The air rules are ok as they are, but people as ever want to change everything!

E&C isn't that kind of intercept called CAP?

If a player want's to use their first activation to fly into the heart of my carefully setup flak umbrella they are welcome. Personally I use AC to pick at formations that have moved out of the said coverage and only fly in with either 4+ RA warengines or when its vital to the game.

Overall I'd say leave the rules as is.

I'd personally like to see the entire air system binned and restarted from scratch, but that's not going to happen

Other ideas i had:

Make Dogfights like Firefights ground Assaults. Every Aircraft would get a Dogfight rating which is identical to the units Firefight rating if it can land.
Get rid of ranges on aircraft weapons. Exeptional ranges, maneuverability and numbers of weapons would grand First Strike and/or Extra Attacks instead.

With no stated ranges on their weapons Aircrafts on a ground attack mission have to actually fly over the target formation in a strafing/bombing run (just like in the movies). So ranges aren't needed.
Perhabs ranged shots for guided missiles (Ork Grot Guided Missiles and Tau Seeker Missiles come to mind).

Aircrafts get the damage capacity as in Aeronautica Imperialis. If they loose all their DC they are shot down and destroyed. If they loose 2/3 of their DC they will return to base after acomplishing their action and so are out of the game but wouldn't count as destroyed for victory points purposes.

The above assumes that after carrying out their action the aircrafts wouldn't return for refilling etc to base but would fly circles and attack again on the next opportunity.

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Nope.

CAP would also still be allowed, so you could CAP the bombers, then if you didn't kill them Intercept them with your next activation, after which the Bombers would fly away.


Ten minutes ago you wanted immediate disengagement...

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Having tested "immediate disengage" for quite a while when the experimental air rules were suggested we found it worked well and it also satisfied the unrealistic element of the air rules.
I found at the time the only excuse not to bring in the rule was the models not being on the table argument, which felt silly as the models are always at the table side on show for the whole game.

I find the rules as they are now work OK,not very realistic but work OK.

The loss of intercept was the only concern for us, at the time I suggested that instead of the flyers moving off-board they could move to the edge of the table to where they would be exiting (a kind of reverse of the CAP rule for entering) and take no further part in on board activities (Flak coverage etc.). This would allow them to still be intercepted with the interceptors then making an "immediate disengage". Air transports that land would remain landed until the end phase as per the rules now.

If we have to change I vote for Immediate disengage. But overall I can live with the muddle we have.

This is my opinion as well. I'm not inclined to change anything.


That said, immediate disengage fixes a lot of the weirdness of the current system and generally simplifies things. Also, the variant planetfall rules that went with the immediate disengage proposal provided a real incentive for aircraft with planetfall capability to actually use planetfall.

The "models are never on the table" argument seems bogus to me. Aircraft on ground attack tend to go into heavy action areas. Half the time we end up taking the aircraft models off the table because they are in the way of moving ground units. Any benefit of keeping them on the table is offset by their nuisance factor.

So the fact that aircrafts weapons which are the same than ground weapons are in a lot of instances very different (range and/or to-hit vaule) isn't a problem?

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I disagree that the model argument is bogus. Rare is the game we play where the planes are removed or even moved. So rare that I can't remember the last time it happened.

The solution IMO is to have two different systems and allow people the opportunity to choose which one they want. I see the only drawback to this option being the potential for point cost disparities to appear on certain aircraft. In other words, a formation of WHATEVER works great in one system but only marginal in the other. I don't know if this would ever happen but I never doubt the ability of Ginger or TRC to play a game that has something bizarre come up.

If people would finally start to try out new ideas instead of refusing them immediately.

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*bumb*

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The only complete alternate/set of modifications that got any substantial testing were the variant air rules I wrote based on Jervis's concepts way back when the original rules review started.

They are available in the pinned Alternate Aerospace Rules thread. The thread was garbled in the latest board meltdown but I just redid it.

I think the problem is more that the aircraft rules are so intertwined with all of the other units and their points costs, that changing the aircraft rules would require rebalancing pretty much every list, eg. if immediate disengagement became the norm then bombers would become more valuable and intercepters less valuable. Would flak be less valuable given it's limited opportunity to fire?

The dog/firefight idea is interesting, but would require an even more thorough rewrite (would clip/ countercharge/ hack down hits apply, how many points for an intercepter, what weapons stats?) plus you'd have to figure out how to make it work for bombers too. Aside from the fact that an awful lot of air combats, be it fighter vs. fighter or fighter vs. bomber, don't even occur within the distance represented by firefight in Epic.

Personally I get on fine with the rules as they are and so do the people I play. I think they're fairly intimidating for beginners, but then so is a fair bit of stuff in Epic. Given the turmoil I believe rewriting the rules would create, I'd vote to leave them as they are

I was thinking about that all aircraft in the engaged formations would be part of the assault no matter the distance. If even ony aircraft is within 15cm (possibly shorter: 5cm)of a unit of the target then all aicrafts on both sides can attack as dogfight are moving swilring 3-D affairs. Not the rather 2-D slow moving assaults on the ground.

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In testing, this wasn't true. There ends up being very little difference in value.

Fighters often ground attack so they have offsetting gains/losses. Also, the +1 to hit on Intercept was part of this original proposal.

Flak units lose flak-rush but they still get to fire when the enemy disengages. Compared to the current rules which downgrade the end-phase flak attacks, it's pretty close - no flak rush, but no penalty on to-hit rolls if they are in position.

Air assaults end up on the ground so only CAP is useful under the current system.

Only pure bombers gained any substantial benefits and that really only applies to high-SR armies that can count on having the strategy win to run an unopposed bomber attack. Even then, they only get one "free" run because the enemy can stay on CAP through following turns and intercept as normal.