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Okay that was a little clickbaity but hear me out.

*Disclaimer* I am not the world's best player. It is completely possible that I have overlooked something, am wrong about something or that the people who read this will have differing opinions to me. I did not come here to ruffle any feathers, just to bring a differing opinion. Also......this is likely to get long......so grab your Mountain Dew and buckle in

TLDR AT THE END

Preamble

Okay so for this just forget that the book is fething $90 (Australian) and is likely to be rolled in to 8th ed if it ever drops and forget that it seems to be missing a prominent flyer, or that the dogfighting phase might seem long to some people (although personally....I think it's cool and my local store will be doing the flyer campaign) this is simply about, primarily, the impact this has had on orks and why the dakkajet (the new ork flyer) is amazing.

So I'm going to do this in three parts....let's go.

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A New Way to Play

That's not clickbait...I swear.

Outflanking buggies, kommandos/red skull commandos, blitz brigade (I think), storm boyz etc, probably far more, they all form an interesting concept of orks descending upon the enemy from reserve, overwhelming with numbers from the board edges and is something almost EVERY other army can do. It's feel orky and we haven't been able to do it, why? Because a dice roll can feth us. Other armies can manipulate that dice, improve the roll or just straight out bring things out instantly and we have not had a way to do that (outside of some allies thing that I haven't read).

Three words: Air Superiority Detatchment

2 flyers (that's 1 wing in the books terms) with the option to take 2 more wings and put simply......as long as you have fliers and your opponent doesn't (in reserves that is)and after the dogfighting phase, you get a +2 to ALL your reserve rolls, as well as causing a -2 negative to your opponents rolls, meaning a 'deep strike' list without air, and baring other forms of reserve manipulation that is SO EFFECTIVE, will be inferior to ones with 2 fliers a lot of the time.

This makes ork 'deep strike' lists viable for the first time due to the vastly improved ability to reliably bring our troops in. Turn two, 1+ rolls for everything in your army that's in reserves, then on the same turn do the flyers last. Boom, every unit on the board in your enemies grill. Then hug cover, block line of sight, do what you have to and waaagh next turn. (Don't forget to go to ground if you have ghaz, his waaagh makes you fearless and that makes you ignore all penalties from going to ground the turn before, improved cover saves ftw)

Is it what everyone is looking for? no. Will everyone play it? no. What it does is bring some diversity to a VERY stale codex, maybe....just maybe....there is an alternative to spamming truck boys and mek guns.

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The Blastajet

Okay, this one will be controversial I feel, be gentle with me.

It's amazing. Pure gold amazing. Let's crunch some numbers and do some maths and compare it to the unit that does it's job, the mek gun unit.

Blastajet (base) - 140
Upgrade kmk to tellyporta mega blaster (here on referred to as tmb) - 5
kff - 25
Gitbusta (optional) -20

Total - 190

So here we have the mandatory Blastajet build. It swaps the 24" kmk for the 18" tmb (which keeps the strength and ap, loses 6" and loses gets hot), a 6" forcefield granting a 5+ invuln to all hits and (if you want for 20 pts) a way to fight back kinda nicely in the dogfighting phase (Does interceptor grant skyfire or am I losing my mind? if not I'll remove that note and this becomes better).

If you run a wing of these, and you will when you read section 3, the second build is cheaper, not having to take the kff.

Now the equivalent mek gun squad is like this.

kmk (closest equivalent gun, maybe add a few points yourself for losing get hot and makes the weapon ASSAULT!) - 30
6x ammo runt (to give the weapon twin link) - 18
Smasha gun (base on the dakkajet) - 30
big mek in mega armour (best way to get the mek guns to move) - 75
Kff on big mek - 50

Total - 203

So right now....we're slightly better off points wise getting the jet.

However consider the following just normal flyer advantages;

+Huge movement so no hiding from your guns
+Snapfiring all but skyfire shots agaist it
-Can be destroyed in one shot unlike kmk
+no grot moral issue
+less reliance on jink than other flyers
-While in zoom has standard flyer limited mobility

Add or remove points as you please for that but that makes the flier even better in my opinion.

Hold on to your teeth though it gets ever so slightly better. Those 5 piddly points we spent to change our main gun? We lost 6" range (who cares we move where we please), we lose gets hot (cool) and get the tellyported rule (double cool) but it makes the gun ASSAULT instead of heavy. Yes.....oh yes.....the Blastajet is a WAAAGH plane. Meaning on any turn you waaagh any assault weapon may fire gets one more shot than normal, meaning increase our points comparison by 30 in favour of the jet and bring the dakka dakka dakka.

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And now for something completely different

All the rules and formations......wait for it.....

Work in our favour

Let's begin. To start with yeah you could use one jet, it's kind of a sexy piece of kit and if you even have 1 you get a +1 to your reserve rolls and a -1 to enemy reserve rolls as long as you're the only one with flyer reserves that turn, as opposed to the 2+ for having a Air Superiority Detachment. Once you read this though, the unit will read to you as Unit size: 2+

So, you're going to take an Air Superiority Detachment which gives you the reserve tomfoolery, the ability to bring all flyer wings in with a single reserve roll (if flyer spam is your thing) and all your flyers get objective secured (kinda cool I guess). Then, and oh yes it get's sexier, you're going to fly them in a formation. Assuming you want to have maximum sexiness for minimum cost you're going to run 2 of these bad boys which lets you fly only 1 formation. Vigilance Attack Pattern, which is just keep one flyer slightly ahead, 2-6" ahead of your second flyer. This not only keeps your kff in range of your other flyer, it gives whichever ship is in front (you can swap them) +1 BS against ground targets. Oh and +1 to jink saves for both flyers but we don't really care about that.

Here's where it gets super smexy. When you make a wing you get to upgrade one flyer to the wing leader for no cost, and you get to roll a dice. As I'm talking about blastajet's for now, they have their own wing leader table. So get this.

On a 1 or 2 - all your weapons get an extra 6". If you get this I'm so sorry
On a 3 or 4 - add 1 strength to all of your weapons. Not bad for messing up vehicles more or hitting MC's.
On a 5 or 6 - You do a dance and call a waaagh in the name or Gork and Mork. You have just permanently increased the shots on all your weapons by 1.

Let's talk about this last one. You now have 2 shots on your twin linked, str 8, ap 2, blast weapon with the tellyported rule. Have 2 shots on your random strength smasha gun, potential str 10, ap 1 (kinda cool) and if you want now 4 shots on a supa shoota. Then put a waaagh on top of that and you are shooting your tmb 3 times in a turn, or gork forbid, 3 times every turn if running the ghazcurion.

So to summarise the bonuses;

+2 to your reserve rolls, -2 to your enemies (if you have air reserves and your opponent does not)
All flyers in at once
Objec secure on all flyers
+1 BS to lead flyer
+1 jink save to all flyers
Potential +1 shot with all weapons

Just so everyone knows, the bonuses get better the more flyers you use. How does a 3+ invuln on 4 Dakkajets all game sound? Yeah I know,

This is only an example with the blastajet in mind, there's probably worse and better combos, but this is about how this all helps orks

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Summary

So this book not only gives us a fun new round which shouldn't take more than a few minutes after you've done it a few times, a great new way for orks to reliably play like the rest of the armies out there, a great new flyer who is more points effective than the same use mek gun squad and whose effectiveness gets better if you start taking wings and have a little luck, and just some amazing ways to increase our flyers strengths.

Yeah there are a few negatives, and if there is interest in my writing I can present the flipside of all of this, such as dakkajets taking a hit against ground targets and bombers not really changing a whole lot.

Or if wanted I can explain why the Dakkajet is a huge anti air beast now as well, allowing you to gain control of the skies.

Or you could all tell me to crawl back in to my hole.

I just wanted to share this with everyone, wanted to see what you all thought, I'm excited for some discussion.

Cheers and thankyou all for reading.

________________________________

TLDR

Orks gained a way to control reserves and opened up a whole new way to play.
The blastajet is amazing, and is more points effective than the same use mek gun unit
The blastajet (and lots of other flyers), get 100x more amazing if you take 2+ of them in a formation/wing

Your comparison between the KMK and blastajet is wack, man.

This is like saying "A land raider is a more cost effective transport for a tactical marine squad than a rhino, because when you buy it a second storm bolter, hunter killer missile, extra armor, dozer blade, adamantium will plating, a techmarine with servo harness to repair it, a powerfist and plasma pistol for the sergeant inside, and chronus to drive it, it's more expensive than the 250 point land raider, which is AV14!!!!"

You don't use ammo runts (at least, not more than 1) on a KMK.

You don't protect it with a KFF - you sit it in cover.

You *might* give it a big mek to move them around, but there's really no point, might as well just buy more.

So how about we look at how many you'd get vs a blastajet? Well let's see, 190 points with the upgrades for that 10/10/10 vehicle. That's...six KMKs.

Ouch.

I wouldn't bother with the supa shoota, save points on the wazbom. I do like the idea of messing with reserve.rolls a lot , and if you go with strategic warlord table you could get -3 to opponents rolls.

I think the blasta jet is best used in the formation of 3 jets +1 bkasta to get a 3++ save to all.of them.

Remember a wing is 2+ flyers, so will need 2 blasta jets, which is a lot of points.

And comparing mek guns to a blasta jet doesn't work ones a heavy support the other is a fast and serve different rolls.

Mek guns dont give penalty / bonus to reserves, they have Ld 5, can't move and shoot, are not hard to hit and don't have / grant a 5++.

Orks actually don't like mass reserves cause maelstorm is the only way of winning with our army and mass reserves are a way to loose maelstorm. Besides, what are you going to deepstrike? Stormboyz?..

All in all, you're much better off without flyers at all. They're all heavilly overpriced and can't land to at least claim objectives. The only more or less passable flyer that at least had a role on the field was blitza bomber. But now it can't jink and bomb. And bikes can now jink bombs iirc. So, it's useless.

TLDR: All ork flyers are pure garbage rulewise. Don't bother unless you really like the models(that are great). We're allready lagging far behind the rest of the books and have to bring optimised lists to stand a chance. Dogfights can be fun but you got to make sure the opponent doesn't mind using it beforehand.

As an owner of 4 ork flyers, now, I am interested in the 3++ formation, but I want to know - are the flyers treated as a squadron? because that's a lot of firepower to go at any one target.

 koooaei wrote:
Orks actually don't like mass reserves cause maelstorm is the only way of winning with our army and mass reserves are a way to loose maelstorm. Besides, what are you going to deepstrike? Stormboyz?..

All in all, you're much better off without flyers at all. They're all heavilly overpriced and can't land to at least claim objectives. The only more or less passable flyer that at least had a role on the field was blitza bomber. But now it can't jink and bomb. And bikes can now jink bombs iirc. So, it's useless.

TLDR: All ork flyers are pure garbage rulewise. Don't bother unless you really like the models(that are great). We're allready lagging far behind the rest of the books and have to bring optimised lists to stand a chance. Dogfights can be fun but you got to make sure the opponent doesn't mind using it beforehand.

or you could outflank warbuggies / deffkoptas and such?

If only most people weren't ignoring those rules.

 Tiger9gamer wrote:


or you could outflank warbuggies / deffkoptas and such?

Nothing wrong with small reserves. I'm talking about a sizable point investment. It hurts way more than it helps.

Hey all,

Thankyou very much for the responses and after reading through maybe some things had a bit of a leap in logic that I should have fleshed out further. I'll endeavour to reply to everyone here and will edit this info in to the original post.

The_scotsman: I get what you're saying, at no point did I mean to imply that in all cases, instead of mek guns, you should take blastajets. My comparison was to simply point out that it is not as badly costed as people are claiming.

Further, using a big mek for kff and movement is something I've seen a lot in battle reports and amongst the ork players at my local store. Kmks are hated and any survivability you can get them is gold in at least my meta.

I just tried to point out that extra points for survivability, manoeuvrability, twin linking of weapons etc made it worth a lot more.

Can't count the amount of times I wish my kmks were further up the field to reach those fetching tau gunlines. You can get a lot of kmks for that many points though, I won't deny that.

______________________

Kooaei: certainly mass reserves may not be a great thing in say itc for orks, may never be the worlds best; but buggies, blitz brigade with manz, deffkoptas, etc etc can be outflanked and having that more reliable would be great.

The ork player that taught me makes great use out of scorcha buggies to disrupt various backline elements. Only problem of course is that sometimes it never comes in. He also hates tau for the reason with kmks that I stated earlier.

The ability to bring the fire to the enemy gunline, on a turn when your everything else is getting dangerously close causing a split in targets, and to bring in those little surprise elements may be a handy one.

Is it what will make orks super competitive? No, but it is a nice little QOL change that just brings in another element.

Also when I said deep strike lists it was for lack of a better way to say an army with outflanking or deep striking elements.

Edit: oh yeah and sorry I missed a major point, flyers can cap objectives. When in hover they are a fast skimmer meaning there's no measuring up 3" to see if they cap or not, in fact in the air supremacy detachment they have objec secure too.

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dakkafang: I totally agree the 3+ formation is one of the best ways to field the blasts, just a sexy unkillable unit, hugely expensive and would likely only be seen in large points games of 2k+ or in pure death from the skies games (flyers only), in which it might even be a top tier group.

Yeah the flyer wing costs a lot to get the bonuses, but I feel the points spent on the two of them, which are already cost effective in my mind giving you two good reliable models, get you some amazing bonuses.

I don't think the comparison of kmk to blastajet is so far fetched. Like I said earlier it's not to say one is better than the other, it was just to give a points idea compared to the closest possible unit in terms of purpose. Both have high powered weapons and are a great source of anti tank/teq/mc.

And I agree I would never take the supa shoota, I just wanted to present all the options. That's 40 points (over the 2 flyers) I will not be spending.
__________________

Kap'n Krump: So I went a double checked this for you. In a flyer wing you roll once to pull all craft in the wing from reserve and they must be placed within 4" of another model from the wing. From then one however they act as individual models, moving and shooting independently. Also no flyer can have their line of site blocked by other flyers from their wing.

To get the bonus of that formation merely keep all 4 flyers in a square 6" from the flyer in front and to the side of them and your wing leader must pilot a blastajet with the kff. All ships get a 3++.

Edit: along with the 3++ they also get It Will Not Die and ALL their weapons gain interceptor, if any of that tips you over in favour.

____________________

Hope that clears up a few things. Main point is that I didn't mean that blastajets should always replace kmks or some such, I'm just trying to show how it stacks up to something close within our codex.

Also as a side note, bs 4/5/6 dakkajets with improved supra shootas.

Qwerty2jam wrote:

Edit: oh yeah and sorry I missed a major point, flyers can cap objectives. When in hover they are a fast skimmer meaning there's no measuring up 3" to see if they cap or not, in fact in the air supremacy detachment they have objec secure too.

Some flyers like drakes and flying bricks can. But ork flyers don't have the special rule. Unless it's been specifically changed with this very book. So, obsec seems to be wasted as they can never score.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Qwerty2jam wrote:

To get the bonus of that formation merely keep all 4 flyers in a square 6" from the flyer in front

Does it allow to break the exact "square" cause it's gona be very unwieldy on boards with...terrain. Cause otherwise you risk breaking a model with all those wobbly model syndromes.

The specific rule under scoring units says this;

Any unit can be a scoring unit, unless:

It is a swooping monstrous creature, it is a zooming flyer or is a unit embarked on a zooming flyer.

This rule comes from the 7th edition brb and says that a flyer is scoring unless it is zooming, in hover, you can score.

_________________

For you to be in that attack pattern you have to be anywhere from 2"-4" from the plane in front and to the side (not on the diagonal). You don't have to be a square I guess as long as you follow those rules.

I think it's also worth mentioning, I don't believe you have to pick a pattern at the start of the game, so you can change the bonuses you get 'on the fly' (sorry for the pun) having the 3++ one turn then tank hunter, ignores cover, +1 jink and +1 bs on the leader by using a different 4 flyer pattern. Then as flyers die can use the 3 and 2 flyer patterns.

Qwerty2jam wrote:

unless...it is a zooming flyer.

That's what i'm talking about. Ork flyers can only zoom. They can't land.

Aaaahhhh alright there we go, I'm wrong there meaning no capturing points.

I'll pay you that one, it's a shame but would anyone have used a flyer to capture points? I suppose contesting them would have its use.

Basically, anyone who can land uses them this way occasionaly. Because firstly, it allows to capture/deny and secondly, it allows freedom of movement as you can, for example, land a drake to still flame the opponent instead of just flying off the board or too far away from the desired target.

Imagine you could land your dakkajet to shoot the back armor of a vehicle or a squad you'd not be able to shoot at all as you'd have to fly over it. Or grab a vital point.

That's why i'm saying that ork flyers are just gunboats without any extra utility other than hoping for extra luck on the crash and burn. And that the price tag is in no way adequate for their underwhelming dakka (for a pure gunboat). And even if the opponent wanted to shoot them down, he'd be able to do it with a bunch of heavy bolters due to av10-10-10.

Right now there is no way to take the Blastajet with a Ghazcurion to get more shots unless you take a flyer detachment. I could be ok with that if the Ghazcurion wouldn't be so prohibitingly expensive. If I could use one blastajet or dakkajet as an auxiliary I would go for it, but the Blastajet can't be used and the only way to get a dakkajet is to take 3 of them. I don't think the Blastajet is garbage, you could use one and a dakkajet to get some great dakka, but KMK do the same job, only cheaper. The Tellyportas sound interesting, but getting more than one shot just depends on too many random factors.

I can fit ghazcurion and 2 blastajets (the detachment) in 1500pts, probably wouldn't be great but I can do it, 1850 would be great.

I'm a bit confused about your no extra shots thing, waaagh does not just affect the units in the ghazcurion, it doesn't just affect the detachment from which the waaagh is being called, it affects your whole army.

I played a game last night using the new DftS rules. And with only taking 1 flyer they were helpful.

Opponent had no flyers and I had a single blitz bomber. The +1/-1 to reserve rolls helped me bring my flyer and out flanking units on a 2+ turn 2 to and stopped oppoents reserves from coming in with -1.

So even with out the wing leader buffs, patterns and Detachment the rules were immediately helpful.

Looking forward to playing with more point and flyers to see how else it will improve my orks.

I'm probably too negative. Well, the good part is that we can get at least some reserve manipulation for 130 pts. Though, we still get -1 BS - means that a dakkajet goes back to bs2 with strafing run. The models are still awesome. The rules are still underwhelming. Though, it can be a bone to snikrot formation in casual games or in non-maelstorm missions.