Going airborne

I've been tabletop gaming for far longer than I like to think about. Ive fielded armies full of infantry, bikes, cavalry, transports, armour, even mecha. The one thing I've rarely used is aircraft. Current meta makes that a rather glaring absence in some games, so I'm looking to address that.

I've used aircraft plenty in 6mm, where the scale allows for them to bank, wheel and dogfight freely. In Heroics scale, however, there's far less room to manoeuvre the great beasts of the sky. The only time I've used aircraft at this scale was back in Warhammer 40,000's first edition, when Landspeeders and jetbikes were capable of full flight, and so could tear across the battlefield in a strafing run. Flying units fell from favour after that. In 40k's third edition, aircraft were expensive models who would see little time on the table, essentially just tearing across in a strafing run, then entering the long Reserves shuffle. 

Since then a lot of games have developed, adapted, borrowed, and, in a few cases, stolen mechanics to make aircraft far more useful or to have them interact far more with the other action on the table. The most obvious examples are air cavalry now often being able to repel from a moving aircraft on the table, rather than having to drop from an off-table carrier far higher. We also are starting to see mechanics for fighter planes to dogfight, bombers to drop their loads precisely from a low altitude, and gunships to be truly terrifying bullet hoses against massed infantry. 

While, as i said, I've not used aircraft in Heroics much, the idea behind air cavalry is fairly straightforward, so i feel happy enough diving in with that, with maybe a paltry flight of 11 or 12 combat carriers.

What I'm not sure about is the fighters, bombers and gunships. In theory, i get the basics: they're ultra-fast light armour that has restrictions on their manoeuvring and a minimum movement. The thing is, they seem far too vulnerable to defensive fire for the points cost, and even more so when the cost of the models is also factored in, being some very expensive kits that can't really use cover. 

To try to wet my toes, I'm planning to convert 3 helicopters to support my squats for 40k. I'm going with helicopters because they have a very good reason to not be shooting around the table at full-speed, and most Imperial Navy aircraft in 40k have a Hover mode. Of course, on top of that, there's the fact that the Citadel range includes a kit to build a Gyrocopter or Gyrobomber, and, in the second and third editions of Epic, squats had access to the Iron Eagle Gyrocopters. 

So, yes, I'm planning to do a significant amount of conversion to get myself some characterful aircraft to get myself used to the idea of using aircraft at slow speeds and/or low altitude. 

The fluff from back in the day had three distinct variants of the Iron Eagle in second edition Epic. I'm not sure if there were different rules for them, since I rarely played that edition, (until  the Tyranids arrived) and so rarely faced them; when I came back in third there was a massive streamlining of values, so no need to distinguish. 

Anyway, the 3 craft I'm looking to have will be:
--An Iron Eagle. A recon helicopter with a nose mounted battlecannon, 2 tail mounted autocannon and a heavy bolter. 
--A Steel Hawk. An anti-personnel variant, traditionally a bomber of sorts, with short-range rockets and a multimelta.
--And a War Hawk. A tank-hunter with smart rockets and  bolters.

None of the armaments are direct matches with anything available from the Imperial Navy, so it'll take a bit of lateral thinking. 

My first thought was a wing of Vulture Gunships, the Steel Hawk mounting a pair of Punishers and a nose mounted heavy bolter. I then lost a night's sleep tossing ideas around for the Iron Eagle and War Hawk. After all of that, i started thinking that an Avenger Strike, Lightning Strike or Thunderbolt Heavy Fighter might be a better fit, although they don't have the Hover Jet ability, meaning that they have to zoom around, and I'm not sure about how to handle the speed involved. 

I've thought myself in circles and come out more confused than when I started thinking about it. 

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