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So I just found out (quite accidentally) that my GF is going to be surprising me with the Stormraven/2 Stormtalons box set for our anniversary and I'm curious to see if anyone has any ideas/experience regarding air force armies. I poked around a little and found some threads about the Iron Hands Air Force (we also at one point had a guy at our LGS who played them) but I was wondering if we could get a discussion going that focuses on suggestions for how to play an "air based" army that doesn't neglect the ground pounders too much.

I already have two Stormravens, so when she gives me the box I will have three ravens and two talons. I'm wondering if anytone can give me some advice on tactics and army composition using those fliers and the Ultramarines Chapter Tactics (I have a Primogenator's chapter painted up so that they can also help fill out my BA at times without looking out of place). My collection is fairly large so anything and everything is one the table as far as what to add for the rest of the units. My initial thoughts so far are:

A unit of bikers for some fast moving grav gun action
Tiggy
A metric ton of bodies (like maybe 50 tacticals)


But I'm kind of stuck on synergy and filling the rest out. Any thoughts are more than welcome. Oh, also, this is for a semi competitive to competitive meta and I'd be looking at a list to range between 1850 and 2500 with 2000 being the average.
Looking forward to the discussion!

I am pretty sure you spoiled her surprise...

For your question at hand, keep Tigurius safe, and bring a lot of scoring bodies. Ravens and Talons can take care of pretty much any unit
Hurrican bolters, MM and assault cannon on the ravens, skyhammer on the talons.

You lucky @#$/^&. Nice intel work there finding out your anniversary gift. All my wife ever gets me is clothing and wallets, but then again its better than none.

I think the raven suggestion by the previous poster is good. Depends on the purpose of your talon.

Skyhammer on a talon is str 7. To crack other conventional flyers of armour 12, you need to roll a 5 to glance or 6 to pen, meaning 1/3 of a shots may go through. A friend runs his with lc or typhoon. TL str 9 is or 2 shots of str 8 at 48" might be better than 3 str 7 ap 4 shots at 60". Also good at taking out tanks.

Edired twice due to my mobile device touch keys going bonkers on me.

deepstriker wrote:
You lucky @#$/^&. Nice intel work there finding out your anniversary gift. All my wife ever gets me is clothing and wallets, but then again its better than none.

I think the raven suggestion by the previous poster is good. Depends on the purpose of your talon.

Skyhammer on a talon is str 7. To crack other conventional flyers of armour 12, you need to roll a 5 to glance or 6 to pen, meaning 1/3 of a shots may go through. A friend runs his with lc or typhoon. TL str 9 is or 2 shots of str 8 at 48" might be better than 3 str 7 ap 4 shots at 60". Also good at taking out tanks.

Edired twice due to my mobile device touch keys going bonkers on me.

I believe that most Talons try to fly past the the opposing flyer and use the turreted TL AC to shoot into the tasty rear armor.

Here's a sample list:

Tigurius

Tactical Marines x9: Flamer, Combi-Flamer, Meltabombs, Drop Pod- 181
Tactical Marines x10: Flamer, Combi-Flamer, Meltabombs, Drop Pod- 195
Tactical Marines x10: Flamer, Combi-Flamer, Meltabombs, Drop Pod- 195
Tactical Marines x10: Flamer, Combi-Flamer, Meltabombs, Drop Pod- 195
Tactical Marines x10: Flamer, Meltabombs, Drop Pod- 185

Storm Talon: AC/LC- 140
Storm Talon: AC/LC- 140

Stormraven: LC/MM- 200
Stormraven: LC/MM- 200
Stormraven: LC/MM- 200

Total: 1996

Now, you can build this list either way but hear me out on why I chose this route:

Tactical Marines can handle hordes just fine. While you certainly CAN gear your fliers to do that as well, they do AT much better than your tacs ever would. So I suggest letting your grunts fight the gribblies and leave the big uglies and the tanks to the fliers.

Cept for i'd still spread weaponry on tacticals from flamer-only to melta-squad, plazma-squad, flamer-squad.

I don't know why you would do that. You have plenty of AT and anti-MC from the fliers.

Thanks for the responses everybody. Sorry for my own late response here. I've been staring at my codex!

As for ruining her surprise ... well that's my LGS's fault. I went in the other day to buy that box set myself (they only had one left) and it was gone. I asked them to order it and they said they couldn't so I just picked up two Talons and a Raven (pretty much messing with them at this point because I thought they were messing with me) and the poor kid behind the counter just blurted out "OHMYGODI"MSOSORRYIM NOT SUPPOSETOTELLYOUTHISBUTYOURGIRLFRIENDWASINANDBOUGHTTHATFORYOUALREADY!" lol he said it just like that. No pauses/spaces or anything!



The Shrike:

Thanks for your ample list! I was putting together a similar one last night. My question is, what do you do with 'tiggy? Put him in the pod with the 9 marines? Start him on the board? Also, I was planning on using the escort rule to bring a Talon in with each Raven but some people have recommended against that for some reason. So how do you guys time out your reserves in that instance? I mean, obviously your still subject to dice rolls but what are you usually shooting for?

 The Shrike wrote:
Here's a sample list:

Tigurius

Tactical Marines x9: Flamer, Combi-Flamer, Meltabombs, Drop Pod- 181
Tactical Marines x10: Flamer, Combi-Flamer, Meltabombs, Drop Pod- 195
Tactical Marines x10: Flamer, Combi-Flamer, Meltabombs, Drop Pod- 195
Tactical Marines x10: Flamer, Combi-Flamer, Meltabombs, Drop Pod- 195
Tactical Marines x10: Flamer, Meltabombs, Drop Pod- 185

Storm Talon: AC/LC- 140
Storm Talon: AC/LC- 140

Stormraven: LC/MM- 200
Stormraven: LC/MM- 200
Stormraven: LC/MM- 200

Total: 1996

Now, you can build this list either way but hear me out on why I chose this route:

Tactical Marines can handle hordes just fine. While you certainly CAN gear your fliers to do that as well, they do AT much better than your tacs ever would. So I suggest letting your grunts fight the gribblies and leave the big uglies and the tanks to the fliers.

Holy F that's a lot of marines!

I'm in the process of building a 2000 point air force list with Tiggy and 3 talons + 2 ravens actually (only because ravens are so damn expensive)

I would switch out at least one, but prolly two of those flamers for plasma, and take a thunderfire cannon instead of one of those tac squads for a super anti-horde option to make up for it. It's probably more well-rounded than all those flamers. As it is, that alpha-strike is purely anti-horde, with no anti-monster/vehicle backup till next turn. Plasma isn't quite as good as flamers at the horde, but it's good enough when mixed with the bolters, and wayyy better at everything else, plus you'll have TFC backup. And the TFC can take a pod too if you want to start everything in reserve, if you're going second. Though you do REALLLLLLY want to go second. If you're going first, you can start him on the ground hiding in the back, out of sight (just in case the opponent seizes initiative) and let the empty pod stay in reserve, to allow all but one of the tac squads to come in.