mjl7atlas wrote:
Any reason why the ground assets went oop? Are they coming back?

Dunno if they're coming back, but they were outsourced and made in China rather than made by GW in the UK, with those sorts of kits GW are more likely just to do a run and sell out than keeping stock.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Krinsath wrote:

 Sabotage! wrote:

Chopstick wrote:
This game cost more to produce each quarter than Necromunda, Blood Bowl and LOTR combined.

How so? I’m not trying to be antagonistic, I am genuinely curious. Is it because all of the associated parts like the bases and the different scale/ more than one sprue per kit?

I will say the books are pretty high quality in feel compared to the Necromunda stuff I have owned.

I suspect it's inferred from sprue count for each system; cost per shot is rather trivial so the bulk of a line's cost is going to come from design and tool-cutting. More tools = more cost.

Blood Bowl and Necromunda average a sprue per quarter released, barring unusual splashes like the big terrain sprues for Necromunda. The gang and team boxes are essentially just a double sprue pack like the "core" AI fighter boxes. This also doesn't account for times when the "quarterly" release is simply a repack of previously-released sprues such as the BB mixed teams up for pre-order or the Enforcer Subjugators being sold on their own.

Aeronautica in comparison has quite a lot of tools. The initial release I believe had 10 tools which, even accounting for it getting nothing between November and June, is a goodly chunk. The latest release has 6 new tools by my count which gives them 16 total. Across two years, Blood Bowl and Necromunda would expect to see about that many sprues and AI has gotten it in less than a year. While it may be another year before they add in the next grouping, that still likely "only" drops them down towards a level equal to two other games combined.

LOTR is a bit of a red herring in the mix since I don't think they're cutting tons of new plastic molds for it, and that makes it more difficult to gauge. However, I imagine that one can pretty readily argue that the play areas and bases being outsourced ups their production cost to somewhat comparable levels to the new models that are being produced for the range.

I don't know that this proves beyond all doubt that AI is getting more investment than the other three lines combined, but casual observance says that is a definite possibility.

Do we have a good idea how much it costs GW to produce a tool for a sprue these days? My understanding was that tooling costs had dropped massively from the good old days, and my understanding is also that GW now have that capability in house.

Given GW probably have CAD files for most of the aircraft they've released, it's probably less design work to pump out the sprues for AI than it is to do ones for BB and Necromunda.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Do we have a good idea how much it costs GW to produce a tool for a sprue these days? My understanding was that tooling costs had dropped massively from the good old days, and my understanding is also that GW now have that capability in house.

I don't know what it's like nowadays, but I can baseline by stating that GW paid about $75k per mold when they contracted to Renedra in the late-00s.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:


Do we have a good idea how much it costs GW to produce a tool for a sprue these days? My understanding was that tooling costs had dropped massively from the good old days, and my understanding is also that GW now have that capability in house.

Given GW probably have CAD files for most of the aircraft they've released, it's probably less design work to pump out the sprues for AI than it is to do ones for BB and Necromunda.

Nah the cost of money and time mostly lie in the CNC machining work on the mold, they only have 1-2 machine that constantly running to make mold. And the smaller the detail, the smaller milling blade , and more time needed to make the mold, small blade spins and moves much slower than the bigger one, otherwise they'd break.

But I suspect they'd probably break a bunch of them during the process even if they spun at slow speed

 catbarf wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Do we have a good idea how much it costs GW to produce a tool for a sprue these days? My understanding was that tooling costs had dropped massively from the good old days, and my understanding is also that GW now have that capability in house.

I don't know what it's like nowadays, but I can baseline by stating that GW paid about $75k per mold when they contracted to Renedra in the late-00s.

Yeah, I remember the pricing used to be around that sort of level, however my thought is they've likely dropped. In the late 00's there were less CNC shops and CNC machinists than there are now and just in general I've noticed a massive increase in the use of CNC machined parts at the places I've worked.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Chopstick wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:


Do we have a good idea how much it costs GW to produce a tool for a sprue these days? My understanding was that tooling costs had dropped massively from the good old days, and my understanding is also that GW now have that capability in house.

Given GW probably have CAD files for most of the aircraft they've released, it's probably less design work to pump out the sprues for AI than it is to do ones for BB and Necromunda.

Nah the cost of money and time mostly lie in the CNC machining work on the mold, they only have 1-2 machine that constantly running to make mold. And the smaller the detail, the smaller milling blade , and more time needed to make the mold, small blade spins and moves much slower than the bigger one, otherwise they'd break.

But I suspect they'd probably break a bunch of them during the process even if they spun at slow speed

Yeah I had in my mind that AI stuff, particularly the Imperials, would take a lot less time to cut than, say, a BB team, assuming that they can optimise the process for the mostly flat surfaces.

I wonder how much time it genuinely costs or how much time it takes to machine moulds these days.

These days GW is pumping out plastic kits at a phenomenal rate. And you look at kits like the all the Imperial and Tau Aeronautica stuff, there's a lot of duplicated machining, so clearly they'd rather machine 2 identical Thunderbolts than cast 2 smaller sprues of 1 Thunderbolt each or make a compromise by having different aircraft on a sprue (like they do with BB), which seems to indicate the machining costs aren't the main factor for those models.

That's why I bought up design costs, I wonder if GW are approaching the point where they're paying as much or more to the designers as they are to get the machining done. Where I work, we have in-house CNC machining, and we cost an hour of CNC work similar to an hour of design work, so on a job that takes longer to design than machine, that'll be the bigger cost.

Took about a month according to interview. The cad proccess was not a problem for them for the most part.

GW had always been trying to cut machining cost as much as they could in the recent years. Kits are lacking options left and right. Otherwise we'd have all the missing option for the Avengers, or having missile for the Marauder, or having plastic Vulture....

If they want to sell 4 T-Bolt at the current price but it's on 4 half size sprue, that'd double up their production time, that's not a wise move. They want to cut down the sprue size, but there're always a certain budget allowance that keep them at the size they are currently.

Thing might change in the future, maybe it'll be 2 T-bolt size aircrafts on 2 half size sprue for the same price as the 4 T-bolt kit, if GW feels greedy enough.

Chopstick wrote:
Took about a month according to interview. The cad proccess was not a problem for them for the most part.

I'd be curious to see the interview? If they only have 1-2 machines then it can't be taking them a month to machine a sprue otherwise they'd only be releasing 1 or 2 kits per month. Coronavirus obviously slowed things down more recently, but I thought they were releasing closer to 1 or 2 kits a week.

GW had always been trying to cut machining cost as much as they could in the recent years. Kits are lacking options left and right. Otherwise we'd have all the missing option for the Avengers, or having missile for the Marauder, or having plastic Vulture....

I don't know if that's a machining limitation though, the sprues are packed pretty tightly. I'd suggest that have a casting machine designed for tools of exactly that size so they need to fit everything within that, otherwise they have to cast a 2nd sprue or move to a different casting machine which may already be occupied by other stuff.

If they want to sell 4 T-Bolt at the current price but it's on 4 half size sprue, that'd double up their production time, that's not a wise move. They want to cut down the sprue size, but there're always a certain budget allowance that keep them at the size they are currently.

Yeah that's kind of what I meant, by machining 2 Thunderbolts per sprue they've halved their production time but doubled the machining time, so the machining time wouldn't be the limiting factor otherwise they wouldn't have done it that way. I'm sure GW have made their process as lean as possible, so from concept, to design, to machining the tool to production of the part and balancing that against other kits they need to make.

That's kind of the point I was getting at, I know back in the day, machining the tool was the single biggest investment and consideration, I'm not as convinced it is these days.

In terms of the design process, you look at a BB team, surely that would take a designer / design team a couple of months to do, from getting a broad concept, creating initial sketches, mocking up the sculpts, running the design past the bosses, making alterations from their feedback, tweaking poses and details, rapid prototyping some initial designs, breaking it down into something with the correct draft angles for machining and casting, laying out the sprues. Surely that's a process that would run well in to the 10's of thousands of pounds.

The Aeronautica stuff would also take a lot of time, but I imagine a lot less.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Chopstick wrote:
Took about a month according to interview. The cad proccess was not a problem for them for the most part.

I'd be curious to see the interview? If they only have 1-2 machines then it can't be taking them a month to machine a sprue otherwise they'd only be releasing 1 or 2 kits per month. Coronavirus obviously slowed things down more recently, but I thought they were releasing closer to 1 or 2 kits a week.

GW and SG don't use the same machines, 1-2 machine is for the Specialist Games team only to make kit for AI, AT, Necromunda, Blood Bowl, and LOTR. There might got more machine now as they're expanding into BFG.

Chopstick wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Chopstick wrote:
Took about a month according to interview. The cad proccess was not a problem for them for the most part.

I'd be curious to see the interview? If they only have 1-2 machines then it can't be taking them a month to machine a sprue otherwise they'd only be releasing 1 or 2 kits per month. Coronavirus obviously slowed things down more recently, but I thought they were releasing closer to 1 or 2 kits a week.

GW and SG don't use the same machines, 1-2 machine is for the Specialist Games team only to make kit for AI, AT, Necromunda, Blood Bowl, and LOTR. There might got more machine now as they're expanding into BFG.

What do you mean by they're now doing BFG? I thought they said a while back they weren't going to do that.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

Chopstick wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Chopstick wrote:
Took about a month according to interview. The cad proccess was not a problem for them for the most part.

I'd be curious to see the interview? If they only have 1-2 machines then it can't be taking them a month to machine a sprue otherwise they'd only be releasing 1 or 2 kits per month. Coronavirus obviously slowed things down more recently, but I thought they were releasing closer to 1 or 2 kits a week.

GW and SG don't use the same machines, 1-2 machine is for the Specialist Games team only to make kit for AI, AT, Necromunda, Blood Bowl, and LOTR. There might got more machine now as they're expanding into BFG.

What do you mean by they're now doing BFG? I thought they said a while back they weren't going to do that.

They’ve always said that they want to do BFG, but they don’t have the resources at the moment. I don’t think there’s been anything saying they’re doing BFG now so I don’t really know where that’s come from, but they could well be working on it behind the scenes for all we know.

Well, looks like I'm jumping in to this game after all. Was at a shop today and it caught my wifes eye - she likes planes.

So I ended up with:

1. Wings of Vengeance starter.
2. Rynns World Campaign guide
3. Rynns World area of engagement
4. Both Orc and Imperial card packs.
5. Orc and Human ground assets.

Is there anything left we don't have from that release?

Also, about the starter. I've read that it isn't a real starter and the only thing of value in it is the models, but they aren't even a full squad. How many planes in a squad? Local store has the starter for like $50, should I get another starter to round out the air forces or the planes themselves?

 Phobos wrote:


Also, about the starter. I've read that it isn't a real starter and the only thing of value in it is the models, but they aren't even a full squad. How many planes in a squad? Local store has the starter for like $50, should I get another starter to round out the air forces or the planes themselves?

The force in game are determined by points, not by "squad", there're no pre-made force or formation in this game.

For starting out 50 points dogfight and a few scenario the wing of vengeance box should be enough for both side.

For 100+ points force you need more models.

Get the other models first : valkyries, marauder destroyer, avenger, eavy nommer, grott bommer. Only get the starter if you need all the model for both force from that box again, it only saved about 10US$-14US$

Chopstick wrote:

 Phobos wrote:


Also, about the starter. I've read that it isn't a real starter and the only thing of value in it is the models, but they aren't even a full squad. How many planes in a squad? Local store has the starter for like $50, should I get another starter to round out the air forces or the planes themselves?

The force in game are determined by points, not by "squad", there're no pre-made force or formation in this game.

For starting out 50 points dogfight and a few scenario the wing of vengeance box should be enough for both side.

For 100+ points force you need more models.

Get the other models first : valkyries, marauder destroyer, avenger, eavy nommer, grott bommer. Only get the starter if you need all the model for both force from that box again, it only saved about 10US$-14US$

The miniatures in the starter box are actually more leaning towards 100 points for each side (including options).

It's when you want to play bigger games at 150 - 200 points that you really need to take more. But honestly, more makes the maps a bit too small to play on.

At 100 points the starter box force would be too limiting for the starter, especially for the Imperial side, a 100+ point 2 T-bolt 2 Marauder list is bad.

in some scenario you only need fighters, in some you need a transport, which the starter don't have. So the 2-3 planes 50, maybe 75 points dogfight-bombing scenario is the perfect recommendation of the starter. Technically speaking he can still deploy ground assets to get to 100 points and beyond, but that's also not recommend,

For a general 100-150 points list I'd recommend a box of T-bolt, and a box of Valkyries. And then maybe a box of Avenger for low flight mission, and a box of Marauder destroyer for Bombing mission.

Chopstick wrote:
At 100 points the starter box force would be too limiting for the starter, especially for the Imperial side, a 100+ point 2 T-bolt 2 Marauder list is bad.

in some scenario you only need fighters, in some you need a transport, which the starter don't have. So the 2-3 planes 50, maybe 75 points dogfight-bombing scenario is the perfect recommendation of the starter. Technically speaking he can still deploy ground assets to get to 100 points and beyond, but that's also not recommend,

For a general 100-150 points list I'd recommend a box of T-bolt, and a box of Valkyries. And then maybe a box of Avenger for low flight mission, and a box of Marauder destroyer for Bombing mission.

Optimisation doesn't matter with the starter box. It's meant to allow you to start the game.

I just pointed out the content is actually leaning towards 100 points of squadrons for both sides rather than your misleading one saying it's 50.

Of course if you want more diversity you'll have to take other boxes. That's the point.

But you can actually play 100 points value of games with just the starter box.

Well the man was concerned what he bought isn't up for game. Which I told him it'd be perfectly fine if his game was in the lower bracket. And his 2 bombers in a 100 pts dogfight wouldn't be a good time.

Chopstick wrote:
GW had always been trying to cut machining cost as much as they could in the recent years. Kits are lacking options left and right.

Huh?

Have you actually seen the difference between old and new GW sprue? Old ones were like 70% air, you could fit multiple fingers through the gaps cleanly. New ones are so densely packed they are 90% plastic, I sometimes have problems fitting a knife blade in to cut part cleanly. The idea new kit requires less machining time is absurd, not only the amount of parts is much higher but they are much more detailed too...

Yeah, it makes the investment in those GW clippers really worthwhile.

 Irbis wrote:

Chopstick wrote:
GW had always been trying to cut machining cost as much as they could in the recent years. Kits are lacking options left and right.

Huh?

Have you actually seen the difference between old and new GW sprue? Old ones were like 70% air, you could fit multiple fingers through the gaps cleanly. New ones are so densely packed they are 90% plastic, I sometimes have problems fitting a knife blade in to cut part cleanly. The idea new kit requires less machining time is absurd, not only the amount of parts is much higher but they are much more detailed too...

I never said "new kit requires less machining time " than old kit that they made 20 years ago. If i had to draw a comparison to "old GW sprue" I'll pull out Tau Firewarrior where old GW willing to make extra sprue for just slightly different heads and shoulder pads, something new GW would say no to.

I said "GW cutting down machininig cost" mean they make the kit in the least amount of sprue as they can while still increasing and selling them at the highest possible price. Wait this wouldn't matter if they pack in "many bits, much detail" right? Yeah except that options are missing left and right, "fun" bits were gone because it's a waste of space. One of the worst offender of this practice is GSC Aberrants.

And don't use box cutter to cut bits, a number 11 scalpel blade would have no problem fitting through any sprue. I don't use knife, I use a sharpened Nipper with flat profile and pointy tip that allow me to squeeze through any space, which I preferred to as the "extreme godhand nipper".

On the context of this game, yes game could use more investment on missile and bombs sprue, otherwise people will have to keep salvaging other kit for bit and essential weapon option like lascannon. Which is dumb.

 Phobos wrote:
Well, looks like I'm jumping in to this game after all. Was at a shop today and it caught my wifes eye - she likes planes.

So I ended up with:

1. Wings of Vengeance starter.
2. Rynns World Campaign guide
3. Rynns World area of engagement
4. Both Orc and Imperial card packs.
5. Orc and Human ground assets.

Is there anything left we don't have from that release?

Also, about the starter. I've read that it isn't a real starter and the only thing of value in it is the models, but they aren't even a full squad. How many planes in a squad? Local store has the starter for like $50, should I get another starter to round out the air forces or the planes themselves?

You are right that the only thing of value in the starter is the models. I also use the counters and reference sheet, but the rulebook is superseded once you get the campaign books and the hex map included in the start is too small.

The game is points based, so you can play with any number of models. The starter set gives you enough models for a small to medium sized game, though with only 2 fighters on the Imperial side it might start to get boring after a while.

The way the boxed sets are arranged is kind of annoying, as getting the starter set puts you in this annoying position where you don't really have enough planes, but then to buy an individual box gives you too many of that type of plane (e.g. 3 Dakkajets isn't enough, but you don't really need 9 of them either).

If you want a complete game where you can play both sides, a 2nd starter is a good idea, though you'll end up with more Marauders than you likely want.

If you want to focus on Imperials only, I probably wouldn't buy a 2nd starter unless you're getting a really good deal on it, as with the new models you can get some Destroyers, Lightnings and Valkyries instead. Valkyries especially give you something to land troops. Also if you're focused on Imperials you could get a Skies of Fire set, but then you end up with Tau instead of more Orks, the Tau in Skies of Fire is actually a decent sized force since the Tau models are more points (the starter set comes with 130+pts of Tau depending on how you equip them, so not a bad stand alone force).

If you're interested in the Orks, buying a 2nd starter I think is a better proposition, as it'll give you in total 4 Fighta Bombers and 6 Dakkajets, which is a pretty healthy squadron to which you can add some Grot Bombers or Eavy Bombers later on if you want to add some flavour.

In the end, I'm a sucker, I've bought 2 Wings of Vengeance sets and also 2 Skies of Fire, so that has given me a large squadron of Tau, a large squadron of Orks and enough Imperials to have 2 separate squadrons of them.

All told though, I'll be honest, as much as I love AI and love the models, the rules are a bit janky and I think GW need to put some effort in to make it more balanced and a bigger focus on manoeuvring.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Chopstick wrote:
I said "GW cutting down machininig cost" mean they make the kit in the least amount of sprue as they can while still increasing and selling them at the highest possible price.

But that's not a machining issue, it's a casting issue. They could have laid out the sprues so there was only 2 Lightnings on it and filled out the weapon options, it would have required the same or even less machining, but then they'd need to cast 3 identical sprues for 6 models instead of 2 identical sprues.

Likewise, if they wanted to save machining costs, they could have put 1 Tigershark and 2 Barracudas on a single sprue and sold them as a bundle like they do with BB. It would have almost halved the machining time.

That's what makes me think the machining isn't the only hold up in the process, if they were up against the wall with machining time I think they would have made different choices.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Chopstick wrote:
I said "GW cutting down machininig cost" mean they make the kit in the least amount of sprue as they can while still increasing and selling them at the highest possible price.

But that's not a machining issue, it's a casting issue. They could have laid out the sprues so there was only 2 Lightnings on it and filled out the weapon options, it would have required the same or even less machining, but then they'd need to cast 3 identical sprues for 6 models instead of 2 identical sprues.

Likewise, if they wanted to save machining costs, they could have put 1 Tigershark and 2 Barracudas on a single sprue and sold them as a bundle like they do with BB. It would have almost halved the machining time.

That's what makes me think the machining isn't the only hold up in the process, if they were up against the wall with machining time I think they would have made different choices.

Nah, it'll create excessive left over space on the sprue with only 2 lightning, or the space will just be filled with more bombs and missile, which is for the most part, won't be ultilised. All they have to do from the beginning is not being stingy and make a missile sprue, that way there'll be plenty of space left for extra weapons.

Mixed unit kit is a terrible, terrible idea. and fortunately the AI team got enough budget to avoid that fate. In BB the players have limit and there're only 1 winning condition in a game. You don't need kit of 6 thrower, or 6 blitzer, there're no game that allow you to field 12 thrower, or 12 Blitzer unlike in AI. And even in BB, they could use more budget because there're missing players, and not enough special role in a single box.

If you want to compare how well mixed unit kit do, look at AT, the knight kit give 1 of each gun to a knight, and most of the time I only need 1 gun on my list, which meant I have to buy double, triple the amount of Knight boxes for my list. Tau was missiling seeker missiles on their sprue, but a least they got all the guns they need in the kit.

Chopstick wrote:

TheGoodGerman wrote:
The Arvus and Vulture are up on preorder from Forgeworld. Alas, they are not exactly a bargain. And the Vulture only comes with the punisher cannon.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/08/07/forge-world-pre-order-airborne-reserves/

Cheers

Hmmm, I hope it's a web typo

After discussing the ins and outs of costs/engineering of designing and molding, let's get back to Aeronautica.

Like it says in the description, the Vulture model only comes with punisher cannons. Don't know about the rocket cradles in one of the product pictures, and if they plan to release all variants individually.

I wanted to make a double rocket pod version anyway, with leftover pods from the valkyries. As it turns out, the hardpoint design of the vulture is different from that of all other imperial planes. If you do the same, you will want to cut them off the wings (and, unlike me, before gluing the wings to the body ).

It was on the product page, but they removed it.

Seems like someone screwed up, either it was meant to be in but they forgot to cast it and include it, or that photo was from the early development and for whatever reason they decided to not include it but uploaded the photo anyway.

Someone over in the general AI thread over in the Specialist Games subforum mentioned they bought it thinking it'd come with the missiles and then got a response from FW saying the picture was for reference only, but they're clearly custom cradles which they sculpted so it's odd they wouldn't just include them.

Thanks for the replies. I'm doing Orks, my wife is doing Navy. We got a 2nd starter set.

Looking forward to playing this.

 Phobos wrote:
Thanks for the replies. I'm doing Orks, my wife is doing Navy. We got a 2nd starter set.

Looking forward to playing this.

That's a good start then Hope you guys enjoy it!

Probably sell it separately later, since the missing options was 2 type of missile + bombs, that'd be enough bits (8 for both plane, 24 bits in total) for FW to justified selling it separately. Even though Vulture is already expensive.

Chopstick wrote:
Probably sell it separately later, since the missing options was 2 type of missile + bombs, that'd be enough bits (8 for both plane, 24 bits in total) for FW to justified selling it separately. Even though Vulture is already expensive.

Could be that they were cut to ensure an already high cost didn't climb any higher.

It's time for GW to move all it's operations to the states. It wouldn't help much more for the China problem but R&D and labor would be a thing of the past!

TA

 schoon wrote:

Chopstick wrote:
Probably sell it separately later, since the missing options was 2 type of missile + bombs, that'd be enough bits (8 for both plane, 24 bits in total) for FW to justified selling it separately. Even though Vulture is already expensive.

Could be that they were cut to ensure an already high cost didn't climb any higher.

I doubt the casting costs make up a significant portion of the consumer price.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 schoon wrote:
Could be that they were cut to ensure an already high cost didn't climb any higher.

I doubt the casting costs make up a significant portion of the consumer price.

No, but more small, thin, intricate bits means bigger chance of mis-cast and bigger chance of having to be re-done.

Labor is almost always a bigger portion of cost than materials.

 schoon wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 schoon wrote:
Could be that they were cut to ensure an already high cost didn't climb any higher.

I doubt the casting costs make up a significant portion of the consumer price.

No, but more small, thin, intricate bits means bigger chance of mis-cast and bigger chance of having to be re-done.

Labor is almost always a bigger portion of cost than materials.

Maybe. Seems like it's already a pretty expensive set for what you get (even compared to FW's typically high prices, the BB booster packs are cheaper for 4 infantry models compared to only getting 2 Vultures). I think the most likely thing is they decided they'll release the other variant separately or as an add on to make more monies.

GLORIOUS!!!

Resin kit though.

That's a lotta thrusta and dakka!

Yeah, but is it enuff dakka?

Of course not!
But still, it’s a good first try.

Hmm, I’m a bit “meh” on it.

It’s good to see some heavy aircraft, but not loving the aesthetics at first glance, the proportions seem a bit wonky. Also at first glance the firepower doesn’t actually seem that great.

In the current rules there’s no real reason to have a big bomb like that, every ground target only has 2pts of structure points. The rules for bombing unfortunately favour using fighter bombers, but maybe they’ll update the rules.

Also resin, and no Remoras yet?

It’ll be good to write scenarios around I guess. With 10 pts structure it can be a viable target for a scenario.

I expected T'au not Orks would get something next...

Damn, only one reply for that beast:

THAT THING IS fething DOPE!!!!!!!

why is it that Orks have the best looking range in Aeronautica?
with every release they're becoming more and more my favorite in the game.

Nice, gives me hope for the Sokar stormbird or the harbinger bomber! Not to mention the Manta!

Yeah, too bad it's resin. I wonder if GW will just stop releasing plastic kits for AI and the future releases will be FW only. It would suck if that's the case - I don't enjoy building small resin aircrafts the same than plastic ones for sure. And also that will mean we may expect the next release in D3+1 years, 'cause of FW's messy release calendar.

The specialist games are all the same; core kits are plastic, exotic kits are resin. It likely reflects healthy sales, but sales perhaps not great enough for GW to let them put exotic/one off models into plastic.

It might also just be because its FW run and they've got the skills and kit. Plastic has come a long way, but resin still beats it for some fine detail and certain shapes.

I just hope we get more xenos. Tau and Orks are in, its time for Eldar and Tyranids!

I generally don't mind resin for infantry type models. Vehicles it's nice if they can be plastic. Though that triple boom layout has the potential to be a nightmare in resin (trying to get everything lined up when the parts are all slightly warped).

I wonder if the base is accurately shown to scale (looks photoshopped in, and is pointing the wrong way). If it is then this thing looks to be about 7 inches wingspan. The Eavy Bomber is currently the biggest wingspan model at about 4.25 inches.

Dislike the way they put the bomb at the rear of the aircraft. Heavy loads on aircraft are always put somewhere near the centre of gravity and centre of pressure so that the balance doesn't get thrown off when the bomb is dropped. Just looks wrong having a big bomb so near the tailplane.

If two tiny little Vultures cost so much from FW, I'm a little bit scared to see how much this thing will cost.

Would been great if Ork got another plastic fighter, make use some of their toys like zzappa, mega kannon and teleporter.

Chopstick wrote:
Would been great if Ork got another plastic fighter, make use some of their toys like zzappa, mega kannon and teleporter.

I think what they need is a transport aircraft. They already have a light fighter and a heavy fighter, perhaps some more weapon options would be good, but a proper transport for scenarios would be nice.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Chopstick wrote:
Would been great if Ork got another plastic fighter, make use some of their toys like zzappa, mega kannon and teleporter.

I think what they need is a transport aircraft. They already have a light fighter and a heavy fighter, perhaps some more weapon options would be good, but a proper transport for scenarios would be nice.

An ork equivalent to the stormraven would be nice. Transport, heavily armed gunship in plastic. Hell if you wanted to continue to flying battle wagon build philosophy you could give it a melee weapon, let it charge stuff with fly. (or a swooping attack like the old flying monstrous creatures.)

That is a monstrous aircraft!

Not sure how to use it correctly, but I'm sure the "know wots" will come to me eventually!

cody.d. wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Chopstick wrote:
Would been great if Ork got another plastic fighter, make use some of their toys like zzappa, mega kannon and teleporter.

I think what they need is a transport aircraft. They already have a light fighter and a heavy fighter, perhaps some more weapon options would be good, but a proper transport for scenarios would be nice.

An ork equivalent to the stormraven would be nice. Transport, heavily armed gunship in plastic. Hell if you wanted to continue to flying battle wagon build philosophy you could give it a melee weapon, let it charge stuff with fly. (or a swooping attack like the old flying monstrous creatures.)

They should have something like the Caestus Assault Ram

I'm not sure it's really much bigger than a 'eavy bommer or a grot bommer. The tail seems a bit longer and it's a bit wider because of the double engines on the wings, but it would be interesting to put the miniature next to a 'eavy bommer to see how really big it is.

Sarouan wrote:
I'm not sure it's really much bigger than a 'eavy bommer or a grot bommer. The tail seems a bit longer and it's a bit wider because of the double engines on the wings, but it would be interesting to put the miniature next to a 'eavy bommer to see how really big it is.

I mentioned in my previous post, if you trust the base size is to scale, then it’s about 7 inches wingspan, compared to the Eavy bomber which is about 4.25 inches. So it’s quite a bit bigger. The fuselage looks very similar to the Eavy Bomber, but it’s not the same, so I think the fuselage is actually beefier.

Taken from a user post on the B&C.

How The feth are we supposed to put anything on the board near this thing tho?

Dats da hole plan! See you gotta think smartz to win big!



Or perhaps bigger planes means bigger boards are in the future. Plus the more they flesh out each line the more chance there is that with a detailed air and titan game they might flesh out some tanks and infantry

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
How The feth are we supposed to put anything on the board near this thing tho?

They said it includes a custom flying stem to allow it to sit higher than other planes

Oh man wait until they made the Manta.....

Chopstick wrote:
Oh man wait until they made the Manta.....

I don’t care how expensive that will be, it’s going to be an auto buy. And probably the size of a 40k Valkyrie..,

This beautiful Ork monstrosity is very tempting for the time being.

 Jadenim wrote:

Chopstick wrote:
Oh man wait until they made the Manta.....

I don’t care how expensive that will be, it’s going to be an auto buy. And probably the size of a 40k Valkyrie..,

This beautiful Ork monstrosity is very tempting for the time being.

If memory serves, the Manta is a bit over twice the span of the Tiger Shark, so at this scale maybe 8" wing span. A bit bigger than the Mega Bommer, but not massively so, and a couple of inches smaller than the 40k Valkyrie.

If you look at pictures of the old Manta from AI, the scale increase is roughly the same as the base size increase (both the scale and the base size increased by 1/3), so it should give a rough idea how big a Manta is going to be in the current scale.

I wasn't and still am not a big fan of the increase in scale for AI, it's okay for the fighters but the bomber aircraft just get a bit silly. The Mega Bommer is going to end up occupying every hex around it and some, the Manta is going to be even worse.

more than 3 times it seem, 5, 6 times with the modern sculpt

It's hard to tell with the perspective, but that certainly doesn't look 5 or 6 times to me, maybe 2.5-ish times, which isn't too far off my original estimate of "a bit over twice".

Otherwise we use the fluff wingspan of 52m, and AI is roughly 1/200 to 1/230 scale, which would put it between 9 and 10" span.

Holy crud, that thing's big!

Big Meks were working overtime!

Thanks for the picture, indeed it's way bigger !

Now I wonder about the stability of the model with just one peg to make it stand...My own 'eavy and grot bommer tend to lean forward already.

About the space it takes on the board, the rules state you can remove the miniature from its base if it's a bit too crowded when they are too close.

I still think this size of aicraft is more suited to a special scenario than a random mission, but it can still be fun either way.

The stand is higher, so it won't touch other aircrafts, just shadowed over them.

lost_lilliputian wrote:
Taken from a user post on the B&C.

Not sure that picture says anything, both images look photoshopped to me. The bases of both bombers seem copied (like actually being the same photo of the same base). The Grot Bomm photos are also of the same model.

I've seen a few GW product pictures in the past where different model photos were copied together and not scaled properly.

Roll on Manta and Harbinger!

TheGoodGerman wrote:

lost_lilliputian wrote:
Taken from a user post on the B&C.

Not sure that picture says anything, both images look photoshopped to me. The bases of both bombers seem copied (like actually being the same photo of the same base). The Grot Bomm photos are also of the same model.

I've seen a few GW product pictures in the past where different model photos were copied together and not scaled properly.

Here's a photo from an earlier WarComm article that'd let you judge the size of it. I think the regular bomber is just a little undersized.
The base in the comparison image is from the mega bomba.

Yeah, GW seem to like photoshopping models on to bases rather than just photographing them on their base. Maybe it's hard to get the lighting right so they photograph the bases separately. If you look at the store page, Thunderbolts, Fighta Bommers, Marauders, they are all clearly photoshopped on to the same base as the Eavy Bommer, Mega Bommer, etc.

So we're just trusting GW have scaled it correctly when they did their photoshop. They possibly do photograph it with the base then just swap it out in photoshop, in which case they probably do scale it correctly.

That said, eyeballing it, I have a Eavy Bommer sitting on my desk and it looks pretty close to the size shown in those images.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sarouan wrote:
Thanks for the picture, indeed it's way bigger !

Now I wonder about the stability of the model with just one peg to make it stand...My own 'eavy and grot bommer tend to lean forward already

My Eavy Bommer just falls off its base, the hole on the model is too big so it doesn't seat properly. It's exceptionally bloody annoying.

Chopstick wrote:


GLORIOUS!!!

Resin kit though.

It’s sooo pretty

Has there been any news about Chaos or Eldar yet?

 Togusa wrote:
Has there been any news about Chaos or Eldar yet?

No nothing new officially yet. Last year FW (Andy Hoare) mentioned Eldar in a twitch stream so we know they are coming.

However there have been rumours and even a very high chance the next box set will be Eldar vs Chaos. One even optimistically said later this year but given the Covid-19 and associated delays I don't expect that anymore, more realistically next year at this rate. We are still waiting for all the Taros campaign releases like ground assets and remora drones.

Then again, never say never hey. Christmas is coming and last December they released the Grot Bommer. The new preview of the Mega Bommer caught most by surprise and even though no date was mentioned, it's normally a 3 month window from being shown to release.

At the end of the Warcom flight plan they say 'Check back for next month’s Flight Plan for another exciting glimpse into the future of Aeronautica Imperialis'.

So we'll have to wait till then to see what's coming up next.

I desperately want eldar of all flavours to go against my Orks and Imperials.

Racerguy180 wrote:
I desperately want eldar of all flavours to go against my Orks and Imperials.

I know how it feels!
Last Christmas/New Year break talking to a UK friend I was excited for AI believing Eldar were coming, and he was like all no, sorry Tau are next haha.

Anyway I patiently wait, but with my Eldar colour scheme already set and paints already bought lol

Eldar would be cool, though I think the rules need an overhaul. I know I've harped on about lackluster rules previously but I think Eldar will struggle with the current rules system, as the rules don't favour fast maneouvrable aircraft without much firepower or structure.

Lazy people already complaint about game being too complicated (when they played X-wings). Imagine SG adding one more pages of rule, people's brain would melt.

Chopstick wrote:
Lazy people already complaint about game being too complicated (when they played X-wings). Imagine SG adding one more pages of rule, people's brain would melt.

I’ve never heard anyone complain AI is too complicated. It’s one of the most basic games I’ve ever played.

But it’s not a question of complexity, it’s a question of how the game plays. Aircraft are too manoeuvrable, which devalues planes that specialise in manoeuvrability, and there’s too much bias toward firepower and structure points as you see games just become shoot outs.

It's right here in this very thread. You gotta read this thread more.

Anyway, a chance for an overhaul is probably 0%, but i'll put in 0,1% because nothing is impossible. It isn't that hard to convert the current version back to the previous ed, but for me an overhaul need something more exciting. Like formation, named squadron rule, special equip, and possibly special manuever for some aircrafts.

Chopstick wrote:
It's right here in this very thread. You gotta read this thread more.

Seriously? Got a link? Coz that's bloody insane, it's one of the simplest games you could imagine. I can't imagine the person who said that had actually tried to play a game more than once.

Unless they were talking about things that were broken in the rules, as there were some rules in the initial release that either didn't make sense, had multiple interpretations or were just worded far more complicated than they needed to be. Some of them were fixed with the FAQ / errata, but I haven't checked if all of them have.

Anyway, a chance for an overhaul is probably 0%, but i'll put in 0,1% because nothing is impossible. It isn't that hard to convert the current version back to the previous ed, but for me an overhaul need something more exciting. Like formation, named squadron rule, special equip, and possibly special manuever for some aircrafts.

The problem is, the game is just not all that compelling or engrossing. If they don't do something about it I think the game is just going to die off. Something like blood bowl has its flaws, but I had gotten a lot of entertaining games out of it before I started to notice the chinks, but the flaws in AI are so apparent I noticed them within 2 games.

I'm struggling to think of anyone who has commented they really fell in love with the game. Most people who collect it seem to love the models and think the game itself is somewhere between decent and junk.

Sure, I could house rule it back to the original AI rules, but the problem with that sort of crap is trying to get a community going. The company selling the game needs to make solid rules a community develops and then the community can tweak it to their liking.

It's frustrating because the original AI, IMO, had relatively solid rules, but (again IMO) failed largely because it was a FW exclusive that suffered from lack of advertising and mainstream appeal that comes from games released by GW proper. Now we have a game released by GW proper with nice models and plastic kits but they fecked up the rules.


I don't think it's impossible for them to change it, as there currently is no definitive rulebook, it's just rules in campaign books. They could write a proper rulebook and release it separately with updated rules.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

I don't think it's impossible for them to change it, as there currently is no definitive rulebook, it's just rules in campaign books. They could write a proper rulebook and release it separately with updated rules.

The Taros book has actually updated rules in comparison to the Rynn one, since they put all the core rules in every book.

Releasing campaigns is just how they do it with AI so far. They put a background and release the aircrafts involved in that background.

What really drags AI down is the lack of different factions with enough choices so far. It's too slow to release them.

I would rather count on Eldar vs Space Marines for the next campaign, so that they keep having an imperium faction as the protagonist in their AI narrative, since they pretty much covered the main aicrafts from imperial navy and Astra Militarum.

I just hope they'll keep releasing plastic kits and not switch the entire production to FW resin because it's not selling enough. FW resin sucks.

The lack of factions is tough one, because overall they have released a lot of kits, I don't think they can release a hell of a lot faster.

An approach they could have taken is just to release 1 fighter for every faction and 1 bomber for the key factions, or maybe have done some dual kits. That way they could have gotten a broader range of factions out without needing to invest more heavily.

For example, did Orks really NEED a heavy bomber in wave 1, or maybe they could have gotten away with just the Fighta and Fighta Bommer and used the machining/casting time to release an Eldar kit instead.

I do wonder if the approach they've taken is because they assumed the people who would buy it are collectors, therefore will buy everything if it's spread out enough. I know I'll probably end up buying a couple of kits from every faction when they're drip fed like this.

Maybe they felt they couldn't beat it, but I think GW should have been aiming to dethrone X-wing, as I think X-wing has been slowing a bit in recent times and a fresh game could have maybe drawn some players away.

GW didn't make this game,.

Warhammer Underworld is the one GW made and pitched against X-wing, with the claim to be "The Ultimate competitive game". All (not one-off) pvp games made by GW have tournament support with special prize kit send to stores, These game made by FW don't have that.

With Heavy Bommer/Grot Bommer, plastic ork is pretty much done for the season. With 2 factions left rest assured they'd get the same treatment with 3,4 kits released quickly for their factions, no need to make the poor Ork players wait a year just to get the heavy bommer, meanwhile Imperial player is having fun with their 3 kits and more to come.

Chopstick wrote:
GW didn't make this game,.

Warhammer Underworld is the one GW made and pitched against X-wing, with the claim to be "The Ultimate competitive game". All (not one-off) pvp games made by GW have tournament support with special prize kit send to stores, These game made by FW don't have that.

Obviously GW didn't try and pitch this game against X-Wing, my point is they should have. The rules as they were released didn't even feel like they've been playtested by anyone outside the design team, let alone designed to play like a competitive game.

But it wasn't really "ultimate competitive" I was thinking about when I was talking about it taking on X-Wing, I more meant a game that functioned well enough to be a game in it's own right (i.e. people buy it to play, not just because the models look cool).

With Heavy Bommer/Grot Bommer, plastic ork is pretty much done for the season. With 2 factions left rest assured they'd get the same treatment with 3,4 kits released quickly for their factions, no need to make the poor Ork players wait a year just to get the heavy bommer, meanwhile Imperial player is having fun with their 3 kits and more to come.

But not everyone plays Orks or Imperials. So the "need" to make poor Ork players wait a year is so that Eldar, Chaos, etc players actually have something to play with in the meantime.

Personally I don't care too much either way myself, because Orks and Imperials were always my favourite factions anyway (followed by Eldar then Tau), but it seems sooo many people have said they'd get into it if only X faction was released, and having a solid player base at launch IMO was really important.

I'd be curious to know how popular the game is in reality, I'm only guessing from what I read on forums and what I've seen at the local shops / clubs that it hasn't really taken off.

With 2 factions left...

Have GW said there's only going to be two more factions? The original game only had two more, but I figured they'd try and milk it more by releasing Necrons, Dark Eldar and maybe even Tyranids (not to mention the typical "50 Shades of Imperium").

Gotta read more, 5 factions were funded, there are 2 left. And there're 3 factions left from the original book.

Also they aren't just gonna throw out a bunch of new faction kit without book or big box.

Chopstick wrote:
Gotta read more, 5 factions were funded, there are 2 left. And there're 3 factions left from the original book.

Unless I missed something (maybe I did) back when the game first released they said 5 factions were already designed. Nothing about there only being 5 factions, or "funding" for 5 factions, that's just what they had already designed at the time.

Are you counting Space Marines as a separate faction when you mean 3 are left from the original book? I usually just bundle Space Marines in with Imperium, seeing as how they only had the Thunderhawks in the old rules, they weren't really designed to be run by themselves.

Also they aren't just gonna throw out a bunch of new faction kit without book or big box.

Well of course they'd have to release rules in a book. The original AI had all factions in a single book, and when the expansion book came out it focused on Imperium and Tau, but still released new rules for the other factions (the Eavy Bommer didn't come out until the expansion in the original game, they could have done the same this time).

It's just a different approach they could have taken to satiate the fans who don't care about Imperials or Orks.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Are you counting Space Marines as a separate faction when you mean 3 are left from the original book? I usually just bundle Space Marines in with Imperium, seeing as how they only had the Thunderhawks in the old rules, they weren't really designed to be run by themselves.

One of the early designer Twitch interviews mentioned Space Marines as one of the possible 5 factions. It was an offhand comment, so I wouldn't call it definite, but a strong possibility.

After a decade they manage to make a bunch of aircrafts for Space Marine. So yes the faction won't be just a Thunderhawk meme.

In fact the Xiphon is the best fighter produced by the Imperium.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

I'd be curious to know how popular the game is in reality, I'm only guessing from what I read on forums and what I've seen at the local shops / clubs that it hasn't really taken off.

:-) Only GW will know if it's 'taken off', 'stalled' or 'crashed and burned'. And that depends the on the return they expected a specialist game, with a more sporadic release cycle. Certainly the Wings of Vengeance wave must have been encouraging enough for the Mega-Bomber to be produced so it's probably got enough 'thrust' to make it to the third wave (Eldar v ????). Will they call it quits after that? Who can say? Best guess is that FW keep producing the odd plane here and there for a while.

Chopstick wrote:
After a decade they manage to make a bunch of aircrafts for Space Marine. So yes the faction won't be just a Thunderhawk meme.

In fact the Xiphon is the best fighter produced by the Imperium.

Isn't the Xiphon a 30k aircraft though?

I never really liked the idea of Space Marines getting a lot of aircraft, I liked the fluff where after the HH they limited individual branches of the Imperium from becoming all powerful, so Space Marines wouldn't have an air force but would have to rely on the Imperial Navy for support.

Also GW's Space Marine aircraft all look ugly as all hell The FW stuff looks okay, but I figured that was just 30k aircraft.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MarkNorfolk wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

I'd be curious to know how popular the game is in reality, I'm only guessing from what I read on forums and what I've seen at the local shops / clubs that it hasn't really taken off.

:-) Only GW will know if it's 'taken off', 'stalled' or 'crashed and burned'. And that depends the on the return they expected a specialist game, with a more sporadic release cycle. Certainly the Wings of Vengeance wave must have been encouraging enough for the Mega-Bomber to be produced so it's probably got enough 'thrust' to make it to the third wave (Eldar v ????). Will they call it quits after that? Who can say? Best guess is that FW keep producing the odd plane here and there for a while.

Right at the start with Wings of Vengeance things seemed promising, but then the hype seemed to die off really quickly. Taros unfortunately launched in the middle of the pandemic.

If we get some Eldar, personally I'll be happy for myself as I can just wrap up my collection of tiny planes even if the game dies after that... it'll just be sad because I always felt AI had real potential with those old FW rules just needing some minor tweaking.

Chopstick wrote:


GLORIOUS!!!

Resin kit though.

Up for preorder this coming Friday. Any thoughts on price?

£60 I reckon

That mega bommer looks like a boss from Capcom's Varth: Operation Thunderstorm. Which is awesome!

93USD for the big boi.

I'll take 2 Heavy bommer + 6 Dakkajet instead with that money.

It really doesn't look that bigger than the 'eavy bommer, to be honest. Just wider, hulk looks very close.

I also have concerns about the "bespoke flying stem which allows it to sit higher than other models." Mainly because all pictures so far doesn't show it higher as others airships. Is it on a regular flying stem, or is the difference of height actually negligeable ?

At that price, that's a bit too many questions to ask to blind buy before having returns from buying customers.

We know from experience pictures from FW can be sometimes misleading...I'm looking at you, Vultures without missiles.

How big are these? I want to convert one into a hat for my Warboss.

Too big for that, unless you’re building a 54mm Ork?!

One of the fighter jets could work, but would still be pretty big, think comically oversize 10-gallon cowboy hat.

It looks cool but they're out of their minds on the price

That's a puny amount of dakka for a plane that big. But that's pretty much... all Ork aircrafts,

 Crablezworth wrote:
It looks cool but they're out of their minds on the price

It seems to be similar value to the vultures.

I figure its one of those models that looks rather small online for what it is but looks far more worth its price when you see it for real.

It might be somewhat big for the game, but at the same time I think its a good sign that GW is serious about this game but also has an eye to the future. Perhaps a system of bigger aircraft engagements when there's a lot more aircraft variety. Or even some kind of hybrid air and land combat game.

 Overread wrote:
I figure its one of those models that looks rather small online for what it is but looks far more worth its price when you see it for real.

Maybe, it's still pretty expensive, I was estimating about 7" wingspan, if we had a model from FW that was 7" tall I doubt it would be much cheaper than that.

It might be somewhat big for the game, but at the same time I think its a good sign that GW is serious about this game but also has an eye to the future. Perhaps a system of bigger aircraft engagements when there's a lot more aircraft variety. Or even some kind of hybrid air and land combat game.

Well, the original version of the game had bigger aircraft than this with what was essentially the same rules.

I mentioned in the other thread.... To me, it just seems like a model which you can build scenarios around. It doesn't seem terribly good for its points cost. It has a big bomb, but GW haven't released rules for any ground targets that have more than 2 structure points, so it's just a waste unless you write a scenario which has some super tough ground target that needs to be destroyed.

The first and only expansion of the original AI game brought with it scenarios with ground targets that had a large number of structure points, if they bring back those rules, the Mega Bommer would start to make a bit more sense.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:


The first and only expansion of the original AI game brought with it scenarios with ground targets that had a large number of structure points, if they bring back those rules, the Mega Bommer would start to make a bit more sense.

Didn't they also stop selling those ground targets? I wanted to get a box for AT but it seems like they're out of print.

 Crablezworth wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:


The first and only expansion of the original AI game brought with it scenarios with ground targets that had a large number of structure points, if they bring back those rules, the Mega Bommer would start to make a bit more sense.

Didn't they also stop selling those ground targets? I wanted to get a box for AT but it seems like they're out of print.

I was talking about the first AI game, any models from that are long gone (I think they did make some 6mm scale buildings for it).

The ground targets from the current AI game seem to have been limited edition, they're not on the GW store any more. I picked mine up at my local GW store because I noticed they'd been moved to the "get it while it lasts" shelf. It's a bit sad, since we have the rules for them and they're pictured on the homepage of the AI website, but you can't buy them any more.

But all those ground targets in the modern AI ground targets set were all 2 structure points, the bunkers might have been 3, don't have my rulebook in front of me to check.

 Crablezworth wrote:


Didn't they also stop selling those ground targets? I wanted to get a box for AT but it seems like they're out of print.

True, that.

However, this is also one of the most easily substituted and/or kitbashed elements of the game. Shouldn't hold back too many folks.

New ground assets and terrain!

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/10/20/flight-plan-youre-grounded/

Gods I hope we get those in 40k scale for the Guard.

Look like some nice material for kitbashing

Those T'au emplacements and tower will definitely be an interesting addition to a Titanicus base

Wait, why "hydra" asset has lascannon tips on what is clearly guns? Compare it to card of the same in article, which is correct...

Because it's based off the older Forgeworld style hydra:

 zedmeister wrote:
Because it's based off the older Forgeworld style hydra:

The superior Forge World style hydra.

They were based on the old one

 Kanluwen wrote:
The superior Forge World style hydra.

Indeed. Shame they didn't do the same with the Manticore:

No new Orky ground assets #sadface

 zedmeister wrote:
Because it's based off the older Forgeworld style hydra

Eh, no. You can see it still has straight, cylindrical tips of every single imperial autocannon, instead of angled end of lascannon. Yes, it has little rain covers on end but they are clearly not part of barrel or muzzle brake as they have different caliber. The asset has the slanted tip of uniform diameter, just like lascannon. I can't see it as anything but modelling error.

Also no, it's not based on old, ugly FW one, but clearly on plastic Hydra mounted on IG vehicle. Asset has ejection ports, FW one doesn't. Asset has two reinforced bands near muzzle brake, just like plastic, unlike FW. Asset has square ends of gun rear, like plastic, FW has triangular. Etc, etc, it's clearly based on vehicle, especially card art, not old, obscure third party thing, way too many details point at current design.

Moving on, they could just admit they are making multi-game pieces, not try to shoehorn basilisks as AA artillery. Hello? FW? It's a howitzer, there is a reason for the past 100 years these had very little in common with AA guns. It's just silly. But I guess not as silly as both Tau "AA" guns than can rise maybe 25 degrees before smacking rear rim of base. Must be their advanced thinking in play

 Irbis wrote:

 zedmeister wrote:
Because it's based off the older Forgeworld style hydra

Eh, no. You can see it still has straight, cylindrical tips of every single imperial autocannon, instead of angled end of lascannon. Yes, it has little rain covers on end but they are clearly not part of barrel or muzzle brake as they have different caliber. The asset has the slanted tip of uniform diameter, just like lascannon. I can't see it as anything but modelling error.

Also no, it's not based on old, ugly FW one, but clearly on plastic Hydra mounted on IG vehicle. Asset has ejection ports, FW one doesn't. Asset has two reinforced bands near muzzle brake, just like plastic, unlike FW. Asset has square ends of gun rear, like plastic, FW has triangular. Etc, etc, it's clearly based on vehicle, especially card art, not old, obscure third party thing, way too many details point at current design.

Moving on, they could just admit they are making multi-game pieces, not try to shoehorn basilisks as AA artillery. Hello? FW? It's a howitzer, there is a reason for the past 100 years these had very little in common with AA guns. It's just silly. But I guess not as silly as both Tau "AA" guns than can rise maybe 25 degrees before smacking rear rim of base. Must be their advanced thinking in play

Given the differences in scale, methinks you're making a lot of minor differences, looking at both the GW and FW hydras, the asset looks a lot more like the old FW hydra than the current one (albeit not 100% exactly like either), especially the (closed-top) turret itself, particularly the rear end looks exactly like the old FW hydra tank turret I've got sitting here. Likewise, no it wasn't an obscure third-party thing, FW is (and was) in integral part of GW, and the old Hydra was based off the original Epic scale Hydra (which is much closer to the FW iteration than the main studio Plastic hydra kit). The Aeronautica Imperialis video game also explicitly uses the old FW Hydra model.

I suspect the Basilisks are being used as stand-ins for something to look like a Flak-88.

 Vaktathi wrote:

I suspect the Basilisks are being used as stand-ins for something to look like a Flak-88.

Basilisk is a stand in for this the old Heavy Flak Cannon:



Was never specifically called a Basilisk but was supposed to fire Skyshaker shells

These scale-down models are not 100% accurate. They skipped detail to save machining cost.

They are pretty and I want them. That new rim on the Imperial assets is also very well designed, suitably blocky yet aesthetically pleasing without a wave of skulls on it.

Good models for Epic Earthshaker platforms, these.

Awesome! Guessing they’ll be whilst stocks last though...

These new AI ground assets have been confirmed on their facebook page (AI) to be made out of FW Resin. They are not plastic.

lost_lilliputian wrote:
These new AI ground assets have been confirmed on their facebook page (AI) to be made out of FW Resin. They are not plastic.

Verdamit.

lost_lilliputian wrote:
These new AI ground assets have been confirmed on their facebook page (AI) to be made out of FW Resin. They are not plastic.

So... they're going to be sold on FW's site then?

lost_lilliputian wrote:
These new AI ground assets have been confirmed on their facebook page (AI) to be made out of FW Resin. They are not plastic.

Really? That sucks, I assumed they'd be plastic given they follow the same format as the previous set (2 anti air options and 1 objective for each side on a single sprue).

Ugh, making those Hydras from resin isn't going to be fun.

What a relief, wallet is saved.

I feel like they're going out of their way to make the game less accessible at this point. Kinda glad I didn't take the plunge and went for Underworlds instead.

I imagine that it's honestly a reaction to the game not doing so well sales wise.

At the very least they seem not to have given up on it yet but if it was really flying off the shelves then chances are even things like the Arvus and Vulture might have been plastic.

 Jack Flask wrote:
I imagine that it's honestly a reaction to the game not doing so well sales wise.

At the very least they seem not to have given up on it yet but if it was really flying off the shelves then chances are even things like the Arvus and Vulture might have been plastic.

I tend to think they probably already planned for those to be resin. There's a long lead time from designing a model to manufacturing it for them to change their mind on making it plastic.

I reckon they always planned to make some stuff resin from FW, the same way some of the Blood Bowl stuff and AT stuff is resin.

Production capacity is overload now, AT got new expansion with 0 new kit.

FW resin, great so a handful will be $100... I was sorta laughing that mentioned the oop ground assets only to see the update and get excited thinking it was a new ground asset box with imperial/tau instead of ork.

Chopstick wrote:
Production capacity is overload now, AT got new expansion with 0 new kit.

The previous ground asset kit was a Chinese cast, so if they'd gone done that route it wouldn't have consumed their in house capacity. But maybe with covid the China cast has become more difficult for them to do.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crablezworth wrote:
FW resin, great so a handful will be $100... I was sorta laughing that mentioned the oop ground assets only to see the update and get excited thinking it was a new ground asset box with imperial/tau instead of ork.

I'll be curious to see how much they'll cost, I really like the look of them, but if we're talking hundreds of dollars to get the set then I'll pass.

Even when the Game fails, they can later use the Airplane molds for Adeptus Titanicus Expansions or Epic.

Anyone got a scale picture between this and the old Forgeworld Epic aircraft?

 TheSecretSquig wrote:
Anyone got a scale picture between this and the old Forgeworld Epic aircraft?

 zedmeister wrote:

Why is this called a "Basilisk" Anti-Aircraft emplacement? Is that not the wrong name? I was under the impression "Basilisk" is the name of the self-propelled artillery platform as a whole, with the cannon mounted to a Chimera (or other chassis). The cannon itself isn't what the name refers to, while the weapon platform with the Manitcore and Hydra turrets just used the vehicle name, the canon from the Basilisk used the "Earthshaker" name when used as an emplacement .

Sound like a mixed up between the basilisk tank and the weapon it used, the earthshaker cannon

 Jack Flask wrote:
I imagine that it's honestly a reaction to the game not doing so well sales wise.

At the very least they seem not to have given up on it yet but if it was really flying off the shelves then chances are even things like the Arvus and Vulture might have been plastic.

I think GW gave up on AI about 5 pages into writing the first rulebook

If they'd given up on it, they'd just have stopped releasing stuff (especially when their release slate is too full because of covid)

that they're still putting stuff, out (and if these are really resin putting hand casting time into it which is really a major pinch point due to social distancing) they really are committed to ongoing support for the game

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
If they'd given up on it, they'd just have stopped releasing stuff (especially when their release slate is too full because of covid)

that they're still putting stuff, out (and if these are really resin putting hand casting time into it which is really a major pinch point due to social distancing) they really are committed to ongoing support for the game

I agree. Remember they still have to integrate with GW's overall release schedule and the first half of the year was hindered with a production shutdown and the second half mostly focused on the launch of a new 40k edition and many new Necron and SM kits. I'm not surprised the Specialist Games stuff got put on the back burner.

Now c'mon GW. Make the Tau terrain in 40k scale so I can buy too much of it.

 Irbis wrote:
Eh, no. You can see it still has straight, cylindrical tips of every single imperial autocannon, instead of angled end of lascannon.

Wow. You did what you always do: Come into a thread for the express purpose of going "No! That's wrong!", and even when shown with multiple pictures why your correction was inaccurate (and even given reasons why something in that scale won't have the same details as something made for a bigger scale), your only response is "Er. No!". You're incredible.

 Grimskul wrote:
I feel like they're going out of their way to make the game less accessible at this point.

I mean did you see the price of the giant Ork Bomber they just put out? Costs almost as much as a Start Collecting! for a single damned plane. They're out of their damned minds with these prices.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Now c'mon GW. Make the Tau terrain in 40k scale so I can buy too much of it.

 Irbis wrote:
Eh, no. You can see it still has straight, cylindrical tips of every single imperial autocannon, instead of angled end of lascannon.

Wow. You did what you always do: Come into a thread for the express purpose of going "No! That's wrong!", and even when shown with multiple pictures why your correction was inaccurate (and even given reasons why something in that scale won't have the same details as something made for a bigger scale), your only response is "Er. No!". You're incredible.

 Grimskul wrote:
I feel like they're going out of their way to make the game less accessible at this point.

I mean did you see the price of the giant Ork Bomber they just put out? Costs almost as much as a Start Collecting! for a single damned plane. They're out of their damned minds with these prices.

Yeah, I initially saw that Ork bomber and said "Hell yeah!". Then I saw the price (in Canadian no less, I know Australia's must be even worse) and said, "HELL NO!".

An awful shame, because I would LOOOVE to see that in 40k scale. Probably wouldn't be good rules-wise but I feel like Ork aircraft options are something they've missed a chance with.

 Jack Flask wrote:
I imagine that it's honestly a reaction to the game not doing so well sales wise.

At the very least they seem not to have given up on it yet but if it was really flying off the shelves then chances are even things like the Arvus and Vulture might have been plastic.

As someone who recently bought in and has big buyers remorse, this is what I'll say.

Absolutely stunning models. 10/10 for each one I've seen.
Game Play. 0/10. Literally it's just boring, dull and favors specific planes over others.

I cut while I had the chance and ended up picking up SW: Armada instead, which is way, way better.

 Togusa wrote:

 Jack Flask wrote:
I imagine that it's honestly a reaction to the game not doing so well sales wise.

At the very least they seem not to have given up on it yet but if it was really flying off the shelves then chances are even things like the Arvus and Vulture might have been plastic.

As someone who recently bought in and has big buyers remorse, this is what I'll say.

Absolutely stunning models. 10/10 for each one I've seen.
Game Play. 0/10. Literally it's just boring, dull and favors specific planes over others.

I cut while I had the chance and ended up picking up SW: Armada instead, which is way, way better.

I admit the AI game is pretty basic - but it's fine enough for a quick pick-up game at the local club. Requiring players to commit to a direction when choosing a maneuvere would add a lot, I think. And I love painting the models. So I played my 'more money than sense' card and splashed for the Mega-Bomber. Just because.

I play Star Wars: Armada too. Fantastic game.

MarkNorfolk wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

 Jack Flask wrote:
I imagine that it's honestly a reaction to the game not doing so well sales wise.

At the very least they seem not to have given up on it yet but if it was really flying off the shelves then chances are even things like the Arvus and Vulture might have been plastic.

As someone who recently bought in and has big buyers remorse, this is what I'll say.

Absolutely stunning models. 10/10 for each one I've seen.
Game Play. 0/10. Literally it's just boring, dull and favors specific planes over others.

I cut while I had the chance and ended up picking up SW: Armada instead, which is way, way better.

I admit the AI game is pretty basic - but it's fine enough for a quick pick-up game at the local club. Requiring players to commit to a direction when choosing a maneuvere would add a lot, I think. And I love painting the models. So I played my 'more money than sense' card and splashed for the Mega-Bomber. Just because.

I play Star Wars: Armada too. Fantastic game.

I don't even think it's fine for pick-up games, within a few intro games I was seeing the holes. It's not that the game is too basic, it feels like it hasn't been playtested. Some of the changes they made from the 1st game look like someone thought it would be a good idea without actually playtesting the effect. Not that the 1st game was perfect, it needed refinement, but we've got the opposite of refinement.

Just got one of the new Mega Bommers in the post. Fantastic model, with incredible detail (and just a tiny bit of mold slip in one out of the way area). It is HUGE, and it appears to have magnet holes for most of the turrets so they can pivot.

Bit weird that it can take 4 Big Bombs and comes with 8 (and attachment points for all of them) and it can take 2 pairs of rokkits and comes with 4 (and attachment points for all of them).

However, the included acrylic rod is soft. It bends under fairly light pressure (I bent it just removing the attachment to the sprue, or whatever). It bends back readily, but I've never seen acrylic rod that is flexible like this. I've emailed them, but does anyone know if this needs to cure, or if it is widespread?

You can bend thin acylic rod a bit, but too much and it snaps

I know I've had a couple of non GW/FW flying things with rod that was too thin and failed so I replaced it with something thicker,

but it's fairly obvious it's going to happen as the rod started to bend when the mini was put on them, so i'd see if it does that when the main body of the bomber if on it

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 TheSecretSquig wrote:
Anyone got a scale picture between this and the old Forgeworld Epic aircraft?

Any chance anyone can add the old Epic 40K, metal flyers to this picture for further comparison? Thanks!

callidusx3 wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 TheSecretSquig wrote:
Anyone got a scale picture between this and the old Forgeworld Epic aircraft?

Any chance anyone can add the old Epic 40K, metal flyers to this picture for further comparison? Thanks!

But they’re in the photo already; can’t you see those little specs to the right of the AI1 planes?

Da Butcha wrote:
Just got one of the new Mega Bommers in the post. Fantastic model, with incredible detail (and just a tiny bit of mold slip in one out of the way area). It is HUGE, and it appears to have magnet holes for most of the turrets so they can pivot.

Bit weird that it can take 4 Big Bombs and comes with 8 (and attachment points for all of them) and it can take 2 pairs of rokkits and comes with 4 (and attachment points for all of them).

However, the included acrylic rod is soft. It bends under fairly light pressure (I bent it just removing the attachment to the sprue, or whatever). It bends back readily, but I've never seen acrylic rod that is flexible like this. I've emailed them, but does anyone know if this needs to cure, or if it is widespread?

Any chance you could measure the wingspan for those of us that are curious? Or a photo next to an Eavy Bomber if that's easier?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

callidusx3 wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 TheSecretSquig wrote:
Anyone got a scale picture between this and the old Forgeworld Epic aircraft?

Any chance anyone can add the old Epic 40K, metal flyers to this picture for further comparison? Thanks!

The old metals were much tinier than the FW resin ones, maybe half the size of the FW resin ones.

I don't have any metal Thunderbolts or Nightwings, somewhere at my parents' place I'd have some metal Dakkajets that I painted when I was about 10yo, lol, but I can't put my hands on them quickly to get a comparison. I do remember they were a lot tinier though.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

callidusx3 wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 TheSecretSquig wrote:
Anyone got a scale picture between this and the old Forgeworld Epic aircraft?

Any chance anyone can add the old Epic 40K, metal flyers to this picture for further comparison? Thanks!

The old metals were much tinier than the FW resin ones, maybe half the size of the FW resin ones.

I don't have any metal Thunderbolts or Nightwings, somewhere at my parents' place I'd have some metal Dakkajets that I painted when I was about 10yo, lol, but I can't put my hands on them quickly to get a comparison. I do remember they were a lot tinier though.

Thanks for the input. As you requested above, measurements of one of the new AI figures and one of the old FW figures would suffice for my purposes too. I have old Epic 40K flyers for IG, Eldar and Orks, so I can arrive at the change in scale with those numbers. My main purpose is to play the new AI on a 3'x3' with 1" hexes using Epic figures (as well as scaled 3D prints of some of the models not released back in Epic).

You should share those early paint jobs of yours. I was in my 20's when Epic 40K released.

For which ones did you want measurements? I have a few in front of me...

New Plastic Thunderbolt:
70mm wingspan, 72mm if you include the landing lights.

New Plastic Dakkajet:
56mm wingspan

Old resin Dakkajet:
41.5mm wingspan.

If your hope was to use new plastics alongside the old metals, I think there's a pretty big difference in scale. The new plastics are ~8mm scale, the old resin was ~6mm scale, but the old metals were maybe 3 or 4mm scale if memory serves. Though I'd be curious if you have some old metals how big they are also.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:


Any chance you could measure the wingspan for those of us that are curious? Or a photo next to an Eavy Bomber if that's easier?

I haven't assembled the model yet, but it will be right around 170mm across, vs the 110mm of the Eavy Bommer.

Wing sections are 4cm, wingtips bits are 1cm (but angled slightly upwards), engines are 2cm across, and the main fuselage is 3cm across.

Da Butcha wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:


Any chance you could measure the wingspan for those of us that are curious? Or a photo next to an Eavy Bomber if that's easier?

I haven't assembled the model yet, but it will be right around 170mm across, vs the 110mm of the Eavy Bommer.

Wing sections are 4cm, wingtips bits are 1cm (but angled slightly upwards), engines are 2cm across, and the main fuselage is 3cm across.

Thanks! I had been estimating a 7" (178mm) wingspan based upon the pictures, seems that wasn't too far off. So it's a decent chunk bigger than an Eavy Bomber, but not insanely so. The Eavy Bomber is already pretty big relative to the hex pattern on the boards.

Have fun building and painting it! Would love to see it when you're done.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
For which ones did you want measurements? I have a few in front of me...

New Plastic Thunderbolt:
70mm wingspan, 72mm if you include the landing lights.

New Plastic Dakkajet:
56mm wingspan

Old resin Dakkajet:
41.5mm wingspan.

If your hope was to use new plastics alongside the old metals, I think there's a pretty big difference in scale. The new plastics are ~8mm scale, the old resin was ~6mm scale, but the old metals were maybe 3 or 4mm scale if memory serves. Though I'd be curious if you have some old metals how big they are also.

I have no interest in using the new figures at all. I just need to get an idea what the size of the new planes would be in the old scale (for 3D printing purposes). Thanks for those numbers!

Here are the sizes of the metal flyers (names as used then) I have from Epic 40K (most are 1997 release; width / length):

Ork Fights-Bommer: 22mm / 23mm & 25mm / 28mm [2 different sculpts]

Imperial Thunderbolt: 25mm / 28mm
Imperial Marauder: 35mm (including weapons) / 40mm
Imperial Maruader (older sculpt): 31mm / 36mm

Eldar Nightwing: 21mm / 28mm
Eldar Pheonix: 37mm / 37mm

Ground assets up for pre order on Friday

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/11/01/sunday-preview-the-road-to-godhood/





Will make some nice additions to Adeptus Titanicus as well...

Man those Tau ground assets are ace. Shame that (for me / my group) the game had no legs at all, but as you say will be useful for AT or other (possible future!) small scale endeavors by GW...

RiTides who knows once game groups get back to running if GW has released another faction or two you might have a try and get it going. If you've two squadrons and some ground assets and the board the whole visual experience in a demo game might convince a few to join in.

I think the hard part is to convince people to play more than a few games.

But first they need to hire a rule writer, one that isn't bound by nu-GW "overly simplified games for babies and people with ADHD" rule, Blood Bowl,AT, and Necromunda have shown that people can handle games that are a bit more complex and had ton of variety.

Also rule writer for this game required to have some basic aviation knowledge and WW2 battle. And read the old book and 40k book, so we don't have embarrassing error like T'au using infrared tech.

Chopstick wrote:
I think the hard part is to convince people to play more than a few games.

But first they need to hire a rule writer, one that isn't bound by nu-GW "overly simplified games for babies and people with ADHD" rule, Blood Bowl,AT, and Necromunda have shown that people can handle games that are a bit more complex and had ton of variety.

Also rule writer for this game required to have some basic aviation knowledge and WW2 battle. And read the old book and 40k book, so we don't have embarrassing error like T'au using infrared tech.

Did you ever play the original AI? I thought it was a pretty good balance between actual aerial combat and sufficient abstraction to make it playable.

GW already had a good ruleset, they just screwed it up when they went to the hex board by making planes too agile, making the balance worse and oversimplifying some things.

There were actually some people who used AI rules with WW2 planes, as most of the WW2 rulesets were either way too detailed (painful to play with more than a couple of planes) or way too abstract (good for big squadrons, but so much of the dogfighting was just abstracted), AI was a good middle ground.

I think I have answered that question over a couple dozen times already.

Chopstick wrote:
I think I have answered that question over a couple dozen times already.

And you could have answered again in less time than it took to type that, and not wasted my time opening the thread again to check what you wrote.

I'm not going to go back through a 46 page thread to find what you answered last time. You should have just not replied at all if that's what you were going to write.

Chopstick wrote:
I think I have answered that question over a couple dozen times already.

And yet he keeps coming back to complain!

I’d be curious if he’s actually played the new game; or at least built the models. Having not mentioned the problems with some of the models in the line seems to indicate he’s never built or seen anything after the initial launch.

 Soundtheory wrote:

Chopstick wrote:
I think I have answered that question over a couple dozen times already.

And yet he keeps coming back to complain!

I’d be curious if he’s actually played the new game; or at least built the models. Having not mentioned the problems with some of the models in the line seems to indicate he’s never built or seen anything after the initial launch.

Are there any problems to look out for with the Valkyries?

JWBS wrote:

 Soundtheory wrote:

Chopstick wrote:
I think I have answered that question over a couple dozen times already.

And yet he keeps coming back to complain!

I’d be curious if he’s actually played the new game; or at least built the models. Having not mentioned the problems with some of the models in the line seems to indicate he’s never built or seen anything after the initial launch.

Are there any problems to look out for with the Valkyries?

I don't recall having any problems when I built mine.

The only issues I've had with any AI models is the damned hole for the flight stand either being too small or too large, but that wasn't a problem with the Valkyrie. The Eavy Bommer has too big of a hole, so it just falls off its base, the Lightning and Tau aircraft the hole is too small so you have to force them on.

Give these as 28mm :/

 CragHack wrote:
Give these as 28mm :/

The Tau stuff is there, or at least easily converted from existing 28mm terrain.

Ground assets up on FW, 22 pounds for 2 guns and 1 objective.

Was expecting £20 so not too bad. Little over £7 per piece

They seem to be bigger than the plastic ones too, by one of the photos they appear to almost fill an entire hex.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Did you ever play the original AI? I thought it was a pretty good balance between actual aerial combat and sufficient abstraction to make it playable.

GW already had a good ruleset, they just screwed it up when they went to the hex board by making planes too agile, making the balance worse and oversimplifying some things.

There were actually some people who used AI rules with WW2 planes, as most of the WW2 rulesets were either way too detailed (painful to play with more than a couple of planes) or way too abstract (good for big squadrons, but so much of the dogfighting was just abstracted), AI was a good middle ground.

I agree with this a lot; my experience so far has been that Tigersharks significantly outshine Barracudas, simply because the loss of agility isn't anywhere close to offsetting two and a half times the durability. The old AI was significantly more restrictive in maneuver. I'll have to go check my rulebook to see exactly how it differs; maybe the new game can be houseruled to work more like the old one.

Also yeah, off the top of my head Sturmovik Commander is a WW2 ruleset using A:I as the base. Seems pretty cool, haven't played it though.

 catbarf wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Did you ever play the original AI? I thought it was a pretty good balance between actual aerial combat and sufficient abstraction to make it playable.

GW already had a good ruleset, they just screwed it up when they went to the hex board by making planes too agile, making the balance worse and oversimplifying some things.

There were actually some people who used AI rules with WW2 planes, as most of the WW2 rulesets were either way too detailed (painful to play with more than a couple of planes) or way too abstract (good for big squadrons, but so much of the dogfighting was just abstracted), AI was a good middle ground.

I agree with this a lot; my experience so far has been that Tigersharks significantly outshine Barracudas, simply because the loss of agility isn't anywhere close to offsetting two and a half times the durability. The old AI was significantly more restrictive in maneuver. I'll have to go check my rulebook to see exactly how it differs; maybe the new game can be houseruled to work more like the old one.

Also yeah, off the top of my head Sturmovik Commander is a WW2 ruleset using A:I as the base. Seems pretty cool, haven't played it though.

I think the original AI manoeuvre system needed a bit of work but it was on the right track. It was slightly flawed in that planes with "very high" didn't have much of an advantage over "high", but in the new AI system even the lowest agility planes like Eavy Bombers can do a complete 180 in a single turn. So yeah, I agree with your assessment of the Tau aircraft, the new AI biases itself far too much to aircraft that have good firepower and lots of structure points over aircraft that are supposedly better dogfighters because all aircraft are sufficiently agile to get an enemy in their arc easily.

The way the original AI linked altitude and speed with the chosen manoeuvre was also nice, as that's how real aerial combat works, managing the energy by trading altitude for speed and then burning energy with tight manoeuvres. Made the game feel a lot more authentic.

The downside to the original was that many of the very high cards were in practice no better than the high cards. I think there were 10 cards, but a few could have been removed.

Protection against ground asset and extra throttle for +1 cost is good.

24pts still too much for an aircraft with only 2 structure points.

Imperials have Thunderbolts with 3 structure for 21-25 pts, Tau have the 24pt Tigersharks with 5 structure. Orks were struggling with their 2 structure Dakkajets getting popped in T1, and they're only 16pts, I think all these 20+pt models with only 2 structure points aren't going to function well with how the rules currently favour the highest firepower and structure for the least number of points.

With Corona I haven't had a chance to play with the new models, but it looks to me like the Lightnings are also going to struggle at 19 points with only a TL lascannon or 23pts with the TL multilasers, not enough firepower to justify the points with only 2 structure.

Thunderbolt cost 23, TBolt Fury cost 25.

Tiger Shark with its 4+ handling will crash and burn in low attitude mission no matter how many hull point it have

With Stealth -2 the Ghost avenger is immune to attitude 2 turret at attitude 2, and attitude 4 turret at attitude 4.

Forgot the Bolt went up to 23, but still it has so much more utility than the other Imperial fighters it's a no brainer.

The low altitude I think is more of a gimmick, if you have so much terrain on the board that it's not easily avoidable it'll lead to a crappy game IMO (not to mention there's heaps of planes that would immediately become useless, like the entire Ork airforce which is 4+ or worse handling, Valkyries and so on).

It's not so much a concern that your poor handling planes crash, rather it's a boost to your high agility planes that they can use terrain to get a free turn.

I guess if you manufacture the terrain specifically to benefit the couple of high handling aircraft (Lightnings, Avengers, Barracudas) they become viable or even a necessity.

TBH, whilst I haven't played a low altitude game yet, it seems to me those low altitude rules need some work.

There are also the chase where plane that love to hang back like railgun shark will be left behind and the mediocre handling will get them out of the game for good. Lightnng is extremely good in that scenario

[quote=AllSeeingSkink
The only issues I've had with any AI models is the damned hole for the flight stand either being too small or too large, but that wasn't a problem with the Valkyrie. The Eavy Bommer has too big of a hole, so it just falls off its base, the Lightning and Tau aircraft the hole is too small so you have to force them on.

Amyloid know when WD 458 is scheduled to hit the stores?

This coming Friday or Saturday.

Anyone else notice on the WHC White Dwarf 459 (Dec) preview, on the table of contents...

"Aeronautica Imperialis.
Page 112 Aerial Anomalies.
Looted Imperial fighters? Imperials fighting for the Greater Good? There must be something in the air!"


Hmm so maybe a Looted Avenger Strike fighter for Orks? Valkyrie stolen and converted into a Chinork? Gue'vesa human auxiliary pilots helping the Tau?

These may be more narrative driven but I'm really curious how this turns out, the modelling opportunities alone sound fun.

This has the potential to be a really neat addition. Here's hoping the rules are good and it's as cool as it sounds.

I do not know how they will look in AI 2, but the community made up some rules for Gue'Vesa aircraft and a list for AI 1 from FW.

You can check it out here:
https://app.box.com/s/2mwdb2pl02nu9mxe6ns0

Here are a few pictures of the new defenses for Imperium and T'au from FW (order came today at home) :



They're quite bigger than the first plastic ones (ork and imperium sold with the first starter).

And here are the new terrains with a 6mm Vanguard miniature "not sister of battle" from the Convent range :



Feels like the Imperium terrain is a bit bigger for 6mm scale.



The T'au one is fine, though, IMHO.


Hope that helps people !

Any chance of spoilering those vast images?

Maybe because it's 8mm and not 6mm.

It's hard to see from the pictures, but it looks like the guns haven't grown much, but rather the base has just gotten bigger with more space around the guns?

RazorEdge wrote:
Maybe because it's 8mm and not 6mm.

Or because for whatever reason, Onslaugh Miniature's sisterhood, particularly the first couple of releases, are on the tiny side, height wise.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It's hard to see from the pictures, but it looks like the guns haven't grown much, but rather the base has just gotten bigger with more space around the guns?

The base is undeniably bigger (especially the Astra Militarum ones), but the guns are longer too. About one half for the Hydra version and nearly two times bigger for the basilisk artillery one (which honestly makes sense, given its nature).

 Albertorius wrote:

RazorEdge wrote:
Maybe because it's 8mm and not 6mm.

Or because for whatever reason, Onslaugh Miniature's sisterhood, particularly the first couple of releases, are on the tiny side, height wise.

It's a Vanguard Miniature sister, from their Convent range. It's not from Onslaught Miniatures. The height is a "real" 6 mm scale.

RazorEdge wrote:
Maybe because it's 8mm and not 6mm.

Not this again.

Titanicus/Aeronautica are 1/4th of 40k scale, but we see that a lot of 6mm models (especially more true scale stuff like Vanguard Miniatures) work just fine here. 40k itself is very inconsistent, super humans in power armour that are supposed to be way bigger than regular humans are smaller than Necromunda gangers (and I'm not even talking about the Goliaths here) or Rogue Trader crew members. GW has never really been that consistent when it comes to scale (ever tried fitting 10 Space Marines into a Rhino?), so we kinda have to work around it. Regular humans are somewhere between 6-7mm tall, Space Marines are about 8mm. Vehicles should be 1/4th the size of their 40k counterparts.

 Malika2 wrote:

RazorEdge wrote:
Maybe because it's 8mm and not 6mm.

Not this again.

Titanicus/Aeronautica are 1/4th of 40k scale, but we see that a lot of 6mm models (especially more true scale stuff like Vanguard Miniatures) work just fine here. 40k itself is very inconsistent, super humans in power armour that are supposed to be way bigger than regular humans are smaller than Necromunda gangers (and I'm not even talking about the Goliaths here) or Rogue Trader crew members. GW has never really been that consistent when it comes to scale (ever tried fitting 10 Space Marines into a Rhino?), so we kinda have to work around it. Regular humans are somewhere between 6-7mm tall, Space Marines are about 8mm. Vehicles should be 1/4th the size of their 40k counterparts.

For the most part, AI is 8mm scale, because when FW made aircraft for 40k or the original AI they mostly scaled them correctly. 8mm is around 1/200 to 1/225 scale, and if you measure most of the aircraft in AI and compare them to their fluff dimensions, they are in that range. The fluff dimensions for AI aircraft are generally the proportions of WW2 aircraft or early jets, but they're as big as modern jets.

Once you start expanding to other infantry and vehicles that exist in the regular GW 40k range or the Titans, the scale gets whacky because GW have never scaled their models well and titans are generally undersized compared to their fluff values, and we've had scale creep over the years meaning recent models are bigger than older ones.

It'll be interesting to see what size infantry is in this new Epic universe, as GW have the opportunity to correct all the scale issues they have in regular 40k. So far the only "infantry" model we have are the grot gunners on the Eavy Bommer, which are ~5 to 5.5mm tall when seated (and a grot is probably about the same height sitting as he is standing, lol).

The Aeronautica Grot model seems to match the 6mm scale counterpart by Vanguard Miniatures perfectly.

RazorEdge wrote:
Maybe because it's 8mm and not 6mm.

Didn't GW say scale is same as AT? Which is 100% 6mm...In AT 8mm myth became when GW designer said SPACE MARINES would be 8mm in it if infantry was made but last time I checked space marines are taller than humans.

AT is 6mm and pretty sure(like 95% sure) AI is same scale. Unless I misremember and AI is indeed different scale to AT then AI is 6mm scale.

tneva82 wrote:

RazorEdge wrote:
Maybe because it's 8mm and not 6mm.

Didn't GW say scale is same as AT? Which is 100% 6mm...In AT 8mm myth became when GW designer said SPACE MARINES would be 8mm in it if infantry was made but last time I checked space marines are taller than humans.

AT is 6mm and pretty sure(like 95% sure) AI is same scale. Unless I misremember and AI is indeed different scale to AT then AI is 6mm scale.

AT is 7-8mm, 6mm is smaller, which is actually ideal for AT bases because it makes the titans seem that extra little bit bigger. If you actually put 7-8mm stuff next to AT models, it's usually about right but can look a bit big at times. It's a bit like heroic scale exaggerating hand and weapons, you wanna want that in the inverse for at, at least in terms of basing.

tneva82 wrote:

RazorEdge wrote:
Maybe because it's 8mm and not 6mm.

Didn't GW say scale is same as AT? Which is 100% 6mm...In AT 8mm myth became when GW designer said SPACE MARINES would be 8mm in it if infantry was made but last time I checked space marines are taller than humans.

AT is 6mm and pretty sure(like 95% sure) AI is same scale. Unless I misremember and AI is indeed different scale to AT then AI is 6mm scale.

Nah, AI is closer to 8mm than 6mm. When FW released AI a bit over a decade ago, they scaled it between 1/285 and 1/300 which is pretty much 6mm, then when GW released the new plastic AI it upsized to 1/200 to 1/225, which is the range for 8mm.

The problem is as mentioned earlier, they scaled AI and AT off 40k, and the Titans were already undersized for 40k but the FW aircraft were pretty much right, so when they got scaled down to AT size they ended up closer to 6mm scale, but AI is more like 8mm scale.

I guess it's close enough that it doesn't really matter and they can be used side by side since they're different unit types, but I own some 6mm scale real world aircraft and there's no way AI is 6mm unless the 40k aircraft are huge compared to modern aircraft (which according to the fluff, they aren't).

Looted thunderbolt and Marauder

I don't know why this scale thing is still a debate. GW stated that its scaled such that a space marine stands 8mm in height. Space Marines are about 8ft tall according to GWs fluff, ergo the minis are roughly 6mm scale because if we assume the average human is 6mm tall you get 1mm per foot which matches the space marines 8mm height.

All this stuff about titans being scaled incorrectly in 40k etc. is nonsense. It doesn't matter that GWs novel told you that a Warlord titan could fit a company of guardsmen in each foot, etc. GWs design studio is the arbiter of the truth, and their warlord titan is 24" tall or whatever and has enough room to fit the crew in the cockpit as described, ergo thats the proper size for it.

chaos0xomega wrote:
I don't know why this scale thing is still a debate. GW stated that its scaled such that a space marine stands 8mm in height. Space Marines are about 8ft tall according to GWs fluff, ergo the minis are roughly 6mm scale because if we assume the average human is 6mm tall you get 1mm per foot which matches the space marines 8mm height.

Except 40k Space Marines are no taller than regular humans, so if we're saying a Space Marine (scaled off 40k) is 8mm, then a human would also be 8mm

I'm just going off the fluff scales for the aircraft, and what scale that turns out to be, which is 1/200 to 1/220-ish, which makes them 8mm scale. The resin FW ones that came out over a decade ago are closer to 6mm scale. The fluff sizes are reasonable relative to what you'd expect actual aircraft to be, so I'm happy enough using those values as canon.

If you call AI 6mm scale, then the aircraft are huge, it would be strange for a GW game to actually have vehicles that are large relative to their real life counterparts

But as someone said earlier, it seems they've scaled it off 40k rather than a specific scale and fluff values. And in 40k, Space Marines are short arses, Titans and Tanks are tiny, and in general there's scale creep from one generation to the next. I think the 40k FW aircraft are one of the few things that seem reasonably scaled, maybe the bloke in FW in charge of aircraft is a historic modeller and just defaults to making things the correct scale, lol.

We don't even have any infantry models to bother calling it 6mm or 8mm yet

AllSeeingSkink wrote:


We don't even have any infantry models to bother calling it 6mm or 8mm yet

We actually do, there are grots showing in a few anti air turrets on the ork big bombers.

And they seem a bit big for 6mm scale, IMHO.


About the White Dwarf 459 article, it seems like we will be strictly restricted to a few imperial aircrafts for orks and T'au. Certainly to have future articles to deal with the others...

Marauder Colossus!

Too expensive for a bomber. In original AI they cost 16 points and Colossus Bomb have its own rule, and had to be dropped from a certain attitude or higher.

Whoever wrote these rules have no idea what they're doing.

What's next? Marauder Vigilant cost 30 points?

Chopstick wrote:
Too expensive for a bomber. In original AI they cost 16 points and Colossus Bomb have its own rule, and had to be dropped from a certain attitude or higher.

Wasn't everything cheaper in the old rules? I'd have to check but I thought in general things got more expensive this edition.

It's probably a hard one to price though. It still has 5 structure points, so it can't be too cheap, but it doesn't look to have much use other than being a bullet bag, and it looks to have less utility than a regular Marauder which is cheaper.

I think they first need to fix the problem of bombers being junk first, then we can start rebalancing the points based on them being useful bombers.

There is a price relation between the aircrafts, ground-attack and transport crafts suppose to be much cheaper than fighters, unless there're a game where the only I do is bombing tiny marines and tanks.

Marauder bomber is 23 pts, have more firepower and carry 3 bombs that do 8 hit each. Extra damage might not be as good. But it can bomb more targets, and It is still cheaper with wing bombs.

Bombers are just here for specific scenarios. Just like transport aircrafts.

Since AI is all about playing specific scenarios anyway...which is obviously already counted in the points.

Good to have bombers with a fair number of structure points, since they're usually the litteral key to victory - so the more they last, the better. Having a one time use bomb isn't that much of a handicap if you take into accounts the ground targets aren't that many. May be overkill, but when it's deciding if you win the game or not, you better be sure.

This Marauder version is just using the same miniature, isn't it ? Guess they technically kept their promise of having a Flight Plan this month but looks like the real news for the future of the game won't be before 2021. Oh well.

Remember when AI launched and we got the Marauder Bomber & Destroyer, we knew from the sprue lettering designation there would be another Marauder variant coming. So the Colossus is it.

Well I kind of like the slimmer look, losing the top turret and replacing the front turret las-cannon with heavy bolters does make it a bit more streamlined. Still has the big tail but with no top turret it doesn't get in the way anymore lol.

The use of this variant really is mission dependant and like they say in the article it should have support craft too. After its dropped that single big payload the choice of wing armaments becomes interesting too.

Personally I find it more interesting:

- How long it has taken to preview this one seeing as we knew early on it was coming

- How long it takes to release, will it be 3 months away

- With the Colossus and that Ork Mega Bomber will they now do actual ground bunkers/targets that need bombers like these to penetrate them

- And how many Imperial Navy craft are left to come out. Surely they must start focusing on more Xenos craft soon

With this month's White Dwarf including looted plane rules etc could we also see maybe traitor rules in the future? Using Imperial craft as the basis for another faction, like traitor/rebel navy, would mean little investment in new models at least.

Anyway it's all interesting and good for the game we are getting something new. It's nice to be able to plan while waiting (dreaming) for other factions like Eldar, Space Marines or Chaos.

I was hoping the next marauder variant would be the EW version. This doesn’t seem like it adds much over the standard. Marauder. Does the bomb bay look different? The angle of the photo makes it look pretty bland.

Remora drone!

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/01/18/introducing-the-tau-aircraft-so-advanced-it-flies-itself/



Forgeworld Resin

Look like nice point filler, too bad there're no AX-2-2 this edition, also no new variant.

These, I might actually get as the scale change between 1st and 2nd won't bother me so much. The old ones were all ready pretty tiny!

Yeah, they had to make them bigger, if only so that the hole for the flying peg is big enough without destroying the low part.

T'was to be expected there'd be no surprise here, it was the only release left for Taros AI book. We can finally move to the next for the future of AI...and it looks like filled in FW resin, sadly.

I got the FW Vultures for Christmas and the quality was excellent; couple of tiny mould lines that scraped straight off and that was it. Just as easy as the plastics, so I wouldn’t let it bother anyone from a quality / ease of use point of view.

Can’t comment on the overseas pricing though.

Looks okay. Shame it's FW resin. Depending on the price I might grab a few alongside some Lighters I've also been meaning to pick up.

The rules seem a bit mediocre to me in terms of firepower and structure per point, but I guess if you've got a squadron of mostly Tiger Sharks having a few drones to boost the numbers so you aren't getting destroyed on activations isn't a bad idea. But back to backing it against most other aircraft it seems mediocre.

 Jadenim wrote:
I got the FW Vultures for Christmas and the quality was excellent; couple of tiny mould lines that scraped straight off and that was it. Just as easy as the plastics, so I wouldn’t let it bother anyone from a quality / ease of use point of view.

Can’t comment on the overseas pricing though.

It's mainly the price and bent parts I don't like about resin, but also in the past I've gotten several mould slips from FW resin models which is just a pain in the arse.

I hope we get more plastics in the future as I won't be investing big bucks to make all resin squadrons.

Any idea when these will be released? I want to get some of the Necromunda angry kitties, but if I can get these at the same time and save myself some postage that would be great.

 Jadenim wrote:
Any idea when these will be released? I want to get some of the Necromunda angry kitties, but if I can get these at the same time and save myself some postage that would be great.

Typically, it's the second Sunday after these are previewed that they're announced as going on sale the following friday. So, three weeks Friday for pre-order would be my guess based on previous patterns

Seems like Aeronautica is basically a Forgeworld-only game by this point

 zedmeister wrote:
Remora drone!

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/01/18/introducing-the-tau-aircraft-so-advanced-it-flies-itself/



Forgeworld Resin

Great! Just had a game against a friend who plays Tau, and we wondered when the Remoras might drop.

Now do the Manta (we've already got a Mega-Bommer, after all).

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
Seems like Aeronautica is basically a Forgeworld-only game by this point

All the specialist games are Forgeworld. Aeronautica - Adepticus Titanicus and Necromunda are all FW games. They just use plastic for core/common parts and then resin to expand forces.

 Overread wrote:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
Seems like Aeronautica is basically a Forgeworld-only game by this point

All the specialist games are Forgeworld. Aeronautica - Adepticus Titanicus and Necromunda are all FW games. They just use plastic for core/common parts and then resin to expand forces.

TBH, that's not exactly true as for now. Orks only have the mega-bomber as resin, T'au have the drones and the ground assets, Imperium has the Vultures, the Argus and the ground assets. Oh, and the Marauder Colossus kit, which mainly use the plastic marauder as base.

They're not exactly needed to expand forces, plastic kits are way more than enough for that. The ground assets could be used to expand your army, I guess, but they're more specific to some scenarios to be honest. The mega bomber thing is really not necessary, the argus are a gimmick for special scenarios and only the Vultures are a good aircraft to consider.

A huge majority of your aircrafts will be in plastic in the current AI meta. The resin ones are mainly collector stuff.


I'm more concerned about the future factions for AI...not sure if the game is popular enough to justify full plastic kits as we were spoiled with the two first campaigns. We'll see.

I was kinda hoping for the Remora Drones to be deployed in 'swarms'. So instead of 1 per base, perhaps have 3 per base. But then again, it would have meant that GW had to invest in adding a bit for the kit's flight stand.

That's be pretty pointless and counterintuitive in AI, unless being in a squadron meant they get to keep their full fire power even when they lose structure points.

Also Remora drone is huge, it's much bigger than the grot bomb and the infantry size drone that the ground force used.

 Overread wrote:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
Seems like Aeronautica is basically a Forgeworld-only game by this point

All the specialist games are Forgeworld. Aeronautica - Adepticus Titanicus and Necromunda are all FW games. They just use plastic for core/common parts and then resin to expand forces.

I recall it being said that specialist games was an offshoot of FW, but I think for all intents and purposes, they're basically GW. You can buy the rules and most of the models in regular GW stores and you go to the GW online store to find the bulk of the range. Maybe GW's human resources team consider the specialist games employees as FW, but as far as your average gamer is concerned, it's just regular GW.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Malika2 wrote:
I was kinda hoping for the Remora Drones to be deployed in 'swarms'. So instead of 1 per base, perhaps have 3 per base. But then again, it would have meant that GW had to invest in adding a bit for the kit's flight stand.

They were single models in the previous edition of the game, they're pretty large models in regular 40k.

I recall it being said that specialist games was an offshoot of FW, but I think for all intents and purposes, they're basically GW. You can buy the rules and most of the models in regular GW stores and you go to the GW online store to find the bulk of the range. Maybe GW's human resources team consider the specialist games employees as FW, but as far as your average gamer is concerned, it's just regular GW.

From what I understand Forgeworld and the Specialist Games studio are basically synonymous at this point, the personnel, writers, and sculptors are literally the same people, the only difference is whether the minis come out in resin or plastic.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/05/06/warhammer-fest-online-day-4-warhammer-underworlds-necromunda-and-aeronautica-imperialis/

New Expansion
Eldar


Space marine


And the plastic thunderhawk

Is it just me or do the Xiphons look a bit... pudgy?

 Malika2 wrote:
Is it just me or do the Xiphons look a bit... pudgy?

Yah they look like they've been into the pudding. The thunderhawks and the other ones look awesome though, as well as the eldar stuff.

First miniatures plastic, and Andy is hinting at maybe expansions...in FW resin.

Interview was very short this time, and on two topics. On the other hand, there's not much to say about AI honestly.

I don't get what you mean with them being "pudgy".

Fantastic stuff. Definitely the best day for reveals. Looks like Aeronautica is hoovering up my hobby cash

The Eldar fighters might be the first thing I buy from GW in years.

Sarouan wrote:
First miniatures plastic, and Andy is hinting at maybe expansions...in FW resin.

Interview was very short this time, and on two topics. On the other hand, there's not much to say about AI honestly.

I don't get what you mean with them being "pudgy".

"pudgy" means they look like they've gained some weight.

He's not wrong, they look shorter and wider than their 40k scaled counterparts.

I'm very happy they're sticking to FW designs for AI and not the horribly proportioned GW aircraft.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
The Eldar fighters might be the first thing I buy from GW in years.

Hells yeah, I've gonna grab some of that Eldar.

Space Marines, meh, will grab a Thunderhawk but probably leave the rest. I always preferred the idea that Space Marines didn't maintain a full air force and only had landing craft.

Might even paint up the Eldar the same as my old ones...

I'm not going to lie, I liked the Thunderhawk reveal...

Yep, the Eldar have me sold, didn't do anything silly and reused the classic designs. I now want to find a full sized Nightwing or Phoenix bomber for my own army.

chaos0xomega wrote:

Sarouan wrote:
First miniatures plastic, and Andy is hinting at maybe expansions...in FW resin.

Interview was very short this time, and on two topics. On the other hand, there's not much to say about AI honestly.

I don't get what you mean with them being "pudgy".

"pudgy" means they look like they've gained some weight.

He's not wrong, they look shorter and wider than their 40k scaled counterparts.

The detail is proportionatley larger due to the smaller scale, and the bright green edge highlighting is not doing it or the storm eagle any favors. The thunderhawk is much better painted.

I wonder if the storm eagle is designed like the tigershark and marauder so that they can swap out a sprue and make fire raptors instead.

Def going to get some of this to pretty up Titanicus battles.

Andy also let slip the term "Super Mega Bomma" for Orks. He was berating himself for letting that slip out.

So we may yet see more for Orks.

Not sure what else to expect from the Eldar range, but I assume that the Crimson and Hemlock ought to appear at some point?

Don't suppose Falcons, Wave Serpents and Swooping Hawks are a thing in Aeronautica?

SamusDrake wrote:
Not sure what else to expect from the Eldar range, but I assume that the Crimson and Hemlock ought to appear at some point?

Don't suppose Falcons, Wave Serpents and Swooping Hawks are a thing in Aeronautica?

The valkyrie and vendetta are in, so I don't see why we wouldn't see Crimson and Hemlock. Will likely also see Stormraven too.

drbored wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:
Not sure what else to expect from the Eldar range, but I assume that the Crimson and Hemlock ought to appear at some point?

Don't suppose Falcons, Wave Serpents and Swooping Hawks are a thing in Aeronautica?

The valkyrie and vendetta are in, so I don't see why we wouldn't see Crimson and Hemlock. Will likely also see Stormraven too.

Uh, so far there have been literally zero non-FW designs.

SamusDrake wrote:
Not sure what else to expect from the Eldar range, but I assume that the Crimson and Hemlock ought to appear at some point?

Don't suppose Falcons, Wave Serpents and Swooping Hawks are a thing in Aeronautica?

Vampire Hunter and Vampire Raider. Outside chance of maybe seeing the Lynx as that was capable of flight. And a Firestorm ground defence of some sort

drbored wrote:
Andy also let slip the term "Super Mega Bomma" for Orks. He was berating himself for letting that slip out.

So we may yet see more for Orks.

The Mega Bommer is already pretty absurd and doesn't really function well in the game.

I do hope they start revisiting the rules soon.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

drbored wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:
Not sure what else to expect from the Eldar range, but I assume that the Crimson and Hemlock ought to appear at some point?

Don't suppose Falcons, Wave Serpents and Swooping Hawks are a thing in Aeronautica?

The valkyrie and vendetta are in, so I don't see why we wouldn't see Crimson and Hemlock. Will likely also see Stormraven too.

Uh, so far there have been literally zero non-FW designs.

Yeah, and it makes me happy they've stuck to the FW designs as the GW designs for the most part feel much more like toys than something that could be an aircraft.

rule change is unlikely.

Ork is probably the easiest faction for expansion, mostly just cosmetic stuff, give the dakkajets and fighta bommer more customized look.

They did use GW dakkajet design instead of the old one.

Chopstick wrote:
rule change is unlikely.

Yeah, I know, it's just really not a great game at this point. I wanted to like it, but got bored after a few games

I'm hoping the Eldar spice things up a bit, it sounds like they're introducing some rules to make manoeuvrability count for something, compared to the current rules where the most manoeuvrable has almost no advantage over the least manoeuvrable outside of a couple of missions.

Some changes I'd love to see are revising the manoeuvre table to have a bigger separation between low and high manoeuvrability aircraft, and having "to hit" modifiers that are reflective of how easy or hard it would be to bring guns to bear against a target. Also without changing the core rules, the ground attack rules could be expanded to make bombers more useful.

Ork is probably the easiest faction for expansion, mostly just cosmetic stuff, give the dakkajets and fighta bommer more customized look.

AI I think inherently isn't a great game for long term expansion, it'd probably be more beneficial to introduce more races once the basic roles are filled in the existing forces. Orks could still use a transport, I imagine we'll be getting some Vampires with the Eldar, hopefully not resin.

ace maneuver change should be easy enough. remove the dumb "choose your facing" of the maneuver.

That would make maneuvering more of a "split second" decision and I really like it. We might institute that for our local games anyway.

The main thing I don’t like is the amount of unlimited ammo weapons; it means there’s no reason not to take a shot even when it’s very speculative, bordering on impossible. It would be a much tenser, more tactical game if you had to wait until you were in a killer position to get off one of your few shots.

Yep, the manuever rules do let the game down IMO, with the original IA (and X-Wing), picking the right move was about the most important part of the game, as beyond that you got very little choice of how to move.

With the new IA rules there seems to be so much choice as to how you actually move with each manuever, that they almost might as well not exist as you seem pretty much free to end up placing the plane wherever you want facing whatever direction you want, so there's not much left to the game after that.

I know when I first read the movement rules I went back and read through them multiple times as I was sure I must have been misreading them.

Nice models, the Thunderhawk looks a little small, but I'm only really familiar with the Transporter version, so maybe that is bigger than the gunship (it's basically as long as a Warlord Titan is tall (not counting the carapace weapons)) so about 5" in AI scale.

Chopstick wrote:
ace maneuver change should be easy enough. remove the dumb "choose your facing" of the maneuver.

So you mean step 1 where you choose whether your plane goes left or right? That would help a bit I guess though it would make a lot of manoeuvres effectively the same. I do kind of like that there's some flexibility after you choose a manoeuvre to apply it differently, but at the moment there's a few too many options.

I do find it crazy that the least manoeuvrable plane in the game (Eavy Bomber) is still capable of doing a complete 180 in either direction in the space of a single turn. Kinda makes a mockery of the actual manoeuvrable aircraft. Your suggestion would help.

A simple system would be that manoeuvres work as follows:

1. Fly straight a chosen amount (don't get to change direction before)
2. Perform manoeuvre (only opportunity to change direction)
3. Fly straight until you run out of movement

Manoeuvre options 1 to 3 would be fly straight, 60° turn and 120° turn. Then high manoeuvre levels let you make an additional turn where you can fly straight for another distance, so something like this...

1. 0°
2. 60°
3. 120°
4. 60° + 60° (better than 120° since it gives you more options)
5. 180°
6. 60° + 120°
7. 120° + 120°
8. 180° + 180° (loop)

I imagine Eavy Bombers would only be 1-2 (meaning you have to plan your bombing runs a turn or two in advance). But maybe that's still not enough variation once you get to the fighter type aircraft.

Though it would also be cool to integrate altitude and speed changes with the manoeuvres like was included with the first AI game, to give the sense of "energy fighting" like real dogfighting works.

Love the new Space Marine and Eldar models.

They will grace my Titanicus table as well as AI.

We seriously need an X-wing rules conversion to make these models worth playing

Just used the original game's maneuver card, that also removed the hex board. Ammo should also be easy enough to implement.

The old game used the 9 attitude system, which make chase and catch quite difficult, crappy plane like Valkyrie with max attitude 7 can't attack target at attitude 9.

In my more productive moments I've considered a 1 or 2 modern hex bases sized movement template

Chopstick wrote:
Just used the original game's maneuver card, that also removed the hex board. Ammo should also be easy enough to implement.

The old game used the 9 attitude system, which make chase and catch quite difficult, crappy plane like Valkyrie with max attitude 7 can't attack target at attitude 9.

I think the old game had a better system with the cards, but folk still had complaints about that. Some people even wrote rules for WW2 aircraft using the old AI rules because it bridged the gap between very detailed dog fighting games (too detailed to use with more than a couple of planes) and the more simplified squadron level games. It was simple enough to have a handful of planes on the table, but still detailed enough to be satisfying without being overly complicated.

The altitude system in the old game was also better in that speed changes and altitude changes were linked to your manoeuvre, so a high G turn might cost you speed, a wing over might cost you altitude but gain you speed.

The old system needed some tweaks, but instead they scrapped it for a far worse system.

The problem is that these changes need to come from GW, I can house rule stuff, sure, but for the game to get a foot hold with a broader audience it needs to be better out of the box.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
In my more productive moments I've considered a 1 or 2 modern hex bases sized movement template

Like this?

https://okb14.wordpress.com/2017/06/04/ai-maneuver-cards/

Ah, so theres more to come for the Eldar range. Kewl!

The contents of this box is just right as even the Space Marine aircraft look snazzy. Just not keen on using hex maps for this game...

Space Marine aircrafts are the most heavily armed in this game. Eldar probably have jink on all aircraft, otherwise they're toasted.

The show indicated that they would have a save of some kind, because holofields are still a thing, so yay for that.

Chopstick wrote:
Space Marine aircrafts are the most heavily armed in this game. Eldar probably have jink on all aircraft, otherwise they're toasted.

In the interview with Andy Hoare they said the Eldar were a challenge to balance and they've given a rule that makes them "harder to hit" at long and medium ranges, encouraging you to get into close range with them.

Of course, given how badly balanced the game already is, I don't have great faith that they've balanced the Eldar well.

My guess is the Eldar end up too expensive for a weak unit that doesn't have a lot of firepower, making them terrible, and Space Marines are too cheap for their endurance and firepower making them the best force we'll have. But that's just my guess, I hope GW proves me wrong But for the aircraft we already have it seems the game designers over value agility and undervalue raw hit points and firepower (which from the games I've played becomes the dominating stats).

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Chopstick wrote:
Space Marine aircrafts are the most heavily armed in this game. Eldar probably have jink on all aircraft, otherwise they're toasted.

In the interview with Andy Hoare they said the Eldar were a challenge to balance and they've given a rule that makes them "harder to hit" at long and medium ranges, encouraging you to get into close range with them.

Of course, given how badly balanced the game already is, I don't have great faith that they've balanced the Eldar well.

My guess is the Eldar end up too expensive for a weak unit that doesn't have a lot of firepower, making them terrible, and Space Marines are too cheap for their endurance and firepower making them the best force we'll have. But that's just my guess, I hope GW proves me wrong

That's my concern with people wishing for xenos factions in AT, gw's ability to balance between factions is always hit and miss.

My guess is the Marine fighter will be just as maneuverable as the Eldar one in every way that matters, have twice the firepower and hit points, and cost 2 pts less.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
We seriously need an X-wing rules conversion to make these models worth playing

Once the whole range is in, I plan on just buying it all and using AI V1 from Warwick to play with these nice new toys!

 Mr_Rose wrote:
The show indicated that they would have a save of some kind, because holofields are still a thing, so yay for that.

Looking back at the original AI rules, they had a 5+ holofield save. I wonder if they'll have both the "harder to hit at long range" rule and also holofield.

I just hope GW don't massively overestimate the value of manoeuvrability of the new Eldar.

Jink is the best special ability they could get in the new edition, unless there're jink (2) or jink (3)

Phoenix probably get a HP increase, they have the same paper thin HP as the nightwing in the original, but was more focused on ground attack, now that most weapon aside from bombs and hellstrike can hit aircrafts.

Chopstick wrote:
Jink is the best special ability they could get in the new edition, unless there're jink (2) or jink (3)

I'd be surprised if the new Eldar don't come with new special abilities. The rule Andy Hoare described in the interview on WarCom doesn't sound like Jink in the slightest.

Phoenix probably get a HP increase, they have the same paper thin HP as the nightwing in the original, but was more focused on ground attack, now that most weapon aside from bombs and hellstrike can hit aircrafts.

Maybe, but the Phoenix looks no beefier than a Nightwing, so I'm gonna guess they'll both be 2 hit points like the original, but maybe GW will decide to beef them up a bit. There's not too many fighter type aircraft that GW have decided to grace with 3 hit points, from memory only the Thunderbolt so far and I imagine the Xiphon will be also.

Pre orders next week. Wonder if the pathfinder is the new name for the vigilant

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/05/30/sunday-preview-warhammer-skulls-adepta-sororitas-pre-orders-and-that-crab-you-love/

 zedmeister wrote:
Pre orders next week. Wonder if the pathfinder is the new name for the vigilant

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/05/30/sunday-preview-warhammer-skulls-adepta-sororitas-pre-orders-and-that-crab-you-love/

These two planes look identical to the other two kits, what is different about them?

Togusa wrote:

 zedmeister wrote:
Pre orders next week. Wonder if the pathfinder is the new name for the vigilant

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/05/30/sunday-preview-warhammer-skulls-adepta-sororitas-pre-orders-and-that-crab-you-love/

These two planes look identical to the other two kits, what is different about them?

The internal bomb bays/fuselage gubbins. The Colossus has a huge (conventional explosive) bomb (probably similar to the one on the Ork mega-bommer) and the pathfinder has an advanced sensor suite.
Unfortunate that you can’t really see the difference from above but there you go.

I hope the Marauder variants are not going to be too expensive... Between those AI releases, the Volkite weapons for Adeptus Titanicus, and the SoB on Saturday, this week is going to make my wallet cry.