What would a fantasy army do to combat flyers if used in 40k?

[Fear is the mind killer]

Hi everyone. I'm currently painting up a lizardman army to use in 40k, and I could really use some advice regarding the new Big Scary Thing in 40k; flyers. Basically I'm looking at my army list which is quite saurus-heavy (and plays a lot like orks for the most part), and I've realised that there isn't really anything in place that can deal with flyers. In fact there isn't really anything that can deal with flyers in the codex itself. Therefore I've come up with a few ways of how a magical army could possibly deal with them and would like some feedback:

1. Create a psychic power which blocks firepower from zooming flyers against all targets within 12" of the caster. This would be explained as creating a cloud that conceals troops on the ground from enemies high up in the sky, and would cost 1 warp charge point.

2. Similarly to 1, if all enemy troops on the ground are defeated and there is a psyker still alive in the lizardmen army, the lizardmen player wins due to creating mist that conceals ground units from flying units.

3. Allow magical weapons the option of being thrown 12" with the skyfire rule as one of their possible upgrades.

4. Allow ranged weapons to be given enchanted ammunition which glances on a 6 and has the skyfire rule.

5. Something else that I haven't thought of yet.

In case anyone's wondering, the rules so far are here: http://fandexes.wordpress.com/tag/wa...ies-lizardmen/

[yabbadabba]

Why not use the Terradons like the Flyers in Avatar?

Another one is magic affecting the flyers - so lightning bolts for Skyfire, Mist to give cover saves or add 6" onto the range of any air to ground shooting etc.

[Fear is the mind killer]

Well I could use the terradons, except that their ranged attacks are still S 3 (albeit Poisoned (3+)) which cannot damage any vehicle let alone the increasing number of flyers with front armour 12 etc. I've set up some conversion rules used for the 2 chaos daemons books and it seems that terradons are jetbike equivalents (though I've slightly altered that so that they're not able to turbo boost but they can make an assault move even when out of range like an eldar jetbike).

It seems that WHFB Conversion armies suffer from 2 problems:

1. They can't deal with flyers. One flyer maybe if they get lucky with magic, but not multiple flyers.

2. The shooting units are so underpowered there seems little point in taking them. This is especially true with Lizardmen as skinks are T 2, and although their poisoned weapons are good, they struggle to get into range with their javelins/blowpipes.

Currently this is making me lean towards allowing ranged units the option of purchasing enchanted ammunition. This grants the Armourbane and Skyfire rules to a ranged unit's weapon. They can choose to fire normal ammunition instead if they prefer.

[BigRob]

Be pretty screwed?

Go and google up some of the wars/colonial exploits of the interwar years when european armies used aircraft against tribesmen in places like Africa. Then look at the effect of airsupport on modern day insurgents in places like Afghan/Libya/Syria where modern fighters are used against poorly armed rebels. Even have a browse of WW2 and the meaning of air superiority.

Aircraft are a game changer and apart from magic and a handful of flying monsters, most WFB armies would be dead against a force of 40K soldiers with aircraft. Of course, even without aircraft they would be suffering badly........

Of course, If your using Lizardmen as a proxy for something like Orks, then its simply a case of using the rules orks have for AA guns and modeling it as a Engine of the Gods style prism cannon

[Fear is the mind killer]

I do intend to have the equivalent of an aegis defence line including an aa gun, modelled like a gyroscope if I can figure out a way to make something like that. I don't think that a single aegis line would be much good against multiple aircraft though.

I'm sort of using lizardmen as the descendants of the old ones as suggested in the back of the old necron dex. The codex mentioned changing the lizardmen book into 40k so that's what I did. I'm not using the actual ork codex, that was just to give an example of how the army plays.

Against a medieval army and primitive opponents, aircraft would easily dominate, but against a magical army there ought to be some way that they would deal with aircraft rather than just be bombed to bits like a reenactment of starship troopers.

[danny-d-b]

The same way I deal with anything big and scary- cannons
if that fails volly gun them down!

[Antipathy]

What about that EotG aura damage? Or the old EotG rules from Lustria Campaign with the Comet/Stone Thrower?

Coatl?

[Fear is the mind killer]

EotG aura damage? I don't get the reference.

Now a coatl is an interesting idea, but I'm trying to think of a generic rule for all WHFB armies that they can use. There's a risk when countering flyers with your own flyers that the game rests too much on which flyers win.

EDIT: So far I'm leaning towards allowing shooty units to purchase special enachnated ammunition. +1pt/model for 12" range, +2pts/model for longer ranged weapons. Enchanted arrows/bullets are S6 and always have the Skyfire rule (so they can be used against medium/light tanks as well as normal troops but not reliably).

[Antipathy]

One of the Engine of the gods abilities is to do some damage to all enemies within x range iirc?

[Lord Inquisitor]

Dragons. That is all you need.

(Although the Storm Banner should do the trick - is that the sound of zooming fliers crashing?)

[Fear is the mind killer]

The engine of the gods has a 12" range, but because it doesn't roll to hit I think that it can't be used against flyers.

I suppose I could find some monstrous creatures that are suitable for flying-only and let them be taken by all WHFB armies. Dragons would have to be jump monstrous creatures as like most monstrous creatures with wings they're quite happy to walk about mauling stuff. Are there any WHFB monsters that are typically severely hampered when it comes to walking but are great at flying that I can turn into the equivalent of a tyranid harridan?

Liking the storm banner idea. I'd need to look further into how they work as they're not in the lizardmen book. The trick with the army relying on one banner to keep it safe is that it can make the game too focussed on whether this one item is still on the table. There's also the danger of the protection being too strong and making flyers useless when this banner is taken.

EDIT: Can anyone point me in the direction of where I can find the storm banner rules?

[warboss6820]

make things with the fly rule able to engage them in combat?

[Fear is the mind killer]

Things with the fly rule tend to translate as either jump infantry or jetbikes.

There don't appear to be any monsters from warhammer forge that could be translated as some sort of fast skimmer/flyer, so what could be done is to allow elementals to be fielded as flyer equivalents. The Transformation of Kadon power currently unlocks 3 monstrous creatures in the heavy support section if it is taken in an army, so one possibility is to extend this idea and enable lesser elementals (maybe about the size of an ogryn with a squad size 1-5) to be taken if a certain lore of magic is included in an army. Lesser elementals could have their abilities and profiles based on certain spells, so if the lore of heavens is taken then the army could have a lightning elemental which could be treated as a flyer (since it is ultra-fast and cannot touch the ground) which has the Chain Lightning power. A different elemental that could be taken is the wind elemental with the Wind Blast power which could also act as a flyer although this would be a lot less effective against flyers. Currently I can only find 2 models of wind elementals: http://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStor...sku-down/02778 & http://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStor...sku-down/02252 but I reckon there are probably more elemental minis out there that would be suitable or failing that I could make some out of green stuff.

[Antipathy]

A wyvern has only two legs. Whether that makes it an Ostritch or Chicken, I don't know.

[Void Reaper]

I have nothing substantive to add to this discussion RE:Flyers, but just wanna say how much I like the idea of a Lizardmen 40k army. Any pics?

[red_zebra_ve]

From WHFB 5th (when monster could fly high):
High Magic spell (Lizardmen could use High Magic): Storm - Grounds all fliers
Common Magic weapon: Naloer's flying arrow: against flying high creatures, had a to hit bonus (seeking missile?), D6 impacts, S 10
The already mentioned Storm Banner: Grounds fliers in a random direction
Magic object: Chotek's bird (Lizardmen special): Crash fliers, 1d3 wounds.
Storm orb: flying high creatures cannot descend to attack.
There is Skaven artifact that hit with S6 AND banish high fliers from the battlefield. . . you do not want to use filthy skaven things :-)

[cuda1179]

I've liked the idea of a Fantasy Lizardmen army since the 3rd Edition Necron Codex suggested doing it. (seriously, it states in in the back of the book).

Anyways, here is what I thought up to help you:
1. Giant Terradons with some kind of howda with a ranged weapon. If Harpies can attack fliers, so can Lizardmen Terrandons.
2. Some kind of larger anti-aircraft magic weapon mounted on the back of one of those Triceratops looking creatures (sorry, forgot the name). You can use the rules for either a squigoth or a flakka-truck if you wanted.
3. Massed archery fire. If small birds can down a modern aircraft a couple hundred arrows should have a decent chance too.

[Fear is the mind killer]

Thanks for the feedback guys, but I think I've since found a solution that not only resolves the issue for lizardmen, but also for any other WHFB army that I get round to converting. I thought that perhaps elementals were the way to go, so I treated myself to the monstrous arcanum book as an anniversary present, expecting the rules on elementals to provide some guidance on creating some sort of lesser elementals that could act as flyers so that all whfb armies could take them down. What the book doesn't mention is that on the very last page there is a massive chart listing what monsters are appropriate for all whfb armies, saying that these rules are optional and that if used certain monsters are much rarer (limit of 1 per army) whereas others can ignore the bound monster limit and quite a few monsters still use the normal bound monster limit. On this chart it mentions that dragons are 'kinship' with all armies, so they can ignore the bound monster limit and be taken by every army. So the way I see it is that I'll use the kinship parts of the chart as a guide to what I can take in my lizardmen army, and this means that I now have dragons. The way I see it is that dragons are the ideal monstrous flyer as they have decent armour and can be taken by every army plus they look cool, are fluffy and can be ridden by minor wizards to give them some ranged attacks which are quite handy now that monstrous flyers have the skyfire rule courtesy of the rulebook faq.

I have painted up a mage-priest, carnosaur, 20 saurus warriors and half-painted some cavalry. Time to paint has been somewhat limited by the arrival of a new baby and my starting an accountancy course, as well as wanting to sort out the latest changes to the codex such as how magic weapons work before I decide on what to have in my army and thus what to paint. I shall post a link to the new rules and pictures when the new rules are sorted. The original rules were derived from looking at how the whfb daemons translated into 40k and doing the same to lizardmen. Unfortunately this process led to everything being a bit too cheap and monstrous creatures having too many attacks, so it got hammered regarding these issues when I posted it up on the 40k facebook group when discussing what bases I should use for them. The bulk of the issues have now been dealt with. I'm just waiting for my best mate to get back to me regarding the proposed new system for magic weapons/armour and I'll get back here with pics and rules.

P.S. Yes I've wanted 40k lizardmen since the necron dex as well. Something about rare armies really appeals to me, probably after spending so many years bouncing off power armour.

[innerwolf]

I really liked the imagery of Avatar's Banshee riders swarming the Marine flyers, or nose-diving for the rider to shoot a huge arrow with added momentum at their cockpits.

If you aren't afraid of slightly changing WFB Lizardmen fluff (I can't see why you would, it's not like W40K Lizardmen have to be exacly the same as the Fantasy army) you could have specially spawned (maybe weaker in combat but with a ballistic skill of 3) Saurus warriors riding Terradons, sporting huge javelins. Their shooting would be St 5 assault 2, short ranged and with Skyfire.
You got there a pretty nice anti-flyer unit, using their jetbike mobility to move behind flyers and shoot at their rear.

[Fear is the mind killer]

I haven't added any pics of the lizardmen just yet, but I've now updated the dex: http://fandexes.wordpress.com/2012/0...a-codex-slann/ and it now has dragons to take down flyers which can also have ranged attacks by adding a psyker in the saddle. Opinions on the dex would be most welcome.

EDIT: Okay I've got some pics of what I've got so far. I've painted up nearly half of my army so far, but need to know what the final codex is going to be like before I can finish making the army, e.g. which colour to paint my dragon, whether to put a rider in the saddle etc.