Thoughts on Air Support?

[Wassa]

Has anyone had any success with any of the Astra Militarum Air Support?

 

For example, Valkyrie, Vendetta, Vulture, and then the sky fortresses Marauder Bomber and Marauder Destroyer, and the several others.

 

 

I was thinking a Vulture with the Twin Punisher gatling guns could be brutal if you fly it behind enemy lines and park it next to some enemy characters.

May be a bit overkill though.

 

 

Also the Marauder bombs, it says we can drop these at the end of the movement phase over any unit it flies over.

They don't have a weapon profile, and it's not the shooting phase, so I guess we can target characters with them?

[Mordian Glory]

I have started using 2x Valkyries in my armies and they are really nice. I use mine to kill infantry by equipping them with multilaser, 2x Rocket Pods and 2x Heavy Bolters. I tend to find that  for the first turn or 2, when they are in fly mode, they dont do a lot of damage due to the -1 to hit with most of weapons. However, this is a blessing in disguise as my opponents get lulled into a false sense of security. Then I drop them into Hover mode and unleash hell. Thanks to the "Roving Gunship" they hit on 3s which makes a big difference.

 

You can also put infantry inside the valkyrie, so when you drop down into hoover mode you can jump out with melta or plasma squads and do even more damage :) 

[Wassa]

Ah I didn't see that it has Roving Gunship, that must have been added between index and codex!

 

It's a shame the Vendetta hasn't been updated with it though.

[Feral_80]

I think Valkyries are the only real way to make our melee specialists, which are good but always situational (including the perhaps lightly overvalued Bullgryns), effective: otherwise, they will never have the mobility to really make the difference. It is also the only way to use the vastly overcosted meltagun-squads to some effect.

 

The high pts cost of the Valkyries limits and balances the use we can make of e.g. Bullgryns and Crusaders. Compared to a Chimera, they have much greater mobility (invaluable), higher survivability, and generally more firepower. But that probably depends on the fact that both the Chimera and the Taurox also seem overcosted. Just compare all of these with the evil evil Wave Serpent...

 

I've used the Vendetta and the Vulture once each. Both are fun, but the former is not that effective for its cost unless you use it as a static tank (sad); the latter can be very effective against a horde, but not so much against power armour. You'd be surprised to see how little actual casualties you end up inflicting on an armoured/in cover target.

 

Never even dared considering to use the hugely-expensive, hell-to-assemble, impossible-to-transport bombers, as cool as they might look, nor any other FW plane.

 

Side note: the Valkyrie itself is also a nightmare to transport, unless you did not glue the wings. That effectively limits its usability as well - let us remember this game must take into consideration practical limits, beyond pts costs, rules, and purely theoretical tactics.

[duz_]

As the others have said the Valk is fairly decent at anti infantry + transport duties this edition. The Vendetta until it gets roving gunship is over priced. And yes avoid gluing the wings in! Its still a pain to transport without them! ;)

 

I've heard promising things about the Vulture.

 

Annoyingly the price bumped the other flyers just have I bought some :ermm:

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

Good to hear the Valkyrie is decent this edition. I’ve had one for quite a while and it looks cool in =][= colours but it’s sat on a shelf 90% of the time because in 7th it was rather underwhelming. I haven’t used it in 8th yet but need to.

 

Delivering a bunch of crusaders with a priest sounds fun.

[FallenSoldiers]

I’m really interested in trying out a bare bones Vulture with dual Punisher cannons. I’m gonna try to Proxy a Valk as one soon

[Tirak]

I have made extensive use of air support in my armies, I took 4 guard flyers to Adepticon and came out pretty much 50/50, though the two games I lost outright were against the LVO Dark Reaper list.

 

Valks are useless in a gunship role, if you're bringing them for that, you should have brought Vultures as a Vulture doesn't need to lose its -1 to hit and still be accurate. The Punisher Vulture is the most cost effective aircraft we have and at only 10 points more expensive than a Punisher Russ, it's our most survivable anti horde. Consistently dealing 40 shots even when on overwatch and limited as to what can charge it and impossible to lock down, the Punisher Vulture is an amazing piece of kit that can easily slot into nearly any army. I highly recommend running them in pairs. They struggle against 2+ infantry, but against power armor 3+ they deal more than enough shots to whittle away the small MSU squads that are the norm, and concentrated work can deal handily with the large Blood Angels squads.

 

Vendettas are worse than Valks, they fall under the never use category, so never use them.

 

The rest of our air support is very poor unfortunately. Prior to Chapter Approved the Thunderbolt was a very powerful respectable unit able to bring a lot of firepower to the fight and was fairly durable. After chapter approved it went up to 335 points to field an anti tank version, and is just too stupidly expensive to work with. The Lightning, while more affordable, is in a similar predicament. The lack of doctrines applying to them, save for the Elysian Drop Troops doctrine, means that their shooting is mediocre, especially with how expensive their weapons are. You sadly will not be served well by taking any of our other aircraft because at the end of the day, a tank will get you further.

 

If you do commit to aircraft, then keep in mind their blocking role. The flyer base is large allowing it to act as a buffer between the enemy and your ground units. I have flat out won games by being able to block ground troops from moving into a position I didn't want them to because of that. Since only units with the fly key word can charge you, and even if you do get charged your own fly key word means you get to still move and shoot, their buffer role is very very strong. However, they can't stand up to Daemon Princes or heaven forbid Primarchs, but against most normal troops, they're just fine.

[Wassa]

Probably going to be facing Thousand Sons a lot, so using punisher guns actually increases their save from 3+ to 2+ :(

[dakkamasta]

I've been thinking of running a pair of Valkyries with regular Catachan infantry squads with a priest and Straken. I have 3 Valkyries and have been trying to find a good way to use them but I don't own Bullgryns or crusaders. These guys have potential as each squad can put out 30 S4 attacks whilst still having 40 lasgun shots per squad with FRFSRF. That's a total of 60 S4 attacks and 80 S3 attacks in one turn, pretty good anti-infantry. Not to mention the Valkyries themselves lending their firepower and Straken is a pretty good beatstick on his own especially with a priest nearby.

 

Due to the contents being so cheap you can use them more liberally and if the opponent focuses a Valkyrie, it's almost wasted as the contents only cost 80-110ish points whereas shooting down a Valkyrie full of Bullgryns will be a bigger blow to your plan. It's not that scary disembarking further than 20" because 1-2 dead guardsmen is negligible. It also leaves room for a psyker in each Valkyrie for some smite-y goodness. It also makes for effective objective snatching due to the move+disembark+ObSec.

 

Thoughts?

[Tirak]

Not great frankly. Sorry but the force you just described is around 598 points. More than 25% of your army. The Valk alone is 158 points, that's a Leman Russ or 2 points shy of 40 infantry. Add in the infantry squad, a priest and a psyker and one of your Valks getting shot down is 280 points for the cheaper one. Or for 160pts you can get a heavy 40 vulture and use the other 120 points to build a decent 20 man core with support elements.

 

We're guard, thanks to Move move move we're not lacking mobility. Making an air mobile army is cool, but from a meta perspective wholly impractical to do it with Valks. You're better off taking a battalion of Elysians if you want hyper mobile mid game objective secure. The Bullgryn shock tactic works because it makes a very powerful shock infantry unit have the speed necessary to be useful. That's not a problem our normal infantry have.

[duz_]

I've been thinking of running a pair of Valkyries with regular Catachan infantry squads with a priest and Straken. I have 3 Valkyries and have been trying to find a good way to use them but I don't own Bullgryns or crusaders. These guys have potential as each squad can put out 30 S4 attacks whilst still having 40 lasgun shots per squad with FRFSRF. That's a total of 60 S4 attacks and 80 S3 attacks in one turn, pretty good anti-infantry. Not to mention the Valkyries themselves lending their firepower and Straken is a pretty good beatstick on his own especially with a priest nearby.

 

Due to the contents being so cheap you can use them more liberally and if the opponent focuses a Valkyrie, it's almost wasted as the contents only cost 80-110ish points whereas shooting down a Valkyrie full of Bullgryns will be a bigger blow to your plan. It's not that scary disembarking further than 20" because 1-2 dead guardsmen is negligible. It also leaves room for a psyker in each Valkyrie for some smite-y goodness. It also makes for effective objective snatching due to the move+disembark+ObSec.

 

Thoughts?

 

This sounds like fun :D

 

I think you should do a full army based on this load out like something out of Apocalypse Now! ;) :tu: 

[CrusherJoe]

A Vulture with Punishers and Officer of the Fleet is good for hosing down infantry, especially if you hover before you shoot. Hitting on 3s, re-rolling 1s? Yes, more of that, please. It's almost but not quite a flying Punisher-Pask with more wounds. It slaughters Orks, Eldar infantry, other Guard, etc. almost like the Leafblower of ancient times. No it's not as effective against Murheens, but you should have plenty of other LOS-ignoring, quality AP artillery for that (you're in the Guard, son, you'd best bring some artillery).

 

I'm painting up a Thunderbolt that I intend to run with the Vulture -- but I don't expect it to be super competitive. The price hikes in CA2017 were brutal to our aircraft (but sometimes you just gotta do things for the lulz).