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I've been playing a lot of Wargame lately and I've had a few thoughts about the state of transport helicopters and how they relate to Valkyries and their derivatives. I realize it's pretty futile to attempt to impose real-life logic on Warhammer, but there are a couple of minor problems with consistency as relates to how other vehicles that can fill multiple roles off of the same basic chassis work in Warhammer as well.

The Chimera, Rhino, Devilfish, Land Raider, and Falcon are all vehicles with quite a few variants built off of the same kit with a few spare parts here and there, and all vehicles in these families fall into one of three categories:

Combat Vehicles: Hellhounds, Predators, Hammerheads, Fire Prisms. No transport capacity, but really big guns.

Infantry Fighting Vehicles: Razorbacks, heavier Land Raiders, Falcons. Small transport capacity, intermediate guns.

Armored Personnel Carriers: Chimeras, Rhinos, Devilfish, Land Raider Crusaders, Wave Serpents. Significant transport capacity, minor guns.

The Valkyrie, on the other hand, has the base variant, the Vulture, and the Vendetta, which doesn't fit into the normal setup at all since it's an upgunned Valkyrie at an overly generous price with the exact same transport capacity.

This model holds in reality for helicopters; there are separate gunship helicopters, attack helicopters, and the Mi-24 Hind, the only successful vehicle to combine both roles. Extrapolating from this it doesn't seem sensible to make the Vendetta a Predator Annihilator version of the regular Valkyrie with the same transport capacity; you'd expect it to have reduced capacity and upgraded guns for an increased cost.

To that end I've attempted to construct slightly more sensible rules for the Vendetta for use in my work-in-progress Inquisition rules. These accompany some changes to the Valkyrie and the Vulture: reduced armour and the addition of fire points at the doors.

Vendetta Gunship
1-3 Vendetta Gunships may be selected as a Fast Attack choice by an Imperial Guard army or an Elysian Drop Troops army. They may also be selected as Dedicated Transports for Stormtrooper squadrons in an Imperial Guard or Elysian Drop Troops army numbering no more than six models.
BS 3, AV 12-11-10, Hull Points 3, 125pts
Unit Type: Flyer, Hover
Equipment
Forward-mounted multi-laser
Four wing-mounted Hellstrike missiles
Searchlight
Extra Armour
Transport Capacity: A Vendetta may carry six models, none of which may have the Bulky or Very Bulky rules. It has access points at the sides and rear, and two models may fire from each of its side hatches.
Special Rules:
Air Cavalry (Models transported in a Vendetta may fire normally from the fire points regardless of how far the vehicle moved and may fire if the vehicle is Zooming, but they may not fire Heavy weapons unless the vehicle remained stationary in the Movement phase)
Grav-Chute Insertion (As per Codex: Imperial Guard)
Options
A Vendetta may replace its Hellstrike missiles with Skystrike or Hellfire missiles for free
A Vendetta may replace its Hellstrike missiles with a twin-linked autocannon for +5pts, a twin-linked missile launcher for +10pts, or a twin-linked lascannon for +10pts
A Vendetta may purchase two side-mounted heavy bolters for +15pts. If it does so, only one model may fire from each side hatch each turn.
A Vendetta may replace its multi-laser with a lascannon for +10pts
A Vendetta may purchase ilum flares for +5pts, infrared targeting for +5pts, chaff launchers for +10pts, a distinctive paint scheme for +10pts, or an armoured cockpit for +15pts

The Vendetta is supposed to be the Razorback to the Valkyrie's Rhino, I set out to bust it back from its current flying laser death status to something a little bit more reasonable. Suggestions and remarks would be appreciated.

I like it, but I would still give it the option of taking the typical Vendetta loadout of 3 twin linked lascannons. Without them, IG has no reliable anti-tank weapons that don't take up valuable Heavy Support slots (Artillery and Vanquishers) or give up an easy first blood (HWTs). The AT loadout would be relatively expensive, I would even say a cumulative cost somewhere between 170-180 points, maybe even 185, but the option should still be there.

Hellstrike missiles don't work. They're ordnance and make your other guns BS 1, so firing one is worse than not firing one.

Also, 6-model transport capacity ignores the Vendetta model. The kit very clearly has lascannons with external battery packs on the hardpoints and full transport capacity inside. And if you're going to modify the rules you need to make them work with the existing models, otherwise nobody is ever going to use them. So that means full transport capacity, and 3x TL LCs as one of the options.

 Peregrine wrote:

Also, 6-model transport capacity ignores the Vendetta model. The kit very clearly has lascannons with external battery packs on the hardpoints and full transport capacity inside.

The Fire Prism also appears to have the exact same transport space as the Falcon. So that part of the arguement is a little weak.

The Fire Prism has the potential of internal capacitors and workings. The Vendetta kit explicitly has those articles hung externally, meaning they aren't inside the troop bay.

On top of that, the design of the troop bay itself denies that option because of the door placement.

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:
The Fire Prism also appears to have the exact same transport space as the Falcon. So that part of the arguement is a little weak.

Only because the interior on a Fire Prism isn't modeled. The interior on a Vendetta, on the other hand, is, along with its lascannons with obvious external battery packs.

Though one does have to consider the possibility that the Valkyrie's vertical takeoff engines can't handle the weight of all the lascannon power packs and a full squad of troops; the physical space might be similar (though the twin-linked forward lascannon's batteries could take up some of it), but if you overload the plane it might have trouble taking off or manoeuvering.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Though one does have to consider the possibility that the Valkyrie's vertical takeoff engines can't handle the weight of all the lascannon power packs and a full squad of troops; the physical space might be similar (though the twin-linked forward lascannon's batteries could take up some of it), but if you overload the plane it might have trouble taking off or manoeuvering.

I doubt it. Valkyries can still fly just fine with rocket pods/hellstrike missiles and extra fuel tanks, so I can't imagine the lascannons being so much heavier that they have to give up their transport capacity. Really there's just nothing fluff-wise to suggest that a Vendetta can't carry troops just like a Valkyrie, the only reason to even consider making that change is to nerf its rules.

Plus a single twin-linked lascannon, autocannon or multilaser is the Vulture Gunship's trick.

If I were to chose I'd fold the vendetta into the Valkyrie as a weapons upgrade and have the Vulture as a separate codex entry

 Peregrine wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Though one does have to consider the possibility that the Valkyrie's vertical takeoff engines can't handle the weight of all the lascannon power packs and a full squad of troops; the physical space might be similar (though the twin-linked forward lascannon's batteries could take up some of it), but if you overload the plane it might have trouble taking off or manoeuvering.

I doubt it. Valkyries can still fly just fine with rocket pods/hellstrike missiles and extra fuel tanks, so I can't imagine the lascannons being so much heavier that they have to give up their transport capacity. Really there's just nothing fluff-wise to suggest that a Vendetta can't carry troops just like a Valkyrie, the only reason to even consider making that change is to nerf its rules.

Fluff-wise there is nothing saying that a Falcon or Fire Prism shouldn't have access to the same shield option as the Serpent. Fluff is an ugly beast on the table-top, one that is removed as a casually first by the Chaos God Geedub

 Senden wrote:
Plus a single twin-linked lascannon, autocannon or multilaser is the Vulture Gunship's trick.

If I were to chose I'd fold the vendetta into the Valkyrie as a weapons upgrade and have the Vulture as a separate codex entry

Ironically, in the Elysian army list, they did the opposite - Valkyries are dedicated transports, so Vultures and Vendettas are a single codex entry (although sadly, you can't mix and match within the same squadron).

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:
Fluff-wise there is nothing saying that a Falcon or Fire Prism shouldn't have access to the same shield option as the Serpent. Fluff is an ugly beast on the table-top, one that is removed as a casually first by the Chaos God Geedub

Fine, then just say "I want to nerf the Vendetta and I don't care if the rules match the model." Don't try to justify your Vendetta nerf by claiming it's all about the fluff.

 Peregrine wrote:
Fine, then just say "I want to nerf the Vendetta and I don't care if the rules match the model." Don't try to justify your Vendetta nerf by claiming it's all about the fluff.

I'm sorry that I don't have the artistic skills, budget, or legal department to make a replacement model for the Vendetta, I would if I could. I thought the weight concern and the fact that no battery is shown for the forward lascannon made sense, but if you don't think so, I'm not here to belittle your opinion, insult you, or argue that particular point at all, for that matter. I thought I started this thread to get some feedback on the rules, not on whether the rules look like they're a perfect match for the model designed for a different set of rules; does anyone have anything constructive to say on that subject? Or anything not constructive? The only rules comments I've gotten are "You should probably keep the three twin-linked lascannon loadout in to ensure the Guard have an effective anti-armour option that isn't in Heavy Support" (a very helpful remark, thank you very much to ultimentra for saying so) and "missiles are bad" (with which I do not necessarily agree, given that if you're building a Vendetta under these rules with missiles you don't have much in the way of other weapons, and they provide cheap workable solutions to some selection of problems, but I'd be happy to debate the point of whether missiles are useful).