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Hi Guys

Looking to get my 1st Marine flyer and im wondering about the merits of both I can see some advantages and disadvantages when going through the Dex but as my 1st flyer im still a bit new to how they would best be used. Any help regarding which one is better overall or in different situations would be really appreciated, tired of these daemons flying round and not being able to shoot them out the sky haha.

Thanks again

This isn't the right forum (this forum is for rules questions) for your question, but two Storm Talons or one Stormraven.

If your problem is AA i'd go with the very nice Anti Air Defence Force or with a trio of Stalkers (They gain Ignores Cover, so no jink).
If you want flyers on your own consider one or two stormtalons, they are better than 1 stormraven unless you want also transport something inside it.

The SR is the land raider of the sky. It can do a lot of things, most of them fairly well, but these things are often at odds with each other, and you pay a premium to do all those things. If all you want is AA, the talon is a much better option.

I’m not a big fan of putting a lot of stuff in reservers, so haveing a fully loaded SR loitering around while the rest of my army gets shot is not something I find appealing. And even though it’s an assault vehicle, the way the mechanics work out, you probably don’t want to utilize that perk (happens very late in the game) If you do want cargo, probably a small scout squad for a late game objective grab. Although if doing a null deploy list, you can cram things in there to fit the theme.

The SR is a little tougher, with a few more guns. But the talon gets the primary job done almost as well for a bit over half the points.

I own one of each, and enjoy them both. If I had to do it over, I’d still get both of them for my army. But the talon would be first, and generally get more air time.

Sadly, Stormravens are bad for the points cost on them.

Thanks for the help guys think the Talon will be getting built up and on the table pretty soon then. how do I go about moving this to the more appropriate forum?

Shine is wrong. This is the correct forum for your question. He may have thought that you had posted this in YMDC.

Generally-speaking, topics don't get moved. You can just edit it to effectively delete the content, but only the mods can delete or move threads. What they'll usually do is just lock a thread in the wrong forum, ask you to create it in the appropriate forum, and let it just die out to new threads and topics.

Talons are nice but work well in pairs. Typically one won't do all that much. Obviously if you need transport capacity, you only have one option. Really the best gunboat is the Forge World Fire Raptor though. The storm raven isn't awful - it's a flying land raider. It just tends to be sub-optimal and marginally overpriced for what it does. In a world where the Fire Raptor didn't exist, people would definitely take them. In a world where the space marine demi company/battle company didn't provide free transports, people would take even more.

Stormraven is pretty bad; turn 3 assaults at the soonest. It's only got 3 HPs. MMs got nerfed. It's bad.

Maybe you'd like to look for the Fire Raptor Gunship? It's in Imperial Armour 2 (2nd ed)

 Vector Strike wrote:
Maybe you'd like to look for the Fire Raptor Gunship? It's in Imperial Armour 2 (2nd ed)

I guess. I've looked at it. It's better, but still has the reserve and zooming flyer problems. I basically just ignore flyers in the game now. That actually works out pretty well for me.

I played several times with my raven against my friend's talon, in 6th ed.
Almost every time, I was lucky and my raven arrived just after his flyer, so he wasn't able to shoot me, but I wrecked him every time.
Every time.
However, now that talon are even more cheap and have +1 to jink, I think you definitely want a Talon. Way cheaper, not really so fragile, and has a lot of firepower.
My Raven often did well, but it never was "awesome".
So, if it's just for AA, Talon are better, I think.

 luke1705 wrote:
Shine is wrong. This is the correct forum for your question. He may have thought that you had posted this in YMDC.

Generally-speaking, topics don't get moved. You can just edit it to effectively delete the content, but only the mods can delete or move threads. What they'll usually do is just lock a thread in the wrong forum, ask you to create it in the appropriate forum, and let it just die out to new threads and topics.

Talons are nice but work well in pairs. Typically one won't do all that much. Obviously if you need transport capacity, you only have one option. Really the best gunboat is the Forge World Fire Raptor though. The storm raven isn't awful - it's a flying land raider. It just tends to be sub-optimal and marginally overpriced for what it does. In a world where the Fire Raptor didn't exist, people would definitely take them. In a world where the space marine demi company/battle company didn't provide free transports, people would take even more.

This WAS initially posted in the YMDC forum

As others have already pointed out, the stormtalon brings more fire power per point than the stormraven. Generally you do not want to use fliers as transports since you cant really unload the cargo without exposing yourself. So you pay quite a bit of points for something that you will not use most of the time on the stormraven.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, I dont really understand the appeal of the Fire Raptor. You want to hunt armour with it so the AP3 is largely lost and the HBs are quite crap. A Stormrave costs 20pts less (40 if you count the cost for ceramite) Brings lascannons, assultcannon and MMs all weapons which are good/great at taking down enemy armour.

If you want a gunboat from FW then you should go with the Roc Pattern Stormeagle.

However, the Stormraven is perfectly capable of surviving once in hover, as it can jink, has 3hp,12av, and has ceramite; Your opponent will have to choose between it and the unit it transported.

 godardc wrote:
However, the Stormraven is perfectly capable of surviving once in hover, as it can jink, has 3hp,12av, and has ceramite; Your opponent will have to choose between it and the unit it transported.

No, they really don't. AV 12 and infantry are usually engaged by different kinds of weapons. And ceramite is actually pretty lame when the vehicle is only AV 12 anyway. I have destroyed many, many Stormravens with melta.

tedurur wrote:

 luke1705 wrote:
Shine is wrong. This is the correct forum for your question. He may have thought that you had posted this in YMDC.

Generally-speaking, topics don't get moved. You can just edit it to effectively delete the content, but only the mods can delete or move threads. What they'll usually do is just lock a thread in the wrong forum, ask you to create it in the appropriate forum, and let it just die out to new threads and topics.

Talons are nice but work well in pairs. Typically one won't do all that much. Obviously if you need transport capacity, you only have one option. Really the best gunboat is the Forge World Fire Raptor though. The storm raven isn't awful - it's a flying land raider. It just tends to be sub-optimal and marginally overpriced for what it does. In a world where the Fire Raptor didn't exist, people would definitely take them. In a world where the space marine demi company/battle company didn't provide free transports, people would take even more.

This WAS initially posted in the YMDC forum

As others have already pointed out, the stormtalon brings more fire power per point than the stormraven. Generally you do not want to use fliers as transports since you cant really unload the cargo without exposing yourself. So you pay quite a bit of points for something that you will not use most of the time on the stormraven.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, I dont really understand the appeal of the Fire Raptor. You want to hunt armour with it so the AP3 is largely lost and the HBs are quite crap. A Stormrave costs 20pts less (40 if you count the cost for ceramite) Brings lascannons, assultcannon and MMs all weapons which are good/great at taking down enemy armour.

If you want a gunboat from FW then you should go with the Roc Pattern Stormeagle.

I'm pretty sure only Minotaurs can take the Roc Pattern.

I think the primary appeal of the Raptor is as a Flyrant killer. Marines don't have many answers for 3+ save FMCs. The Raptor can nearly eat a Flyrant every turn. And if you don't end up playing nids, the main gun is good against most non-SM or necron flyers, and of course it's brutal against higher cost 3+ save things, like bike squads.

 godardc wrote:
However, the Stormraven is perfectly capable of surviving once in hover, as it can jink, has 3hp,12av, and has ceramite; Your opponent will have to choose between it and the unit it transported.

Ceramite REALLY doesn't matter. Little AA has the Melta rule, so it is basically paying for useless equipment.

I forget the name of it but theres that dataslate with one raven and two talons, I bought the set for it and they have awesome bonuses, but unfornuately none of my space marine armies can use them :(

Exalbaru wrote:
I forget the name of it but theres that dataslate with one raven and two talons, I bought the set for it and they have awesome bonuses, but unfornuately none of my space marine armies can use them :(

That’s the Stormwing formation, and it’s now included in the vanilla codex. It’s not a bad one, assuming you want to devote that level of points to air cover.

For me, especially if you have a unit in the SR, that's to many points in reserve that might not come in when you need them too.

You end up spending even more points on reserve manipulation.

Totally this. If you really want to use a stormraven to its full capacity (with a unit inside it) it is very exepensive, and it becomes even more expensive when you try to be do reserve manipulation.

I wasn't talking about AA with the melta USR when I said it has ceramite, because I was speaking about the hover mode.^^
As I thought it was one of the only flyer I know which can do it one turn without being destroyed.

The storm raven is pretty cool. You can put a unit in it and a Dreadnought. I would put vanguard veterans or assault terminators with storm shields in it (since if it goes down to shooting first turn they have a good chance at surviving the S10 AP2 hits. I would also put an ironclad in it. Drop the ironclad in a threatening position, forcing your opponent to shoot at it rather than the flyer. And if they choose to down your flyer, the ironclad can do a lot of damage and the storm shield marines inside will mostly survive the fall. Either way you are getting a charge of the next turn with a unit who will probably come out of combat unscathed. Whole setup costs about 700pts. Yu could throw a character in there too. I think a techmarine with servo harness would be a good pick up since he can come out separately and flame something, fix up the storm raven or ironclad, or charge something out of the side hatches. I wouldn't take the hurricane bolters.

The Storm talon is a REALLY good unit to just throw into your army, unlike the storm raven which you would have to build around. They have lots of shots so they are good at shooting at air and also very good at shooting light ground vehicles. They are also GREAT for grabbing and holding objectives late game in maelstrom missions with their 3+ jink in hover mode. Most space marine army just get better when you add this guy. Double up if you really like them, even 2 are pretty cheap at ~200pts

Stormraven+ landing pad+ ready for take off + ironclad dreadnought = sad panda for your opponent.

I've found that, since I have a Storm Raven, I tend to use it with a Dreadnought. Give it a Heavy Flamer, and I like Assault Cannons.

It's fairly cheap, good at clearing an objective, and then has a handy gun to provide ranged support. It's also probably going to survive a crash landing, whereas any infantry short of Assault Terminators aren't.

A cheap 5-man Scout or Tactical squad can be good too, but only as a roving ObSec unit. Give them bolters, help to thin out a target before the Dread charges in.


The Talon is great value for it's price. Always take the missiles with TL Assault Cannon. Great AA, but also perfect for hunting light / medium infantry and vehicles. I'd probably suggest that the Talon is a better value, but the Raven isn't bad, so long as you take advantage of it's transport capacity in some way.

storm raven combined with a locator beacon and grav chute insertion is pretty cool.

Dropping shooty units out does work rather nicely. It’s like jumping a squad out of a rhino and shooting stuff up, just with the range of half the table. And the ability to put nastier things inside. Like Grav Cents.

Still at the mercy of the reserve roll and the potential of exploding in a ball of interceptor fire, but when it works, it can be a lot of fun.

But then, you can get the same results from a drop pod. There are better ways of getting units around, as there are better ways of getting guns in the sky. Ravens can be effective, they just aren’t very efficient.

Wow So much to think about definitely think ill be getting a talon 1st and then once ive got some cents or an ironclad ill be having fun with a raven.