Psykostevo said:

Do I understand You correctly? The same new unit will be published in separate versions for Tactics and Warfare? Now that`s a bummer...

No, I'm sure they don't mean units, those will be the same to be used in either game. But with expansions, it will be a different deal. Operation Zverograd, for Dust Tactics, is not really geared towards Dust Warfare, so that game will get its own Zverograd expansions, which doesn't include any actual units, just a book with lots of stuff.

Not willing to ruin the party, but maybe we should get back to home brew aircraft and leave this discussion for another, proprietary thread...

Agreed, back to aircraft.

To clear up Gothik, not different units for each game but different rules for how each unit behaves in Tactics vs. Warfare.

I think that aircraft units will be the mose "home made" ones. It will be easier to dwnl the rules and to use other 1:72 Hinds or UH-60 as units than buy the overpriced chineese squad with a bath tube attached to rotor;P A friend of mine is collecting some cheap 1:72 choopers, i think i will rob some of his units soon. Huey here i come!

Now I really really do not want to ruin any party, but 1/72 will look awfully diminutive unless you consider it as a one (prone) man metal coffin attached to rotor and tail.

Seriously, you should go, at least, with 1/56, and preferably 1/48 (which is the right thing). Unless you do an awesome work of conversion which in terms of kits for bashing and raw worktime would go more expensive than direct use (and slight conversion) of a 1/48 kit...

But I would love to find myself wrong in this.

I must say i rly don't know why you guys want to stick to 1:48 air models. They will surely be too big! I don't want the hind to look like a german hvy walker:D Earlier in some topic i putted a picture of a 1:72 blackhawk compared to our blackhawk. Yes it's smaller but IMO for flying vehicles we schouldn't stick to 1:48. It's a thing like with that light allied walkers jockey. The guy is smaller so it looks better.

Lska said:

Agreed, I found a few 1:48 air models and while the fighter planes look really good bigger aircraft won't work too well, like bombers and such. Besides the Jockey on the Allied light walker being smaller we've already gotten use to our Infantry Armor 3 having bigger heads than normal as well - although the non-helmeted Allied Command Squad model has a really tall thin head that is a bit jarring.

Disagree.

For Tactics it probably doesn't make much of a difference what scale you proxy with. Not sure why anyone would consider using a bomber (Heinkel/Junkers/Lancaster?) as these are high altitude attack aircraft. Something like a Stuka, maybe.

Warfare though would be a different story. Deployment and LOS wise I know I wouldn't be that impressed if someone was using anything in 1/72. A proxy should be scale representative and not modelled for advantage ie. a transport vehicle is not a Tardis/Space Marine Rhino. Maybe the "official" vehicles will go down this path but until then I hope otherwise. With respect to the snippets of rules judgement will be reserved until there is print. One aspect of 40k that I never agreed with was the differing rule-set re: flyers/skimers presented by both FW and GW. Seems like FFG have adopted the GW aspect which is disappointing.

The surface you'd need to adequately play bombers would be so big that bigger models should not be looking out of place. Their bases should give no problem to be of a likely size to a DT grid square (to say so).

Then again, the kind of aircraft which would make god additions to DT lend themselves to easy incorporation to the game without much meddling with size and scale. I mean, it is all gonna be about (almost) hover capable, small aircraft, because bigger ones don't need to be represented as more than a card and tokens for in and out and target squares (too fast for anything else, even if hit and downed they would fall far out of the playing surface). And a 1/48 HS129 like plane is not that much big, just more or less like a heavy walker. VK powered machines need not much fuel IIRC so no huge fuel tanks or fuselage space for them. So big aircraft could be trimmed down in size, shortening its tail; also with VTOL capabilities given by jet engines or variable position rotors would make for less wing surface need.

Small flying machines make for weird looks as can be seen from the SSU chopper, and it is big enough as it is but even its defenders (I like the thing too) have to admit it looks stubby. Unless for a one man machine, smaller machines would look weird. But again, I'd like to see such a thing looking good...

P.S.: can't but agree with Hexal Kul; things like space marine rhinos are just ridicule to look at.

I meant Kekal Xul (sorry)

His words were that Tactics is not supposed to be a simulation. It will never get that complex according to him. For that sake no planes or craft will appear and disappear then reappear later. He understands that a moving plane has to use a strafe or bombing run, but all craft being represented in game will remain on the board after deployment. Otherwise you make a run, then never reappear.

Don't see why a straffing run is complicated, all it is is a minimum move and no turning

Well, I agree with Paolo. A strafing run just doesn't seem to gel with the rest of the game. Hover craft is the way to go.

Arty makes up for it, i don't see a need for strafing run in DT.

I'm sorry I got distracted and helped run the thread off topic.

On topic, normal aircraft get difficult simply because of their speed. If you assume 50 meters per space, and 15 seconds per turn, a plane flying 240kph (150mph) would have a speed of ~20. They couldn't strafe all of that unless they wanted to bury their nose in the ground, but that is not that fast for WW2 strafing runs. With that high speed comes a larger turning radius, which is why some games go for the periodic appearance of planes, instead of leaving them on the table.

Without going that route, with planes appearing to attack, and then disappearing for a couple of turns to maneuver for a new pass, choppers or other craft that stay on the board would be the way to go.

The other problem with normal aircraft is that they tend to pay attention to each other instead of the ground troops when both sides have them around, so straffing runs by both sides would not make sense.

Having one side in a scenario have the option for a pass or two of straffing planes, or of bombers flying by to deliver Artillery Strike attacks, but both able to be attacked by at least the big anti-aircraft guns, would be nice, but much more complicated outside special scenario rules. Perhaps let the machine guns join attacks against straffing runs, but only big guns like the Sturmkonig be able to reach high enough for bombers. That, however, leaves the Allies and SSU stuck against bombers until they get big flak guns.

Could always play planes the same way we use reload now.

Planes when off the board could be placed on an off the board tile and maybe even still attacked by anti-aircraft weapons with unlimted range.

I don't see the point to that. They won't be much more powerfull than the arty as that would unbalance the arty. And shooting them down would mean a problem couse i think it would be possible to crash into the board:P magine losing your kingluther to a downed warhawk:P

Lska said:

Artillery only affects one square currently. Aircraft attack runs would affect mutiple connected squares. It would use the same established rule system which already exists in the game with heavy flame weapons.

As for planes crashing that shouldn't be an issue as exploding vehicles is not something taken into consideration in the game mechanics.

Nah, still don't like it:P And strafing run would need to be used on Rly BIG boards to avoid OP choking points..

Whats an OP Choking Point? In our games models only attack one square with each weapon as normal and the smallest table we have used them on is a 3x5 board. This is not because there is a minimum size needed but because we only use them in large point games where you need a larger than normal table to accomodate them. For line of sight we just use the rules for being higher up as per the normal building rules. There have been no problem at all in using them for effect, play balance or anything else.

Well i imagine the strafing run as a multi place bomb/HMG attack. So 3-4 units in a choke point hitted by such an powerfull (still in my imagination) atttack could mean end game for one of the players.

Lska said:

Ah right. Our rules for targeting are exactly the same as any other vehicle except that thay can only be fired dead ahead, or dead astern with bombs. So no multiple target with the same weapon line.

Back in the ancient times of AT43 my playing companions and I used a few simple rules for aircraft. Since all we had were GW Forge World type models modified to have the correct type weapons of each faction we had 2 sets of rules. We typically used Red Block or NVA forces against the Therians. We had to get creative with the therian aircraft so typical GW Eldar stuff was modified so we could all have aircraft.

Strafing- Could be used every second or third game turn depending on the size game we had going on. So you got 2 maybe 3 uses. We played on city scape and open terrain type boards usually 4'x6' to 4'x8' so the board type affected somewhat how the aircraft were used. We used a modified flame thrower sized marker that was rectangular in shape and made from a thin piece of plexiglass and an arrow pointing out the direction of the attack. (this was to determine which enemy units could fire at it later on) We called out the strafing run during our activation phase, Laid out the target marker to identify who we intended to hit and rolled the dice based for our aircraft's capabilities. The subsequent opponents turn they were allowed to take any sensible shots at the aircraft and if damaged, that was recorded or if killed it was eliminated from play.

Bombing(Instead of artillery)-The same basic rules applied except the template was slightly wider and longer than the flame thrower marker for say a naphalm type bomb. For your average explosive bomb we just used a GW bomb template with scatter dice. Depending on the type of bombs you had spent points for they could be redirected if say they were smart bombs. Again the plane could be shot at by the enemy during its turn.

We totally avoided the air to air combat as we had no interest in broadening our games in that manner. Its was a lot of fun as we had it and added a great element to the game without much complexity because ground units could not stand out in the open behind obstacles without threat of attack.

If using multiple aircraft we made them attack as a squad in a single turn and tallied turns and hits on the plexiglass bases with a grease pencil or erasable marker. This way if you wanted 2 runs in a single turn you could but you would eat up two ground based turns instead, limiting your ability to move/shot and take objectives with your ground forces. The point cost was also high so that kept down the number of aircraft typically used.

My apologies for the "Gimp" length post but I felt it worth sharing.