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Hi there,
I came to the conclusion that flyers are weaker than in 7th. Vehicles got stronger in 8th, and they can hide behind scenery and sometimes get cover. The overall shooting power has increased on the tables. But flyers haven't get the same boost as the others vehicles, can't really hide or get covers. Is it just me or the flyers got really weaker compared to others vehicles and 7th ? I'm used to lost my flyer in my opponent's first shooting phase, which is quite rare for a tank.
What about do you think ?

The every lovely -1 to hit is nice, but it's not enough. Folks are taking dedicated anti armour tools a lot more often now, and the modifier isn't really that big of a deal when faced with the volume *and* quality of incoming fire.

The combination of low resilience and high cost really doesn't fit into the meta, and most of the things they can transport aren't really worth the whole investment - usually because a better alternative exists in every case.

They are that weak that they had to be nerfed at the start for dominateing tournaments.

The -1 you say isnt that strong but what if your ravenguard then its -2

This is less of a problem for SM to deal with but guard tanks can now only hit on 6's orks on 7s.

Best not to think of the nightfighting mission.

U02dah4 wrote:
They are that weak that they had to be nerfed at the start for dominateing tournaments.

The -1 you say isnt that strong but what if your ravenguard then its -2

This is less of a problem for SM to deal with but guard tanks can now only hit on 6's orks on 7s.

Best not to think of the nightfighting mission.

Unfortunately no, the Raven Guard chapter tactic only applies to infantry, bikes, and dreadnoughts, no tanks or fliers. Now Alaitoc Eldar on the other hand...

Flyers are not weak enough. There has yet to be an edition of 40k where flyers felt like a natural part of the game (and I am not talking about every unit with FLY, but merely about those with the Airborne, Supersonic and Hard-to-hit not-USR special rules)

I think flyers are well balanced in 8th. There are individual models that are OP (looking at you eldar flyers) but on the whole they are solid without being crazy good which means they are balanced.

As a whole, flyers as a group haven't been OP. Hell, in 6th most flyers was extremely weak except for Vendettas and Heldrakes.

They went from getting hit on 6s to a -1 to hit, and anti-tank weaponry got better against, well, tanks. So they got a bit less durable. What also hurt them though was getting a general increase in damage output, making them more deadly and therefore a bigger target

I think it has more to do with flyers not being in range for auras most of the time, which makes them unappealing on paper.

Flyers can exploit holes in the backfield and go after support units and characters instead of simply being a flying lascannon platform.

It's also not very safe with dark reapers riding high right now.

Daedalus81 wrote:
I think it has more to do with flyers not being in range for auras most of the time, which makes them unappealing on paper.

Flyers can exploit holes in the backfield and go after support units and characters instead of simply being a flying lascannon platform.

It's also not very safe with dark reapers riding high right now.

Shoot, even Devastators near a Company Ancient make it iffy to send flyers after things in the backfield now. You may kill some of the Devastators... But your flyer isn't getting away unscathed.

It depends on what flyers you consider. Stormravens, razorwing jetfighters and voidraven bombers are better than in 7th, orks flyers are also decent, if not better they're surely as good as they were before. Same feeling for SW flyers, I consider them slightly better than they were in 7th edition.

Well certainly my vendetta's feel underwhelming. If I take -1 to hit I have to move which means I hit on 5+'s. If I stay still to hit on 4+ with my lascannons I'm hit at will.

Going from average 2-3 hits in 7th ed to averaging 2 hits makes them icky. Also with 5+ to hit it's not that rare to whiff them completely.

No experience with other fliers as I have no valkyries.

I think the issue is people are used to fliers being hit on 6s only from 7th.

So yes, weaker compared to 7th because in 7th they were basically as durable as something could be. But now actually in line with everything else.

Bottom line, they arn't actually weak. You have edition lag.

I don’t think flyers are weak in general, though some are bad - like with any other kind of unit.

At an ETC practice event this weekend a guy in the winning team had 7 dark talons, for example. Those are probably an example of a flyer that’s too good. They are a better, cheaper stormtalon with access to a darkshroud.

The main thing is just that flyers are vehicles. If you have a lot of vehicles you’ll tend to exceed your opponent’s ability to kill them. If you bring just one or two, flyers or not, they will be in trouble.

Flyers are on average better this edition. True some suffer due to the -1 to hit stuff with heavy now (stormhawks i am looking at you)
but nearly all have got -1 to hit and no need to mess around with firing arc's like in 7th (god that was painful). Making them a lot more useable in this edition

I love my DE flyers, i take 1-2 every game, tho never more than 2. They actually are strong against Melee focus armies, but weak to shooting ones. As they should be.

Some of them are awful (looking at you T'au), but most of them are where they should be. They are countered by heavy flying assaulters or by accurate AT fire, seems fine to me.

Tyranids Flyers (Harpy and Hive Crone) are definitely bad and on the edge of unplayability for their cost. They also do not get the -1 to Hit whilst retaining the worst from the Flyer Keyword...

KurtAngle2 wrote:
Tyranids Flyers (Harpy and Hive Crone) are definitely bad and on the edge of unplayability for their cost. They also do not get the -1 to Hit whilst retaining the worst from the Flyer Keyword...

I dont think so, i love my Harpies actually and play 2 every nids game i play. If they shoot and kill them thats fine b.c now i have all my Genestealers on you, if they shoot and kill those i have Harpies on you that are Kraken and will Bomb + Shoot + Charge, then Fall Back + Bomb + shoot + Charge.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

KurtAngle2 wrote:
Tyranids Flyers (Harpy and Hive Crone) are definitely bad and on the edge of unplayability for their cost. They also do not get the -1 to Hit whilst retaining the worst from the Flyer Keyword...

I dont think so, i love my Harpies actually and play 2 every nids game i play. If they shoot and kill them thats fine b.c now i have all my Genestealers on you, if they shoot and kill those i have Harpies on you that are Kraken and will Bomb + Shoot + Charge, then Fall Back + Bomb + shoot + Charge.

No man, Harpies suck for 179 pts. For 20/30 mere points you get a Flyrant which is MUCH better in terms of offensive output and durability/utility as well

KurtAngle2 wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

KurtAngle2 wrote:
Tyranids Flyers (Harpy and Hive Crone) are definitely bad and on the edge of unplayability for their cost. They also do not get the -1 to Hit whilst retaining the worst from the Flyer Keyword...

I dont think so, i love my Harpies actually and play 2 every nids game i play. If they shoot and kill them thats fine b.c now i have all my Genestealers on you, if they shoot and kill those i have Harpies on you that are Kraken and will Bomb + Shoot + Charge, then Fall Back + Bomb + shoot + Charge.

No man, Harpies suck for 179 pts. For 20/30 mere points you get a Flyrant which is MUCH better in terms of offensive output and durability/utility as well

Flyrants are good and thats why i have 3, but my Harpies always do work.

Edit: And anyways not everyone is Hyper Min/Max Comp. Just b.c a unit is B rank compare to an A rank doesnt mean its not good enough to play, ofc its good enough to play.

KurtAngle2 wrote:
Tyranids Flyers (Harpy and Hive Crone) are definitely bad and on the edge of unplayability for their cost. They also do not get the -1 to Hit whilst retaining the worst from the Flyer Keyword...

Agreed, especially in a Codex that has flyrants in. It kills them to be in the flyer slot.

I played a couple of flyrant lists at the tournament this weekend. One guy had 9 and the other had 6. I managed to draw against the 9 and narrowly beat the 6. Killed 12 of the damn things in total. It was hard work! Top moment was when my librarian managed to cast null zone, so my fist of vengeance captain killed two flyrants in a turn with the honour the chapter stratagem.

But anyway why would you have a harpy when you could have a flyrant? It’s not much more expensive and has a 4++, as well as psychic powers and tons of other stuff.

Mandragola wrote:

KurtAngle2 wrote:
Tyranids Flyers (Harpy and Hive Crone) are definitely bad and on the edge of unplayability for their cost. They also do not get the -1 to Hit whilst retaining the worst from the Flyer Keyword...

Agreed, especially in a Codex that has flyrants in. It kills them to be in the flyer slot.

I played a couple of flyrant lists at the tournament this weekend. One guy had 9 and the other had 6. I managed to draw against the 9 and narrowly beat the 6. Killed 12 of the damn things in total. It was hard work! Top moment was when my librarian managed to cast null zone, so my fist of vengeance captain killed two flyrants in a turn with the honour the chapter stratagem.

But anyway why would you have a harpy when you could have a flyrant? It’s not much more expensive and has a 4++, as well as psychic powers and tons of other stuff.

I play a guy regularly that plays Dark Angels so his bs Darkshroud +Ravenwing is -2 to hit. I'd rather have a Crone and a unit of gargoyles than A FHT.

Mandragola wrote:

KurtAngle2 wrote:
Tyranids Flyers (Harpy and Hive Crone) are definitely bad and on the edge of unplayability for their cost. They also do not get the -1 to Hit whilst retaining the worst from the Flyer Keyword...

Agreed, especially in a Codex that has flyrants in. It kills them to be in the flyer slot.

I played a couple of flyrant lists at the tournament this weekend. One guy had 9 and the other had 6. I managed to draw against the 9 and narrowly beat the 6. Killed 12 of the damn things in total. It was hard work! Top moment was when my librarian managed to cast null zone, so my fist of vengeance captain killed two flyrants in a turn with the honour the chapter stratagem.

But anyway why would you have a harpy when you could have a flyrant? It’s not much more expensive and has a 4++, as well as psychic powers and tons of other stuff.

The Harpy and Hive Crone have 30 inch movement. If the opponent did not properly bubble wrap, they gonna to conviently fly over those Scout screen before charge the Devastators / Predators T1!!!! Considering how closely packed these shooty units will be deployed in order to all staying in the aura buff range, they might be able to charge multiple heavy fire power units at once, or even worse, consolidate into the 2nd one after killing the 1st one. SO, they can act as vanguards to neutralize enemy heavy fire power at the game opening moment, then the rest units can approach the enemy line under much less firepower. This is a thing that Flyrants, who "only" have a 16" move, cannot easily achieve without the aid of Swarmlord (which cost 300pts) or psychic power (which run the risk of fail to go off or getting denied).

Yeah everyone just wants to have 100% of their models live and 100% killing on turn 1.

If tournaments went full 5-7 rounds and used GW missions it would be 100% different meta. Tournaments like LVO are neat but they are not what most players are playing.

Harpies are just amazing, IMO much better than Trygons (Unless you are DSing others with it, then its just a better pod)

Fliers that have to take the penalty for moving and shooting are weak, because unlike tanks they don't have the option of sitting still, or taking cover to negate it.

The Fire Raptor is a beast but overall I think fliers are a lot easier to delete now... easier to hit, no cover save, multi damage weapons shooting them. Sure if you spam them overall they do better but with Boots on the Ground rule it could come back to hurt you end game.

 Primark G wrote:
The Fire Raptor is a beast but overall I think fliers are a lot easier to delete now... easier to hit, no cover save, multi damage weapons shooting them.

I don't know, they also have way more wounds than before and an armor save. Not to mention that a single pen in 7th edition could be devastating for a vehicle. It also depends on what armies do you play, for my orks flyers are 10000 way tougher now since we hit them on 6s anyway, we don't have D6 damage weapons and our best anti flyer unit, the traktor kannon, was nerfed into oblivion. Lootas could take down flyers could easily, now they barely scratch them. In fact the most popular strategy with orks against flyers is to ignore them completely.

With SW I usually lack ranged anti tank, they're not a shooty army and all their plasmas, lascannons, hellfrost and missiles usually have more important target to aim. Drukhari have a lot of anti tank, but they're a one-dimensional army at the moment, with only anti tank, so they may not suffer flyers and vehicles in general but they have no answers to massed infantries.

One of the biggest pluses for flyers from 7th to 8th is 360 LoS for every weapon they have and split fire.

My fire raptor is a menance 24 heavy bolter shots, 10 s6 shots 2 s8 shots... basically anywhere on the table i like at multiple enemies.

they are probably not as resistant to certain other units as before, but there is a lot of that in 8th

I feel that some of the shifting attitude to flyers comes down to the loss of the rock paper scissors aspect I saw when I played them.

When I played flyers and my opponent had no anti-air, I usually won by a good margin.
When I played fliers and my opponent had anti air, that was a tough battle, easily won or lost by both sides.
When I did not play fliers and my opponent brought anti air. again, I usually felt I won by a decent margin.

With the shift on the flier rules, it now feels that fliers no longer need to be threatened by a dedicated unit in order to be countered. Sometimes it does feel like my fliers go down too fast, but that's usually because my opponent just focused a good chunk of shooting on them instead of something else.