Aeronautica Imperialis
| Aeronautica Imperialis | ||
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| Tabletop Wargame published by Games Workshop |
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| Rule System | Epic 40,000 | |
| No. of Players | 2 | |
| Session Time | 30 minutes - 3 hours | |
| Authors | Forge World | |
| First Publication | January 2007 | |
| Essential Books | Aeronautica Imperialis | |
New game announced May 11th 2019!
Aeronautica Imperialis was a wargame made by Forge World focusing on the aircraft of the factions of Warhammer 40,000. It's in the same 6mm scale as Epic 40,000 (in fact, Forge World sold Aeronautica Imperialis products in the same section of their website as their Epic 40,000 models), though it focused almost entirely on aircraft and anti-air defenses.
Unfortunately, it was retired in 2013, along with Games Workshop's Specialist Games line, although at least Forge World was nice enough to leave the FAQ and errata PDF's on their downloads page.
As of May 11, 2019, THEY'RE BRINGING IT BACK! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRk54dM_fMc
2019 Relaunch
The relaunch is upon us! And by the Emperor do these tiny planes look amazing. Currently, there are two factions available: Ork Air Waaagh! and the Imperial Navy. More factions have been rumoured, but at the moment nothing has been confirmed. Eldar seem fairly likely, but it’s anyone’s guess at this point.
Both factions are represented in the new starter box, Wings of Vengeance. The miniatures include are two Imperial Navy Thunderbolt fighters (can be alternately assembled as Thunderbolt Fury fighters), two Imperial Navy Marauder bombers, three Ork Air Waaagh! Dakkajets and two Ork Air Waaagh! Fighta Bommers. Aside from the plastic, also contained is the rulebook, an “Area of Engagement” game board, some dice, and quick reference cards.
Additionally, GeeDubs has put out the Rynn’s World Air War campaign book, which details the events of Waaagh! Snagrod’s invasion of the Crimson Fists Chapter homeworld. Before you get too excited about the prospect of Space Marine air combat let me curb your enthusiasm by telling you that the Rynn’s World Air War campaign book is only Imperial Navy versus Orks. However, let me reignite that enthusiasm by telling you that it does contain rules for the, as yet, unreleased ‘eavy Bommer and Grot Bommer.
Orks
In typical Ork fashion, their aircraft are essentially black smoke belching engines with as many guns as Orkly possible to bolt on.
- Dakkajet – The main “aircraft” of the Ork Air Waaagh!
- Fighta Bommer – More heavily armed and armoured than the Dakkajets.
- ‘eavy Bommer – Bigga iz Betta
- Grot Bommer - Drops Grots as
bombs? Drops Grots as exploding self guided missiles! A Grot Bomb when launched maneuvers similarly to any other aircraft. It gets D3+3 hexes of movement and one change of facing either left or right every turn. Then it does this until it ends up next a plane, at which point you see if it explodes. Bring these for shenanigans and hilarity.
Imperial Navy
Where the Ork aircraft are flying scrap heaps, the Imperial Navy aircraft are flying bricks adhering to the Imperium’s policy of brute forcing as much as possible.
- Thunderbolt fighter – Work horse of the Aeronautica Imperialis.
- Thunderbolt Fury – Trades the quad autocannons for avenger bolt cannons.
- It should be asked how the fuck this makes sense, as the dedicated ground attack craft of the Navy, the Avenger itself, only carries one cannon and sacrifices a lot of space to do so. This little shit managed to get two.
- Marauder bomber – Front facing lascannons, turrets on top and at the rear makes this one tough cookie.
- Marauder Destroyer – Trades the lascannons for autocannons, and some bombing capacity for more missiles.
External Links
- The Airspace Compilation, a fan-made supplement featuring units added to 40K since Aeronautica Imperialis was released, as well as some content for some posting-board campaigns.