Best anti-flyer unit in CSM?

[DWest]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the best anti-flyer choice in the CSM codex right now is: 30 Cultists.

I kinda like the dragon, but 4 BS3 S8 shots or d3+1 S7 hits are not going to do a great job of smoking something tough like a Vendetta or Scythe. And Havocs are 25 pts per for a single S7 shot, also not excellent. But a huge carpet of Cultists can take away an enormous amount of board for the flyer to park on, and in the best-case scenario, "shoot down" the flyer by force-crashing it. Granted the S6 pie landing on the Cultists from the crash will probably kill several, but that's almost part of the fun. ("Look to the sky! The Dark Gods have blessed me with *SPLAAAT*")

This is relying on being tricky and doing board-control rather than brute force, true, but if you want brute force, GK is ---> that way. Extra bonus points if you can get your opponent to cry "Heresy!" when his flyer self-destructs.

[DarkLink]

Flyers can just enter ongoing reserves and come right back on next turn, or go flat out and hop over the cultists. You need to cover a huge area of the board for that to work.

[DWest]

After re-reading the rules, I failed to take into account the Flyer's pivot is before moving (which would have also kept my Dakkajet alive in an earlier game), however I still largely stand by my opinion that Cultist are a solid way to neutralize flyers, by blocking enough area to force the flyer to overshoot whatever I least want shot up (obviously bombs will still be a problem). I still can't get over paying 25 points per for Flakk Missiles which are only Str 7.

[inquisitorsog]

Flyers can just enter ongoing reserves and come right back on next turn, or go flat out and hop over the cultists. You need to cover a huge area of the board for that to work.
At the risk of showing off the follies of winging it at math:

210 cultists (35 * 6) would cover about 1/2 of a 4x6 board assuming they are arranged in 2" coherency with each unit a 7x5 grid. That comes out to 19" x 13" if I'm adding it up right. Line the units up in a 2x3 formation with 2" between units (being very arbitrary with that) and I make it to be 40"x 41" or 1640 sq in. A 4x6 board is 3460 sq in.

And that's just in nice grids. You don't need a filled in grid to maintain coherency as you only need to trace coherency to one other model, right? I'm pretty sure once you throw in terrain and the rest of your army, you can manage to fill most of a board assuming your opponent lets you(big assumption, you're doing it with cannon fodder). In a 1750 point game, you can even squeeze in 60 noise marines, a lord and still have points left over for a few actual upgrades and maybe even a fast or heavy choice.

I've done my share of hordes and I don't think I want to paint 200+ model armies anymore. Although it's tempting...


EDIT: and I just realized "my share of hordes" was in WFB with movement trays, not 40k with coherency, so maybe the temptation to do a CSM blob army just got a little less tempting.

[DarkLink]

The problem with that is, unless you get Fearless in all those squads, most armies will walk through those cultists. Cultists alone aren't any good, they're a supplementary unit that can hold objectives, tar-pit stuff, and screen more important units. Plus, that list would take forever to play.

And, of course, you have to actually move out of your deployment zone. It would take 4-5 turns of Running to get into position to cover the board, and that's ignoring enemy units.

It would work well against the Necron all-flyer list, but that's about it. You'd spend 800pts to moderately inconvenience 200pts of flyers, if your opponent even takes a flyer.

[Black Rose]

In response to the original thread question, I'd take Flakk Havocs. You can take 4 BS 4 S7 shots for the same cost of a dragon. Additionally, you aren't just getting the S7 shots, you still have the good old S8 AP3 for your opponents other ground units for the rest of the game (Including turn 1). It also takes 5 (if you don't add any more models) unsaved wounds to kill this unit, where in only takes one unfortunate Penetrating hit, or 3 glancing to kill the dragon.

[mysterex]

The option I'm thinking of is autocannon havocs. Cheaper than flak missiles, less likely to instantly be targeted and assuming all 4 get to shoot they should get at least one hit.

The other option is a forgefeind with two hades autocannons. Again 8 shots so should hit at least once if you can live with the risk of taking an expensive vehicle in the current gun heavy environment.