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Question for you guys.

What is enough anti-air for a take-all-comers Space Marine list? Assume I will be playing either Iron Hands or Imperial fists.

I love the idea of Imperial Fist devastators with flak missile launchers.

I also love the idea of 3 storm talons.

I have the devastators (missile launchers and/or las cannons) and I will soon have the storm talons.

Am I missing the mark? Should I be looking at over options for a list that is not optimized to fight a particular opponent?

It's depends on the points really.

IMO, no more than 35% of your army should be dedicated to AA, any more and you run the risk of being shot off while your army is in reserves so at that point you may as well go Flyer heavy and null deploy what isn't in the air.

I bring no AA. There's really no flyers out there that demand it.

deredeo dradnaught... that is all

Martel732 wrote:
I bring no AA. There's really no flyers out there that demand it.

Really? I've been bending over backwards to man the AA gun on my ADL with a Herald of Khorne, it's about 140 points total and is a pretty much guaranteed to hit and pretty good chance to pen. Running Daemonkin and sometimes I feel it's not worth my time though due to how little my army usually cares about air anyways.

Bring what you what you think is enough to create that threat bubble. I bring no air units but I give AA missiles to everyone I can legally get away with to a point where I control the skies or hotly contest it

I think in a 1,500 point list, one or two sources of AA should be OK. Talons/Ravens can double killing ground targets, as can the devs (although MLs are kinds meh and overpriced, moreso with flack missiles). The stalker looks to be a solid tank in general, doesn’t cost a lot of points and puts out a lot of shots, so even if you need to snap fire at ground targets you might actually do something. And it can still shoot skimmers etc at full, and there are a lot of those out there.

I like Talons because they work equally well against other flyers or ground targets.

If you want something that's also flexible, consider 10 man IF Devastator squad with lascannons behind an ADL and Icarus lascannon.

Combat the lascannons into one squad and the Sergeant into another. Sergeant uses signum on a Dev who then fires the Icarus. BS5 S9 tank hunting shot with a huge range will make anything jink.

Two Stormtalons or one Dreadnought Mortis and something with a Hyperios Launcher. Plenty with either of those options.

Stormtalons are undercosted, and put the hurt on ground targets too. They also have a 360-arc on the assault cannon, and can drop into hover to get manouvrability (often overlooked).

I personally like the stalker - it's cheap.

Don't get flakk devs, they are far too expensive for such a fragile unit.

Flakk devs are not worth it. Poor damage, cost, no interceptor, bad maneuverability, and easy to kill.

IMO, no more than 35% of your army should be dedicated to AA

Jesus, your meta must be still spamming croissants or something. 35% is an incredibly large amount to put into anti air, unless said units can fill another purpose.

SM best options are the fire raptor, storm talons, the FW dreads, and nothing.

By nothing, I mean you can simply ignore flyers most the time.

Marines with their formations, bikes and pods have the ability to decide objective games within the first few turns. If the opponent has flyers, then he simply has less things on the ground to counter you.

OP: What flyers are being a problem in particular? The only ones I can think of as being a problem are other fireraptors, and maybe the heldrake.

 minigun762 wrote:
I like Talons because they work equally well against other flyers or ground targets.

If you want something that's also flexible, consider 10 man IF Devastator squad with lascannons behind an ADL and Icarus lascannon.

Combat the lascannons into one squad and the Sergeant into another. Sergeant uses signum on a Dev who then fires the Icarus. BS5 S9 tank hunting shot with a huge range will make anything jink.

Doing the same as above with a Quadgun is pretty good as well. 4 TL BS5 S7 tank hunting shots are hard to ignore, even with Jink.

I used to run the three flyer formation in 1k-1500 pt games thinking I was being sneaky. The smart opponents ignored them completely, and that flyer spam list became a joke.

I repainted my whole army from Hawklords to White Scars because of how bad they were.

Now, at most, I'll run a single small flyer like a ST or Fire Raptor.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 minigun762 wrote:
I like Talons because they work equally well against other flyers or ground targets.

If you want something that's also flexible, consider 10 man IF Devastator squad with lascannons behind an ADL and Icarus lascannon.

Combat the lascannons into one squad and the Sergeant into another. Sergeant uses signum on a Dev who then fires the Icarus. BS5 S9 tank hunting shot with a huge range will make anything jink.

Doing the same as above w
ith a Quadgun is pretty good as well. 4 TL BS5 S7 tank hunting shots are hard to ignore, even with Jink.

I like the quad gun with BS4 but I'm ok with the single shot @ BS5. Either works though.

No army requires dedicated AA. The guns you currently use to win games will suffice.

I think the humble hunter/stalker might be a good source of AA

War Kitten wrote:
I think the humble hunter/stalker might be a good source of AA

I second this especially with the new formation that you can take them in and not eat up HS slots.

Dedicated AA is overcosted unless you face flyers 100% of the time. Only other flyers or things that can also shoot ground targets are exceptions.

(Or if you play eldar, scatterlaser spam lol.)

What about the Aegis Line with either of the guns? Or two of them?

War Kitten wrote:
I think the humble hunter/stalker might be a good source of AA

Stalkers are cheap and get a fair number of shots. It is unfortunate that they can't deal with ground targets at all. Hunters have a neat little trick they can pull against Jetbikes. Since they attack Jetbikes at BS1, they almost always miss. When they miss, they trigger their Savant Lock ability, gaining a free hit on 5+. Both are dirt cheap for what they do.

 Lord Corellia wrote:
What about the Aegis Line with either of the guns? Or two of them?

The value of the aegis guns went down in 7th edition, due to the removal of the interaction between interceptor and skyfire.

If you don't face flyers or skimmers, then you are spending your points inefficiently.

Models who can engage flyers as well as other targets are generally better in tac lists.
For SM this means other flyers, or mortis, contemptor & deredeo dreads.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

 Lord Corellia wrote:
What about the Aegis Line with either of the guns? Or two of them?

The value of the aegis guns went down in 7th edition, due to the removal of the interaction between interceptor and skyfire.

If you don't face flyers or skimmers, then you are spending your points inefficiently.

Models who can engage flyers as well as other targets are generally better in tac lists.
For SM this means other flyers, or mortis, contemptor & deredeo dreads.

To be fair, an Aegis with some Scouts or a squad of Devastators is going to get more out of the ADL itself than the gun. But there aren't many 35 pt or 50 pt things out there that can gun down a flyer reliably.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

 Lord Corellia wrote:
What about the Aegis Line with either of the guns? Or two of them?

The value of the aegis guns went down in 7th edition, due to the removal of the interaction between interceptor and skyfire.

If you don't face flyers or skimmers, then you are spending your points inefficiently.

Models who can engage flyers as well as other targets are generally better in tac lists.
For SM this means other flyers, or mortis, contemptor & deredeo dreads.

To be fair, an Aegis with some Scouts or a squad of Devastators is going to get more out of the ADL itself than the gun. But there aren't many 35 pt or 50 pt things out there that can gun down a flyer reliably.

The aegis gun included.

Seriously, against a jinking (4+) AV10 flyer with 3 HP, a quadgun will take 3 turns to bring it down.

Now a lot of the more serious flyers are packing AV12, or come in FMC form like the flyrant, against which the quadgun is really ill suited.

Personally If I was running devs and needed somewhere to put them, then I'd go for the bastion over the aegis, and look elsewhere to get my anti air if it was so vital.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

 Lord Corellia wrote:
What about the Aegis Line with either of the guns? Or two of them?

The value of the aegis guns went down in 7th edition, due to the removal of the interaction between interceptor and skyfire.

If you don't face flyers or skimmers, then you are spending your points inefficiently.

Models who can engage flyers as well as other targets are generally better in tac lists.
For SM this means other flyers, or mortis, contemptor & deredeo dreads.

To be fair, an Aegis with some Scouts or a squad of Devastators is going to get more out of the ADL itself than the gun. But there aren't many 35 pt or 50 pt things out there that can gun down a flyer reliably.

Well, the guns aren't all that effective. Now if you can give yourself tank hunter (say IF devs or guardsmen with an order) that changes drastically. (Or if you're trying to shoot doing AV11 with 2 HP instead of something AV12.)

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

 Lord Corellia wrote:
What about the Aegis Line with either of the guns? Or two of them?

The value of the aegis guns went down in 7th edition, due to the removal of the interaction between interceptor and skyfire.

If you don't face flyers or skimmers, then you are spending your points inefficiently.

Models who can engage flyers as well as other targets are generally better in tac lists.
For SM this means other flyers, or mortis, contemptor & deredeo dreads.

To be fair, an Aegis with some Scouts or a squad of Devastators is going to get more out of the ADL itself than the gun. But there aren't many 35 pt or 50 pt things out there that can gun down a flyer reliably.

The aegis gun included.

Seriously, against a jinking (4+) AV10 flyer with 3 HP, a quadgun will take 3 turns to bring it down.

Now a lot of the more serious flyers are packing AV12, or come in FMC form like the flyrant, against which the quadgun is really ill suited.

Personally If I was running devs and needed somewhere to put them, then I'd go for the bastion over the aegis, and look elsewhere to get my anti air if it was so vital.

A Bunker is a good spot for Devs as well.

Is a Skyshield Landing Pad with a Stormtalon or Stormraven with Ready For Take-Off a viable option for AA fire? That AV11/4++ or AV12/4++ isn't going to be half bad. Only downside is that it will be back in your deployment zone.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mavnas wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

 Lord Corellia wrote:
Well, the guns aren't all that effective. Now if you can give yourself tank hunter (say IF devs or guardsmen with an order) that changes drastically. (Or if you're trying to shoot doing AV11 with 2 HP instead of something AV12.)

It's a good thing I play Crimson Fists and I get my Tank Hunters, so that Quadgun isn't half bad with my Devs.

Simply put, when we face lists with no flyers or anti-air we are at a disadvantage. When we face lists with a few flyers, anti air will have a small impact beacause we can still stay busy killing other targets.

The kicker is facing a list with 5 flyrants, where anti air is extremly useful, but a stormtalon for example will die a horrible death due to being extremly squishy per point vs things with skyfire. The only dedicated anti-air units in a space marine list should be amazing vs. FMC (Daemoens/Nids) to be worth considering. What are flakk missiles gonna do vs a flyrant? They might force a grounding check or two, but wont force any jinks and will only get one turn of shooting before they die. Stalkers are somewhat better being AV12 vs str 6, but they will die fairly quickly as well.

The point is a dedicated anti-air unit needs to be more than decent vs FMC to be worth considering. Since space marines do not have a unit like this we need to look towards units that are amazing vs ground targets and decent vs FMC.

So it pretty much boils down to twin-linked grav cannons. Either in a Rhino or Centurions.

A battle company can bring twin-linked gravcannons (thanks to free doctrines) that shoot out of the Rhino firepoint. The big plus here is layered protection. First the Rhino needs to die, then the ablaitive wounds, this makes it time consuming to deal with.
The other is Grav-Cents often supported by divination or doctrines.

While they are not amazing vs FMC, they are actually pretty similar to stalkers in terms of output because of ap2 and double re-rolls, they are however much better vs ground targets.

Isn't the Fire Raptor also worth mentioning? Has decent anti-FMC output and might actually survive return fire.

Also, FMCs aren't the only flying threat - how to answer Heldrakes is also an extant question.

Fire Raptor is pretty solid if FW is allowed.

Yeah, I play Fists as well. I already have a lascannon Dev Squad and a Missile Launcher Dev squad, and I gathered up bits for multi-meltas and heavy bolters as well.

I do own a Stormraven, but I was actually thinking of selling it off. Is it much good? Is the smaller one (Stormtalon?) better?

 Lord Corellia wrote:
I do own a Stormraven, but I was actually thinking of selling it off. Is it much good? Is the smaller one (Stormtalon?) better?

For pure AA, the talon is better.

The raven is the LR of the sky. It has a lot of features, many of them contradictory, and you pay for them weather or not you use them. It’s got more guns and options then the talon, and PotMS, so it can pull some tricks. It’s tougher, but not invincible. And you have the cargo capacity, which you can do things with, but it’s not the best option.

I enjoy both my raven and my talon, but a lot depends on what kind of lists you build, and the meta you play in.

YMMV.