# Summer of Flyers?



## Komosunder (Oct 11, 2011)

Rumors keep pointing at a “Summer of Flyers”. Between the imperial guards Vendetta to the flying deamon princes of chaos it’s already obvious that flyers have made a huge impact in Warhammer 40k. With rumors solidifying around a full wave of flyers next month, it seems they are monopolizing the meta. So, what do you do if you play a codex that just doesn’t have a flyer? 

Granted they are few and far between, but some of our favorite armies have been left out of the loop. Space Wolves are stuck ruffing it with thunder cav, Tau are falling short with Rail guns, and Eldar can’t seem to conger up some air support. It seems to be common knowledge that both Tau and Eldar will both be picking up a flyer next month via White Dwarf (or something like that) but what if these flyers aren’t up to snuff. What do they do until then? 

The first choice for a player in this obscure position is to pull in allies. Allies can supply the some air support for most of these armies. In most cases this only means a single flyer. Without he ability to “spam” Flying units, it’s best to look at them as defensive. Basically using their skyfire rule to counter other flying units. 

In many cases a single flyer is not going to do it. After all, it could come in before your opponent’s aircraft and get shot down. Fortification emplacements can be used to support or replace your single flyer. The emplacements are relatively inexpensive but are only available as upgrades to fortifications. This presents a unique Situation. Although I don’t see the “problem” in using this aspect of the game, some tournaments have banned them from play. Most of their T.O.s justify this by quoting the inconvenient deployment of fortifications in the rulebook. 

Say you don’t feel ether the allies or the fortifications work for your force. You can always count on volume of fire. Lascannon Long fangs have a relatively good chance to shoot down most flyers. You have 5 shots at high strength and +1 on the damage table. They may not be a sure fire way to drop that pesky bird, but it has a good shot. You also have the opportunity to utilize Twin linked weapons. Its a lot easier to see that six if you get more rolls. 

While working on your own technique to deal with the new flyers try not to get discouraged. Flyers have their own downfalls, and can always be dealt with. This is only one of the new aspects of the game to take into account. Just like the new fortifications, allies, charge ranges, ext ext ext, you need to account for it when building you new allcomers list. 

Check out More at : http://www.tomahawc.com/


----------



## Arcane (Feb 17, 2009)

Interesting write up. 

Personally I really dislike the new flyers because in a tournament setting, you are pigeon holed to at least run two, which just doesn't fit well with the theme or focus of many armies, such as a straight SoB list. 5th edition brought us the need to include a lot of anti armor to our lists, but we had the choice when doing this of running anti-armor vehicles, infantry or close combat. 6th edition forces you to have anti-flyer and rather than having several options to counter them, the only one available is another flyer (with the exception of a hydra flak cannon). 

In the fluff there are many examples of both vehicles and infantry shooting at flyers, and even of jump infantry attacking flyers with close combat. However, these are not seen in the game...

Until GW adds a variety of options for dealing with flyers, such as skyfire infantry, vehicles, and close combat for every army, the game has been soured for me.


----------



## Komosunder (Oct 11, 2011)

oh, see i disagree. many armies can deal with flyers without forcing in their own. multiple long fang squads are effective have the volume and damage needed. I've had trouble with dark eldar True born and ravagers. IG with "bring it down" on Vets or heavy weapon teams. the trouble with flyers is that they can't hold ground. not objectives, but territory. a player doesn't need to account for flyers in the area of there troops. if you can get them to jink, they are absolutely no problem the next turn. they may be fast, but have almost no maneuverability. the only really power flyers are the vendetta and the stormraven. these guys can be very rough to deal with. especially the GK stormraven, it has all the stupid tricks covered.


----------



## Fallen (Oct 7, 2008)

some armies can spam shots a lot better than others, take Tau for instance currently (and i dont really trust a 2nd wave of flyers thats still sorta rumor mill) they fight with quality shots unlike orks/IG/SWs who can spam an acceptable amount of firepower with points.

Chaos Space Marines are pretty much boned until their new codex, taking either havocs or oblits for at max of 9 lascannon shots @ a lovely 675 points is totally equal...

that and GW not errata-ing(spelling?) in units to have skyfire (along with interceptor too so that they remain dual roled, a la Devastators, hurts a lot of players who refuse to use WD units since they "arent from the codex, so its the same as FW/etc"

that and the game is hugely unbalanced at certain point levels if someone doesnt take a flyer and the other does (1k games and under...maybe even 1250)


----------



## shaggy (Jul 9, 2009)

I'm reminded of the general, I can't remember his name, who in about 1947-1950 postulated that ground armies are obsolete. Whith the air force's ability to attack air, ground, and sea targets with limited casualties if at all, this became a popular theory until they tried it in Korea. Turns out you can kill stuff without fear of reprisal but you can't hold the ground. In 40k terms, this means that area denial doesn't exist for the flyers. They're annoying and pack some brutal guns but they have they're not gods.


----------



## The_Werewolf_Arngeirr (Apr 3, 2012)

I do think that they needed to add in more skyfire rule weapons, but, in the same instance, they give alot of different ways to deal with flyers, as you mentioned fortifications, but if you play with every rule in the dex you can see that some "Mysterious Terrain" can even give you a weapon emplacement, not always, but the added skyfire gun works well.

but 85 points for a 95 inch range Las cannon that can shoot a flyer as it enters the board is not a bad deal, when you think about the bonuses of extra cover for your havoc, dev, long fang, etc squads that generally play long range support.

Crush on an 11 or 12 of its roll will ignore the only gets hit on 6's too.


----------



## Arcane (Feb 17, 2009)

Komosunder said:


> multiple long fang squads are effective have the volume and damage needed.


I have to disagree with this. Points vs points, Long Fangs with be very INeffective against flyers since you will have to at least double the focus of your fire against flyers. This means you are focusing 2-3X the point values to destroy your target, which is a poor tactical decision. 

The key IMO, to effective tactics are utilizing the proper unit to minimize the needed points values to destroy an enemy unit of equal or greater value. If you are spending significant time in a battle forced to utilize more points in your army to destroy less points of your opponents army, eventually you will lose.


----------



## ohiocat110 (Sep 15, 2010)

I'd wait at least until the boxed set comes out before making any major army building decisions. It seems kind of odd that all the 6th ed FAQs came out with so few armies getting access to Skyfire, and nobody getting Flak missiles. 

There's probably another major update in the works that will give more armies access to flyers, as well as Skyfire/Flak weapons to counter them. It's very unbalanced now, but I'd expect GW to correct that before long.


----------

