Nephilim and Dark Talon.

[Brother Caliban]

Okay, 

 

I know that these have been slammed if just for the points cost but can anyone actually justify this to me. The model excites and I think it looks reasonable. However I cannot justify this as a competitive unit. Sadly. 

If only the missiles were S8 or there was a better AP value on the other weapons. I feel this just does no job particularly well. Droves of reasonable toughness infantry okay but at 180pts. 

I don't think anyone is going to be able to tell me this is a Halldrake for points but can anyone justify it?

It seems balls. 

The Dark Talon is not even worth mentioning I don't think. 

GW why have you made it so hard for so many to spend money. Really with S8 milles or an AP3 Avenger this thing would fly. Pun intended. 

Rant over. 

[EPK]

This thread might be helpful - http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/269295-a-positive-look-at-the-nephilim/?fromsearch=1

[Vash]

The Dark Talon isn't so bad. It aint a killer, not intended to be either. 

Against Tau, Necrons, IG, Orks the Dark Talon is pretty nice to have. The blind effect from the rift cannon will lower them with high probability to WS/BS1. 

Given that IG and Necrons aint to unusual opponents these days, I wouldn't discard the Dark Talons uses all together in a well tuned list. 

[march10k]

Agreed....and expanded: The dt's hurri and cannon are great against un-armored foes, and blinding someone now and then is pretty neat, but a stasis bomb dropped on the enemy's beat-stick right before the knights rush in? If it happens once in five games, it's worth every point!

[Vash]

Agreed....and expanded: The dt's hurri and cannon are great against un-armored foes, and blinding someone now and then is pretty neat, but a stasis bomb dropped on the enemy's beat-stick right before the knights rush in? If it happens once in five games, it's worth every point!

With a large blast its hard to miss. 

Stasis bomb is really great. And I think the opponent will put some priority on the Dark Talon if they know what it can do. 

[Brother Immolator]

That has been my point against a chaos nut in another forum who was like:

'We has helldrakes you should bricks'

And I was:

'OoOoOoOps I rapid fired your helldrake from the rear with 12 talon shots. You should name him Sir-cumference' (of what you can guess).

Our planes are not killers they are support gunships. Our techmarines didn't copy the A-10 thunderbolt chassis at random.

The neph is trying to be the most killy of the two. The truth is it will either be a mediocre to good anti horde platform (GEQ,Orks,Nids and some eldar/deldar)

or will be using its mobility to snipe rear armor tanks with las cannons. It has not transport capacity and it has no uber flamer templates. It has a support role to the rest of the battle line. If you cant reason with it, think of it like as an Apache / Hind helicopter instead of a plane.

The talon is THE support vehicle. Though it might score a couple of kills its guns IMHO are more or less cosmetic. The whole point as said by the esteemed mentlegen above is to deliver the bomb and then have a ravenwing blackknight or even better a deathwing knight squad nearby to pulp the opposition.

BLANG BLANG BLANG BLANG (mace hits on chaos armor)

-Brother MacEmo: And stay down!

Their larger problem is not their killiness IMHO, is weather there is space in the fast attack section. In mine at least there is not, I need it for bikes.

[Brother Caliban]

Agreed....and expanded: The dt's hurri and cannon are great against un-armored foes, and blinding someone now and then is pretty neat, but a stasis bomb dropped on the enemy's beat-stick right before the knights rush in? If it happens once in five games, it's worth every point!

 

Pulling this off once is every five games is not economical! That is the problem! 

[Brother Immolator]

 

Agreed....and expanded: The dt's hurri and cannon are great against un-armored foes, and blinding someone now and then is pretty neat, but a stasis bomb dropped on the enemy's beat-stick right before the knights rush in? If it happens once in five games, it's worth every point!

 

Pulling this off once is every five games is not economical! That is the problem! 

 

Well if it remains hidden till the time comes it will happen more often, but most are used at playing stormravens or nightscythes and drop the talon first in the fight, something which is a huge error. That thing needs to be dealt like a land speeder with MM. Keep it out of range till you can pull the maneuver.

Ill admit the rules are not designed to be doing such precision moves, but then again some of us were pulling off the speeder hops once, how harder can it be?

[Syphid]

That has been my point against a chaos nut in another forum who was like:

'We has helldrakes you should bricks'

And I was:

'OoOoOoOps I rapid fired your helldrake from the rear with 12 talon shots. You should name him Sir-cumference' (of what you can guess).

Has this ever actually happened in a game?

[Syphid]

How many people have actually used the Dark Talon?  I want to know how much of a difference 1 assault phase of -3 WS and I has made, and if anybody has ever had the Stasis Bomb scatter onto their own assaulters.

[Upstartes]

I want to like the Nephilim so badly. It looks awesome. It's got cool fluff. I want to run a DA flyer. But it costs so much (points and $), and it's so lackluster for that cost. The missiles are insulting. They are less powerful and shorter range than a shoulder-launched flakk missile. How does that make any sense? It's relentless hunter rule is worthless if you can't penetrate armor. Ugh. I pray for an errata to make the missiles better. Then I'd buy one. But that's a pipe dream.

[Vash]

 

Agreed....and expanded: The dt's hurri and cannon are great against un-armored foes, and blinding someone now and then is pretty neat, but a stasis bomb dropped on the enemy's beat-stick right before the knights rush in? If it happens once in five games, it's worth every point!

 

Pulling this off once is every five games is not economical! That is the problem! 

As I said, this will happen more often than one out of five. And if doesnt, your opponent has countered it well and has lost control of other aspects of your army, thus it has made its points count as a decoy. 

[Vash]

How many people have actually used the Dark Talon?  I want to know how much of a difference 1 assault phase of -3 WS and I has made, and if anybody has ever had the Stasis Bomb scatter onto their own assaulters.

To early to say atm I think. Most players have been playing a few games, re-contructing their army lists and so on. Dark Talon and Nephlim are special cases and will be tried out to its full potential much later. 

All we can do is wait and see in the future. I will probably get one, but I wont use it until next month earliest. 

 

Stasis bomb will probably be used together with Black knights. And I really hope you dont keep the Black knights close to your enemy in the movement phase... Since the bomb will be dropped in the movement phase. So... move your Dark Talon first, drop the bomb and resolve scatter and so on. Then move in with your Black knights. they have bikes... 12" move. Should be pretty safe from the scatter. 

 

Now the WS and I reduction really depends on what unit you drop it on. A unit with WS5 or higher will still hit your black knights on 4+. So no gain there. But the initiative reduction is welcome, and the 3+ to hit is more than welcome. 

Against WS4 units they will increase survivability as the enemies that survive will only hit on 5+. Now this might not be optimal... since we want to beat the hard hitters with the stasis bomb, and they usually have WS5. 

 

All in all, I do think the stasis bomb is worth it. 

[Syphid]

I will be using one in an upcoming game next week.  I'll report back on how it goes.

[FlamingDeth]

I want to like the Nephilim so badly. It looks awesome. It's got cool fluff. I want to run a DA flyer. But it costs so much (points and $), and it's so lackluster for that cost. The missiles are insulting. They are less powerful and shorter range than a shoulder-launched flakk missile. How does that make any sense? It's relentless hunter rule is worthless if you can't penetrate armor. Ugh. I pray for an errata to make the missiles better. Then I'd buy one. But that's a pipe dream.

Yeah, not much sense in those missiles. On mine I'm converting up much smaller missiles for it because the ones it's got look way more threatening than they really are. I'm going to run it in most of my armies too because battlefield economics be dammed, it looks awesome.

[Izzuan]

On my neph I'm using the deathwind launchers from my 'pods as the black *cough*butter knife*cough* sword missiles. feels appropriate heh.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Those impotent missiles are an affront to game designers everywhere, make them S8 and they get semi useful.

 

No sale for me :(

 

:P

stobz

[GlauG]

I picked up the kit on release, and have used both versions a few times...  My main problem seems to be that it NEVER comes on Turn 2, when it would be most helpful for me, and is either too late to make any difference to my losing the game, or doesn't turn up because I have already won!  That aside, it has had success in both guises, but I have yet to actually be able to use the Nephilim against enemy Flyers, which is a pity. I will keep trying them out of curiosity, since I own the model anyway, but I can't recommend anyone buy it if you don't love the model in its own right.

[march10k]

LOL...I didn't say the statis bomb will only do it's thing once in five games, I said even if that were the case, it would justify taking the talon. 

 

As for blacksword missiles...they needn't be S8, they're the same S and AP as the missile pods that tau players (other than me, I prefer helios suits!) swear by.  I expect a speedy nerfing of the valkyrie chasis to AV11.  It was given a 12 before flier rules were added.  It was intended to be as fragile as an AV12 skimmer still is, not as invulnerable as an AV flier has turned out to be.  That one change alone would bring balance (valks get spammed, other high-AV fliers come in ones and twos, at most).  That would make S6 nephilim shooting a lot more attractive, no?  I mean, seven S6 shots has a pretty good chance to knock an AV11 bird out of the sky in one round of shooting...

 

What I find silly is the hover ability of the dark talon...really, with hurricane bolters and a blast weapon, you're going to expose yourself to ground fire?  For a pip of BS?  Really???

[DietOfLiquor]

As of right now I've played 5 games with the nephillim. Each time trying out the tl las or avenger ( I think that's what it is called) and so far it does not seem worth it. I run an all raven wing list and it barely knocks off a few units as it is. I haven't been able to pen a vehicle nor knock out an entire squads. As of now, totally not worth it. I might end up buying a dark talon now to try it out.

[elphilo]

I expect a speedy nerfing of the valkyrie chasis to AV11.  It was given a 12 before flier rules were added.  It was intended to be as fragile as an AV12 skimmer still is, not as invulnerable as an AV flier has turned out to be.  That one change alone would bring balance (valks get spammed, other high-AV fliers come in ones and twos, at most).

Death From the Skies just updated their rules and their AV stayed the same. I doubt they'll change it.

[Brother Immolator]

That has been my point against a chaos nut in another forum who was like:

'We has helldrakes you should bricks'

And I was:

'OoOoOoOps I rapid fired your helldrake from the rear with 12 talon shots. You should name him Sir-cumference' (of what you can guess).

Has this ever actually happened in a game?

Thrice by now

Those impotent missiles are an affront to game designers everywhere, make them S8 and they get semi useful.

No sale for me

stobz

I am getting the impression from Stobz multiple posts, that he is reaaaaaallyyyyy sad about that fact. Why is that? Is it one of your fav models design wise?

[Brother Caliban]

All in all the fliers remain balls. 

Shame. 

[Upstartes]

What makes me sad is that prior to the codex release and the rumors of the flyer stats, I was really looking forward to new flyers in the codex. I really liked the idea of DA-specific flyers. I was excited about getting them and using them. And after facing my friend's helldrake for the first time, I expected the DA-flyers to be equally cool and potent. Then the rumors came out, and I got a sinking feeling. But I convinced myself they were just rumors. Then I held on to the hope that there were misprints or something, and the FAQ would make everything ok. But no, we just got lame flyers - the Nephilim especially, which for me was the real disappointment, because I was longing for a cool anti-flyer flyer. On top of all that, the model is $75. Now, I know I've complained in the past about GW making the rules for new units ultra-powerful so people will buy them, and this is definitely NOT the case with the Dark Talon/Nephilim. But this is so far in the other direction, These flyers were a genuine disappointment. I didn't need them to be overpowered - I just wanted them to be worth fielding and worth spending the money on. But they're not. GW really dropped the ball on these guys. I don't know how they couldn't have seen that.

 

sigh

[Syphid]

That has been my point against a chaos nut in another forum who was like:

'We has helldrakes you should bricks'

And I was:

'OoOoOoOps I rapid fired your helldrake from the rear with 12 talon shots. You should name him Sir-cumference' (of what you can guess).

Has this ever actually happened in a game?

Thrice by now

How do you pull it off? I'm trying to figure out how you outmaneuver a flyer that doesn't have to be facing its target in order to shoot it, and it seems like an uphill battle.