The Future of AA in 6th Ed

I posted this in the DE rumour section as although it does talk about Flakk it also talks about GW design principles concerning flyers and the new edition. Seeing how our main solution to Flyers are our own Flyers I thought it might make for interesting discussion. Also it's relevant to know how effective new army releases will be against our aircraft. (obviously these are rumours so take the appropriate dose of Sodium chloride)

via Faeit 212 wrote:

Whirl Wind AA will have the option as an upgrade and 3 different types of missile to choose before the game.
Replace both Castellan and Vengeance with Helios Missile launcher for free. Heavy 1, Twin Linked, Skyfire Interceptor

Devastators can upgrade to take flakk missiles at +5 points per model, replaces Krak and Frag options.

there was an iteration of playtest where you replaced only krak with flakk and was free. because there is no modelling difference, players could (without adjusting their list) swap to flakk when they saw / suspected lots of flyers.

In the end it was simplified to being an outright replacement of both for all missiles in the squad, at a cost to avoid the above. Either it's Flakk or it's Standard.

Flakk have also (as a whole) been reduced in effectiveness as they were Imperium only, and the GW designer involvement wanted to steer away from the Imperium having all the tricks.

If you want to take out flyers, you need to either run flyers yourself or dedicated units / vehicles that are ground to air.

This levels the playing field for all races who will each get at least 1 flyer, and 1 ground to air unit that can semi-function ground to ground.

Infantry just don't do that well against Flyers.

I think guard will get more use out of Flakk than Marines.

The Tempest which can come in squadrons and is cheaper than a storm talon though less versatile do an excellent job at shooting down Night/Doom Scythes.

Sorry no Storm Talon or Storm Raven for DA.

And the Helios' interceptor rule makes it really solid, since unlike the Hydra it can still shoot at light armor in the event that there's no flyers (or shoot light armor, then again in the enemy's movement phase).

Also, it can be taken as 1-3 vehicle squadron for 1 Heavy Support.

Thoughts?

my problem is I dont like that you not only pay for the skyfire missles, but you replace BOTH of your current missles as well. I would understand replacing one of them and still paying 5 points, but both??? your basically making a dedicated unit to shoot down flyers, and if they dont bring flyers, they are useless... I had hope that flakk missles would scare people away from doing all flyer lists, but it seems that they arent the meta answer we have been looking for against flyer spam...

It should of been free and replace either frag or krak grenade. That way you had to 2 of either AT, AI, or AA... but if this is true, GW has another fail on their hands... and Matt Ward continues his dominance in the "I can make a more broken codex than you" race

I don't mind having to replace the frag and krak option, if only for the reason that it cuts down on ML spam being used against our troops and non-flyers vehicles. Now, that SW player who brings 18 Long Fang Missile Launchers to the table every time is forced to decide whether to have them shoot at a flyer (that I might not have) or everything else. And he pays points for the privilege!!

Personally I wanted flakk to be strong so the meta would shift in such a way that my DE would not need to worry about flyers.

The problem will be that no one will pay for them when there are other dedicated AA units in their book. So there wont be enough AA to bring down things like the Cron Flyer Spam, and it will rule the boards for awhile until GW comes out with another book to counter it. Skyfire Missles were a basic patch to hold us over and stop this madness, but sadly GW might drop the ball for another time...

Also to strong for the imperium??? when has that ever stopped them before??? Oh... and lets look at other books, well Eldar have MLs, why not give them the same option? Oh... and Orks have missles too, they could easily get it as well (although why would you ever do that when you have lootas...) and Tau??? isnt the skyray AA and Interceptor already? make it so it doesnt have to use a markerlight to shoot at flyers, and let it shoot a flyer for every missle it has (so it can unload on multiple flyers the turn they enter) and you would see more play for it. Nids/Deamons have their AA in flying Monsterous creatures already, so there is no book that cant handle flyers with a simple fix...

Yet thats too much to ask for from GW...

Why let us use our existing models when GW can make new models to sell us with shiny AA options?

because if you can spam flyers (which crons have proved they are allowing) then you must be able to counter it. Its called keeping the game in balance. Skyfire missles could be the answer. But if GW makes them unplayable in a Competitive eviroment (like they are trying to do) it makes them useless to anyone.

the future of AA in 6th? Le'me point uz all to da Mushkilla'z batrepz o da black buzzardz
In other words: reavers...
can you ram a flyer with a nother? *ponders* Seems realistically legit... ^^

Shadows Revenge wrote:

because if you can spam flyers (which crons have proved they are allowing) then you must be able to counter it. Its called keeping the game in balance. Skyfire missles could be the answer. But if GW makes them unplayable in a Competitive eviroment (like they are trying to do) it makes them useless to anyone.

I think we should all realise by now that GW cares about this >< much for competitive balance. it's all about model sales and I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that there will be shiny new AA models for most armies in the not-too-distant future.

Actually, call me cynical if you will but I just thought of this. The most recent codexes and their AA options:

Blood Angels - Stormraven
Dark Eldar - Razorwing/Voidraven
Grey Knights - Stormraven
Necrons - Flyers! Thousands of the 'em!

The two codexes that (I think) will be the last to be redone (SM and Orks) got a shiny new flyer model very recently.

So, all the most recent codexes and the two that will not be redone for ages have flyer and/or AA options already. What's the betting that, as new codexes, are released they will contain flyers and/or AA which will pretty much force people to buy the new codex and the new models if they want to remain competitive?

Even if skyfire missiles replace normal missiles, you'd still see people use them as a counter to flyers, and that would remove stuff like all flyers all the time Necron spam (since against anti-flyer units, they're actually quite vulnerable). Missile launchers having all 3 options for free would make them crazy good and everybody would spam em like crazy. Longfangs are nasty enough as it is.

Well, I suppose I have no reason not to equip my Havocs with autocannons and stick them in a quad-gun bastion now. PA autocannons are a fun conversion anyhow. This isn't going to change my DE anti-air at all, of course. The razorwing will serve, at least until the voidraven comes out.

Also, forget devastators, lets look at WHirlwinds. You can apparently get 3 per HS slot and they have skyfire and interceptor, so they're not useless against ground targets and can shoot the enemy flyers when they coem out of reserves. A single HS choise of a full squadrons plus the Aegis quadgun could potentially shoot down 4 enemy flyers the turn they arrive. A balanced list should be able to protect the flyers by focusing fire on the Whirlwinds the first turn to incapacitate or destroy them, but a list like Necron Scythespam which starts with a single unit on board, with no long range weapons and whose only purpose is to go to ground behind the defence line so they don't get wiped on turn one, would have no way of preventing them from shooting at their flyers as soo as they arrive, potentially destroying half of them before the enemy shooting phase even begins.

The rumour said; "Each army gets a Ground->Air unit", wonder what we'll get? I can't really see any of our existing units fit in here, so hopefully there will be a brand new unit arriving.

Well for DE I can imagine
AA Talos (just upgrade the unusable stinger pods to a propper stinger missile silo)
AA Scourges - few points for these pals to have intercept
AA Reavers - just shred the flyers as they shred the infantry

and the wet dream of course is to have AA Mandrakes - so I can use the cool models

If only Jump Infantry could assault flyers. That would make sense. And swooping hawks would be usefull as allies.

I've had some success with cluster caltrop reavers. Most flyers have pitiful armour and rely on flying to save them, so any decent amount of strength 6 hits glances them to death in no time. Not to mention i love the look on there faces and the poor arguments they give about why i carnt do it, and i just say, wheres it say i carnt!

Reavers, anti everything!

But the reavers bladevanes section specificaly select non-vehicle units, so there it says you cannot.

Or that, Derp.

P.S dont tell that necron french breakfast army i played yesterday.

The other part of all this is that anything with Skyfire shoots Flyers, Flying Monstrous Creatures, and SKIMMERS at normal BS. Anyone with Skyfire missiles will shoot down all DE vehicles with ease since DE have zero options for ground-based vehicles.

So, Skyfire will not be the huge all or nothing tradeoff all of the time if your opponent has any flyers, FMCs, or skimmers, and can still snap fire at ground units. What you may see are more diverse AA units to give a secondary function if they run out of targets. Whirlwinds can still provide cover, tankshock, provide a secondary weapon (even if just a stormbolter), while Devastators are still Marines with bolters if you buff up the unit size, allowing them to have denial and anti-infantry capability (and you can hedge their function by combat squadding and/or taking Razorbacks to add secondary functionality).

I'm curious to see how this is done in the new chaos dex, all I can say the thing below does not look healthy for the aviators among us:

yeah, i suspect there'll be a bit of a meta to-ing and fro-ing once dedicated AA units come in. at first there'lll be plenty of AA, so people wont take flyers.
the the AA will fall off as theres no flyers to shoot at, so more fltyers come back on the scene lol

Currently in my meta I experience a funny occurence as my opponents (me included) don't really like to play with a lot of flyers. They are harder to move around. So most in my meta usually deploy 1 or 2 flyers at most, so they can still play around with enough tanks and skimmers. Pretty interesting shift...

From Faeit 212:

Quote :

Havocs 75pts for 4 + asp champ, weapons are more reasonably priced FLAKK MISSILES ARE 10PTS PER MODEL AND CAN BE TAKEN WITH FRAG AND KRAK

This is good news as hopefully imperial armies will soon get the same options, and there for reduce flyer spam.

Shadows Revenge wrote:

The problem will be that no one will pay for them when there are other dedicated AA units in their book. So there wont be enough AA to bring down things like the Cron Flyer Spam, and it will rule the boards for awhile until GW comes out with another book to counter it. Skyfire Missles were a basic patch to hold us over and stop this madness, but sadly GW might drop the ball for another time...

Also to strong for the imperium??? when has that ever stopped them before??? Oh... and lets look at other books, well Eldar have MLs, why not give them the same option? Oh... and Orks have missles too, they could easily get it as well (although why would you ever do that when you have lootas...) and Tau??? isnt the skyray AA and Interceptor already? make it so it doesnt have to use a markerlight to shoot at flyers, and let it shoot a flyer for every missle it has (so it can unload on multiple flyers the turn they enter) and you would see more play for it. Nids/Deamons have their AA in flying Monsterous creatures already, so there is no book that cant handle flyers with a simple fix...

Yet thats too much to ask for from GW...

Nid AA: Flyrant w/ T-L Devouers/Brain Leech Worms, which get munched by GEQ due to grounding tests. IT is dead 50%+ before flyers come on to the board. IT is not a reliable AA unit. I know I have tried time and time again.