Death from the Skies

Or, the hurrier I go, the behinder I get.

  What a day.  After trying to kill the Dish Network guy, things went downhill...

  But I still got my hopper and it is pretty freakin cool.  My fed-up-ness wirth DirectTV is finally over.

  I did try to start painting the realm of battle boards tonight.  Only to find that when I spray primered them, I used an enamel primer... yay Me!!  In a hurry, in a cheap mood, got stupid and bammo, now I have to re-prime the boards.  Oh well.  I should still get to them this weekend if all goes well still.  it is annoying though, I was all ready to go and nada.

  But on to the new book. Thunder from the skies is a mixed bag, IMHO. There is about 15 pages of fluff. Then a section on new air war missions, just like any other mission book they have put out. If you want to use them, you have to roll and win, then you can roll to see which one you play (unless you both agree, of course). After that is a reprint of the Burning Skies rules for air combat and more flyer fun to add to the game. Up next is the 'Bestiary', war gear and army lists for the flyers. The Space marine section adds icons to show what flavor SM chapter has access to what flyers.



The fluff is not too bad, a good short story of a fight on a planet with three sides, White Scars, Necrons and Orks. I'll not give away the end, but it's fairly predictable. The Air mission section looks like some challenging missions that really bring out flyers. I would not suggest too heavy flyer lists though, as there are real objectives to win. (Cron air... bad idea)

The burning skies rules, well, I think they might be fun once or twice, but I don't see them becoming a big part of ongoing games, especially tourneys. They just add too much time to the game and don't really add all that much. I would have liked to see more requirement to use rules like these, but have more consequences attached to them as well.

The Bestiary and war gear sections just clean up and present the rules for all the flyers with the FAQ stuff already there. For that alone the book will come in handy. Templars and VSM are the only groups with access to both the Storm Talon and Raven. Everyone else gets one or the other.

So, was it worth the $33? I'd have to say a qualified yes. This could have been a digital offering I think, or even a bit cheaper. Most of it is re-hashed and cleaned up reprints. The 'new' material is not something that is crucial to have. That said, it is a great reference, and it's softcover, so not hard to toss into your stuff to carry to games. And, they did title it a compendium, which pretty much tells you it is not new, but a compilation of the existing stuff.

I know the direct distribution idea pissed alot of people off, but it is what it is, get over it. I would still recommend it if you have one of the affected races (SM, Necron, Ork, Eldar, imp guard). Incidentally, if you are imp guard, this adds nothing for you, not even a line of fluff. Just an entry for the Valks and Vends. Not even any cool pictures to oogle.

So, there you have it... my thoughts on the book.