Something that has bugged me a bit about aircraft is that they can contest objectives on the turn that they land.

This is especially the case for Codex Astartes with their ATSKNF and Fearless but it holds true for others as well.

A common thing to see is a player waiting until late in turn 3 holding back air assets and then, once their opponent has burned through some activations, land a flyer deep in a corner of the half of the table - denying Hold the Line. They'll land on their own Blitz if there is room for it. They'll land on an objective to prevent Defend the Flag. They'll land to prevent Take and Hold. It's rare that these vehicles are putting themselves in much danger by doing so as they can just wait for the right moment.

Now, not all of these can be achieved in every game and there is some ability to counterplay these for some factions but it's very frustrating and at times practically impossible.

How can you really stop a Thunderhawk from landing in your half of the table to deny you Hold the Line? Hurting it is tough, it'll land somewhere awkward to reach and burning 2-4 activations to get through ATSKNF to break it is often unfeasible.

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How much changes if aircraft could only contest AND capture in the next turn?

I'd be up for that. And since its only part if the scenario rules any tournament could adopt it at the organisers discretion.

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Me too. It's so annoying that happens way to often when facing marines. It feels really silly and doesn't require any real tactics.

By happenstance we discussed this after our last game.

My 150 point Tau Orca has often landed to contest an objective on turn 3.
A very big challenge to protect against for so few points. And moderately
frustrating for an opponent.

The Orc flying circus hardly needed the Landa dropping to contest their
own blitz - they had already won convincingly but that nicely short circuited
the conclusion of the game. Airborne Orks vs Dreadnought Marines

Flyers landing to contest are mostly a tactic of last resort here. Ie, things aren't going so well and you're going to lose unless you leave an air asset on the table into turn 4. At that point it's a sitting duck, break it when you're 15cm away and it disappears unless it's fearless.

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The one I've felt a bit jarring is the landing craft though. 4DC fearless ATSKNF 4+ RA takes quite a lot to even break it, and in turn 4 having spare formations to do it that aren't manoeuvring for objectives round the rest of the board is an ask. I've seen them last through the whole of the next turn more than once. Expensive though.

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Looking at you, landing craft....

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It's not just to stave off a loss or force a turn 4 though.

In a tournament type event where it's not only win/loss but by how many VPs it can make a difference to who finishes higher up the table.

If it's currently 2-1 in favour of the airborne player it can be easier to make it 2-0 for little effort.

There are also plenty of situations where it can turn a draw into a win etc.

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Yeah on the landing craft it's an expensive commitment and the player will probably have placed objectives based around the landing craft. Doing it with a lander seems a bit more legitimate to me vs token thawk contesting (… and i do both).

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Still better than a solo expended deathstrike missile platform contesting but yeah ... not always fun (immersion breaking). Hate to say it though, it's been one of the core strategies for airmobile Marine lists and without the option, I wonder if this hurts them too much?

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lots of AA and air can counter it

if it hits a ground AA, 1 BM

2 lots of TBs or equiv to ping it on the ground and broken

Reducing A/c to contesting rather than capturing an objective when they land was introduced years ago to answer this particular dilemma. It diminishes the potential impact that A/c have on the game, and has been deemed adequate for a long time when compared to similar strategies like a single unit creeping into the opponents half of the table, or daisy-chaining scouts to claim multiple objectives etc.

The placing of objectives and the initial army deployment is a meta-game in its own right, and sets the tone for the game, opening up these possibilities. Yes it may be “immersion” breaking, but no more than “clipping” or other tactics peculiar to E:A.

Irritating though this may be, it is far from game-breaking IMO as some have already indicated.

I know may marine players play the masive drop assault game, arriving with pretty much all their forces in turn 3 just after they place their spaceships bombardment down where they want to land with the bulk of their force. If they dor this and the enemy arrive via planet fall, then AA can not attack the thunderhawk gunship. Especially if it does not ahve any troops on it. You can shoot at the formatoin once it tries to unload the troops onboard the lander, but generally most enemy do not have enough AA units y this stage, ans a good marine player will try to thin the enemy ground based AA or their fighters down using their own fighters

I know of one possible solution. We tried it in a 3 table megageddon event at our wargaming club a few months ago. I know it can be used for friendly games to replace or add to the normal "start working out objectives on turn 3" rule.

What you can do is at the end of each turn, you score points for each object marker on the table. 1 point for the blitz, 2 points for the ones other 2 objectives in your half, 3 points for the ones you place in your opponents half, 4 points for controlling your opponents blitz. You can also have the normal BTS, Blitz, T&H, DTF, and TSNP.

This promotes opponents to either drop down early, and slug it out. Drop in turn 3, and risk their opponent taking their BLITZ, and the other objectives in their half for 2 turn, gaining 10 points a turn for free. Or they have to dedicate some of their forces to defending their own objectives, which makes dropping their forces in strength a lot less viable.

Either way you have additional objectives about that score points each turn. This makes even a standard game a lot more interesting. You could also make it so the game does not end once one army gains 2 more points than their opponent on turn 3. You could have the game end in turn 3 if the player who won initiative rolls a 1 or 2, alternating who rolls each subsequent turn so a 1 to 4 is needed at the end of tun 4, and turn 5 being the last turn.

I do not know how you could work out points for a tournament situation. Especially as the current Australian tournament rules give points based on the difference in points between the winner and loser. with a 12 - 0 for a 5 point difference. Perhaps you could just drop the current tournament points calculator all together.

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Have you tried Richardl’s alternative scoring system? It is similar to your suggestion. I believe it may have been used for one game per tournament in the UK to mitigate this exact dilemma, but without nerfing particular armies too greatly.