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Basically i love the stormraven. Is it crap or can it be viable? What types of units best support it? is it reserved for larger lists and can a solid 1500 pt list be written with one? i have many questions about them but i'm looking for fun or competitive list ideas involving this unit. anyone have any thoughts on it?

I love the model myself...but it does prove to be a big (fairly weakly armoured) target in most games. I'd suggest taking 2 if you want to field some, split your opponents fire power and all that. Coupling Interceptors with them is nice due to the moving flat out and not scattering rule. I dunno though, I don't see many lists with them in, although I'm trying to work on one myself.

mistblade66 wrote:Basically i love the stormraven. Is it crap or can it be viable?

In a competitve setting, they're pretty crappy. Too many points for to little use.

What types of units best support it?

Uhm...well I guess they function similarly to Landraiders (which are also an uncompetitve choice) so any big CC units that you don't want getting shot-up would be ideal. Sadly that means you are exposing a huge chunk of your army to ALL of the enemy's fire for a turn or two (which is why they suck....that and being fairly easy to kill).

is it reserved for larger lists and can a solid 1500 pt list be written with one?

At 1500 a stormraven plus whatever you're carrying will likely be nearly 30-40 percent of your army. It's a gimmick that I wouldn't rely on at all.

i have many questions about them but i'm looking for fun or competitive list ideas involving this unit. anyone have any thoughts on it?

Fun, go nuts. Competitive, leave them at home.

We've had several threads about them recently.

Their biggest disadvantage is that they're a 200+pt transport with AV12, thus making them vulnerable to missile launchers, a cheap heavy weapon which several armies spam like crazy. If you get first turn they can be awesome; if you don't you have to risk losing a big chunk of army if you start them on the table to be shot, or put them in Reserve and rely on your Reserve rolls.

I think they can be viable in a competitive setting, but they don't fit one of the classic dominant army design paradigms- everything cheap and disposable and fielded in multiples so no one part of your army is critical.

If you do field one, I would say you want to:

A) Keep it cheap. 15pts on Extra Armor is probably the only extra points to spend on it.
B) Support it with other fast stuff, especially other assault units/assault-unit-delivering transports. Don't make your opponent's fire priority choices too easy.
C) Build the whole army so that it can function well coming from Reserve. If your opponent gets first turn and has a shooty army, Reserve everything.
D) Be careful how many points you sink into the contents. At 1500 you may just want to put a single nasty assault unit in it- like a squad of terminators or death company, OR just a Furioso Dreadnought. Don't put both in there until higher points games where they don't take such a large proportion of points away from the rest of your army.

I think spend 205pts to buy 24"range for a 'real' death star is not a bad plan...
And if they focus on your SR, other vehicles will be much safer----8 bs4 missiles have only 41.5%chance to destroy a SR with 4+cover, your enemy needs about 2 DEV team to shoot it.

apple1988218 wrote:And if they focus on your SR, other vehicles will be much safer----8 bs4 missiles have only 41.5%chance to destroy a SR with 4+cover, your enemy needs about 2 DEV team to shoot it.

3+ if you're Grey Knights.....because you should have a Shrouding Librarian with them.

They don't need to kill it. All they need to do is stop it from moving and if you went first for the 24" move then an immobilized result still kills it. Yeah it takes 2-3 squads to bring it down, but when you have 700+ points in one transport it's well worth it. Because once those assault troops are outside they will get shelled to death by everything in the enemy's army.

Who cares if you have other stuff around as back-up when a large part of your army (the uber killy part) vaporizes. I have never had a death-star unit work against me personally and I have almost never seen them work in competitive tournaments (seen it done a few times). Of course most people have no clue how to properly build an army around them (myself included, which is one reason why I never use them......I also think they're boring....so why bother?)

Nungunz wrote:

apple1988218 wrote:And if they focus on your SR, other vehicles will be much safer----8 bs4 missiles have only 41.5%chance to destroy a SR with 4+cover, your enemy needs about 2 DEV team to shoot it.

3+ if you're Grey Knights.....because you should have a Shrouding Librarian with them.

They don't need to kill it. All they need to do is stop it from moving and if you went first for the 24" move then an immobilized result still kills it. Yeah it takes 2-3 squads to bring it down, but when you have 700+ points in one transport it's well worth it. Because once those assault troops are outside they will get shelled to death by everything in the enemy's army.

Who cares if you have other stuff around as back-up when a large part of your army (the uber killy part) vaporizes. I have never had a death-star unit work against me personally and I have almost never seen them work in competitive tournaments (seen it done a few times). Of course most people have no clue how to properly build an army around them (myself included, which is one reason why I never use them......I also think they're boring....so why bother?)

That's why I said 'real' death star--the units inside the SR must be able to survive after enemy's shooting, otherwise they are not a real deathstar. And they still need to be not that expensive since you still need enough support units
Hard to find this kind of units...

I find Storm Ravens / Land Raiders to be rather lackluster at 1500pts.

2000pts, they fit right in. But 1500? Ehh..

Crazyterran wrote:I find Storm Ravens / Land Raiders to be rather lackluster at 1500pts.

2000pts, they fit right in. But 1500? Ehh..

agree, not a good idea to put them in 1500 list...

Thanks for the replies i have been working on a list that has a SR in 1500 more for fun play but for a tourney i may not feild them. Even for a fun list tho i was thinking of putting sanguinary guard in the raven, about 33% of the army is that one unit so it will distract the person from 66.7% of the army so im working on a competitive 1000 pt list and just adding saguinary guard in a stormraven. so it will make for an interesting 1500 pt fun list i would love to hear anymore ideas.

They're pretty competative if played correctly... but they do suffer from all your eggs in a basket syndrome