After reading allthe arguments i think the 1/4 cap is unneccesary. Leave it at 1/3.

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I guess the suggestion is that the flying circus list is both OP and not-fun. You only have to believe one of those is true for it to be wrong, but it seems neither is clear cut.


The point is, folks are saying this list is a good tournament list. Yes it is almost always possible to build a list to counter another, but that's not how tournaments work. Usually, when you max out on something it does not actually win you the tournament when you play three games against all-comers lists. Because 1000 points of fighters in another army will leave you struggling to win. We won't know until somebody brings a guard list with 1000 points of thunderbolts to a tournament, but that's the crux of it. Similarly, some list builds might have an easier time against minervans than others, but that is not the same as "nearly all list builds cannot win against minervans". Minervans are intended to be balanced against all-comers lists, not against anti-armour lists. Whether they are or not, I can't say as I've not played against them, but the equivalent EUK list (Ulani) most certainly does not win all its games against all-comers lists. You just don't need to have tons of MW to beat it, you need the types of things that are likely to be found in standard tournament builds.


Well it also came second in a GT, having won 4 of 5 games (the other game was vs Dave T's Ulthwe). The winner of the tournament was.... Simon's Gunfortress Speed Freeks

The element of fun alone has nothing to do with "advantage" - though often the two are perceived go hand in hand, it is perfectly possible to have a balanced list that is still not fun to play against (Necrons, looking at you). But I find your comparison of warp spiders insincere. Some lists are more fun to play against than others, for sure, but it is by no means binary - there is clearly a spectrum. There is a huge distinction between using a Marine list with a Thunderhawk in it and, for example, a list composed 100% of thunderhawks and a landing craft. Such builds are not normally a problem because they tend to have big problems elsewhere meaning players do not bring them to tournaments, but if that army were competitive and it started winning games, some players might feel it should not be allowed. Simply because it's less fun than facing an army with one thunderhawk. It might not be easy to decide what an acceptable number of thunderhawks is, but 1 is obviously not the same as 15. But even this is not the same situation as the ork flyers list we are discussing. If that all-flyer marine list were to win 80% of its tournament games like the flying circus list has, maybe those some players wanting it banned would become most players wanting it banned.

Where "fun" is concerned, there should be a line drawn somewhere in deciding what kind of list is "acceptable" and it's up to us to collectively decide where that line is. After all, the Necron list you mention has this exact problem that you yourself have complained about. If the Necrons are just as bad as "flying circus" as you suggest, then the solution is to fix both.

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Keep it coming guys.

Just to say that the SF Flying Circus has been seen before, one of the Club Challenges many years ago ('06 or '07). It won the tournament and beat my tournament winning SF list 4-0 using a combination of ground attacks and interceptions. (You don't remember the wins, but the losses stay stuck in your memory.)

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In terms of playtest options, I'm not sure how much reducing the air limit to 25% will really help. Especially as this is not just a speed freeks issue - what about the ghazkull list?

TBH the whole "titans and air" structure is probably sub-optimal for all lists and maybe we just need to come up with another one. Something like "no more than 1/6 spent on air, and no more than 1/3 spent on air or war engines". Problem is it is a bit more complicated.

Could always just limit FB formations to 3 units, and maybe add a fire arc too.

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Personally I'd rather see the base formation bumped to 200 points for all the reasons outlined above, increased survivability due to increased numbers plus auto-activating on ground attack, I would way rather have ork planes than tbolts for the same points, int1+ on planes is very powerful and well worth a points hike for the base formation in my opinion

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Well since I seem to have an entire topic almost about me, then I probably should weigh in

I'll start with the quote, since it's not 100% accurrate:

"Jon even commented he had deliberately taken the speed freaks list as he felt the Gazkull version (with lander) is op."

The reason I took the speed freaks army is because it had been nerfed. That decision had obviously been made to reduce the amount of air, and that had obviously been aimed mostly at my list since I am the main culprit of the ork air wing.
I made the descision to abide by the INTENT of the change, since I could have fielded my previous list using the gazkull list (I use no SF specific units). Thus I could have ignored the change entirely simply by stating "this is now a gazkull list".

On to main topic:

I'll agree it's not a fun list to play against. For home games I don't even really use it, it only gets rolled out at tournaments. The main reason it's not fun is not so much the domination of air, it's because it's an activation control army - it has 13 formations, so by the time I've activated 6 air units, and 4 dethkopta units, the opponent has usually run out of activations without having anything to shoot at (since the air can only be targetted by AA, and the koptas basically bimble about on turn 1, hiding out of LOS to burn an activation).

This means turn 2 starts with a bunch of virtually untouched buggies in a position to assault already shot up units, while the Air units do whatever they fancy.

Turn 3 then means I should go into it again with an activation advantage, so I can fritter cheap activations untill the opponent has run out, and then I can make descisions as to where my ground units need to go to contest/capture.


While the large amount of air units means I have a large number of unmolested units against low AA, the opposite is true against moderate to high AA - against that I lose 6 units without the opponent even needing to do anything.

Apart from marines which have to spec heavily into TB's to get large amounts of AA, just about every other army can either get loads of ground AA that has a dual purpose (i.e. not just shoot planes), or not need AA, because it's horde infantry thast doesn't produce BM (nids), fearless 4+RA (TS/AMTL)
- 2 necron pylons with on average kill 1 plane between them, per formation, per turn. That's all planes dead by turn 3.
-Eldar can throw a huge amount of AA up from firestorms without really reducing their ground ability.
-Orks can have their entire army made of flak wagons
-Tau can have multiple AA with huge flak coverage, so can cover the just about everything with multiple flak units.

The reason it's usually successful is because most people only turn up with a single hunter/a pair of TB/one hydra because most people don't bring air units, thus their AA is only really enough to put a BM on air assault units, rather than to actively destroy planes.

Amusing that marauders are mentioned - those would rinse holes into my army (barrage, against LV, that I can't bomb before it activates, that I struggle to CAP against, that I have to get into defensive flak range for before I can try shooting it down).
Luckily for me, no-one aside form duncan ever takes them apparantly because "they're rubbish".



Now with 1/4 allowance I can still take 5 units of 3, so that hasn't really resolved anything.

If you really want to reduce the amount of cheap spammy aircraft then just change the unit to be 5 planes 250pts min - this means you can only have 4 units max (not 6), and is pretty orky.

I would probably suggest that at some point someone looks at FB rokkits not having fixed forward, seems odd that they can fire out the window.

That or you know, take some flakk

The only problem with comparing points directly across armies is that it doesn't always work. for example;

185pts buys me 5 deth koptas.
200pts buys you 5 SM land speeders.

Same speed, armour, FF, CC and skimmers.

For the extra 15pts, and a slight drop in range, you gain:
Scout (so can garrison, and scout screen, and trap units)
MW shots -hitting on 5+ not 5+/6+
MW firefight - useful for both assaulting and supporting fire
Strategy 5 (so go first)
Activate on a 1+ for all actions not just doubles/assault, meaning can actually single/sustain fire/march
Rally on a 1+ not 3+
ATSKNF - twice as many BM to break, far more likely to be rallying unbroken, take far less hack down deaths for losing assaults, can't be bliped to death when broken.


With that in mind would you now say that marine speeders are too good/need a price hike?

FWIW, this is a brilliant example of how easily the air-game can unbalance E:A as a whole, and why TBolts were raised to 175. I agree that we ought to increase the basic cost of Ork Fighta Bombaz to 200 (possibly reducing to 175 if appropriate) and that this is likely to be preferable to making the Titan / air section 0.25.

Also if 'Uge Ork air formations are deemed to be OP, then another option might be to reverse the trend in the Ork lists by making a/c upgrades more expensive. While not removing the spammed air list completely this approach may make it less effective, since the opponents AA capability may survive slightly better.

My 2p as they say

I'm well aware of cross list comparisons being flawed Jon

just saying the two main flaws of tbolts, their vulnerability to being shot down wholesale, and their initiative 2 don't apply to the orks, and in the spirit of the thread, there was plenty of cross-comparison going on earlier.....

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I'd agree that the Ork fightas are usually better (usually because of the 1+ to activate). The difference being, that where TB's are a support unit, the fightas form the backbone of a freaks army.

Freaks suffer aginst RA, particularly AT, and even more particularly fearless.

They have no TK (at all), lack of MW , and no real AT (5+ on a fortress that becomes 6+ after the required double to actually go anywhere), leaving fightas as the primary source of AT.

Normal Orks get MW barrages (supas, gargants, greats, oddboyz), and TK (oddboyz)

As alan experienced, freaks need to assault, they can't shoot anything, and if those units are fearless/RA/not terrible at assaults then they bounce due to being easy to kill/not having grots. The planes are needed to soften up those units prior to assault, or to deal with AT

Edit: had missed the speedsta having MW. Still fairly low amounts of MW

Bumping the costs of Fighta-Bombers in the Ghazghkull list has the unfortunate side-effect of making it impossible to take a Gargant, a Landa and Fighta-Bombers in a standard 3000 point list, which would be a pretty terrible loss in my opinion.

I think that's the key thing, having 13 formations that activate on a 1+ is pretty excellent, and makes the army very reliable, at least early in the game when you're setting up the big crunch for turn 2, then on mop-up duties on turn 3.... the amount of times I've had tbolts refuse to activate T3 and it's turned a potential win into a draw.... having tested the marine flyers who also have int1+ I can say it really does make a massive difference... that arial safety net is a game winner for sure

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Apologies - no intention to miss quote - I was a little harassed at the time ! :-) thanks for clarifying. Makes more sense now.

Got to say, after completely stuffing up my first turn, once I'd got my thang together on turn two (with the help of some poor luck on your part) it turned out to be a fun game in the end, I'd quite enjoy taking another crack at it some time. (Wouldn't want to play against it every week though! :-) )

Just a thought - but would changing the activation advantage for Ork planes to +1 rather than +2 work?

Thanks for joining in Jon!

Agreed.

That'd work, only problem is a LOT of people take one or two 3-strong units. They are cheap but still useful activations, which are very valuable options in any list. To remove that would, I assume, cause some consternation...

Agreed. TBH even if not for balance purposes, if changes are being made anyway this one is worth doing just for "cleanup".

You're right to point out that most armies have access to decent flak and clearly the amount you take is going to make a difference. My suspicion is that players tend to take a bit more these days I suppose the question is, what amount is "reasonable" to take? When I was looking at the championship results earlier I looked at who you faced in the 2011 GT:
You won vs nids (only a few gargoyles), Tau (3 formations with a skyray attached), Nids (a few gargoyles), Reedar's Orks (8x flakwagons, 2x3 FBs and a landa). That ork one looks interesting, it might be nice to see if either of you posted any thoughts of what happened. You only lost to Dave's Ulthwe. That list had 6 firestorms, nightwings (and a vampire raider). 1050 points of AA-capable formations is probably a bit more than most eldar players bring, but not excessively so for the type of army Dave was going for.

Let's look at some armies:
- Especially Eldar have great flak in firestorms and fire prisms and both formations can be multi-role (more so the falcons). Their downside is that they are relatively easy to knock out and can only be bought in specific formations. Still, those formations have genuine uses aside from flak, so I would say they're the army who can afford to take the most flak before it starts to significantly compromise their primary focus.
- Tau get skyrays which are fantastic, but very expensive. Depending on the list build they are multi-role too as they provide markerlights, but this is only really true when they are attached to firewarriors and hammerheads, which you are likely to have only 2 or 3 of. When you buy a formation of 3 skyrays, you are buying a dedicated flak formation for 250 points. Still, such is the power of air that I try to take 5 or 6 skyrays. If the opponent cares about air superiority then 3 will normally be gone by the end of turn 1.
- Guard also have good flak, and whilst a formation of 3 hydras can be a handy formation, really the unit is dedicated to AA. Similarly to Tau, the number of formations who can attach a hydra is likely to be small (3 or 4), which means to get them in numbers you need to be buying those dedicated formations. I would say 6 is a reasonable maximum to expect a guard player to bring to a tournament and still be competitive against armies with no aircraft at all.
- Orks need to take a LOT of flakwagons to be effective at actually killing stuff due to their relatively short range and poor to hit values, but IMO it is still appears to be worth doing. Don't know a lot about them to comment further though.
- Marines are going to really struggle

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Could always drop the cost of the Gargant (and Great Gargant) by 50 points...