Burna-Bommer
Overview
Ah the Burna-Bommer, a maelstrom of flaming death packed onto a trash-can plane ripped straight from World War II, how I love you so. If your Ork army does not include Lobbas or has its anti-air capabilities covered elsewhere with a spare Fast Attack slot up for grabs, the Burna-Bommer is pretty much tailor made to suit your needs; it delivers mostly accurate pain to non-elite infantry like few other units of its price range. As you would expect given the name, the Burna Bommer is outfitted with two titular Burna Bombs; these are about as precise a weapon as you can get for Orks given that bombs only ever scatter D6", and they hit bloody hard with a Strength 5 AP4 Large Blast that is packed with the ever juicy Ignores Cover special rule. This makes the Burna-Bommer the perfect objective clearer against Tau - especially now that the new Hunter Contingent further forces the army to use Fire Warriors or Kroot - Eldar - it is decent enough against Jetbikes and murders almost all of their infantry short of Dark Reapers and Warp Spiders - Astra Militarum - literally nothing short of Ogryns and vehicles can survive against a Burna-Bommer here - and pretty much all of the other non Space Marine factions. Even then, torching those cover-camping jerks is always a nice option to have given that Orks are generally lacking for ranged weapons with Ignores Cover that aren't either really short-ranged or expensive as heck.
It also comes packed with two shoota type weapons, one big and the other supa, both of which are twin-linked and interestingly fire at Ballistic Skill 3 due to their attached grot gunners and the fact that each one gets an additional shot on any turn in which a Waaagh! is called much like the Dakkajet. This makes it a minor threat against other light vehicles and fliers while only adding to the misery of infantry units, though you shouldn't expect these to really pull their weight by getting any high value kills. Of note also are the optional skorcha missiles that only add to the Strength 5 AP4 Ignores Cover demolition train, albeit firing small blasts at Ballistic Skill 2; these are horrendously inaccurate and can only really be counted on to hit something if you play against a huge infantry cluster, notably "make walls with bodies" Astra Militarum and (ironically) the Green Tide formation. Outside of this, the Burna-Bommer doesn't really threaten much else; 3+ armored infantry aren't going to be fazed by its bombs or missiles, while the shoota weapons are of minor note at best and thus leave vehicles, monstrous creatures and other large models relatively safe from harm. Much like the Dakkajet, the Burna-Bommer is criminally easy to destroy, though like its kit-sibling it also has a good way of circumventing the downsides of the Jink rule to get the most out of the model while gaining some defensive benefits. Being able to perform a bombing run before Interceptor shots are resolved (in your turn you decide the order of events and Interceptor is done at the end of the Movement Phase) and thus Jinking after unleashing the payload is a godsend for these fragile Ork fliers, while the rest of its non-missile guns are twin-linked with a good rate of fire. Best of all, the Burna-Bommer is very cheap even when compared to the other two codex Ork fliers and so it can be counted on to do a good job against a lot of armies in the game given its points value and slot, meaning it is always a nice choice that can somewhat be rendered redundant by Lobbas as mentioned previously.
How to Equip Them
While you can certainly skip the red paint job for the same reasons I outlined with the Dakkajet - you really don't need an extra inch of movement on a supersonic flier - I find the optional skorcha missiles to be truly interesting, especially as you can take a whopping six of them. I like that the codex gives you the option to take between one and six so that you can purchase as many as you have points for or otherwise require, meaning a points strapped list has an easy way of shaving those valuable points off. Skorcha missiles are essentially tinier, far less accurate versions of the burna bombs; they are small blasts that are fired at Ballistic Skill 2 as opposed to large blasts that only ever scatter D6". They are very cheap given how easily they can rip apart 4+ armored infantry units given that they too are Strength 5 AP4 with Ignores Cover, but given how inaccurate they are I probably wouldn't invest too heavily into them. Remember, Ork fliers are about as close to being paper-planes as is possible for a plastic model used in a table-top war-game and you need to realize that one built around flying over enemy units is unlikely to survive for an entire game. That a Burna-Bommer can shoot three guns in a given shooting phase after using one of its burna bombs and it already comes equipped with two "standard" guns, over-spending on skorcha missiles probably isn't ideal given that adding all six is half again the price of a stock Burna-Bommer. I would add maybe two for the turns that you aren't using your bombs and leave it at that as you don't want to add too many points to an incredibly fragile unit.
Best Uses
One of the prime uses I've had for Burna Bommers is to utilize the optional skorcha missiles and their burna bombs in a way that allows you to pack the infantry-murdering heat on from the first turn it arrives rather than often having to wait a turn to be able to use its burna bombs. A Burna Bommer can arrive on the board and fire four guns at an infantry unit - meaning two skorcha missiles in addition to its two standard twin-linked guns - and then, if it survives, proceed to bomb another unit and move off the board. When it arrives on the battlefield again on (hopefully) turn four, enemy transports mostly should have disgorged their squads or been destroyed so as to allow the Burna Bommer to line up its second bombing run, and then focus its attention on other units for the rest of the game. Of course, this is pretty heavily reliant on the enemy not having Interceptor fire or ways of easily destroying your Burna Bommer; a Bombing Run can be resolved before Interceptor shots, but not your shooting attacks, potentially forcing you to use a bomb on the turn the flier arrives before it feels the pain. What works in the Burna Bommers' favor here is that bombing runs can still be performed before Interceptor shots are fired, meaning you can potentially keep it safe by Jinking afterwards while still delivering death at almost full effect. Don't forget that a twin-linked supa shoota and twin-linked big shoota can provide you with decent anti-air capabilities in a pinch, though obviously not on the same level as something like a fully upgraded Dakkajet.
Recommended Builds
I recommend you equip your Burna-Bommers as follows;
Burna-Bommer - Two Skorcha Missiles - This is really all you need to make the Burna-Bommer an extremely nasty light to medium infantry-suppressing machine, destroying blocks of xenos units at a time with contemptuous ease while using the Skorcha missiles if no good bomb angle is available.
Thank you all for reading this article discussing the pyromaniac Burna-Bommers, I hope you enjoyed it! I love Burna-Bommers not just for the awesome visual of a bomber scorching dozens of puny xenos at a time, but because they actually match their fluff in-game and do it amazingly well; they just devastate infantry battle groups! Thanks again and I look forward to reading your feedback!
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