Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K: Flyers Are Inbound – Prepare Yourselves!
Goatboy with a quick 40K Warning. Space marine flyers are headed to your tabletop and the other races wont be far behind. Here’s what you should expect.
The new Marine codex has come out and while it hasn’t wrecked the Meta there is some rumblings about a part of it that might end up being a pain in the butt. The World Champs are coming and a few birdies have shown some of the armies they plan on taking. Armies full of Space Marine flyers and their rule breaking interactions are coming – get ready!
We know how Towering was a “bad” rule for game balance. Being able to shoot everything on the table invalidates so much terrain and just wrecks a lot of armies abilities to do things. We had to have 2 nerfs to get it fixed with the final one basically removing Towering’s ability to see all things by being so dang tall.
But what if we had units that still – just ignored terrain?
Flyers Are Inbound – FAST!
Flyers have always been an issue in the game. Either they are not worth the points or they just wreck stuff by being too good at shooting/dodging/scoring points. GW have done a lot to bring Flyers into line with nothing being able to interact with a ton of the missions on the game. But they still can just wreck stuff all day.
Looking at the rules Flyers currently are the only thing that can ignore terrain, shoot at their full BS, and get anywhere on the table as needed. Throw in the Ironstorm Spearhead to just give each unit a Reroll to use, and you start to spike damage pretty easily. You throw in some Gladiators and you start to have an army that is full of bodies, can get to anyone on the table, and kill just about everything.
These lists are going to show up at WTC so will have to see if they win out. There are a ton of good players throwing down with them, and I am sure they are rushing this week to prime, paint, and get all these things looking “table” top ready to play on the tabletop. The new building idea of not forcing troop/battleline choices helps create these Flyer lists – but it’s still early. We’ll see how it shakes ot inthe next few weeks.
How Will Flyers Affect the Meta
Could this mean a big push for flying things or stuff with Anti-Fly in them? I remember fighting one of the Armigers with Anti-fly 2+ against Angron. That was a ton of wounds that just exploded out of that tank and I had to deal with it, bring him back 3 times in that game! Most of these flyers have Anti-Fly weapons so I expect those games to end up being who went second and thus is able to “respond” to the flyers coming on.
Flyers just feel like a unit that looks cool but is so hard to truly balance in a game where the ground pounders are the most common option in the game. GW have done so much to limit models that have the ability to fly to move anywhere they want in the game – but those Aircraft can just go to town. I do worry we’ll see some of the other Xenos armies with good flying options start to show up too – if they get a detachment that amps up those sleek jets and flying options.
Look To The Skies
Good luck to all my friends going to the Champs. I hope everyone has a great time, and maybe this next year I can go or at least just go up to spectate or just help a bit.
