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So, it just seems wrong. I played a game today and my FMC's entered in Swooping mode, and found a rocky piece of terrain to hide behind, concealing my Bloodthirster from the majority of the Tau army I was facing while being only 14-15" away from most of it. He then charged in next turn and killed 2 Squads, followed by my Khorne Demon Prince, that did the same thing.

The rules don't seem to say anything about LoS or Cover changes or restrictions, right for Swooping? FMCs are like Flyers, although they aren't mounted on flying bases and thus as easy to see or shoot as a Flyer is. Doesn't it seem wrong to get to fly that far, ignore all terrain for movement, but be able to hide with LoS, and gain cover benefits? Please correct me if I'm wrong with any of these rulings, but we both tried to play it as accurately by the book as we could, and it just seemed wrong. (as in really OP, as they were the units that single handedly wrecked his army, while half my army sat on objectives).

Thoughts? Rulings? Proper ways to play it?

 evildrspock wrote:
So, it just seems wrong. I played a game today and my FMC's entered in Swooping mode, and found a rocky piece of terrain to hide behind, concealing my Bloodthirster from the majority of the Tau army I was facing while being only 14-15" away from most of it. He then charged in next turn and killed 2 Squads, followed by my Khorne Demon Prince, that did the same thing.

The rules don't seem to say anything about LoS or Cover changes or restrictions, right for Swooping? FMCs are like Flyers, although they aren't mounted on flying bases and thus as easy to see or shoot as a Flyer is. Doesn't it seem wrong to get to fly that far, ignore all terrain for movement, but be able to hide with LoS, and gain cover benefits? Please correct me if I'm wrong with any of these rulings, but we both tried to play it as accurately by the book as we could, and it just seemed wrong. (as in really OP, as they were the units that single handedly wrecked his army, while half my army sat on objectives).

Thoughts? Rulings? Proper ways to play it?

How'd you manage to charge/kill 2 units the next turn with your Bloodthirster?

As strange as it might feel, FMC's roll like that, hiding behind LOS blocking terrain, being obscured, etc

A single model can only ever charge one unit, as it only has permission to move into contact with a single model.

Yes, FMC can still gain cover saves, same as flyers can, through TLOS

I think it's "unfair", but I can fully see it happening. Hiding behind some mountain, biding it's time to strike, and then suddenly swooping in for an attack.

But just to jump on the bandwagon. How'd you kill 2 units in one charge with a single model?

Well the book does say that they are hard to hit because of the speed they are moving. Not because they are high in the air.

Sorry, I was unclear in my first post, he charged in against 1 squad (stealth suits), stayed engaged in CC until the end of my opponent's turn, after which he regrouped and assaulted and killed another unit (broadsides, that always feels good), but over-killed them and then got gunned down in my opponent's next turn.

The point was, very effective, even against a S5 gunlilne with lots of Shots. granted, cover was in my favor (and once the Bloodthirster was finally out in the open, he got gunned down quite quickly and efficiently by my opponent, though it took most of his remaining S5 shots to do it).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, to answer my question, no changes to LoS or cover from intervening terrain for a Swooping model? Even though they can dive for a Jink, they still get LoS cover benefits?

No change at all, because nothing states this is changed in the FMC rules.

Yeah, I think FMC are not well designed and a bit overpowered but it seems they can benefit from both flying and cover at the same time.

They just have normal bases and not the big flyer bases.

This compensates for the fact they can get shot down and assaulted, which can't be done to a Flyer(which will almost never get natural cover)

Attomsk wrote:
Yeah, I think FMC are not well designed and a bit overpowered but it seems they can benefit from both flying and cover at the same time.

They're designed fine, just adds a bit of survivability to them. The fact you can make one fall out of the sky with a markerlight is a good LOL.
I'll definitely say a fly-star with Kairos is alot of fun though.

I'm getting 2 more soon Can't wait to run my 6 FMC flying circus with Chaos Demons/CSM allies. It will be a nice, quick army to play.

The still getting cover and blocked LoS makes up for the fact ANY successful hit triggers a grounding test, not wounds but just a simple hit. This makes FMC glass against units that get sky fire.

Yeah, the extra grounded tests kinda balance the added LoS/Cover bonuses they have for not being mounted on a flying base.

 evildrspock wrote:
I'm getting 2 more soon Can't wait to run my 6 FMC flying circus with Chaos Demons/CSM allies. It will be a nice, quick army to play.

How many points is that going to be? I like playing this list type, but I always feel like I'm too light on troops.

 undertow wrote:

 evildrspock wrote:
I'm getting 2 more soon Can't wait to run my 6 FMC flying circus with Chaos Demons/CSM allies. It will be a nice, quick army to play.

How many points is that going to be? I like playing this list type, but I always feel like I'm too light on troops.

I run 5 units of 5 plaguebearers at 1850

 undertow wrote:

 evildrspock wrote:
I'm getting 2 more soon Can't wait to run my 6 FMC flying circus with Chaos Demons/CSM allies. It will be a nice, quick army to play.

How many points is that going to be? I like playing this list type, but I always feel like I'm too light on troops.

One build I just made with decent options on all the FMC's looks like this:

Bloodthirster
Bloodthirster
Khorne DP
Slaneesh DP
Tzeench DP
+Allied CSM Khorne DP
1465 pts.

Every unit but the CSM Khorne DP can fire during the shooting phase. for my area 1850 pts model, that's 385 pts for some minimal troop choices. Although 1 10 Man barebones CSM squad in a rhino + 2 5 Man Bloodletters leaves 50 some points spare for upgrades. The point is the army IS the FMC's; everything else is just there as a formality. The amount of killiness this army has is unprecedented.

Get tallymen instead, bloodletters just fall over too easily to be the bare bones troops you want

 evildrspock wrote:

 undertow wrote:

 evildrspock wrote:
I'm getting 2 more soon Can't wait to run my 6 FMC flying circus with Chaos Demons/CSM allies. It will be a nice, quick army to play.

How many points is that going to be? I like playing this list type, but I always feel like I'm too light on troops.

One build I just made with decent options on all the FMC's looks like this:

Bloodthirster
Bloodthirster
Khorne DP
Slaneesh DP
Tzeench DP
+Allied CSM Khorne DP
1465 pts.

Every unit but the CSM Khorne DP can fire during the shooting phase. for my area 1850 pts model, that's 385 pts for some minimal troop choices. Although 1 10 Man barebones CSM squad in a rhino + 2 5 Man Bloodletters leaves 50 some points spare for upgrades. The point is the army IS the FMC's; everything else is just there as a formality. The amount of killiness this army has is unprecedented.

Guess that depends on what you're playing against.

I run
Fateweaver
Bloodthirster
2xTz DP's flight + goodies
1xNurgle DP flight + goodies
2x5 flamers
5x5 Plaguebearers

Starting to feel that I'm using 1-2 squads too many of PB's though

At 1850 you can definitely get away with 4 units, PB in cover sre so difficult to kill now.

Do you need 5 flamers per unit? 4 seems good - you only get 3 shooting Breath when they drop anyway. Depends on how many casualties you expect to take, but 3 units seems more interesitng for opponents (read: i hate the new flamers. Undercosted heavily given the addition of a wound AND a drop in points cost)

Yeah, if it was pure Demons, I really should take a Fateweaver, for the force multiplication. Question is do I want to or not.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
At 1850 you can definitely get away with 4 units, PB in cover sre so difficult to kill now.

Do you need 5 flamers per unit? 4 seems good - you only get 3 shooting Breath when they drop anyway. Depends on how many casualties you expect to take, but 3 units seems more interesitng for opponents (read: i hate the new flamers. Undercosted heavily given the addition of a wound AND a drop in points cost)

This isn't strictly true. It is possible in some circumstances to get 4 templates off. For example: if you land near a vehicle or large model (ie Tervigon or similar) and position your Flamers properly around the initial model you can hit with 4. You can also stick a Herald on a disc in the unit and use him for the initial drop, with the larger base you could get more templates that way too.

I agree that the new flamers aren't much fun for opponents. They were good before the WD update, now I sort of feel dirty using them.

Why are plague bearers so hard to kill in cover? just the cover save + the 6e fnp? slightly worse than 5e?

Ithani wrote:
Why are plague bearers so hard to kill in cover? just the cover save + the 6e fnp? slightly worse than 5e?

Toughness 5, with FnP and a 5++
If you can improve their invul with cover, say a 4+ than yea they're hard as nails to kill