Stormtalon Gunship

[Azash]

I've yet to fall into the trap of allies; I'm a C:SM player. If I wanted to play Blood Angels or Gray Knights or Imperial Guard, I'd have built an army of them long ago. So for me and those like me, the Storm Talon is all we've got and so we have to make it work.

 

Getting to Azash's post, I have to say that your argument is valid. An FoR is a better investment point-for-point than a Storm Talon. It also makes you commit to manning a static position, however, when maneuver warfare is the name of the game. Of the six standard missions in the book, how many rely on taking objectives to win games? I'd rather have my troops mounted and mobile -- or at least free to advance on foot, if their transport is gone -- instead of being forced to stand back in my deployment zone so that they can fire some guns. So for those whose tactical preferences prohibit the use of emplaced weapons, we instead need to clear the skies using dedicated air superiority fighters. As C:SM player, we have two options: the Storm Talon (which is not as bad as you're saying; I've used it with success, you just have to careful with it), or ally in another codex and take a Vendetta or Storm Raven.

That's easy objective placement. In 6th you place your objectives after you know what side of the table your on and after you have placed terrain (in this case the FoR). So even in an oddly numbered objective game you can claim two simply by placing them in a position where they and the scoring unit are sheltered by the fortress of redemption. So one combat squaded tac squad hiding behind each annex claiming 1 objective each and your good. Remember the weapons on the FoR do not have to be manned to fire them however I would recommend you run a 75 pt 5 man scout squad and have the sergeant fire the icarus with his bs3. Either way the Krakstorm i figure is OB anyway so your not gonna be deducting your BS off the scatter very often anyway.

 

That and any long range heavy support you have in addition to the fortress is an instant back field. Now the entire other half of your army just has to take 1 objective. The tactic becomes even better in a big guns never tire scenario as all your troop choices can move forward to contest leaving your heavies to hold the back line. Or if you run something like vindies the problem is solved. The ability to pancake an entire marine squad in your opponents deployment zone from your deployment zone each turn makes objective games a whole hell of alot easier.

 

As to the scouts reliably taking out quad guns. The averages don't pan out I know but based on every game I have ever pulled this tactic 6 so far it has worked, I am averaging 4 wounds a round with the scouts. However to be fair something that has tilted my odds in my favor is the fact that in 5 of those games we rolled night fighting on round 5. However the ability to kill that quad gun off definitely helps. Even if the presence of the scouts on your list forces your opponent to decentralize the location of the quad gun/icarus it's as your storm talon is SOL without some help (and scouts are cheaper than the alternative DP'ing Ironclads, sternguard etc, that I have heard of).

Edited January 30, 2013 by Azash

[dswanick]

That's easy objective placement. In 6th you place your objectives after you know what side of the table your on and after you have placed terrain (in this case the FoR). So even in an oddly numbered objective game you can claim two simply by placing them in a position where they and the scoring unit are sheltered by the fortress of redemption.

Problem:

"No objective can be placed in, or on, impassible terrain, buildings, or fortifications.", BRB, Pg.121

Each section of the FoR is a building.

[Azash]

 

That's easy objective placement. In 6th you place your objectives after you know what side of the table your on and after you have placed terrain (in this case the FoR). So even in an oddly numbered objective game you can claim two simply by placing them in a position where they and the scoring unit are sheltered by the fortress of redemption.

Problem:

"No objective can be placed in, or on, impassible terrain, buildings, or fortifications.", BRB, Pg.121

Each section of the FoR is a building.

 

Not a problem never said place it on or in the FoR. Besides you can't score an objective if your in the building. However you can place the objective behind the FoR (depending on the deployment) and the squad next to the objective completely out of your opponents line of sight. Or you can set the objective beside the FoR (in line of sight) and the scoring unit behind the FoR but within 3" so your still out of line of sight but still scoring the objective. Just a little common sense on objective placement and deployment in your initial set up and your set. It's the single largest piece of terrain GW makes we don't have to get to tricky to hide 5 or 10 scoring marines behind it.

[PaganLinuxGeek]

Has anyone monitoring this thread fielded the fortress of redemption with stormtalons? As my scratch build nears completion I am considering a few trials...

[Uaronain]

 Read this for tips on using my yet to be built talon and leave sold on buying a FoR! I am still building my list and it is very gunlineish (yea i made it a word) I have too much to think about with the dang talon. I like the idea of adding a storm raven (if we get it in the new flyer thingy) and having the talon escort it? I really like the idea of flier support for my list.

 

I have not played in years 4th edition but got the books and have been reading. Would it be worth it to use the raven+talon and have a ironclad ride with the raven?

 

Sorry for all of the questions but I just dont have the experence to answer my own questions yet.

[Azash]

I actually have started testing a lists at various points levels with an FoR in place of a storm talon.

 

A couple of things I have found

• Bordering on impractical at 1500 pts and anything less 250 pts is just to much for that small of a list. However in the 1500 pt game it dominated the entire flow of the game.
• Telion is not worth the points to turn the Icarus into a giant sniper rifle of doom...neat harassment but those 50 pts can be better spent elsewhere. Thought I recomend trying it in a friendly game just for the entertainment value :)
• The ILC generally gets ignored in the infantry heavy meta of 6th the Krakstorm draws all the attention.
• It makes any marines holding objectives  hiding behind the FoR or staging there to make a round 4/5 move to a nearby objective basically impervious to anything but another FoR or some sort of OB guard artillery.
• The icarus is a good AA killer. Good at penetrating good at hitting (especially with BS 3 TL). The one draw back is it's a one shot per turn AA.
• Structures are better than vehicles....not all armor 14 is created equal. Since you can't glance buildings to death and marines of 3+ saves and you don't need anyone inside to shoot the Krakstorm....yeah the survivability of an FoR is allot higher than say a land raider.
• Also since there are no firing ports in the annexes at either end your impervious to frag grenade attacks.
• Deployment is a little tight on Dawn of War
• FoR is as close as your going to get to a guarantee of getting First Blood. In particular using the Krakstorm on armor since its 2d6 pick the highest for armor penetration and you don't need line of site! A neat trick is to illuminate your intended victim with a spot light form a rhino so you can unload on it first turn with Krakstorm and Icarus when your opponent thought he had a nice fat cover save.
• Ordinance Barrage Krakstorm > Aegis defense lines. Simply put since your calculating your cover in relation to the center of the blast marker if your targeting behind the aegis defense line it has the nice added effect of nullifying the aegis cover save.
• Becarefull of things that deep strike with melta's or anything with a rail gun. This is pretty much the only stuff you have to worry about in keeping your FoR up and your really only concerned with keeping the annexes from getting hit the center is pretty much ignored by everyone.

 

That's what I have learned so far.  Can't stress how good a marine killer it is and how its presences and potential force an opponent to alter their tactics.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Look, this is a thread for talking about the Storm Talon, not the Fortress of Redemption.  I saw that there were no posts and thought to myself, "Great!  New insights.  Maybe I'll learn something."

 

My point is, and I'm not trying to be rude here, I'd like you to make a new thread for talking about the FoR and the tactics that work best with it.  Because for this thread, it's off-topic.

[templargdt]

If you want to take out the Quad Gun (and yeah, it's a really good idea) why not drop 5 sternguard in a pod next to it?  10 Poison shots should do the trick on average.  Sniper scout squad could finish it off if required.

[DarkGuard]

Let's keep this to discussion about the Stormtalon. If a non Stormtalon post appears, don't be surprised to see it disappear.

[templargdt]

I think the release of the Storm Raven into the C:SM line is actually helpful for the Talon.  Have them both enter play at the same time (ADL and comm relay can help here) and use the Raven to block LOS to the Talon from the enemy AA weapons.

[Azash]

The problem is if you read all 8 pages the conclusion is pretty simple. The storm talon is over priced, under armored, and out classed by the other fliers with weaponry.

The only useful tactic I have developed with the Storm Talon is overflight on fliers. Any of the fliers with rear armor like the Hell Drake you can over fly and use the 360 degree radius of the Assault cannon to get rear armor shots. You have good odds of getting penning and glancing hits on it at that point. Your still up a creek without a paddle for the 12 12 12 fliers though so it's a situational tactic at best and only works if you opt to go second or your opponent takes first turn.

Ok tactic but it still doesn't alleviate the fundamental issue is that it costs way to much for what it brings to your list. No tactics in the world can fix a fundamentally flawed unit (and there are a few of them from C;SM that just never show up in a competitive venue) at the rules level. It's why you don't see a ton of threads on how to fix with tactics the land speeder storm in 6th or how to make use of Vanguard vets (Assault termies out class them) or we spend hours trying to figure out how to tactically make LoD perform as well as shooty termies or sternguard...at a rules level (specifically at a points level) these are just broken and or clearly under performs within the given rules. So inevitably the conversation turns to two venues.

1. What can I replace it with to fill that void

2. What can I pair it with to compensate for broken rules.

Only question now is the Storm Raven a big enough boon to make Storm Talon worth fielding. Then again what we are really talking about is Storm Raven tactics though cause the Storm Talon would be there to boost the Storm Raven not the other way around. It would analogus to trying to figure out how many and what type of Land Raider(s) it would take to make a single razor back effective

[PaganLinuxGeek]

I took a combo storm talon and storm raven today in a 1000 pt list. The talon served as a good escort to the raven and provided more targets for the 4 (count them 4) "abandoned" intercepter gun emplacements and (don't delete this post for mentioning the FoR) a Fortress of Redemption. The guns were busy taking shots at the raven and the talon was largely ignored. I think having more aerial targets provides much better chances for talon's survival.

 

We have to remember that this is the first appearance of the stormtalon as a model, and I am HOPING that GW will improve on it. The addition of the stormraven for vanilla marines would seem to indicate that GW is aware of the shortcomings and may be trying to remedy the space marine flyer options.

 

just my $0.02

Edited February 16, 2013 by PaganLinuxGeek

[ottesoac]

Definitely taking a skyhammer talon now to escort my raven. After the digital update it is only 125pts.

[PaganLinuxGeek]

So are the rumors of points costs changes correct? I've read that st dropped by 20 pts. Lascannons and Typhoons up by 10, Skyhammer dropped by 10? I THOUGHT I read somewhere that the stormraven's point costs were lower too?

 

If only gw would release a digital codex for a platform other than Apple, or at least release a PDF of the stormtalon / stormraven specs... The ONE legitimate and non apple documentation of the stormtalon's specs was rendered obsolete by a faq saying basically go buy an out of print book and see. grrrrrrrrrr!

[Brother Casman]

Yes, the stormtalon has those point changes. It also has the standard Hover mode and Strafing Run instead of the "Hover Strike" it had before. I suspect this will change my strategies with stormtalons.

 

The SM stormraven looks to be identical, points-wise, except that the locator beacon is 5 points cheaper, and extra armour is 10 points cheaper than the BA version.

[Excubitor]

Yes, those changes are right. The equipment options for the Raven have gone down, no changes to the weapons options. And the Stormstrike Missiles are Str8, Ap2 Concussive, one-shot.

 

Book was delivered to my door about 20 minutes ago

 

Edit; looks like I need to update my browser more often

Edited February 19, 2013 by Excubitor

[PaganLinuxGeek]

Yes, those changes are right. The equipment options for the Raven have gone down, no changes to the weapons options. And the Stormstrike Missiles are Str8, Ap2 Concussive, one-shot.

 

Book was delivered to my door about 20 minutes ago

 

Edit; looks like I need to update my browser more often

Thank you all for helping those of us without the book out.

[Excubitor]

No worries, happy to help. Anything specific needed, just post up and I'll try and answer.

 

But really, nothing much besides the Storm Talon seems to have changed. Anything that did change, the FAQ's seem to have gotten it. Although the extra missions seem like they'll be fun to play.

[PaganLinuxGeek]

So a base points cost reduction, and the replacement of hoverstrike with "strafing run". What is strafing run anyways?

[Excubitor]

Basically says that when you enter hover mode you get +1 BS when shooting at ground targets I think. It's in the main rulebook anyway.

[Disruptor_fe404]

Yeah, it's in the rulebook.

 

And it's basically Hover Strike. Strafing Run just needs the movement qualifier on it, which I'm sure it's gotten.

[WarriorFish]

Does that still include pinning? Thanks a lot for posting this information, it seems to be a bit of a mine field trying to figure out what's going on (or not as the case may be). I don't have access to any of my rules at the moment as I'm at work.

 

I'm very much liking these point changes that have been mentioned. Maybe I'll slap some Skyhammers on my next Stormtalon, 125pts seems like a fair price and will make for a great Stormraven escort as ottesoac said.

[PaganLinuxGeek]

Yes, I was hoping the points costs for the talon would be altered. It was overpriced for it's abilities, and armour value. My favorite configuration dropped 10 points, and frankly for the points costs a "default" talon configuration is affordable as a stormraven escort.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

In addition to the much-needed points drop though is the altering of Hover Strike.  This ridiculous rule, preventing us from moving the little bugger if we need to come out of Flyer mode, basically ensured the Talon would die in the next turn.  Using it became a tactic of desperation.

 

Now, however, it has the standard Hover mode and Strafing Run instead of Hover Strike.  This increases its flexibility so much that it's not even funny, and coming out of Flyer mode is no longer a death sentence since it's possible to get a cover save.

[PaganLinuxGeek]

Perhaps I'm a bit daft but I don't fully understand. We can now move as a fast skimmer with an improved bs of 5?