40K: Death From the Skies Rules Preview
Games Workshop is showing off some hints as to how the new rules will work – Come see the latest about Death from the Skies!
via Games Workshop
The release of a new Death from the Skies supplement for Warhammer 40,000 has got us all feeling very happy in the office. Many a zooming noise and can be heard as people run around with new flyers held in the air. I even saw a pair of flying goggles on Simon’s desk (they’d been there for ages; they just have a purpose now.) I thought I would have a read of the book to work out what all the fuss was about and see if my orky brain could come up with any nasty tricks to try out on my next unwitting opponent. Here’s what I found out.
The updated Flyer rules in Death from the Skies completely replace those in Warhammer 40,000: The Rules. The highlight for me is the Break Turns rule which allows your flyer to try to make a second turn if they pass an Agility (a new statistic on every datasheet in the book) roll. I love the idea of my Dakkajet’s being able to bring their guns to bear more easily, I am always getting caught out of position with no enemies in my line of fire.
Another new element is Flyer Wings. These can be deployed in Attack Patterns and have Wing Leaders. A Flyer Wing is a group of 2 to 4 Flyers taken from the same datasheet or Formation. The Wing Leader gets a special ability to represent his experience and skill. Keeping the unit close together in one of a series of Attack Patterns will give the wing special benefits. I will be deploying my Dakkajets in a Vigilance Attack Pattern to gain +1 Ballistic Skill against ground targets. Combined with the datasheet special rules in Codex: Orks I will be hitting with almost every shot which is a rare treat for an ork warboss.
The Dogfight phase allows detailed combat between flyers who have not yet entered from Reserve. This happens at the start of each game turn and has a series of sub-phases where a each side choose from a series of Engagement, Manoeuvre and Attack Tactics to determine the winner. The ultimate goal is to gain Air Superiority which reduces the likelihood of enemy units coming on from reserve and increases your own. I will definitely need to equip my Flyers to give me Air Superiority, as I usually field a very mobile Ork army and I often have many units in reserve in transports. Air Superiority would allow me to assault isolated enemy positions ‘en masse’ while my opponents reserves arrive piecemeal.
The most exciting element for me is that I can play games with just my flyers. I have always imagined an air armada of ork flying contraptions duelling with hordes of enemy aircraft blissfully unaware of the ground battle taking place below. And now I can play that game. So I now need more flyers and I think Dorgaz Deathspin will be getting promoted to Wing Leader with some Dakkajet’s to boss around. I also think a Flyer Wing of the new Wazbom Blastajet’s is a must have. To the skies!
This is all VERY interesting to read about but what I’m most “concerned” with is:
The updated Flyer rules in Death from the Skies completely replace those in Warhammer 40,000: The Rules.
This doesn’t sound like an optional thing. Now you can always choose to ignore part of those rules (I know many players skip over random terrain or mysterious objectives for example). But it’s going to be curious to see how large scale tournaments are going to work these in. I, personally, would like to give them a try before I cast any real judgement as they could make flyers a force to be reckoned with again.
What’s your take? Yes or No on the new flyer rules? How about in 30k? Someone call an Adult, we’re going to need to talk about this one…
