Air Raid

My regular opponent, Shaun, and I have been working on a new scenario - Air Raid.

The idea is to set up a base, could be an airbase, a fire support base, HQ, supply dump or some combination.

The base is attacked from the air, including a number of flyers using the Apocalypse flyer rules. Non flyers have to be delivered by air, including jetbikes, teleports, deep strike etc. The defender should have air defence weapons. Winning and losing is about the amount of damage inflicted, depending on the scenario. The attacker has the first turn.

The game only last three turns. Air raids are quick in and outs. Apart from anything else, the planes run out of ammo and fuel.

Organised forces, such as Tau and Eldar use programmed entry. They write down, which turn their assets will appear. Only half can appear on the first turn.

Everyone else uses the reserves rule, with the proviso that you start rolling on turn 1, bumping all the probabilities up one turn.

We did a simple scenario to test the concept in our Sunday game. Basically it worked. I used my Flying Circus and rolled amazing dice throughout. All assets but the fightabomba arrived on turn 1. Shaun had his usual bad luck.

Six Deffcoptas swept across the base and un loaded on the Hydra, knocking it out on turn 1. That was critical. Three fightas shot up the Basilisks, knocking one out and the Black Baron strafed the Imperial flyers to no effect. The return fire from the shocked imperials went wild and failed to hit.

The fightabomba arrived on turn two and rocketed the Gorgon, but missed. The deffcoptas split into two squadrons. One took out an ammo crate and the other a Basilisk. The fightas all missed.

Leutenant Sparky, hastily put the spark plugs back in and drove the base's second Hydra out of the servicing depot. It took out a fighta with its first burst.

On the third turn the fightabomba dropped its full bombload on the parked Vulture - hur, hur, hur - a most satisfying bang. No other major damage was inflicted. In reply the Hydra took a second fighta down and an AA autocannon on a Salamander took a third.

The Circus decided to disengage at this point.

So the Orks lost three fightas.

The Imperials lost a Vulture, two Basilisks, a Hydra and a supply crate.

The Orks had a tactical victory but, strategically, I am not so sure. The orks lost three planes taking out three strategic assets. Counting a squadron of deffcoptas as equal to a plane that is three out of seven ‘units’, a loss rate of 43%. That seems high, even for Orks.

Conclusion: The scenario is great fun and all over in a couple of hours. We could easily double the size of the forces. The Imperials needed more firepower (which is why we brought the Hydra back).

John

PS Sorry about poor photos.