Storm Ravens

Count Adhemar wrote:

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!

I think you missed the part where my goal isn't to destroy it but to render it useless. The way my games played out, I shoot the first one at him and he jinks. My other 1 or 2 end up hitting ground targets normally. Whether you go first or second, you are statistically likely to have a jetfighter come in after his and I always bring an Autarch or comms relay to improve my control when I have flyers. Like you guys said, when your flyer jinks you tend to fly off next turn. As do my opponents with theirs. I may spend 400 points to counter their 230, but I'm not dedicating all 400 of it against the storm raven. I bring them for their versatility so I don't have to commit them just to AA.

Not having the Jetfighters means your opponents probably rarely jink and rarely fly off the table giving them 5ish effective turns out of them. My games have ended with them just getting 2 effective turns out of their flyers and I'm still getting to use most of my jetfighters to hit ground targets.

lessthanjeff wrote:

I think you missed the part where my goal isn't to destroy it but to render it useless.  The way my games played out, I shoot the first one at him and he jinks.

I guess your opponents are far more cautious than me then because I would not bother jinking against a Razorwing with a Stormraven unless it was already down to 1HP. It's unlikely to do anything too serious to me and I still have my full firepower available next turn to swat it like a fly.

If there are 3 in the air that can shoot at your stormraven you wouldn't jink? The problem for my opponents is that I bring multiple, so if they're going to jink they have to jink the first. Then I can shoot the rest at other targets because my mission is accomplished on the flyer.

You can choose to jink at the 'Choose a target' stage of any shooting attack, not just the first time they are shot at each turn. So if you fire one RWJ at me and I elect not to jink I can still choose to do so if you fire another one afterwards.

Right, but my point is the first one shoots at you then, if you're saying you choose not to jink that gives me a 45% chance of getting a penetrating hit. Half of the pen table yields a kill for me under ITC format because I can put a unit 18" in front of the flyer and he auto crashes and burns. Three of the results also result in him snapshooting anyway so I don't need to shoot anything else at him. If the 45% chance fails, the next one can shoot at him. Your choice again, do you jink or not? If you jink, mission accomplished, last one shoots ground targets. If you don't jink, 45% chance to get a pen again and 5/6 results on the table meet my goal anyway. Repeat for the third if needed, but you have a 70% chance of accomplishing your goal even with just 2 of them doing this. Add the third jetfighter and it's an 83% chance.

All of which goes back to the point I made earlier of spending 400+ points (and 3 FA slots) to potentially negate a single 200 point model and still assumes you get to go 2nd and that your reserve rolls are decent. It's just not a scenario that I would bother with, and, if I did, I would spend those 400 points on a Crimson Death formation from Codex Eldar that would actually do the job far better.

They aren't "potentially negating" the model though. As I said, 9 times out of 10 my opponent jinks the first one, so I spent 140 points to negate his 200 or 230 point model, and 280 points to blow the heck out of some ground troops.

I agree about the crimson hunter death formation for taking out flyers, but I got the impression you guys wanted to stay pure Deldar. Otherwise I recommend a balanced 2 RJF and 1 Crimson. When you bring 3 flyers you should bring something to manage your reserve rolls, but even without you have greater odds of having flyers come in after his because of numbers. The Crimson is hands down better at that dedicated role, but when your opponent doesn't have the storm raven I think you'll miss the ground missiles and versatility of the RJF.

All I'm saying is you guys are telling me you have problems with a unit that has never given me a second thought. In fact, my opponents have lamented their purchase because it never does more than kill a couple venoms. I'm sharing what I do, but if you just have something against the RJF I can't help ya then. We only have 2 skyfire options in the codex so I can't think of much else to offer.

lessthanjeff wrote:

They aren't "potentially negating" the model though.  As I said, 9 times out of 10 my opponent jinks the first one, so I spent 140 points to negate his 200 or 230 point model, and 280 points to blow the heck out of some ground troops.

Fair enough. I'm just saying that as a (pretty much former these days) Blood Angels player who owns and used 2 Stormravens fairly regularly I would not be deterred by the sight of 3 Razorwings and I wouldn't be jinking against the first one that fired on me. If I was going 2nd I'd be rubbing my hands with glee!

Yes, to be fair I've never fought 2 storm ravens. If you don't play ITC I don't know how people handle the immobilized and crew shaken forced movement mode for flyers either so I'm sure that would affect things, but for me it works great because a single jetfighter has about a 37% chance of killing or forcing snapshots from the stormraven when they don't jink. That's probably why my opponents started jinking more frequently.

What Count Adhemar does is fairly common and its high(er) risk high reward. I do it too with marine flyers. I've seen it pay off but I've seen ravens/stormwolfs etc wrecked that way too.

Stormravens and actually most flyers barring raptors are pretty lackluster against us honestly, even cron air. Its mostly a mindset and a perspective thing. Let them get into your head and they seem to be too good but usually they aren't anything more than a solid unit for their cost. I usually end up make my opponents feel bad about bringing theirs and I point it out too.

Every SM flyer I've seen has just ignored any Lance fire I huck at it. The only time I destroy them is when they go into hover mode.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Fair enough. I'm just saying that as a (pretty much former these days) Blood Angels player who owns and used 2 Stormravens fairly regularly I would not be deterred by the sight of 3 Razorwings and I wouldn't be jinking against the first one that fired on me. If I was going 2nd I'd be rubbing my hands with glee!

I know a blood angels player who was thrilled when the storm wing formation came out because it meant he could field a Fourth stormraven...  Just throw cheap scouts in them, who synergize because they don't risk taking a wound when they jump out at high speed, and most of your army is now airborne.  That said - Another issue with the stormraven vs razorwing match up is that as a transport, each stormraven on the table is probably keeping at least an infantry unit safe from your RWJ's only effective attack - it's missiles.

I don't know, they haven't been a real problem for me. I can field 3 RWJs which are equally as devastating. If anything, it's about even.

On the turn the RWJs come in - I fire all 12 Large Blasts at ground targets. That often exceeds the damage the Storm Wing does to my own forces. Then after, I Jink (which, with NS, is +1 better than the SMs), Supersonic out into Ongoing Reserves and then come back in to try to Lance the Storm Wing / armor or heavy infantry the turn after that.

If the Storm Wing Hovers in my backyard, then my Talos or Reavers will kill them (they can't Jink close combat).

At worst, the Storm Wing ends up doing exactly what my RWJs do - fly in, shoot, Jink while Zooming, fly out, repeat. But the RWJs still end up doing more damage overall.