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Is there a way to give a unit of Dark Reapers skyfire?

Alternatively, does anyone know a good way for eldar to successfully take on multiple Flying Hive Tyrants? Weight of firepower from Wave Serpents doesn't seem to be enough.

Pray to the dice gods for the skyfire nexus mysterious objective or, buy an aegis with quad gun/Icarus Lascannon and man it with the dark reaper exarch. Its a bit expensive but it works.

Flyrants are kickin my Eldar ass too. Crimson Hunters can't do anything to them, and when I played 3 Wave Serpents against 3 Flyrants, I lost that match haaard. I'm thinking of taking an Aegis Defense Line again honestly.

I built a bunker from foam and plan to use it as an Imperial Bunker. I also have a Bastion so I have the parts for the weapon implacements. So my current plan is to stick some Dark Reapers in there with a farseer for buffs and a weapon implacement.

I'm not sure if that would work though. It's roughly 350 points for all of that.

Do we know if Fast Shot gives an extra shot on gun emplacements? I know it was a debate a year ago or so in my group.

 Deafbeats wrote:
Do we know if Fast Shot gives an extra shot on gun emplacements? I know it was a debate a year ago or so in my group.

I've always assumed it did. I don't see any reason it wouldn't.

Use mysterious objectives?
Use telepathic Farseers. Dominate the flyrants?

Zimko wrote:

 Deafbeats wrote:
Do we know if Fast Shot gives an extra shot on gun emplacements? I know it was a debate a year ago or so in my group.

I've always assumed it did. I don't see any reason it wouldn't.

That's what i'd like to think, but people argued semantics, Fast Shot says something along the lines of "extra shot with his weapon", someone said "Is the gun emplacement his?" and it was all downhill from there :\

I think this discussion was from 6th edition BRB but the rules haven't changed for gun emplacements so... http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/541839.page

It looks like fast shot works.

I think I see a Quad Gun in my Future again

...walk out when someone puts more than two of the darned things on a table...?

As a Tyranid player, Wave Serpents have always seemed more than adept at knocking down my Flyrants. But, other things that I fear are:

1. Tau Allies with Broadsides
2. Guided/Prescienced large units of Guardians (Bonus points for Doom!)
3. Wraithknights (good for killing everything besides the Flyrants, as they can't be easily harmed)
4. Laughingseers on Jetbikes are also a huge Pain for me as well.

I'm thinking of taking an Aegis Defense Line again honestly.

I wouldn't recommend it tbh. An Icarus/quadgun, manned by a bs 5 exarch with fast shot, will manage a total of 1.39/1.08 wounds a turn against a flyrant.

The next turn you can guarantee they will be shot off the board.

A firestorm redoubt might be more in order. It is more expensive, but immune to the str 6 spam at least. You could try and keep the unit safe in there too.
Still doesn't do much more damage than the aegis line though.

For some comparison, here are the average number of wounds done to a flyrant, if it does not jink (making one jink is a good thing, as it really reduces the amount of damage it is putting out).

Quadgun with BS4 - 0.79
Icarus with BS4 - 0.74
Quadgun with BS5 exarch with fast shot - 1.08
Icarus with BS5 exarch with fast shot - 1.39
Crimson hunter with stock weapons - 2.22
Crimson hunter with starcannons - 2.244
Crimson hunter exarch with stock weapons - 2.78
Crimson hunter exarch with starcannons - 3.06
Firestorm With BS2 - 1.852
Firestorm With BS2 - 2.5
Waveserpent with scatterlaser and shuriken cannon, rolling a 6 for shield shots and hitting with at least 1 laser to TL everything - 0.934

If the flyrant jinks (likely with high ap weapons), then simply half the value shown.

Evaluations
As we can see, the aegis line guns are pretty bad, even with an axarch manning them. They are also very vulnerable to the kind of firepower that flyrants bring.

The crimson hunters deal the most damage of all the choices listed. Their biggest problem is taking return fire. Without taking psychic powers into consideration, a flyrant will do 2.66 hullpoints of damage to a Crimson hunter if it does jink. This makes them very much a glass cannon unit.

The firestorm is the most durable option, that still puts out a decent amound of wounds per turn, especially with the upgrade to BS, providing an AV14 block that most tyrannids struggle to deal with.
Flyrants can only hurt it with their electrgrubs (or psychic lance if they get it, but this is unreliable), but they have to get very close to do this.
It can also help keep a unit inside safe from str 6 shooting.
The biggest downside of the firestorm is that you do not get to decide which flyrant it shoots, only the closest, so the opponent can cycle through his flyrants to spread the damage around to maintain his damage output.

Waveserpent was just included to show how little damage they do in this case. Even when firing everyone at optimal they still do not reach 1 wound per turn. In actual gameplay they will no much less than the listed value.



At the end of the day, if someone brings multiple flyrants (Ibelieve 5 is the most common), there really is no way to kill them all. There are just too many flying T6 wounds on the board for any list except a perfectly tailored one to deal with. Try to find other ways to deal with them.

If you are playing eldar you could always get a few wraithknights on the board. The flyrants really cannot hurt them, so they will be free to deal with units on the ground. They could also be placed near to multiple flyrants and not shoot in the shooting phase. If your other units can put some hits on the flyrants, there is a chance they will come down and then get punched out by the knight.

Wave serpents are very durable to flyrant fire. If firing at a jinking serpent with holofield a flyrant average 0.6 glances a turn at range. If they get close then they do around 1 HP due to electrogrubs. Keep the serpents and their contents alive and play the objectives. If there is enough LoS blocking cover on the board the jetbikes might be able to play this game too. Just survive. Kill the crappy ground forces that inevitably come with flyrant spam lists, and then win objectives.

If you are simply mashing forces in a meat grinder, then flyrants will come out on top most of the time.

Hope some of that helps.

Edit: If you see flyrant spam lists a lot, just take a tau fire support formation and load up on skyfire. Its the only way you will ever have enough skyfire shots to bring the things down.
Each missileside team averages 3 wounds a turn.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

Quadgun with BS4 - 0.79
Icarus with BS4 - 0.74
Quadgun with BS5 exarch with fast shot - 1.08
Icarus with BS5 exarch with fast shot - 1.39
Crimson hunter with stock weapons - 2.22
Crimson hunter with starcannons - 2.244
Crimson hunter exarch with stock weapons - 2.78
Crimson hunter exarch with starcannons - 3.06
Firestorm With BS2 - 1.852
Firestorm With BS2 - 2.5
Waveserpent with scatterlaser and shuriken cannon, rolling a 6 for shield shots and hitting with at least 1 laser to TL everything - 0.934

These are all good options... I've never used the Firestorm though.

Taking on THREE flying Tyrants is a bit beardy and fortunately I don't play in tournaments or against opponents who do this. But I regularly take on two. The Crimson Hunter can positively murder flying Tyrants. It's your best option. Use maneuverability to your advantage, so that the Hive Tyrants have a difficult time returning fire. They have a big advantage in that they can fire in a 360 degree arc, but their movement while swooping is still limited, and they have to get within 18". So when your Crimson Hunter comes on the board, try to position yourself BEHIND the Tyrants and out of range if you can.

The other thing that Big Blind Bill left out is War Walkers, which can be insanely good at taking down Hive Tyrants simply through volume of fire. Equip them with either Star Cannons or Scatter Lasers. Cast Prescience or Guide on them whenever possible to REALLY up the damage. If you get lucky and discover a Skyfire Nexus objective, even better.

Also make good use of Doom and Misfortune. Cast it on the Hive Tyrant whenever possible. Also try to cast Perfect Timing on your Crimson Hunter so that the Hive Tyrant can't Jink out of the way.

You'd also be surprised how good a squad of 10 Dire Avengers with Prescience can be against a Tyrant.

Some more then:

3 Warwalkers with 2 starcannons each - 1
3 Warwalkers with 2 scatterlasers each - 0.667
20 guardians - 1.111
10 prescienced avengers - 1.01

I think I covered all of the best options originally, unless there are some FW flyers or something.

I've been dealing with this myself, after a particularly fruitless game against FMC spam.

I've started a small Tau allied force, with firewarriors to get a Crisis suit commander with Missile Pod, Plasma Rifle, Velocity Tracker and EWO. As soon as I can, I want to add a Skyray for even more anti-tank, but especially Anti-air power.

One thing I also experimented with is an Imperial Bastion with Quad Gun. I think this might be a better option than the Aegis Line, because AFAIK (I haven't looked around the net yet, so correct me if I'm wrong) if a unit of Dark Reapers is inside the Bastion, they don't need to be right beside the Quad Gun on the battlements in order to fire it.

You could give the Exarch an EML with Flakk, and just have a regular Reaper fire the Quad Gun, for additional shots. Sure, you lose out on a point of BS, but I don't think it'll matter a whole lot, as the Quad Gun is twin linked.

4 Dark Reapers with starswarm missiles and Guide/Prescience: 1.11 wounds
1 Dark Reaper exarch with fast shot and icarus and Guide/Prescience: 1.62 wounds


All inside a Bunker for AV13 protection.
Total wounds 2.73 per turn (and they ignore jink)

Point investment: 412 points

I guess it'll at least put pressure on them but I guess the best strat as you guys say is to kill everything else and just survive the Hive Tyrants.

Zimko wrote:
4 Dark Reapers with starswarm missiles and Guide/Prescience: 1.11 wounds
1 Dark Reaper exarch with fast shot and icarus and Guide/Prescience: 1.62 wounds


All inside a Bunker for AV13 protection.
Total wounds 2.73 per turn (and they ignore jink)

Point investment: 412 points

I guess it'll at least put pressure on them but I guess the best strat as you guys say is to kill everything else and just survive the Hive Tyrants.

Unfortunately you really can't. point for point, pound for pound, Flying Hive Tyrants are one of the most efficient killers in the entire Tyranid Codex. If anything your strategy against Tyranids should really be the opposite. As Eldar, I've seen many games where as soon as I kill the Flying Hive Tyrant, the wind just goes out of the sails of the Tyranid offense. The vast majority of the rest of their army is slow moving or weak, this means that once the Tyrants are dead, the good Eldar player can completely out maneuver the rest of the Tyranid army, and there isn't a whole lot that Tyranids can do about it.

If you leave the Tyrants alone, they'll kill quite a bit each turn. Your best option is to avoid the rest of the Tyranid army, and focus fire on the Tyrants until they're dead.

Murrdox wrote:

Zimko wrote:
4 Dark Reapers with starswarm missiles and Guide/Prescience: 1.11 wounds
1 Dark Reaper exarch with fast shot and icarus and Guide/Prescience: 1.62 wounds


All inside a Bunker for AV13 protection.
Total wounds 2.73 per turn (and they ignore jink)

Point investment: 412 points

I guess it'll at least put pressure on them but I guess the best strat as you guys say is to kill everything else and just survive the Hive Tyrants.

Unfortunately you really can't. point for point, pound for pound, Flying Hive Tyrants are one of the most efficient killers in the entire Tyranid Codex. If anything your strategy against Tyranids should really be the opposite. As Eldar, I've seen many games where as soon as I kill the Flying Hive Tyrant, the wind just goes out of the sails of the Tyranid offense. The vast majority of the rest of their army is slow moving or weak, this means that once the Tyrants are dead, the good Eldar player can completely out maneuver the rest of the Tyranid army, and there isn't a whole lot that Tyranids can do about it.

If you leave the Tyrants alone, they'll kill quite a bit each turn. Your best option is to avoid the rest of the Tyranid army, and focus fire on the Tyrants until they're dead.

This. You can't ignore Flyrants for very long, as they always do a lot of damage. And each dead Flyrant really hurts. The best option is probably to focus them down one at a time, and use things like Wave Serpents, War Walkers and possibly Crimson Hunters as your main Flyrant killers, using a Farseer to buff the shooty units as needed. Guardians and DAs can work due to the bladestorm rule, but are really short ranged and as such cannot be relied upon. The real problem with the above units is that the Flyrant is generally as good or better than killing them than they are at killing Flyrants. As a Tyranid player, I can speak to the fact that my army loses a lot of momentum once the Flyrants are gone.

Also, I would consider a Mantarch if using a Crimson Hunter so you can manipulate the reserve roll to keep the Hunter off the board until the Flyrants move up (which they almost always will), then zoom past them and use Vector Dancer to turn and shoot them in the butt. They will have to choose to either (a) ignore the Hunter, (b) drop to glide mode so they can turn and kill the Hunter, or (c) fly off the board in the hope that they can come on and kill it next turn.

Darkstrider on an Icarus can help a lot, I know it's Tau Allies...heck Tau allies solves the real problem in other ways.

But it's actually a really fun combo without feeling too cheesy as he is still only taking a wound off a Tyrant at a time but can reliably one shot a Harpy or Crone.

Phoenix Bombers are the equivalent of a Dark Reaper Squad, with a pulsar and two S5 AP3 Heavy 3 missile launchers.
They should do roughly 2 wounds a turn.

Fire Storm Grav Tanks have a S6 heavy 6 twin linked interceptor sky fire gun. These are easy to model instead of using the forge world kit if that is your preference. Each tank will only do .8 wounds a turn however.

Nightwing interceptors have two bright lances and two S Cannons, for 1.77 a turn.

DE Raven Strike Fighters have a Splinterstorm cannon and a dark lance for .666 wounds a turn. Fitting

I personally enjoy flying Daemon Princes with Shriek, but they're not particularly efficient.

Zimko wrote:
Is there a way to give a unit of Dark Reapers skyfire?

Alternatively, does anyone know a good way for eldar to successfully take on multiple Flying Hive Tyrants? Weight of firepower from Wave Serpents doesn't seem to be enough.

Simply take more Wave Serpents.