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AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 FrozenDwarf wrote:

 Mr_Rose wrote:
Yeah, lots of air combat (and space combat) games have used manoeuvre gauges before, and since, Xwing including 1st Ed AI. The only reasons I can think of for not doing them is the expense of plastic ones and the inaccuracy of card ones.

Yet they have no quarrels of making hardplastic range tools and cardboard markers for killzone, templates + range tools for AT, range tools in Aos and 40k 2p boxes, heck they even did a brass range tool for the first edition of AoS.

The overall impression when you compare it to the other boxed games is, that you get the feeling the managment wanted a piece of the cake that is called x-wing, but did not want to commit any resources whatsoever, outside of airplane model production. There is just no logic to how GW manages this game at all, and the person or team that was responsible for creating the rules has moust likely never made or played an aerial craft game before.

I think if GW approached it properly, AI could have taken a chunk of the x-wing cake, but they didn't put the effort into making the game rules solid. I think most of the changes from AI v1 (which was hardly perfect) to AI v2 made the game play worse, or at best some of them might be one-step-forward-one-step-back. Some things don't even feel like they've been playtested.

I fully agree.

For those interested in the Forgeworld version of Aeronautica Imperialis, and expanding their games of it you may want to check out my review on my blog.

http://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2017/02/review-aeronautica-imperialis-forgeworld.html

It also has a few links to resources that might be helpful to those who want to explore AI V1. That includes some templates, some alternate stats, more missions, etc. Most will easily convert to V2 as well.

I came to the AI game late, but it is a very tactical game; perhaps the most tactical GW game I have played yet.

Much appreciated, Easy E.

The Horus Heresy has cometh...

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2022/08/14/sunday-preview-black-library-heroes-on-the-page-and-the-tabletop-amid-an-arcane-cataclysm/

The Ares Gunship will be FW, not sure if we knew that before? New board that I don't think was announced before?



I might grab the new book and the board, I still don't have a "full size" AI table (just been using 2 of the smaller ones side by side).




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Also, is the cover picture on the hex board evidence that GW themselves don't play AI, given they've got the models pointing the wrong direction on the bases?

Pretty sure we knew the Ares was resin, yeah.

 ImAGeek wrote:
Pretty sure we knew the Ares was resin, yeah.

I thought we were just guessing that'd probably be resin, but maybe we knew, I have the memory of a spoon.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
Pretty sure we knew the Ares was resin, yeah.

I thought we were just guessing that'd probably be resin, but maybe we knew, I have the memory of a spoon.

That’d be the problem then; there is no spoon.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
Pretty sure we knew the Ares was resin, yeah.

I thought we were just guessing that'd probably be resin, but maybe we knew, I have the memory of a spoon.

It was never stated anywhere who would make the Ares on its press release, but it was 100% logical that it would be FW who made it.
Same way ti is 100% logical tought that IF there is more SM planes in the plans, they will be made by FW.

Last product to be made from GW in plastic would be 40k chaos, but i doubt that will happend now.


On a side note, they are reprinting the IG stat cards, and SM gets for the first time their stat cards. Lets hope they are NOT limited production run, and the same goes for the game math, it needs to be a permanent product.

Even if the card packs are LE, once we buy them up in record time, you're think they might re-run them.
So, I'll probably grab a set of the SM ones, even though I don't play the SM side of the Angels box.

I take it that the card packs are for handy reference only, with everything in the HH book?

Yes. But I find that having the cards out makes the game a lot easier to play. For most games.

Or, make your own cards from the book, or other sources. It's not as though they have to be the official cards or anything

Cheers for that, Skinnereal.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2022/08/15/our-favourite-legion-upgrades-from-warhammer-the-horus-heresy-aeronautica-imperialis/

Legion Abilities cost point instead of just being free like AT, oops looks like they're still try to make the game "balance" instead of just fun.

Little disappointed that there isn't a tie-in set. The Wrath of Angels set is still available from indies and both sides of the house are appealling.

I think I may have asked this years ago, but I'm guessing that the included map would be enough for small games? We're thinking 30-45 minutes at most and wouldn't want to go beyond that.

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
On a side note, they are reprinting the IG stat cards, and SM gets for the first time their stat cards. Lets hope they are NOT limited production run, and the same goes for the game math, it needs to be a permanent product.

SM did have cards already, can't get them through GW any more but some local game stores still have them in stock, they were called "Adeptus Astartes Aircraft and Aces Cards"

Also, I don't know if these are a reprint of the IG cards, these are "Divisio Aeronautica", we don't know yet if they're going to vary at all from the 40k Imperial Guard / Imperial Navy. Probably not, but the rules for Divisio Aeronautica will be in the new Horus Heresy book, so they could change them if they wanted.




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SamusDrake wrote:
I take it that the card packs are for handy reference only, with everything in the HH book?

The cards are set up with the idea to have a card for each aircraft in your squadron, then you can use the card to track missiles and upgrades and whatnot. But they aren't needed, you can keep track of that stuff with tokens or pen and paper instead.

But yeah, it's useful to have the cards as a reference summary sheet, personally I just take screenshots from the digital versions of the rulebooks and make my own summary sheets.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SamusDrake wrote:
Little disappointed that there isn't a tie-in set. The Wrath of Angels set is still available from indies and both sides of the house are appealling.

I think I may have asked this years ago, but I'm guessing that the included map would be enough for small games? We're thinking 30-45 minutes at most and wouldn't want to go beyond that.

Playing the starter set is probably about a 45 minute game.

The map you get in the box is okay for small games. However, my criticism of the map size is that even in small games it's nice to have more space to manoeuvre your aircraft, it's less an issue of game size and more an issue where a small map results in turning the game into a bit of a clusterfeck in the middle of the table. A big map gives fast planes a bit of space to accelerate away and longer ranged aircraft can try and keep their distance rather than it turning into a short ranged furball.

As a reference, the small map is 13 to 14 hexes across, and the faster aircraft in the game (Lightnings, Dakkajets and Nightwings) can move 8 hexes in a single turn.

Currently, I put 2 maps from the starter set side by side to create a bigger map, but I'd like to get something larger like a mousepad material map. But as an initial thing, yeah, the map you get in the starter set is serviceable for smaller games.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Currently, I put 2 maps from the starter set side by side to create a bigger map, but I'd like to get something larger like a mousepad material map. But as an initial thing, yeah, the map you get in the starter set is serviceable for smaller games.

There is a 2" hex map suitable for AI from deepcutstudio.com in 4x4 or 4x6 size, if that works for you: https://www.deepcutstudio.com/product/game-mat-scorched-sky/

I got it and I like it.

AllSeeingSkink, cheers.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
As a reference, the small map is 13 to 14 hexes across, and the faster aircraft in the game (Lightnings, Dakkajets and Nightwings) can move 8 hexes in a single turn.

Currently, I put 2 maps from the starter set side by side to create a bigger map, but I'd like to get something larger like a mousepad material map. But as an initial thing, yeah, the map you get in the starter set is serviceable for smaller games.

Just to clarify, a Nighshade is max speed 9. I thought it could go to 10, but the Star Engines upgrade caps out at 9.

There's a 4'x4' or 6'x4' hexed mouse mat available from Deep Cut Studio, called Scorched Sky. Most others are OOP, when I looked for one last month. [Doh. I'd missed the last posts, and link by TheGoodGerman]

DeepCut also do the PrintOMat service where they can add a hex grid over any of their designs:

https://www.deepcutstudio.com/printomat/

Definitely worth looking into

 Skinnereal wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
As a reference, the small map is 13 to 14 hexes across, and the faster aircraft in the game (Lightnings, Dakkajets and Nightwings) can move 8 hexes in a single turn.

Currently, I put 2 maps from the starter set side by side to create a bigger map, but I'd like to get something larger like a mousepad material map. But as an initial thing, yeah, the map you get in the starter set is serviceable for smaller games.

Just to clarify, a Nighshade is max speed 9. I thought it could go to 10, but the Star Engines upgrade caps out at 9.

I did say "faster" rather than "fastest" But yeah I don't have the compendium still so the Nightshade doesn't exist to me, lol. Technically the Nightwings can also go 9 if you give them Star Engines, as do the Dakkajets with the Wazmek Speshul upgrade. But the point was basically the table is small relative to the speed many aircraft can fly, most fighters are speed 7, 8 or 9 (Xiphon and Barracuda being the slowest fighters at only 6 and 5 respectively). So having a board bigger than 13.5 hexes is good even if only playing with fewer aircraft.

TheGoodGerman wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Currently, I put 2 maps from the starter set side by side to create a bigger map, but I'd like to get something larger like a mousepad material map. But as an initial thing, yeah, the map you get in the starter set is serviceable for smaller games.

There is a 2" hex map suitable for AI from deepcutstudio.com in 4x4 or 4x6 size, if that works for you: https://www.deepcutstudio.com/product/game-mat-scorched-sky/

I got it and I like it.

There's a 4'x4' or 6'x4' hexed mouse mat available from Deep Cut Studio, called Scorched Sky. Most others are OOP, when I looked for one last month. [Doh. I'd missed the last posts, and link by TheGoodGerman]

 zedmeister wrote:
DeepCut also do the PrintOMat service where they can add a hex grid over any of their designs:

https://www.deepcutstudio.com/printomat/

Definitely worth looking into

I had considered Deep Cut, but shipping to the Land of Oz is pretty high, 75 euro for a 6x4 hex mousemat and 40 euro shipping, that's around 170 dollarydoos, which is enough to buy 2 of GW's cardboard maps, almost enough to buy 3 actually. As much as I like mousepad boards, that's a pretty hefty price.

Another option may also be to make a hex template from a sheet of plastic, punching small holes to create the hex pattern, then position it over a mouse mat and spray painting through it to create the grid. Time consuming though, you'd probably make a 5x5 hex template and just move it around hopefully keeping the alignment decent as you spray through it.

Probably too early to ask but is there any pricing for the Horus Heresy book? I forget how much the Aeronautica books cost.

If you have a 3d printer, or a friend with one, then stencils are really fast and easy to print. You'd get a more precise geometric shape at least.

SamusDrake wrote:
Probably too early to ask but is there any pricing for the Horus Heresy book? I forget how much the Aeronautica books cost.

Been looking through the trade account order list and none of the new AI stuff is listed so it is all going to GW Direct. This new release had re-ignited my interest in the game but if it is going to be locked behind GW Direct and entire factions (not just extra craft) being resin only then I'm going to look at moving my stuff on. The last book was the Companion at £16 but this was soft back.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Another option may also be to make a hex template from a sheet of plastic, punching small holes to create the hex pattern, then position it over a mouse mat and spray painting through it to create the grid. Time consuming though, you'd probably make a 5x5 hex template and just move it around hopefully keeping the alignment decent as you spray through it.

While hunting for the DCS 4x4 mat, I ran across some lasercut companies selling clear hex overlay sheets/boards. You put the overlay on top of any mat you already have, and it now has hexes. The mat scale will look odd, but you're not usually looking at the mat during play. They might be easier to get hold of locally.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
Just to clarify, a Nighshade is max speed 9. I thought it could go to 10, but the Star Engines upgrade caps out at 9.

I did say "faster" rather than "fastest" But yeah I don't have the compendium still so the Nightshade doesn't exist to me, lol.

I should have dug out the [/pedantic] Orkmoticon when I posted that.

 Skinnereal wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Another option may also be to make a hex template from a sheet of plastic, punching small holes to create the hex pattern, then position it over a mouse mat and spray painting through it to create the grid. Time consuming though, you'd probably make a 5x5 hex template and just move it around hopefully keeping the alignment decent as you spray through it.

While hunting for the DCS 4x4 mat, I ran across some lasercut companies selling clear hex overlay sheets/boards. You put the overlay on top of any mat you already have, and it now has hexes. The mat scale will look odd, but you're not usually looking at the mat during play. They might be easier to get hold of locally.

I did look a couple of years back when AI first came out and I never found anything large that was 2" hex.

Considered buying a big sheet of transparent plastic (acetate or something) and taking it to a sign writers, lol, never costed it out though. Was hard to find sheets of acetate bigger than A1, which is slightly less than 2'x3'. There's a store that sells A0 (just under 3'x4') clear PVC, no idea if that can be printed on though.

Tallonian4th wrote:


Been looking through the trade account order list and none of the new AI stuff is listed so it is all going to GW Direct. This new release had re-ignited my interest in the game but if it is going to be locked behind GW Direct and entire factions (not just extra craft) being resin only then I'm going to look at moving my stuff on. The last book was the Companion at £16 but this was soft back.

Not sure what to think of that at the moment. I'm just going to see what happens on Saturday and weigh up whether its worth investing in or not.

Up for pre-order on NZ. Can't see any new aircraft in the contents bar the Aries:

SamusDrake wrote:

Tallonian4th wrote:


Been looking through the trade account order list and none of the new AI stuff is listed so it is all going to GW Direct. This new release had re-ignited my interest in the game but if it is going to be locked behind GW Direct and entire factions (not just extra craft) being resin only then I'm going to look at moving my stuff on. The last book was the Companion at £16 but this was soft back.

Not sure what to think of that at the moment. I'm just going to see what happens on Saturday and weigh up whether its worth investing in or not.

Aaaaand it's direct only

GW have been so disappointing with this game.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 zedmeister wrote:
Up for pre-order on NZ. Can't see any new aircraft in the contents bar the Aries:

I think what's new in this book (not sure) is the "squadron lists" section maybe has special rules for 30k that weren't in previous books as those sections have more pages than what they had in the previous books.

Also, the first part "Air War in the 31st Millenium" probably has a bunch of fluff, as it's 7 pages compared to the previous books where it was only 1 page.

Then pages 40-56 is "Fall of Vanaheim", so more fluff there.

Other than that, it all looks pretty similar.

I wonder if they've added any new rules for Divisio Aeronautica, or if they're just a copy of the Imperial Navy + Custodes.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:

Tallonian4th wrote:


Been looking through the trade account order list and none of the new AI stuff is listed so it is all going to GW Direct. This new release had re-ignited my interest in the game but if it is going to be locked behind GW Direct and entire factions (not just extra craft) being resin only then I'm going to look at moving my stuff on. The last book was the Companion at £16 but this was soft back.

Not sure what to think of that at the moment. I'm just going to see what happens on Saturday and weigh up whether its worth investing in or not.

Aaaaand it's direct only

Aaaaand it's fomo. Rip Aeronautica.