Fire Raptor / Storm Eagle info

[CCE1981]

Can I get a good rundown of the Fire Raptor and Storm Eagle. How do they handle on the Tabletop? How about the kits, What is in them?

 

I do realise they are separate roles, just trying to get a good understanding.

[Race Bannon]

Oh!  Me first ... they are a pain to build!!

 

That's all I need to know

[Ishagu]

The Fire Raptor is a highly competitive and effective killing machine. It has a huge number of shots at varying quality, and is effective at dealing with large numbers of infantry as well as elite units and vehicles.

 

The Storm Eagle is an expensive but slightly more durable alternative to the Storm Raven. It's more focused in terms of weapons with engaging high toughness targets - the best loadout being a Twin Multi Melta and two Twin Las Cannons. It also has a rocket launcher designed to deal with weaker, less armoured units. It can't transport a Dread, unlike the Raven, but has capacity for more infantry models.

 

 

Both are quite tricky to build!

[CCE1981]

What is the base model in the kit? Forgeworld just says it’s a “plastic and resin kit.”

[Helycon]

What is the base model in the kit? Forgeworld just says it’s a “plastic and resin kit.”

The base is the Stormraven. And as others stated, it's not the easiest model to build (read, it sucks). A lot of the parts are fairly thin and therefore warp when they come out of the mold. Due to the fact a lot of the items interconnecting, they tend to be hard to bend into the proper shape.

 

Also, a Stormraven can also take a multimelta and a lascannon, keeping it's missiles, so they're fairly similar.. A raven can take two Hurrican Bolters, which is pretty awesome. The biggest difference is transport capacity; the Raven transporting a dread in favour of 8 infantry slots. 

[m0nolith]

For both the base is the flying brick, aka, the Stormraven

 

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NgDV26GUgDI/T3iyjcIiA8I/AAAAAAAACYo/D49WwLYnx5Y/s1600/eagle2.JPG

[CCE1981]

So if I magnetise I can use it as a truescale StormRaven or a Storm Eagle?

[Ishagu]

It's equipped differently. You're better off just chosing what you want. I wouldn't buy and build a Storm Eagle to proxy as a Raven.

 

The Raven is pretty big already. What do you need from the unit? What is your army?

[Ipsen]

 

What is the base model in the kit? Forgeworld just says it’s a “plastic and resin kit.”

The base is the Stormraven. And as others stated, it's not the easiest model to build (read, it sucks). A lot of the parts are fairly thin and therefore warp when they come out of the mold. Due to the fact a lot of the items interconnecting, they tend to be hard to bend into the proper shape.

 

Also, a Stormraven can also take a multimelta and a lascannon, keeping it's missiles, so they're fairly similar.. A raven can take two Hurrican Bolters, which is pretty awesome. The biggest difference is transport capacity; the Raven transporting a dread in favour of 8 infantry slots.

 

A trick that I use is to rest the pieces on a hot plate on a low setting. You only need like 30-40C and some patience. If you are using super glue the increased temperature will cause the glue to set much quicker than normal however so some care is required.

[Helycon]

 

 

What is the base model in the kit? Forgeworld just says it’s a “plastic and resin kit.”

The base is the Stormraven. And as others stated, it's not the easiest model to build (read, it sucks). A lot of the parts are fairly thin and therefore warp when they come out of the mold. Due to the fact a lot of the items interconnecting, they tend to be hard to bend into the proper shape.

 

Also, a Stormraven can also take a multimelta and a lascannon, keeping it's missiles, so they're fairly similar.. A raven can take two Hurrican Bolters, which is pretty awesome. The biggest difference is transport capacity; the Raven transporting a dread in favour of 8 infantry slots.

 

A trick that I use is to rest the pieces on a hot plate on a low setting. You only need like 30-40C and some patience. If you are using super glue the increased temperature will cause the glue to set much quicker than normal however so some care is required.

 

Too late, already built :P . Useful for the TS though. To be fair, this was the worsdt kit out of all the FW stuff I've built. Spartan, Sicarans. dreads, titan, none of them were this warped.

[CCE1981]

It's equipped differently. You're better off just chosing what you want. I wouldn't buy and build a Storm Eagle to proxy as a Raven.

 

The Raven is pretty big already. What do you need from the unit? What is your army?

My own DIY Chapter, using all Marine Codicies for different Companies. Part of my head cannon has them becoming Relic Hunters. I am doing a full “True-scale” army. I stopped playing very early 6th edition and getting back into the game. Taking lessons learned from old editions I am Magnetizing, heavily. A little bit of extra headache saves time and expense later. Yeah the Storm Raven and Storm Eagle are armed differently but they are very similar. Magnetization should work based off the pictures I am looking at.

[Race Bannon]

The thing is the Fire Raptor has two seriously big guns under the front fuselage.  I mean, anything can be done with some work, love and magic ... magnets help, I suppose.

 

If I had to do it, on the condition that I try to make ONE bird customizable to all three variants, then I would buy the Storm Eagle.

 

Magnetize:

The hardpoints under the wing - for the TLLC or missile/rockets

The missile pod - this is wear some magic would come into play because I would want to build, or find a source, for the Gatling Cannons.

The side doors - here the SE has plain doors but would allow for the SR Hurricane Bolters.  More magic though for the FR ball-turrets.  OR, settle on using Predator sponson mounts but would still need to make FR TL weapon configurations.

 

I think that would cover it.

Edited January 18, 2018 by Race Bannon
IDEAS

[CCE1981]

The thing is the Fire Raptor has two seriously big guns under the front fuselage. I mean, anything can be done with some work, love and magic ... magnets help, I suppose.

The Fire Raptor can stay a Fire Raptor. Just magnetizing the weapon options. It’s the Storm Eagle / Storm Raven that I want to have interchangeable.

[Hopper21]

Oh maaan you are in for a treat. I run a fire raptor all the time. I normally fly up and park next to gman. It's a point and click delete machine and deals well against anything really. It's tough to kill with t7 16w it's just amazing!

[Race Bannon]

I edited my comment with ideas.

 

So ... if you want a FR separate, then the whole project gets MUCH easier.

 

Dooo eeet ... and take pics.

[Claws and Effect]

My Fire Raptor is the centerpiece of my army.

 

The stories of how much of a pain it is are not exaggerated. I have never sworn so much building a model in my life. Almost threw it across the room until I remembered how much I paid for it.

 

A Shadowsword will delete it in one shot, but in my experience it's pretty durable otherwise.

[Ishagu]

I've got a soft spot for powerful forgeworld units and even I haven't bought one!

I don't want to turn the hobby into a painful experience lol

[Biscuittzz]

Oh!  Me first ... they are a pain to build!!

 

 

Let the man get at least two posts in before crushing him 

[Acebaur]

I magnetized mine and can easily run as either an Eagle or a Raven. I love it. It was a difficult build though and did require some reshaping of the resin. Though I would never use a hotplate to do that, you are much better off with a hairdryer.

[Ipsen]

I magnetized mine and can easily run as either an Eagle or a Raven. I love it. It was a difficult build though and did require some reshaping of the resin. Though I would never use a hotplate to do that, you are much better off with a hairdryer.

 

Not really. The more heat or rather the larger the temperature difference the more it will warp when cooling. That being the whole reason it is warped in the first place. A hairdryer is very imprecise with an uneven heat across the piece more warping is much more likely. That being said a hotplate only works with small pieces and any larger pieces the best practice is submerging them in warm water. I made a tutorial on this years ago which i can't find. I may redo it the next time i have some warped pieces.

[Race Bannon]

OR ...

 

bump all this and use a crazy magnetized Corvus Blackstar  whaaaaaaat!!!

[Zeruvar]

You don't necessarily have to magnetize the Storm Eagle to make it a Storm Raven proxy. The Storm Eagle kit comes with enough left over Storm Raven plastic bits that you just need a few bits (there's an ebay retailer that sold everything missing for under 15$, cant remember which though) to end up with both a full Storm Eagle AND Storm Raven. If I remember it correctly you only use the wings, and top hull of the plastic Storm Raven kits. 

 

edit:

 

Also what worked for me while building mine (which may have been mentioned already). Soaked the resin in warm water, 30 mins worked for me. Then lots of greenstuff to fill the gaps, and rubberbands to hold everything. I left it to set for 3 days (mostly because I forgot) but it worked great.

 

Also I'm curious if anyone has tried those sous-vide precision cookers to warm up the water for FW resin? Haven't bought any new FW lately but I figure it seems like a decent option.

Edited January 26, 2018 by Zeruvar

[NovemberIX]

Ask Honda how he feels about them when I bring them out ;) they are extremely strong units, the raptor being the bigger threat. For the price you get fairly resilient unit killers, and even when they are matched up to something they shouldn’t be trying to kill, they’ll at least take a couple of wounds off.

 

Honda, being the awesome human he is, built my Storm Eagle from the mangled wreck FW shipped me, I somehow got luckyish with the raptor, in that despite some slightly burned hands, the model went together fairly quickly. I boiled water, put it into a large bowl, added the parts and let them sit for a few minutes till they were fairly soft, then I just hand molded it all together and stuck it under cold tap water to set it repeating the cycle as necessary. I did find doing it this way, rubber bands have too much tension and did more to warp pieces than keep them straight, hence the burned hands holding it all together. After things were dried, super glue and spot heat treatments helped any trouble areas. Speaking of the Angry Lost Baker player known as Honda, he did a conversion of the Corvus Blackstar to a fire raptor using Vulcan mega bolters sourced from the Baneblade kit. It is a bit smaller than the FW Fire Raptor, but it looks awesome (it should be in his BT thread)