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Apart from the Vulture and Valkyrie Gunships, what sort of aircraft does the Imperium provide for ground forces? The lightning and thunderbolts provide interceptor and general purpose air superiority, while Marauders are for long range bombing and anti capital ship combat. But what about CAS?

Would a Space Marine Landspeeder count as a close air support vehicle? Technically they are skimmers, but their high speed and maneuverability could make them apache helicopter equivalents.

The Avenger was introduced recently by Forgeworld and is stated to be a staple close air support aircraft of the Imperial Navy.

There's also the Lightning Strike.

Hmm, it also seems that the Marauder has a dedicated CAS variant known as the Destroyer. Interesting

Well, that's the Navy and IG covered. What about the Spess Mahreens? The Thunderhawk is a multipurpose ship, but there are multiple landspeeder variants that could fulfill a similar battlefield role to the Navy ships.

For Sm I recon Thunderhawks and that new one that I do not remember the name of, in addition I recon they too can call on CAS from the Navy if need be. Landspeeders may provide CAS but I do think they are somewhat vunerabel compared to a fixed wing crat

 Arcsquad12 wrote:
Hmm, it also seems that the Marauder has a dedicated CAS variant known as the Destroyer. Interesting

Well, that's the Navy and IG covered. What about the Spess Mahreens? The Thunderhawk is a multipurpose ship, but there are multiple landspeeder variants that could fulfill a similar battlefield role to the Navy ships.

For a while they lacked one (in the game), but the Stormtalon has been inserted into the setting by GW recently. That's their primary CAS aircraft now, though there's also the Storm Eagle and Stormraven

The Vulture's probably the closest thing to an attack helicopter the Guard have access to; it's a pretty well-armed plane, if you can get past the $100-ish price tag.

Fluff-wise all I can really tell you is that the Vulture, Valkyrie, Marauder Destroyer, and Lightning Strike are the most ground-attack optimized things in Aeronautica Imperialis, but you probably knew that already.

Marines also have access to land speeder tempests for close air support, still a flying box but its better armored atleast

Everythings pretty much been listed.


Marauder Bombers

Valks

Vendettas

Vultures

Avenger Strike Fighters

and Thunderbolts



Space Marines have Thunderhawks, Stormravens, Stormtalons, and Landspeeders of various makes.

The one I read the most about would be a toss up between the Thunderbolt and the Vulture, the Thunderbolt being more widely used.

In terms of SM it's always Thunderhawks. Somehow the squad requesting support could be inside a building or fortress and call for Thunderhawk support.

CAS was a concept that the original designers never thought about because they didn't know anything about how military forces are actually organized and operate on the battlefield, or even how modern wars are fought, lol.

But yeah, slowly but surely the concept is being fleshed out, which leaves the purists and other anachronistic blowhards angrily flailing their arms about, crying nonsensically about the canon.

But then the game designers weren't writing a modern military wargame but rather a game where your genetically modified superhuman beats up on giant space cockroaches with a giant chainsaw. Who needs close air support when you have lance strikes from orbit and you don't care about your own troops very much?

Also realistically close air support on a game of this scale should effectively be the player taking a small dustpan and brush and sweeping a path over the battlefield

 Flinty wrote:
But then the game designers weren't writing a modern military wargame but rather a game where your genetically modified superhuman beats up on giant space cockroaches with a giant chainsaw. Who needs close air support when you have lance strikes from orbit and you don't care about your own troops very much?

Also realistically close air support on a game of this scale should effectively be the player taking a small dustpan and brush and sweeping a path over the battlefield

But close air support does exist so your argument is invalid. The avenger strike fighter proves it; essentially a space a-10 warthog.

Also, just because its not realistic doesn't mean it has to be stupid either.

I would personally liken it to the Bf. 110C, a Ju-87, the Grumman Avenger & Star Wars T-47 Republic Snowspeeder mixed into one rather than as the A-10 'Warthog' which it only vaguely resembles due to the Punisher mounted beneath its nose - the mounting of two lascannons either side of the Punisher makes me think more of the Bf 110 with it's nose mounted armament of cannon & machineguns (2 lascannons = the 2 cannon, Punisher = the 4 machineguns), the wings & cockpit put me mind of the Ju-87 & Avenger and the shape of the cockpit/it's layout reminds me of the Snowspeeder. But that's semantics and I'm feeling picky today so excuse me for that!

But yes the Imperial Navy does have close air support flyers and the ones we have are only a few examples - there may be all sorts of designs/STC CAS flyers and variations out there in the 40k universe.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
CAS was a concept that the original designers never thought about because they didn't know anything about how military forces are actually organized and operate on the battlefield, or even how modern wars are fought, lol.

I think there's a big difference between knowing nothing about modern warfare and designing a game without including any of it. Given the scale of it all I'd give them a little more credit.

And what one person thinks is stupid another might call creative. Not everyone plays the game as COD substitute. As for CAS in game, I think it's cool that they've started to include more air power in the game, it's not the easiest thing to mix that mechanic in without a complete overhaul.

 Reanimator wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
CAS was a concept that the original designers never thought about because they didn't know anything about how military forces are actually organized and operate on the battlefield, or even how modern wars are fought, lol.

I think there's a big difference between knowing nothing about modern warfare and designing a game without including any of it. Given the scale of it all I'd give them a little more credit.
l.

This isn't about game design. There is plenty of stuff that isn't included in the 40K game, but exists in the universe.

The entire concept was missing from the back story. It's missing because it never occurred to them. Not because they chose to omit it from the rules for simplicity's sake.

 Flinty wrote:
But then the game designers weren't writing a modern military wargame but rather a game where your genetically modified superhuman beats up on giant space cockroaches with a giant chainsaw. Who needs close air support when you have lance strikes from orbit and you don't care about your own troops very much?

Also realistically close air support on a game of this scale should effectively be the player taking a small dustpan and brush and sweeping a path over the battlefield

Problem is it's rather difficult and silly to make a sci-fi setting without aircraft. They've existed in the fluff background for a long while now but GW has just finally come around to incorporating them into the game.

You're saying it never occured to them, I'm saying it might have and they omitted it. I'm saying that given the scale of the universe and back story they created, to claim they simply don't understand something rather than chose not to include it is a huge presumption that does them a diservice, rather than my presumption, which doesn't.

Its not about game design vs fluff, just whether you think they were being less clever than you.

The Thunderbolt and the Lightning strike variant both can fulfill a ground support role.

Indeed, the Thunderbolt concept is based off of the WWII Thunderbolt, which is what the A-10 Thunderbolt 2 was named after because it fulfilled a similar role of a ground attack aircraft.

Just have an AC-130 Marauder equivalent.

 Harriticus wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
But then the game designers weren't writing a modern military wargame but rather a game where your genetically modified superhuman beats up on giant space cockroaches with a giant chainsaw. Who needs close air support when you have lance strikes from orbit and you don't care about your own troops very much?

Also realistically close air support on a game of this scale should effectively be the player taking a small dustpan and brush and sweeping a path over the battlefield

Problem is it's rather difficult and silly to make a sci-fi setting without aircraft. They've existed in the fluff background for a long while now but GW has just finally come around to incorporating them into the game.

They showed up in Epic long before this.

Also, aeronautica imperialis.

Seriously guys, how the hell can you call yourself a 40k fan without knowing about aeronautica imperialis?

That'd be like... being an Ork fan and not having ever heard of the comic...