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Hurricane bolters


LutherMax

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I'd say a demi-squad's worth of bolter fire for 30 pts is a fair cost and definitely worth it against hordes or squish enemies (DE, GEQ, etc.).  You can put out a lot of dakka with a single 'Raven, so it definitely has it's perks.

 

And just use magnets so you can have your anti-air/armor and anti-infantry in one model.

Such as? Genuine question.

 

Give me a list and I'll tell you.

 

I'd say a demi-squad's worth of bolter fire for 30 pts is a fair cost and definitely worth it against hordes or squish enemies (DE, GEQ, etc.).  You can put out a lot of dakka with a single 'Raven, so it definitely has it's perks.

 

And just use magnets so you can have your anti-air/armor and anti-infantry in one model.

 

It's not really a question of wether the HB are worth 30 pts in and of themselves. It's rather an issue of "do I need anti-GEQ firepower on my anti-air unit?"

But the stormraven is primarily a warzone transport / gunship.  It needs guns...

 

The only thing that screwed up the issue of flyers as transports is the generic "you cannot disembark if you moved over 6-inches rule" which is arguably a bad choice for a flyer.    Although Stormravens have the ability to allow units to jump off (but then cannot assault that turn)...it just does not cut it in some games - especially if your opponent expects the aerial assault and plans for it.  About the only good thing is that you can at least jink...

 

Tactically the vehicle is designed for you to fly onto the table, soften up or eliminate a secondary target on turn 2, then turn and hammer the primary target on turn 3 while the transported unit(s) disembark and into the assault, potentially vs the primary unit - the purpose of the missiles (concussive) are for that reason - and I guess the designers figured you'd only need 4 missiles for the game...and the fact that your Stormraven (statistically) may have crashed and burned by turn 4...if you are not resigned to that overall tactic, then you may as well skip the Stormraven completely and just deep strike in or pod in, and use the Stormraven points for another unit completely.  It is more about style of tactical play and function.       

But the stormraven is primarily a warzone transport / gunship.  It needs guns...

 

 

I really couldn't care less what the Raven is supposed to be. Fact of the matter is, its the only decent anti-air option available to us (outside of FW). Ipso facto, I use it as such. The day we get access to some other form of effective anti-air, I may reconsider.

 

But the stormraven is primarily a warzone transport / gunship.  It needs guns...

 

 

I really couldn't care less what the Raven is supposed to be. Fact of the matter is, its the only decent anti-air option available to us (outside of FW). Ipso facto, I use it as such. The day we get access to some other form of effective anti-air, I may reconsider.

 

 

Like Quad guns? They're much cheaper.

In a tournament, I had a stormraven come in w/ 2 stormtalons, the opponent had the icarus AA gun behind an Aegis line.  He rolled a single 5 to hit, then a 6 to pen, I rolled a 1 on my Jink, he rolled a 6 to blow up the Stormraven.  I lost everything on board.  It was a bad day...    

I find Raven quite ineffective as anti-air with multi-melta and lascannon loadout. 4+ jink saves make single shot weapons lackluster, and even worse against FMCs. Against other flyers raven will have one turn of shooting at best due to limited maneuverability.

Quad gun with flakk devastators, even though they are overcosted, make much better anti-air than Raven while being more versatile.

You have to weigh up weapon strength with shots. Assault cannon, heavy bolter and hurricane bolters is a LOT of shots, which is generally what I prefer. Lascannon, multi melta and no hurricane bolters is just two shots. Higher strength but even with the TL re-rolls there's a big chance of misses and wasted shooting turns. It's happened to me a couple of times :(
Yeah, I've seen to many multi-melta 1s rerolled for another 1s :D That's why I take hurricane bolters, assault cannon and heavy bolter. Instead of relying on lucky melta and lascannon shots against vehicles and flyers, I use Raven just shoot at infantry and MCs.

I find Raven quite ineffective as anti-air with multi-melta and lascannon loadout. 4+ jink saves make single shot weapons lackluster, and even worse against FMCs. Against other flyers raven will have one turn of shooting at best due to limited maneuverability.

 

I never take the lascannon. MM + AssCan is the way to go, imo.

Quad gun with flakk devastators, even though they are overcosted, make much better anti-air than Raven while being more versatile.

 

Not against any kind of competent opponent. Any static anti-air will be dead long before it is a problem for him/her. And on top of that, if your opponent didn't bring any air units, you just wasted a whole bunch of points.

Im in the same boat as Deschenus - see the value of the HB, but can never make the points for it.  The times ive played with the HB, i've been very impressed, but my lists are fine tuned to within 5 points.  Finding 30 points in that hugely removes an aspect of my army that I need - especially at 1500

 

 

I find Raven quite ineffective as anti-air with multi-melta and lascannon loadout. 4+ jink saves make single shot weapons lackluster, and even worse against FMCs. Against other flyers raven will have one turn of shooting at best due to limited maneuverability.

 

I never take the lascannon. MM + AssCan is the way to go, imo.

Quad gun with flakk devastators, even though they are overcosted, make much better anti-air than Raven while being more versatile.

 

Not against any kind of competent opponent. Any static anti-air will be dead long before it is a problem for him/her. And on top of that, if your opponent didn't bring any air units, you just wasted a whole bunch of points.

To be effective as anti-air Raven needs to arrive after enemy flyers, shoot immediately and cause a lot of damage through 4+ jink. After that it will either spend a couple of turns trying to position itself or needs to find another target.

Yeah, flakk missiles cost a lot points, and quad-gun even more (but QG is still useful against skimmers). But if you're fighting hordes of infantry or tyranid FMC you pay 200 points on something that will do nothing for entire game. Also, raven isn't that tough either.

IMO Raven isn't good enough as anti-air for it's cost. But with hurricane bolters it's awesome anti-infantry and support flyer.

Maybe I got bad luck, but without hurricane bolters I struggled to justify taking it as anti-air or anti-vehicle, especially after my games against orks, nids, necron, tau and daemons.

The way I see it, the stormraven is already quite expensive. Doubling the anti-infantry firepower for a not so large increase is well worth it in my opinion. If you field it, you probably already build your list around it, so it might just as well have the appropriate amount of firepower ^^ it just adds so much value against many armies.

Even against MEQ you look at ~2 dead models per shooting phase, which makes a big difference when cleaning up backfield troops.

That's why you take the assault cannons instead of the lascannons

 

If you do that you are effectively useless at beyond 24", which is less than ideal for how I like my Gunships.. Me, I get the Cyclone ML and TLLC, and use it as a pure Gunship, destroying armored targets in the air and on the ground, from range.  I also stick a Tactical Squad in there (and get the HB sponsons if points permitting) for late game objective grabbing, so it's a very heavy basket, and I'm kind of biased towards preserving it..

 

How do you get eighteen?

 

3 twin linked bolters on each side, firing twice, that's 12.  Then you add 6 more because you fail at Math.

 

In other words, that was my error.  Still, of the 12 you'll miss about half, which will then re-roll and hit half of that, which is 9 hits.  That's kind of equivalent to your average 18 Boltgun shots at BS4.  Not that it was what I was thinking at the time.  Regardless, the HB sponsons will score around 9 Boltgun hits at 12" range, and that's worth 30pts for me.

In my opinion BA is so effective at dealing with light infantry in general the sponsons become over-redundant. If i have points left over (which i never do) i'd rather have deathwind ML's on pods or something similar vs infantry.  I don't really think we need anti-air (that should only be a silver lining) though and running it empty makes it over-priced to begin with. Meph loosing T6 and loss of ap1 rockets was quite a big nerf to Stormravens. Still good, but not good enough to be auto-include in all lists. 

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