Editing Nephilim Jetfighter (section)

==Tabletop Analysis==
The Nephilim and Dark Talon <s> are </s> were rather unpopular choices for a Space Marine army, but their weaknesses have kinda been blown out of proportion. They're not bad, they're just overpriced and [[overcosted]] for what they can bring. 7th edition gave them more buffs, so they certainly aren't bad, more in the realm of iffy.

Both flyers [[Butthurt|suffered the sin]] of being the second "true" flyers out of the gate in the 6th Edition: The Heldrake that preceded it was rapetastically awesome (until the 7th ed FAQ) showing that the design team were still trying to figure out how these newfangled rules work. It was only after "Death from the Skies" came out that pre-existing Storm-talons/ravens became proper flyers as opposed to fast skimmers and they '''already''' had enough firepower to get by in the 6th edition environment, they only really needed ''(and received)'' the "flyer" rule to be added to them.

Anyway, onto your army. For 170 pts you get a TL Heavy Bolter, six S7 AP3 missiles with Missile Lock, and an Avenger Mega Bolter. The only problem so far is this isn't the "real" AMB, it's a stripped-down AP4 version. For 5 points you can swap it for a TL Lascannon.

The Nephilim is great against skimmers and other light tanks, but an 175 point investment that can't kill AV14 and takes three or four turns to kill AV12 is just too iffy for most players. That's only [[Rage|25 points less]] than a [[Stormraven]] with the same lascannon + heavy bolter loadout. But the raven has far better missiles, +1 AV all round, ceramite plating, power of the machine spirit also has a transport capacity and can carry dreadnoughts.

However, with the advent of the Death from the Skies supplement and the assignment of flyers into set roles, the Nephilim got a buff, mostly as a side effect when you compare it to what happened to other flyers:

Attack Flyers and Bombers no longer have access to the Skyfire rule by default, meaning the Nephilim has little to fear from more heavily armed Stormravens or Stormtalons. Despite being comparatively undergunned for a "Fighter", the ability to immobilise enemy vehicles makes it much more of a threat against its primary target ''(other Flyers)'' It also has more AV & HP than most other Fighters, matched only by the Stormfang Gunship, but the Nephilim is also FAR more maneuverable than the Wolf-interceptor, so does better in a dogfight and turns more easily on the tabletop.

Finally, despite the fact that Fighter craft are now primarily intended for use vs other Flyers, suffering -1 BS when shooting ground targets, the Nephilim keeps the ''Strafing Run'' rule so it gains +1 BS right back again. Meaning it hasn't lost much of its function against ground targets like all other Fighters did with the move into set roles. Whatever that means, because it's guns weren't exactly shattering worlds in the first place.

Now 8th edition: Firstly, it's hell of a lot easier to run this thing as most detachments have at least 2 Flyer slots, secondly, this thing turned from possibly one of the worst Flyers in the game to a really scary unit. Why? All of its weapons got an upgrade in some way; the Blacksword Missiles are now good against 2+ save stuff due to how AP works in this edition and they're no longer finite, the Avenger Mega Bolter went up to 10 shots at Strength 6 AP-1 essentially making it an Assault Cannon with 10 shots and the Twin Heavy Bolter and Twin Lascannon now gain double shots because of 8th edition again. This thing reunites Space Marines, Flyers and Dakka together. Cool.

===Dark Talon===
As for the Dark Talon, it's far harder to directly compare to any other flyer since nothing else performs a similar role. Dropping your opponent's Initiative and Weapon Skill by 3 is always hilarious, doubly so when you drop a Blind test on his snipers immediately afterwards, but for 160 points the fact it has only one bomb and the lack of AP wasn't doing it any favors. But that was 6th ed; this is 7th ed where it drops a '''S10 AP2 Blast''' that has a 1 in 6 chance of becoming a '''Destroyer Vortex'''. Fucking hell YES!

In 8th edition this was changed again but only because Blast templates no longer exist; it gets D3 shots, S:10 AP:-3 D:3, and anything that takes an unsaved wound has a 2 in 3 chance to suffer D3 additional ''mortal wounds''. Stasis bomb also got tweaked; once per game, pick an enemy unit you flew over, and roll a D6 for ''each'' model. On a 4+ that model takes a mortal wound. [[Rape|Sensing a pattern here.]] Then there's 24 Hurricane Bolter shots at rapid fire range. That is even more sexy than before.