Are flying monstrous creatures a reason to take splinter rack gunboats?

It's 260 points for wings, regeneration, and 2 twin-linked devourers with brainleach worms.

You can't engage it in cc without it failing a grounding test, which is unlikely. Following it around hoping it does so doesn't seem like a great plan.

To shoot it down in one turn we need (4 failed saves = 12 wounds = 24 hits = ) 144 poison shots.

How are you doing it?

I usually ignore it. I try to get rid of the bugs that give shrouded first, then all other synapse. Then I play the mission. Last game I played against nids: 1000pts, I flyrant, I ignored it till turn four. By then my opponent had no other synapse and no shrouded either. Grantwd , the flyrand did make a mess of a few of my boats, but I still had enough to flat out to the objectives I needed. It forced the flyrant to have a limited fly range or he would break synape from the rest of his army

I had great success with my Splinter Rack Gun Boat taking down a Belo-Akor(sp?) over the weekend.

I may be weird but when I say gunboat I bring a 10th guy with a spilinter cannon. So I shoot 12 at 18 inches if I move 6. True threat range goes down but with rerolls I do as much as a venom at 18. I don't move then we are looking at 14 shots at 24 inch range. Where I get my points is overwatch in which I generally get 22 shots. That is 6 hits with rerolls generally. Same can be said for shooting at flyers. The thing is....I use all my boats to go hunting if I can. That and our flyers. I had two razorwings destroy a flyrant. Dark lances and cannons...ate it alive.