Taking out flyers as GK

[EnterRehab]

Cleansing flame is not strong enough to even glance a lot of flyers (eg. Stormraven)

 

Is there anything we have access to without allying crazily that would help with this?  Librarian with Prescience?

 

Running a bunker Coteaz w/ Jokaero and Servitors with Multi-meltas (rolling on divination for prescience)?  I got lucky last game and happened to bring a stormraven to deal with another flyer.. But that pigeon-holes me into having to bring a flyer just to not get wrecked in a 1k match?

[Everon]

Most the time, if its one flyer, ignore it. Otherwise bring a quadcannon and aegis. Had a game last night dude had 3 of the sw flyers. I ignored em and made cover saves. He had to hover mode so as not to go off board or just be useless for 2 turns so then they are treated as fast skimmers. Dakka and cc ftw. Took em all out

[Reclusiarch Darius]

Allies

 

Fortifications

 

Storm Ravens

 

Or, the tried and tested method of just ignoring them. I've seriously given up trying to deal with Flyers. They (and FMC's) are a broken aspect of the game which GW refuses to fix. Snap Shots is the dumbest thing they've ever implemented, and its uneven in how armies can accomodate for it. 

[jeffersonian000]

As Everon said, it's easier to ignore them and move to make them useless than it is to actually try to take them out without dedicated AA units. At some point the Flyer will have to ground, at which point they are far game. I've found that the only time Flyers are an issue is when you do not use proper terrain, so always use proper terrain!

 

SJ

[Ishagu]

Gk have one of the best flyers in the game... Use it to shoot down air targets

[Reclusiarch Darius]

 

Gk have one of the best flyers in the game... Use it to shoot down air targets 

 

 

Yeah but it's expensive, in an army of expensive units. Which makes it difficult to squeeze one in. Also, it's almost always outnumbered, as we rarely take it in multiples. 

[calvin the wraithlord]

I tend to ignore them unless its a helldrake, try as you might you cannot ignore those things, even if your a term heavy army they will still inflict alot of damage

[SonofTitan117]

I have never been able to ignore flyers as they tend to be fielded in multiples where I play. IN my opinion they are not broken in the least. If you mean that they are different and require certain tactics to counter then sure they are more difficult but give me a break. If there is a serious argument that we shouldn't take any Ravens because they are expensive then I have stopped listening. My Ravens have pulled plenty of games out for me and I refuse to play without at least one.

[Ishagu]

I don't get it either. The Raven is an auto include in gk armies

[Ishagu]

I tend to ignore them unless its a helldrake, try as you might you cannot ignore those things, even if your a term heavy army they will still inflict alot of damage

Really??? Are you running entire PA lists or something? The Heldrake is totally impotent against Grey Knights. A single str7 hit from vector strikes means it struggles to even pop a humble Rhino.

 

A few of them could cause a large number of wounds but you can totally mitigate that with your positioning.

 

The Dark Angels Nephelim jet fighter of all things has more punch against a typical gk list.

[Zeratul29]

Most people don't spam flyers and it's only the non ap 2 or 1 flyers they run in my meta so I pretty much ignore them. I've yet to have an enemy flyer cost me the game through shooting other than Necron teleporting shenanigans

[Grand Master Caloth]

 

I tend to ignore them unless its a helldrake, try as you might you cannot ignore those things, even if your a term heavy army they will still inflict alot of damage

Really??? Are you running entire PA lists or something? The Heldrake is totally impotent against Grey Knights. A single str7 hit from vector strikes means it struggles to even pop a humble Rhino.

 

A few of them could cause a large number of wounds but you can totally mitigate that with your positioning.

I dare say he was referring to the flamer the heldrake is armed with 98% of the time. Some of us do still use pa-armored knights, and yes, those things hurt. Vector striking is great, esp against flyers, but really it's that flamer that makes them vicious

[calvin the wraithlord]

 

I tend to ignore them unless its a helldrake, try as you might you cannot ignore those things, even if your a term heavy army they will still inflict alot of damage

Really??? Are you running entire PA lists or something? The Heldrake is totally impotent against Grey Knights. A single str7 hit from vector strikes means it struggles to even pop a humble Rhino.

 

A few of them could cause a large number of wounds but you can totally mitigate that with your positioning.

 

That flamer can still potentially kill TEQs seen as it still wounds them on 2s, which over the course of afew turns is going to knock down a good few terms, also i wouldnt say a raven is an auto include unless your running a purifier bomb which again, is completely  destroyed by helldrakes, watch your expensive unit of purifiers die in one turn to a template weapons. How you can see them as a threat is beyond me, wounding terms on 2s, insta killing EVERYTHING else we have

[Brom MKIV]

I gotta agree with the sentiment that a raven is close to auto include. It ticks the flyer box better than just about anything and it shoots like 6 split firing long fangs but is much more durable. Plus it's very mobile end game in hover mode. I'd say any terminator squad after the first needs to be weighed against taking a raven instead.

 

Fwiw I always ignored flyers with my other armies rather than taking my own. However GK I've found tend to feel the impact more than those armies so I'm always happy to have a raven around. That said I've shot down flyers with prescience psycans before, even a stormwolf. It's doable if you anticipate it being a problem and cluster the guns, but it's not reliable.

[Ishagu]

 

 

 

I tend to ignore them unless its a helldrake, try as you might you cannot ignore those things, even if your a term heavy army they will still inflict alot of damage

Really??? Are you running entire PA lists or something? The Heldrake is totally impotent against Grey Knights. A single str7 hit from vector strikes means it struggles to even pop a humble Rhino.

 

A few of them could cause a large number of wounds but you can totally mitigate that with your positioning.

That flamer can still potentially kill TEQs seen as it still wounds them on 2s, which over the course of afew turns is going to knock down a good few terms, also i wouldnt say a raven is an auto include unless your running a purifier bomb which again, is completely destroyed by helldrakes, watch your expensive unit of purifiers die in one turn to a template weapons. How you can see them as a threat is beyond me, wounding terms on 2s, insta killing EVERYTHING else we have

Gk are able to run entire 2+ save lists.

I come from a vanilla marines background, and I lived through the Heldrake days prior to it's massive nerf. I used to come across lists with 3 of those things, back when Vector Strikes were d3+1 hits and it could shoot fire from it's butt, and I had perhaps 5 infantry models in my army that weren't simply removed from play by it's templates.

 

Trust me when I say GK shouldn't have an issue with these. One will probably kill 1/2 terminators per turn, maybe glance a Rhino. Other flyers actually get better results. An enemy stormraven would actually cause far more damage to a GK army than a Heldrake.

 

End of the day, the Ravens are an auto include. Don't put anything in them, use them as anti air. Hurricane Bolters are a must for 30 points, you can zoom across the board late game and remove a troop unit from an objective.

[Zeratul29]

You guys keep saying ravens, and I agreed with you till mid-late 6th when I would come on, not even hurt one thing in a Wraithwing army then next turn 3-4 croissants come on and it's toast! 200 pts better spent on a NDK in my opinion.

 

But if it works in your meta then by all means take it, if you're only facing 1-2 fliers than yeah a Raven will win unless going against another Raven. But if one of ours faces 3-4 fliers, you can kiss it goodbye.

 

Now if they had kept Psychic pilot on all our vehicles and made Fortitude ignore the effect of us snap shooting. THEN I would want to take the Raven a lot more by always jinking to save it and then

Fire full bs by using what our Fortitude should be and we should have. But that rant is old and

Tired and useless.

[Brom MKIV]

While your point on 4 scythes is true it will take all of those to get rid of a raven which is their optimal scenario and leaves ground forces intact. Those 4 ships would otherwise seriously damage or remove a similarly costed terminator squad just the same. My reasoning is the presence of those flyers doesn't reduce the effectiveness or utility of the stormraven across the spectrum, plus were hard pressed to find a better AA solution.. allies excepted. That said I haven't seen more than 3 flyers around here since 7th dropped. They just aren't as good, if they ever were.

 

If your willing to invest in allies, and/or forgeworld then more options open up.. say fire raptor or hyperios'. Prescienced cents of red hunters chapter tactics is another even dirtier method. Hold til turn 3 then confer skyfire to 3 units including split firing cents and some las devs. Throw in a couple auspex and a sicaran with battle of sarosh legacy of glory. Hell add coteaz to the cents for good measure and mix in some purifiers too. THAT should handle any flying force lol.

[Captain Coolpants]

I find ravens are good. Although I will never ever EVER use them as a transport again.

 

But when you're playing the flyer game, it all depends in what turn they arrive.

 

 

If your raven is on the board, and THEN an enemy wraith fighter turns up, you're probably gonna be blown. But it reverse, you could potentially take out * 2 * in one single turn.

[calvin the wraithlord]

 

 

 

I tend to ignore them unless its a helldrake, try as you might you cannot ignore those things, even if your a term heavy army they will still inflict alot of damage

Really??? Are you running entire PA lists or something? The Heldrake is totally impotent against Grey Knights. A single str7 hit from vector strikes means it struggles to even pop a humble Rhino.

 

A few of them could cause a large number of wounds but you can totally mitigate that with your positioning.

That flamer can still potentially kill TEQs seen as it still wounds them on 2s, which over the course of afew turns is going to knock down a good few terms, also i wouldnt say a raven is an auto include unless your running a purifier bomb which again, is completely destroyed by helldrakes, watch your expensive unit of purifiers die in one turn to a template weapons. How you can see them as a threat is beyond me, wounding terms on 2s, insta killing EVERYTHING else we have

Gk are able to run entire 2+ save lists.

I come from a vanilla marines background, and I lived through the Heldrake days prior to it's massive nerf. I used to come across lists with 3 of those things, back when Vector Strikes were d3+1 hits and it could shoot fire from it's butt, and I had perhaps 5 infantry models in my army that weren't simply removed from play by it's templates.

 

Trust me when I say GK shouldn't have an issue with these. One will probably kill 1/2 terminators per turn, maybe glance a Rhino. Other flyers actually get better results. An enemy stormraven would actually cause far more damage to a GK army than a Heldrake.

 

End of the day, the Ravens are an auto include. Don't put anything in them, use them as anti air. Hurricane Bolters are a must for 30 points, you can zoom across the board late game and remove a troop unit from an objective.

 

 

And the guys in the rhino will have 2+ saves? No. if you run an entire army of 2+ then the im assuming you run paladins as elites? which is a solid fail, otherwise your all terms and NDK, which is viable but i see no reason to do that if your running a raven as you can run purifiers which will faceroll anything they hit with cleansing flame and an ungodly amount of attacks, if the things(helldrake) flying about killing 2 terms a turn and vector striking your NDK id say thats a threat seen as it will make its points back very quickly and being a GK player you should know that every single model you have has to do something for its points even just losing 2 a turn can be grim, not to mention, like i said the vector strikes removing wounds from your NDK or simply removing another TEQ.

 

I agree with Zeratul29 completely if your going to run an empty raven, 9/10 times just don't, take another NDK as the raven will, like he says do next to nothing vs a wraith army and may even flop vs a nurgle heavy chaos army, anyone you play against who knows your taking a raven can just run 3-4 far far cheaper flyers and pop it before it can make even half its points.

 

[Ishagu]

There's a few things a Raven will be ineffective against, granted.

It's still one of the best units in the codex.

 

Also the topic is discussing GK aa options. It's the most efficient one as bringing flyers from another codex comes with the allies tax. Unless you want to commit points to Stormwing that is...

 

Dreadknights also happen to be quite ineffective against a Wraith Army, seeing as those pesky Wraithknights can stock up on instant death ap2 shooting! I've seen battles where 3 Dreadknights have gone down turn 1 due to that shooting.

 

Frankly, using the old "I don't think such and such unit pulls it's weight against Eldar" argument is plain silly. That codex is broken and stupidly overpowered, but that won't be the case forever.

[Reclusiarch Darius]

Dreadknights also happen to be quite ineffective against a Wraith Army, seeing as those pesky Wraithknights can stock up on instant death ap2 shooting! I've seen battles where 3 Dreadknights have gone down turn 1 due to that shooting.

 

Its only insta-gib on a 6 to wound. S10 by itself isn't enough to vape a Dreadknight, they're T6. 

 

I think it's pretty clear Ravens are the winner. They're in-faction, they bring Purifiers into the fight (they are the only unit we normally take that can't Deepstrike or otherwise get into enemy lines Turn 1 quickly). That said, as others have mentioned, weigh up your local meta. In my case, I have people taking triple Skyray Tau lists, just to deal with IG and Necron Flyer lists. In that context, my piddly lone Raven is gonna get ripped to ribbons by AA the turn it arrives, because they've built for much scarier Flyer lists. By contrast, my DK's walk through seeker missile, autocannon profile etc without a care in the world. 

[EnterRehab]

I used the strategy of "ignore it" last week in a match vs. D.E. and everything went smoothly.  I lost, but BARELY. It was crazy. 

[Reclusiarch Darius]

I used the strategy of "ignore it" last week in a match vs. D.E. and everything went smoothly.  I lost, but BARELY. It was crazy. 

 

 

Post a batrep on the subforum? DE are an interesting case, their Flyers are made (like all their vehicles) of paper-mache, but they also hit the hardest outside of things like Vendettas. 

[Gaz1858]

I have a tourney in Feb and Im struggling to decide what to bring for AA. I have 249 points to spare and have BA as allies. Cannot use FW, cannot use any other allies and already have two NDKs in an NSF.

 

My thoughts were:

1. Raven with mm,ac

2. Dev with 4 flakk ML and aegis with QG

 

For option 2 i will need to find 21 points but that shouldnt be too hard. Or were there any other ideas you guys had??

 

Link to my army list for those wanting a more full idea and so i dont fully hijack this thread!

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/301415-1850-feb-tourney/

[Brom MKIV]

The raven seems pretty obvious here. Otherwise there really isn't a point in AA from the choices you have available. The devs are easily removed by anyone that finds them a threat and their damage output is low. I would not consider them.