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I was wondering why people always bad-talk the storm raven's transport ability. If you throw in the locator beacon, then wherever the storm raven ends its movement, you are able to deploy the passengers within 6" without scatter (lets accept this as fact in this thread, don't need to argue this, both my FLGS use this verdict).

The first downside I can see is that it comes in reserves, but this is counteracted by its amazing movement speed, which should deploy the occupants at or before the time a land raider or rhino would.

The second downside I can see is that it has a low armor value (12/12/12), but this seems to be more than counteracted by the fact it is a flier AND it is immune to melta.

Another downside is that you can't assault from deploying with skies of fury, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem, since the only units that would use this have invul saves or very good armor saves.

The only other downside I can see is that you have to spend 10pts on a locator beacon to safely deploy and must deploy within 6" of where the raven ends its movement.

It seems to me like the occupants would be deployed very close to the turn they would have been if they were in a land raider, as well as just as safe (since they will be in a flier AND wont take very long to deliver with its 36" movement AND are immune to melta). I just don't understand why people don't think its a good transport. Sure, looking at each of the drawbacks individually of the model seems like a transport-killer, but when you calculate all the benefits of the raven, each almost exactly counter the drawbacks.

The big drawback you're missing: if the raven is intercepted and destroyed, everyone inside takes a S10, AP2 hit. Depending on what is present in your local area, the raven can easily be a flying death trap.

PanzerLeader wrote:
The big drawback you're missing: if the raven is intercepted and destroyed, everyone inside takes a S10, AP2 hit. Depending on what is present in your local area, the raven can easily be a flying death trap.

Where does it say that? Im looking at C:SM and the only thing I see is that if it is destroyed while zooming that the dreadnought takes a Str10 hit to its rear armor. I don't see anything on its other occupants.

It's in the core rulebook, that is how flying transports work.

Lanlaorn wrote:
It's in the core rulebook, that is how flying transports work.

Unless you're a Necron.

Lanlaorn wrote:
It's in the core rulebook, that is how flying transports work.

Derptastic on my part! You are totally right. Good point. It'd have to be an interceptor though, or one turn of fire, the 36" movement should have you deploy the occupants fast. Still is a big drawback.

 Ryan_A wrote:

Lanlaorn wrote:
It's in the core rulebook, that is how flying transports work.

Derptastic on my part! You are totally right. Good point. It'd have to be an interceptor though, or one turn of fire, the 36" movement should have you deploy the occupants fast. Still is a big drawback.

Especially with the prevalence of good AA in most metas these days. I'm willing to bet most armies can reliably threaten a storm raven a turn. I've used mine to transport a combat squad of marines before, but anything more than that I don't think the inherent risk is worth the reward in a TAC list.

It’s also worth noting that locator beacons need to be on the table at the start of the turn to work. So while you can self-guide your cargo, you can’t do it on the turn you arrive.

From a list building philosophical POV, how much of your army do you want in reserves? Because what’s on the table is getting shot up while the raven and its cargo are loitering off to the side. Different point values and list types can affect this. In a 1,500 list, I’d not want ~400 points sitting idle, where in a 3k apocalypse game it’s less of an issue. Null deployment drop pod lists also care a bit less about this. You can also take reserve manipulation tools to mitigate how long things sit off to the side, but then you need to factor in their cost.

Getting their ride blown up around them has already been pointed out, and is a consideration. You blow up a LR, the terminators are just going to brush the shrapnel off their shoulders and march on. But even with SS’s, a third of the ones in a raven are not going to be pulling themselves out of the crater.

If you start on the table, there is a chance of getting into assault early. In flight, you are looking at turn three at best. While anecdotal, in the last tournament I was in I saw turn 2 assaults in 2/3ds of my games. Thinking on it, one of them was even a turn 1, not 2! Those were vs. very aggressive armies, so having the termis on table as a countercharge element was critical. Obviously, results vary, and should not be considered typical.

What if you don't stick an assault unit in it, but rather a shooting unit?
You could cram a ton of combi-weapons into it and bring the hurt exactly where you need it mid game (as opposed to drop podding them in turn 1).

Interceptor fire only happens at the end of enemy movement phase; Skies of Fury happens before the movement phase ends. So it's rather unlikely your embarked units would suffer he S10 Ap2 hits for being embarked in a destroyed flyer; but the Interceptor weapon could fire at your disembarked units or at the Stormraven

 Vector Strike wrote:
Interceptor fire only happens at the end of enemy movement phase; Skies of Fury happens before the movement phase ends. So it's rather unlikely your embarked units would suffer he S10 Ap2 hits for being embarked in a destroyed flyer; but the Interceptor weapon could fire at your disembarked units or at the Stormraven

Depending on the cargo, you might not want to do this so that you could capitalize on the assault vehicle rules next turn. Also, your opponent could simply interceptor the guys who Skies of Furied out of the raven.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
What if you don't stick an assault unit in it, but rather a shooting unit?
You could cram a ton of combi-weapons into it and bring the hurt exactly where you need it mid game (as opposed to drop podding them in turn 1).

Shooting units would get to impact the battle earlier. And might not even need the beacon to land in range (although for some it is nice) I think the issue is that most shooting units have better delivery systems. Sternguard/command squads/dreads can be put in pods, terminators deep strike on their own. So the raven is not needed as a delivery system, and using it as such just puts more eggs then needed in one basket. That said, dropping a unit of grav cents into someone’s backfield could mess up their life.

Stormravens are actually fantastic. The problem being is most of the HS slot selections in SM are fantastic and necessary to balance inherent weaknesses.

As for interceptor. There are 3 major sources of quality interceptor Tau missilesides (36" range which can be LoS blocked or avoided), Sabre platforms AM (they will not get tank hunter during interceptor, you only have a 25% chance of exploding from 3 sabres), and firestorm redoubt w/ magos machine spirit (33% chance to explode the stormraven). All of these options can be LoS blocked and it is best if you can bring multiple threats or cripple their AA but none of them are so pts efficient and all encompassing that your stormraven is doomed. Funnily enough I have found quality AA is actually going down in number as Deathstar 40K is taking too many pts to join or combat to concentrate on AA.

For the transport capacity of the stormraven is very useful for several reasons. The biggest thing is that the unit it transports (IMO) should either be cheap scoring units (some melee ability is helpful) or have a 18"+ range so it can sky of fury when the raven comes on (the raven solves the unit's range issues and the sky of fury solves interceptor).

1) skies of fury grav centurions.
2) post AA transportation. When you take out the opponent's ability to harm the stormraven you can embark that last 2 man remnant of a troops squad and get it to an objective. Plan ahead though.
3) CC scouts make a great last turn objective clearing force and are cheap enough you can be okay with them dying.


GK/Inquisition
1) Inquisition 12 pts scoring
2) Crowe becomes relevant-ish

I'm under the impression you can't assault when you do a skies of fury move, which kind of wastes the assault vehicle aspect of it. Personally I'd rather just take a Land Raider if I wanted a heavy transport - not to mention that it's on the table turn 1.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:
I'm under the impression you can't assault when you do a skies of fury move, which kind of wastes the assault vehicle aspect of it. Personally I'd rather just take a Land Raider if I wanted a heavy transport - not to mention that it's on the table turn 1.

Thats correct, but you can always enter hover mode after a turn, move and then exit out of the assault ramp. By which time the contents should tie up whatever was going to put the raven in danger anyway. Still a legitimate concern.

I actually think its good its not on table turn 1, it shouldn't be a problem unless for some reason you have a huge portion of your army in reserves. It will have less turns to be shot at and gives your opponent less time to run from it or put some barriers in the way via other models.

The Assault transport is a nice perk. You might not need it every game, but sometimes it’s nice. You can get a turn 3 assault by either jumping out the back on the turn you arrive, then charging the next turn, or switch to hover mode and deploy direct. But options are always nice to have.

As for the hover=death, it’s not guaranteed. Sure, you are more vulnerable then when zooming. But you have also had 3+ turns to neutralize any threats. And as Ryan_A just pointed out, in the Raven’s case, one of those threats is about to get a face full of melee.

I still think they work better empty as gunboats, but in the right list they could be used as assault transports. It’s just not a style list I want to play. YMMV.

 Nevelon wrote:
I still think they work better empty as gunboats, but in the right list they could be used as assault transports. It’s just not a style list I want to play. YMMV.

Ya, without a doubt they are amazing gunboats. A LRC that costs 20 points less, comes with a free MM (that is twinlinked), moves 36" and can fire everything, can only be shot at BS1 or with skyfire, can carry a dreadnought, is immune to melta, 4 72" krak missiles with AP2 and concussive, as well as the ability to shoot at ground AND fliers.

Definitely the best gunboat in the SM codex. I personally don't use the assualt ramp, just throw in super cheap scouts to score at the last minute (only done this in both the recent games I've played since I got the Storm Raven a bit ago, but its worked well. 1 contest and 1 capture in that order).

I have been using a Raven for a while now and and very happy with it. I have been using it with 3 other flyers so it is not hard to give it "Cover". I use the Storm Wing Dataslate and love how 2 Talons can escort the Raven. I add in a Storm Eagle from FW and i don't ever feel that my Raven is in any Real danger. To many other Flyers in their face to worry about the mid size Raven. I also Load it with a Vanguard Vet squad led by a Jump Captain, supported by a Dreadnought. The turn i get to charge with this unit, Dreadnought First, is just amazing. I think the best thing about the Raven is that it CAN transport jump troops, something no other vehicle in 40k can. Im starting to find that the hurricane bolters are not needed. Now that i understand you can fire 2 missiles if you want, and that i tend to hover on turn 3 makes all those extra shots wasted. All in all i love it.

A stormraven is the only thing that makes a talon death co dread remotely viable.

In a lot of ways storm ravens are fantastic transports. Decent armor, flight, assault ramps, and they are resistant to melta weapons. By flier standards they are pretty durable.

The major downside is not getting on the board right off the bat. Your unit may not show up till turn 4. Raven may also be called for AA duty, not just transporting. Then you have slot competition and the price.

Probably not the best transport around, but I would say it is "good". Really depends on what you want/need to transport by raven that you can use other methods.

 Vector Strike wrote:
Interceptor fire only happens at the end of enemy movement phase; Skies of Fury happens before the movement phase ends. So it's rather unlikely your embarked units would suffer he S10 Ap2 hits for being embarked in a destroyed flyer; but the Interceptor weapon could fire at your disembarked units or at the Stormraven

This right here, if they have good aa threat drop cargo play it safe, if they have just quad gun, risk it and you will be fine. Play to your opponent, you should ever have to worry about str. 10 ap 2 hits to your cargo unless your opponent just had a lucky roll. You shouldn't make judgment calls based on if my opponent has mad luck.