One could counter that by saying that the returning troops are not the exact same ones that were evacuated...

...I don't like the "no returning evacuated formations", and I don't like the "no landing" restriction.

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What's the benefit of landing?

It's more cinematic and awesome-cool.

Also:

- it lets you move formations into the transport craft for evac.
- it lets you use the landed transport as a static firebase in a following turn (Thawks are specifically referenced as doing this in Imperial Armour II IIRC)
- it's just plain more interesting

Addendum: A good 80% of transport aircraft kills occur on the ground, in my experience, maybe even higher. Allowing Transports to instantly disengage would be a very large boost in survivability to all transport aircraft.

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So the intent of the original aircraft rules is that each formation moving on the table is actually a NEW formation than the one of the previous turn?
Well that'S more realistic than flying back to base to refuel and resuppling and returning in the span of 15-30 minutes
Problem is: Why does the new formation has exactly the same casualties/damages than the previous formation?

I know i know...it`s highly abstracted bla....

I only whish for a more realistic air (sub-)game for Epic.
Actually i have nothing against a real sub-game for aircrafts.

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Neal / Hena / Chroma, there have been a bunch of ideas thrown around here. I'm hoping that regardless of the discussion that you continue with the plan of involving UK and F-ERC. It would be nice to see this historically muddy area of the game cleaned up for good.

The evac seems to be the least popular. IMO it makes no sense to evac units in a GT scenario with the RAW and as such you would never see it used. If the units are never to return, they invariably serve a better function on the board even if milling about in a non-combat role. But I do see it being a cool scenario thing.

Landing: I guess this all goes to what the goal of changing the air rules is. If we're trying to streamline / minimalize them I'd say the no-landing parts make sense. If we're trying to revamp (possibly enhance) the air rules then landing has to stay. I'm fine with both.

The fluffy part of my brain started kicking in when Neal brought up 'hopping' on the battlefield. I can tell you that would be a freakin' cool thing to see. A landed aircraft loading up on turn 1. Turn two it activates and hops to another section of the board and delivers the troops to whatever hot zone (or safe zone) the player wants. Then lands again. It would keep with having the exact same troops on the board as they are never transported off the board. As long as the aircraft remained true to the movement restrictions it seems like it would work. Of course the whole thing might be terrible to manage - it's all theory right now and the supermodel has no pimples when you see her in the poster.

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Well all aircrafts with a transport capacity have Hover Mode in Wh40k because they all are VTOL aircrafts. That means after arriving on the table they may opt to move as Skimmer from now on (and are still able to disengage from the table as Flyer/Aircraft in subsequent turns).

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Well, no. Aircraft being able to take off vertically does not imply that they can hover indefinitely. Marauders, Thunderbolts, Thundehawks, Lightnings, Tau or Eldar crafts and almost any 40K planes really are never described as acting as skimmer, apart possibly Mantas hovering high in the sky. While Valks do.

I don't like blurring the difference between flyers and skimmers at all.

Only Thunderhawks (and variants), Vampires (and variants), Vultures, Valkyries, Vendettas, Mantas and Orcas have Hover Mode in Wh40k Apocalypse.

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really, should apocalypse be a reference ?

Yes. But you should ignore the special abilities which some battle formations get.
Special abilities for Legendary Units ( usually War Engines and/or Aircrafts in Epic) are fine.

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erk. I guess I'm just not liking some of the design choices going on with the evolution of the game then.

So be it. The day I want to play, I'll just make my own lists and rules like everyone else.

Based on the caveat i posted above what is wrong with using Wh40k and Wh40k Apocalypse units as references?

The day where Epic spawned Wh40k units are gone. No wit is the other way around.

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Because the rule mechanisms of 40K are made to represent cinematic stuff on a battlefield that is 100m*60m with aircraft and titans, maybe ?

Anyway, as E:A meta game is in a state where we feel the need to have TK terminators because of apocalypse, where many of us apparently feel the need for a different statline for tactical marines to "give flavour" even to codex chapter (for god sake, Ultramarines need to have a list distinct from the codex one these days), where we *need* 7 or 8 different land raiders or dreadnought statlines, I must admit as a majority, we are clearly going for a 40K style WYSIWYG craze, with as much marine lists as all other races together (not even counting the chaos ones !), and the original design goal of simplicity, mild abstraction and gameplay over WYSIWYGness and all that is gone.

I am apparently of an old school of people who like having WYSIWYG models as much as anyone else but would rather use the "count as rule" than follow the "FW/GW got a new cool variant out, we got to male a new list to have it".

I can cope with the divergence of principle when it come to lists as long as the core ones are not too disfigured, but having a game set in the same universe is really not a reason to say the RULE of the 6mm game should depend and reflect the RULE of the 28mm one. Specially as those rules really ain't the best one around.

This was certainly not the original design goal of E:A, and actually "This is NOT warhammer 40K" was one of the strongest design principles (along with KISS) in the original conception phase.
For example, that's why TH have 4+ RA while in 40K they have nowhere near the armour of a Land Raider (12/12/10 to 14/14/14). Sorry, I just feel like if I have to argue to explain this, my cause is already lost.

Anyway, I am under the impression that I might be quite alone in thinking along these lines, and of course I know I can't expect the community to develop the game to MY tastes if it doesn't have the same. Do what you will, I'll just house rule the hell out of it just like many groups do already.