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I hate the fact that in 6th edition I have to take 100 points out of my list for the auto include aegis defense line+ quad gun. Sure some armies can function without it just fine but other armies have no flyer support. So my question to you all is how have you coped with this auto-include or what have you done to counter the surge of fliers? We are at a unique time where a significant number of armies now have fliers. This leaves the ones without flyers with an almost auto-include fortification to deal with them.

Armies still without flyers:
Eldar
Tau
Nids (though they do have flying mc's!)
Daemons (though they do have flying mc's!)
Sisters of Battle
Black templars
Space Wolves

The aegis +quadcannon is far from an autoinclude.

It's a damn good buy, but I've seen plenty of people do just fine without it.

If you see the quadcannon as "autoinclude" for AA, I feel bad for you, because the one time you will truly need it (french bakery, vendetta spam, etc) it's just going to die horribly, because everything in your opponent's army will kill it if they know it's you're only real answer to AA.

As for me, I take it if I'm feeling lazy and don't want to move my guardsmen around. Usually though I've found it gets in the way of movement, gives your opponent saves at times, and makes it easier for charging enemies to reach you.

Although I will concede that apparently Footdar has it as an autoinclude. Played against two eldar players the other day and I'm pretty sure that was the only thing that kept me from tabling either of them, what with all my templates.

Tau don't need AA. With half a dozen twin-linked railguns, all they need is a single hit to take down most fliers.

Well, I think the Quad-gun certainly compares favorably to the Hydra -- nevermind being able to shoot it at ground targets.

I'd say that's enough of an argument to include it in any list that can afford it.

Corollax wrote:
Well, I think the Quad-gun certainly compares favorably to the Hydra -- nevermind being able to shoot it at ground targets.

I'd say that's enough of an argument to include it in any list that can afford it.

Well except the hydra doesn't get to shoot at all arriving reserves.

Even in armies that have fliers they need to bring it to help balance the odds against armies with a better loadout of fliers. Example: Crons, and IG who obviously have air superiority.

The imperial bastion w/ quad gun...

Seriously though this is a major problem for pre-flier armies. The answers I have seen or used are;

FW its like an update to your codex every few months. Beware though, some people will not play the stuff (I am sorry if a legality debate occurs because I said this but it is a "legit" way to deal with fliers with old codices)

Control the ground game and ignore fliers (see Ailros who seems to be figuring this out).

Allies; most everyone can ally in something that has no problems against fliers. IG are a great example because they can take a full on army in the allies FoC without breaking a sweat. This is however a pain if you had no interest in the ally models in the first place.

Otherwise weight of fire can work however it suffers the better your BS normally was (cause you probably spent more per shot due to that factor). Orks actually can pull this off better that I would have believed before seeing it.

 ansacs wrote:
The imperial bastion w/ quad gun...

Seriously though this is a major problem for pre-flier armies. The answers I have seen or used are;

FW its like an update to your codex every few months. Beware though, some people will not play the stuff (I am sorry if a legality debate occurs because I said this but it is a "legit" way to deal with fliers with old codices)

Control the ground game and ignore fliers (see Ailros who seems to be figuring this out).

Allies; most everyone can ally in something that has no problems against fliers. IG are a great example because they can take a full on army in the allies FoC without breaking a sweat. This is however a pain if you had no interest in the ally models in the first place.

Otherwise weight of fire can work however it suffers the better your BS normally was (cause you probably spent more per shot due to that factor). Orks actually can pull this off better that I would have believed before seeing it.

How many models does it take to bring down a flier with weight of fire. Probably significantly more points then the flier is worth. Allies might be the best option but kind of takes away from the flow of an army imo.

^^
When I play my sisters I will usually go for a more ground superiority and destroy their ground forces but I will usually include an adl+gun due to the fact that it almost always makes up its points and gives a handy save to my dev equivalents while they sprey heavy bolters every where and my immolators burn and melt the ground

Usually if I feel like not fielding my retributors I will just go for more twin linked dominion squads as they can all make their guns twin linked (even grenades!) And I will shoot fliers down with meltaguns and krak grenades

Remember that if the enemy is fielding fliers that they are also draining points from their ground force in order to take them and if you can cross the board fast enough you can make it difficult for your enemies fliers to do anything for more then one round before having to fly off the board because they wont be hitting much

Basically either find a good heavy weaoons team that could sit back and man the gun or dont take an adl at all and try to spam as much tl and a lot of speed in order to nullify as much of the fliers effectiveness as possible while you most often will be throwing pain at the enemies outmanned/outgunned/both ground forces because they were not able to spend as much points as you were on the ground

Much like A GumyBear, my tyranids tend to just go for the ground superiority route. I generally just ignore any flyers and push forward onto objectives, swarming the enemy and pushing into their backfield.

Most of the time, it works just fine, and Tervigons camping objectives while the swarm runs wild has done pretty well against even necron flier spam.


With my chaos marines, I played with the aegis a little bit, but eventually just dropped it for more bodies. I prefer a more mobile battle strategy, and leaving units behind to sit on a few S7 shots just didn't seem worth it.


Really, once I realized that you could shoot the quad-gun to pieces, it lost a lot of its luster for me.

Firstly, look at Forge World for a lot of cool new fliers and flier defence.

Secondly, look at allies and conversions and counts-as. For example, Tau could take some IG allies, model them as human auxiliaries, and then include a scratch-built counts-as Vendetta. I mean, you're better off just using some FW units instead of going to all that trouble, but the potential is there.

 Kaldor wrote:
Firstly, look at Forge World for a lot of cool new fliers and flier defence.

Secondly, look at allies and conversions and counts-as. For example, Tau could take some IG allies, model them as human auxiliaries, and then include a scratch-built counts-as Vendetta. I mean, you're better off just using some FW units instead of going to all that trouble, but the potential is there.

I cant use fw in tournaments or GT's. So I dont wanna use them and become reliant on fw then go to a tournament and get smashed without fw. Practice as you play if you will.

Imo ther are two basic and simple ways to deal with fliers

Ground superiority and push their backfield

Allies (preferably ig as you can take more per slot) and adl+gun

A quad-gun is nothing more than a speed bump to a true Flyer Spam army. A list with 6 Vendettas is just going to come on, take those 4 autocannon shots on the chin, and slag the quad-gun. Assuming the rest of the army didn't do it before the Vendettas arrived.

The same with Necron Flyers.

Fortifications are only an answer to Flyers if the opponent has one or two of them. If he has more its nothing but an annoyance.

Real anti-flyer firepower comes from just throwing tons of shots at them, preferably with rerolls.

Orks, Nids, and IG have a way to beat out flyers that other armies will find difficult to pull off. Field control. If there is nowhere for the thing to move, than its dead. Spread your boyz/Gaunts/expendable resources out to cover as much of the field as possible. forcing the birds to either crash or or make pointless flights. (coming on at such an angle that they cant do anything just so they dont crash.)

Big Mek Dattrukk wrote:
Orks, Nids, and IG have a way to beat out flyers that other armies will find difficult to pull off. Field control. If there is nowhere for the thing to move, than its dead. Spread your boyz/Gaunts/expendable resources out to cover as much of the field as possible. forcing the birds to either crash or or make pointless flights. (coming on at such an angle that they cant do anything just so they dont crash.)

The amount of models needed to stop a flier from moving from 18-36" at any angle within 90 degree's of its current direction of travel is hard even for the armies listed. Even if you manage to pull that off what is the rest of your opponents army doing as you dedicate yours to stopping one flier?

 Tomb King wrote:

Big Mek Dattrukk wrote:
Orks, Nids, and IG have a way to beat out flyers that other armies will find difficult to pull off. Field control. If there is nowhere for the thing to move, than its dead. Spread your boyz/Gaunts/expendable resources out to cover as much of the field as possible. forcing the birds to either crash or or make pointless flights. (coming on at such an angle that they cant do anything just so they dont crash.)

The amount of models needed to stop a flier from moving from 18-36" at any angle within 90 degree's of its current direction of travel is hard even for the armies listed. Even if you manage to pull that off what is the rest of your opponents army doing as you dedicate yours to stopping one flier?

True, but it doesn't take nearly that much to ruin a good angle of attack for them. All you need to do is force him to overshoot or veer off to the side of his target. Lets say your leman russ is facing down a doom scythe roughly 24" away. All you need to do is move the tank straight at it 6", and the doomscythe either flies over it, unable to shoot it, or tries to stop right in front of it, where it will still be unable to shoot the tank as almost no flier can aim straight down.

And an army like a green tide or foot guard can literally fill the entire half of their board if they know how to use 2" coherency. When you do this, the enemy fliers will either have to fly sideways at you, exposing side armor and having less than preferable ability to choose targets, or overshoot every couple of turns as it simply can't touch down on your side of the booard. I've pulled this off several times, it's really not that hard.

Honestly, the Quadgun is just icing on the line of 4+ cover save cake.

Imo.

I don't use one, but that's because I use a Contemptor Dreadnought (Space Marine FW unit) instead. I'd probably have a 3rd Vindicator (or a Thunderfire Cannon) and a Aegis Line if i didn't use that.