Recaf and Medals: Beaky's Imperial Air Wing

[Beaky Brigade]

3 Aircraft finished! You can see the results in the showcase thread here.

At this point I would love to have a break, but I have a deadline! This Marauder has been in this state for a while, construction finished to concentrate on painting the fighters. 2 Marauder destroyers, 2 more Thunderbolts and 3 ground defences and assets also have to be done!

[MithrilForge]

Keep at it Bud 

 

Mithril

[INKS]

I really love the imperial models, not so much the orks (not on you just on orks in general - not my thing) But damn do I love the imperial models. 

[Beaky Brigade]

Thanks for the encouragement!

Well I've been plane lazy over Christmas and then I got sick... So the planes have been sitting in the hangar.

1 Month remains. 3 bombers, 3 fighters, 3 ground defences to build and paint or crash and burn in shame. Warhammer World or bust, for the Emperor!

[MithrilForge]

  it's plane to see ...you need to kick yourself in the pants(luckily that's where your emergency chute is good man  ) 

 

9 models in a month ... the GW Army painters have to do 2x marines a day (finished)  get your mind in the zone bud... just think 9 models only and do all of them to base standard and go from there....

 

i think you should build em all in one go then undercoat em all together... 

 

Mithril

[Beaky Brigade]

Yeah that's a good shout @mithrilforge, the current plan is build for the next week and a bit, and then paint for the remaining two weeks, with a final lead up week taken as time off as a last ditch to get ready.

If only I could build and paint full time! Well, something's gotta pay for the toys :D. I'm hoping for at least an hour an evening on weekdays.

A sign of things to come!

The ejection ports right in front of the engine intakes always bugged me so they are being deleted on this pattern of Destroyer, it also helps place the shark mouths decals.

Progress so far:

Marauder Bomber: 99% built, turrets and bombs not yet attached. This is a cheat as I built this before the painted fighters but put it aside to get the fighters done.

2x Marauder destroyers: Wing sub assemblies complete and main fuselages coming along. Now working on the nose, a little extra work added by filing off and filling the ejector ports.

2x Thunderbolts: Not started

1x Thunderbolt Fury: Already painted as a test model, needs stripping and repainting.

Ground defences and objectives: Some pre blu tacked but not started.

[Beaky Brigade]

Progress so far:

Marauder Destroyers: 1 Built sans weapons, 1 in sub assemblies almost finished.

It seems to be a clich Edited January 20, 2020 by Beaky Brigade

[Arendious]

Looking at them together really makes me consider combining the two kits to get "True Scale" Marauders.

 

That too-short fuselage and tiny T-tail are like constantly having a pebble in my boot...

[Aothaine]

Outstanding. I love this scheme a lot! That black strike down the center really add so much punch to the sand colored theme.

[Beaky Brigade]

Thanks for the kind words guys! @Arendious, yes I think the Destroyer has slightly better proportions, but that would be an expensive conversion! Part of me thinks FW should have re-imagined both bombers slightly for this game as I remember seeing them in the FW catalogue when I was in primary school! That said they've both aged pretty well apart from one or two greebly style details.


What I've achieved since last time:

Unfortunately I had a bit of a burn out and exhaustion last weekend so didn't get anything done, so I'm behind on my original ambitious schedule. After having to clamp the Thunderbolts twice and do lots of fiddly clean up I'm almost ready to spray paint this weekend.

I'm going to have to triage the project a bit, perhaps not doing all the decals I wanted and leaving the wing ordnance for another day, but better to go to the event with tabletop completed models than stay at home with unfinished perfectionist ones. That said I still have all of next weekend and the evenings next week, as well as a week of holiday before the event, so maybe I'll catch up. I'll tell my colleagues I'm taking a flight somewhere :D

Excited to see the Taros rumours come true, but also glad it's not releasing until a bit later on ;)

[Beaky Brigade]

One last update of what needs to be painted, then radio silence until just before the event. No time to be posting here ;)

[MithrilForge]

Yes... i'm Damn proud  

 

Mithril 

[MithrilForge]

Has the Tourney happened?...   if it has Let us Know how it went, eager to hear all about it!! 

 

Cheers, Mithril

[Beaky Brigade]

Has the Tourney happened?... if it has Let us Know how it went, eager to hear all about it!!

Cheers, Mithril

Hi Mithril! That's tomorrow... True to form I was painting until the last minute this morning, now got to get everything stowed for the 'flight' to Nottingham ;) . Full write up will be forthcoming but here is some evidence of my last two weeks of labour:

Emperor willing they will reach Nottingham Aerodrome in time!

[General Zodd]

Really effective colour scheme, love it! Best of luck tomorrow! If it weren’t Valentine’s weekend, I’d have been there too!

[Beaky Brigade]

Well I'm back! A pretty exhausting train journey amid storms and delays but I made it. This is how I got on:

Not a great day to be flying, but a good day to be inside! It was a pretty packed gaming hall shared with the Titanicus event. We had about 20 Imperial and 20 ork squadrons, and the format was a 6 game Imperial vs Ork event playing through the missions from the Rynn's world book, the attacker/defender being decided by the last game.

It was interesting to see how other players approached painting their models, and the various paraphernalia developed to assist with playing the game. Everyone seemed to have their own slightly different thing, from 3d printed bases and laser cut card holders to my own paperclips to hold the cards together (which I'm humbled someone thought was genius (!)). Hopefully it gave the AI team some ideas for future improvements.

Mission one was 150pts 'The Dogfight' against a very lovely ork player who also won best painted Ork Sqwadron. Everyone had a really high standard of painted squadrons and was really friendly.

You can see that I quickly underestimated ork speed, and probably should have flown a gunline at minimum speed for the first turn. Most of the results of the games seem to have escaped me as soon as I handed in the card. Next time I'll try and at least take a photo, though it was a very packed day. I remember losing most of them

Mission two was troop landing at I think 125 points, Imperials attacking. We spent quite a while clarifying some of the details of the mission and setting up, and therefore timed out before anything really happened unfortunately. I think 1 hour for each game was a little optimistic!

You can see below my attempt to paradrop troops sort of stalled as the bombers were going minimum speed to allow the airdrop to happen and therefore were only moving 2 hexes a turn! We were also using a optional rule that you had to start at altitude 5 and test each time you wanted to descend. I just couldn't get there in time! Airdrops are pretty tricky, even at altitude 1 and speed 2 you need to roll a 4+ not to scatter or kill your troops, landing is probably easier.

The squadrons on display for lunchtime judging.

Mission Three was Search and Rescue with the Orks having to rescue the downed flyboss. The ork player was a charming member of the Warhammer community team. We had a great discussion about whether grot bombs could scout for the missing pilots (I thought it would be cool, but he was worried about it being OP) which we eventually had clarified by the rules team who were wandering about. (Grot bombs aren't aircraft so they can't). For this and the next mission I tried the suggestion of using dice to show altitude as it is really hard to read those dials or ask the other player what it is over the noise of the event (ENGINE KILL!'s from the Titanicus players).

Again we were pressed for time and we decided to do one last turn insanely quickly so it could come down to the orks either lifting off with the pilot or being blown up. They just made it!

Mission four was Bombing Run with the Imperials attacking:

I lined up for a prefect low level high speed bombing run after losing my escort fighter...

And then did less than spectacular damage and lost the Marauder! I came about for a last strafing run but it was in vain. The lesson is bring extra wing bombs so you can roll more than 8 or 4 bomb dice!

Mission six was 'The Straggler' with the orks trying to get their Grot bomber to safety. It was clarified that the straggler needs to leave the opposite board edge, not just any edge as implied by the rules. Night fighting was in effect, and I really regretted not taking the infra red upgrade. It meant I had no long range firepower, and half firepower at medium range, so basically no firepower!

I managed to bring down the bomber on the last turn of shooting but lost on overall points. A moral victory in my book! I found that the objectives don't give a lot of points, so don't neglect destroying the enemy just to complete the mission. A cheeky trick I heard of was lining up all your aircraft in front of the bomber so the bomber can leapfrog it's way across the table at more than 2 hexes per turn. It sounds cheesy, but if you can pull it off you deserve it I think.

Mission six was garrison relief with the Imperials relieving the garrison. I was pretty spaced out by this point and found it hard to talk to my opponent as my voice was going, but I finally got my airdrop in! I went too fast and had to roll 5+, which I needed an ace re-roll to succeed. Somehow I still lost on points! I think I need one of those upcoming Valkyries to really do transports properly, as 1 point of transport capacity only gives 5 victory points.

I had a great day overall, though I didn't win any individual prizes I was on the winning side so got a certificate! I think 6 games was two many, so hopefully they'll learn from that and other improvements for next time. It's quite a trip up to Nottingham so I may stick to local games/ events for now, but it was definitely worth going.

I would like to build my remaining aircraft, though I will have a break for a few weeks I think! We'll see what the future holds...

Edited February 16, 2020 by Beaky Brigade

[duz_]

Nice work your wings looks great!

 

Congrats on the award :tu:

[Firedrake Cordova]

Sounds like you had fun 

 

The ork player was a charming member of the Warhammer community team. 

Wouldn't happened to have been the flyboss of Da Bad Moon Bommerz, by any chance?

 

I tried the suggestion of using dice to show altitude as it is really hard to read those dials or ask the other player what it is over the noise of the event (ENGINE KILL!'s from the Titanicus players).

Consider that stolen.   Although, titans are somewhat lacking in anti-aircraft capabilities, aren't they?  A few hellstrikes probably would've quietened them down a bit! 

Edited February 16, 2020 by Firedrake Cordova

[Beaky Brigade]

@Firedrake

Yes indeed it was the Boss of the Yellow Peril with the lovely diorama bases.

Organising a sortie through a warp rift to change the course of the Heresy would have been a great idea, unfortunately it didn't occur to me!

 

 

I do have an idea for a fuselage mounted volcano cannon armed Marauder which I have already dubbed the 'Marauder Vesuvius', but I'm not sure I will get round to it! That would give the titans something to think about.

 

Edited February 17, 2020 by Beaky Brigade

[MithrilForge]

Sounds like you had an exhaustive sortie that day ! ,well done on being on the winning side   and yeah when you have time after recovery can you list the stuff you learn't the hard way about this game (the tourney looked to have a very steep learning curve  ) 

Glad you went and had fun!

 

Cheers, Mithril

 

p.s. those ork aircraft sure are pretty 

[Beaky Brigade]

The Aquila flies again!

Played 2 games against the guy I split the starter with at the FLGS.

Round one was more of a demo, approximately 50pts The Dogfight with 2 stock Thunderbolts vs 3 stock Dakkajets. A lot of tactical manoeuvring to start with, the Imperials took first blood, but the penultimate Dakkajet and first Thunderbolt were lost on the same round of shooting, leading inevitably to a Man to Ork showdown. Both jets flew towards each other but the Ork pilot shot first and was victorious.

More confident with the game we tried 100pts 'The Straggler' next (pictured).

1 Stock Fury, 2 Thunderbolts with Skystrikes and 1 Marauder Destroyer with Armoured Cockpit and Flares Vs 3 Stock Dakkajets and 2 Fightabommas, one with extra shooters, the other Rockits and black smoke.

Imperial long range shooting was ineffective and suddenly the Orks swarmed all over the Marauder, straining to fire upwards at the high flying bomber. Despite inflicting superficial damage and wounding the Navigator the damaged aircraft kept going.

Executing stall turns the Imperial fighters turned their guns back toward the swarm of Orks, and an excellent round of shooting and extra damage from the Fury and Thunderbolt clinically destroyed both Fightabommas.

The Orks were running scared after that and despite inflicting further damage to the Marauder, the heavy bomber claimed a partial kill with its assault cannons and a Thunderbolt finished off another jet. Refusing orders to 'dis-ungage' from fighta kontrol, the last Dakkajet doggedly chased the Marauder, but was eventually overwhelmed by Imperial numbers. A clean sweep for the Imperials with no loses!

We had a lot of fun, and hope to have a campaign session at some point. In case you are wondering, the mat was a custom 4x4 mat printed by my opponent on Vinyl, designed using Mars satellite photos and a special software plugin to create the hexes. It was a bit of an experiment and we both think the lines are a little too big, but it was great to have proper space for the game to 'breath' compared to a 3x3.

Sticking to altitude 5 really saved the Marauder, making it hard to hit, though it didn't make one save with the Flares or Armoured cockpit! It could have been a different game if a Grotbomma had been available.

The larger map meant you really needed nearly all 12 turns to make it to the other side, but clearing the Orks out meant it didn't matter. We forgot to disengage when the Orks when below 25%, but the result was the same.

By the end of the two games I really felt like I was starting to understand the manoeuvres and tactics a bit better. There were a lot of hard choices about whether to go for a sure kill, or target an aircraft that hadn't fired yet.

A good tip for any Ork player is to lose or gain altitude when the firing solution isn't great as it's the only way to avoid medium range firepower.

[duz_]

That's a neat map! Which one is it?

 

I really need to play a game and paint my minis :ermm:

[Firedrake Cordova]

Nice write up :)

 

The larger map meant you really needed nearly all 12 turns to make it to the other side

 

So no beardy "conga-line"/"leapfrog" tactics then :) 

 

 

A good tip for any Ork player is to lose or gain altitude when the firing solution isn't great as it's the only way to avoid medium range firepower.

 

I feel positioning (including in the vertical) is key in this game, with stratified formations being a thing you want to look at.

 

 

 

[Beaky Brigade]

@duz_

 

It does look good doesn't it! It's a custom print on vinyl fabric made by my opponent. He took real satellite photos of Mars and added the hexes using a software plugin. It may need tweaking on the V2 as we think the lines around the hexes are a little thick to fully appreciate the photos.

It would be good to see more of your squadron airborne, it's defo worth the effort to get them on the tabletop :)

@Firedrake

 

I think I did end up going 1 or 2 extra hexes via leapfrog but I probably didn't have enough aircraft to pull it off at this points level. Definitely something to try in the future!

[Firedrake Cordova]

 we think the lines around the hexes are a little thick to fully appreciate the photos.

You could probably drop the lines to half their current width, and it might also be worth playing with transparency, too :)