Tactics Tuesday: Dealing with Flyers in Firefight Part One

Joe Neet, our resident Firefight tactical genius, is back for another installment of Tactics Tuesday. Today, he's got part one of his article on dealing with those pesky flyers!

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s……….an Enforcer Persecutor Bomber! Flyers are becoming the big bad wolf of Firefight. Their mobility, firepower and presence on the battlefield can make bringing them down quite the task.

To beat your enemy, you need to understand what they can do. So let’s take a look at what these terrors of the sky are capable of. Here are the key points that make flyers so impressive:

• High Speed Values (ranging between 12-18 inches)
• Difficult to Damage (-1 to shoot at and decent armor)
• Superb Firepower
• Can’t be engaged
• Strafing Run (Action specific to Flyers)

Now we know that flyers are extremely maneuverable (going up to 36’’ on a double move for some), are very hard to damage and have frightening firepower, this must make them unbeatable right? Wrong! Every faction has tools to deal with the flying menace, but some are better than others.

List Creation

The first step in combating flyers is to figure out what your army has to take them out. This can be units of heavy weapons, other flyers, or other vehicles. Here is a quick run-down of some units for each faction that would be good inclusions in your list:

Asterians: Weapon Drones, Chroma Force Platform, Spectra Escort Gunship and Hidden Strike Assassin Drone

Enforcers: Heavy Weapon Enforcers, Strider, Accuser Interceptor, and Persecutor Bomber

Forge Fathers: Stormrage Heavy Weapon Veterans, Hammerfist Drop Squad, Hultr Half-track, Iron Ancestor, Sturnhammer Battle Tank, and Jotuun Weapons Platform

The GCPS: Marine & Veteran Heavy Weapons Squad, Strider, TAD-65 Hornet Dropship, Lancer Battle Tank, and Major Loren Chard (more on this one later)

Marauders: Orc Ripper Suits, Hulk, Goblin Guntrak, Stuntbot

Plague: TAD-65 Hornet Dropship, and Lancer Battle Tank

Veer-myn: Tunneler, Rumbler Weapon Platform (*Veer-myn also have access to cheap unit weapons with high AP, for example: Heavy Ray Gun (AP 4))

When choosing your army, these units will be your answers to opposing flyers. This does not mean you have to take as many as possible, since you will play against some opponents that are running more infantry or other vehicles that these units may not be the best at dealing with.

Deployment

Once you have your list set, it’s time to make it all happen on the table. Deploying your army can be tricky against flyers, they don’t setup on the table like a normal unit so it’s not always clear where they will end up.

Terrain will also be key for helping keep your units alive. While flyers ignore terrain for sight, and your units can not provide cover for being shot by a flyer. However, when firing into defensible terrain or fortified terrain they will still suffer the penalties. This will be easier in some scenarios (Take Back the Town) as your table may have more areas of defensible or fortified terrain.

Additional try not to bunch together too much as you will give room for your opponent to maneuver their flyers with little resistance. Being clumped up will also increase the choices that the enemy will have in performing the Strafing Run action. When your units are more spread out this may force your opponent in having to choose between bad positioning to shoot a key unit, or settling for a less appealing target but better positioning for later turns.

Make sure you come back to the Mantic Blog next week for part two of Joe's article on flyers in Firefight. In the meantime, if you've been inspired to take your own flyer for a spin, check out the Enforcer Reserve Force or Enforcer Mega Force, which both include the Accuser Interceptor.