Im assuming the SSU transports are going to work the same way.

blkdymnd said:

This is confusing page 17 last paragraph under Miniatures & Units states "A unit is a collection of miniatures that functions as a single fighting group, led by a Unit Leader. A inot can consist a single miniature (like a Hero) or several miniatures". Hym very confusing. Also page 23 under the red Units topic "While the rules for single miniatures are important, to expedite play (and beter represent the player as a commander of his force), miniatures are grouped into units. A unit moves and attacks together, taking its actions at the same time. Chapters 5 & 6 detail…. hym again confusing because it goes onto to support your arguement that a vehicle or aircraft is also a unit.

Sigh this is beyond poor wording as it suggests that units lead by unit leaders are different but are title exactly the same as units who do not have unit leaders. The air drop ability as written allows you to drop a very powerful unit right into the thick of it along with specialized units who already have this "shared" air drop ability. There is no random scatter of the unit and premeasuring is allowed…. sigh it's a rather powerful ability at a discount price and the axis equivalent only applies to a singe light walker whereas the allied version applies to anything. It's very easy to air drop outside of 12" use the vehicle to attack, disembark the squad anywhere with 3" of the vehicle which would put them inside the 12" zone against units that have already been supressed by the machine guns on the air dropped heavy walker thus allowing them to also up on targets creating a beach head for the next turn's paratroops.

I have yet to see this in action but it's not hard to hit an enemy from a flank like this and start a steam roll as the you clear out the immediate area and stick to cover limiting return fire. The enemy has to turn or risk being over run while more air drop units take the objectives.

I think its rather silly allowing heavy walkers to airdrop, what sort of plane would be needed to carry it there in the first place!

Having worked with the Abrams tank for the last 12 years on and off (when not being an infantryman) I don't like the heavy walkers being to air drop, but after trying it out with my buddies it caught them off guard the first time but didn't make such a big impact on later games. I only have 1 squad of Brits, so maybe spamming them effects it more, but like Russ said earlier placing your squads spread out to extend there denial area. Hopefully they fix it so the squad can't act.

I see no problem with this tactic at all, aside from the fact it is minimally viable in the long run. a player is able to easily spread out their forces to take advantage of the 12" no airdrop rule and this allows them to protect their walkers and other units. Additionally if an opponent wants to Airdrop a walker closer to my zombies and monkeys with their panzar fist I am all for it, this means I don't have to run to you and you cant act on the turn you came in.

As far as the "seems silly a heavy tank can airdrop in" discussion, we are not playing anything resembling the laws of nature and physics as we know them. We have freaking zombies and gorillas with giant super heavy metal fist that are able to run at breakneck speeds. We have people with miniature Rockets attached to their fist they can some how control and use to effect without ripping their arms out of their sockets or just spinning their arms around in giant circles. Yet with all this the thing people are bothered by is that a very large tank can be air dropped? really people?

Yeah, for me the only issue is whether there is a balance issue with airdropping embarked soldiers on a heavy walker, so that those soldiers can jump out and make a crushing blow that the opponent cannot respond to.

If people are finding that this isn't a balance issue, then I personally have nothing against it, and think it would be fun to do on occasion.

What I find silly is that there is nothing stopping you from air dropping an air craft unit…. Or that even though you can only give out one platoon upgrade that you can put a unit in its carry capacity for the extra discount. Oh and they don't technically airdrop so they spend an action to disembark and then do an action. Silliness.

The entertaining thing I am finding is this game opens itself up for people to do the oh X+Y is awesome on paper and will pound faces hard. Only when they start playing with it do they recognize that it is not as AMAZING UBER BROKEN as the originally thought.

This game balance wise is amazing. I have had a hard time finding anything "broken" mechanics wise that cant be fixed with me learning not to play like I have special needs.

Things I will note that are very strong in my play testing though is in low point games (~150) snipers almost become a must. The ability to always put a wound on a unit with sniper teams is VERY powerful and they are cheap. In larger point games this will become less of a must have as with more points people will have more anti sniper investments and such going on and they will be marginally worth their point costs then.

Right now the Uber combo I am running is Angela with a sniper squad adding spotter to her Frenzy ability and the snipers auto ignore armor and cover is very nice and a REALLY good anti sniper combo in itself.

Harliquine said:

We dont have aircraft units at this point so how do you magically know if this is true or not? When the Russians come out we will see what they have then.

Denied said:

It just irks me that everything is just referred to as a unit and all rules point to there even though this is not the cleanest solution. And why would we expect them to think about that when they haven't for any other rules interactions between units of different types? It just drives me bonkers. Like I don't have my book with me right now but unless they prevent heroes from joining vehicle units I'll be putting sigrid with heavy walker to use beserk. Ew or with Angela to ignore cover and armor if that is a shared ability.

I kid I kid… Okay so I'll do it if anyone airdrops this silliness…

Harliquine said:

No, there probably won't be. A helicopter should be able to airdrop. Going by the ranges and movements on the tactics card (which you can see on the products page on dustgame.com), a helicopter looks to have 12" move with 24" weapons. Not terribly far, so will have to sacrifice being in the open one turn to be useful (I'm hoping they'll carry over the tactics rule that aircraft can have LOS drawn to them from anywhere and can't benefit from blocking terrain). And yeah, they'll be able to drop a squad, but they'll also probably be relegated to the support role, so it shouldn't have a huge impact.

Harliquine said:

I have a 30t walker that jumps.

Were you saying something about silly?

CorpseGod said:

Actually that"s not so silly that just needs a monster truck rally promoter and a silly name… oh wait they have those "Hot Dog" & "Mickey".

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY BE THERE! You'll buy the whole seat but you'll only need the edge!

I did see now that I have my book again that heros cannot join units that they do not share movement and armor types with. Thus dashing my plans of beserking axis walkers… sigh.

I don't really see this as an issue for a few reasons (prepare for TLDR!)

1) Your are either dropping a 100 or 85 point tank, making up a huge % of the overall force. If you want to keep a third of your army off the table for a turn or more, be my guest .

2) The model can't be deployed within 12" of an enemy model…and the heavy tank model is atleast 4 times bigger than any other model in the game. Good luch finding too many decent spots like that on the table, let alone behind your opponent who knows its coming.

3) The Heavy counts as marching the turn it arrives, making roughly a third of your army useless for yet ANOTHER turn of a game that is often only 5 turns in length.

4) many of the Axis heavy tank killing items are short range. Airdropping a 100 point vehicle in the middle of an axis army will likely put it in attack range of gorillas, zombies, heavy laser grenadiers, konigsluthers penetrator special ability…etc. You may lose 100+ points before they get to do much of anything.

5) Which close range squads get much of a boost out of it? The BBQ boys and Hell boys only have a range of 6". When combined with the 3" deployement move, they won't have range to any enemy squads on that first turn.

6) Airdropping precludes the airdropping unit and any unit transported within from using orders. This is because the airdrop counts as a march move, which cannot be performed in the command phase since it is a double action.

7) I like that its allowed because it makes me think of some A-Team like shenanigans . Upon landing, you should have to ask "Which way to Berlin?"

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