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Hello all, for a while I have been looking at the Valkyrie. Overall it appears to be a fairly well armored flying transport, only thing that irks me a bit is it's default armament.

The Hellfury missiles both look cool and have fair stats, the only major drawback being that they are one use only. Considering the way flyers work, the Valkyrie would go through nearly all of it's ammo in one round of shooting, being left with whatever weapon was mounted on the front.

I was considering setting up a Valkyrie with an anti-infantry load out: Hellfury Missiles, Heavy Bolter sponsons, and keeping the Multi-Laser on the front. The Valkyrie would then be used to transport Veteran squad with Demolitions, the idea being that they could Grav Chute their way onto the table and slam a high value target with the Demolition Charge. After that point the Valkyrie would just serve to harass other targets on the table.

So... that's my idea. What are your guys thoughts on the Hellfury Missiles? Worth keeping, or are the Multiple Rocket pods a must?

In regards to just general use of the vehicle and tactics, I'll admit I've never used a flyer before so I'm not sure of how to make use of it's full potential.

 Cothonian wrote:
What are your guys thoughts on the Hellfury Missiles? Worth keeping, or are the Multiple Rocket pods a must?

Hellfuries are Ordnance so if you fire one of them other weapons can only Snap Shot, that is a total fail.

 Cothonian wrote:

In regards to just general use of the vehicle and tactics, I'll admit I've never used a flyer before so I'm not sure of how to make use of it's full potential.

Buy a Vendetta conversion kit. Seriously, it is the only option in current state ruleset: Valkyrie is useless. If you need anti-infantry flyer Vulture is thousand percents better. If you need transport for you melta-suicide-squad or something like this than just ally with Flesh Tearers and use Drop Pods. And if you want to go for a big game (tanks, MCs) -- Vendetta is a way to go.

Rocket pods are a must, imo, but then, do you really need more anti-infantry in an IG army? As AstraVlad suggests, turn your Valk into a Vendetta. No need to buy a conversion kit as kitbashing the triple lascannon loadout is simple as hello.

I'll be a dissenting voice here: the valkyrie can be very useful in certain roles. It is not a damage power house. It is a mission-winning tool by giving the obsec squad inside "hit me on 6s," "you can't assault me," and a 36" move. That said, simple additions are good, and I advocate for MRPs since they pair well with the multi laser and are not too expensive.

For guard, fast, durable, and objective secured are hard to get, and the valkyrie can deliver these things. A drop pod cannot.

I am not arguing the benefits of a vendetta vs a valkyrie.

@Ether: all good points but there's nothing stopping a Vendetta from doing the same thing while providing something a bit more useful itself.

Aight, sounds good. I'll look over everything again and role from there.

I've been wanting to get Special Weapons Teams into my forces so that keeps the Vendetta open as a transport option (albeit much better armed.)

 Cothonian wrote:
I've been wanting to get Special Weapons Teams into my forces so that keeps the Vendetta open as a transport option (albeit much better armed.)

You should also consider to use Platoon Command Team with 4 flamers (1 HF and 3 regular ones) loaded in Vendetta as a late-game objective cleaners. They are insanely good in this role, able to wipe out almost any regular troops (T3-T4 with 4+/5+ save) from ruins/ forests/ bunkers/ etc. I just love this unit .

Be advised however that while the PCS fireball squad can do insane damage to some targets the current wound allocation rules make the HF a rather mediocre choice as it fires first and removes possible hits from the other flamers.

konst80hummel wrote:
Be advised however that while the PCS fireball squad can do insane damage to some targets the current wound allocation rules make the HF a rather mediocre choice as it fires first and removes possible hits from the other flamers.

Nope, template weapons are all resolved 'at the same time' iirc.

 koooaei wrote:

konst80hummel wrote:
Be advised however that while the PCS fireball squad can do insane damage to some targets the current wound allocation rules make the HF a rather mediocre choice as it fires first and removes possible hits from the other flamers.

Nope, template weapons are all resolved 'at the same time' iirc.

All templates of the same weapon type are resolved 'at the same time'. You still have to obey the rules of resolving each weapon type separately unfortunately, since nothing in the Template special rule lets you override that general shooting rule (specifically step 3 - select a weapon type to shoot).

konst80hummel wrote:
Be advised however that while the PCS fireball squad can do insane damage to some targets the current wound allocation rules make the HF a rather mediocre choice as it fires first and removes possible hits from the other flamers.

You are right of course, but I usually don't use Grav Chutes and just disembark my "fire team" in hover mode. With 6'' disembarking move it is usually possible to place them in the most effective positions for regular flamers to do their work.

Ether wrote:
I'll be a dissenting voice here: the valkyrie can be very useful in certain roles. It is not a damage power house. It is a mission-winning tool by giving the obsec squad inside "hit me on 6s," "you can't assault me," and a 36" move. That said, simple additions are good, and I advocate for MRPs since they pair well with the multi laser and are not too expensive. For guard, fast, durable, and objective secured are hard to get, and the valkyrie can deliver these things. A drop pod cannot.

^This. I play an Elysian Drop Trooops army and everything that is stated above is true and has allowed me to compete in both regular and maelstrom games even against Top Tier armies. Since you can take them as Dedicated Transports and they come with a rule for lack of better explanation gives them Drop Pod Assault you can effectively run an army of up to 7-8 Flyers. Hands down this is the best loadout I have found:

-Valkyrie
*w/ Multi-Laser & Rocket Pods

An effective build against Infantry, especially with the Elysian's rules, on average I have x3 Valkyries flying in turn one dropping 6 Large Blast Templates which is nothing to sneeze at, this includes MEQ armies. Where the Valkyrie beats the Vendetta is transport capacity and inside you have a squad of 10 Veterans kitted out with either x3 Melta or Plasma Guns to make up for its lack of anti Heavy Armor and MC punch for example. Overall the Valkyrie is decent, limited in terms of targets but an excellent transport for getting a full squad of guys from point A to point B and allows us to keep up in games of Maelstrom against many of the faster armies.

Well, if you run a mechanized list, vets in chimeras, then yes, the MRP anti-infantry helps a lot. Also helps when you want your platoons to sit back and hold OBJ and you need to clear infantry off enemy OBJ and then take them.

The Vendetta also cannot deliver vets.

maceria wrote:
The Vendetta also cannot deliver vets.

Negative, the Vendetta can only hold x6 people so you are limited to either Company or Platoon Command squads, Stormtroopers or a Special Weapons Squads.

Have you considered taking a CCS and 'aura' abilities, whether from Strategic Warlord Traits, Banners or other things? I can tell you from personal experience, hiding your warlord in a flyer can be supremely vexing for someone who tries to 'Slay your Warlord' every game.

maceria wrote:
Well, if you run a mechanized list, vets in chimeras, then yes, the MRP anti-infantry helps a lot. Also helps when you want your platoons to sit back and hold OBJ and you need to clear infantry off enemy OBJ and then take them.

The problem is that for the same points you will pay for Valkyrie you can take 2 Wyverns and wipe enemy's infantry from the safety of your deployment zone and possibly from behind the LOS-block. It's much, much more effective.

I use both Vends and Valks in my army. Its fluffy because I play as Imperial Navy, plus the Vends make great Armor and Warlord hunters, while after the Valk's drop their cargo, they make good overall hellraisers on the board, and buy time for other units to get in better positions.

AstraVlad wrote:

maceria wrote:
Well, if you run a mechanized list, vets in chimeras, then yes, the MRP anti-infantry helps a lot. Also helps when you want your platoons to sit back and hold OBJ and you need to clear infantry off enemy OBJ and then take them.

The problem is that for the same points you will pay for Valkyrie you can take 2 Wyverns and wipe enemy's infantry from the safety of your deployment zone and possibly from behind the LOS-block. It's much, much more effective.

Yes, but Wyverns cannot put people on objectives. There's a lot more than "this kills more than that" in the game. Valks for delivering bodies backed up by Vultures works excellently.