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I'll start this off by saying that I don't own the DftS book, nor have I ever run any SM flyers for that matter, so I don't know their exact point values, or even their optimum loadouts. I played marines in 4th ed. and I have been playing orks for about a year now, so I gots me some dakkajets and I am familiar with how to play flyers correctly.

With that being said, I love the idea that was brought up in a recent thread about taking 3 stormravens coming in escorted by 3 stormtalons, and I would like to expand on that list.

Looking at 2000 points (Again, I don't know exact point values of the flyers so please correct me, and please also advise on their optimal loadouts) this is a list that I came up with:


HQ
Librarian with null zone and either force dome or the avenger - 100 (would go inside a SR with one of the squads)

FA
Stormtalon - TL assault cannon, HB - 110
Stormtalon - TL assault cannon, HB - 110
Stormtalon - TL assault cannon, HB - 110

Troops
10 man tactical - rocket, plas gun - 180
^>Stormraven - Hurricane bolter, Assault cannon, melta - 230

10 man tactical - rocket, plas gun - 180
^>Stormraven - Hurricane bolter, Assault cannon, melta - 230

10 man tactical - rocket, plas gun - 180
^>Stormraven - Hurricane bolter, Assault cannon, melta - 230


Elites
Rifleman dread - 125
>Drop pod - 35
Ironclad dread - 135
>Drop pod - 35


This comes to a grand total of 1990 points.



I'm also considering taking a master of the forge instead of a librarian to repair that stormraven when the poop hits the fan.

So one thing that I find awesome about this list is that everything MUST start in reserve. I know that this WILL bite me in the butt a couple games but hear me out: I'll be going second about half the time, so that negates an ENTIRE first turn of shooting for the enemy player. Regardless, first turn, pod 1 with rifleman dread comes down, cowering in fear hiding behind a LOS blocking piece of terrain somewhere in my deployment zone, (and if nothing else, behind the drop pod itself, far away from everything) if there's any chance at all of being shot AT ALL, he pops smoke too. This turn focuses very little on shooting, and much, much more on praying to the emperor that he survives. I could also just start the dread somewhere in my DZ behind said large terrain, and drop the empty pod somewhere far, far away from everything. Second turn, the ironclad comes in, scares the poop out of the enemy, pops something big and fancy, soaks up all the shooting, dies. (AV 13 is much harder to kill this edition, so he will likely soak up most of the shooting this turn, if not all) His pod is proceeded on average by 2 stormravens and also 2 stormtalons (utilizing the 'escort' special rule), who unleash hell on anything that has skyfire and/or helldrakes and/or massed TL shots that can hurt the ravens. Every turn thereafter is widdling down/mopping up next highest priority targets accordingly.

Now this list has some pretty obvious HUGE weaknesses, like, say, oh I dunno, the LONE dreadnought hanging out on turn one. Ignore that, I'm quite aware of it, and would like to focus on the rest of the actual list itself. I'm not playing in tournaments with this, so I don't care if I lose turn one.

The tacs will always combat squad(unless just playing victory points), and will ALWAYS start in the SRs if the opponent has helldrakes (there's a lot of them in my local meta). So another huge weakness would be that if a stormraven gets popped with its precious cargo still inside, they're basically all dead. I'm counting on two things for that: 1) I will be taking advantage of skies of fury for dropping the troops off, especially once a raven takes damage, the next turn it will either fly off the board/SoF, or just do a skies of fury drop, depending on threat level. The premise behind this is sort of a flyer version of wound allocation shenanigans. 2) Depending on the threat to unprotected troops, I may just start 1-2 of the squads on the board without the raven.

For my meta:
At my FGLS, we pretty much exclusively take 1999+1 lists rather than 2000, and very few people utilize allies, or forgeworld units for that matter.
We play at a semi-competitive/friendly level.
There are several airforce lists, so it's not going to be a huge d-bag move to everyone if I just show up one day with 6 flyers.
Also, I'm the only ork player there, so I don't need to worry about lootas tearing me up.

So based on my meta, I don't want to include allies in my list, and if it were in any way possible to do any double force org shenanigans with my list, I don't want to do that either. I would toy with the idea of FW stuff, but I'd rather not.

And so now I finally come to my questions:

Price aside, how stupid is it to take this list?

What are the optimum loadouts for stormtalons/ravens? (From a TAC perspective)

What would you change either wargear/unit wise to make the list more effective? (Again, from a TAC perspective. And please keep in mind, no allies)

What are the points cost of the flyers now with the new Death from the Skies book: with my loadouts, and/or the loadouts you would recommend?

If a tactical squad is combat squaded inside a stormraven, is it possible for just 5 of them to do a 'skies of fury' drop, leaving the other 5 still inside?

Are there any flaws in my tactical theory that you notice?

Any other comments or concerns you have with this list


Thanks for any and all help!

i would go with some scouts with cloaks to sit bakc somewhere and taunt the enemy forward.

also you need a com relay to make sure your reserves come in.

Also your scoring units are going to have trouble staying alive if anyone has AA.

My favorite storm talon build is the typhoon missiles. Still decent A-to-A and much better at pummeling ground targets. Since your storm ravens have TL MM, you can probably get by w/o the lascannons. Also heavy bolters are the default gear for storm talons so you'd be looking at the 150ish range for any upgraded gun on a storm talon, not the 130.

I'd seriously reconsider the plasma cannons on your tac squads. If you say they're almost always going to ride in the ravens, then you're looking at not shooting them much as you can't snap fire blasts.

So the dreads/pods take care of themselves, as do all six flyers. But then you have a librarian and 3x tac squads going in reserve. Unless the storm ravens are dedicated transports, the marines should still be taking up a slot on the whole "half your army in reserve" thing. And the dreadnought coming down turn 1 in the pod doesn't count towards on the table either.

Both of Exergy's suggestions sound pretty helpful. Comms relay is really useful to get those flyers in, and scouts will help mitigate your lack of stuff on the table turn 1 (and make the list more legal, unless I missed something).

Stormtalons are 140pts w/ a Lascannon, not 130.

Other than that I have nothing to add, other than that you have too little on the table turn 1. Try to go second as much as possible.

So... Librarian on the board by himself turn 1. Plus 1 pod. So if they kill the him, the naught, and the pod you lose? 50% rule prevents you from having EVERYTHING come in on Turn 2. Your Librarian (since he is an IC) counts as a separate unit and cannot join the squad inside the transports. He can but he'd count towards the 50%. So if you want him inside a Raven, you must have the other 50% (5man squad) as the other 50%. Don't forget, your first pod will come in Turn1 guaranteed. So if he dies along with your pod, you'll be tabled. (As well as 1 unit for your 50% required unit (Librarian or another 5man).

6th edition prevented entirely reserved armies (except for Daemons, but I think the new codex prevented this as well).

Might want to reconsider what starts on the field on Turn 1 and how you're going to deal with Barrages that don't need LOS.

EDIT: To answer your question about if you can drop 5 and keep 5 inside the Raven. You can only have 1 Squad use a transport at a time. At the beginning of the game , during deployment, you have to decide whether you are making two squads of combat squads then. If you do split them, 5 start inside (and come in Turn 2) and the other 5 are deployed Turn 1 as normal.

Thanks for the feedback so far guys.

@Saythings: From what I've heard about death from the skies, the stormraven will be a dedicated transport for troops. If it isn't a dedicated transport, then I won't even be able to do this list at all, as that would be 6 fast attack choices, and nobody at my FLGS likes to play double force org games.

@Grimdork wow I completely forgot that there are firing points, I may just take missile launchers or MM then and save 15 points. Do you know how many firing points a stormraven has?

As an ork player, I'm not familiar with starting units in reserve (aside from dakkajets, and they don't transport) So the librarian can't start out attached to a squad in a stormraven, if all squads are starting in a dedicated transport stormraven? Couldn't a librarian do that if it were an all-drop pod list though?

I would do a comms relay but it's so hard factoring in the points for it. I'd like to try out the list without it for a time and see just how desperately I need it.

@ Awesomesauce: Stormravens can transport up to 12 models and/or 1 Dreadnought. There are no firing points and it counts towards your Heavy choice. You can have 3 Talons (for Fast attacks) and 3 Ravens (for Heavy support). It doesn't count as a dedicated transport although you can start a Tac Squad in each. Since they are flyers, they don't count towards the 50% of the army that has to be on the field. If you have all flyers and a squad in each, your Librarian is left out to die. He can be in a Raven with a Tac Squad but not when it's the start of the game. An IC can't join a squad in a flyer unless you have the other 50% already on the field. The fact that he is your only model that doesn't have it's own transport, he has to remain on the field at the start of the game. On your Turn 1, the pod has to come down. This leaves 1 HQ and 1 Dread/1 Pod against the enemy's entire army. You run the risk of being tabled.

EDIT: If you're going to run 6 Flyers, you need a Comms Relay. They need to come out and do as much damage as you can, as soon as you can. Your turn 1 is very weak and almost provides them a free First Blood with that drop pod. I'd probably end up dropping both pods and adding an Aegis and more troops. Maybe even a Laidraider/Aegis. That way you have something durable on the ground Turn 1 and you could LOS it as best as you can while you wait for your 6 flyers.

The stormraven has zero firing points if I recall correctly. The reason you couldn't use the plasma cannons is because you can't move and shoot plasma as you shoot blast weapons snap-fire and they're heavy.

I think the Raven is supposed to be heavy support, I just haven't heard anything about it being anyone's DT.

I see. Hmm. Maybe then I will always start a couple combat-squaded half-squads on the board (also cowering in fear hiding far away from everything) so that the lib can be in a raven. Any other suggestions or responses to my other questions?

Alright I updated the list to reflect new point costs/wargear. Taking your comments into consideration, I will likely start at least two combat squads on the ground with heavy weapons along with the other stuff 1st turn, in order to have more on the board and not die. Is it 50% rounding down, or up? As in, the libby plus 2 squads can be in reserve? or the libby plus two squads need to be on the ground?

Also, What do you guys think the last 10 points should go to? A flamer on the ironclad? I would do a teleport homer on a drop pod, but those will get wiped out pretty early on I think, so that will likely be wasted points.

There's not enough on the table on turn one. You're going to have to survive around 2000pts trying to wipe those off the table for an auto-loss.
It's not terribly hard considering drop pods and barrage weapons are common.

You also have a problem in that you scoring units could die the turn they come in. Not a nice thing to happen. Similarly, with seven things in reserve, a couple of poor rolls and your opponent will have nice 600pt sections of your list to deal with at a time, rather than the whole load at once.

I've even victimized people reserving even as little as three units. Reserves suck.

Martel732 wrote:
I've even victimized people reserving even as little as three units. Reserves suck.

That may be true. But reserves are also better now than ever before. My plan is for all of my units that do start on the board to be spread out from each other, and either be in terrain or behind it, if it blocks line of sight, until the skies open up. For 1st turn with 2-3 five-man marine squads, a dread, and a drop pod spread out, out of range/hiding from most of their guns, I know that's really not a lot, but it should be somewhat difficult for them to completely obliterate me. Obviously in a tournament I'd come in last place, but this isn't tournament-level competitiveness. plus there's a guaranteed AV13 dread plus drop pod to absorb more shooting on turn 2, followed by on average, 2 ravens and 2 talons.

I know that the tiny amount on the table turn 1 is an enormous weakness, but I'm not concerned with that. I'm more concerned with what happens after turn 1. Since it's a friendly environment, if I get tabled turn one, that just means it'll be a rematch immediately after and I'll change something up to better survive.


Do you see any other glaring weaknesses in this list? Specifically certain enemies that I lack firepower for, like MCs or something?

If I drop one of the squads of 10 to a squad of 5, I can factor in a comms relay, which I suppose would be wise lol