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All I've been hearing recently is the fact that running a single Storm Raven in a Blood Angels DoA army is suicide, though in my playtesting, through use of cover and reserves, it's been very survivable and very effective. However, I can see how being the lone vehicle target (besides a dread) could be asking for it. The general consensus on how to deal with this is to overload on mech elsewhere, or to take multiple ravens. Such things are less viable in an all-jump pack army. Which got me thinking about other, more compatible vehicles. Obviously, this led me to looking at land speeders.

My question is this, How viable are land speeders in support of a storm raven, both in eliminating possible threats to it, and in taking extra fire off of it?

A version of the list I'm considering looks like this:
Librarian (Jump Pack Blood Lance & Shield of Sanguinius)
Honor Guard (Jump Pack x5 Meltagun x2 Blood Champion)

Assault Squad x10 (Power Fist Meltagun x2)
Assault Squad x10 (Power Fist Meltagun x2)
Assault Squad x5 (Flamer Hand Flamer)
Sanguinary Priest x2 (Jump Pack)

Vanguard Veteran x5 (Jump Pack x5 PF, LC x2 PW)

Land Speeder Tornado x2 (Multimelta Heavy Flamer)

Stormraven (MultiMelta Assault Cannon Extra Armour)
Assault Terminators x5 (TH/SS x5)
Furioso Dread (Blood Talons Heavy Flamer)

At 2k points.

How effective would elimination via melta, and fire mitigation be for our poor lonely raven?

The problem with using a Speeder as a distraction is that it takes very little to drop a single speeder.

your opponent might just shoot it with a single Str5-7 weapon and be done with it. then it can shoot everything else at the stormraven.


the Main problem with a Stormraven that i see is that, unlike a Landraider, it's threat level doesn't drop once it's delivered it's cargo. its weapons are very formidable.


you have to make other things an even bigger threat. I don't think that 2 MM/HF speeders are going to do it. you probably need another Stormraven.


if you use Stormravens you really need to focus on them. 2-3 is probably the sweet spot for them. it's very difficult to stop that many.

Landspeeders offer little protection for Stormravens other than they can possibly destroy enemy tanks (multi melta). The best method for protecting your Stormraven is hold it in reserve and use your other squads (jump infantry with melta) to destroy the threats before the Stormraven arrives - typically the Stormraven will arrive on either turn 3 or 4 - this gives the rest of your army enough time to deal with the threats. Be smart but also be aggressive, that's what DoA armies are all about.

*EDIT* Wrong place for my previous army list discussion.