Jstr: I think you're giving the Speeder-pinning concept too much credit.

All the normal deepstrike defenses apply. A scout screen will defend a lot of area from Speeder drops. You're not allowed to planetfall into dangerous terrain, so that can be used if available. OW can help (not for the planetfall, but to prevent later actions). Anyone outside the ZoC is in position to Sustain Fire on LVs. Any ZoC-pinned formation can provide support fire to an assault without any drawbacks. Speeders using ZoC pinning can't respond to assaults well, especially any clipping assaults (the Speeders have to countercharge the closest unit, i.e. the one they are pinning, not the one attacking them). Aircraft ignore ZoC and are generally very good at picking off LVs so they can clear operating room.

And, after all, you're talking about ~4 Speeder formations, which is ~1200 points once you add in the spacecraft and an upgrade or two. That should be a serious hindrance.

Something just occurred to me. The Drop Pod is listed as an AV on its datafax (and despite many people treating it as just a marker). Does that mean Marines can't drop into woods or other dangerous terrain?

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Squats 2019-10-17

Good question. I'd say per RAW the pod/LZ point for a drop pod cannot be in dangerous terrain. However, subsequently placing the marines is a different mechanism outside of Planetfall, so they could go into terrain as normal.

Definitely one of those odd things. All the Marine stands within 15cm are assumed to have had their own drop pod that was abstracted out.

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Squats 2019-10-17

The point about the landspeeder drop army is that it plays into the type of game epic is. Epic is not a killing contest. You need to take objectives to win and in order to do that you need to get into your opponents table half. My concern with this list is that well designed and well played it makes this hard to achieve.

I understand and accept all your points about the weaknesses of a planet falling list (i.e clipping assaults and Castleing) and I understand how counter charges work. But my idea with this list is simply to delay you opponent and restrict his movement for 2 turns forcing him to fight in and around his deployment zone. For lists without aircraft and tunnelers you should be able to deny them your blitz and perhaps take and hold and they shall not pass.

If you think it's a problem, test it.

1.2 posted.

Formatting is a bit rough, as I was more interested in getting it up than polishing it.

Caestus/Drop Pods - the pod rules state explicitly that the formation can only transport Tacs, Devs and Dreads, so if you add anything else (Caestus, Speeder support, etc.) they can't go with a pod.

Thanks for the updated list. Looks very good. I'd still like to see normal space marine scouts included as well. Also the sniper upgrade is still there. Is this an unintentional inclusion or is it intended to give sniper to FF?

The sniper upgrade was an oversight. Ignore it. I'll delete it in the next update.

I'm not opposed to normal scouts, but aside from the on paper "Raven Guard should have all kinds of scouts" flavor, how would it actually improve the list?

The list could use a cheaper formation. At the moment the cheapest formation are actually landspeeders at 200 points for 5. I would keep scouts at 150 points without transport.

Thanks for the list NH, been looking at it for a while as I'm a big RG fan, hopefully I'll be able to get some games in shortly to assist with the play testing.

I quite like the current list (1.2) and the options, especially commandos and sniper scouts.

I'm not sure if you're still looking at other ways to represent the pre battle effects of the scouts/commandos but could any of the following ideas work? I'm thinking these are bought in the same manner as "character upgrades" but just for RG scout/commando formations, prob a max one per formation.

"Precision Strike" - 45cm, MW3+, TK(d3), one shot
(representing the scouts/commandos guiding a distant arty or starship weapon system, or pre battle demo charges etc, shouldn't be overly powerful as the "sensor" unit, scout-sniper or commando stand, can be taken out, suppressed etc. Also a simple way to give the RG some fragile but possibly needed TK firepower)

"Ambush" - 15cm, 3BP, disrupt, one shot
(representing the scout-sniper/commandos triggering a ambush, IED, mine field etc - I'd say a short range as usually these attacks/effects will be employed close to the scouts position. I could imagine them using this in the first turn as part of OW fire perhaps)

"Teleport homer" - One shot, allows reroll of one formation's teleport dice for BM.

These might be too fiddly but i thought it might be a way show the pre battle effects of scouts/commandos. A simpler way might be to give the sniper units the "disrupt" ability on their shooting attacks, representing the effect of taking fire from unseen enemy + any other trademark scout/recon/special forces style disruption.

Thoughts?

I'd like to keep away from special rules like that for a GT list, but for a scenario those look like they would work.

I'm about to start testing this list again. I've used it quite a few time and so far I really like it. I'm willing to concede that normal scouts aren't really necessary as they are unlikely to get chosen over snipers and commandos. But, I still have issues with the land speeder drops and the omission of the storm raven.

Just a few questions;

1. Are there any of the proposed changed to codex marines you want to see tested. eg. 275 tacticals and such. I'm not sure you need to follow suit with all of them as baring the limits on single warhounds I really think they will have minimal impact.
2. Is there a reason the marauder squadron is 300 points? I thought it was 250.

Any movement on this? I would love to see RG added to the tournament pack.

You're well within your rights as TO to use any of the lists. Even the experimental lists if you wanted. Developmental are usually fine to use, they're just not "finalised" as tourney lists.