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I'd be very interested in an Aquila lander with rules that didn't suck. Let's see....

Sororitas Aquila Assault Lander: 175 points
A larger, upgunned, and uparmoured version of the Aquila used by the Ecclesiarchy.
BS:4 Armour:12/11/10 Sv:6++

Force Organization: A Sororitas Aquila Lander may be take as a Fast Attack choice for a Codex:Adepta Sororitas army or as a Dedicated Transport option for a Sororitas Command Squad, Battle Conclave, or Celestian Squad.

Rules:



Costing

Psienesis wrote:It's a Valk. It's Sisters. It's probably fire-proof. It's also miraculous that the damn thing flies at all, I'm sure the Emperor can hand-wave it through re-entry. It'd also be descending out of the skies absolutely surrounded in a halo of flames.

My Guard regiment specialise in orbit-to-ground Valkyrie assaults. They use sacrificial heat shields strapped to the bottoms of their aircraft that burn off in the atmosphere to dissipate the heat away from the airframe. The magnesium laced into these shields gives off a white-hot flare of blinding light as they approach, giving the regiment their nickname of Sunshiners.

I don't think that an 'up-sized' variant is really the same aircraft at all. Part of why I have a problem with the Super-Valkyries in Redemption Corps. If the Valkyrie is a V-22, their heavier transports are Bell QuadTiltrotors - while developed from the former, the latter is a different aircraft.

So something with a similar aspect to the Aquila would be something different. ^^; But the Aquila would be a good transport for small Sisters squads as it is, if it was only a little cheaper. It's worth more like 70-80 points, not 140 or whatever.

Expendable single-use heatshields make sense as a cheap Navy alternative to Astartes-style ceramite. (Which I've taken off my revised Juno assault lander, which is also now a 6-HP superheavy as Furyou suggested).

That said, you can make significant modifications to an aircraft without a fundamental redesign. Commercial airliners and ships -- even US Navy nuclear submarines -- in particular often have a "stretch" version where designers just add in another hull segment (works best with modular designs), so total length and carrying capacity increase with minimal redesign. Likewise aircraft designs can replace engines with more powerful ones that fit in the same hull volume or under-wing nacelle -- the Air Force is doing this on the C-5 Galaxy right now, I believe.

So I envision my "Aquila Maxima" as a stretch version of the basic lander: a longer passenger compartment, plus heavier front armor and two hardpoints for missiles, and a more powerful engine to move it all, but otherwise the same design.

 SisterSydney wrote:
I'd be very interested in an Aquila lander with rules that didn't suck. Let's see....

Sororitas Aquila Assault Lander: 175 points
A larger, upgunned, and uparmoured version of the Aquila used by the Ecclesiarchy.
BS:4 Armour:12/11/10 Sv:6++

Force Organization: A Sororitas Aquila Lander may be take as a Fast Attack choice for a Codex:Adepta Sororitas army or as a Dedicated Transport option for a Sororitas Command Squad, Battle Conclave, or Celestian Squad.

Rules:

Spoiler:

Unit Composition: 1 Aquila Lander
Unit Type: Vehicle, Flyer, Hover

Special Rules: Supersonic, Deep Strike

Access Points: rear door

Wargear:
Heavy bolter (in nose)
Two Exorcist Missiles

Transport Capacity: 12 models.
The Aquila Lander may carry Seraphim.

Costing

Spoiler:

+1 BS: +10
+1 front armour: +15
Shield of Faith: +10
2 Exorcist Missiles: +20
+5 Passengers @ 2 pts: +10
Total additions: +65

Net: 110 points + 65 = 175

That looks awfully similar to my aquila Dropship. I costed out mine at 150 points since the Aquila Lander is considered to be way overcosted at present for what it is.

I was looking through Forge World and it turns out that Horus Heresy Space Marines can take a Primaris Lightning Fighter. It's an in all ways superior version of the Lightning Strike Fighter the IG get. It's even cheaper than the IG's version. It looks like it was basis for the IG's Lightning Strike Fighter and it would likely be the base for a Sororitas Lightning. It also confirms that the Imperium can produce Lightnings that can carry power armour.

Furyou Miko wrote:They use sacrificial heat shields strapped to the bottoms of their aircraft that burn off in the atmosphere to dissipate the heat away from the airframe. The magnesium laced into these shields gives off a white-hot flare of blinding light as they approach [...]

Love it. May I steal?

Hehe, I guess. ^^;

Found this an interesting tid-bit on Lexicanum, for the Avenger strike-fighter:

"It is a very effective design and is now a staple of any Imperial Navy air support mission. Due to its reputation of holiness, the Avenger is often specifically requested by the Adeptus Sororitas should they require close support in their purgations.[1]"

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Avenger#.U2vQF6LEGEo

Of course, it's not a transport, not even remotely, unless you mounted Seraphim to the under-wing hardpoints and dropped them like bombs.

On the same note, and more practical, is the Marauder Bomber:

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Marauder_Bomber#.U2vQ5aLEGEo

If you're intending to deploy Seraphim squads, its bay can hold up to 6,000 pounds of munitions. Replace bombs with Sisters, and you have the means of HALO and LALO insertion, with the bomb-mounts on the wings probably capable of instead carrying rocket tubes, twin-linked heavy bolters in pods, multi-meltas, torrent flamers, or basically anything else you could want for ground-support operations. In fact, with rocket pods or ATG missiles, you could conceivably clear a strongpoint of enemy armor and infantry, and replace the Bad Guys with the Good Girls via aerial drop insertion.

Standard, it's got 4 turret-mounted heavy bolters and a pair of lascannons in its nose, which you could probably justify replacing with a multi-melta or heavy bolters.

They're also capable of orbital insertion/exfiltration, so that removes the need for transporting the ship from space to the ground, it can do that under its own power and is noted to have a very long operational range... probably higher in a dropship configuration, as you'd need a *lot* of Sisters to equal 6,000 pounds.

Also, aesthetically, it looks "dangerously sleek".

I love the variant of the Marauder with all the guns up front (the Destroyer) -- the actual historical B-26 Marauder had a variant like that, too.

I hadn't thought about a troop-carrying variant. I think dedicated drop ships is more the Navy's style, since they seem to have a specialized aerospacecraft for everything as long as we're borrowing Imperial Navy designs -- which I think the Sisters would do, rather than getting Astartes "jack of all trades" gunships.

True... but if you're deploying people in Power Armor with jump-packs, then you can just mount some benches in the bomb bay and hang some overhead straps to hang onto, it's not even a major re-fit of the vehicle.

The girls in the back there are protected from cold and vacuum by their PA (assuming that the bay is not environmentally sealed during orbital insertion) and when the pilot upfront tells her Sisters that they're in the zone, the Sister Superior simply pulls the lever, the bomb bay doors open, and the Sisters just line up and jump out one at a time, engaging their jump-packs at the appropriate time for the type of insertion they're going for.

You don't even need to take the bombs out -- dammit I wish I knew how to embed video instead of just giving you the link.

 SisterSydney wrote:
I love the variant of the Marauder with all the guns up front (the Destroyer) -- the actual historical B-26 Marauder had a variant like that, too.

I hadn't thought about a troop-carrying variant. I think dedicated drop ships is more the Navy's style, since they seem to have a specialized aerospacecraft for everything as long as we're borrowing Imperial Navy designs -- which I think the Sisters would do, rather than getting Astartes "jack of all trades" gunships.

Most variants of the B25 had a big forward arsenal as well, I wonder if I can use the B25G and its 75mm cannon as an excuse to make a Marauder variant with a battle cannon?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Aeronautica Imperialis doesn't support Marauders as dropships, by the way, but that's not the start and end of how planes function in 40k.

 Lynata wrote:

Furyou Miko wrote:They use sacrificial heat shields strapped to the bottoms of their aircraft that burn off in the atmosphere to dissipate the heat away from the airframe. The magnesium laced into these shields gives off a white-hot flare of blinding light as they approach [...]

Love it. May I steal?

You’d think that if Sisters needed ablative heat shields for reentry, they’d use heretics.

You win the internet.

Aeronautica Imperialis doesn't support Marauders as dropships, by the way, but that's not the start and end of how planes function in 40k.

Doesn't need to. It's a bomber. It has built-in dropship functionality for any troop in an environmentally-sealed suit of armor and a jump pack or grav-chute. All the troop has to do is fall out the bomb-bay doors. And if we're just borrowing Navy vehicles for wargear, but fluff-writing it as a dedicated vehicle for the Sororitas, I think you could justify the Mechanicus/Ecclesiarchy taking the airframe of a Marauder, changing its bomb bays to be a passenger deck for two dozen people (with an average weight of 200 pounds, you could actually fit up to 30 of them in here, but let's not go crazy) , and refitting its weapon systems with the close-range, heavy-punch armaments the Sisters prefer for use in ground-support operations. Maybe give it some dumb-fire rocket pods on the wings (gods know it'd have the weight to spare) for area-denial/blob-busting offense and you've got a multi-purpose support fighter.

A Marauder Destroyer mod with a bunch of multi-meltas or even a melta cannon sticking out the front would be pretty badass. Depending on your interpretation of the Decree Passive, it might be a little hard to justify as a transport modified for self-defense.:

"No, seriously, we just ride in the bomb bay --- I mean the former bomb bay which we have converted into passenger space that also, uh, just happens to have some bombs in it. Yeah, they were there when we took delivery, we just haven't had time to take them out."

 SisterSydney wrote:
A Marauder Destroyer mod with a bunch of multi-meltas or even a melta cannon sticking out the front would be pretty badass. Depending on your interpretation of the Decree Passive, it might be a little hard to justify as a transport modified for self-defense.:

"No, seriously, we just ride in the bomb bay --- I mean the former bomb bay which we have converted into passenger space that also, uh, just happens to have some bombs in it. Yeah, they were there when we took delivery, we just haven't had time to take them out."

You're touching onto something rather interesting there: what if the aircraft dropped a few bombs at the same time as it dropped Sisters? The Sisters would engage the grav-chutes/jump packs in time to be out of harm's way, but the added confusion of being bombed might throw the enemy into disarray.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 SisterSydney wrote:
A Marauder Destroyer mod with a bunch of multi-meltas or even a melta cannon sticking out the front would be pretty badass. Depending on your interpretation of the Decree Passive, it might be a little hard to justify as a transport modified for self-defense.:

"No, seriously, we just ride in the bomb bay --- I mean the former bomb bay which we have converted into passenger space that also, uh, just happens to have some bombs in it. Yeah, they were there when we took delivery, we just haven't had time to take them out."

You're touching onto something rather interesting there: what if the aircraft dropped a few bombs at the same time as it dropped Sisters? The Sisters would engage the grav-chutes/jump packs in time to be out of harm's way, but the added confusion of being bombed might throw the enemy into disarray.

If you could do this precisely enough you might end up with something not unlike Swooping Hawks' bomb-then-people drop, hypothetically.

That would be cool... though you could also (narratively speaking) have the Marauder come down out of the sky, swoop in low, unleash a ripple-fire torrent of rockets from its tubes, and then swoop back up into the sky while the people it just rocketed are getting back to their feet...

... just in time for a Seraphim squad to land amongst them.

 Psienesis wrote:
That would be cool... though you could also (narratively speaking) have the Marauder come down out of the sky, swoop in low, unleash a ripple-fire torrent of rockets from its tubes, and then swoop back up into the sky while the people it just rocketed are getting back to their feet...

... just in time for a Seraphim squad to land amongst them.

A Hellstorm bomb is more in-character, but that's the idea.

Yeah, but... hopping out of the Marauder into a lake of burning napalm is just so terrible for the finish on the power armor, you know? After the battle, it's a hundred and forty-seven hours of prayers and maintenance rituals just to get all the carbon scoring off, not to mention the time to re-paint and re-polish!

 Psienesis wrote:
Yeah, but... hopping out of the Marauder into a lake of burning napalm is just so terrible for the finish on the power armor, you know? After the battle, it's a hundred and forty-seven hours of prayers and maintenance rituals just to get all the carbon scoring off, not to mention the time to re-paint and re-polish!

I realize that it's not my place as a Templar to reprimand a Sister of Battle for any percieved faults, but...




++Non Nobis Imperator++

On a more on-topic note, having an aircraft drop incendiary bombs sounds extremely fluffy for the SoB and would, to the best of my Templar-y understanding, stay within the Holy Trinity of weapons, despite being mounted on an aircraft. Food for thought?

Oh, it would, I just think it's tactically unsound to drop an incendiary weapon onto a target and then immediately un-ass drop-infantry on to the exact same location you just set on fire.

when it gets hot
I light it up
(Shake it like a bad girl up in Harlem)....

 Psienesis wrote:
Oh, it would, I just think it's tactically unsound to drop an incendiary weapon onto a target and then immediately un-ass drop-infantry on to the exact same location you just set on fire.

Absent workable non-silly-sounding Latin for "fireproof" I'm going to reply "asbestos" to this one.

Ceramite, my dear Rake. The term is 'Ceramite'.

Look, just make sure the firestorm bombs are AP4 and the Sisters are laughing.

I am officially behind the idea of a Marauder Dropship as the Sisters' deep strike insertion craft now. I've been looking for an excuse to include a Marauder somewhere, they're just so pretty.

Where's my copy of Aeronautica? Gimme a sec.

Michaela Long-range Transport 360 points

Named after an ancient hebritic angel of vengeance, the Michaela is one of the few pieces of wargear openly endorsed by the Synod, putting it on a sacred level equal to that of the Rhino and Immolator, and even above that of the suspect Repressor that has come into use more recently. Originally a refitted Marauder Heavy Bomber, the Michaela exchanges its bomb racks for shock harnesses, each wrapping its passenger in a loving embrace that is said to represent the Emperor's grace itself. Once the Michaela is over the target area, the bay doors open and the harnesses detach along with their payloads, carrying the blessed Sisters safely down into the fires of the Emperor's vengeance. Particularly daredevil Seraphim squads have been known to sacrifice the safety of these harnesses and simply cling to the bay roof, their shock harnesses instead carrying a payload of explosive death to pave their way.

BS 4 FA 11 SA 11 RA 10 HP 9

Unit Composition: 1 Michaela Long-range Transport

Type: Super-Heavy Flier

Wargear:
- Two Twin-linked Heavy Bolters (nose and tail)
- One Turreted Twin-linked Heavy Bolter (dorsal turret)
- 24 Shock Harnesses

Transport Capacity: 24 models, which may comprise multiple squads.

Access Points: One (belly). Any number of squads may disembark from this access point in a single turn.

Special Rules: Plow the Road

Options:
Up to ten times, the Michaela may:
- exchange two Shock Harnesses for a Heavy Firebomb: +5 points/bomb
- Echange a Shock Harness for a Tactical Bomb: Free
Up to twice, the Michaela may:
- Echange 10 Shock Harnesses for a Hellstorm Bomb
- The Michaela may exchange any Twin-linked Heavy Bolter for:
- Twin-linked Multi-melta: +10 points
- The Michaela may take any of the following:
- Flare/Chaff Launcher: +10 points
- Armoured Cockpit: +15 points
- Infra-red Targeting: +5 points
- Illum FLares: +5 points
- Distinctive Paint Scheme or Markings: +10 points
- Laud Hauler: +10 points

Defensive Heavy Bolter: A Heavy Bolter with Skyfire.


Plow the Road: Troops may disembark from the Michaela as part of a Bombing Run. Each squad counts as a single Bomb, and their disembarkation is resolved after the effects of all other Bombing Runs (other than other Plow the Road disembarkations).

Shock Harness: A Shock Harness is a one-use item that allows a single model transported by an aircraft deploy as if it had the Grav-Chute Insertion special rule.

Heavy Firebomb: Rng Bombing Run, S 5, AP 4, Apocalyptic Barrage*, One Shot, Ignores Cover

*You can elect to have the Michaela drop as many bombs as you wish in a single bombing run. For each bomb dropped, roll once on the Apocalyptic Barrage template, but remember, each bomb can only be dropped once.

Notes: Yes, it's a flying transport. No, you cannot Embark upon it mid-game. It doesn't have Hover Mode, the Marauder it's based off is just too big! (and non-VTOL for that matter). Points costing is iffy. I've taken away its bombs and lascannons and reduced it by 40 points, but given it transport capacity and some nice rules. If you fully equip it with Heavy Firebombs, it comes out at 400 points, essentially becoming a Marauder that trades 1 Strength for Ignores Cover. Oh, and a nose bolter instead of the lascannon, which is an obvious step down, but I'd call it an Options Tax.

Also, irony: Michael is a guardian angel, not a vengeful one.

Lastly, what's the designation for the real life Marauder Destroyer? Wanna look it up.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Oh, it would, I just think it's tactically unsound to drop an incendiary weapon onto a target and then immediately un-ass drop-infantry on to the exact same location you just set on fire.

Absent workable non-silly-sounding Latin for "fireproof" I'm going to reply "asbestos" to this one.

"Inflammable" means "flammable"?! What an Imperium!

Because 'In' means 'extra'. ^^;