How To Deal with Flyers in 6th Edition 40K - Part 3

I'm sure if you asked most people what the biggest change in 6th edition is they'd say "flyers". I'm not sure I agree with that, but it seems to be a hot topic all the same. Whenever you write a list at the back of your mind you're always thinking "how am I going to deal with flyers?". Even if you aren't, you can guarantee if you post a list up on a blog or forum people will quickly ask the question. With the new DA codex it's something I've been thinking about a lot. So what's the best way to deal with them then?

Hopefully you've already read the first two parts of this article here and here but if not, take a look first and come back. This final part will continue our look at the options available for dealing with enemy flyers before drawing it all together.

Twin Linkage and Torrent
As I'd hope you all know by now, the problem with trying to kill flyers is that 6 to hit. After that they're no harder to kill than any other vehicle. Without spending points on dedicated anti-air units the remaining option for trying to shoot them down is with either twin-linking high strength shots or else a high volume of shots mid-high strength shots. Obviously there are lots of options here so I'm not going to go into all of them. Here's a few ideas.

Take a psyfleman dreadnought for example. These mainstays of a lot of Grey Knights lists in 5th edition offer a reasonable chance of killing flyers. Back to the dreaded Mathammer and they have a roughly 1 in 10 chance of killing an AV11 flyer in a single volley. Not bad for 135pts since they're still useful for killing other vehicles, instant killing multi-wound T4 models and generally being a pain in the arse. HPs mean they aren't as durable but they still aren't that easy to shift and you'd have probably taken them in your GK army anyway!

My current favourite for killing flyers though has to be Tau Broadsides, with S10 AP1 railguns they've always been a threat to vehicles. A pair of them have a better than 25% chance of killing an AV11 flyer in one volley and 20% chance of doing the same against AV12. For 203pts you get a team with 2+ saves, two shield drones to keep them alive, ASS for moving to deny cover, a target lock to let them hit two different targets and a blacksun filter for night vision. That to me is a pretty enticing package! Not cheap by anyone's standard but everyone fears a broadside! With Tau able to ally with pretty much everyone they're worth considering.

A lot of other units can easily be made twin-linked now thanks to the wide availability of the Divination psychic powers and hence Prescience. For example, a cheap DA psyker attached to some devastators can make them into a potential anti-air threat. I'd even argue that it'd be more useful to spend your points on attaching a psyker than giving them flakk missiles.

A good example of torrent is Eldar War Walkers. 24 S6 shots might result in a lucky penetrating hit on a flyer. Throw in Fortune and you've got a real chance of gimping an AV11 flyer. Bit of a waste of the unit mind you. The other way to look at torrent is by focussing several different units with a low chance of killing a flyer onto one in the same turn and hoping you can accumulate enough hit points or get a lucky pen. Most of the time that fire can be put to better use though.

Finally, the ultimate example of non-dedicated anti-air that works is the Necron Annihilation Barge. Being S7, Twin-Linked and Tesla makes these really dangerous to flyers. They get two bonus dice for every 6 they get from their Tesla rule which means those hits soon mount up. For 90pts they're pretty much an automatic choice for Necron players. It's not like Necrons needed much help doing well in 6th edition though!!

Close Combat!?!
Are you seriously telling me CC is a viable anti-flyer option? Well yes, actually. Obviously this is only any good for flyers in Hover mode but when they leave themselves vulnerable in this way you've got to take the opportunity with both hands. In the last doubles we attended we actually took down four stormravens using only CC attacks! Granted we had and S10 thunderwolf and dreadknights but that's hardly the point.

Seriously, though it might be the only chance some armies get to take down a pesky flyer so its worth keeping your wits about you and pouncing when you can.

Who Cares If You've Got A Shiny Plane?
The last option available is the least effective method of destroying flyers i.e. don't even try. I'm still writing lists without any anti-air options in them. Sometimes this will backfire horribly but on other occasions you'll find yourself at an advantage against an army that doesn't have flyers of its own but has spent points on anti-air.

Realistically this is getting to be less and less of an option though. You'd struggle to go through a two-day tournament without facing at least one flyer-spam list be it IG or Necron. Still might be better than wasting points on a token gesture quad gun though!

Conclusion
I've basically written these articles to try and collect my thoughts on flyers and how I'm going to deal with them with my armies. I'm not exactly spoilt for choice with my Space Wolves but there's still hope from allies. I think ultimately you have to make a decision about how many points you want to sacrifice to the cause. You can sink hundreds into it and still fail to swat a single fly.

I hope these articles have been useful to some of you. I'm not the first person to talk about flyers but hopefully I've given a different opinion that get's people thinking. It's going to be interesting once all the armies have their own flyers. I'm intrigued to see what the Tau Air Caste can produce for me and rumour has it I won't have long to wait. If Tau produce some strong anti-air units I can see them selling well as allies. It already sounds like a GW marketing strategy.....

How To Deal with Flyers in 6th Edition 40K - Part 2

I'm sure if you asked most people what the biggest change in 6th edition is they'd say "flyers". I'm not sure I agree with that, but it seems to be a hot topic all the same. Whenever you write a list at the back of your mind you're always thinking "how am I going to deal with flyers?". Even if you aren't, you can guarantee if you post a list up on a blog or forum people will quickly ask the question. With the new DA codex it's something I've been thinking about a lot. So what's the best way to deal with them then?

Hopefully you've already read the first part of this article but if not, take a look first and come back. Right, this part will begin to look at the options available to us to deal with enemy flyers.

Dogfighting - Air to Air Combat
The most obvious way to deal with enemy flyers is to take some of your own. That's assuming of course your army has some to take! Some flyers are better than others at dealing with their opposite numbers (e.g. Stormravens and Vendettas) and should be able to kill an enemy flyer in a single volley, others (like the Stormtalon, Nephilim and Razorwing) might get lucky but the rest will really struggle.

How do you maximise your chances of achieving air superiority? The key is to make sure you get your flyer onto the table after they get theirs on. Might sound obvious but for most players the first target of their flyers is going to be any enemy ones they can pick on. Having some kind of reserve manipulation from Warlord Traits, Astropaths, etc. is pretty useful here. There's nothing like seeing your opponent proudly zooming his flyer onto the table only to have him take it away again in your turn!

The other useful tool here is Hover mode. Whilst it won't help you take down an enemy flyer (since you'll lose Skyfire in most cases) it can allow you to re-position behind an enemy flyer ready to take them down next turn and perhaps help you avoid their guns too. Obviously this puts you at an extreme risk from ground troops but you'll still have your Jink save to minimise the damage. Putting yourself in a position where you force your opponent to Hover can be a good option too.

The problem with using flyers to counter other flyers is that you aren't necessarily helping the overall war effort. Sure you're taking out a threat but you're risking points in the hope that your flyer will kill theirs before it dies. Most flyers offer a dual role though so you can probably justify them. Either way the better dogfighters are the ones with AP1/AP2 such as the Stormraven as they've got the best chance of getting that all important explosion.

Anti-Air Ground Support
With each new codex there are likely to be more and more ground based anti-air options becoming available. Having said that GW aren't going to want to totally gimp flyers by allowing reliable, low cost, anti-air in every codex. What's more likely is that you'll have to sacrifice a chunk of points in the hopes that you face enemy flyers and hence you haven't wasted these units.

At the moment there are only a handful of proper dedicated anti-air units out there so let's take a look at them. Firstly, the ubiquitous quad gun. Every army has access to one of them (despite the model looking a bit out of place in some armies) so they're the go-to-guys for token anti-air weaponry. You have to pay for the Aegis line though and 100pts for the set isn't cheap. Luckily the Aegis line has its uses but actually how useful is the gun? Being able to use Interceptor can help take out a flyer before it's even had chance to be an annoyance but they aren't all that reliable.

As regular readers should know, I'm not a fan of mathammer but here I think it's important to make a point. Really you want to be blowing the flyer up as it won't care if it loses a hull point or two. A quad gun operated by a BS4 model has a roughly 1 in 5 chance of destroying an AV11 flyer in one shot and a 1 in 10 chance of doing the same to an AV12 flyer. That's not all that great! Essentially, your quad gun will kill one flyer a game by straight explosion. The problem really is the lack of AP 1 or 2 to ensure a boom. Now as with all mathammer that's assuming a lot e.g you're in range, he doesn't manage to Evade or make any other kind of save and of course that he hasn't already killed your gun (which isn't that hard to do). For 50pts though it's not a bad option if you can find a use for the defense line. At least it has some utility outside killing flyers too and you might strip enough HP from a flyer for another unit to finish the job.

Moving on, the only pure Skyfire unit out there (to my knowledge) is the Imperial Guard Hydra. This is essentially just a quad-gun on a tank though and whilst it doesn't cost much more it's limited use outside anti-air. If you know you're likely to face flyer-spam then maybe but most IG generals will probably prefer to rely on Vendettas.

Finally, we come to Flakk missiles. When these were first spotted in the rulebook there was a lot of excitement about them and who would be able to use them. With the CSM and DA codexes we discovered that they're going to be pretty widely available to marine armies but at a hefty cost. Each missile launcher will set you back 25pts and whilst you still get all the advantages of the standard launcher you're making yourself public enemy number one. Most players will focus everything on taking out these units early before they can cause a problem for their flyers. The DA book allows for several launchers to be dotted around your army in scout, tactical and devastator squads. I have to wonder if it's worth it though. Coming back to the dreaded mathammer a 5-man (4 launcher) devastator unit costing 170pts will only give you a 15% chance of blowing up an AV11 flyer. Granted they're a bit harder to stop than the quad gun but they're also a lot more expensive.

So what's the solution here? Well as with most things in 40K if somethings good take several. Anyone who's basing a significant portion of their strategy around flyers will be looking at your list for the anti-air threats. If you've got that one quad gun then you can kiss it goodbye almost straight away. You're then faced with the next 4-5 turns taking pot shots with other weapons and hoping. By taking your own flyer, a few flakk missiles dotted here and a quad gun you're unlikely to ever be left without some kind of useful firepower. Mind you you'll have also blown a lot of points and regret if when your opponent hasn't got a single flyer!

Essentially what I'm trying to say is that by choosing these units to tick the "I can deal with flyers" box is a bit of a nonsense. Quad guns, flakk missiles and Hydras really can't reliably deal with them. I mean granted nothing can at the moment but you have to weigh up if you can afford the cost.

In the next article I'll look at other ways of dealing with flyers outside the obvious.

How To Deal with Flyers in 6th Edition 40K - Part 1

I'm sure if you asked most people what the biggest change in 6th edition is they'd say "flyers". I'm not sure I agree with that, but it seems to be a hot topic all the same. Whenever you write a list at the back of your mind you're always thinking "how am I going to deal with flyers?". Even if you aren't, you can guarantee if you post a list up on a blog or forum people will quickly ask the question. With the new DA codex it's something I've been thinking about a lot. So what's the best way to deal with them then?

This part of the article will talk about the current flyers in the game with an attempt to categorise them and then parts 2 and 3 will be about methods of dealing with them. (I'm not going to talk about flying MCs here because they're a very different prospect. Similarly I'm not going to mention Forge World units as it's a whole other can of worms!)

Currently Available Flyers
Let's begin by looking at the current cohort of planes that 40K generals have access to:

Blood Angels/Grey Knights - Stormraven (AV12) - lots of firepower, strong armour (with ceramite plating), large transport capacity, hover mode. Pretty much the daddy of flyers, especially the BA version. GK version is distinctly weaker. High cost means you won't see many in sub 2K lists.
Chaos Space Marines - Heldrake (AV12) - hades autocannon is pretty weak so most will have a baleflamer. This combined with the vector strike make a real threat to MEQ infantry and even high toughness. AV12 makes it tricky to deal with.
Dark Angels - Nephilim/Dark Talon (AV11) - bit of a letdown in terms of equipment. Nephilim pretty much has to choose whether to take the lascannon and hope to get lucky vs AV12 flyers or the megabolter and be better against infantry. Dark Talon is useless against other flyers and not much better against troops.
Dark Eldar - Razorwing and Voidraven (AV10/AV11) - both are potentially useful against other flyers but low AV so pretty weak. The missiles can be great against infantry in the right situation though.
Imperial Guard - Valkyrie/Vendetta (AV12) - valkyries will get overlooked in favour of vendettas which offer great anti-air with twin-linked lascannons. Transport capacity plus the ability to Outflank and Hover is a great combo. Dirt cheap too!
Necrons - Night Scythe/Doom Scythe (AV11) - disgustingly cheap and those tesla shots make their firepower extremely useful. Essentially flying annihilation barges with invulnerable troops inside! Expect 3+ in most sub 2K lists.
Orks - Dakkajet/Burna Bommer/Blitza Bommer (AV10) - pretty cheap but AV10 makes them the weakest flyers out there. Dakkajet is probably the most useful and for the points it can put out a lot of S6 hurt, especially with a Waaagh!
Space Marines - Stormtalon (AV11) - much maligned both in the looks and performance departments. Personally I disagree on both counts. Relatively low cost and decent weaponry means its a good little anti-air platform. AV11 and 2 HP don't make it the toughest plane out there though.

That's quite a list. Whether you like it or not you're going to have to think about flyers when you're writing a list for 6th edition 40K. When you throw in the MCs that means only Space Wolves, Sisters, Tau and Eldar don't have anything airborne in their codex.

Types of Flyers
Basically, there's 3 types here: a) AV12, b) flyer-spam, c) high surface threat. Obviously there's some cross over within these categories. Let's start by looking at what I mean with these.

a) AV12 - with most of the anti-air weaponry out there being S7 and many of the flyers having limited access to S8+ weaponry, it's flyers with AV12 that are the hardest to deal with. You can hope you get a lucky pen followed by an explosion but that's unlikely. Unless they hover (which all the AV12 ones can choose to do) you're going to have to be lucky to deal with them easily. However, luckily for you most armies will struggle to field more than 1 or 2 of them.

b) Flyer-spam - some armies, like Necrons and Imperial Guard can take multiple flyers without hampering their list. Imperial Guard Valks/Vendettas are strong because they're AV12 too but luckily AV10 on the rear! The Necron Night Scythes are plentiful because, not only are they a troop transport but also they're dirt cheap too. A lot of the top Necron tournament lists at the moment feature 3+ scythes. In both of these cases the flyers will contain scoring units so you're going to have to deal with them at some point in objective games (i.e. most games).

c) High Surface Threat - whilst some flyers are particularly aimed at taking out other flyers or vehicles, some can pose a real threat to your troops too. Good examples of this are the CSM Heldrake, Ork Dakkajet and Dark Eldar Razorwing. Essentially their main purpose is to cut down your troops in large numbers. If you ignore them you're going to have to tolerate losing a lot of infantry in the process.

Whilst all the flyers are reasonable at taking out other flyers (particularly AV10/AV11 ones) there are some that are better than others and this means that you have to look elsewhere for your anti-air firepower. In the next part of this article I'l talk about your anti-air options in more detail.