else and live in a very, very competitive area, however I don't overly pat myself on the back for doing well in them, as they're more relaxed and for fun.

Also, as per what the poster above said: this is 6th edition, "competitive" GK lists have no problem fielding lots of bodies due to the addition of allies. Most GK lists we see around here that are competitive feature allies to add in a high body count, or are of the strike-spam nature, and feature ~60 power armored bodies + toys.

@NOVA -> NOVA has alternate scenarios in a tiered goal system, you're never playing for "all" goals at once, so missions still come down to KP (now called VP I suppose), table quarters, objectives, etc., depending on the mission, which are tie-broken by the next goal, and so on. Most major tournaments feature some tweak of the rules in the US, and it's exceedingly rare (if not unheard of) for any of the major and widely regarded as "competitive" events to use standard book missions. So a general discussion of tournaments, at least in the United States, pertains more to a system like NOVA, Adepticon, BFS, etc.

@agreeing

My post was meant to agree with you, because I do in general. I'm just also specifying that fliers are ignorable, if you build for it, and that is a valid and fairly common strategy/aspect of competitive lists right now in the US.

I ended with:
"Now, I'm not saying fliers are terrible (and anyone who is is making too generalized of a statement), but ignoring them is a very real, and very valid strategy."

Most lists over here presently have quickly turned to either flyer heavy, or body heavy (100+), so for us/from my experience, when I talk about ignoring flyers being a valid strategy, I don't see it being as you said "This is not a plausible general idea." Because around here - that is exactly what your general lists are doing.



Sidenote:

"For the record as well, you should look at some tournament statistics based on general GTs and Master style events. It is proven that is harder to win at a smaller event of predominently good players, than at a larger event with a mix which mostly pushes on fun gamers, which is the catagory that most GTs fall under. On another note, calling something a GT doesn't make it better or harder, and notibly most of the tournies in the US have attached the phrase GT to their name for publicity sake."

-The phrase "it is proven" is a hallmark of a made up statement. Who exactly proved this? Do you have confidence that it would hold true when you went to a completely different environment (UK -> US)
-How many US GT's have you played at to know that this is the category most GTs fall under? Most UK GTs possibly, I can't speak to that however as I've never seen or played in one.
-Do you have a lot of experience with GT's in the US and knowing whether they deserve or don't deserve that name tacked onto their headline? My experience is that GTs in the US use that name to denote the fact that there will be 5 games minimum (rather than the RTT/local tourney standard of 3), and usually some implication of a larger size of field and more structured set of rules as well.

If I had to take a guess, I'd say your comparison of GTs to Master Style events is based on purely UK events - which doesn't hold up in the US -> a different beast entirely for many reasons

Target wrote:

Also, as per what the poster above said: this is 6th edition, "competitive" GK lists have no problem fielding lots of bodies due to the addition of allies. Most GK lists we see around here that are competitive feature allies to add in a high body count, or are of the strike-spam nature, and feature ~60 power armored bodies + toys.

Actually, you are slightly ahead of the curve. Not everyone is migrating towards these types of builds because not everyone fully understands what it takes to be successful in 6E. This is the beginning of a new trend in competitive 6E 40k. The competitive meta has now changed in 6E to flyer-based armies and the new anti-meta is now horde-based armies, or an army that can actually survive the onslaught of a full-on Necron Airforce. Now this "anti-meta" build is not necessarily a full horde-based army, but people who understand the game are beginning to see that you either need a lot of shooting or a lot of resiliency to compete against the new meta. That is one of the reasons why I am migrating from Draigowing and Crowe-Purifiers to a more striker-based army. It is also why I am starting to run horde orks, tervigon tyranids, Fateweaver-based daemons and a wraithwing-scythe hybrid necrons. They aren't perfect, but they are good enough to do well against a wide range of armies, including flyer-based armies.

However, not every locale runs flyer-heavy necron armies. And also, IMO the majority of gamers out there are still semi- to non-competitive. They are people who are still relatively new to 6th and primarily using a translation of their 5th edition lists. It's going to take some time before most people really know how to play 6E and then for some, that may never happen. From the perspective of the more competitive players, you can say to ignore those flyers because you know how to play against them, but for the majority of the players out there, I feel that this advice is somewhat naive (and also irresponsible) because you are assuming they know how to play the game. If you want to make this statement, you need to add in some qualifiers to explain what you mean. Otherwise, the average joe - maybe after he reads the advice to ignore flyers here on dakka - goes out there and plays a game of against a flyer-based army, only to get obliterated and leave with a bad feeling for the game afterwards. Thus, I will help to add some qualifiers to your advice.

Against flyers, there are really 2 ways to play against them. The first is to bring a lot of shooting to your army so that you can deal with them head-on (i.e. shoot them down). The other way to play against them is to bring enough resiliency to your army - by bringing a an army with a high model count (i.e. horde armies) or armies with very resilient units (i.e. terminators, wraithwing, etc.) - so that you can survive their onslaught. It is the 2nd scenario where your strategy is to "ignore them" but you need to bring enough bodies or enough resiliency to survive several turns of shooting from these flyer-based armies.

 jy2 wrote:

Target wrote:

Also, as per what the poster above said: this is 6th edition, "competitive" GK lists have no problem fielding lots of bodies due to the addition of allies. Most GK lists we see around here that are competitive feature allies to add in a high body count, or are of the strike-spam nature, and feature ~60 power armored bodies + toys.

Actually, you are slightly ahead of the curve. Not everyone is migrating towards these types of builds because not everyone fully understands what it takes to be successful in 6E. This is the beginning of a new trend in competitive 6E 40k. The competitive meta has now changed in 6E to flyer-based armies and the new anti-meta is now horde-based armies, or an army that can actually survive the onslaught of a full-on Necron Airforce. Now this "anti-meta" build is not necessarily a full horde-based army, but people who understand the game are beginning to see that you either need a lot of shooting or a lot of resiliency to compete against the new meta. That is one of the reasons why I am migrating from Draigowing and Crowe-Purifiers to a more striker-based army. It is also why I am starting to run horde orks, tervigon tyranids, Fateweaver-based daemons and a wraithwing-scythe hybrid necrons. They aren't perfect, but they are good enough to do well against a wide range of armies, including flyer-based armies.

However, not every locale runs flyer-heavy necron armies. And also, IMO the majority of gamers out there are still semi- to non-competitive. They are people who are still relatively new to 6th and primarily using a translation of their 5th edition lists. It's going to take some time before most people really know how to play 6E and then for some, that may never happen. From the perspective of the more competitive players, you can say to ignore those flyers because you know how to play against them, but for the majority of the players out there, I feel that this advice is somewhat naive (and also irresponsible) because you are assuming they know how to play the game. If you want to make this statement, you need to add in some qualifiers to explain what you mean. Otherwise, the average joe - maybe after he reads the advice to ignore flyers here on dakka - goes out there and plays a game of against a flyer-based army, only to get obliterated and leave with a bad feeling for the game afterwards. Thus, I will help to add some qualifiers to your advice.

Against flyers, there are really 2 ways to play against them. The first is to bring a lot of shooting to your army so that you can deal with them head-on (i.e. shoot them down). The other way to play against them is to bring enough resiliency to your army - by bringing a an army with a high model count (i.e. horde armies) or armies with very resilient units (i.e. terminators, wraithwing, etc.) - so that you can survive their onslaught. It is the 2nd scenario where your strategy is to "ignore them" but you need to bring enough bodies or enough resiliency to survive several turns of shooting from these flyer-based armies.

Couldn't agree more. This is a better articulated version of what I've been trying (and apparently failing) to say.

CSM FAQ http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m2710181a_Chaos_Space_Marines_v1.0a.pdf

Very short. Only 5 Errata and no FAQ questions.


So Zombies are now to be found in hordes, Khorne DPs can take Khorne artifacts, terminators got their options back, and Hellbrutes got cheaper.

So Khorne Daemon Princes will be nastier, and the ultimate tarpits of doom have arrived.

 Grey Templar wrote:
CSM FAQ http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m2710181a_Chaos_Space_Marines_v1.0a.pdf

Very short. Only 5 Errata and no FAQ questions.


So Zombies are now to be found in hordes, Khorne DPs can take Khorne artifacts, terminators got their options back, and Hellbrutes got cheaper.

So Khorne Daemon Princes will be nastier, and the ultimate tarpits of doom have arrived.

Makes me wonder how much playtesting/proof reading gets done before they release a codex

The zombie thing should have been picked up and changed straight away before printing, and changing points costs...really?

As for the flyer argument, my stormraven started as the psybolt ammo gun boat, but now just runs lascannon, multi-melta. Cheaper and anti-tank which we lack on

tuiman wrote:The zombie thing should have been picked up and changed straight away before printing, and changing points costs...really?

This is a good thing though, as now there has finally been a precedent set that show they are willing to do this.

Played a quick 1000 point game against a wolves player, my list was something like:

Coteaz

2x5 purifiers in rhinos
5 strikers (deepstriking)
2x3 henchman in psybacks
2 psyfleman

He took 3 squads of missile long fangs, each one had a rune priest with divination

He goes first, puts prescience on all the long fang squads, blows up a dread and all the transports first turn with split fire and the re-rolling to hits, Then proceeds to kill me as I march towards his gunline.

Manged to pull it back a bit but the damage was done, I know I would have been better to take either a raven, shunting dread knight etc to get up in his face, but before hand we said it would be a friendly game.

Never trust a wolf player

It was short table edge deployment so was hard for me to get close, he just sat back and rolled dice.

What were his Troops?

Long Fangs arn't troops.

 Grey Templar wrote:
What were his Troops?

Long Fangs arn't troops.

2 lots of 5 grey hunters in lascannon razorbacks (again sit back shooting)

I was also unlucky as we rolled the kill point mission, I would have probably done better on objectives

Nothing you can do against that; that's filthy for 1000pts. Your list was solid, but nothing on his. Hard luck mate.