New thread split to here :

viewtopic.php?f=73&t=28162

Ok, guys.

I am back. I apologize for the long period of silence. Lots of reasons, none of which really matter. Chalk it up to a lot of work and maybe just a little burn out.

But I am back and ready to get to work on this. Will be implementing the scout change.

I mentioned I got knocked out of the LA Epic league a few weeks back. I took a few pictures of that game but didn't have the time or energy to write a batrep immediately after, and now I can't make much sense of the pics. Anyway, I got spanked. My overall impression was that Stormraven formations are kind of poo-poo even at the new price, but I'll be leaving them as is. Other than that, I think I had pretty horrendous dice and probably the units I took were not a good matchup against the units he took with his Space Wolves, so I'm not weighting that match particularly heavily in terms of playtesting.

I'll look at all of the recent comments and sort of summarize and organize things and we will move forward. I think we're very close to having a final list.

_________________
Former Blood Angels Army Champion
Epic Gamers Los Angeles Chapter
Armies Played:
Blood Angels
Black Legion
Codex Marines
Imperial Fists

Yeah!


Great news!


Go for it!

_________________
Thousand Sons Army Champion

My pueppchenspieler blog

Building a House Devine Army

Ok, I played 2 battles today both against the latest version of AMTL.

A few things: I tried out a few combinations, special to BA. my two list were:
1, DROP heavy BA 3000p

DEATH COMPANY [375]
Chaplain, 4 Tactical Death Company units, Drop Pods, 2 Furioso Dreadnought

TACTICAL DETACHMENT [275]
6 Tacticals, Drop Pods

DEVASTATOR DETACHMENT [250]
4 Devastators, Drop Pods

DEVASTATOR DETACHMENT [250]
4 Devastators, Drop Pods

SPACECRAFT [200]
Strike Cruiser

SCOUT DETACHMENT [250]
4 Scouts, 2 Stormraven Gunship

SCOUT DETACHMENT [250]
4 Scouts, 2 Stormraven Gunship

THUNDERBOLT FIGHTERS [175]
2 Thunderbolts

THUNDERBOLT FIGHTERS [175]
2 Thunderbolts

TERMINATOR DETACHMENT [350]
4 Terminators

TERMINATOR DETACHMENT [450]
4 Terminators, Supreme Commander

The opposing army was something like a Warlord, a Reaver (both with AA)+ 3x Warhounds, 2x Sentinels, and a Tbolt formation. Most of them were full of Plasma&AP weapons.. Scary!

My list worked well, the scout+stormraven combo was very effective in owerwatch against scout titans. I have a very offensive style of play, so I decided to drop all 4 formation to the SAME landing point (after the scattering they were in a 10cm circle -near to the enemy Blitz), with 4 blast markers from the Deathwinds +1 BM from the Orbital bombardement to the formations around them.. 5BM's and the combined efforts of the DC+ 2xDeavastators was enought to break a warlord, from 2 activations (with a little help, form the shield ripping Stormravens )

At the end, I made some childish mistakes, but in the 2nd turn the 2x termies finished off the Reaver, and the Warhounds were broken, and slowly dead. It looked well, but for a drop army, a battle of attrition is not a good one, so it was a draw (we only played 3 turns, to have a chance to playtest our secondary lists..) so a small victory for the titans is more correct to say.

The Stormravens were nice, and the DC+Furioso drop (one of my favourites) was also an interesting idea! The termies teleport ability was good to hunt down everyone, who tried to leave their deployement zone, and the 2x Tbolts dominated the sky -also a good unit to break runaway Warhounds! So I tried to seal the Titans half hermetically, and win the game in their deployement zone -but I was unlucky a bit, and without the help of the dice, it's hard to win My opinion is -BA army is even better as a drop heavy army as vanilla marines, thanks to the DC! It's always hard to play in this way -e.g. if you miss the main units of the enemy..

My second BA list was a Stormraven/assault heavy one:

DEATH COMPANY [300]
Chaplain, 4 Assault Death Company Units

THUNDERBOLT FIGHTERS [175]
2 Thunderbolts

THUNDERBOLT FIGHTERS [175]
2 Thunderbolts

TERMINATOR DETACHMENT [350]
4 Terminators

TERMINATOR DETACHMENT [450]
4 Terminators, Supreme Commander

SCOUT DETACHMENT [250]
4 Scouts, 2 Stormraven Gunship

SCOUT DETACHMENT [250]
4 Scouts, 2 Stormraven Gunship

LAND SPEEDERS [200]
5 Land Speeder

ASSAULT DETACHMENT [450]
6 Assault Units, 3 Stormraven Gunship, Chaplain

ASSAULT DETACHMENT [400]
6 Assault Units, 3 Stormraven Gunship

So 10 Stormravens. Beat it!
The Termies and the Stormravens won the game for me, the much needed mobility was in my side. My opponent's army was almost identical to his previous one (with 2x Reavers, and 4x Warhounds). So more small titans -they wiped themselfs out, with engaging Termies, and thanks to the Stormravens owerwhelming firepower. The game was cancelled at the beginning of thurn 3, but it was more like a chance for BA win.

10 Stormravens. Totally worth it. Totally! The best unit in the BA army, even with 2x one shot missles -just to mention, their 60cm range is not the best, even when on owerwatch. compared to IG Vultures, they are totally inferior as owerwatching AT hunters! They worked well against titans (their range was something like 45/60cm, so no Quake cannons -mistake ), but the lack of MW and TK weapons is very painful. Only Terminators have MW (just in CC).

So next to that, Stormravens normal AT with 60cm range is not enough when on OW, or for Sustained Fire. So, they can be cheaper as an independent unit (200p vs 250p), because they don't have any units to transport (which is the reason why their are more expensive than Vultures -and ATSKNF, RA ,etc) -But as a tank hunter unit, they can be 200p I think! they are AT 3+, not AT2+, without the Scout special rule.

Try out 10 Stormravens, and have fun

Thank you so much!!!! Really need more posts like this from everyone! Very useful playtest info here. I simply have had a very hard time lining up Epic games here lately, and that's mainly what has been slowing things down for me.

I especially appreciate your thoughts regarding the Storm Ravens. I agree with you that their firepower is not very impressive at all. It sounds great on paper, but in actuality, they don't perform as one would expect. I'll give some thought to reducing the cost of the formation to 200. The only thing I worry about is activation spam. We also have to remember that a formation of five Land Speeders is 200 points. Are four Storm Ravens sturdier and more destructive and all around more useful than 5 Land Speeders? Arguably so.

Although, somehow, I'd still rather take a formation of Land Speeders over a formation of Storm Ravens.

Did you feel that 50 points for the Storm Ravens as an upgrade to the units was an appropriate cost?

If I could get more posts like this on this thread, that would be AWESOME and would speed the approval process along! Thanks, Pati!

_________________
Former Blood Angels Army Champion
Epic Gamers Los Angeles Chapter
Armies Played:
Blood Angels
Black Legion
Codex Marines
Imperial Fists

In october there will be a small tournament (10-12 players), and I plan to participate with BA. Till that, I try to play as many as possible, but it's not that easy

200p Stormravens -sounds low somehow for me too, especially next to Land Speeders, true! I agree with that LS are much more useful than a stand alone Stormraven formation! At the moment I can't find their place in my army concepts..

As an upgrade, 50p is a bit also low- 60-65p maybe more correct for them -they have their limits, but hey, next to Wave Serpents (50p also) they are a superb unit, especially it's weapons are much better (and it has all of the Serpents advantages, like Skimmer, 5+ RA, 2x transported units)! Not to mention planetfall, and ATSKNF.
A good idea to limit the type of formations they can transport -eg. just Scouts, just Assaults, etc..

I seriously need some playtests, with the maximum number of Stormravens allowed, to see how they work! Get ready for a Stormraven spam

What exactly are you hoping the Storm Raven to be? I don't think that they have to be absolute combat monsters. They're just armed transports in reality. They don't need to smash stuff just put out some shots for harrying/BMs and ferry/drop troops into an engagement. Options without them are Land Raiders or Rhinos....

Exactly. This is what we try to simulate -with defining the correct points cost of this vehicle. So, what are your thoughts about how Stormravens can be more balanced?

I'm new to this thread (doing a blood angels army atm) my thoughts on what stormraven should be in my opinion is a off table aircraft along the lines of a lighter thunderhawk or thunderhawk transport. All the stats are spot on but this issue on it being an on table skimmer transport I think are wrong. Ideally it should be bomber or fighter-bomber at best (I'm not having a go) I know it brings up the issue of being a war engine but its a better alternative than a skimmer.

_________________
http://brokenuniverse1978.blogspot.co.uk

Hang on I haven't had the chance to spam them at you yet.

I see what you saying - it's basically a smaller thunderhawk - but if represented in this way what is the point of including it at all? The only reason I can think of to include such a unit with this same battlefield role is to give marines the option of air-transporting small formations more cheaply than a thunderhawk (i.e. 2 stormravens for devs, or 3 for tacs). I'm not convinced this is even a good idea - the air assault strategy is already very effective, does it really need to be made even more flexible? Land and fire with one formation, then retain to air assault with another.

To be fair the same can be said of the skimmer representation - do marines need yet another "better" transport option to add to their already very favourable array? At least at the moment the differentiation from other races is that they can't be "tricksy" - no hiding behind trees when shooting, and in assaults you can at least get the transports in CC and kill them. I'm not sure I like the idea of turning marines into skimming Eldar that are harder to kill and have ATSKNF. Not so much power-creep, as theme-creep.

By the way, I thought the stormraven could only transport 6 assault marines?

_________________
Kyrt's Battle Result Tracker (forum post is here)
Kyrt's trade list

I think that having them as one of the few AT formations in the list gave them a niche, however with the addition of pred annihilators, they're starting to feel a bit like a buff unit to me....

as an example, in the imperial fists list, they had all air-assault capability removed, they've also had bikes and assault marines removed as fast attack options, so it really falls on the terminators to provide a limited deep strike capability, in many of my test games I've really missed the ability to hit the opponent's deployment zone and the original CC termies were just ineffective against too many targets

I feel the BA list is a similar thing, it had the AT capacity largely removed, leaving the stormraven as the only real option, now pred annihilators are back in, it seems to me that the weakness has been largely eradicated..... that's just my view of course

_________________
Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

It's probably a bit late in the development at this point to switch Stormravens over to aircraft. We'll leave them as-is.

Stormravens carry 10 Assault Marines in 40k. Or it might be some weird number like 12. I'd have to consult my codex.

I welcome anyone to spam Stormravens to their heart's content. I'm willing to bet large sums of money that this would not win you many games. As I said, interesting on paper, not very effective in practice. I find them useless and basically view them as a fluff inclusion. I wouldn't take them in a competitive game.

Having said that, I don't plan on changing them much from here on out (if at all).

If someone wants to run a game with a ton of Stormravens, give us a batrep summary of a game or two like Pati did above, they're more than welcome. If you can demonstrate that a lot of these theory-hammer concerns are legitimate, I'll make some changes.

_________________
Former Blood Angels Army Champion
Epic Gamers Los Angeles Chapter
Armies Played:
Blood Angels
Black Legion
Codex Marines
Imperial Fists

Ah, I don't play 40k, I'm going by the wikia entry which says 12 of most things and 6 assault marines as their jump packs take up half the space.


Well as I said, for me it's not about power but theme. No amount of playtests is going to help with that.

On paper they do look pretty good per unit but let's face it, shooting ain't all that in EA, certainly not if you have small numbers of units like marines. So they can be good "per point" but it's still not necessarily going to translate to "impact".

_________________
Kyrt's Battle Result Tracker (forum post is here)
Kyrt's trade list

My main problem with them, is that with Stormravens, it's easy to play in eldar (skimmer) style, and they are much better in that, than eldars themself -because of the stormavens's weapons, RA, and ATSKNF -for the same price as an eldar skimmer.. As an eldar player I say it's a no go.

Just remember, Stormraven is a GUNSHIP, not a normal transport. So the raising of the points cost (65 for example), or the limitation of the type of units they can transport can be a solution to the Stormraven spam..

For me, they fit for the BA scheme, as a "small Thawk", or as an assault transport. They are good AV hunters, so I will choose them instead of Predators -just because Predator is available for every SM army, but Stormraven is not.