Flyers - Who is King of the skies?

So after yesterdays rant about Night Scythes and their brokenness*, who does have the best flyer? There are loads out there, but for this article we will look at the best flyer for each of the races that has them.

Necrons - Doom Scythe - Holy S**t that's a nasty gun. This flyer is king of wrecking car parks. With a S10 AP1 line weapon, it will fly on and pump that bad boy through any closely packed targets it can. If that wasn't bad enough it gets a twin linked tesla destructor - arguably one of the best guns in the game. Its a little pricey at 175 points, plus your opponent is going to learn pretty
damn quickly to spread out. But that's another strength of this flyer, it forces your opponent to spread out, and as we all know, splitting up your army is a bad plan as the opponent can pick you apart one piece at a time...

Imperial Guard - Vendetta - The all star of the group. 3 twin linked lascannons and options for twin linked heavy bolters - so that the guns sorted then eh? Plus its AV12 which helps a lot when most things need 6's to hit you. You can transport guys and they even have a way off if you get immobalised and stuck in zoom mode, also it has scout, so it can out flank and comes in squadrons of up to 3, all for a measly 130 points? Bargain.

Eldar - Nightwing - One of the stars from Imperial Armour Aeronautica, with the 40k stamp. Come with Vector Dancer, which means it can make an additional 90 degree turn at the end of its move, so it will be on the board for a while with valid targets. Has a good weapon loadout with 2 shuriken cannons and 2 bright lances, has BS4 and is very reasonably priced at 145 points. However, its only AV10 with 2 hull points, so if anything gets through you will be getting hurt. But, for once someone at forge world thought about this! It has Shrouded and Agile, Agile makes the Jink save from evading a 4+ instead of a 5+, and of course Shrouded adds 2 to the cover save, so, thats a 2+ jink save. This sucker will not be going down easy.

Dark Eldar - Razorwing - Same points as a nightwing but not as agile or survivable. Has an extra hull point though. This thing is death incarnate to anything not inside a vehicle, comes with 4 large blast missiles at S6 which can be upgraded to poisoned 2+  or a S7 shatterfield missile, all for cheap. Comes with 2 dark lances or 2 disintegrators, id personally make this for wiping out any infantry and go for the disintegrators. And frankly, S6 large blasts is enough so save the points upgrading them.

Tau - Barracuda - Oh dear. Did I mention that this is the best Tau have? 130 points, AV10 and only 2 hull points. So it wont be around for long... but reasonably affordable. Being Tau it best come with enough guns to make everyone cry... Uh, not so much. BS3, two burst cannons, one twin linked missile pod and one ion cannon. Middling strength guns here and not going to set the world on fire, yes it has a fair amount of them, but again BS3 and cant decide if its anti tank or anti doodz. Can buy up to 4 seeker missiles at 10 points each (dont buy more than 2, you wont be around to fire a second time). It does have agile though so if it evades it has a 4+ save, but I think all the dark eldar players out there will tell you just how often an AV10 vehicle will fall out the sky even with a 4+ save.

Blood Angels - Stormraven - AV12, immune to the melta rule, transport capacity with rules to allow the passengers off if it gets stuck zooming and a serious weapons load out. 4 bloodstrike missiles at S8 AP1, usually with a twin linked lascannon and a twin linked multimelta, thats a lot of high strength low ap guns. Its also an assault vehicle and can carry a dreadnaught, so it zooms on, wastes something then hovers and delivers death to whatevers troubling it. The only downside is that you get what you pay for - at 200 points basic its not cheap and the worst thing about it, is that it takes up a heavy support slot and not fast attack.

Grey Knights - Stormraven - As above but with fortitude which I cant see being used very often considering its a flyer, and mindstrike missiles instead of bloodstrike. These are frag missiles which cause a perils of the warp if they hit a psyker, so limited use. All in all the missile difference puts the blood angel one out in front.

Other Space Marine Variants - Storneagle - Same as a stormraven but with a dramatically worse weapons loadout and more expensive. Has a twin heavy bolter and twin vengance launcher (wtf forgeworld, really, a whirlwind launcher with 2 shots on a flyer? Whoever wrote this was clearly high.***) To take the same loadout as a stormraven will set you back 75points, taking you to 300. Ouch. You can take 4 hellstrike missiles if you dont want a lascannon, saving you 20 points, giving you 4 battlecannon shots. I guess its good against ground targets but it cant do squat to other flyers,. Its massive points cost makes it worse.

Orks - Dakkajet - Lots of S6 firepower, can WAAAGH! and twin link itself - its BS3 and its cheap as chips. Its a bargain really however with S6 guns it suppers vs other flyers, but puts a load of hurt on boys on the ground.

Chaos - Also Stormeagle - 20 points cheaper and loses power of the machine spirit. And its weapon upgrades are wee. Best Chaos have...for now...

Well, what do we think of all this? The most scary damage potential goes to the doom scythe, the most survivable goes to the nightwing and the best all round, perhaps no surprise here, goes to the vendetta. Generally though everyone has at least a reasonable flyer available to them and at reasonable (points) cost, but the air war is far from over...


*Yes, its a word.
**Goats
***Someones smoking some crack up in that building