Summer of Flyers?

[Komosunder]

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.

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[DarkLink]

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.

5 shots is not 'volume of fire'. You'll be lucky if one hits, you need a 3 to glance most flyers, and even if you do pen you only kill the flyer on a 5+ (even if you get the +1, the chart is basically a -1 from last edition). That's about .14 Explodes results on average. So if you take 7 squads of 5 Lascannon Long Fangs, you'll average one destroyed flyer a turn. Definitely not 'relatively good' odds.

[thecactusman17]

Komo, this was a great way to restart your tactics articles and I'm looking forward to more. Respectfully, I think your math is off but you do have some good ideas.

As Darklink has mentioned, the volume of fire trick doesn't work for many armies (but it does work for some). What armies really need is a way to increase the number of skyfire units available to them.

One of the less discussed ways to improve the chances of getting Skyfire without using aircraft or fortifications is to take high mastery psykers with Divination. One of the powers (on a result of 6) allows you to roll 3d6 and pick your choice for Mysterious Objectives, one of which gives controlling units within 3" the Skyfire rule. When rolling 3d6, the chances of rolling any one die result within the pool improves to just under 50-50 odds. In a game with multiple objectives, you can end up with several Skyfire units controlling critical objectives. While this is hardly the ideal method of adding anti-air units to your army, it IS a valuable option if available, and should not be discounted.

[Aramel]

Are you sure about that? The power says "mysterious terrain" I thought that meant only forests and rivers (which is all that is mentioned in the "mysterious terrain" section). Do objectives count as terrain?.

[The AKH]

"Mysterious Objectives" is a separate rule with its own chart.