40K: Death From The Skies! Is the Sky Falling? Not Quite….
Hi guys! Dean from Blog for The Blood God here with my first thoughts review of the Death from the Skies suppliment!
I just gave the new Death from the Skies suppliment my first full read and i have to say i like it!
I think this book will appeal to multiple different gamers for different reasons, for me its biggest highlight is the Air Superiority Detachment, in summary it allows any army to take 2+ flyers as a stand alone detachment. This can be huge as often the Force Organisation slots are heavily contested.
As a primarily Khorne Daemonkin player I often find myself forced into taking a Gorepack just so I can run multiple units of Flesh Hounds and Heldrakes in a single list, well not anymore! (Not that there is anything wrong with the Gorepack) now I can take a Combined Arms Detachment with 3 units of hounds and ally in a Flyer Wing for turkey goodness!
But why stop there? This detachment opens up endless possibilities when you explore the allies matrix! My new list is actually a Daemonic Incursion with an allied Flyer Wing of Heldrakes, which would have been impossible previously without paying a HQ and TROOPS unit tax.
I am sure there are hundreds of armies that will benefit from this ability to take a dedicated detachment of Flyers, the sky is the limit! (see what I did there)
Next we have the Dogfight Phase, now this does nothing to excite me personally, I hate the idea of adding ANOTHER phase to the game, but I can see it being quite fun if used as a side “minigame”
Basically players do a “rock paper scizzors” style challenge to determine movement, facing and attack, essentially creating a miniature Duel before the start of each turn. Eldar players are going to love this as Crimson Hunters now have the ability to drop enemy flyers before they hit the table.
The thing I DO like about this is it adresses one of (in my opinion) the biggest issues with flyers, the turn 1 punishment. Say for example we both had a single Crimson Hunter, normally who ever gets turn one would arrive with nothing to shoot, leaving you wide open when your opponents flyer arrives, where as now you get a little pre turn dogfight to see who truely controls the skies!
Also worth noting is that these Dogfights do NOT take place on the game board, but instead on a separate flat surface over 36″ wide! From a cinematic perspective I love this as it paints the picture of flyers hundreds of kilometers in the air fighting eachother…but… from a practical standpoint its just straight up dumb!
One of the biggest hurdles 40k players face is finding room to actually have a game, whether it by in the dining room at home or in a crowded FLGS. Can you imagine this at Tournaments!?! I can see a room crammed full of players fighting over the tiny remaining bench space to avoid having to conduct thier dog fight UNDER the table like some kind of underground, subterranean battle of… fighter jets?!?
There are some other really neat rules in the book like attack patterns that award certain bonus rules for models arranged like a flock of fire breathing turkeys from hell, and rules for your Wing Leader but that is for a future article… maybe…
I hope you enjoyed my first thoughts review of Warhammer 40,000:Death from the Skies.
Related note:
I think with this suppliment and the recent FAQs on facebook we are looking at an updated 7.1 rulebook for Christmas this year. Accompanied by a new Codex for Chaos Space Marines…. you heard it here first folks!
Also do not forget to check me out on facebook over at Blog for the Blood God for the latest on everything Khorne! I also have a Youtube Channel with everything from Battle Reports to Painting Tutorials and Early Unboxing and product reviews.
Thanks for tuning in, Stay Bloody everyone!
