Air-to-Ground Tactics

Based on the current rules, Flyers excel at air-to-ground strikes more than anything else. Their speed allows them to attack any target on the board in relative safety, and their weapons mean they have a good chance of severely damaging their target.

Bombing Run

One of the best advantages of Flyers is that they can strike anywhere – you cannot hide from their wrath on the battlefield. Does your opponent have a squad of sharpshooters that are out of your infantry’s range? Call in the Flyers. Does your opponent have a Basilisk hiding behind a hill as it pummels your forces with indirect barrage fire? Call in the Flyers. You can really ruin your opponent’s well-laid plans when you zip over his lines and destroy a unit that he considered safe. What’s more, a Flyer can fire all of its weapons at once even while moving – ideal for eliminating high-priority targets.

Combined Arms

Air power alone is impressive, but when you coordinate it with actions on the ground, it can prove unstoppable. Ever heard of the Blitzkrieg? Use your Flyers to cut a hole in the enemy line for your assault Troops or vehicles to charge through. Or, if you’re in trouble and your lines are collapsing, drop a few bombs on the enemy’s attacking column to buy your forces some breathing room. Just make sure you place your strike with care – it will do you no good to wipe out the enemy in a location where your ground forces can’t take advantage of it.

Tank Hunters

For some time now, the bane of ground vehicles has been the warplane. Unless a vehicle has an anti-aircraft mount, there’s not a lot it can do to fight off an attack by air. What’s more, there are a lot of mean things that a pilot can do to vehicles. For example, if your opponent has arranged his vehicles in a column (usually seen on roadways), all you have to do is take out the first vehicle to block the column’s movement so you can take the rest out easier. Another similar example: if there’s a terrain bottleneck on the field, take out a vehicle while it’s in the chokepoint, and you’ve just put a stopper in your opponent’s flow of vehicles.

Catch ‘Em Napping

If your opponent is foolish enough to land a Flyer on the field to pick up passengers when you have a Flyer as well, then it’s his loss. One of the best places to take out a Flyer is before it has left the ground. They are treated as regular vehicles at that point, and with no anti-aircraft mounts or heavy armour, they are sitting ducks…literally.

Air Cav

The final and perhaps riskiest way to use your Flyers is in the Air Cavalry (Air Cav) role. Employing your Flyers as transports for your forces can offer you unparalleled mobility: you can drop units behind enemy lines, move units completely across the table in a turn, and evacuate units if the mission requires it. Some Flyers, especially those in Imperial service, can enter VTOL mode to hover and provide sustained fire support much like the attack helicopters of today. However, as mentioned earlier, Flyers cannot take much punishment before they crash and burn.

Next: Air-to-Air Tactics

Intro Rules Basics Ground Air Conclusion