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The title says it all, really. I'm considering doing a Forge world order, and I'm wondering if the Fire Raptor and Storm Eagle Gunships is worth it on the tabletop. I'm considering staring a Dark Angels or Vanilla Marines army, and that thing would make a hell of a centerpiece.

On the other hand, you're paying (almost) the cost of a land raider for not that much firepower.

Apologies if there is a topic like this here already, but I couldn't find one.

Thanks.

I like the Fire Raptor and they do make a great model. On the table they will kill most Infantry and light vehicles with ease however having taken one against a Deathwing list I can say there's nothing more depressing then having your fancy gunship flying in circles hoping the Reaper Autocannons do something.

From a modelling perspective however, be forewarned the kit is a fething nightmare. The kit I received had some several gaps and warped parts and from what I've heard several other people have had the same issue. The Storm Eagle is meant to be worse...

If you persevere though you'll have a great model. (Provided you don't look too hard at the blemishes you know are there)

Well I have used the Fire Raptor to great success and it has become a standard in my HH lists. It tears apart meq or lesser infantry and causes a lot of saves on termies. My last game might have been just luck of the dice but in one volley from the main gun and two volleys from a turret I killed four deathwing termies.

I agree with what Voodoo says, it is not the easiest or most intuitive model to put together. Even the canopy is a PITA. I green stuffed quite a few gaps.

The Fireraptor is certainly a good flyer and probably better than the Storm Eagle for it's points.

Concerning the Stormeagle: Be reminded that there is the variant with the Roc warheads, which replace the big templates with 4 TL rockets. This variant, while costly, has a more focused target priority. 6 rockets and 2 lascannons is a fair amount of firepower.

Storm Eagle is too costly for what it does. The Roc variant is even better now that there isn't any limit for Missiles/turn fired by an aircraft (up to the normal 4 weapons/turn)

Fire Raptor is awesome.

As an owner of a Storm Eagle, I can testify that they're too expensive for what they bring to the table. They're just not really worth being used as a transport, but you end up paying a ton for the huge capacity and even more for weapon upgrades. However, the missile batteries just shred light infantry.

While I purchased both of these as well as a Sicaran a few months ago, there's a reason only the Sicaran has been built so far. The two flyers are absolute nightmares to make. The fuselage pieces curve in several different directions, and since they have no flat sides its VERY hard to straighten them to fit.
Perhaps mine are both just bad casts, but I've only heard of one or two easy to build SE's/FR's, and I also haven't heard of any improvements being made to the casts. I'll probably give them one or two more goes before giving Forgeworld a call for replacement parts, but even if I am just unlucky I am extremely skeptical that they will ever be anything even remotely approaching easy to build.
That said, the stats for both look excellent, with the Fire Raptor in particular taking the cake. While the Storm Eagle seems wasted without expensive cargo, the Raptor is cheaper off the bat and great all on its own against nearly any army I can think of. For the Eagle if you have a specific use in mind, as well as a specific unit you want to move, and don't care about paying a high cost, than you should be quite happy with it.
More importantly, if you buy both models, the Imperial Armor for them, and something cheap to push you over the 250 GBP mark, you'll qualify for free express shipping, which will end up saving you like 55 GBP, and applying the money you would be spending on shipping onto more models sounds good to me.

I have a Fire Raptor.

Agreed on all points about it being difficult to put together. Not one piece fit together easily, and I had to sand things down and fill gaps with greenstuff to get it into one piece. The wings seem slightly bowed on the finished model when they should be flat.

Part of the reason this is such a concern is that mine is painted black. The defects really stand out under overhead lights. One of the big issues was with drybrushing, the peaks on flat surfaces would collect more paint than the other areas.

I used it with my CSMs in 6th edition. Overall, it performed better than my Heldrake, but not to the point where it would say it's an auto-include. It briefly became my answer to Tau and Eldar armies.

Storm Eagle is useful for a Heresy air cav list where almost everyone gets them as a Dedicated transport. I don't know if I would use them outside that context, especially over a Fire Raptor. There are better transports and better choices for gunships for the roughly same points like Lightnings.