When conducting an airborne assault in real life, there are many factors that have to be taken into account, even before deciding on what troops or equipment are required. With a Grymn force, it is no different and this post explores the possible options for a successful airborne assault using your Grymn troops.
The Target
The target dictates the choice of assets used for the assault. Things to be taken into consideration are:
1) Can a land force do the job better?
2) Does the target have air-defense capabilities?
3) Does the target have air superiority?
4) Is the target fortified?
5) What is the likely defensive capability of the target’s standing troops
6) What sort of terrain is the target located within?
7) Is the target part of a support network and are reserves close by?
Once you have the information about the target, you can decide on whether an airborne assault is viable and what equipment and resources will be necessary to carry out the assault successfully.
The airborne assault force may have many different sections from many different regiments/armies/air-forces all brought together under the control of the assault commander. If there is a requirement for stealth and precision, a small amount of troops and transport aircraft may be required. For a prolonged airborne assault, a vast number of bombers, fighters transport aircraft, troops and support assets may be required for the duration. There may be a requirement for initial airdrops of equipment with follow up support coming via the road network or even via the sea (depending on location) .
With all the above in mind, let’s think about the war-gaming tabletop and the likely use of an airborne assault.
Fully airborne
This sort of force is a fairly unusual one because it relies on all of your units being air transportable. That means you are tied to the sort of troops and support options that will fit into your fliers/skimmers. Think of a heavily equipped paratroop army with the addition of small buggies and hand portable heavy weapons…possibly with light tanks or walkers for the more heavy aspects of support. Obviously, the drop-off aircraft will be able to give cover to the troops on the ground and some may even be able to under-sling equipment, vehicles in addition to carrying troops…but generally speaking, this would be the lightest end of the airborne assault spectrum.
While thinking about this sort of force, there may be a requirement to drop troops from altitude using ‘deep strike’ rules or something similar. This could mean the use of jump-packs or parachutes which wouldn’t necessarily require the transporting craft to land. There could also be the option of using fighter and bomber aircraft as support options, rather than tanks and vehicles being transported in…it all depends on the target and how it can defend itself.
Partially airborne
This is where you have an airborne element of your assault force that has a ground based element either following up or leading the assault. This would be a more typical sort of table top army and it is one that provides a lot of options to keep things interesting.
With a mix of airborne and ground based assets, you can organise your army in a multitude of ways.
1) You could lead the assault with fighters, drop in your airborne troops to keep the enemy busy and then follow up with ground forces to finish off the job.
2) You could have your ground based forces lead the attack, gauge the strengths and weaknesses of the foe and then use air support to fly in and either breach the defenses or support the troops on the ground
3) You could use your air units to move ground troops around (like in modern helicopter ops) to make the best use of your troops and also to keep the enemy guessing.
4) You could even use your fliers as mobile cranes to quickly re position tanks and guns that would take too long to move under their own steam.
What do the Grymn have, currently available, in the way of airborne options? At the moment there are jump packs and heavy infantry in atmospherically sealed suits. The sealed suits could be used to represent halo-jumpers because they look like they could have a parachute in their packs as well as an air supply. The jump packs are useful because they could be added to a range of troops so that they could not only be air-dropped onto the battlefield but can also have increased mobility once they arrive. Apart from that, the Grymn range doesn’t cater for aircraft so we’ll have to look elsewhere for our air transportation needs.
There are plenty of options out there for ground vehicles but airborne ones are a bit more difficult to find.
The first port of call would be buying modern aircraft/Japanese anime kits and converting them. Depending on your personal requirements, anything from 1/72nd scale to 1/48th scale would be a good place to start and you could use anything from Apache helicopters to Hercules transport aircraft or Macross Space fighters to Robotech support helicopters.
Next we have plastic kits available from Games Workshop. Depending on what style you require you could have sleek skimmers like the Eldar Falcon, the slightly less sleek Tau Devilfish or the boxy and utilitarian looking Imperial Guard Valkyrie. There are plenty of other smaller options within the ranges such as Space Marine Land-speeders and Tau Piranhas to name a couple.
If you want to use the Games Workshop plastic kits, you may want to bolster them with some larger, resin fliers from Forgeworld. There are a host of bigger aircraft such as the Tau Orca and Barracuda…or the Imperial Guard Marauder. There are also smaller, fighter-type aircraft in the range.
Continuing on the resin theme, there are companies like Old Crow who have VTOLs and the odd skimmer in their range. The Scotia Grendel Kryomek range also has a drop ship available.
Finally, there is the option of scratch building with plasticard and bits-box spares. This takes a while but is worth the effort if you get it right.
So…what now? Well, as an example of a Grymn airborne army I will provide an idea of how I would go about things.
Airborne Force Alpha
Command squad of 8 troops with jump packs. Led by an officer with a Sgt as deputy, comms trooper, and a couple of support weapons (man portable). Mounted in a Tau Devilfish transport with the wing tip drones removed and replaced with missile launchers; it also has a chain-gun in the nose (I will call this a Pilum Drop Ship).
Infantry Squad of 8 troops. Led by a Sgt with a deputy, comms and a pair of support weapons (man portable) mounted in a Pilum Drop Ship.
Infantry Squad of 8 troops. Led by a Sgt with a deputy, comms and a pair of support weapons (man portable) mounted in a Pilum Drop Ship.
Infantry Squad of 8 troops. Led by a Sgt with a deputy, comms and a pair of support weapons (man portable) mounted in a Pilum Drop Ship.
Heavy infantry Command squad of 8 troops. Led by an officer with a Sgt as deputy, comms and a pair of support weapons (man portable). This squad deep-strikes onto the table.
Heavy infantry squad of 8 troops. Led by a Sgt with a deputy, comms and a pair of support weapons (man portable). This squad deep-strikes onto the table.
Heavy infantry squad of 8 troops. Led by a Sgt with a deputy, comms and a pair of support weapons (man portable). This squad deep-strikes onto the table.
Heavy infantry squad of 8 troops. Led by a Sgt with a deputy, comms and a pair of support weapons (man portable). This squad deep-strikes onto the table.
Piranha fighter squadron of three aircraft. All have a melta weapon with missile launchers.
Piranha fighter squadron of three aircraft. All have a melta weapon with missile launchers.
The above force would have all of the elements to deal with air-superiority, dropping the troops off and providing cover, with the ability to drop in the reserves to bolster the lines or take objectives.
The aircraft are easily converted by adding a cockpit to the piranhas and using the missile pods for the Sky Ray instead of the wing mounted drones.
For a mixed assault force, get rid of the Heavy infantry and sub them with tanks/ground based units.
That is how easy it is to build a Grymn airborne force and it doesn’t take too much conversion either.
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