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 SisterSydney wrote:
Though you do have rules like "supersonic" -- which taken literally would mean "flies over the table so fast it can't do anything."

Maybe a revised Supersonic rule?
"When this model arrives from reserves, hold it up for everyone to admire. Then make zooming sounds and swipe it quickly over the table. Place the model back in reserves."

And Vector Dancer should allow it to turn 15 degrees during the course of movement over the table to represent a very agile aircraft.

Overall, I really like what you've done Peregrine. Might be worth polling sometime.

 greyknight12 wrote:
Something to keep in mind is that almost all GW flyers (with the exception of some forgeworld) are equipped roughly as attack helicopters and fill that role on the tabletop. They move about 3x the speed of a tank (modern day LAVs go about 40 mph, the H-60 cruises around 120 mph). Fixed wing attack aircraft generally don't have transport capacity either. In addition, the weapons on nearly all the 40K flyers fit the ground attack role - you don't see 6 m-16s strapped together on the side of a jet. While some of the weapons are found in equivalent form on modern fighters, pretty much all are found on modern attack helicopters (including light anti-air, the newest AH-1s can mount anti-air missiles)

But that's really just some of the Imperial aircraft. The Eldar, DE, Tau and DA flyers are all clearly "fighter jet" types, and the Necron one is probably in that category. The only real "helicopter" types are the Stormraven and Valkyrie, and even in that case a Valkyrie has a (fluff) cruising speed of 500mph, while the Stormraven is implied to have a similar top speed since it has the engine power to operate from orbiting starships. And even the Imperium has the Thunderbolt/Lightning/Avenger, which are also clear "fighters".

 Mahtamori wrote:
Would the Crimson Hunter (Exarch specifically) be an anti-air or anti-ground fighter? It's got rules to kill aircrafts and rules to single out models in units (up to and including on 5+ to hit, no less!). Currently they are also what I feel the only half-decent anti-air of the codex.

Just to clarify a bit: air to air and air to ground are modes that any flyer* is capable of choosing depending on how you want to use it at a given moment. So the Crimson Hunter would be capable of using both of its special rules, just not in the same attack run. It would probably end up being used for AA more frequently though, since it has great AA firepower but isn't all that amazing against ground targets. Similarly, a Helldrake is great at killing ground targets but not very good against other aircraft (at least with its typical weapon choice) so it will probably spend most of its time in ground attack mode.

*Though of course some may be significantly more effective in one role than the other and have rather obvious "choices" to make. A flyer with a load of bombs isn't going to be contributing much if you put it on AA duty instead of dropping those bombs on ground targets.

 Paradigm wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Peregrine, would you classify, say, a Heldrake as a ground attack craft or dogfighter aircraft? It does not seem entirely clear, we are given Codex artwork of it tearing Valkyries to bits (Two pictures, actually) but its most popular weapon is definitely a ground attack only one. On the other hand, its other weapon is just as effective against flyers as against ground targets, and the same goes for its 'melee' strikes.

By the look of it, any flyer can be assigned to any of the three roles, so if you wanted the Hades on a Drake you could call it in as CAP or Ground Attack. With the Baleflamer you'd go Ground Attack and for vector strikes I assume that would just depend on what you were targeting. As Heldrakes are the only flyer that ca Vector Strike, it might be worth giving it it's own ruling.

To clarify, will a Heldrake get strafing run?

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
To clarify, will a Heldrake get strafing run?

I don't know, I haven't really considered individual model re-balancing. I just mentioned the Vendetta getting strafing run as an example of how the change fixes the problem where ground attack aircraft can easily shoot down other flyers with their anti-ground weapons, and a transport helicopter with lascannons bolted onto the wings is the ultimate dogfighter. I'd probably lean towards making the Helldrake a ground attack fighter (and remember, vector strikes don't roll to hit as shooting attacks) and give a little more incentive to take the Hell Blade as the dedicated AA fighter.

Vector Dancer should be replaced with Hover Mode on all applicable aircraft, and with Agile on all others. As a rule, it can't decide what it represents (partly due to the atrocious application of it to all Forge World valk/vult variants).