How do we deal with flyers?

Teach me how to kill it on Turn1. Before any flyers will arrive.

Uh, the new rules are designed to help prevent armies from taking heavy losses on turn 1. They took a page from Warmachine and realized a game mechanic that reduces casualties from enemy fire on Turn 1 would ensure both players have a fighting chance, regardless of turn order. (In Warmachine it's balanced by short weapons ranges)

So explain to me why your strategy is predicated on defeating them on Turn 1? This assumption is based on the false notion that massed flyer spam on Turn 2 will simply annihilate your army. Explain to me why flyer spam is going to be so unbeatable on a REAL battlefield, not one existing in imaginationland where there is no cover and flyers have all the room in the world to maneuver.

Hijallo wrote:

I see many words, but i also see no numbers.

You want numbers? Fine, I'll give you some numbers.

My Imperial Guard Airborne list at 2,000 points consisted of 2 Company Command Squads (both with 4 meltaguns and carapace armor, although one had a Chimera and an Astropath), 5 Veteran Squads (All with carapace armor, three of them had 3 plasma guns each, and the other two had three meltaguns each), Marbo, 3 squadrons of 2 Valkyries (all with multiple rocket pods), and a pair of Manticores.

Assuming that I'm allowed to put the Veteran Squads and one Command Squad into the Valkyries (and thus keeping them in reserve), that leaves one Command Squad, a Chimera and two Manticores on the table at the start of the game. No vehicle on the table has an AV higher than 12, there are only six T 3 infantry models, and there are no scoring units.

Further assuming that the Guard get the first turn (and thus matching your pessimism with my own), you're being shot at by 2d3 large blasts and the heavy weapons on the Chimera.

Now, surviving this barrage shouldn't be difficult if you didn't do something stupid like clumping all your guys together knowing that you'll probably get the second turn. You'll probably lose a Raider and its occupants. I'm crying crocodile tears here.

On your turn, you'll be able to unleash your full firepower on the Guard. Assuming that you're bringing three 3x Dark Lance Ravagers, three Dark Lance Raiders, a couple twin-cannon Venoms and a pack of six Reavers with Caltrops (which shouldn't be all that difficult at 2,000 points), you'll have a decent shot at scoring a penetrating hit on each tank (4 Lances vs. AV 12: 2.66 hits, 1.33 glancing hits or .88 penetrating hits on average), although you'd want to focus your fire on the Chimera.

Then, after you've taken out the Chimera, you can go to town on its occupants. Assuming it didn't explode, you can now unload 24 Splinter Cannon shots (16 hits, 8 wounds, 4 kills on average), followed up by the Reavers (8 Bladevane hits, 5.22 wounds, 2.61 saves on average, 7 Caltrop hits, 5.88 wounds, 2.94 saves on average, for a total of 5.55 unsaved wounds inflicted). With a good chance of inflicting 9-10 unsaved wounds, you're almost guaranteed to kill the Command Squad. Any leftover Lances can go towards slagging the Manticores.

Now, assuming that you haven't tabled your opponent already, he gets to roll for reserves. Since his four units are only coming in on a 3+ rather than the 2+ he would have gotten if the command squad were still around, on average only two, maybe three units will get in, and they're not all guaranteed to be flyer squadrons.

Since all of your vehicles and Reavers are getting Jink saves, you can pretty much rely on the Guard's BS of 3 to fail to do much to your units (3 multilaser hits per squadron, 1.5 glancing hits or .88 penetrating hits on average, and one will be saved due to Jinking), and the Valkyries themselves can only shoot at three units between the six of them due to squadroning rules (and this is assuming that they can even see you, since Flyers must move a minimum of 18" per turn and can only make a single 90 degree turn).

Now, because Flyers can only make one 90 degree turn, they have a blind spot that you can exploit, which conveniently enough happens to be where their rear armor is. While the troops inside can drop out no matter how fast the Valk is going, it's risky to do so, and is usually only done as a last resort. In this case, the Guard player in question must decide whether he wants to engage you, or simply avoid your firepower until the last turn where he can go objective taking. If he decides to engage you, then you'll have an easier time of it because you'll be shooting at disembarked infantry. If he decides to avoid you, then he won't be shooting at you much, which means you'll have more weapons to shoot at him with when your turn comes around.

That is the problem that Flyer-heavy lists run into. They can't handle target overload well, and they're not maneuverable enough to always get you in their sights. Take advantage of those weaknesses, and maybe you won't lose as often as you've decided you would.

Ive played a few games with flyers ( razorwings ) and ive watched quite a few more with flyers.... to me they seem very unwieldy..... many times ive watched them zoom over possible targets ( most times prime targets) and with only that one 90 degree turn you can maneuver into their blind spots rather easily.

I like my razorwings dont get me wrong.... but they seem to function more as a large distraction more than a direct threat.... not to say they cant kill things, in fact they can and do so very well, WHEN you can get them lined up on something, but i see such a large amount of fire poured their way in games that could have been focused on my ravagers, raiders, venoms.....ANYthing in my list that was actually doing work.

Flyers are new, flyers are pretty, and flyers sound cool as hell thematically...... but their manueverability is a hindrance, so in true dark eldar fashion, exploit it ,make them pay for that by running them in circles while on their heels. we do have the manueverability to do just that.

just my thoughts, take them as you will

@ctad: i take'em as i will, so im modding my airsupport to 3 rwjf with disints and a payload of missiles

Aside from the stormraven, i dont think much flyers pose a threat, after viewing their weaknesses. Hmm...im off to do a little heavy list modding. SOULS FOR COMMORRAGH!

A couple of flyers aren't hard to deal with. They're powerful but have limitations, namely the unwieldy movement, which our fast units can exploit to remain out of their field of fire. Then we can shoot them down with our flyers. The problem comes from Necrons having 7 flyers (which is easy for them: they can go to 12 if they're really spamming it). Simply put, nothing in the game has enough anti-air to shoot them down, and with the comm relay they're quaranteed to get most of them in at turn 2 for a devastating alpha strike. Essentially, it would go something like this:

t1: Necrons deploy a big warrior blob behind the aegis line (with comm relay) and go to ground. They now have a 2+ coversave and 4+ wwb (assuming lord with an orb).
t2: If warrior blob isn't dead, 6 flyers come in. They can deep strike so they can hit us even if we hide in their deployment zone. Assuming we have the quad gun, one of the flyers will probably get shot down by the interceptor rule as it enters (5 left). Remaining flyers blow up the quad gun (it has t7 and 2 wounds), and several vehicles.
t2, ours: one of our flyer comes in, blows up flyer (4 left).
t3: their ladt flyer comes in (5 left), some of their flyers will be unable to fire at us, but the one that just came in and most likely one of the others can still shoot at our flyer, blowing it up.
t3, ours: another of our flyers come in, blows up flyer (4 left)
t4: they blow up our remaining flyer. Assuming we have no more flyers, they now have air superiority and can zoom around blowing our units with no serious threat. We we still have one flyer, they just repeat previous step.
t5: after blowing up most of our army, flyers deposit units on objectives (they can do it even when zooming 36'')

Currently due to low amount of non-flyer AA weapons (there's the Hydra, and the quad gun), only reliable anti-flyer defence is using your own flyers. Which isn't a massive problem if we assume flyers are rare (most armies can only have 3 and they tend to eb rather expensive). However, untill we get more AA weapons for more armies, the one army that can spam ridiculous amount of cheap flyers will dominate the meta.

thx Nomic, it's exactly my point.

I've asked my Eldar friend to borrow some Nightwings. Coz Voidraven still have no model (and we don't even know how it should look), they may serve as proxies well. Necron will run 8 flyers - 3 DS, 5 NS.

Now i'm searching their dex - Ward can leave hidden threats everywhere.

Quote :

[To fire the death ray, nominate a point on the battlefield ANYWHERE within weapon range (12"...) blah blah blah.

It's even worse then i thought. This wording allow them to completely ignore LoS restrictions and fire 360 degrees around flyer. S10 Ap1 hurts sometimes, especially if it's Auto Hit.

Double post merged. Please use the 'Edit' function in future, thanks - Cavash.

theblackjackal wrote:

However, there is a counter for everything, if you have the wit to see it, the imagination to create it and the skill to use it. Currently, there are four factions with flyer vehicles (Imperial Guard [Valkyrie, Vendetta], Dark Eldar [Razorwing, Voidraven], Blood Angels [Storm Raven] and Grey Knights [Storm Raven], and two with flying MCs [Tyranids and Chaos Daemons]. While I'm a little fuzzy on how many the last two can field, I know for a fact that the cheapest flyer vehicle available to any codex (I'm deliberately ignoring the new flyers and stuff from Forgeworld here because right now, I'm on break) is the Imperial Guard Valkyrie, and the most effective for its points is probably the Imperial Guard Vendetta.

There is also the Ork Burna-Bomber

Mates, relax, really.

Do you think thats a coincedence that none of the armies right now have Flak missiles, and they are written in rulebook?

Relax and just buy more Flyers, ok?

When you'l finish and lifecycle of the product will come to an end - you'l see some more product ))
Like Long Fangs with special Flak missile launcher, one per box.

Just relax and buy )))


Seriously, i recomend just play as it is.
Later there will surely be meta-game answer.
And there is a slight but kinda persuasive reason we wont see that many flyers - they are very expensive money wise and very hard to transport. 9 vendettas/Valks are pain in the ass to magnetise and transport, we have a guy who played Elysian Drop Trops and i saw those 9 birds and how the freaking hard it was to transport them.

^ Yep, sure you can spam flyers but they are expensive money wise which should hopefully put off all but the most serious gamers. Transport is a good point I hadn't though of either. I think many of us know how tricky our Raiders and Ravagers can be to transport safely without any of the sails, trophy poles, etc. breaking off.

I also agree in that GW has likely released all these flyers and is rumoured to have more on the way so everyone can have access to them and, with the current rules and lack of reliable anti-air, many people will buy them giving GW lots of money. Then, once the hype starts to calm down, GW will FAQ various units and release new units (rumoured to be happening towards the end of the year) with Skyfire to balance the meta out again. Sure, we may not get many units with skyfire but Eldar likely will which we can then ally in and the Imperium will almost certainly get spoilt with new toys. With the amount of Imperial players, this will have a significant effect on the meta, indirectly helping out those without lots of Skyfire.

theblackjackal wrote:

Now, because Flyers can only make one 90 degree turn, they have a blind spot that you can exploit, which conveniently enough happens to be where their rear armor is. While the troops inside can drop out no matter how fast the Valk is going, it's risky to do so, and is usually only done as a last resort. In this case, the Guard player in question must decide whether he wants to engage you, or simply avoid your firepower until the last turn where he can go objective taking. If he decides to engage you, then you'll have an easier time of it because you'll be shooting at disembarked infantry. If he decides to avoid you, then he won't be shooting at you much, which means you'll have more weapons to shoot at him with when your turn comes around.

That is the problem that Flyer-heavy lists run into. They can't handle target overload well, and they're not maneuverable enough to always get you in their sights. Take advantage of those weaknesses, and maybe you won't lose as often as you've decided you would.

Spot on! Really good advice.

I just put up a battle report against a 3 vendetta/valk list (at 1000pts!).

I think it show some good examples of how flyers constricted movement can cause them problems, forcing your opponent to waste time not shooting anything or switching into hover mode. DE can really capitalise on this with their high movement.

Yeah, the dominance of Scythespam is pretty much entirely because of most codices have not bee updated to 6th, and therefore lack larger amounts of anti-air. Once Marines can bring flak missiles for their Devastators and more armies will be getting non-flyer AA units, the meta should work better. Flyers will still be useful, since they're fast and still quite durable (as only AA units can reliably shoot them), but sticking your entire army into expensive and hard to manouver vehicles that if destroyed will probably kill the units they're carrying (even the Necron ones inflict hits on the passagers if downed, and even if they didn't, they dump the occupants in reserves which might lead to nothing being or board and auto-lose) will be less than sound.

I still think Scythespam will prove impractical because of 2 main things:

1) You can only reserve half of your army (i know you don't have to count flyers that does not matter).

2) Movement of flyers

But it's sure a very annoying (and not very fun) built that'll diminish once all codici are updated to 6th.

People, read the rulebook please. 1/2 rule DOES NOT APPLY to thing that MUST start in the reserve.

So yes, you'll see all-scythe list w/ 20-men blob led by Overlord w/ Ress Orb.

Read dude. I say the same thing between brackets.

And in reply to you. Turn 1 you can concentrate all your firepower on that 20-men blob.

I already said, play against this list first. I bet by turn 5 you'll have guys on objectives and he doesn't. All I've seen you do untill now is being stubborn and cry wolf.

hmm...4 disints, 2 splinter cannons, from my list first turn...thats not much

Enfernux wrote:

hmm...4 disints, 2 splinter cannons, from my list first turn...thats not much

Who's post do you address here? I'm confused.

umm....yours? as we can focus our turn one shooting at the blob??
well, for me, thats that 4 dissies and 2 cannons

Oh I see. Well I ussually have a lot to shoot first turn. Ussually 2x3 DLs from 2 Ravagers. Often 4 blasters from Trueborn in a Venom (8 if I can do this unit x2 when points allow). Ussually 2x10 splinter rifles as passangers shooting in 2 Raiders (which also have a DL both ofcourse). Oh the Venoms have SCs ofcourse. So yeah, I ussally shoot enough (except yesterday when I fought Tau )

i usually base my armies on assault, against vehicles, wyches, so 1 raider with incu and archonin raider with a disint, 2/3 raider with wyches and haem, raiders with disints, 0/1 warriors in raider with disint, 1 venom with blaster or cannonborn OR 1 venom with warriors, all venoms twin cannons. And flyers

just remember, they are lying behind ADL, with 2+ cover, and RP on 4+. And they are fearless thx Lord.

How do they have 2+ cover?

Siticus the Ancient wrote:

Well said, O.S.P. The doom and gloom in these threads leads nowhere. Doubting yourself, thinking yourself inferior - that's going to lose you every single game. An opponent with broken morale is already defeated, he doesn't think ahead, he abandons his plans, makes mistakes and generally keeps losing. Never be intimidated by your foe, no matter what it is. If your opponent already has you cowering just by announcing his list, you've lost then and there, because this is a game of not only solid list building, but adaptive tactics. For our army, ability to adapt and think on the fly is more crucial than in most codices.

Dark Eldar don't forgive mistakes and abhor weakness. They won't follow a leader that doubts himself.

I'll apply this to real life, thanks

Occupy the world!!!!!! LOL


About flyer spam: so your enemy has almost his entire army based on vehicles that probably will be going in and out of the table... with your raiders and other vehicles you can avoid them quite easily if they want to stay, and if they switch to hover mode they're dead probably. If you kill all the things on the board then he is tabled...

Well, then I suggest some Razorwings... or even the Voidraven (or two) will fullfill this role in a better way: it can fight the other flyers easily, and when in need it can leave the table, dropping a bomb on its way, which will kill (or badly hurt) even the most resilient troops or vehicles staying on the table, no matter how far they are.

Massaen wrote:

How do they have 2+ cover?

The Aegis Defense Line gives you a 2+ coversave if you go to ground behind it (othervise it gives a 4+ save).

Lol. Outflank some Mandrakes and start raking up those PT's.

Hijallo wrote:

just remember, they are lying behind ADL, with 2+ cover, and RP on 4+. And they are fearless thx Lord.

And here we run into the big problem with trying to table the flyer spam army first turn. While the Warrior Squad cannot make any repair protocols rolls if you wipe them out, the Necron Lord is Ever-Living and can repair even if his squad is destroyed.

So even if you do everything in your power and destroy that squad in a single shooting phase, there's a 50% chance the Lord gets right back up at the end of the phase and laughs as the flyers come roaring in.