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This is a list-agnostic question (which may be setting myself up for failure) but I'm looking for people's gut reaction on the best way to add some additional AA to a SM list.

All of these units are fairly inexpensive so I see the potential for swapping them in and out of whatever your standard competitive list is depending on your need for knocking out flyers.

Quad Gun feels like the safest TAC choice, since it isn't limited to only AA (like the Hunter/Stalker) and starts on the board turn 1 (unlike the Storm Talon).
The drawback is the reliance on another unit shooting with it as well as cover saves being less significant these days.

Storm Talon is the most expensive option but the most flexible overall as it works well against ground or air targets. The price tag, low durability and coming in from reserves make it less than optimal.

Stalker/Hunter is the cheapest and the most specialized. Honestly, the biggest drawback to me isn't the lack of Interceptor but the fact that it eats up one FOC slot all by itself and there are ALOT of good Heavy Support options.

The Storm Talon, in my experience bring more to the table than just AA duties. Its options are ok price wise and they help in both AA and strafing ground targets. Strafing run is the biggest thing you get: BS 5 on ground targets as well as pinning, which is very good. The other great options are the SR and the ADL w/ Quad Gun. I fell that for just AA the Hunter/Stalker are ok, but lack the good cover save and interceptor that the ADL gives, as well as taking a heavy slot from SR, predators or TFCs.

Stalkers I'm warming up to.

My main complaint about them is that they take up tasty heavy support slots which usually means that if you want to take them, you're probably going to want to do the whole "ally with yourself" thing that marines can do so you can have 4 HS slots. They did show up in spades during a recent tournament, including in the overall winner's list.

Hunter I'm meh on. At most they are getting 6 shots a game. Likely it's going to be quite a bit less. They also have a special rule that ONLY kicks in if you miss when you shoot at a flyer.

ADL gives you a cover save sure, but the ugly armies to fight right now don't really care about the cover from the defense line. The big benefit I see here is that it comes with interceptor.

Stormtalons I'm really fond of. They can shoot at flyers, or they can bully backline units. All this at a rather decent price for a unit that DOESN'T take a HS slot.

Stormravens weren't mentioned, but they are really nice and are considered one of the best HS choices you can take.

I'd say currently I run Stormtalons. I'm painting a Stormraven, and my ADL hasn't come out of my case in months. I'm strongly considering Stalkers for my next list (Salamander main/Iron Hands ally), and the Hunter missile launcher would make a great bit for something else.

If I have to rank, it has to be:
1. Aegis+Quad Gun: Cheap, interceptor, provide 4+ cover.
2. SM Storm Talon: Skyfire, etc.
3. SM Stalker: No interceptor

minigun762 wrote:This is a list-agnostic question (which may be setting myself up for failure) but I'm looking for people's gut reaction on the best way to add some additional AA to a SM list.

All of these units are fairly inexpensive so I see the potential for swapping them in and out of whatever your standard competitive list is depending on your need for knocking out flyers.

Quad Gun feels like the safest TAC choice, since it isn't limited to only AA (like the Hunter/Stalker) and starts on the board turn 1 (unlike the Storm Talon).
The drawback is the reliance on another unit shooting with it as well as cover saves being less significant these days.

Storm Talon is the most expensive option but the most flexible overall as it works well against ground or air targets. The price tag, low durability and coming in from reserves make it less than optimal.

Stalker/Hunter is the cheapest and the most specialized. Honestly, the biggest drawback to me isn't the lack of Interceptor but the fact that it eats up one FOC slot all by itself and there are ALOT of good Heavy Support options.

Pellegrino wrote:If I have to rank, it has to be:
1. Aegis+Quad Gun: Cheap, interceptor, provide 4+ cover.
2. SM Storm Talon: Skyfire, etc.
3. SM Stalker: No interceptor

I think you’ve hit the high points, and personally agree with this ranking. None of them are bad choices, the question is how they fit into your list, who you are facing, and how you feel about the aesthetics of the unit.

While there are a lot of things that ignore cover saves, not everything does. A lot of people assume that every army you face is going to be some taudar monster, or skies full of heldrakes. I can’t speak for other’s FLGS, but mine has a lot more “normal” lists. I get a lot of milage out of some sniper scouts a/o devs hiding behind the ADL.

I like my stormtalon. It’s a scrappy little gunship. There is always something for it to shoot, and it’s lived through its share of games.

I like the new AA tanks on paper, but don’t own one to test. If you have a couple of spare points and a free HS slot, they seem very nice for what you pay. Remember that skyfire units can still shoot at full BS against skimmers, which is pretty much every xenos tank. So even if the skies are clear, you probably have a target worth shooting at without having to resort to snapfireing.

Downsides of the quad is marines don't always need the cover especially against tau, eldar, and hell drakes because they have so much ignore cover. Tank hunting Imperial fist dev squads are really scary on a quad.

Storm talons have great dakka but are 2hp and start in reserve.

The tanks have decent dakka agains xenos skimmers. The hunter is far superior to the stalker when shooting av13 necron skimmers and av12 tau skimmers. The stalker doesn't lose much when dropping from bs2 to bs1 if no skimmers are around to be shot at. I don't buy the hs slots are too tight and nothing screams manditory. There are a lot of great options in hs, but marines don't NEED any of them (except for devs in an imperial fist list)

The answer is simple: Look at the rest of your list.

points to burn=talons

hs to burn=tanks

imperial fists=quad gun

I didn't include the Raven just because of it's price tag. You could easily afford two of the other options.

Of course if a single Raven is better than two of the others...

Thanks to PotMS Ravens can shoot at two targets a turn, so thinking of them as a two-in-one option is not that far off the mark.

The same thing that works against the hunter/stalker works for the raven: the FOC. Ignoring points and tricks for the moment, you have 3 HS slots, what are you going to spend them on? Things like the H/S (and the whirlwind for that matter) aren’t bad, are cheep, but you’d probably want to field them in a squadron of 2-3 to get the job done. Problem is, they are bought individually.

Units like the raven are very “dense” from a FOC POV. Sure, they are a lot of points, and an expensive kit, and look like a flying dumpster. But they do a lot for the points, are reasonably tough as flyers go. It’s worth investing the HS slot for them. In higher point games where the FOC starts filling up, this becomes a lot more relevant.

Marines have a lot of competitie options, some expensive units, and few cheap units. I don't see a lack of FOC as a problem. If a slot seems tight it's only beacause a player likes the units in that slot more than the rest of the book.

Ravens are good but I wouldn't buy one purely for AA. They are also an expensive assault vehicle capible of a rude delivery.

The effectiveness of the ADL really does rely on the local meta. A more casual meta will find the player getting plenty of mileage out of it while a meta of fotm players or a more hardcore tourney minded meta will find the marine player removing the models from behind the ADL like it wasn't there, YMMV

*this should not be taken as a condemnation of either meta type, just something each player needs to keep in mind before picking up the box.

10 man dev with 4 flak is also viable for imperial fists, but too expensive otherwise.

nobody wrote:
The effectiveness of the ADL really does rely on the local meta. A more casual meta will find the player getting plenty of mileage out of it while a meta of fotm players or a more hardcore tourney minded meta will find the marine player removing the models from behind the ADL like it wasn't there, YMMV

*this should not be taken as a condemnation of either meta type, just something each player needs to keep in mind before picking up the box.

Know your local meta, your sources, and invest in salt. Pretty much all advice you read here on Dakka, and the internet in general, needs to be filtered and take with a grain of salt. There are people here who’s opinion I respect, but it is only applicable to the hyper-competitive tourney scene. So when they chime in on a thread saying that something is useless, I add a little salt. On the flip side, there are people who let fluff and tradition override modern realities. If you ask me what to give a tactical squad, I’m going to tell you to take both the special and the heavy in a ten man squad, even it it’s not necessarily the best choice. I try to be honest and upfront with my bias, but don’t always remember to append every post with a IMHO, YMMV, etc, etc… I also let a lot of stuff slide in the name of fun. I might mention that I think power fists aren’t worth the points, but wouldn’t tell a son of Dorn to trim one from his list.

I have no idea who you are likely to face across the table. I can give all sorts of advice based on the general trends I see here, or what I see at my FLGS. But that might have no bearing on your local store. You might be more likely to face green tides of orcs or swarms of gribbly nids just due to the players in your area. In that case the normal “Heavy Bolters are useless” arguments you see here are wrong for you. You don’t need grav weapons or plasma for what you are facing, even though they would be better for the generic assumed meta.

I suppose you could swap the ADL to a Bastion. Still in the same ballpark of points but gives you some protection against non-template covering ignoring shots and a 3+ save will hold up fairly well against collapses or grenades.

I run a bike list so AA is very important to me as I have to have a way to limit heldrakes to only 1-2 turns of shooting. I take a storm talon with hammer missiles and a hunter. People rag on the hunter because it's only skyfire but with armour bane you pretty much get a pen with every hit and you can shoot at full BS against skimmers which is nice against serpents. The talon is great because at 125 it's 7 S6+ shots it will average a pen against armour 12, is a nice weapon platform against ground targets.

I hear people knock the Skyhammer upgrade, saying it's not damaging enough.
What's your thought?

The other options are just so expensive!

 minigun762 wrote:
I hear people knock the Skyhammer upgrade, saying it's not damaging enough.
What's your thought?

The other options are just so expensive!

The other options (TML specifically) are generally better, if focused. But as you point out, very expensive. The skyhammers IMHO are good enough, and don’t break the bank on points. So that’s what I fly with.

S8 and AP3 Heavy 2 can make a huge difference when shooting down FMCs.
S9 and AP2 (TL one shot) doesn’t mess around when getting a pen and blowing flyers out of the sky.
S7 AP4 Heavy 3 can help strip hull points, can pen lighter flyers, but you are relying on the TLAsC to do the heavy lifting.

 Nevelon wrote:

 minigun762 wrote:
I hear people knock the Skyhammer upgrade, saying it's not damaging enough.
What's your thought?

The other options are just so expensive!

The other options (TML specifically) are generally better, if focused. But as you point out, very expensive. The skyhammers IMHO are good enough, and don’t break the bank on points. So that’s what I fly with.

S8 and AP3 Heavy 2 can make a huge difference when shooting down FMCs.
S9 and AP2 (TL one shot) doesn’t mess around when getting a pen and blowing flyers out of the sky.
S7 AP4 Heavy 3 can help strip hull points, can pen lighter flyers, but you are relying on the TLAsC to do the heavy lifting.

I tend to be a minimal upgrade kind of player, so cheap units appeal to me.
What is effectively 1.5 autocannons seems like a fairly good weapon, especially against lighter targets.
However I start to second guess my choice in a world full of AV12 flyers and 3+ save FMCs.

 minigun762 wrote:

I tend to be a minimal upgrade kind of player, so cheap units appeal to me.
What is effectively 1.5 autocannons seems like a fairly good weapon, especially against lighter targets.
However I start to second guess my choice in a world full of AV12 flyers and 3+ save FMCs.

I’m with you on the minimalism. Point cost is what really drives this issue home for me. Upgrading from the HBs is a no brainer. The primary job of the talon is hunting light vehicles, preferably in the sky, but on the ground once that is done. HBs don’t help with that at all.

The LC does help open up vehicles, but it is very focused. If you do end up shooting at non-vehicle targets, it’s not the best with just one shot. And it’s 15 more points then the skyhammers. So you end up paying a premium to be better at your primary role, but worse at all other ones. I can see the argument, but prefer the TAC, less expensive option.

The TML is significantly more expensive, but very nice for a multi-role fighter. S8 can ID T4, AP3 can cut apart a lot of FMCs. Sure, you get one less shot then the skyhammers, but they are going to hit harder and do more damage. 20 points better? That’s a judgement call. Personally, they loose some of their functionality due to frag missiles using the scatter die. While they work for other people, every time I toss one downrange I regret it. But they are a nice option for people with a better relation to their dice.

Another reason to take the inexpensive option if the fly-by attack. Zoom past your target and take advantage of the 360 mount in the chin turret for the TLAsCs. You are forgoing you secondary weapons (which are pointed off into the distance) for pumping assault cannon rounds into your target’s rear armor. If you plan on doing this a lot I could even see the case for keeping the HBs, but that’s a little crazy.

Hyperion Air Defense platforms

All others need not apply

Nevelon:
Keeping the HB isn't as crazy as it sounds. I ran the numbers comparing the weapon upgrades to each other as well as the TLAC and it was interesting.
The TLAC is better at killing all armor except AV12 than any upgrade weapon as well as putting wounds on a Riptide. It was barely beaten when fired against a Wraithknight by the TML.