Dust Warfare: Helicopter and Drop-Walker Tactics

Dun-du'dun-duuuuuu'dun! Dun-du'dun-duuuuu'dun! 

Dun-du'dun-duuuu'dun! Dun-du'dun-duuuuuuuun!

This article started as a post over at the Dust-War forums but it kept growing and growing until I thought "hell, this deserves its own blog entry!". It had gone from a simple "what's your opinion on the different helicopters?" to a fairly extensive tactics article. Actually I think this is the first time I've written something on the blog mainly concerning tactics and strategy. Sorry for all you non-Dust Warfare players reading. I'll be back to regular scheduling soon enough. :)

While the Mil-Mi45 Transport helicopter has been available for SSU players since early summer it's not until now that we can get our hands on the Mil-Mi46 Walker Transport and Mil-Mi47 Attack Helicopter! Being an industrious SSU commander myself I've been thinking about how to best utilise these new tools in my forces. Let's have a look at the attack helicopter(s) first.


The Mil-Mi47 Attack Helicopter

This is not the most flattering picture of the Mi47. But I couldn't find many better ones. :(

This comes in four versions: Striker with autocannons for 55pts, Burner with Napalm bombs and rocket pods for 50pts, Airblaster with 250kg bombs and rocket pods for 50pts and Death Rain with Napalm and 250kg bombs for 45pts. They all come with quad machineguns in a pintel mount as well.

Looking at this lineup I'm a little bit puzzled about the Striker being the most expensive variant. Sure it tears through infantry and can at least damage light and medium walkers but.... it feels like anti-personel firepower is the least of an SSU force's worries. For five points less you get rocket pods and bombs, both of whom are a lot more effective against armour! Yes, the bombs are one use weapons and the rocked pods have the Reloat trait, but when you rarely face more than two walkers at once anyway this isn't such a big drawback. And I think the compulsory movement can be used to get around the Reload issue if you plan your moves ahead of time.

So to me Burner or Airblaster seems like better options. So, which bombs should you go for - Napalm or 250kg? They actually seem fairly equal to my eyes. The Napalm might be a better a medium infantry killer and it's also better against heavy+ walkers (although only rolling two dice against them makes the bombs unreliable). The 250kg bomb seems to work well against light and medium walkers at least and they are decent against infantry (although that seems like a waste) but against heavy+ walkers Napalm is probably a better choice.

Speaking of bombs, what about Death Rain? I actually think it could be a pretty good, slightly cheaper, antitank option. Dropping one of each bomb on a medium-ish walker should be enough to kill it outright (if you drop them in its rear arc of course) and there are rarely more than two medium+ walkers on the board in our games. It should have a decent chance to knock out a superheavy walker as well if you drop all four bombs on it at once. In fact, it might even be a better option in smaller games with fewer targets. The rocket pods aren't that great against infantry anyway so they could end up being dead weight if there's no time to reload them.

So while the Striker is no doubt the most spectacular looking, striking even, I don't see many reasons to get it instead of Burner or Airblaster in SSU's current state (things might change when the Matrioshka and Lavrentiy Beria hit the street!). Death Rain might very well be a valid budget option for when you just need to take out on or two walkers. And I think Napalm is probably the safer option against an unknown opponent.


The Mil-Mi46 and Aero-walkers

That's the Nina with the RPG-47s.

As for the walker transport... as awesome as the concept is, and as cool looking as it is the walker can actually hang under it (going to magnetize the feet of my Aero-walkers and their base) I have a hard time seeing myself investing in the whole set. The helicopter itself has the quad machineguns, which are good for anti-personel use, but is otherwise unremarkable. Of course, this is more about the aero-walkers than the transport, so here's the lineup: Nastasia with double quad machineguns for 40pts, Nina with two RPG-47 rocket launchers for 40pts and Nikita with 120mm mortars for 45pts.

For the same points as a Nastasia I can get a regular Natasha walker and get comparable, or even better anti-personel ability. Sure, the Nastasia might roll a couple more dice but I'd say the cover negating ability of the Howitzers is much more valuable most of the time (infantry out of cover is quite rare). Not to mention an automatic suppression token, 8" longer range and wider fields of fire. Assault is a nice ability to have, for sure, but with the longer range of Natasha it's not really needed and the all in one can really help in a sticky situation! Nastasia has one potential saving grace: anti-air artillery. Still... with a range of measly 16" it will only be good for passive protection against enemy aircraft rather than actually hunting them down. Probably my least favourite SSU walker, from a rules perspective (the model is awesome!).

The Nina brings some pretty fearsome antitank abilities with its two RPG-47s! This should be enough to get the attention of any SSU commander considering how rare this is in the current army list. It is very fickle however as you only actually roll two dice - meaning there's a good chance you won't hit at all; if you do however, there will be glorious destruction! Of the three Aero-walkers this is the one that I think actually has some air-drop potential. I would also consider putting Red Yana behind the levers as her Fighting Spirit ability could make sure that you really hit that one critical target! 80 points (or 102 with Yana!) for a 4 hit point medium walker hanging under a fairly fragile chopper might be hard to stomach though. Unfortunately the Air Lift ability doesn't provide protection from transport destruction (like Air Cav does) so if your enemy manages to nail that chopper the walker is gone as well. I contacted FFG regarding this to see if this was a rules oversight and Zach got back to me promptly. The Air Lift rule should read: A Vehicle suffers no damage if its transport is destroyed. Place the Vehicle on the battlefield in the location previously occupied by the destroyed transport. The Vehicle gains one Reaction marker. Also, being able to disembark from high altitude is amazing! In the end this is a combo I could imagine using, although it would be a bit of a gamble. Two attack helicopters could probably do the job better. Not as fun though!

Finally the Nikita brings some artillery to the SSU forces. First off, both the Air Lift and Assault abilities feel completely wasted on this model. The only reason I can imagine why it's an Aero-walker in the first place was for production reasons and how the parts are laid out on the sprue. In fact, game/fluff wise it would have made much more sense to have the artillery walker as a regular KV-47 and then have the chainsaw wielding Natalya being the air droppable one! Oh well... one can dream. Anyway, the mortar is a little bit less powerful than the Lothar's, but then again it's a Grenade weapon meaning it cancels cover. So in the end I'd say they are about even. However unlike its Axis and Allied counterparts the the 120mm mortar doesn't have the Reload trait, meaning it could potentially fire indirectly every turn. This could be pretty huge, depending how you construct your army. Then again the mortar iself might not be powerful enough to base a strategy around. This is probably the Aero walker that would see the most frequent use in my armies. While not a game-changer on its own (like I imagine the upcoming Vladimin Lenin artillery tank will be) artillery can be a very handy tool. However it being an Aero-walker doesn't make any sense at all and since you will likely never use those abilities the Nikita might in effect be overcosted.

So, one walker that I would only ever field as an aircraft detterent and not as an offensive drop-walker, one that I'd never use as an offensive drop-walker and one that's kind of a gamble and eat up a lot of points... doesn't really make a good case for transportable walkers at all. Which is a shame since it's such a cool idea! I really hope we get to see some more Aero-walker options in the future to make the whole affair worth the investment.


I'm excited to get some new toys to play with and I think there's great potential in the attack helicopters at least. Although I think you need at least two choppers in your army for them to really shine; one is simply too easy to focus fire on and bring down. Two or even three will most likely play mayhem with your opponents cerfully laid plans, and as he is focusing on getting your air assets under control those Fakyeli squads are creeping ever closer!

I hope you enjoyed my little helicopter tactica and I'd be more than happy to hear thoughts and ideas from my dear readers. Especially if you have practical experience of playing with these units. This is all pure conjecture from my part. :)

Until next time...