…am I the only one who thinks they're might be a supplement a ways down the line about the Imperial Navy?

The idea of playing a group of hot-shot pilots is too great to pass up. With the Lightning and Thunderbolt fighters, Marauder bomber, and Valkyrie gunship, there's a lot of options there. Dogfighting with Ork fightas and bommas (and also their crazy helicopters,) intercepting Dark Eldar jetfighters, blowing Tau drones out of the sky…

But we're still in beta, and I don't even know if anyone would want to see this. Thoughts?

Actually, that's quite ingenious. I'd buy it. I mean, heck, they have vehicles so I'm sure sooner or later Tank crews might come into play. Why not Navy pilots? Or heck, Navy Armsmen boarding parties? Running through a vessel that's collapsing on itself, pipes bursting, air venting into space, dead people floating all around. Hehe. Reminds me of this Rifts campaign I GMed where everyone wanted to be pilots for session or two though. One of the funnest games I GMed on the fly. Epic ending space battle and all. Good times.

It's possible. To some extent, Rogue Trader - with its extensive Ship combat rules - is a better fit for Naval campaigns, but we are to a degree talking about different archetypes:

• Rogue Trader is better for your Aubrey/Maturin, Horatio Hornblower/ Battle of Jutland naval campaigns, where you control a vast spacecraft or fleet and fight huge naval battles
• whereas Only War might suit your Battle of Britain/Red Tails/Double Eagle style campaign where the players are a squadron of pilots fighting desperate battles on a far smaller scale, one player to each aircraft.

At the moment, Rogue Trader rules can incorporate both approaches, (after all, I recall an advanced career in that system for a hotshot pilot) but the setting of Rogue Trader (together with its very high power level) doesn't really suit the latter.

If you want to run a Naval pilot campaign, Roguer Trader's power level will take some skillful tweaking. If you (understandably) don't want to do that yourself, then yes, one imagines that there's room for this style of game to be dealt with in Only War.

The Imperium utilizes four primary aircraft: the Lightning Fighter, Thunderbolt Heavy Fighter, Marauder Bomber, and the Valkyrie VTOL Troop Carrier. Within these four aircraft there are several modified for different roles: the Lightning 'Strike' fulfills a ground attacks role, along with the Marauder 'Destroyer'; the Valkyrie 'Vulture' gunship, 'Vendetta' heavy gunship, and 'Sky Talon' heavy lifter. There are also more civillian craft in the Arvus Lighter and Aquila Lander, but these largely lack combat capabilities.

Also of note are the aircaft of the Adeptus Astartes. The one-man Stormtalon gunship, the lightning-fast Stormraven, and the heavier Thunderhawk and Storm Eagle attack craft all have devastating firepower.

The enemies of Mankind are not without air power, though. The forces of Chaos utilize dark designs forged within the Eye of Terror, with Hell Blade Interceptors and Hell Talon Fighter-Bombers alongside more common Imperial vehicles. The crude Orks fill the skies with lead from a wide arsenal of ramshackle craft, with the Fighta-Bommer, Heavy Bommer, Dakkajet, and Warkopta among the most numerous. The Dark Eldar have one of the most fearsome selection of aircraft in the Spinward Front, packing cruel weaponry and impossible speed into light craft; the Razorwing and Raptor Fighters both have maneuverability that fills many Imperial aces with fear, while the Voidraven Bomber carries weapons of terror and mass destruction.

I think there's definitely something here. A party could easily be a few fighters escorting a bomber to its target, protecting a civilian craft with a VIP onboard, or scrambling to launch a counter-attack against an enemy strike. You could theoretically expand it into space (but I fear for stepping on Rogue Trader's toes) and have an incredible campaign in the vein of Rogue Squadron, with daring Fury and Starhwak pilots.

I have no idea about the Specializations for a squadron, though.

Plushy said:

Rogue Trader: Battlefleet Kornous has extensive rules for space and atmosphere fighter dogfights. It includes rules for Imperial Fighters, Ork Fighter/boomers, Eldar Fighters, Chaos Reavers, and even some other race who I just brain farted and forgot. However, that being said, there have been many games now with tanks and such but we still have them here so it is more than possible to see this later on, until then I'd pick up Rogue Trader (Core book and the Battlefleet book which are just awesome anyway) if I were you and you cannot wait.

I just hammered out some rules for the Lightning, Thunderbolt, and Marauder over in the Rogue Trader House Rules section. We still need Specializations for pilots, or to just make everyone Operators.

The Arvus Lighter (civilian orbital cargo vessel) and Aquila Lander (civilian orbital transport) both have stats in Rogue Trader: Into The Storm, along with Gun-cutters, the Chiropteran Scout , and the space-fighter Fury Interceptor. Drop Pods, the Thunderhawk gunship, and the Stormraven gunship of the Adeptus Astartes are covered in Deathwatch: Rites of Battle, along with several Chaos aircraft (the Hell Talon Fighter-Bomber, Hell Blade Fighter, and Harbringer Bomber,) Tau aircraft (Barracuda Fighter, Orca Dropship, Remora Drone Fighter, and Tiger Shark Fighter Bomber.)

I've definitely seen the Ork Fighta-Bommer and several Eldar vehicles somewhere. Valkyries are in Only War (I think…) and the Dark Eldar lack rules for their craft (Razorwing Jetfighters and Voidraven Bombers.)

EDIT: Aha! Rogue Trader: Battlefleet Koronus has more Imperial craft (Shark Assault Boats, Starhawk Bombers, Doomfire Bombers, and Swiftdeath Fighters for void combat,) Ork vehicles (Fighta-Bommers) Eldar vehicles (Eagle Bombers and Darkstar Fighters) and the Chaos Space Marine classic, the Dreadclaw Drop Pod.

Did some homebrew stuff! Three Specializations, and a lot of aircraft!

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Don't forget how easily this can be combined with forge world's areonautica impirialis to play out battles and run longer campaigns!