Flicker Fields

After reading the lists for the ETC in Serbia, I noticed flicker fields were missing from more or less all lists. Now, as jink is a cover save, and there is a high prevalence of ignores cover weaponry, how do these lists get around this? Or have my locals been getting it wrong for jink saves? I don't think so but have been wrong several times before.

Are flicker fields just not worth it competitively?

You are right in saying that there is more and more Ignores Cover fire creeping into the game, especially against Tau but I think that with the advent of 6th, everyone saw Jink as a free Flickerfield and thus it stayed.

There is usually quite a lot of flickerfields, since venoms automatically have them.
I would probably rather put nightshields on a raider or ravager instead of them, though.

I venom spam, so I get them free, 30 pts to add them to the Ravagers is a slam dunk, the last thing I want is more fire on those!

If they werent free, would I buy them?
No, probably not, but I dont "do" upgrades generaly.

I've started taking both Night Shields and Flickerfields on my Raiders and Ravagers as it seems I never get first turn these days and they're far too easy to blow up without any save. It's 20 points per vehicle but it's certainly saved me more than that in most games I've played with them.

Except for kitting fliers, I always take nightshields over flickerfields. The ability to mess with enemy shooting range is extremely powerful.

My raid doctrine:

Core unit- 10 Warriors, S.Cannon, Raider + Nightshields (sometimes disintegrators).
Tactics:
1. Pre-measure all relevant enemy threat ranges.
2. Push skimmers forwards or backwards to the safest distance within 36'' (our threat range).
3. Whittle away at gunlines or focus fire at approaching threats until the threat disappears or eats the Dark Eldar raid.
3a. If the enemy threats hold, repeat.
OR
3b. If the enemy threats dissolves, storm the front. aggressively disembark warriors into cover, push assault units as far forwards as possible, and generally overwhelm the enemy with lots of targets to choose from.

For this sort of tactic, nightshields are essential. For a meager ten points, we gain a 6'' margin of safety from most enemy shooting. That might sound like nothing, but when our raiders can be shot down from the basic rifles of marines, necrons, and tau (and eldar?) and almost every squad-machinegun equivalent.

Granted, 48' lascannons, autocannons, and other long-range antitank weapons defeat nightshields by simply outranging our weapons by too great a margin. Even if we had 48'' darklances and/or splinter cannons, the threat-range-dance would become often impossible due to the limits on battlefield size. Such weapons are to be treated as priority targets.

In closing, jink can be countered by "ignores cover" via tau or templates, and nightshields can be countered by enemy range and mobility. Flickerfields are a 100% reliable 5+ save that can never be countered, but at 10pts, you could buy the ability to bend tapemeasures and rules, to stop shots in the air, and to mess with your opponent's intuitive sense of what targets they should be able to threaten.

And yet 20 points is almost half another venom.
I tend to drop most of these upgrades but NS on Ravagers and Enhanced Sails on the Raider with melee troops in order to get into the right position.
It also depends on local meta and your list construction (for example venom spam).

FF is something that could be worth on a Ravager. Since they are more expensive and tend to draw a lot of fire.
In theory the FF can save on average 13 points per glancing hit your ravager takes. This goes up to 39 points on penetrating hits.
Only if your enemy has ignore cover, like noise marines, divination, tau marker lights, ...

not to mention all the IG barrage weapons, every other armies flamers and blast weapons, and fun ordnance weapons too. I see the point people are making re the cost of the field, but when faced with these I struggle to see how a raider or ravager survives without it. Venoms obviously are the exception and hence the prevalence of venom heavy lists.

the_dukes_scion wrote:

not to mention all the IG barrage weapons, every other armies flamers and blast weapons, and fun ordnance weapons too.

Barrage and blast weapons do not ignore cover saves unless stated. So you still get your jink save against IG barrage weapons.

Personaly, I take only Nightshields for my venoms, and on raiders, I used to take nightshields aswell, but Mush nailed the thing, about playing with naked raiders over upgraded ones, and after playtesting I must say I agree 100% with him in that matter.

By equiping Flickerfield I think its worth to follow a specific scheme. What ignores cover or disrupts it and what's its range. Misfortune is 24", Markerlights are 36", IG "fire on my target" order requires LOS, Dark reapers ignoring jink are 36" etc. Venoms with Nightshields can deal with most of their stuff, while still maintaining flickerfield. Raiders filled with warriors, either with passangers inside or outside, more often than not will be in range of all those above. It's rather obvious, that warriors don't want to sit inside such raider in enemy threat range. And when raider is empty, does he realy need that flicker field?

the_dukes_scion wrote:

After reading the lists for the ETC in Serbia, I noticed flicker fields were missing from more or less all lists. Now, as jink is a cover save, and there is a high prevalence of ignores cover weaponry, how do these lists get around this? Or have my locals been getting it wrong for jink saves? I don't think so but have been wrong several times before.

Are flicker fields just not worth it competitively?

Personally, I'd only take them on fliers now (since they can't benefit from jink). The only exception is if I want a raider to stay still for some reason (maybe a dark lance inside), though that's pretty rare for me.

If I want a save on the first turn, I'll hide my raiders/ravagers behind terrain or (if there's insufficient terrain to hide all of them) I'll arrange my Venoms around them. That way the venoms are protected by their built-in flickerfields and the raiders/ravagers get cover from the venoms. After the first turn, I'll just move my vehicles every turn - even if it's just an 1/8th of an inch or somesuch - thus giving them all cover saves. Also, I can often obscure my vehicles behind cover, thus giving me a 4+ save against a good chunk of the enemy army.

Weapons that ignore cover are a little worrying, but not enough to make me consider flickerfields. See, I just don't find our vehicles survivable enough to be worth the expenditure - especially when it only gives a 1/3 chance of actually stopping the damage. As it is, I try to put the absolute minimum upgrades on my raiders and venoms - especially since the saved points often enables me to buy an extra venom or raider.

in my local gaming area FF's are a must, for me there is just to much "ignore this or negate that" or twinlinked high S/multipule shots coming my way.

and nearly every tourney i get to play at least one IG army with 2-3 flyer's with 3 TWL lascannons.
they wont save your ass everytime, but it can give you a chance

darthken239 wrote:

in my local gaming area  FF's are a must,  for me there is just to much "ignore this or negate that"  or twinlinked high S/multipule  shots coming my way.

and nearly every tourney i get to play at least one IG army with 2-3 flyer's with 3 TWL lascannons.
they wont save your ass everytime, but it can give you a chance

I can understand them against ignore-cover effects, but how exactly do they help against multiple-shots or twin-linked lascannons, any more than a 5+ jink save would?

because i never ever get the first turn LOL and was getting sick of losing nearly all my vehicles in the 1st turn

darthken239 wrote:

because i never ever get the first turn  LOL  and was getting sick of losing  nearly all my vehicles in the 1st turn

But flyers are not on the table first turn.

As for first turn cover saves, forests, small ruins or a venom, will grant a cover save to a raider they only need to be obscured 25%. Then you can just use the raider with cover to grant cover saves to the vehicles behind it. Basically cascading cover saves.

darthken239 wrote:

in my local gaming area  FF's are a must,  for me there is just to much "ignore this or negate that"  or twinlinked high S/multipule  shots coming my way.

Just out of curiosity. What exactly specific ignore-cover stuff you have in mind?

IG manticores come to mind...

the_dukes_scion wrote:

IG manticores come to mind...

It doesn't have ignore cover so it won't ignore a jink save. Is it worth 10pts for a 5+ save turn 1? There's a 2/3 chance the manticore miss as it scatters 2d6" without subtracting BS when firing indirectly, and although it's D3 blasts those blasts still need to be touching the first blast, so if that first blast goes wide chances are they will all miss.

Whats more, vs Barrage it's actualy not that bad to get some kind of protection. I tend to hug Impass / buildings/ ruins with floors with my vehicles, so they can easier scatter onto them, which makes barrage explode on the highest floor the centre of blast hits. I remember when my IG opponent said that barrage ignores cover and hits the floor he wants to hit. No wonder my stuff vaporized so fast, especialy reavers.

After that I promised myself never to get robbed of my covers so easily >.

Alright, talk to me like I am stupid, coz maybe I am. Mush, its a barrage weapon, and, unless we have been doing it wrong, barrage ignores cover. Jink is a cover save, so how does that work? Has he been doing it wrong? I understand the rationale and I am over-reliant on my raiders coz thats my list. If I can jink the barrage manticore then I am all over that.

the_dukes_scion wrote:

Alright, talk to me like I am stupid, coz maybe I am. Mush, its a barrage weapon, and, unless we have been doing it wrong, barrage ignores cover. Jink is a cover save, so how does that work? Has he been doing it wrong? I understand the rationale and I am over-reliant on my raiders coz thats my list. If I can jink the barrage manticore then I am all over that.

6th edition rulebook, page 34, section 'Barrage' wrote:

To determine [...] their side armour.

Barrage weapons do not ignore cover. Barrage weapons determine the cover save received by its target from the center of the blast, instead of from the firing unit. Which in practice means that intervening terrain usually does not provide a cover save to the target of the barrage. That's because line of sight is not blocked from the center of the blast.

However, units that are standing in area terrain or any units that have an inherent cover save that is not determined by line of sight, like Jink, still receive a cover save versus barrage weapons.

So yes, you have been doing it wrong.

I n 40k I have learn't never trust my opponent to know his own rules, and I never take anything he says as a given. It takes 2 minutes to look a rule up. I'm not saying I argue everything he says, but if I have a doubt about something I either look it up there and then, or let him make the move and look it up during his turn (that way it won't eat into game time) to make sure it's played right in future turns/games.

I find so many incorrect ruling are taught from player to player, sometimes this leads to entire clubs playing a rule wrong, because no one actually ever looked the damn thing up!  

Mushkilla wrote:

I find so many incorrect ruling are taught from player to player, sometimes this leads to entire clubs playing a rule wrong, because no one actually ever looked the damn thing up!  

Been a victim of this behaviour so many times, and oh well, I still am...

Whole barrage entry has nothing to do with ignore cover. What's more, there is only one barrage weapon in 40k that ignores cover, and its Whirlwinds incendiary S4ap5 missiles (might be mistaken about beeing the only one, but I didn't encounter anymore than that)

Wow, just proves no matter how many times you read the book you can still easily misinterpret the rules. We at my local have been over this jink thing so many times and still haven't mastered it. Thanks for all the input on the flickerfields everyone. and clearing up barrage and jink. might have just saved myself a bucket load of points.  

edit - Missed the last page so thought this hadn't been answered. Nothing to see here...