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Forward: not sure if this belongs here or in proposed rules. Feel free to move if you think it pertinent.

Title pretty much covers it. While flyers can be correctly classified as fast attack, heavy support, etc., it seems like they're unique enough to deserve their own force slot, and I wonder if the game would be the better for it? Something similar to a standard secondary selection, three choices available outside of regular heavy, fast attack, and elite sections, with the usual "no slot" option for dedicated transport flyers.

It just seems like flyers have formed a rather unique place in the game, becoming a fairly common item on the battlefield, that it's a shame they are over-powering the other still fun options in their given slot.

So what do you all think, should the standard force organization chart be amended to HQ:2, Troop:6, Elite:3, Fast Attack:3, Heavy Support:3, Flyer Support:3, Fortification:1?

Its an interesting idea, and would certainly remove things like Cron Air or the IG Vendetta/Valk/whatever spam (EDIT: It wouldn't, as people say, as they are dedicated transports. My bad)

I think im lucky in that my group/club isnt overly competitive, and so 1 or 2 flyrers is all youre likely to see in one list. But I can imagine the displeasure I would experience if someone fielded 6-9 flyers.

 HerbaciousT wrote:
Its an interesting idea, and would certainly remove things like Cron Air or the IG Vendetta/Valk/whatever spam.

I think im lucky in that my group/club isnt overly competitive, and so 1 or 2 flyrers is all youre likely to see in one list. But I can imagine the displeasure I would experience if someone fielded 6-9 flyers.

In my opinion, the more flyers you have the board, the harder it is to manage. I try to make my lists work with 2-3 flyers max. Any more than that and they are annoying to position and move on the board each turn; however, the more you have the more likely they'll come in on turn 2.

As for the OP idea of giving them a dedicated spot on the FOC, I like the idea; however, I dont' think it'd change Cron Air or IG Vendetta spam since those lists focus on the dedicated transport aspect. If they were not dedicated transports and had their own spot, I think it'd be a pretty nice way to possibly balance those styles of lists and increase the FOC point limit to probably 2500 instead of 2000.

I like the one per 1000pts rule some people proposed.

Well, just some thoughts on this.

1) Dedicated Transports ignore the normal FOC system, so doing this would not keep a Necron player from being able to field 6 Night Scythes along with 3 Doom Scythes

2) The current FOC system forces compromise choices. Does that Necron Player use a Doom Scythe or a Annihilation Barge? If you move the flyers to a separate FOC he can choose both.

So, you have not solved the issue when it comes to 'cron air in the least. In fact you have removed most of the reasons not to take as many 'scythes as you can.

I don't know if it would fix anything, but I personally love this rule since it means that my fliers wouldn't be competing for FA slots with my markerlights. That is a situation where taking a flier is decidedly a slot limitation instead of a points limitation

In all seriousness, I don't know how it would fix anything. The 3 fliers I know about that people actually complain about are helldrake, nightscythe, and vendetta (I guess storm raven and that crazy FW flying ram go in there too, but they aren't anything like the "big 3"). Out of those three, 2 are already dedicated transports and moving the 3rd to a seperate slot wouldn't really do much, since to a lot of CSM players the "fast attack" slot might as well be the "flyer support" slot already.

In order for this option to actually change anything there would have to be enough other stuff in the slot the flier is giving up to justify taking it, which in turn means less points spent on other stuff. I leave it up to people who know more than me to debate what this would mean from a list building perspective, however I think we'd just end up seeing the same lists because there's still a point limitation on models, even if the FOC limitation has been shifted around.

The way to stop 2 of the "big 3" would be to lock down on fliers as dedicated transports, but that isn't really going to happen and to be completely honest it isn't that fair to the armies that already use dedicated transport fliers if we said "guess what...your stuff doesn't work anymore" (although I personally think the Vendetta isn't that fair to begin with since it was a "flier" designed before the flier rules actually existed, so it wasn't balanced too well. Oh well, if GW wanted to adjust the balance they would have done it when they updated it to flyer status...but that would imply they actually gave a darn about balance, which I question some days).

In a lot of cases, this would be beneficial for flyer-heavy lists as you can then get a lot of fliers in and still pick your regular units you couldn't pick before because all slots were taken.

At work, so cannot post a lot of response, but to be clear: the intent was not to "fix" anything in terms of balancing out the meta.

So now I can have both chaos bikers AND heldrakes?

Sweeet.

 Aipoch wrote:
At work, so cannot post a lot of response, but to be clear: the intent was not to "fix" anything in terms of balancing out the meta.

Sure, but any changes can, and will, have impacts on said meta. In this case, you'd definitely favor armies that do not need any further buffs. Helldrakes and Doomscythes now freeing up additional choices is a bad idea. I see where the idea comes from, but as of now, to me, the disadvantageous impacts overweight the general idea behind it.

The interesting thing in this thread is that so many people are missing an obvious "solution" to flyer spam that could be built into this.

That is to limit flyers to 1 or 2 per FOC, and to ONLY allow them in the flyer slot, regardless of transport capacity.

For me, I think that each army should have it's own FOC really. There's no reason why Tau, Eldar, Necrons, SM, Orks, and so on have the exact same Force structure and to me it actually seems to hinder balance issues. Either each army gets it's own FOC built with it in mind or each unit gets a limitation such as the old 0-1 or 0-2 limitations without the FOC to give an extra layer of unneccesary structuring.

Honestly I think being able to field a bunch of cheap troops in cheap flying transports could be fine. They shouldn't be immune to key drawbacks that help balance the cost of flying transports or their cost should be increased accordingly.

 dementedwombat wrote:
I don't know if it would fix anything, but I personally love this rule since it means that my fliers wouldn't be competing for FA slots with my markerlights. That is a situation where taking a flier is decidedly a slot limitation instead of a points limitation

In all seriousness, I don't know how it would fix anything. The 3 fliers I know about that people actually complain about are helldrake, nightscythe, and vendetta (I guess storm raven and that crazy FW flying ram go in there too, but they aren't anything like the "big 3"). Out of those three, 2 are already dedicated transports and moving the 3rd to a seperate slot wouldn't really do much, since to a lot of CSM players the "fast attack" slot might as well be the "flyer support" slot already.

In order for this option to actually change anything there would have to be enough other stuff in the slot the flier is giving up to justify taking it, which in turn means less points spent on other stuff. I leave it up to people who know more than me to debate what this would mean from a list building perspective, however I think we'd just end up seeing the same lists because there's still a point limitation on models, even if the FOC limitation has been shifted around.

The way to stop 2 of the "big 3" would be to lock down on fliers as dedicated transports, but that isn't really going to happen and to be completely honest it isn't that fair to the armies that already use dedicated transport fliers if we said "guess what...your stuff doesn't work anymore" (although I personally think the Vendetta isn't that fair to begin with since it was a "flier" designed before the flier rules actually existed, so it wasn't balanced too well. Oh well, if GW wanted to adjust the balance they would have done it when they updated it to flyer status...but that would imply they actually gave a darn about balance, which I question some days).

Vendettas aren't DT, they're Fast Attack. Other than that, I agree with most of this

I like this idea!
I could have three doomscythes and three annihilation barges!
That would make the Necron Codex far more balanced

The whole FOC rebuild is not necessary. The only change that needs to be made is Night Scythes to be shifted into the Fast Attack slot and out of Dedicated Transports, and the 1-3 Squadron rule removed for Vendettas.

If you went out and bought 6 Night Scythes, you can still play them. At 2000 points with double Force Org. If you want to run 6 Vendettas, again, play 2000 points with double FOC.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
The whole FOC rebuild is not necessary. The only change that needs to be made is Night Scythes to be shifted into the Fast Attack slot and out of Dedicated Transports.

...and Vendettas removed from the game!

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
The whole FOC rebuild is not necessary. The only change that needs to be made is Night Scythes to be shifted into the Fast Attack slot and out of Dedicated Transports, and the 1-3 Squadron rule removed for Vendettas.

If you went out and bought 6 Night Scythes, you can still play them. At 2000 points with double Force Org. If you want to run 6 Vendettas, again, play 2000 points with double FOC.

and vendettas and storm ravens recosted to reflect their actual utility.

(and every other 5th edition flyer)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 shamikebab wrote:
I like the one per 1000pts rule some people proposed.

that is what I consider friendly, although I think 1 per 1000 points or portion there of sounds about right. So 2 at 1750 and 3 at 2500 but only 1 at 1000pts

 Exergy wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
The whole FOC rebuild is not necessary. The only change that needs to be made is Night Scythes to be shifted into the Fast Attack slot and out of Dedicated Transports, and the 1-3 Squadron rule removed for Vendettas.

If you went out and bought 6 Night Scythes, you can still play them. At 2000 points with double Force Org. If you want to run 6 Vendettas, again, play 2000 points with double FOC.

and vendettas and storm ravens recosted to reflect their actual utility.

(and every other 5th edition flyer)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 shamikebab wrote:
I like the one per 1000pts rule some people proposed.

that is what I consider friendly, although I think 1 per 1000 points or portion there of sounds about right. So 2 at 1750 and 3 at 2500 but only 1 at 1000pts

If you recost one flier, you have to recost them all. Night Scythes are worth a hell of a lot more than 100 points. Assuming you're removing Dedicated Transport and swapping them to Fast Attack, they're worth 150 easily. Storm Ravens are pretty appropriately priced considering what you can put inside them. Vendettas shouldn't be Transports, and should be ~150 pts.

Vendettas as expensive as Nightscythes?

I smell a fellow IG player here

Try 250.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Vendettas as expensive as Nightscythes?

I smell a fellow IG player here

Try 250.

250 is absurd for a BS3 vehicle in the current meta. Most players are switching to foot armies and you want a ~100% increase in points for an anti-tank vehicle?

Vendettas and Night Scythes should be costed roughly the same. Vendettas have better armor and are better against vehicles. Night Scythes are better BS, are the only transport in the game that provides 100% protection for their occupants, and has a gun that is much better against infantry (and not half bad against tanks). Plus the cargo they carry is far tougher than Guardsmen.

 troa wrote:
The interesting thing in this thread is that so many people are missing an obvious "solution" to flyer spam that could be built into this.

That is to limit flyers to 1 or 2 per FOC, and to ONLY allow them in the flyer slot, regardless of transport capacity.

Unacceptable I do not agree with this at all, I only say it like this because I run an "Air Cav" themed Imperial Guard army with the regular Codex or out of the Elysian FOC in IA32E. If people want to spam flyers they should have the right to. I take 3-4 flyers in my standard IG codex list most times and have yet to have anyone scream op.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Vendettas as expensive as Nightscythes?

I smell a fellow IG player here

Try 250.

Someone is bitter about Vendettas obviously...250 is a ridiculous number, I agree with making them roughly the amount of Deathsythes as even though I am an IG player I can admit that they are underpriced, but nothing as knee jerked as that.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Vendettas as expensive as Nightscythes?

I smell a fellow IG player here

Try 250.

250 is absurd for a BS3 vehicle in the current meta. Most players are switching to foot armies and you want a ~100% increase in points for an anti-tank vehicle?

Vendettas and Night Scythes should be costed roughly the same. Vendettas have better armor and are better against vehicles. Night Scythes are better BS, are the only transport in the game that provides 100% protection for their occupants, and has a gun that is much better against infantry (and not half bad against tanks). Plus the cargo they carry is far tougher than Guardsmen.

BS3 is irrelevent when all its weapons are twinlinked. AV12 is absurd for a flyer.
Metas changing to more infantry shouldnt make AT cheaper

vendettas are easily worth 200 points with the transport capacity. Without it it drops a few points. 150 and 250 are equally laughable.

I think it's armor needs to go down to 11, it keeps it transport capacity(because look at the model), loses squadrons(i havent heard of vendetta squadrons that werent beardy) and 175 points.

As for everyones hated heldrake. Make the autocannon twinlinked and drop the price 10 points, then increase the price of the baleflamer 20 points(10 more than current) and make both sponson mounted(180 degree field of fire)