Storm Raven tactics/discussion

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I remember when people said Stormravens are not competitive.

 

;)

 

G :tu:

[knife&fork]

I remember when people said Stormravens are not competitive.

 

:P

 

G ;)

 

They still are.

 

Question though for those that have used them. How do you deal with units like psy-bolt rifledreads and hydras?

[Blitzkrieg861]

Pray to the dice gods that they only packed leadership dice to the game? Hahaha

 

I remember there being a tactica for using Storm Ravens anyone know of the thread I'm talking about? If so, please PM me.

 

By the way though, those other lists excluding Mephy look pretty fun. I may try some of them out in the near future!

[Glendor]

This might be the stormraven tactica However Black Orange also has some awesome tacticas on his blog for it as well. These should be it It is a three part series so cheack them out!

[Blitzkrieg861]

Those are the ones! Thanks a lot, brother!

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

:lol:

 

G :D

[Black Memories]

The short answer in competitive storm raven play is simply that you don't expect them to survive. You just want them to get the boys into combat. The cool thing about the SR is that's guaranteed to happen. Either you get the first turn, or you simply come in from reserves, this is why stormraven/doa is so good. Whatever is in the raven is strong enough that it won't be wiped out easily and will take the fire off whatever comes in after, the second point is that your stormravens are guaranteed a 24 inch move and are so fast its totally irrelevant if they are shot down or not. This is because even if your opponent deployed in a corner away from you, the turn after your stormraven rolls on you're almost assuredly going to cover the remaining distance to get into combat.

 

The shocking part about this tactic is that the stormraven is tough. Very tough. You're only slightly more likely to lose your stormraven to lascannon fire than your landraider the turn where it moves flat out, you're significantly less likely to lose your stormraven to melta fire (obvious, but the margin is massive). Because the ravens do not require other vehicles in the list to carry out their function (massive hammer transportation) armor saturation is completely irrelevant. The only real threat to your ravens is having them destroyed and everyone inside is trapped by having too much stuff around them.

 

Also do not underestimate how powerful a 24 inch move-on and subsequent TLMM shot is. Whatever the raven itself kills is house money, its real purpose is transportation. If your raven comes on and pops, say, and executioner or whatever eles, then your raven has made it's points back in spades, not just barely. Also keep in mind that the hidden strength of the raven is the melta gun the furioso dreadnought has. This gives your dread a very good chance of busting up vehicles in MSU armies and then eating the troops inside. If he can't then he will require the attention of that squad and that removes attention from other units on the board.

 

Stormravens really do best in a what i'd call a speed-play list. That is a list that revolves around close combat and mobile transport-killing firepower (like attack bikes or drop-in ASMs with meltas). They tend to be go big or go home lists, but mine seem to almost always go big. If you believe that being different is a strength in competitive play, running a dual raven list is a huge strength. Not much else runs similarly.

[Glendor]

do you think a single stormraven in 1500 would work?

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Sure it's roughly only 13 percent of the total points - not bad in my opinion for what you get. I think when the codex was first released people saw it as a big fire magnet, focusing only on its downside as opposed to its inherent strengths. It's very unique still and only one other chapter has access. Give it try and see if it can work for you.

 

G :lol:

[SirDuck13]

I've been running a footslogging RAS army with 3x stormravens (MM, AC), 3x RAS (TH, IP, 2 MGs), 3x Priest (PW, JP), Libby (Sword/Shield powers), and Furioso Libby (Droppod, Bloodlance and Might of Heroes powers).

 

The list uses the dread as an early distraction that most armies can't ignore as my footsloggers get marched up field and my Stormravens are used to take out my biggest early game threats. I find this set of tactics to work pretty remarkably.

 

The key to success with 'Ravens is redundancy. I don't think running just one would be very good, but running 2 or 3 is almost magical on the battle field. They are way more resilient on the battlefield than I thought they looked on paper. Just remember to fire off all of your missiles at the earliest advantage and keep them moving. Use your missiles to pick out the big armor threats with volume of fire. They are an all or nothing unit though. I play them aggressively and count on having at them blow up. Most the time they don't, but I find its better to count on, since it is a possibility. I think the two biggest things that they offer my list in particular is more distraction. Most the time, my opponent has to pay enough attention to shutting them down that they buy more time for my RAS (the real workhorses of the army) to get into position and start breaking up the party.

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

SD13