Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

In new codex I would still take 2. Iron hands give them IWND which wont save them against heavily focused fire but a good chance to run away and play hide a seek.

125 in the new codex for ASC/Skyhammer.... not a bad buy if you get them in pairs.

However dont forget about their escorting rule. if i read it properly they come in on the same role of another reserve unit long as they didnt outflank, deepstrike, or are another stormtalon.

That might give them a way to arrive, they can escort a Stormraven so you could always have it hide behind the stormraven which is much more durable. Stormraven is a much bigger threat, Stormtalon is just icing on the cake.

 AtoMaki wrote:
Okay, maybe it is just me, but isn't the Stormtalon a little bit.. fragile? And by "little bit" I mean "really-really". AV11 and HP2 won't last long, a singe Quad Gun can eat it with one salvo. 125 points for a TL Assault Cannon and a 3-shot Autocannon wrapped in wet toilet paper doesn't sound that good for me.

A quad gun can't do anything to it if the stormtalon is 49" away at the end of its move.

Stormtalons can hover, and the 48" range of the quad leaves a lot of dead space in the corners. A stormtalon can enter in hover mode and hug a corner, light up targets with strafing skyhammer missiles at 60" and avoid most incoming fire using range (and get the jink save vs. things that do shoot at it without sacrificing BS).

 Flavius Infernus wrote:

A quad gun can't do anything to it if the stormtalon is 49" away at the end of its move.

Stormtalons can hover, and the 48" range of the quad leaves a lot of dead space in the corners. A stormtalon can enter in hover mode and hug a corner, light up targets with strafing skyhammer missiles at 60" and avoid most incoming fire using range (and get the jink save vs. things that do shoot at it without sacrificing BS).

Awesome! 3 S7 AP4 shots with BS5! On an AV11 Land Speeder! For 125 points! Wow, it sounds like an excellent bargain! [/Sarcasm]

But seriously. You take the Stormtalon when you can feel the Dice Gods smiling at you and when you are list-tailoring against Dark Eldar. Otherwise you can take anything else for that 125 points that doesn't combine mediocre firepower with subpar durability.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Flavius Infernus wrote:

A quad gun can't do anything to it if the stormtalon is 49" away at the end of its move.

Stormtalons can hover, and the 48" range of the quad leaves a lot of dead space in the corners. A stormtalon can enter in hover mode and hug a corner, light up targets with strafing skyhammer missiles at 60" and avoid most incoming fire using range (and get the jink save vs. things that do shoot at it without sacrificing BS).

Awesome! 3 S7 AP4 shots with BS5! On an AV11 Land Speeder! For 125 points! Wow, it sounds like an excellent bargain! [/Sarcasm]

But seriously. You take the Stormtalon when you can feel the Dice Gods smiling at you and when you are list-tailoring against Dark Eldar. Otherwise you can take anything else for that 125 points that doesn't combine mediocre firepower with subpar durability.

Mediocre firepower? Really? 4 TL S6 Rending and 3 S7 (though I take Typhoons myself) is mediocre now is it? What do you call good firepower then?

Also, what do you suggest to use against other flyers? As for the assertion that AV11 flyers don't cut it, I don't see anyone complaining about Night Scythes. Hull Points on flyers are rather moot, because you usually are either not touching it, or you are blowing it to smithereens in one go.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

Mediocre firepower? Really? 4 TL S6 AP4 Rending and 3 S7 AP4 (though I take Typhoons myself) is mediocre now is it?

In the world of Wave Serpents, Riptides and Baledrakes? Is this a rhetorical question?

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
Also, what do you suggest to use against other flyers?

The Stormraven for example? Or any of the new AA tanks? You can also spam cheap Typhoons, or just take Allies.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
As for the assertion that AV11 flyers don't cut it, I don't see anyone complaining about Night Scythes. Hull Points on flyers are rather moot, because you usually are either not touching it, or you are blowing it to smithereens in one go.

AV11 HP2 flyers that can't Jink without losing firepower don't cut it and not AV11 flyers in general. The Night Scythe has two out of the three while the Stormtalons biggest advantage is... that it is immune to the Melta special rule (the irony)! Also, AFAIk people loves the Night Scythe because the Tesla destructors and the Invader Beam and not because it is so durable...

they also love them because theyre dirt cheap and can be massed even in single foc games.

The fact that theyre AV11 is the only reason it isnt stupid broken. Even AV11 kinda makes them a little durable for how easy they appear/what they do, imo

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

Mediocre firepower? Really? 4 TL S6 AP4 Rending and 3 S7 AP4 (though I take Typhoons myself) is mediocre now is it?

In the world of Wave Serpents, Riptides and Baledrakes? Is this a rhetorical question?

Riptides and Baledrakes both put out a single shot. Against a half-decent player that knows even a little thing about displacement, that's 4 guys they can hit on average. Wave Serpents are a given, but you are dreaming if you think every one of your units should have such firepower. This isn't the case of the Talon having mediocre firepower and the Serpent having very good firepower, this is a case of the talon having very firepower and the Serpent having insanely broken firepower.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
Also, what do you suggest to use against other flyers?

The Stormraven for example? Or any of the new AA tanks? You can also spam cheap Typhoons, or just take Allies.

Stormraven is 200pts at least and takes up the highly contested Heavy slot. A lot of competitive Marine players agree they aren't worth it for C:SM, a fact that is plain to see with a quick glance around the various forums. The new AA tanks aren't actually good at AA. The Skyfire rule to many gamers seems to be like a shiny coin to magpies. Crunch the numbers on the AA capabilities of the Hunter and Stalker against the big threats such as Drakes and you'll see what I mean. Once again, they also compete for the Heavy slot. As for Typhoons, well they aren't very good at AA, infact it takes two of them to get a hit even on average, and that's for 150pts on a platform that is roughly on par in resiliency to the Talon, whose resiliency you have voiced as unsatisfactory. At least be consistent please.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
As for the assertion that AV11 flyers don't cut it, I don't see anyone complaining about Night Scythes. Hull Points on flyers are rather moot, because you usually are either not touching it, or you are blowing it to smithereens in one go.

AV11 HP2 flyers that can't Jink without losing firepower don't cut it and not AV11 flyers in general. The Night Scythe has two out of the three while the Stormtalons biggest advantage is... that it is immune to the Melta special rule (the irony)! Also, AFAIk people loves the Night Scythe because the Tesla destructors and the Invader Beam and not because it is so durable...

Well firstly let's get something straight; I never asked you why people love Scythes. I never said anything about popularity of abilities either. I said that AV11 is not a downfall for them, so why is it all of a sudden not good enough? Again, HP matters little to flyers for reasons I have already given. And FYI, no flyer can jink without losing firepower.

You are well within yours right to dislike the Talon, and I don't think they are auto-takes by any stretch of the imagination, however I just find your reasoning to be flawed and inconsistent IMO. Perhaps I got too caught up in arguing that which I shouldn't have, so I apologize for that, because really your reasoning only needs to matter to you in the end.

I have been a detractor from the Stormraven, but with the price drops to other marine units, it is looking more attractive now. I think a Raven escorted by a Talon is a potentially good combination.

Martel732 wrote:
I have been a detractor from the Stormraven, but with the price drops to other marine units, it is looking more attractive now. I think a Raven escorted by a Talon is a potentially good combination.

Yeah I've heard the idea of using the Raven to hide the Talon behind, but I haven't put the models side by side to see if it actually works.

It's more about them showing up at the same time.

The hard to hit rule does wonders for the storm talon. I am also perfectly willing to have them repeatedly turbo off the board until my opponents flyers come in. They exceed at destroying light armor and putting wounds on MC's (This is why I prefer the typhoon missiles). They are very good at harassing troops and I can slip them into hover mode late game to continue to harass enemy scoring units. Most units won't bother trying to shoot a Stormtalon over my troops on turn 5+. Those that do, aren't putting needed pressure on my scoring to win.

Given all the firepower and rules the talon has, it would be borderline broken if it had the third hull point or was any cheaper.

I love them.

Lascannon/assault cannon all the way. Kills all targets, and the twin linking ensures I get my hits.

 Thaylen wrote:
The hard to hit rule does wonders for the storm talon. I am also perfectly willing to have the repeatedly turbo off the board until my opponents flyers come in. They exceed at destroying light armor and putting wounds on MC's (This is why I prefer the typhoon missiles). They are very good at harassing troops and I can slip them into hover mode late game to continue to harass enemy scoring units. Most units won't bother trying to shoot a Stormtalon over my troops on turn 5+. Those that do, aren't putting needed pressure on my scoring to win.

Given all the firepower and rules the talon has, it would be borderline broken if it had the third hull point or was any cheaper.

I second this. Looking at the storm talon it is clearly no centre piece winning model. Examples of such models are hell drakes or storm ravens and clearly as players we set our target priority to such examples.
A second benefit of the storm talon is to use in conjunction with other distractions. When it comes in with a stern guard squad deep striking and two other tactical squads deep striking and a dreadnought if your playing high point games this many will come in. That talon will add really nice pitch hits and likely be ignored over more threatening units like the stern guard.

The talon over all is a excellent, cheap, AA/light armour hunter in support. Will it die? Almost certainly.

Another good point to identify about the stormtalon is the fact that nearly all of the loadouts are rather competitive with each other (excepting maybe keeping the stock HB). The Skyhammers are cheap with high ROF, Lascannons provide an accurate high power skyfire weapon, and Typhoons are probably the most powerful of the loadouts, but you have to pay a pretty penny for that S8 AP3.

No loadout screams auto-take.

 Thaylen wrote:
The hard to hit rule does wonders for the storm talon. I am also perfectly willing to have them repeatedly turbo off the board until my opponents flyers come in..

Q: Can a Flyer or Flying Monstrous Creature Leave Combat
Airspace on the same turn that it entered play from
Reserves/Ongoing Reserves? (p49/81)
A: No – the owning player must deploy and move their Flyer
or Flying Monstrous Creature in such a way that this does
not happen.

Im assuming Turboboosting bypasses this FAQ? they did that awhile ago because people were doing just what you said to avoid interceptor fire for another turn, even doing it for multiple turns if they had to. Would at least allow interceptor a chance to pelt things out of the skies before going byebye, so i'd allow it.

Also for the record, hard to hit is not as good as people think it is. My Dakkajets also have this rule, ive never had them survive a volley of fire from any unit with more than a couple shots (i.e. anything not a lascannon basically). AV11 is only slightly better than AV10, and most of the things with the rate of fire to shoot at air even at snaps is S7 anyway.
Thats the reason i rarely ever field dakkajets, they die too easy. Stormtalons without hiding behind a Stormraven feels like they'd have the same issue.

 Thaylen wrote:
Another good point to identify about the stormtalon is the fact that nearly all of the loadouts are rather competitive with each other (excepting maybe keeping the stock HB). The Skyhammers are cheap with high ROF, Lascannons provide an accurate high power skyfire weapon, and Typhoons are probably the most powerful of the loadouts, but you have to pay a pretty penny for that S8 AP3.

No loadout screams auto-take.

I actually favor keeping the stock HBs, since my go-to anti-vehicle solution is flying over it and shooting the rear armor with the assault cannon turret. That said, I can definitely see arguments for the other loadouts. Overall, the Stormtalon strikes me as a strong and interesting unit, but also a balanced one. Will it take over the game? No. But is it worth its price? I certainly think so.

I played two of them in several armies in the old codex (without hover and at the higher price). Honestly, they are pretty sure to go down when something with str7 or better focuses on them, even without skyfire.

Does that make them useless? Not if they can do something important *that other things in your army couldn't manage* before they get shot down--like kill a helldrake with assault cannons to the tail, or take out that pesky gun in the backfield that you otherwise wouldn't be able to reach.

If you got other stuff that can as-reliably kill a heldrake for a hundred points and change, you must have a different codex from the one I have.