Crusade of Fire new flyer upgrades

[ianj253]

Hey all, don't know how many of you have seen the new Crusade of Fire campaign book as it just came out. I picked it up sunday and was wondering if anyone thought the BA flyer ace upgrade was worth taking? It seems good but 1/3 of the time its useless and at 50 pts its a big investment.

[Sokhar]

Might help if you told the rest of us (who don't have the book) what the heck it does.

[ianj253]

oh yeah I was going to post it but wasn't sure if it was allowed

[Sokhar]

You don't want to post everything word for word with exact point costs listed for each upgrade, but there's no issue with talking about the rules and such.

[ianj253]

Ah all right, well you upgrade any of your flyers to ace flyers for 50 points. The upgrade gives you a d3 roll on a chart thats like the warlord traits chart. Each faction has it's own ace fighter chart. The BA one is something like this.

 

1-2: +2 for dogfight engagement (dogfights are a new way to have flyers fight)

3-4: Can turn 180 degrees each turn instead of 90

5-6: Once per game ability that allows all blood angels units with 12 inches to re roll misses for shooting and combat for a turn.

 

The campaign book said the ace fighter upgrade can be taken in any 40k game, but if you want to use the new dogfighting rules that has to be agreed on. So like i said first rule is pretty much useless but other too are quite good. Not entirely sure its worth a 50 pt gamble though.

[Sokhar]

Particularly given not knowing how dogfighting rules work, I'd pass. The minimum move distance is usually a greater issue for maneuvering flyers around on the table for me, as opposed to the turn. And the Raven can always drop into hover if you're just absolutely screwed without being able to turn further. As for re-rolls, not bad, but Prescience is already widely available. Don't see a sense in dropping 50 points on any of those options.

[Morticon]

Can you tell us how dogfighting works?

[I am Legion]

It's a bunch of charts. You need the book to read all the options. its basically rock, paper sciccors 3 times, but seeing as there are so many flyers hitting the table, the extra victory point is awesome.

 

And the upgrade is worth it IMO. Our flyers are the best as it is ><_<

[ianj253]

Like legion noted its bit like rock paper scissors. There's three phases, but first you have to initiate a dogfight at the end of your movement phase. You and your opponent roll off and if you roll higher a dog fight is initiated. Then there are 3 phases: The pursuit, Lock on, and Destroy. Each phase has a table for both attacker and defender. You each secretly choose one of the options. Outcomes are based how your choices match up (rock, paper, scissors element) and allow you to shoot at your opponent, him to shoot at you, and a few other options. If you shoot down an enemy flyer while dogfighting you also gain an additional VP.

 

Outside of dogfighting and the Ace upgrades There's also maneuvers flyers can perform if they pass a characteristic test. For instance one of the BA maneuvers is called the black rage. After passing your characteristic test it allows you to shoot ALL weapons, regardless of how far you moved, but the only catch is it must fire at whatever the closest unit is. I'd love to use it and unload into fateweaver with the full loadout and all 4 bloodstrikes.

[Xenith]

After passing your characteristic test it allows you to shoot ALL weapons, regardless of how far you moved, but the only catch is it must fire at whatever the closest unit is. I'd love to use it and unload into fateweaver with the full loadout and all 4 bloodstrikes.

 

That's not that great, really. I guess if you take the Hurricane bolter upgrade, it lets you fire 3 more weapons than you could normally, but if you dont take bolters, you have 6 weapons, of which you can normally fire 4 (only being allowed to fire 2 missiles/turn).

 

Then it can only really be used once, as once the missiles are gone, theyre gone, then youre down to 2-4 weapons, all of which you can shoot normally.

 

It would be funny, though. Very orky.

 

Looking at the table:

 

1-2: +2 for dogfight engagement (dogfights are a new way to have flyers fight)

+2 to a roll that may%2

[DominicJ]

No lizards or Spock?

[Morticon]

That's not that great, really. I guess if you take the Hurricane bolter upgrade, it lets you fire 3 more weapons than you could normally, but if you dont take bolters, you have 6 weapons, of which you can normally fire 4 (only being allowed to fire 2 missiles/turn).

 

Xenith,

 

remember that with the wording of PotMS as it is currently, it allows us to fire an additional BS missile.

[Xenith]

That's not that great, really. I guess if you take the Hurricane bolter upgrade, it lets you fire 3 more weapons than you could normally, but if you dont take bolters, you have 6 weapons, of which you can normally fire 4 (only being allowed to fire 2 missiles/turn).

 

Xenith,

 

remember that with the wording of PotMS as it is currently, it allows us to fire an additional BS missile.

 

Cool, that just makes the 'flyer trait' more pointless.

[mmaarrkk]

It does, for the 50 pt upgrade I do not see the point, just roll dice at their flyers the normal way!

[ianj253]

The maneuvers I listed can be used by all flyers. You don't need the Ace upgrade to use them. The other maneuver BA's have can be used at the start of the movement phase. It allows them to move the flyer 2D6x3 in any direction and allows you to place the flyer facing how you want.You then move as normal. Orks have the best ability in my opinion, they sacrifice 1 HP but cause an enemy flyer D3 penetrating hits.