Storm Ravens

Does anybody play against these machines of death? I hear a lot about how no one takes flyers (except us) and yet, I see Storm Ravens pretty regularly in my local meta. I really struggle to do anything with it.

One or many?

Once it has unloaded its missiles you can just ignore it and outmanouver it. If it hovers (to objective) it can be assaulted to death.

If many just kill all groundforces and survive all shooting they deal out and on objectives.

Vasara wrote:

Once it has unloaded its missiles you can just ignore it and outmanouver it.

I'd disagree that you can ignore it. It can still fairly easily take out 2 vehicles per turn after the missiles have gone.

I do see the storm talon way more often. Same weapons except the missiles, not a transport but half the points and strafing run.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Vasara wrote:

Once it has unloaded its missiles you can just ignore it and outmanouver it.

I'd disagree that you can ignore it. It can still fairly easily take out 2 vehicles per turn after the missiles have gone.

Since it doesn't have ignores cover I'dd say one/turn. Thats three vehicles between turns 3-5 and DE usually has plenty.

It can shoot at 2 different targets and you're pretty much going to have to jink so even if it doesn't actually destroy them it's taken them out of the game for a turn.

Well... If you jinked anyway, you might as well shoot that pesky flyer making you jink then

Or grab a Maelstrom objective (and shoot in the sky).

Sigmaril wrote:

Well... If you jinked anyway, you might as well shoot that pesky flyer making you jink then

Unless you're a Venom

Count Adhemar wrote:

Sigmaril wrote:

Well... If you jinked anyway, you might as well shoot that pesky flyer making you jink then

Unless you're a Venom

Do it anyway. Out of spite!!!

Hellstrom wrote:

Does anybody play against these machines of death?  I hear a lot about how no one takes flyers (except us) and yet, I see Storm Ravens pretty regularly in my local meta.  I really struggle to do anything with it.

The funny thing is you'll see marine players whinging about how its trash and unplayable lol. "they die too easy".

Honestly I'm in the ignore flyers camp because we don't have a great answer especially the av12 variety like ravens raptors etc. I suppose you could bring your own but he out shoots you with potms and more better weaponry so if you don't get a good result first your done.

Like Vasara said after its delivered its payload the threat level goes down. You can try to trap it/them into switching to hover and assault with something like reavers. Boosting to go underneath it is another option as is hiding in combat. These are all mitigating tactics though not answers. I do the same vs cron air.

Lastly I'm not opposed to throwing snapshots at flyers from things like say DL ravagers that have jinked anyway.

So the other night I borrowed a storm raven, partly to see what folks are complaining about, and used my two existing stormtoasters storm talons to run the storm wing formation (which is overkill but I wanted to try it).  My opponent used some of our combined dark eldar/harlequins models to build a pretty decent list...

In the end it was a route of course, because even at a base 420 points, the storm wing (or probably just the storm raven) presents the dark eldar with what is nearly an insurmountable obstacle, while still leaving plenty of points for 5-6 squads of deep striking scouts in land speeders that simply beat us at our own game.

Maybe the worst part - as a separate formation the storm wing leaves fast attack slots open, most of which are cheap, and screw the dark kin pretty bad.  I insta-death'd his archon with outflanking scout bikes with grenade launchers.  He'd never seen them used before.

You can try to ignore the storm wing, but you're waving goodbye to anything it can reach, as you have to roll snake eyes not to hit ground units (and the stormraven can split-fire).  He tried to do this mid game - slipping by the formation for an objective with a full starweaver that was low on my target list.  Next round I switch to hover mode, turned around and dropped a dreadnought next to multi-meltas it, killing all the passengers with the explosion and heavy flamer hit (Salamanders' reroll + No Escape).  You can no more ignore a flyer which carries ground troops and a dread, then you can ignore ground troops and a dread... that can zoom and jink.

He thought he had a chance then and poured fire into the hovering fliers (my warlord was on board).  Storm talons however get +1 to jink while hovering - and while he actually used this to focus fire on the raven, all 3 vehicles are immune to the melta rule.

He's a better player than this all would let on, but I did a pretty good job prioritizing his threats and in the end, I think I only lost 1 hull point on a talon to a dissie raider (which can't even hurt the stormraven).  A couple speeders and a scout squads also bit the dust, but basically controlled the table the entire game.

IF he had taken craftworld battle brothers it may have been a different story - but the dark eldar under this codex?  Absolutely no counter.

Yeah, that would be tough. Without Allies from the crimson hunter formation, which is pretty awesome, there is no counter that I can think of

Met one in each of my last three games:

Game 3: (Harlequins Vs Minotaurs): Downed one with a VoidWeaver. The opponent made the mistake of trying to use it against my 2 voidweavers (it only took down 1). I won 16-1 + tabled the opponent on 6 rounds.

Game 2: (DE+ Path of Heroes vs Blood Angels): Shot it down when my opponent made the mistake to disembark a unit from it. Won 20-5

Game 1: (DE+ Path of Heroes vs Blood Angels): Wiped everything on table before the Storm raven arrived. Won 25-0 + tabled the opponent on 3 rounds.

Tips:
* Kill everything else.
* Use Decoys and go for Tactical objectives
* Spam Fliers

I used to do number 3, but now I mostly use number 1 and 2.

I've run into them now and again, but they haven't done enough damage to my forces to really mess me up. Usually I ignore them, or try to send some spare lance fire their way.

It's really not that bad. Ravens can be good but nowhere near OP. Most of our stuff jinks and/or is expendable plus we move fast enough to give them one turn to fire. They switch to hover shoot/assault them. You get a stunned result move to where it will be and crash it. Terrain plays a factor too. Play textbook terrain and flyers can have a hard time with placement. I feel its the shock factor more than the effectiveness. 200 pts that usually shoots 1 tl shot + 4 tl shots can feel pretty over priced against us (I'm speaking from the marine side of the board on this one).

As I recall, weren't you one of the players saying you didn't see the value in razorwing jetfighters?  Enemy flyers are exactly why I like to have 2 or 3 rjf's in a list and I far prefer them to ravagers.  I usually aim to go 2nd especially when the enemy has flyers so I can bring mine in after.  Even when I don't kill them, I get a good jink out of them and am then usually ok with their damage output afterwards.  In the games where my enemy doesn't have flyers, they switch to ground control roles.  They're extraordinarily versatile and probably what you need more of in your list.

I have found that RWJs don't have enough bang for their buck to be efficient anti-flyer support.

Which is why 1 will not do the job. I always recommend redundancy in a list. Having 4 or 6 skyfire lances in a list has been enough for me to consistently cripple enemy storm ravens. It actually led to them not fielding them any more because suddenly they were the ones at the end of the game saying "My flyers aren't doing enough to justify their cost". My meta started to get flyer heavy, but when I took control of that they shifted back to ground forces and now I don't even need them much anymore.

Without the Hover ability, I just don't think RWJs have the versatility to justify their points cost, especially if you're taking multiples.

Especially since they compete for the Fast Attacks lot with Reavers and Scourges.

lessthanjeff wrote:

Which is why 1 will not do the job.  I always recommend redundancy in a list.  Having 4 or 6 skyfire lances in a list has been enough for me to consistently cripple enemy storm ravens.  It actually led to them not fielding them any more because suddenly they were the ones at the end of the game saying "My flyers aren't doing enough to justify their cost".  My meta started to get flyer heavy, but when I took control of that they shifted back to ground forces and now I don't even need them much anymore.

What you're effectively saying here though is that 400+ points of "Fighters" is enough to discourage SM players from fielding a 200 point flyer IF you go 2nd and IF your reserve rolls work out okay. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, especially as those 6 dark lances on average are going to inflict a single hull point on a jinking Stormraven.

I can just about see an argument for RWJ's as anti-horde but AA? Not really!

Jimsolo wrote:

Without the Hover ability, I just don't think RWJs have the versatility to justify their points cost, especially if you're taking multiples.

Especially since they compete for the Fast Attacks lot with Reavers and Scourges.

RWJ do not need "hover" they need "Vector dancer" like the crimson hunter then they would be worth their point cost.

although we do get supersonic.....which is very overpowered ability.

Hover would make them even more maneuverable, but yes, either would be good. As it stands they're kind of janky.

+1 with the count

RWJs are suicide bombers.  Unleash all your missiles right away and ignore everything but the target.  If your opponent has any real anti-air, the razorwing is a dead bird zooming anyway so you want to keep it cheap.  To even harm a stormraven though, you're going to need the 10 point lance upgrade, and to have any real chance of surviving without jinking and ruining your damage output - you're probably going to need the 15 point nightfield.

This leaves you just 45 points shy of a naked stormraven - which is not only significantly tougher and better armed, but is an assault transport that carries 2 units, has special disembarkation rules and split fire.   Between av12, jinking, and the cheap techmarine I try to keep on mine though - 465 points to put 6 lances in the air look pretty wasteful to me.

As a dogfighter the RWJ is more comparable to the 110 point stormtalon, which generally shreds it with hover, +1 jink while hovering, and a standard armament of high volume, twin-linked weapons (to use after jinking).  It can otherwise be outfitted to significantly out range the RWJ with a 60" 3 shot strength 7 missile pod for only 5 points if you play long tables.

To be honest the razorwing needs a point reduction and/or a buff or two, but also more importantly a name change.  I mean it's a "fighter", who's main weapon (the missiles), can't hit other planes?  What is it that fighter planes do in the 40k universe then?

Kinda funny but I shot down a RWJ with my stormraven's missile's last game.  Sorry my stormraven JETFIGHTER!

I just got done ignoring a stormraven, couldn't do anything significant that a similar pointed unit wouldn't have done. Meanwhile I blew infantry to shreds with my razorwing and stealth has kept it alive every time so far. Can't say I'm all that disappointed with mine.