Hi All

I am wondering how one would go about defending against an air assault - say a Thunderhawk loaded with Terminators.

Last night I placed a thunderhawk with terminators on my opponent's BTS, and they certainly did the job, followed up by 2 assaults where he assaulted the combined formation, in one case loosing and the other case breaking his assaulting formations, for a final cost of 2 terminators and 1 DC on the Thunderhawk.

This seemed amazingly powerful and I am wondering how I would defend against such an air assault.

It is my understanding that it is not possible to shield a formation from an airborne assault. I guess one could have some shooty formation in overwatch and perhaps even within support range, but that does not defend against an assault, only (hopefully) weakens the assault.

Is there anyway one could prevent an air assault on a particular (probably valuable but rubbish in assault) formation? I am interested in defense from the SM viewpoint (whether the assaulter is SM or another race).

Thanks

AA coverage, TBolts of CAP and something on overwatch to put a BM on the Terminators as they disembark. You can't really prevent it, Scout screens don't work against air assault. Which is why it costs 200 more points over plain Terminators.

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Shoot it down before it gets there. AA & CAP.

Overwatch, and AA can make sure that the attackers have a BM on then. Supporting formations with high FF value next to BTS goals are a good idea if you are expecting an air assault.

Any other advice would be highly situational.

keep within your AA bubble as much as possible, try to overlap whenever you can so they catch flak from multiple sources, in my experience fghters on CAP tend to struggle as a canny opponent will work within his own flak and shoot your fighters down before they can fire at the air transports

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I think you'd be hard-pressed to take out a WE Transport. Its nice when you can do it and it really gets your opponent POed but I think that the best place to win an air assault is in the assault phase.

Against Marines you can assume that they will have an Inspiring character, have a Focusmon their CC value unless they do the Dev/Assault combo and also typically not have more troops than you.

If you add a BM to the formation you can counter the bonus from the Inspiring character and then you are left with trying to beat then in the Assault.

If you back up your obvious BTS target with high FF troops to add supporting fire and/or Overwatch BMs then you have good chance of beating a small Marine assault force in combat.

They won't be trying this until turn three so you have a turn or two to consolidate your BTS target on an objective and then build support around it to take the inevitable air assault.

Of course there is SAM Suppression ... from FA, Aircraft on Ironhand, etc. ... As well as landing troops in LZs out of range of ADA/SAMs ...

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Surround blitz w/ scouts (more than 15cm from blitz) in a sort of half-circle using their extended coherence and ZOC rules, then stick an fm inside it and within 15cm of the blitz but not intermingled with the scouts. The marines can't air assault the fm inside and even if they beat the scouts then their consolidate can't get them to contest the blitz (they also can't teleport within the large ZOC of the scouts). Okay, the scouts die but big deal. Only option to counter this is to air assault earlier than turn 3, but then of course the marines are a sitting duck for any shooting you can bring to bear later.

I believe this is how the pros do it

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War Engine transports can barge units aside. A Thunderhawk can, IIRC, barge up to four models and probably still be able to deliver its load of troops to the target.

Let's not forget the threat of something big and gribbly to make a mess of the air assaulting units once they're left in the open Might be enough to put an opponent off if he thinks his airborne wonder detachment will get ripped to shreds as a result of engaging your other precious detachments.

For everything else, there's always overwatch, every BM counts

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I suspect that if someone takes out a BTS objective on turn three they might be happy to sacrifice the air assault formation if it means a win :-)

The inside formation can be air assaulted.


Once the Thunderhawk is on the ground (it's a WE so it can barge units if it needs to) the infantry head for whoever's nearest regardless of being in multiple ZoC.

Relevant FAQ.
Q: It’s possible to place a Scout unit just behind another friendly unit, so that the
Scouts 10cm ZOC covers the friendly unit too. If this happens, can I charge the
non-Scout unit? The rules say I can’t enter a ZOC unless I’m charging the unit it
belongs to.
A: You are, of course, allowed to charge the unit! If an explanation is needed, then
let’s say that the rule for moving into base contact with the enemy takes precedence
over the rule for not entering another unit’s ZOC. However, any player who has
attempted to use this tactic to stop a charge should hang their head in shame!

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Hmm... so by intermingling (alternating placement) a second formation with the first, one could force the assaulter to assault more than one formation even though he may not wish to... That could dilute the attack...

To answer the original question, it is not possible to prevent an air assault, though there are legitimate ways of either delaying it, or making the assault very risky. For example, a titan on OW, especially if it has TK weaponry, can project a very effective defensive zone! Equally as others note, bunching several formations together, deliberately intermingling them in a 'castle', can prove a tough nut to destroy all in one go.

However, scout screens and other supporting formations can be shot or broken; AA can be suppressed; OW can be triggered against enemy moving into supporting positions etc. So, just like any medieval siege, the 'castle' defenses must be dismantled before the final assault can take place; and that may potentially prove costly in time and resources. Here artillery barrages can prove disasterous to large numbers of units all in B-B contact - - - -

To Onyx's particular point on the scout ZoC FAQ, under 1.7.3 and 1.12.3 Units may not enter the ZoC of an enemy unit, unless it belongs to the formation being assaulted. It is a generally accepted practice to place friendly supporting formations so that their ZoC extends up to the target formation, forcing the opponent to deal with these first. This particular FAQ was written to describe why the ZoC of scouts positioned behind the target could not be used to prevent a direct assault on the target through the scout's ZoC. Scouts placed in front of the target outside 5cm inhibit an assault on the target just like any other formation (until they are broken or sufficiant numbers removed to create a big enough gap in their ZoC).