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I think we're at an impasse with the plane, for some reason AoC insists on it matching other stats and having all the weapons GW bolts on it..... it's massively overpowered, utterly utterly overpowered as it is....

I think the big question is whether these planes are meant to be air-dominance fighters like nightwings, or whether they're meant to be attack craft.... currently they're pretty damn good at both roles with no real drawbacks that I can see.... certainly superior to thunderbolts across the board.... much more so than the piddly 12.5 point per-plane increase in cost suggests.....

as a minimum they should be reduced to 3-shots per plane, and probably have one of their AA attacks at 15cm so they have to risk defensive fire and can't hide outside token 30cm flak bubbles as easily.... this is not just theoryhammering either, we've had endless discussion about why AA4+ on interceptors is a slippery slope and generally it seems most people agree.... we should have similar conventions about other aircraft weapon loadouts as the same power creep issues apply

there is LOADS of precedent for flexibility in weapon stats for aircraft and making stats which fit the intended role of the craft, and not the stupid OTT GW fluff

Also, I will post a gentle reminder that the community voted pretty overwhelmingly to include the plane, as a NetEA appointed sub-AC I'm afraid it's your remit to do as the community wishes even if you don't agree as this isn't YOUR list, but a community list.... if you want to keep to a strict vision of your own, this should be in a sub-variant and not the NetEA Dark Angels list IMO....

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I do get the desire to match up the weapons, although what I think we've demonstrated is that it's not possible to do and still have a formation that is both balanced and cheap enough to actually use.

I'm honestly stunned that you could propose the second of those loadouts, let alone in formations of 3 planes. This formation would average 4.5 hits, has a spread of up to 9 hits with only a very low chance of causing very few hits, and could still intercept better than a lot of other interceptors even at 45cm. It's crazy. I do appreciate the principle of keeping the stats matched but there is a lot you could do, all of which IMO are necessary for it to be remotely reasonable:
- remove AA from the missiles
- reduce to 2 per formation
- range of both HB and lascannon should be reduced by 15cm (i.e. HB=15, las=30cm) - the reason for reducing it is because a) it's mounted on the hull of a fast moving plane and b) for balance reasons. This precedent exists, so I see no reason to ignore it.
- AA of twin lascannon reduced to 5+ - again, look at the twin HB - it is 4+/5+ because AA should not have as good stats as AP or AT. Same for twin shuriken cannon, same for twin bright lances.

Thus if you do all of those:
Twin Lascannon 30cm AT4+/AA5+ Fixed Forward
Twin Heavy Bolters 15cm AP4+/AA5+ Fixed Forward
Darksword Missiles 30cm AT4+ Fixed Forward

And what do you know, it now looks remarkably comparable to an initiative 1+ thunderbolt. Easy peasy. 2 for 200 points.

The anti-armour variant could be OK (i.e. not game breaking) if the HB is reduced to 15cm (if it's anti armour then it should not be as great an interceptor). The big question over this variant is if its cost will be too high for people to include in a standard 3k army, as those are some fantastic shooting stats and there's only so much that is sensible to commit to flying things that cannot land. Consider that despite being awesome, night wings are not as ubiquitous as you might expect because you have to take 3 for 300 points which is quite a lot. At the very least run them in pairs not triples.

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Batrep here:
viewtopic.php?f=84&t=28241&p=537045#p537045

Thoughts:

Another game of less than average dice rolls on my behalf.

Ravenwing core - Too expensive as a core. Could simply be just a mix of 5 for 200 similar to all other Marine lists for ease of play testing. If you're concerned about the Teleport Homer costing I wouldn't worry because it's a 2 edged sword in that it telegraphs where you're likely to put your Terminators anyway.

Ironwing Core - Have options. Land Raiders should be a choice instead of just Preds or have a mix if you like.
Executioners - Why would you bother to take anything else?! A no brainer. A good inclusion for the loss of Warhounds etc though. The list needs some sort of MW shooting.

Deathwing Core- given the DA only have 100-ish suits I think a 0- 5/6 option needs to be installed or it just doesn't seem right with an entire 8 Deathwing formation force kitted out in Terminator suits - which is entirely possible. Didn't try the larger formation due to cost prohibition versus activation count. Also we discussed that 8 units would hamper Thunderhawk collection if required otherwise the army/formation would just get stuck around the board without a transport option.

Nephilim - Disappointing - Didn't really perform all that well due to less than average dice rolls and only 1 aircraft survived (lost 1 per turn). They weren't all that strong with 5+ saves but the third aircraft helped with longevity. 1+ initiative is a CAP no brainer first action. To help the army with points cost issues I think dropping these to 2 planes for 225 is best on the back of this game at least. I would prefer to have more activations/points to spend.

Hunt for the Fallen - We didn't actually use this but if the opponent chooses it would most likely just be the BTS as they're usually the hardest formation anyway. Atension had planned to do this anyway. I would have chosen the Stormboyz as the weakest formation.

As a fluff argument doesn't always stand up. After all, this could be a joint operation with two or more of the unforgiven workng together, no?

A balance argument can be totally be made however.

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A joint operation? Two Unforgiven working together doesn't mean the DA would have 160 suits etc.... Not sure I see what you mean. They have 100 suits which equals 5 formations. I guess you could argue they have 160 suits but it's unlikely from what I've heard about TDA availability even if the DA have more than anyone else.

Each chapter has a full set of termies and is organized with the same *-wing formations **. This isn't the Dark Angels only list, this is the Unforgiven Hunting the Fallen as Exemplified by the DA, the progenitors.

**: Yes I know they are not all called the same thing but in practice they are equivalent formations.

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Um, I have to agree with the others. One of the main reasons we continue to have these discussions is the tendency for people to cite 'precedence' as a justification for increasing the power of weapons and aircraft. The issue is that the air-game can easily overpower the ground game. In this case I suggest trying three formations of 3x Nephilim with these stats to see the effect - or even better, try four or five pairs (at 200 or 225 respectively), especially against a list that is low on AA.

To the weapons in particular, as far as I am aware, they are either under change, under development, or incorrect and therefore should not be used anyway.

• The twin Lascannon (taken from the Helltalon) is being reduced to 30cm, and should never have been made AA4+. There has been disagreement on this ever since it was listed, and it is the only case where a FB has AA4+.
• If the Avenger mega-bolter is taken from the Skitarii list, that is not yet approved (though the AMTL list is). Again, this weapon is overpowered for an aircraft weapon - indeed it is better than many similar weapons on ground units
• With great respect, the Heavy Bolter cannot have two different ranges in the same list. This should only be 15 cm like the wing-mounted weapons on the THawk.

Finally, please could you explain why you are not using the E-UK version of the Nephilim aircraft and stats. Though IMO overpowered, they are a lot closer to the stats for the E:A air-game.

If there are two different desired roles for the Nephilim (and while I don't like it, as was touched upon by Kyuss, it was very clearly backed for inclusion by the community so we should all work towards "how" rather than "if" we use it) I don't think it's too terrible an idea to have one pure "Fighter", with reduced ground support weaponry but a little better AA and one "Fighter Bomber" load out, with much more limited AA (perhaps even only a single Heavy Bolter/15cm/AA5+ attack!) but with much more robust ground power.

Yes, it's more options and might be against the fluff (I don't know as my following of DA fluff ended at 3rd edition), but I see no driving reason why they wouldn't outfit the planes per-mission, rather than as one generic unit with everything bolted on.

As far as mentioned stats go - I too am confused at to why the Nephilim HB is granted 30cm on it's attack, and I'm slightly concerned if it comes to the table with quite so many accurate AA strikes. Some compromise of power versus slightly too slavish attention to lore is often necessary for the sake of keeping the game interesting, I certainly think this is one of those times, if only to keep the Nephilim from becoming undisputed galaxy heavyweight champion of the air.

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I tried to respond with quotes but the quote-within-a-different-coloured-quote thing gave me a headache

I wasn't disparaging your approach as an AC, I like the direction and theme of the list.... but on this specific issue (the plane) from my point of view it seems you at least appear to be ignoring the majority opinion and forging ahead with an approach which opens the door to power creep in the air game

I've already explained why a twin lascannon on a figher plane shouldn't have AA4+ and stats for the same weapon can be different in different applications, see the old DA thread for that, nobody has given any kind of reason why the argument is wrong and the only argument is 'I want to do it this way' which is just not good enough for me.... I and several others have suggested perfectly reasonable stats for the plane which have all been completely ignored and you've repeatedly refused to compromise or listen to alternative views hence my comment.... it was not intended as a personal dig, we all get involved with lists we're developing and testing, I just wanted to point out that there are other approaches

as you said yourself, the avenger cannon stats aren't even finalised, this is a perfect opportunity to test them out in a different form and let the darwinian approach rule.... also from the other thread, it seems that the 40k stats differ between the aircraft anyway so matching them is not neccessary....

your snarky comment on Dobbsy's playtest is noted, however one data point does not a graph make....

I am planning a playtest of this list next week, I plan on taking 3 formations of nephilims, it may go terribly, but I'll try it again a few times and would be happy to be proven wrong

The planes as they are currently in this list give the opportunity to try the ork flying circus tactics out, not only are the planes more resilient than Tbolts, they also reliably activate and come in threes, perfect for attacking in waves, and the nephilim has more than twice the firepower per plane of an ork fighta bomber to boot, I'd even be tempted to try it with the plane in pairs

I suggest the following weapon stats: it requires one very easily rationalised compromise on the AA value of the lascannon, supported by the majority of the community, then you have a decent plane which can intercept acceptably and ground attack well, it's not breaking any of the unofficial community rules, nor is it using any experimental/developmental weapon stats and it's still well worth including

twin lascannon 30cm AT4+/AA5+FxF
heavy bolter 15cm AP5+/AA5+ FxF
Blacksword missiles AT4+ FxF

225 for two

forget the avenger bolter, having planes flying around with half a titan weapon is just not ever going to be agreed on by consent unless you drop a shot or the firepower....

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I think you're missing my point slightly and also being both slightly dismissive and taking a tiny bit of a potshot based on my previous mentions of list orientation. If you're not, then my mistake, but it certainly reads that way right about now.

The primary operational goal for the list/**wing army is, as you state, hunting the Fallen, but within every mission undertaken the fighter might be most needed to protect ground forces against air assets, might be most useful in striking at entrenched ground troops without an AA umbrella where a direct ground assault would be risky, etc. That's all I intended to convey by outfitting "per-mission". I was just thinking that dividing the stats into two branches, air and ground, might help alleviate some of the concerns over power creep.

I don't see anyone here trying to have a go over anything, just people trying to help. I'm not sure anyone needs to be told to back off or for any of the snarky potshots that seem to be building up. Time for a break, a cookie, some tea and a deep breath all around, IMO.

I meant as a core choice you don't need to have a 350 point formation. Make them 225 for 5 with the Scout rule or whatever. 350 for a formation that doesn't need to be 8 units can help the army put more in it.


Well you should be able to buy Land Raiders straight up if you want is what I meant. Having to buy a Pred formation to get a Land Raider formation is unnecessary IMO and just restricts you with the cost of the army. I would think they would be an Ironwing staple not a support element. An option might be nice for those who want them instead of Preds - like me....


A fair point except the Codex list is meant to be able to represent multiple Chapters, the DA Hunt for the Fallen is one single chapter's list. DWWFY.


Of course the opponent could just deny you the BTS altogether.... If I'd chosen the Stormboyz, Atension could have just as well left them off the table....

On the Nephilim:
Of course a very simple abstraction for the plane is just an Avenger Cannon and missiles.... 2x AP3+/AT5+/AA5+ and a missile stat TBA(AT4+??). You could even possibly keep the 3 planes and possibly drop the price too. 6x AA5+ shots isn't as overwhelming as 9.... It also means the fighter performs both roles without the need for a second variant in one list.

Thunderbolts don't actually have the exact weapon load so I can't really see an issue with a slightly amended Nephilim fighter load for better balance.