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I just got an idea to tie Aeronautica Imperialis: the Horus Heresy with an actual Age of Darkness 30k game proper, wanted to run it by you guys. We've been playing a lot of AI, it's fun, fast, yet has a lot of depth to it, and I just took a look at the Astartes planes and they're actually really good. Yes, I know, PLASTIC THUNDERHAWKS, but guess what, they're genuinely competitive imho against all the other Bombers in the game, and they offer a different playstyle. So what do I mean by Astartes planes being really good? Well, unlike other factions imho, they're so balanced that there are no clear winners or losers in the Astartes air force; I believe you can pick your Astartes Fighters and Bombers based on looks alone, just remember boys before toys and leave upgrades for spare points at the end, and you'd got a competitive list with its own strategy. To contrast, the Tau Aeronautica list that I've been playing since the start, there's clearly 1 best plane for its points (it's the Tiger Shark with the Railguns/Lascannon equivalents). There's a lot of potential interest in our meta (i.e. everyone wants an excuse to buy a Plastic Thunderhawk or 2) and I think it meaningfully ties with AoD/30k. Here's my idea: before a major AoD/30k game, we play a AI:HH game, the winner of which will get Initiative/starting turn for the actual AoD/30k game. The game mechanic idea is this: HH ver. 1.0, 6th and 7th ed (actually most editions of 40k), 1st turn advantage counts for a lot, and it's just the luck of a dice roll instead of actual strategic considerations. If we turn that into something we gotta earn, that'd be kinda fun. But isn't 1st turn advantage very important in AI? Not at all, if anything, it's whoever shoots 1st in Turn 2 (when our little Epic-scale planes finally get within range of each other) matters, and then we still roll for initiative every subsequent turn. In HH ver. 2.0, 1st turn advantage is mitigated slightly with Reactions, but can still count for quite a bit. The narrative idea is as follows. Before hell on Earth, it's war in the Heavens, the opposing Legions are fighting for aerial superiority. They're trying to clear the air space for the ground troops, so whoever wins the aerial battle kinda gives that 1st turn advantage to the Brothers on the ground. It's like they're clearing the landing zone or whatever. TL;DR - what do you think of using a game of AI:HH to determine 1st turn initiative in AoD/30k please? Not married to the idea. Is it meaningful? Is it too big an advantage or disadvantage? Is it not enough to warrant a 30 to 45-minute game of AI:HH? Maybe not for every game, but perhaps like a major 2 vs. 2 battle or something, I dunno. Thanks in advance for your ideas.

As the title says there's an Aeronautica Imperialis Tournament at Warhammer World in Nottingham in January, myself and a couple of friends are going to be heading up for it and I was wondering if any of you fine fellows will be there too? Ticket Link here Rules Pack here It's going to be my first AI Tournament although I've played in plenty of other tournaments for other systems, does anyone have any tips as far as competitive AI goes and if there's much of a "meta" to be aware of? Rik

Saw this on WarCom, thought it was one of the best schemes in the article and warranted reposting here: