raptors or talons?

[Someblindmarineplayer]

would it be better to take 5 raptors/ melta bombs, plasma pistol x3, power sword, mark of khorne, and icon of wrath for 185pts, or warp talons x5/ mark of khorne for 180pts?

[Groble]

im fairly new to playing but from what i gather the raptors will serve you better. more flexability on the battlefield. 

[Chaeron]

Neither, ideally. But if you're forced to take one or the other, the Raptors will be of more benefit.

[Someblindmarineplayer]

well I'm wanting to run them as support for a nurgle bike squad

[minigun762]

In either case, I think the 5 bodies are too expensive. You're paying Terminator-plus price tags for MEQs.

[HJL]

I would drop most of the wargear, take 5 raptors, give them 2 melta guns and deepstrike for some good old fashioned tank hunting!

[Someblindmarineplayer]

well pretty much every other squad except my obliterators and havocs has melta bombs

[minigun762]

well pretty much every other squad except my obliterators and havocs has melta bombs

Same squad of raptors but take dual flamers instead.

You'll be fast enough to get a good position on the enemy infantry to lay down a pair of templates.

[HJL]

or a pair of plasma guns to terrorize terminators and the like.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Basically, unless you really, really like what plasma pistols look like, there's absolutely no reason to take one, when you can take a plasma gun in addition to the standard weapons for the same cost, or take a melta gun for 5 points less. Remember, there's no rule that a model can only have two weapons, and the special weapons just say "or take one of the following". They really messed up the pricing of plasma pistols.

[Karsarn Forsworn]

I think it depends on the list tbh :) in my Chaos army im planning to use both raptors and warp talons along side some bikes (and maybe even some spawn). Main reason for these being my Fast attack choices is that I am not a massive fan of the hell drake and I dont generally like point and win things lol.

[Someblindmarineplayer]

well the main advantage to having pistols over guns is that you may assault after using the pistol. my bikes are armed with duel plasma guns. my current list is posted in the army list reviews for csm sub forum. "new list, needs troops"

[Lord_Caerolion]

... You can assault after using Meltaguns too, they're Assault 1. You only can't assault after firing Rapid Fire, Salvo or Heavy weapons. That's why they're called Assault weapons.

[kdruthless]

Raptors have more flexibility, but I'd prune a few points from the rest of your force to get them above five models. A single round of shooting and that's 200 pts of your army either destroyed or rendered ineffective. I'd personally like 10, and wouldn't field them in squads of less than 7

[Sception]

Meltaguns are assault weapons, so you can still assault. Same number of shots, same range, better strength, better ap, melta rule, doesn't get hot, same number of attacks on the charge (raptor specials are in addition to, not instead of, their bolt pistols), and cost less points. Meltaguns on raptors aren't just better than plasma pistols, they're strictly better.

 

Otherwise, min size raptor squad with two meltas or two flamers is probably the most effective way to run them. Suicide deep strike at least gives you an option that bikes don't have. And I'd still stick with the meltaguns, since melta bombs do not cut it for anti-tank in this game. They're a deterrant for melee walkers only. Ranged vehicles, which is the majority of dangerous vehicles in this game, will do their damage long before you're able to assault them with anything short of bikes or maulers, fliers can't be targeted by meltabombs at all, and if you're assaulting a transport than it's already succeeded in putting its unit into position to target your models.

 

i'm not saying meltabombs are bad, the walker defense is nice after all, and versatility counts for something, but they won't solve problems with vehicles in general. Meltaguns havocs will help you. And it also gives you a couple more shots capable of bypassing terminator armor.

 

Flamers are also ok on raptors, if you think you really have sufficient responses to AV14 threats (I'm talking several of: obliterators, lashavocs, laspredators, meltabikes), and if you're somehow lacking anti-infantry responses, though the usual assortment of bolters and a baleflamer or two will tend to sort that out already, so it isn't typically something chaos armies are in dire need of.

 

Though it isn't typically recommended, I've run larger units of 10 on occassion, for the ablative wounds and the ability to pose a slightly greater melee threat. The downside is this high cost per model, but if you're running multiple other largish fast aggressive threats (spawn, bikes, maulers, winged princes, allied daemons for winged greaters, winged princes, fiends, hounds) it can work out. Again, not as well as bikes, but still.

 

 

As a general rule, bikes are just better versions of raptors, though. About the same price, for better offensive and defensive capabilities, plus better speed. So as a general rule, you'd be better off supporting your bikes with another unit of bikes. However, the bike models are old and kind of bad and very expensive in terms of monatary cost, while the raptors are new and awesome looking and considerably more affordible (if hardly cheap), so I can certainly understand picking up some of them instead.

 

 

As for talons... Talons can work, but only under very specific conditions. You have to have 3+ or 4+ save targets (2+ save or vehicle targets render their expensive claws useless; less armor than that and you're wasting points on an overprices specialist unit to take on enemies that can be brushed off the board with bolter fire). These targets need to be high priority, or you're spending too many points and too precious a force org slot to deal with them. The battlefield needs enough LoS blocking terrain (hard to come by these days) to shelter the talons' advance, but can't have too much defensible area terrain for the enemy to occupy. Talons don't have assault grenades, and at 30 points a model for only marine defenses, you can't afford to lose models to overwatch AND to the enemy striking before you. You are to deep strike ONLY if there is no sheltered advance possible, and only if you have other fast melee elements to tie up the enemy before you arrive (this is difficult, since the talons are competing for force org slots with most of the options you have to actually do that). You are never to attempt to use their blinding rule, because it is more likely to get the unit killed due to mishap than it is to actually blind anything, and since it does nothing to further enemy units, they're still free to target you to their hearts' content.

 

The thing about Warp talons is that they're much like thousand sons - super expensive specialists, that aren't even all that great at their specialty (S&P hampers sons as a shooting unit, lack of grenades hampers talons as a melee unit), aren't very surviveable (both are no more durable than 13 point CSMs against most attacks), and are hyper narrow in terms of viable targets (basically only 3+ or 4+ save infantry in the open). If that particular target features frequently among the armies that you typically play against, then these units can still perform for you, but even then they're still not "good", since our contains contains baledrakes, which more or less invalidate medium infantry armies merely by existing, while also being fantastic against light infantry and even threatening to light vehicles and mosntrous creatures, and increadibly durable, and very cheap for the points. So even if they do work for you against the enemies you typically play against, taking these units is still basically a waste since you could have just taken a baledrake or two to do the job far more effectively, and focused the rest of your specialist options on dealing with threats we actually have trouble with, like vehicles, or terminators, or heavy long ranged fire.

[spafe]

for what its worth i've had some success with a unit of raptors with MoS, power mace on champ and a flamer. Unit is 7 strong as it allows them to outfight units of 10 marines, or take a hit or two on way in and still have enough to take guard blobs, devesators etc. I like the power mace as a number of str 6 attacks hitting rear armour mean they can threaten tanks, and with flamer and lots of wounds from mace, meq/teq will fail few saves (although I do tend to avoid teq where possible)

[Lord_Caerolion]

Yep, as Malisteen puts it, Meltaguns are objectively better than plasma pistols if you want to increase their assault capacity, as in "unarguably better". Plasma guns, in the same way, are unarguably better if you, for whatever reason, are wanting shooty Raptors. So, for 5 points less, you can have a gun that is objectively better in every single way than a plasma pistol, and still leave them their bolt pistols and ccw to fight in close combat, or pay the same price to take a plasma gun that gives them some ranged options.

 

The only reason whatsoever to take plasma pistols on Raptors is that you really, really, really like what they look like.

[Panda_]

The only reason whatsoever to take plasma pistols on Raptors is that you really, really, really like what they look like.

You don't mention the plasma pistol on the Aspiring Champion. With it, his precisions shots are likely to be chaos boons. You can't give this AC a meltagun (and without the codex at hand I can't check if somehow he can get combimelta).

[Lord_Caerolion]

Yeah, there is that plasma pistol, I'll give you that. The other two though, no reason whatsoever.

[minigun762]

 

The only reason whatsoever to take plasma pistols on Raptors is that you really, really, really like what they look like.

You don't mention the plasma pistol on the Aspiring Champion. With it, his precisions shots are likely to be chaos boons. You can't give this AC a meltagun (and without the codex at hand I can't check if somehow he can get combimelta).

Raptor champs can take a combi weapon.

[Karsarn Forsworn]

I think it also depends on your meta. For example while there are alot of marine players in my meta they dont spam 2+ saves which enables me to go lighter on the plasma melta and ap2 weps in general.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

I think it also depends on your meta. For example while there are alot of marine players in my meta they dont spam 2+ saves which enables me to go lighter on the plasma melta and ap2 weps in general.

 

Ehhh. . . this isn't necessarily good reasoning.  Comparatively speaking, there's a lot more AP2 weapons in the game than there are AP3 weapons.  That's why plasma is so prevalent in metas that have lots of MEQ armies: it's the most common means of defeating power armor saves at range.  Even if I knew my opponent wasn't running Terminators, I'd still load up on plasma because that's Marine Killer #1.