Dark Talon/Nephilim Jetfighter

[Deathwing Cloud]

I am new to this forum, but have been a true son of the Lion for about 2 years now. I have only recently however picked up the sixth ed. codex. I was curious what people's opinions on the flying units are. Is it worth me picking it up?

[Brother dean]

It's our flier, so yes.  

 

 

Is it on par with the points for Helldrakes or Valks?  No, it is more expensive.  I feel that it is worth it and worth the points and the other fliers are undercosted but others strongly disagree with me.

[Brother-Captain Stacius]

As a model? Yes it's really nice I think. As a unit? I find it not that great. Compared to the storm talon it's over costed and under gunned I think. The dark talon has its uses and is ok at anti infantry but you can get more bang for your bucks with ground based troops.

However, both have their uses and I normally play at 1500 so find I would rather take other things.

[Cpt_Reaper]

I ran a Dark talon recently and have I found it didn't really perform at all. It is designed to be anti-infantry but flyers cannot do such a thing in my opinion. That is why we have Speeders. Having to move the minimum distance really negates a lot of your target choices.

[Eulfein]

Some feedback I've heard from players is that the Nephilim looks terrible on paper but acutually performs well on the tabletop. I'm planning on getting one myself and playtesting it.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

We have several threads on this matter: Here one of the most prolific:

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

[march10k]

I ran a Dark talon recently and have I found it didn't really perform at all. It is designed to be anti-infantry but flyers cannot do such a thing in my opinion. That is why we have Speeders. Having to move the minimum distance really negates a lot of your target choices forces you to think ahead.

Fixed that for you

Anyway, the DT is less pretty, but more useful, IMHO. The stained glass cannon is meh, but the hurribolter is pretty cool. The reason to take it, though, is the stasis bomb. That thing is great for the turn that you charge the enemy's deathstar unit. Whoops, looks like your power swords now strike at the initiative of a powered-down powerfist, and you need sevens to hit me I wish the stained glass cannon worked like the ravenwing grenades instead of the effect that it does have, though...stasis blast or rad blast...since the DT has the bomb, rad blast would be cooler, I guess.

[AngelVeto]

I personally use the nephilim in a purely ground support role. The AMB is pretty sweet against ground targets, as it hits on 2's and can pin units. He'll, even the HB can cause pinning, and its twin linked. My biggest problem with our flyers is that they are a little expensive when compared to other flyers. Doesn't stop me from taking them if I have the points tho.

[Upstartes]

I wanted to give the Nephilim the opportunity to prove itself better than it looked on paper, but I couldn't justify spending the money on a model that might turn out to be not at all worth its high price tag in points. I am most interested in flyers as anti-air that can double as ground support. If I want something purely to deal with ground units, I'd rather put in more of my main force (terminators, bikes, or marines, depending on the list). I had high hopes for the DA flyers before the codex came out - I really like playing with flyers. But after spending a couple of months with the codex and thinking about where I wanted to spend my money, I ended up going with Black Knights and Deathwing. When my list has a flyer in it, it will be an allied flyer. Which is sad, because I do like the look of the Nephilim.

[IndigoJack]

The nephilim might perform better than it looks on paper, but until it performs as a storm raven or is as cheap as a storm talon I don't think it's going to be worth it.

[Brother dean]

The nephilim might perform better than it looks on paper, but until it performs as a storm raven or is as cheap as a storm talon I don't think it's going to be worth it.

You are comparing apples to cucumbers.  These are our fliers, they are balanced to our list, not to others.  Is that fair?  no..  but life isnt fair, there has to be some tradeoffs for all termi/bike armies, supa speedas, Dakka banners.

[IndigoJack]

They are not balanced to our list. If they were, players would not have to take allies for use FW for reliable AA. They are expensive (more so than they need to be.) I know you think ours are priced correctly, and everyone else's is underpriced, but in relative terms, ours are too expensive to utilize well. That's not to mention that our AA fighter (the nephilim) is really not great at AA at all, and is really too expensive to be considered used as anti-infantry, compared to other units in the codex that fulfill similar roles.

 

The nephilim is the third most expensive flyer in the game, and performs almost the same as a storm talon, which recently got a price deduction, as well as being given to the BT. Marine codexes are all roughly balanced the same. If you need proof, the BT storm talon is the same price as the C:SM storm talon, and those codexes are very different in terms of design and point costs.

[Onisuzume]

Well, to our defence, we've always gotten the bad end of the stick treatment.

I mean, just look at our last codex, or the one before that...

At least we've got only one area we're not good at now.

 

On the bright side, all the points an enemy wasted on stuff that's AA-only is wasted against us.

[Brother dean]

They are not balanced to our list. If they were, players would not have to take allies for use FW for reliable AA. .

To take allies causes us to use points that could be used on our specialists on a required HQ and Troop section.  While a second HQ and third Troop would be useful, the hidden cost of having something that detracts from our built in synergy may make it worth it to pay the "surcharge" for our own flyer.

[IndigoJack]

 

They are not balanced to our list. If they were, players would not have to take allies for use FW for reliable AA. .

To take allies causes us to use points that could be used on our specialists on a required HQ and Troop section.  While a second HQ and third Troop would be useful, the hidden cost of having something that detracts from our built in synergy may make it worth it to pay the "surcharge" for our own flyer.

 

Just so I'm understanding this correctly, you're saying that our flyers are expensive, so we have to use allies for reliable AA, because that detracts from our synergy? So it's either we over pay for our crappy flyers, or we pay the surcharge, lose synergy, and get good AA? I'm sorry, that's not really something that I agree with. An army should never have to take allies to plug holes.

[Brother dean]

Ah, I am seeing what you are arguing now.  To repeat back to you, You are saying that the Storm Talon does everything better than the Neph and cheaper, therefore dont use the Neph, it is a points sink and we shouldnt have to Ally to plug holes. 

 

Which gets us back around to my position that Nephilim ARE balanced against OUR list.  Not against the Space marine list.  The Designers WANT us to think about our choices and intentionally made our flyers more expensive to balance some of our other buffs...  Like Cheap Termies that can ignore Helldrakes (for one example).  I dont know why they did it but that's how I see it.  As Onisuzume pointed out, we arent the blue boys...  We havent ever gotten all teh coolness at bargan prices, we have to think to use our army...

 

Also, the cost differential between the Storm Talon and the Nephilim is 5 tactical marines, 1.6667 termies or bikes or 2 Rhinos...  Not a huge difference

[Upstartes]

Yeah, but the real failure of the Nephilim is that it doesn't make many people think hard about a choice. The choice of Nephilim or not Nephilim is pretty easy for most folks: the Nephilim loses most of the time. It may not be that far from the realm of "hmmm - do I want a Nephilim or <unit X> to fill this role in my list?", but it's still not really there. I will grant, that I'm glad our codex isn't like the CSM 'dex that practically screams "take this flyer in your list or you'll regret it," but I wish it were a tougher choice to not take one of our flyers.

[IndigoJack]

Ah, I am seeing what you are arguing now.  To repeat back to you, You are saying that the Storm Talon does everything better than the Neph and cheaper, therefore dont use the Neph, it is a points sink and we shouldnt have to Ally to plug holes. 

 

Which gets us back around to my position that Nephilim ARE balanced against OUR list.  Not against the Space marine list.  The Designers WANT us to think about our choices and intentionally made our flyers more expensive to balance some of our other buffs...  Like Cheap Termies that can ignore Helldrakes (for one example).  I dont know why they did it but that's how I see it.  As Onisuzume pointed out, we arent the blue boys...  We havent ever gotten all teh coolness at bargan prices, we have to think to use our army...

 

Also, the cost differential between the Storm Talon and the Nephilim is 5 tactical marines, 1.6667 termies or bikes or 2 Rhinos...  Not a huge difference

For the most part, marine armies are balanced against each other, not individually. It's the reason vehicles cost the same (+/- 5-10pts), and the reason every army with a storm talon and storm raven pay the same points (except grey knights, who pay more for fortitude). Making DA weak against fliers isn't a design choice, it's an oversight. This wouldn't be a problem if we had good native AA. But we don't. We have flakks (woo...) or praying for 6s. If the designers wanted us to think about AA choices, they would have given us AA choices.

 

Btw, we do not have cheap termies. Ours are the most expensive in the game.

 

To be clear, I'm not asking for the storm talon, I'm asking for comparable units to be priced comparably in comparable armies.

[Brother Immolator]

They are not balanced to our list. If they were, players would not have to take allies for use FW for reliable AA.

Come on now you they do not do it for the reliable anti-air. The blackknights and three missiles with flakk are pretty good anti air and you are not going to face flying circus necrons all the time at every store.

We have flakks (woo...) or praying for 6s.

Well

I have still yet to face a flyer that got past the third turn of its

existance and I am using only black knights and three missiles (one from

a scout squad mind you). So unless you face spam its as reliable as it

gets.

Btw, we do not have cheap termies. Ours are the most expensive in the game.

And with the best rules, gear and weapon options

The only thing they dont do is coffee and handing out candy...Unless you consider a plasma pie plate candy...It kinda is if you consider what they do put into candies these days...

[Mattias]

Personally the arguments about the design philosophy are somewhat irrelevant, the real proof of whether a unit is appropriately priced is whether it is often seen on the gaming table. In the case of the Nephilim it seems to feature in army lists very infrequently in comparison to the flyers in other lists, which suggests that it is not appropriately priced. Put another way if the Nephilim was available with AMB and Heavy Bolters at the same cost as a default Stormtalon (being virtually identical in this configuration) would you choose to add the Blacksword missiles at a cost of 10 points each (what they effectively cost), I know I wouldn't.

[Brother Immolator]

Personally the arguments about the design philosophy are somewhat irrelevant, the real proof of whether a unit is appropriately priced is whether it is often seen on the gaming table.

Apropriate priced the way you put it brother is synonimus with spammed the heck out of it because it can destroy entire armies like that :snaps fingers.

So helldrakes and Necron flyers (examples) should fall into that category?

[Interrogator Stobz]

Because we can only take three they can't be 'spammed' too hard even if they were worth it. You don't see them in many lists, and you don't hear many nice things said about them (granted that teh interweb is my main source for that anecdotal evidence); I'd hazard a guess (and a personal opinion) that they are far too expensive in comparison to other options in our dex. Simple really.

I think Gee Dub dropped the ball with this unit, maybe they don't want to sell any after the initial 'must- buy- new- shiney- toys' rush, who knows...it is GeeDub after all ;)

 

s

[IndigoJack]

 

 

They are not balanced to our list. If they were, players would not have to take allies for use FW for reliable AA.

Come on now you they do not do it for the reliable anti-air. The blackknights and three missiles with flakk are pretty good anti air and you are not going to face flying circus necrons all the time at every store.

Flakk missiles are okay against AV11, but not great against AV12, unless you take a lot of it (and that gets expensive real quick.) BKs are okay AA, but you stand a decent chance of blowing a BK up every time you do it. Not to mention that isn't there designed purpose (debuff/interceptor unit/beat stick.) even twin-linked, you're still praying for 6s and even though statistically I should get them, Murphy's Law says it won't happen when I need it to.

 

 

 

We have flakks (woo...) or praying for 6s.

Well

I have still yet to face a flyer that got past the third turn of its

existance and I am using only black knights and three missiles (one from

a scout squad mind you). So unless you face spam its as reliable as it

gets.

 

I face a lot of CSM though, and between blastmasters and double heldrakes, I don't see those units surviving past turn 3 for me.

 

 

 

 

Btw, we do not have cheap termies. Ours are the most expensive in the game.

 

And with the best rules, gear and weapon options ;)

The only thing they dont do is coffee and handing out candy...Unless you consider a plasma pie plate candy...It kinda is if you consider what they do put into candies these days...

 

Didn't say they weren't good, just expensive.

[Brother Immolator]

(granted that teh interweb is my main source for that anecdotal evidence)

 

A lot of these dear Stobz, a lot of these...And with conviction larger than....a thunderhawk to boot....

[Mattias]

 

Personally the arguments about the design philosophy are somewhat irrelevant, the real proof of whether a unit is appropriately priced is whether it is often seen on the gaming table.

Apropriate priced the way you put it brother is synonimus with spammed the heck out of it because it can destroy entire armies like that :snaps fingers.

So helldrakes and Necron flyers (examples) should fall into that category?

 

Brother Immolator, that was not really what I was saying, I will try and explain more clearly, if something is over-costed then it will rarely be seen on the gaming table (e.g. techmarines), if something is appropriately costed then it will be seen more often (e.g. landspeeders), then finally if something is under-costed (e.g. Helldrakes) then people will start to spam that unit selection and it will be seen very frequently. I am suggesting that on this very rough scale the Nephillim would appear to be over-costed as it is rarely selected, to me this is a shame as it is a beautiful model. I am not suggesting that we should have a unit like the Helldrake that we could over-use and abuse.