The Blitza-Bommer:
This plane is carrying the Little Boy and The Fat Man for the Orks. Two massive bombs called “Boom Bombs” that each can only be used once per game.
Basics:
Unfortunately you can only take 1 plane per fast attack slot so that means you could have 3 planes max. This is ok but I hoped you could take them as squadrons of three leaving you with 2 more fast attack slots. Further more it is a Skimmer and it's Fast and follows those universal rules but there's nothing wrong with that for now but we'll probably see some major changes for flyers when 6th edition hits the shelves. The new edition is only one week away and from what I have heard flyers will be a lot harder to hit and that’s exactly what they need.
Special rules:
The Blitza-Bommer has a few special rules.
Aerial Assault: When you move at cruising speed(12") you can still fire all of your weapons.
Grot Gunner: You can select 1 of your guns and have a grot aiming that gun for you so it has BS3 instead of the basic BS2 for the plane. You have to choose if you want your big shoota or supa shoota before the game starts and it needs to be noted on your army list. It's a bit of a no-brainer that you put the grot at the trigger of the supa shoota because it's the better gun.
Supersonic: You can boost about on the battlefield moving a whopping 36" to get in or out of action.
Waaagh!plane: This special rule is great for a dakkajet because you can now fire all your weapons twice on the turn your Waaagh! is called but for the blitza-bommer it's not so hot. The Boom Bombs are "one use only" so you have the big shoota and supa shoota left. It's a nice bonus but it's just not that big a deal.
Weapons and options:
The main weapons of the Blitza-Bommer are the “Boom Bombs” and that’s what they’ll be feared for because once it has dropped those it’s practically nothing more that either a nice piece of scenery or an easy kill point (kill points will be dropped in 6th edition).
The Boom Bomb is a crude and heavy weapon and when you manage to drop it on your target you place a large template over the units and and roll 2D6 on the “Screamin’Descent” table to see what happens. Now here’s the tricky part because there is a chance that things will go wrong and when they go wrong they’ll go horribly wrong. You either crash and burn(9% chance) or you will clip your enemy(18% chance) without dropping the bomb but instead you take a S9 hit! On AV10 that’s pretty dangerous. At least when you go down in flames you still drop a S9 AP2 Template on your enemy but you scatter 2D6.
But then there’s also the good results on the “Screamin’Descent” table, there’s 45% chance that thing go according to plan and you drop the bomb(large template) on the enemy scattering only 1 D6. And if you get even more lucky you have a 27% chance of shooting all your weapons on the same target as you have dropped your bomb. So all in all there’s a 28% chance things will get ugly but also a 72% things will go just right.
You drop the bombs in your movement phase but you can’t drop them if you have moved flat out. When you have dropped a bomb(or attempted to) in the movement phase you can still pick a different target with your Supa Shoota and Big Shoota in the shooting phase which is nice.
There’s also a chart for the Boom Bomb saying it is only S7 AP4 and just a small blast template but that seems to go against vehicles and you get to roll 1D6 extra for armour penetration. This seems to be the way you have to work it out when you drop it in the shooting phase instead of the movement phase and using the “Screamin’Descent” . To me this sounds illogical and I wouldn’t use it like this because with only S7 you might penetrate light armoured vehicles but chances against something better are slim and you don’t want your single use bombs to go to waist.
The Blitza-Bommer also comes with a TL Supa Shoota. The Supa Shoota has a range of 30" Strength 6 and AP4 and is an assault 3 weapon. Which is a nice bonus if you roll well on your “Screamin’Descent” table and you get to use your guns on the same target as your Boom Bombs for free. (you can fire them again in the shooting phase of the same turn).
You also get 1 Big Shoota as standard. It follows the normal Big Shoota rules and again you can fire it in the shooting phase and when you get a nice roll on the “Screamin’Descent” table but other then that it isn’t too much of a threat to your enemy.
Deployment Tactica:
I think you'll always want your Blitza-Bommer to come from reserves. You don't want your opponent shooting at it if he goes first or steals the initiative . The rumour is that in 6th edition all flyers come from reserves anyway. The Blitza-Bommer only has an Armour Value of 10 so there's a lot of guns out there able to glance it or even penetrate it's fragile armour. A plane is very hard to hide so you won't get a cover save and since you don't want your new toy to go down in a raging ball of fire in the first round you keep it in reserve and you'll be able to shoot something with it at least once. You can get a Blitza-Bommer for 140points (incl RPJ) so it’s not as expensive as the Burna-Bommer but still…
Attacking Tactica:
When you come from reserve and move on the table you should probably aim for the closest enemy unit. Since the plane is only AV10 you want to drop the load as soon as possible.
The Boom Bombs require quite a bit of planning, luck and skill. The problem is that you have to fly over a unit to be able to drop you Boom Bombs, A good player will see this coming and will make sure you can't get over in your turn or makes you end your move in terrain so that you have to take a terrain test.
When you Blitza-Bommer is on the battlefield you must try to fly over something as soon as possible but that's unlikely to happen in it’s first turn. You might even be better off if the Blitza doesn’t come out of reserves until turn three or four because the enemy might have moved up the table closer to you and you don’t have to fly so far to use it’s main weapons. No use in going for heavy armoured vehicles so focus on infantry or maybe light armoured vehicles if no other targets are available. I’d say look for those juicy and squishy infantry units and make them suffer heavy losses.
Defencive Tactica:
You better make sure you get some points back for it because it probably won't last until the end of the game but if it does you can make use of the Skimmer rule and contest an objective. The only way to protect it is target saturation. You should have a lot of things on the board and make your opponent choose what he's going to shoot. If you keep moving at least 12" all the time your opponent might have some difficulty hitting you and opt to shoot at something else instead but if he does manage to shoot it at least your mob of greenskins is one turn closer to the enemy and getting closer to assault range. The Blitza-Bommer is 135 points and 140 with RPJ(mandatory) so when you’ve dropped 1 Boom Bomb on an infantry unit it’s probably got it’s points back and done its job.
I’m just not a big fan of weapons that can only be used once per game and with this one you also have to fly over your opponent leaving you open to be charged…yes you can charge a plane in close combat. The thing is that your opponent can spot you coming from miles away and anticipate. He’s probably going to target prioritise your plane and make sure it will never drop the Boom Bombs. Also the “Screamin’Descent” table is very unreliable. You have almost a 1 in 3 chance of blowing yourself up.
In my opinion this is also a anti infantry plane and the one thing the Ork army isn’t lacking is anti infantry. We need something that can take out or damage armoured vehicles from a distance. If you are getting this kit you are getting most out of it by constructing it as a Dakkajet.
Cheers,
Seb
