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Some thoughts on the new flyers.


knife&fork

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MSU is only worth it when you can get worthwhile dedicated transports. Firedragon Serpent spam beats Marine Razorspam any day of the week.

 

 

We have great dedicated transports, drop pods. They are cheap, spammable, relatively durable and can get you anywhere on the battlefield. But we don't have enough oomph in the units themselves. If marines could bring relatively inexpensive 5 man squads packed with specials like eldar could then that would be even more powerful than serpent spam. 

Offensive dedicated transports. As a Blood Angel you should be very well aware of that. I can spam pods, but pods are not made for MSU builds. Razorbacks are. The Oomph behind a unit is only half the issue here.

 

Cheap and mobile firepower (preferably) is king no matter where the shots comes from. But I would argue that serpent spam isn't really MSU, undercosted as they are they still end up pretty expensive.

 

Anyway we are straying off target. 

LOL - this subject has strayed back and forth smile.png

I haven't managed a game with new codex yet (grrrrr) but ALL my lists so far have a SW in them. My biggest gripe with our old codex was complete lack of anti flier ... so now they have given us it - I feel I have to use it.

(I play against Nids and Chaos ... so Flyrants and HellChickens are the flavour of the day. I hear some people say "just ignore them" but I can tell you from lots of first hand experience this doesn't work. Against those 2 beasties, you HAVE to do something).

The main thing I cannot get past is this. Land that StormWolf (to disembark its cargo) and it is going to get blown up.

This is the reason I can only see a very small BC unit being of any use in it. (But I see experienced players using very expensive units in there .... so I would love to know how they do that).

It also seems to me that if you are facing 2 enemy fliers - you need to go second - or you will be lucky to last the 1st turn you come on.

All in all - I love the model, but it does (on paper) seem very fragile considering the cost.

 

The main thing I cannot get past is this.  Land that StormWolf (to disembark its cargo) and it is going to get blown up.

 

This is the reason I can only see a very small BC unit being of any use in it.  (But I see experienced players using very expensive units in there .... so I would love to know how they do that).

 

It also seems to me that if you are facing 2 enemy fliers - you need to go second - or you will be lucky to last the 1st turn you come on.

 

Those who play SW exclusively are now going through the same stages as BA, GK and SM players did before them. They've got themselves a neat assault vehicle gunboat that they can't wait to use! So just like BA, GK and SM players (including me) did before them they'll try to put almost everything in it to see what works. What they'll probably find out after a while is that very few units work well in this role and most of the time you probably want them empty.

Only in rare and specific cases do you want to put anything expensive in a flyer since crashes are so deadly and they are vulnerable in skimmer mode.

 

Going second is definitely something to consider. Taking the first hit and possibly giving up a VP is worth it if you suspect his flyers (or another unit arriving from reserves) will dominate the mid to late game.

If you ask me, Stormwolf makes for a better gun boat. I never understood this compulsion with using it as an assault vehicle. For one, SW have way better assault options that anything reasonable that fits into a SW. You have TWC and Fenrisian Wolves which have the potential to be in combat turn 1 (when you are going second and the enemy has moved out of his deployment zone).

Anything decent put into a SW is just too expensive to be held in reserve and charge turn 3 at best. TDA are too expensive and Bloodclaws usually require a Priest to be effective, which also inflates their cost to 250 + transport.

Oh and if that thing crashes, which is a very real possibility against Necrons, Nids and Tau (and other factions, if they have brought any AA capabilities), you have just lost 500-600 points. What if you are not playing WUD and the enemy has a Callidus? Want to charge turn 4? Not worth it anymore.

In my eyes, if you want an assault transport, pick a Land Raider. AV14 is still very solid and it starts on the board, which means you can charge T1-T2 (depending on who starts and how far the enemy moves).

 

As for the SW? Just because you can fit 16 models inside does not mean you have to. Use it at what it excels, which, as k&f mentioned, is tank and monster hunting. That way you won't even have to land and put it in danger.

 

 

The main thing I cannot get past is this.  Land that StormWolf (to disembark its cargo) and it is going to get blown up.

 

This is the reason I can only see a very small BC unit being of any use in it.  (But I see experienced players using very expensive units in there .... so I would love to know how they do that).

 

It also seems to me that if you are facing 2 enemy fliers - you need to go second - or you will be lucky to last the 1st turn you come on.

 

Those who play SW exclusively are now going through the same stages as BA, GK and SM players did before them. They've got themselves a neat assault vehicle gunboat that they can't wait to use! So just like BA, GK and SM players (including me) did before them they'll try to put almost everything in it to see what works. What they'll probably find out after a while is that very few units work well in this role and most of the time you probably want them empty.

 

That's a very important point that Brother K&F has made...we, as players want to use these various assault-ramp enabled flyers as transports for our dedicated assault forces, because it seems 'right', and 'proper' to do so, and fits our vision for how they're supposed to work in our armies.  Unfortunately, in actual implementation it is high-risk (susceptable to crashes), with significant opportunity costs (lost turns in Reserve and while Zooming), which makes their use in this capacity suboptimal to other choices (TWC, Bikes, etc.).

 

Instead, I think we're all coming to realize that they best serve as a flexible Air Superiority/Anti-MC/Anti-Vehicle platform, that can transprot a small and cheap unit that serves as a Mobile Reserve (along for the ride to exploit late game opportunities that present themselves).

 

 

 

V

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