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I'm wanting to start a new army around Captain Shrike.  I just wanted to get a feel for what others thought about this list before I invest in it.  This list is low on man power but it gets in fast and hits hard.  Any comments would be appreciated.  Thanks in advance for any advice/critisisms.  I don't have my codex handy so I'm guessing at the points but this comes out to right about 1850 pts.

HQ:  Captain Shrike and 9 Shrike's Wing.  All have lightning claws, infiltrate, scout, and stealth.  If I remember correctly this comes out to like 640 pts.

Elite:  10 Assault Marines with 2 plasma pistols, furious charge, vet. sgt. with lightning claws  I think 300 pts.

Troops: 5 scouts 4 with bolters, 1 heavy bolter  70 pts.

               5 scouts same as above  70 pts.

Fast Attack: 10 Assault marines with 2 plasma pistols, melta bombs, vet. sgt. with lightning claws 290 pts.

3 land speeders tornadoes, 2 with assault cannon/ heavy bolter, 1 with multi melta;heavy flamer

3 land speeder tornadoes, same as above 

Thanks again in advance for any comments.

What can a guy say about an infiltrating,scouting, assault squad with lightning claws??? He to busy bleeding to talk.
I have shrike sitting on my" to do projects bench". Waiting for the day i own enough speeders and assault squads to really make it a nasty army.

Can be fun to play against, but definitely an army that really needs first turn. There's so many points in one unit, that it will get your opponent's entire army gunning for it.

You've got 40 models and 6 AV10 skimmers in this list at 1850.

Definitely a finesse army. I'd recommend playing on dense boards, lest you get trampled by a firepower-based or numerically superior force (i.e., Imperial Guard, SAFH Marines, Iron Warriors, etc.). This list will do well against other close combat armies - heck, I bet you'd beat my Black Templars at 1850.

As the others have said, be careful with Shrike's Wing. A full third of your army list is riding on the resilience of 10 Marines - keep them out of sight until the last possible moment.

CK

I say take an inquisitor with tarot to give your self a better chance at first turn. IIRC, you get to know if you will get the +1 for the dice for first turn before you make your scout move.

"This just in-, the remains of 10 heavily armored men with funny, glowing wolverine claws were found scattered across the fields of Istvaan IV. From the embellishments on their shredded shoulderpads, it seems they were a command squad from the Raven Guard Space Marines chapter, although the genestealer talon-marks make identification difficult. More at 11."

Also harlies, daemonettes, and other real h2h nasties. They're dangerous too. Seems like a kiddie's gimmick more than an army, really.

I play RG and I have gotta say that this unit is definitely difficult to use effectively without first turn. The following are the good and the bad about Shrikes wing.

Maxing out the unit to 9 marines plus shrike is very points heavy, but only taking 4 or 5 marines in the wing is a gamble if you can get them into h2h. You wanna stick to about 7 marines in shrikes wing. Taking a few casualties won't hurt as bad, and you still have a heck of a lot of attacks.

You will almost always have 1st turn h2h with Shrike, but depending on whether or not they survive till then is a different story. Make sure you have TONS of cover. Try getting alot of area terrain to break up LOS. Please try not landing in the terrain if you can, no need to take casualties just from movement. Also if you can, keep the terrain in the center of the table if at all possible.

You have NO invulnerable saves so be weary what you put Shrike up against. Facing off against harlequins will be a difficult go. You have to make sure you know your enemy. If you have a lower initiative you can get sorely ruined.

Other units you might want to consider:

You might want to think about another scout squad but possibly snipers. This can take down those nasty wraithlords that are hard to kill, and throwing a missile launcher into the mix is always a plus.

What about Termies? I know they can be expensive, but if you put 5 termies in reserve with a Librarian and give them Fury of the Ancients and/or Fear of the Dark, and you have got a kick ass surprise for your enemy that only cost you about 380 points. Don't forget to put 2 assault cannons in there.

Also, split that 10 man assault squad into 2, 6 or 7 man units as verteran assault squads if you can spare the points. Target prio is a pain sometimes and can work to your advantage. Also don't discount teleport homers. They are a good option on your sergeants if you decide to take those terminators.

This is alot but it helps win games. 1850 points is a weird number, try to see if you can play more games at 2k. If that doesn't help cut down on the Land Speeders, they are a big points sink.

Hmmm. Yeah, seems like a big 'ol gimmick rather than an effective army to me. I'd see if there's a way to take advantage of the traits RG has -- "Blessed Be" and "No Mercy".

I'd say a drop-pod build with around 2-4 small, mean tac squads with a meltagun, a vet sarge and furious assault could do a nice trick. The only units on the board at gamestart would be 2-3 small Scout squads, hopefully well hidden, and possibly Shrike.

Then you could have the option of bringing the support down straight on top of Shrike if he infiltrates, or DSing him in with the drop pod marines. Support him with 1-2 Elites-choice Assault Squads, which should let you keep the numbers of those expensive Shrike's Wingmen down low.

The tornados are good, but take 3 squads of 2 or even 3 squads of one -- they are not survivors, they are snipers.

Oh, and the idea of an Emperor's Tarot someone threw out there isn't half bad...buy the INQ as an independent character and have him hang out with, say, a Scout Squad.

-Adso

Thanks for the advice.  I like the idea of bringing in the inquisitor.  I know this is a very gimmicky army but I'm not really a competitive tournament player.  I'm more of a casual player who likes to build oddball armies.  I absolutely love the Shrike model, and have to do something with it.  Anyway thanks again.

I was about to suggest Scout Bikers until I realized how much they would compete with the Tornadoes. If you're playing for fun and have some workable proxies lying around, I suggest trying out 3x5 scout bikers with Shrike sometime. Turn one assault with three power fists and a cup full of lightning claw attacks, turn two (hopefully) the assault marines and terminators would get there.

im also thinkin of startin an army wth shrike and his wing in an army i thought to make te cozt of my HQ a ridiculus amount of points i made this list:

Shrike-jump pack,frag nades, melta boms, purity seals, ravens talons, terminator honours=175

Shrike's Wing-9-lightning claws, krak+frag nades, jump pack=459

Chaplain-jump pack, frag+krak nades, melta bombs, storm bolter=130

total=764

i ws planning to use this list in cityfight
please tell mi wat you think i should use to support it