I promised you a battle report in my last Aeronautica post, and here it is. Aventine, Bulwark and myself each hauled our squadrons down to our FLGS and had a giant throwdown. With me bringing my massive Harbinger heavy bomber, it was decided that the Eldar would be coming to the aid of the Orks in this battle to stop me from bombing their airfield into the dust. Appently a Farseer somewhere had decided that something in this greenskin airfield needed to survive.
Turn 1
The Orks started on the ground and scrambled from their hangers to meet the oncoming Chaos contrails on the horizon. The Chaos squadron was broken into two wings. On the far right, the Harbinger and a light escort of three Hellblades swept in at medium altitude(4) towards the airfield. High above at max altitude (9) a large force of 8 Helltalons and Hellblades screamed forwards to provide cover. From the left of the table, a large force of 6 Nightwings ecsorted a dreaded Vampire Destroyer swept in at medium altitide (4) and headed straight for the Harbinger.
The Chaos top cover squadron went into a power dive, and managed to exchange some long range fire with the Eldar to no effect.
Turn 2
In a scene out of World War 1, all squadrons mixed it up in a huge swirling dogfight. The Harbinger continued towards it target, releasing its escorts to give it cover. The Orks had climbed into weapons range at altitude 4, and the Eldar had also arrived at mid-table in weapons range. The top cover Chaos elements finally dove in behind the Eldar and every pilot in the area wiped sweat from their brow and focussed on their targeting arrays.
As the firing phase passed back and forth between teams, they pummeled each other relentlessly. The Eldar suffered the brunt of the fire, and half of their Nightwings exploded in wraithbone fragments. Even their holofields could not protect them from the fusilade of autocannon fire. The return fire was devastating, Ork heavy stubbas and elegant Eldar Shuriken cannon opened up and blew nearly all the Hellblades from the skies. Two medium sized Helltalons were destroyed by the Pulsar fire from the Vampire, and the wall of fire from the Blasta Bomma.
Turn 3
Things were looking grim for the Chaos squadron. The mighty Harbinger trundled on, undamaged and opened its bomb bay doors. Next turn the airbase would be in range. The half-dozen remaining escorts were scattered by the dogfight, and pulled high-g turns to try to surround the rear arc of the Harbinger and blast anything that pulled in to close. Every Eldar and Ork aircraft that could pulled in close behind the gigantic beast and blazed away.
In the firing phase, the Harbinger was blasted time after time. We all watched as the Vampire and Blasta Bomber punched huge holes in its airframe, while the remaining Fightas and Nightwings added their own fire. A handful of Ork Fightas fell to sporadic Chaos fire, but not enough. We all counted down the damage to discover the Harbinger had survived, with only a single damage point remaining.
As blood came back into the Chaos commander's face, Bulwark remembered the lone tiny Ork AAA platform defending the airbase. The boyz climbed in, cranked the rusty gun into position and oped fire. Two sixes later, the Harbinger was a flaming wreck, and Bulwark was telling me about the great deal he got on ebay for the AAA gun ~More on that later.
~I hope you enjoyed this report. Aeronautica is a really fun game that makes a great side show to 40k. Its scale and speed of play is perfect to help you fit some grander narratives into your campaigns, and it may one of the most portable GW games out there. All my stuff fits into a tiny little mini case. Comments are welcome.
