Tuesday, March 12, 2013

How does my army deal with flyers?





So Ryanjj405 below asked as question that I thought I would answer in a new post:

I have tried a similar list but I cannot handle full on Necron air or Triple Hell Drakes, how do you plan on dealing with those?

 
I do believe that everyone does need to have an anti-flyer strategy so here is mine.

You will note that I do not have an aegis defense line or bastion or anything else with sky fire. If you think a quad gun will shoot anything down that has a 12 AV (unless you have fire dragons) is going to be in for a big disappointment. I felt that I could spend the points better elsewhere.

Here is my anti-flyer strategy
  1. The Emperor protects! I have over 1000 points in 2+ armor saves so right there half of my army is going to be very hard to hurt by fliers (besides vendettas)
  2. Draigo being Draigo. Draigo has a 2+ save and so what I could do it put him in the front of my strike squad and make him take all of the saves if some heldrakes try to BBQ them.  
  3. Sing with the psychic choir. Coteaz, can also be out in front but if he fails a 2+ save then he will be insta-gibbed. The only way that he can be out front is if I roll a 5 on the divination table and it lets him re-roll failed saves. Also if I roll a 2 I get a 4+ inv save and that will help slow down the heldrakes a little bit.
  4. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. If I go first the interceptor squad is so fast I can just move forward and try to get into assault with something. This will let me be safe from any shooting while being locked in combat.
  5. See, but don’t be seen. If I go second I can try to deepstrke behind the fliers after they come on. With their 18” move and 12” range they have to move away, and I can try to land in their blind spot. The next turn they can choose to hover but then they will get shot down.
  6. Use my enemy’s strength against them. Interceptors are so fast that I can often take over my opponent’s quad guns and try to shoot down their own flyers with them. There is nothing better than doing this.   
  7. A nexus for the rest of us. The interesting thing about the random objective Skyfire Nexus is that you have to be able to scoring to use them. Here is the problem with most scoring units…they do not have the tools to shoot down flyers. That is not the problem with my army because if I find one, my army can shred fliers.
  8. And if all else fails, plan B. I will either just ignore them, or shoot them down. Yes, you need “6”s to hit, but I pump out a lot of strength 7 shooting and with prescience I am going to get some good hits. The other thing that I have going for me is the dreadnaughts. 4 twin linked shots at strength 8 might get their attention. If they have too much I have to count on my durability to weather their fire.  

4 comments:

  1. It seems like you are very low on objectiv grappers? How do you deal with large objectiv games. What about other nasty rocks, like harlies?

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  2. With Grand Strategy, he can make basically his entire army scoring.

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  3. Well, there are 2 things at play here.

    #1. As mentioned with grand strategy I can make my whole army scoring. If I roll badly and only get one unit to score I will normally make my interceptors scoring, but if I am playing against a lot of heldrakes I might make a dreadnaught scoring.

    #2. I can combat squad and double my scoring units. I prefer to do this most of the time unless #1. It is a Kill Point mission, or #2. I am facing a lot of heldrakes and I need to protect them with Draigo.

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  4. Massed firepower is key, as he mentions. My dark Eldar list features 17-20 dark light weapons, which translates into an average of one dead flyer per round of shooting. The added bonus is having massed fire to pour on your opponent before the flyer comes on, who cares about the three Drakes if you wipe out all his scoring units?

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