It’s been a bit too warm to paint past week. Not that I’m complaining of course. Been nice to decompress. So I took the rare opportunity to haul the loyalist ‘Siege of Terra’ themed formations outside for a family photo of sorts. There’s not enough room inside for this, so if the weird grill table garden background breaks anyones impression, then my apologies. I don’t live in a mansion or have a dedicated studio at my disposal. Although that would be nice wouldn’t it.

So here’s nearly all the gang to date. It’s actually the very first time I’ve seen them all in one place as well. Believe it or not!

IXth Legion – Blood Angels

VIIth Legion – Imperial Fists

Legio War Engine support

legio imperialis war engines

White Scar aerial formation aggravation

Gird your loins, this is going to be a rant, of sorts. I’m trying to put together a fun Aerial Assault Formation of White Scars to make use of all those awesome flyers I painted for Aeronautica last year. It’s almost like I had a plan isn’t it? You can see them lurking in the siege army images which are the thrust of this weeks post.

However, the current transport and formation special rules are frankly making that endeavour harder than it really needs to be. I would use the word ‘aggravating’ in fact.

Let me explain why.

All non-flyer detachments in the formation must begin the game embarked upon a transport with the flyer special rule. Ok, all good so far, that would be Storm Eagle’s or Thunderhawks given those are currently the only options, unless my hopes are answered and a plastic Stormbird is released (one can but dream).

Here’s the wrinkle. The HQ is a detachment in its own right and it doesn’t take upgrades. The smallest available transport is the Storm Eagle with capacity (5). That means the HQ must take a Storm Eagle minimum and waste all that extra space. Ahh, but the HQ must be attached to one of the other core detachments and the rules state the HQs dedicated transport gets added into the dedicated transport pool for the core detachment it is attached to, I hear you say. That’s true, however you can’t mix and match the transport capacity across different detachments due to assigned order.

Example: The HQ is attached to a core Tactical detachment of 8 tactical stands (4 core and 2 x upgrades). The HQ has a Storm Eagle as its dedicated transport and the tactical detachment a Thunderhawk. All good so far, except the embarked tactical detachment can be assigned a ‘charge’ order as the Thunderhawk is a large assault transport, whereas the HQ can only be assigned march or advance order. Both the HQ and Core form a single detachment for the purpose of activating the transport flyers as a transport pool.

The second aggravation is the dedicated transport only permitting units from the detachment it was ‘purchased for’ embarking in it. Using the example above once more, that HQ will be making poor use of the capacity (5) Storm Eagle. It would have been nice if a larger core detachment of, ohh, let’s say 12 could have been allocated seats aboard the combined Thunderhawk and Storm Eagle, making efficient use of the 13 transport slots. But no, that unfortunately makes things too complicated to keep track of orders wise. Oh well.

It also means the maximum permitted tactical upgrade of 12 units will-not-fit sensibly into either Thunderhawks or Storm Eagles leaving plenty of empty seats in either. Four and three respectively.

Why? Why do you do this to me you fickle gods of aircraft seat allocations.

And this is why I just can’t get the Aerial Assault Formation to play nicely points wise. It feels sub-optimal compared with the legion demi-company,  sky-hunter phalanx or drop pod assault. As it stands, to transport the formations bare-minimum core detachments of an HQ, two groups of 4 tacticals and one support detachment. A total of 13 units requires expending 400 points on four Storm Eagles. That’s a total transport capacity of twenty just to annoy me further.

It is what it is. So if you are building an aerial assault formation, feel free to bring along extra cabin luggage as there will likely be plenty of spare seats and overhead locker space.

What are your thoughts?