Flyers - The great disappointment?

[Alaric]

Got a buddy playing a 9 Valkyries list (assorted makes) he spends alot of time figuring out where to put them. Its great fun to screw witb his plans and make him fly offa the board, quite the traffic jam.

[Defenestratus]

I have a flyer that completely satisfies me everytime I use it (them). The Nightwing. Still even after the new codex Craftworld flyers, the good ole Nightwing never disappoints. It's got guns that are both good at anti air, and against ground targets. It has vector dancer, and an amazing jink save to keep it infuriatingly alive. In the new IA11 book, its dirt cheap at like 125pts.

Only downside? 2HP. Don't care though since it usually dishes out so much pain before it dies.

[Mark Mitchell]

.

[Defenestratus]

40K is a game designed for effect. Bolters have a range similar to the Brown Bess smooth-bore musket. A .38 revolver has a better rate of fire. This requires a serious suspension of belief, but one that is not too outlandish. Especially since it makes the game work in a way that fits the limitations of a 28mm scale tabletop battlefield. NOTHING about fliers (fast movers, or slow ones) realistically fits the squad level narrative. Vehicles barely do. They are slowed to Tiger II speeds in 40K. A flier with the speed of a helicopter would traverse a 40K battlefield in a fraction of a turn. A flier traveling at tactical jet speeds would zoom past in a fraction of that fraction of a turn. Even if we assume the battlefield is distorted to accommodate weapon ranges, the numbers don't work. The scale of the game (squads fighting in a field or city block) does not work out. So, the rules would have to be designed for that. Would not have to make implausible effects sorta plausible. Merely make them palatable.

"That's how things might work 38.000 years from now" doesn't fit the fluff. Nothing in the fluff says a bolter should have the same range as a black powder smooth-bore flintlock with no sights. Fliers need to be designed to resemble popular notions of what they might do. And, make it worth while to buy them, build them, paint them, and deploy them. And, have fun playing them. Definitely designed for effect, rather than realism. Anything other than a hovering helicopter should flash by, rather than remain for a turn, and another turn, or return fire. Me, I find the notion unpalatable. Other than troops landing into a hot LZ, fliers lingering on the tabletop make no sense in the fluff or the game. But, whatever. If folks like them, it's all good.

I mean seriously. Who can believe my librarian can shoot fireballs from his arse and lightning bolts from his eyes?

What kind of crock is this game?

You've convinced me, I'm quitting this farce!

[Alaric]

I mean seriously. Who can believe my librarian can shoot fireballs from his arse and lightning bolts from his eyes?

What kind of crock is this game?

You've convinced me, I'm quitting this farce!

Im callin you out! You MUST model a librarian bending over arse first with a flamer marine holding the pilot light from his flamer by the arse.
Actually.
I got sallies, maybe Ill just do it.

[CoffeeGrunt]

I've never understood the whole attitude of, "well there's this one accepted unrealistic factor in a thing, therefore no-one is allowed to critique anything else in it at all, ever."

Like when people ask about why the Empire is so strategically idiotic in Star Wars and people start arguing that, "IT HAS THE FORCE, IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE REALISTIC!"

[JMichael]

I love my Eldar Crimson Hunter model, but the fact that it regularly dies to Bolter fire keeps it out of my army.

[Andrew Thomas]

40K is a game designed for effect. Bolters have a range similar to the Brown Bess smooth-bore musket. A .38 revolver has a better rate of fire. This requires a serious suspension of belief, but one that is not too outlandish. Especially since it makes the game work in a way that fits the limitations of a 28mm scale tabletop battlefield. NOTHING about fliers (fast movers, or slow ones) realistically fits the squad level narrative. Vehicles barely do. They are slowed to Tiger II speeds in 40K. A flier with the speed of a helicopter would traverse a 40K battlefield in a fraction of a turn. A flier traveling at tactical jet speeds would zoom past in a fraction of that fraction of a turn. Even if we assume the battlefield is distorted to accommodate weapon ranges, the numbers don't work. The scale of the game (squads fighting in a field or city block) does not work out. So, the rules would have to be designed for that. Would not have to make implausible effects sorta plausible. Merely make them palatable.

"That's how things might work 38.000 years from now" doesn't fit the fluff. Nothing in the fluff says a bolter should have the same range as a black powder smooth-bore flintlock with no sights. Fliers need to be designed to resemble popular notions of what they might do. And, make it worth while to buy them, build them, paint them, and deploy them. And, have fun playing them. Definitely designed for effect, rather than realism. Anything other than a hovering helicopter should flash by, rather than remain for a turn, and another turn, or return fire. Me, I find the notion unpalatable. Other than troops landing into a hot LZ, fliers lingering on the tabletop make no sense in the fluff or the game. But, whatever. If folks like them, it's all good.

I don't see it.
I don't see anyone being comfortable with standard-issue infantry weapons making 3, 5, or 10 shots a piece, per turn, while being able to essentially hit anything they have line of sight to. The rate of fire issue is just a matter of practicality and economy of die rolls.

As for the range issue, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation (I've said this here before): tactical bias. Most Imperial-held worlds (outliers like Fenris or Catachan notwithstanding) are Hive Worlds, or at the very least are far enough along in the urbanization process that they are practically Hives already. Such conditions generally negate the benefits of most long arms, and demand a degree of fire discipline i.e.: conserving ammo, taking shoots when you have them, and firing on the advance. Carbine-format weaponry tends to perform better in that scenario than full-size rifles, despite having shorter range and less ammunition, because they can be readied faster.

Vehicle speed has nothing to do with the assumed maximum distance a comparable vehicle could move in a discrete period of time, because turns are not discrete periods of time. 40K turns are a narrative convention, not an artifact of accounting.

TL;DR: 40k isn't a simulationist game.

[Caitsidhe]

Of all the silliness, you can pick just one nonsensical thing? There is very little in the setting that makes any sense at all. It is exactly what it started out as, an eclectic mix of poorly synthesized elements as a pretense for a battle. There is no context. There is no economy. There is only WAR! It is the WWF of settings. That is why I'm a Philistine; I don't care about the fluff. It is just another war game to me, and since it is largely a bad rules set, I hardly play anymore. I mean seriously, how can you choose which silly thing which doesn't make sense to settle on?

[fabu00]

The elysian troops are awesome