Primaris-Lightning Strike Figther

[Hyrion]

Hei Guys,

 

I wanted to ask for your opinion/experience regarding the Lightning, is he worth a try? Also can anyone plaese tell me where the rules for Agile are written, can't find them.

 

I  fear with only 2 HP he will be to fragile...

 

 

[coloroutofspace]

'Agile' is in IA:Aeronautica. In my opinion, they're worth it, provided that you field at least 2 and don't max out on the options. Obviously, it also depends on what you're facing, but they can fulfill a variety of roles. Sunfury and Phoshpex are good weapon choices. Kraken missiles for me proved to be the Wunderwaffe against enemy vehicles.

 

I field 2 Lightnings together with a Contemptor Mortis.

[Hyrion]

I thought about with the stuff for strafing run and the tank hunter rule... and thats it, maybe a few kraken missiles. so that they are used as tank hunters. one would come at around 210p.

still kind a cheaper than the avenger.

[Flint13]

I've actually been testing them a bit recently, so I have a few games experience with them. I've found they work best as pretty dedicated anti-tank.

 

Like you mentioned, they get pretty expensive once you start adding upgrades. The battle servitor upgrade is good but not 100% essential, but I wouldn't take a Lightning unless you give it the strafing run upgrade. BS5 against ground targets with your limited missile supply is golden. That being said, I've had good results running two lightnings with a single pair of Kraken missiles, strafing run and battle servitors. I rarely got the chance to use a second pair of Kraken missiles if I paid for them, and anything else tended to not get used since I was mainly shooting at armored vehicles. Keep in mind, you only really get a maximum of maybe 3 or 4 turns of shooting with any flyer that doesn't drop into hover mode, so you have to have them complete *exactly* the job they are built for if you expect a return on your points investment. 

 

Hope that helps!

[Moonstalker]

Thank you for your email.  Please accept our apologies for the mistake made with the earlier email.  agile, appears on page 5 of Imperial Armour Aeronautica.  Basically it increases the cover save granted by the Jink Special rule by +1

 

I tried one once via proxying, and I didn't feel like it fit my army.  Given its expense and relative fragility, I also think it's something that is better suited to 2k+ lists.  This is all just my opinion, but...

 

Winning options:

Kraken penetrator heavy missiles: 36 inch meltaguns that don't need half range.  Hard to say no.

Sunfury heavy missiles: Cheapest weapon option, great anti-infantry

Ground-tracking Auguries: Lots of single-use expensive weapons.  The +1 BS will help make sure you don't waste them on misses.

 

Second place:

Autocannon: Some additional firepower for achieving air dominance against other flyers.  I don't think I would take this if you expect to already have air dominance because there are just cheaper ways of getting autocannons.

Phosphex and EM storm bombs: I don't think that you want to be flying close enough to the enemy to bomb them with something this fragile.  The Deadly Cargo rule isn't really that bad, just getting very close to the enemy with this plane is probably a bad idea.

Battle Servitor Control: Could be good, but the kraken missiles are already SO GOOD that I am not sure you actually need them, and if you aren't outfitted for tank hunting then why bother?

 

Never take:

Multilasers: Just don't.

Missile Launchers: There are way, way cheaper ways to get missile launchers.  The rad missiles are an interesting option, and if they were cheaper they might make this plane a pretty good support unit, but for the points?  Nope.

Ramjet diffraction grid: Makes the plane effectively 11/12/11.  I don't think that is enough to really save the plane, so I think the points are better spent on weapons or on other units.

 

I would specialize them for purpose and try to spend as few points as possible.  For instance:

 

Primaris Lightning

-4 Kraken Missiles, Ground-tracking Auguries

195 points

 

That's enough anti-armor screw-you to kill anything short of a very expensive Lord of War in one go (with good enough rolls, you can potentially kill a Felllblade.  It's just not likely).  An excellent counter to a Land Raider or a Spartan that might be pushing 300 to 350 points.  Even if you lose the Lightning the turn after you dump all four missiles into its target, what do you care?  You just traded 200 points for 300.  You're ahead, and whatever was shooting at the plane wasn't shooting at the rest of your army.  I think 4 missiles is the magic number here.  With Missile Barrage you can dump all four in one shooting phase in case you get popped immediately afterwards, and it keeps the price reasonable-ish.

 

Similarly:

Primaris Lightning

-4 Sunfury Missiles

165

 

Even cheaper.  20 man tactical squad giving you problems?  4 S6 AP3 5 inch blasts.  A 250 point squad potentially gutted by a flyer that costs 100 points less.  I don't think it needs the auguries because it will only make a difference of 1 inch of scatter less than 2/3's of the time.  Less than 2/3 because you will not always get a scatter roll over 4 inches.  If you had an extra 10 points kicking around you could throw it in.  If you can fit these things into your list, nullify the enemy's interceptor fire, and make a good trade, I think they're great.  If taking them makes your ground forces too weak to hold up while you wait for reserves, or if you can't keep them safe long enough to dump their missiles, then I don't think you're going to have a good time.

[Flint13]

That's an awesome synopsis, I agree with everything Kitwulfen mentioned.

 

One important thing though, a flyer can only use 2 missiles a turn, correct? That isn't a *huge* deal, but you do need to take into account for those 4 Sunfury pie plates, that it will take you two turns to deliver the entire payload. Positioning for maximum carnage without overshooting your target is a must!

[Moonstalker]

That's an awesome synopsis, I agree with everything Kitwulfen mentioned.

 

One important thing though, a flyer can only use 2 missiles a turn, correct? That isn't a *huge* deal, but you do need to take into account for those 4 Sunfury pie plates, that it will take you two turns to deliver the entire payload. Positioning for maximum carnage without overshooting your target is a must!

 

Primaris Lightning has the Missile Barrage special rule (see page 165 of Massacre).  It allows it to fire four missiles per turn.

[coloroutofspace]

...aaand you can take them as a LoW choice if you really want to keep your FA slots. Heresy games only though.

[Flint13]

 

That's an awesome synopsis, I agree with everything Kitwulfen mentioned.

 

One important thing though, a flyer can only use 2 missiles a turn, correct? That isn't a *huge* deal, but you do need to take into account for those 4 Sunfury pie plates, that it will take you two turns to deliver the entire payload. Positioning for maximum carnage without overshooting your target is a must!

 

Primaris Lightning has the Missile Barrage special rule (see page 165 of Massacre).  It allows it to fire four missiles per turn.

Nice! Thanks, I totally missed that.

 

What could possibly be worth hitting with all four missiles though? Sunfury or Krakens...

[Sanct]

I'd argue that phosphex clusters are as good as sunfury missiles.  The buried 'bomb cluster' rule makes them better at killing marines than the sunfury.  (The bomb cluster is also on p.165 - drop up to as many bombs in a bombing run as you have.)  A 175 point lightning with 2 clusters can drop 2 x2 barrage blasts at standard phosphex rules. (d6" scatter, move 2" to cover more) but at a much more useful ap2.  Then the lascannon can shoot something else.

Gets Hot vs Deadly Cargo is a wash.  Deadly cargo makes a fragile model more fragile to the first lost hp but gets hot can blow the lightning out the sky without the enemy shooting at it.

 

I'd also argue missile launchers in a 30k setting.  They're good if you knew your enemy doesn't have decent AA so the lightning might stick around. At 200 points for battle servitors and 2 twin-linked missile launchers you perform well alround for the entire of the game.

 

The biggest drawback is it's fragility which affects the choices.  Kit tends to a front-loaded damage with his since he doesn't expect it to stay around but I prefer something with more lasting effect. I also don't go for kraken as anything I want to use kraken against has usually done it's job by the time the lightning arrives.

[Hyaenidae]

 

 

That's an awesome synopsis, I agree with everything Kitwulfen mentioned.

 

One important thing though, a flyer can only use 2 missiles a turn, correct? That isn't a *huge* deal, but you do need to take into account for those 4 Sunfury pie plates, that it will take you two turns to deliver the entire payload. Positioning for maximum carnage without overshooting your target is a must!

 

Primaris Lightning has the Missile Barrage special rule (see page 165 of Massacre).  It allows it to fire four missiles per turn.

Nice! Thanks, I totally missed that.

 

What could possibly be worth hitting with all four missiles though? Sunfury or Krakens...

 

Titans. And knights, soon.

[Moonstalker]

With good spacing, you won't catch terribly many marines in a single 5 inch template.  Maybe 4 or 5.  Maybe less.  So, using all four of them and with a little co-operation from the dice you ought to be able to kill most of a 20 man squad - and not just of tactical marines.  I'd really enjoy hitting assault marines with them, since they're the most expensive, but Breachers or Tacticals are good, too.  Given the opportunity, I'd drop all 4 into a 20 man squad all at once without any regrets.  You're gutting a scoring unit and getting a good value point exchange (assuming that this is the only usage you get out of the fighter).  Unless their spacing was really, really bad.  If all 20 were in base to base and I could get 10 wounds off one blast marker, I wouldn't waste the extra missiles.

 

Four Krakens should be enough to nail a Spartan or Land Raider in one volley.  It's about as much of a sure thing as you can expect without using a D weapon on them.  The chances with a salvo of only 2 aren't quite as good.  It's hard to say whether or not the LR/SPartan will have delivered its cargo already, that'd depend on the exact circumstances of the game.  But IMO, killing the vehicle, depriving your opponent of its firepower and the mobility it offers his terminators or whatever if he needs to reposition him, that is valuable in itself.  Vs a Lord of War, I think it's even more reasonable to throw everything you've got at it.  You're still using a cheaper unit to kill (or heavily damage?) a more expensive one.  In my personal cost/benefit evaluation of it, I'd rather use the missiles up even if it means overkill, than let something live when I could have killed it if I had just committed more shots.  I don't know that I would use them on a Knight as heathens suggests.  It would depend on the situation on the ground.  Maybe bluff your opponent into thinking you're gonna drop the missiles on him to get him to Ion Shield in the fighter's direction, then just poking him with the lascannon while you shoot him from another angle with different anti-tank.  Trying to straight trade through the Ion Shield is a little too risky for me.  Between misses, saves, and rolling to pen, you might be down to just 1 roll on the table.  Still a 50% chance of taking 2-4 hull points, but I would look at being tricky before trying to brute force that one.

 

I think the best use of the plane is explained in the name: STRIKE fighter.  Get in, deliver your weapons package, get out.  Fight for air dominance if you have to.

 

 

Re: Phosphex, I just don't have a whole lot of faith in it.  AP2 is great, barrage is especially nice for denying cover, poisoned and crawling fire, all great.  I just think getting them dropped is difficult and dangerous (not really from deadly cargo, just from how close you'll get to the enemy), and they're only 3 inch blasts.  They can be useful, but I think they're second-tier just because of the kind of drawbacks they've got.  Yes, Sunfury could destroy your plane before the enemy even shoots at it.  That'd be some really awful luck.  But the chances of it aren't terribly high, and the other two missiles should still fire (IIRC).  Not a total loss.

 

I just think the missile launcher is too expensive.  It's 5x the price you would pay to give it to a heavy support marine.  I know it's not an apples to apples comparison, but if you want a missile launcher there are IMO better ways to get one.  There are no other ways to get kraken and sunfury.

[depthcharge12]

I'm tempted to paint one up like a Stuka or Messcherschmitt ;)

 

 

When it does a strafing run I'll have to do the obligatory air horn sound: "wheeeeeeeeeerrrrrr....."

 

 

That's the inner kid coming out when I play with my plastic soldier dudes

[Sanct]

With crawling fire phosphex clusters becomes excellent - moving the blast after the scatter makes a huge difference to the number of hits I get.  That and ap2 make it as good as sunfury because it will gut any non-vehicle unit i want. Even MC's.

 

Bombing runs and getting close aren't a problem for me.  Getting the lightning on the table is (intercepting mortis BAHH!).  

I put my dedicated AT to shoot turn 1 but that is an army build/anti lightning point rather than an anti kraken point.  Kraken's are great but they are not for me.

[Hyrion]

Well for the point of painting it like a ju-87, i'm going as far as using another model as long as i'm not playing at a GW-Store.

Thought about using this:

 

http://www.touristinformationcentres.net/webshop/images/webshop/300/product/large/Terminator-2-Aerial-Hunter-Killer-1-32-Scale-Model-Kit88.jpg

 

You know another Pattern another Forgeworld... just needs 2 Lascannons and 4-6 Rockets