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My friends and I don't play with flyers. Not out of any particular dislike of them; it's just that none of us have wanted to.

We have discussed it however, and none of us are really keen on the idea of adding that "layer" to our games, nor the restriction that comes with flyers being forced to start in reserve (although not Flying Monstrous Creatures, for some reason). I do like Valkyries and StormNouns though, so here's my question:

In terms of effectiveness vs. points, can the Flyer rules simply be removed? It seems to me that the affected models would still be worth their points, especially since many of them existed before they were given the Flyer special rule, and simply traded Deep Strike for it. All of the ones we'd play with can Hover; but are their repercussions I'm missing?

Also, has anyone played this way to remove the complication of building AA into lists? I'd love to hear from Dakkanauts about this.

The new fliers...especially av 10 and 11 ones would get screwed hard by this...the crmson hunter in particular would not be worth it's tremendous cost

I would suggest playing about 4 2Kish points games with flyers first (per person, everyone in your group). Maybe have a psuedo-RTT style gaming day where everyone brings a flying something, and people can mod their lists in between games. Everyone would just be having friendly games (with as much time in the rulebook as necessary). Then decide if they're really all that bad.
If you decide you don't want them, FMCs become Jump MCs and Flyers become fast skimmers. As ductvader said, pre-6th flyers would be fine but newer ones will suck hard.

I strongly sympathize with your distaste of fliers, but they are accepted at most FLGS. Glad you and yours enjoy playing without them. For me, I have to swallow the bitter pill and sink points into AA to fight fliers that may or may not show up (they always show where I play). My marine army currently lacks a flier, and it does ok.

I don't think they're that bad as long as you don't spam them (like pretty much everything else in 40k). In the words of one of my opponents "its ok as long as you only bring one. If I can't handle 1 flier at 1,850 then that's my problem".

i think a better solution if you really dont like the fliers is to just not use them. Not using something is always a better choice then changing its rules IMO

Honestly, they are not that complicated.

Proxy some, have fun.

If you don't like them, then dont play them after that.

But give them a chance.

I find the idea of a supersonic flyer spending 3 turns on a battlefield as small as those depicted in 40k to be foolish and counterintuitive. I still play with them because they are very accepted by most, but if I had a choice I'd more than likely agree to a non-flyer game

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:
I find the idea of a supersonic flyer spending 3 turns on a battlefield as small as those depicted in 40k to be foolish and counterintuitive. I still play with them because they are very accepted by most, but if I had a choice I'd more than likely agree to a non-flyer game

But its not.

A supersonic flyer is at 35,000 feet going places. (just because they once called it that, has nothing to do with what the word means in common usage).

The flyers on the 40k table are going slow, doing ground support.

The old apoc rules for flyers gave this an even better feel, but thats not what we got.

Flyers are not balanced in anyway, but if you build your whole army around fighting them then there not a problem e.g. ADL, Quad gun/ IC(bs5) to man the Quad gun, Allied Riptide.
That said AV 12 Flyers with hover are broken thanks to the LoS rule combined with 36" the only place you can hide is off table

Exalted dave, you get it too.

Try using Peregrines alternative flyer rules, or a simpler version of them.

Flyers aren't actually a terrible addition to the game, theres just a few real no brainer ones that break the game a bit (ie, Helldrake, Vendetta, and MASS necron air). If you avoid them then some of the others, like the Ork Dakkajet, can be awesome fun

So your saying other then the Dakkajet the rest are OP. Could that be because the Dakkajet has AV 10 so you shoot it down with anything, but a lasgun

You do *realise* many of these units that existed before will go up in price, to consolidate on the fact that they have the flyer typing?

Also, this bones any AV10 Flyer, as well as Storm talons. Storm Talons are awful for their prices, but just barely takeable thanks to their AV11 and flyer rule. This would just make them too susceptible to gunfire.

What you might like, is something akin to a "Missile Lock" special rule; this would allow you to blast at flyers all day long. Say if you hit once or twice, All missile-type weapons (Missile Launchers, Missiles on Flyers, TML/CML's,etc) can hit as if their snap shot was one better (so the first hit garners a 5+ to hit, the second a 4+) until you get down to the BS of the unit. (so a BS4 unit can only hit on 4's.)

Yorkskargrim wrote:
So your saying other then the Dakkajet the rest are OP. Could that be because the Dakkajet has AV 10 so you shoot it down with anything, but a lasgun

Not 'everything but the Dakkajet', but yeah, theres a few stupid ones. A good rule of thumb is that if it's got AV12 anywhere on it, be wary of it

To be fair, the Stormraven is not too bad.

At least if it's just one.

the Stormraven will take 400pts worth of AA to take out so.... if you think thats fair

The Stormraven pays a lot for its transport ability, ability that it needs to hover in order to use fully. If it hovers it's barely harder to kill than a Dreadnought.

I thought it payed nothing. Its way underprices is covered in guns & can target 3 different units a turn. Meltas don't get 2d6 & blast weapon don't work so how do you kill them.

Storm Ravens are hardly the end all be all of op flyers, Trust me. Their good and points effective.

At first my gaming group and i were against flyers, thought they were op as gak and would ruin the game for us, but once the new books started coming out and more aa became available we dabbled a bit into them, I bought 2 helldrakes and my buddy bought a stalker and talon to try and counter it aswell as my other buddy got a storm raven.

Fliers are really enjoyable to play with (and im not just saying that because i run helldrakes)

I took out the remaining storm raven hull point with a snap firing plasma gun.which won me the game.

davethepak wrote:

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:
I find the idea of a supersonic flyer spending 3 turns on a battlefield as small as those depicted in 40k to be foolish and counterintuitive. I still play with them because they are very accepted by most, but if I had a choice I'd more than likely agree to a non-flyer game

But its not.

A supersonic flyer is at 35,000 feet going places. (just because they once called it that, has nothing to do with what the word means in common usage).

The flyers on the 40k table are going slow, doing ground support.

The old apoc rules for flyers gave this an even better feel, but thats not what we got.

I 100% agree that the old Apoc flyer rules had a better feel.

Even so their manueverability and such make them more skimmers than flyers, they don't play like flyers if you are then considering the ground attack...just slightly faster than a skimmer....current rules. Still wonky and terrible from a immersive perspective of battle.

 Dakkamite wrote:

Yorkskargrim wrote:
So your saying other then the Dakkajet the rest are OP. Could that be because the Dakkajet has AV 10 so you shoot it down with anything, but a lasgun

Not 'everything but the Dakkajet', but yeah, theres a few stupid ones. A good rule of thumb is that if it's got AV12 anywhere on it, be wary of it

No, the Stormraven is not that good at all. It's actually quite overcosted.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Yorkskargrim wrote:
I thought it payed nothing. Its way underprices is covered in guns & can target 3 different units a turn. Meltas don't get 2d6 & blast weapon don't work so how do you kill them.

Stormravens are pretty easy to kill. AV 12 HP 3 is quite vulnerable. I don't understand why people have problems against the Stormraven. It's dakka per point isn't even that good. Don't forget that it is a heinously expensive model.

Consider the cost of the stormtalon and a landspeeder in the SM book for a good comparison.

A base stormtalon is 30 points more than a landspeeder with an assault cannon.
For 30 points you get:
-TL on both weapons
- +1 BS vs ground targets
-+1 armour all round
-Ceramite plating (when you are AV11 this wont matter much, but its still something).

Are these worth the 30 more points you would pay over a standard speeder? That's up to you.

Of course many flyers will be severely hit by not actually using them as flyers, so almost all flyers will be struggling to be worth their points.

Landspeeder are made of paper mache!!
Stormtalon rule 1) dodge out of the way on anything but a 6+
rule 2) AV 11 dose not sound that good but it dose stops bolters fire & any equivalent weapons, if you can't work out why this is very powerfull refer to rule 1
rule 3) Ceramite plating means you need to roll 4+ on a d6
vs the 3+ on 2d6 you need on the Landspeeder

Don't worry Guitarquero i have not forgotten you. You are totally saying that just beacuse you have 3 helldrakes

"I took out the remaining storm raven hull point with a snap firing plasma gun which won me the game"
This quote tells us all alot of Information firstly, that the Storm Raven was still alive on the last turn of the game. No surprise there since without 400-500pts of AA there unkillable
Not only did you win with a lucky shot, it had more chance of killing the guy shooting the plasma gun as of hurting the Storm Raven. Wait wait did the Storm Raven jink 4+ at the end.