Smbarne's Tactics and Hobby Log ( Updated 5/4 )

[smbarne]

Hi all,

I've been lurking in the shadows for the past year in the B&C RG forum since getting back into the hobby and thought it was time to finally make a post. I got back in late last year during 7th edition after about fifteen years and decided to switch to Raven Guard, and I've been building up an army since. Now that 8th had dropped I don't have to worry as much about needing so many models to make 2000 points, but it is a bit late for that

I had a chance over the weekend to take some photos of everything together. Not featured would be the absurd amount of magnets in the vanguard vets, tanks, and tactical, and characters.

[Buggane]

That captain and chaplain!!!

[Pearson73]

Really nice force you've got here, especially the winged captain.

[Buggane]

Can we get a photo of the bloke with the two handed sword to the right of the chaplain? He looks intriguing.

 

This is a really nice army, I love the grey tones you have going one. How did you achieve that lovely gold colour too?

 

4th company is the best btw, green trim all the way....

[Gulltramarine]

Lovely looking army, that captain is superb

[Race Bannon]

Welcome to the Ravenspire!

 

Excellent collection there.  To add to the chorus of 'MOAR PICS" is that Terminator Squad ^_^

[smbarne]

Thanks all!

 

Ask an you shall receive.  Moar photos!

 

Captain Murderwings of Seventh Edition is my counts as Shrike now.  The jump pack and both arms are magnetized, so I tend to put the wings on whoever is the Warlord.  This guy ended up being made of bits from about six different sources - my favorite being the Emperor's Champion for the lower body pose.

 

 

The guy with the sword is my Librarian.  Stripped and repainted from fifteen years ago!  I've got the backpack magnetized so he can rock some winged jump jets as well.  I can't decide how much I like Librarians in 8th.  I like that they're more of an option now that the RG formations don't push you away from them.  But with just one Librarian their impact has been so-so.  But the ability to deny an enemy's shenanigan's is handy too.

 

And Race you caught me.  Those Terminators are one of the few half done models in the shot.  I need to find the time to get them from barely tabletop standard up to the rest of the army.  They're the old metal ones I had from years ago stripped, repainted, and up-based onto 32mm.  The 44mm bases just made them look silly...

 

They served me well in 7th and I know they're supposed to be better in 8th, but I've been enjoying being able to run some more competitive fluffy Raven Guard armies recently.  Plus I'm usually quite good on power fists and hammers with 10-20 vanguard vets.

 

 

 

This is a really nice army, I love the grey tones you have going one. How did you achieve that lovely gold colour too?

 

Thanks! The grey is my poor man's attempt at zenithial lighting using spray cans.  It's a base of black followed by a bit of mechanicum standard grey.  Some models have a tiny hit of corax white after that, but I learned that was just a bit too much.  Follow it all up with 1-2 coats of nulin oil to bring it back down.

 

The gold is simply the standard GW technique.  Bathazar gold base followed by nightshade blue wash and then brought up in small areas with ghennas gold.

[ghost_9pm]

Hey nice work! Really love that Shrike model. All the parts where the various bits come together is very seamless. Looks like GW made it that way.

[Race Bannon]

Hey man, nothing wrong with the classic models at all. There weight alone made them beefy enough :lol:

 

On Shrike, those claws came from BA terminators?

[smbarne]

Hey man, nothing wrong with the classic models at all. There weight alone made them beefy enough :lol:

On Shrike, those claws came from BA terminators?

I do love the heft of them :D. You're close on the arms, they're Dark Angels Deathwing Terminator arms. I built him with vanguard Vet arms at first but it wasn't epic enough. So I took a hobby knife to all of those heretic symbols and glued some Raven Guard symbols instead! The hardest part was cutting down the shoulders to work with normal pauldrons.

 

[Race Bannon]

Yeah man, that's top shelf ^_^

[duz_]

Dude that's amazing! Glad you made the right decision joining the RG and posting the epic pics here!

Can't wait to see what other goodies youre working on your army looks great the conversion make me question myself as a hobbyist ... haha :lol: :ermm:

[Claws and Effect]

Did you use a Forge World Raven Guard upgrade kit torso for the Captain/Shrike model?

 

It looks familiar.

[NiceGuyAdi]

Shut up and take my likes!

 

Really nice work, there. Your Captain works so well, and although I always thought grassy bases wouldn't be grimdark enough for Raven Guard, you've proven me very wrong; they offset the miniatures themselves really well.

[smbarne]

Dude that's amazing! Glad you made the right decision joining the RG and posting the epic pics here!

Can't wait to see what other goodies youre working on your army looks great the conversion make me question myself as a hobbyist ... haha :lol: :ermm:

Haha thanks! The conversion stuff isn't too fancy. I just went a bit nuts and bought a number of eBay large bits bags of misc stuff. Most of my tactical have the sniper rifles from the Mor Deyhan with the barrel cut off and respected with some tuning to make it look silenced. Since I had a bunch of the bits it was easy!

 

  

Did you use a Forge World Raven Guard upgrade kit torso for the Captain/Shrike model?

It looks familiar.

 

 

Yeah! The Forgeworld bits are great. I had to cut off the belt and use some greenstuff to make it work but I really kind the chest.

 

 

Shut up and take my likes!

Really nice work, there. Your Captain works so well, and although I always thought grassy bases wouldn't be grimdark enough for Raven Guard, you've proven me very wrong; they offset the miniatures themselves really well.

Thanks! I knew I would want something with some color to help everything pop more since RG can be so monotone. Plus the cork + sand + flocking is so easy and looks great got the level of effort!

[smbarne]

Thanks for all of the welcoming folks.  I think I'll turn this into a hobby progress post.  I've been slowly churning through a very dull task recently of cleaning up the edges of **all** of my bases.  My wife helped me decide on Eshin Grey and I'm slogging about a third of the way through so far:

 

 

---

 

I've been batting around a new army list that I think could be interesting.  Ok, I've got about fourty different lists in BattleScribe as I love designing lists, but this one could be interesting.

 

Battalion

 

HQ Kayvaan Shrike

  Lieutenant: Chainsword, Jump Pack, Master-crafted boltgun

Troops 4x5 man Scouts: boltguns + combi-plasma

Transports 4x Land Speeder Storms: Assault cannon, Cerberus launcher

Elites 2x Venerable Dreadnought: Missile Launcher + Twin Las

Heavy 2x7 man Devastators: 2x missile launcher and 2x lascannon with cherub each.

Flier 2x Stormhawk Interceptor: 2x Assault cannon, Las-talon, Skyhammer missile launcher 

 

Tactics

 

 - Take advantage of the Raven Guard -1 to hit on dreads and infantry.  The devs and dreads sit (in cover if possible) in the backfield, castled up.  8x las and 6x missiles.  Have the Lt. baby sit them and *maybe* Shrike depending on the opponent. If not, use Wisdom of the Ancients to reroll 1's.

 - Use the Land Speeder Storms and scouts as versatile, ob-sec screeners.

    + Deploy scouts inside the storms and the storms aggressively against gunlines.  Race the speeders in and use the ACs + Cerebus + Scouts to chip through enemy screens and ram things that you don't want shooting.  If they survive, disembark scouts and retreat with fly keyword.

    + Against melee forces, deploy scouts outside of the transports as speed bumps.

    + Against smite spam, layer scouts as smite shields

    + Against deep strike, use infiltrate to deny enemy getting close to your castle.

 - Stormhawks have been very effective for me so far.  So many things have fly and they do good work.  I debate using the Heavy Bolter instead of the Skyhammer as the Skyhammer has been awful for me.  The -1 AP is very poor at what you're typically shooting at.

 - Devs and Dreads: point, click, and reroll.  Consider strike from the shadows for the devs to posistion them for a good T1 or safely.  Shrike could then deep strike in T1 for rerolls.

 

Weaknesses

 

Land Speeder Storms are still pricey even after the codex dropped them some.  With one AC a LSS comes to 96 points.  That is only 4 points shy of a twin AC Razorback.  But it moves 18" and has fly.  I'm thinking it could provide a lot of front line disruption.  I thought of giving them heavy flamers and the scouts combi-flamers, but math-wise the AC and plasma do a better job for barely more points.

 

I've also got pretty much no CC in the list.  So if an opponent makes it around my scout deployment shenanigans and into my lines, Shrike and the Lt can counter charge but it's likely really downhill from there.

 

Lastly, I don't own any Land Speeder Storms right now and the idea of building and painting four of them is... not ideal.

 

Thoughts?

[duz_]

Good fluffy build with plenty of mobility and enough punch.

Might not be super durable though so you have to play smart. Which is why I like RG. ;)

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

You are close to maxing out on fluff/style points but I feel you need regular land speeders to do that.  Also if shrike is just a counter charge guy why not just use a cheap captain with twin claws or the teeth of terra?  Have him stand in between the dreads or near the devs.  would save you about 60-70 points.  

 

I like making lists too!

 

I made a version of your list..  just because.

 

Battalion

 

Captain, storm bolter, chainsword(teeth of terra?)

LT, jump pack, mastercrafted bolter, chainsword

 

Troops

 

Scouts x 5, bolters, combi plas

Scouts x 5, bolters, combi plas

Scouts x 5, sniper rifles

Scouts x 5, sniper rifles

 

Elites

Venerable Dread, twin las, missiles

Venerable Dread, twin las, missiles

Heavy Support

Devs x 7, 4 lascannons, cherub

 

Flyers

Stormhawk Interceptor, lastalon, sky hammer

Stormhawk Intercepts, lastalon, sky hammer

 

Outrider Detachment

HQ

Captain on Bike, THSS, shield eternal

 

Elites

Company vets on bikes x 2, storm bolters

 

Fast Attack

Scout Bikers x 3, stormbolter on the sarge

Scout Bikers x 3, stormbolter on the sarge

Scout Bikers x 3, stormbolter on the sarge

 

Transports

Land Speeder Storm, assault cannon

Land Speeder Storm, assault cannon

 

Ok so I dumped a couple of the LSS's and Shrike and a squad of devs.  I also made 2 of your scouts into snipers.  

 

You lost a bit of anti armour with the devs but gained a ton of dakka with the scout bikers... those things pump out 22 str 4 shots at 12" for under 80 points.  The biker captain is a smash :cusser if you give him the appropriate warlord trait and the biker vets are also shooty and can tank wounds on the captain.  You lose a bit of land speederyness but gain dakka, mobility, snipers, 1 extra command point, 1 extra captain that smashes stuff. 

[smbarne]

You are close to maxing out on fluff/style points but I feel you need regular land speeders to do that.  Also if shrike is just a counter charge guy why not just use a cheap captain with twin claws or the teeth of terra?  Have him stand in between the dreads or near the devs.  would save you about 60-70 points.  

 

I like making lists too!

 

I made a version of your list..  just because.

 

Battalion

 

Captain, storm bolter, chainsword(teeth of terra?)

LT, jump pack, mastercrafted bolter, chainsword

 

Troops

 

Scouts x 5, bolters, combi plas

Scouts x 5, bolters, combi plas

Scouts x 5, sniper rifles

Scouts x 5, sniper rifles

 

Elites

Venerable Dread, twin las, missiles

Venerable Dread, twin las, missiles

 

Heavy Support

Devs x 7, 4 lascannons, cherub

 

Flyers

Stormhawk Interceptor, lastalon, sky hammer

Stormhawk Intercepts, lastalon, sky hammer

 

Outrider Detachment

HQ

Captain on Bike, THSS, shield eternal

 

Elites

Company vets on bikes x 2, storm bolters

 

Fast Attack

Scout Bikers x 3, stormbolter on the sarge

Scout Bikers x 3, stormbolter on the sarge

Scout Bikers x 3, stormbolter on the sarge

 

Transports

Land Speeder Storm, assault cannon

Land Speeder Storm, assault cannon

 

Ok so I dumped a couple of the LSS's and Shrike and a squad of devs.  I also made 2 of your scouts into snipers.  

 

You lost a bit of anti armour with the devs but gained a ton of dakka with the scout bikers... those things pump out 22 str 4 shots at 12" for under 80 points.  The biker captain is a smash :cusser if you give him the appropriate warlord trait and the biker vets are also shooty and can tank wounds on the captain.  You lose a bit of land speederyness but gain dakka, mobility, snipers, 1 extra command point, 1 extra captain that smashes stuff.

 

Awesome, thanks for the feedback and alternate list. I agree scout bikers seem really solid this edition for clearing chaff and mobility. I'm honestly just so-so on the models... I also tend to use shrike as a reroll machine so far, that chapter master buff is really good ( I've largely used it buffing twin scroll razorbacks so far ). But he is pricey and tends to die too easily.

 

From what I can tell:

 

- this list has some melee punch and the bike captain can give his bubble to the mobile force

- moar mid strength falls. However at the expense of four missile launchers which hurts flexibility.

- higher toughness thanks to bikes

- a bit less redundancy and less mobile index

 

A bike captain is probably a good investment along with some scout bikers, but they're not much on my queue at least :p

[Shadow Captain Vyper]

Hey there smbarne!

 

In regards to your list, ill toss up in 3 catagories:

 

Things I like:

 

Cheap Scouts, Shrike, Ven Dreads outfitted for ranged, Cheap/Effecient Lieutenants

 

Indifference:

 

Mismatched weapons in Devs, Stormhawks (vs Stormtalons)

 

Dislike:

 

Land Speeder Storms

 

Things I would change:

 

I would drop all the Storms - I say this as someone who just built and painted 2 right at the tail end of 7th. In my opinion they are far too fragile and create an exploitable weakness in the list. T5 with a 4+ Save dies VERY quickly to a variety of small arms and light AT weaponry (Heavy Bolters, Autocannons, Plasma, etc). The biggest thing I like about your list is the entire thing leverages the -1 to Hit, EXCEPT the Land Speeder Storms. In addition to that, most games you will be driving them up/out into the enemy (and their rapid fire/charge range), which means they inevitably will get hammered with those types of weapons best suited to eliminate it, and at a preferred target status. Land Speeders this edition just don't make a lot of sense (They're fast, but you don't want to move them due to the -1 BS, they're fragile but still rather expensive irrespective of that).

 

That all being said the model is pretty cool and fluffy, and there isn't a unit in the codex that is at such a lower level that by taking it you greatly diminish your chances of winning.

 

I also don't think 1-of combi-plasma's on scout sergeants are a great investment when you consider the amount of saturation you can bring to that firepower class. What I mean by that is, if you don't have enough of something, whatever you are paying for it feels prohibitively expensive. The inverse is true as well - if something is good, and you have a hefty chunk of it, sometimes it doesn't feel like it matters what it costs (See: Grav-Cannons in 7th Ed). Given the movement/screening/harassing role of the scouts, I think you will find trouble in trying to use those combi-plasmas in a way that allows you to concentrate fire and eliminate targets.

 

With the 450 points freed up, I would consider multiple things. I agree with duz that a couple more units of scouts to screen/score would be good. I think a small unit of Vanguard Vets with Lightning Claws to do their thing alongside Shrike would be fluffy. If you were to do that, I would add another cheap captain to babysit the firebase. The scout bike units seem very points efficient that SG mentioned as well. Also a kitted Stormraven hauling 2 5-man Tactical Squads to drop off and cap objectives is in the neighborhood of ~450 points as well.

 

I would run your JP Lieutenant as either Teeth of Terra/Storm Bolter, or Chainsword/Primarch's Wrath.

 

All in all, I like the list. If you do choose to go with Land Speeder Storms, I look forward to seeing how you paint them. Mine currently feel uninspired. 

[Claws and Effect]

I see Shrike as being useful to eliminate overwatch for an additional charging unit.

 

You want to charge that Stormsurge with a 10 man squad of Hammerguard? Send Shrike in first so it doesn't get to fire its 74 weapons in overwatch.

[Buggane]

 - Stormhawks have been very effective for me so far.  So many things have fly and they do good work.  I debate using the Heavy Bolter instead of the Skyhammer as the Skyhammer has been awful for me.  The -1 AP is very poor at what you're typically shooting at.

I've hopefully got a stormhawk/stormtalon coming next week and was wondering how to build it. How does the Stormhawk fair shooting up ground targets and how does it compare to the stormtalon more generally? I can't quite work out as my rule book is also coming next week (yay birthdays) how an interceptor that has to move all the time gets away with shooting its heavy weaponry. Are you not constantly -1 to hit. At least the stormtalon can hover

[Shadow Captain Vyper]

You are constantly -1 to hit, but I guess the hope is that the Interceptor rule (which gives you +1 when shooting at units with Fly) helps offset that. Plus the Skyhammer and Icarus Stormcannon have an additional +1.

 

To me the Stormhawk is strictly an Air to Air choice, but it is more durable than the Stormtalon, so there is that. I am curious if OP has played both variants.

[Buggane]

Just watching a battle report online and the Stormtalon of course has the strafing run ability, which gives it +1 to hit ground units, and its anti air is the same as the storm hawk, which has a +1. i would, as you say, still be interested to know how they do. Stormtalon seems fairly handy, especially as you can fit it out to strafe both infantry and armour if you go with the lascannons.

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

Some analysis on stormtalon vs stormhawk.

 

http://www.3plusplus.net/2017/08/stormhawk-interceptor-vs-stormtalon-gunship/

 

Mathhammer seems to indicate that the stormhawk is marginally better in a neutral meta and obviously better in a meta with lots of stuff with keyword FLY.

 

I'd wager than after the eldar codex drops, the stormhawk is going to be superior in most places.