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As a straight gunship, is the Raven competitive vs the Talon?

The better gunship to compare the Stormraven against would be the Fire Raptor Gunship - and the latter is almost always going to be the better pick.

Well you can get two stormtalons for the cost of one raven.
I'd rather have two ships out there than the one. Although the Raven is a lot more durable and can have a multimelta.

But two stormtalons with cyclone missile launchers are pretty awesome, and you can split up where all that firepower goes to.

 Icculus wrote:
Well you can get two stormtalons for the cost of one raven.
I'd rather have two ships out there than the one. Although the Raven is a lot more durable and can have a multimelta.

But two stormtalons with cyclone missile launchers are pretty awesome, and you can split up where all that firepower goes to.

Why not both?

Why not ...

http://www.blacklibrary.com/games-workshop-digital-editions/Dataslate-Adeptus-Astartes-Storm-Wing.html

 Icculus wrote:
Well you can get two stormtalons for the cost of one raven.
I'd rather have two ships out there than the one. Although the Raven is a lot more durable and can have a multimelta.

But two stormtalons with cyclone missile launchers are pretty awesome, and you can split up where all that firepower goes to.

The price is a big reason I was curious if the Raven was actually worth buying.

If you want air superiority, more flyers are better than one (unless you have Vector Dancer). I would personally go with the two Stormtalons over the single Stormraven as air support. If you want a flying Land Raider on the other hand...

It it's your only flying element, two Stormtalons beat one Storm Raven - more firepower, more flexibility in applying it, less vulnerable to being taken down by an unlucky snap shot from a heavy weapon.

Yes, the Stormraven has better armour but going from 11 to 12 doesn't make that much difference against serious flak or another flyer.

If taking massed flyers, the Storm Wing is easily worth it. If not, I'd take the Stormtalons unless you specifically want the transport capacity of the Stormraven.

I have 2 Ravens for BA (we don't get talons - apart from stormwing), and I find them absolutely perfectly balanced for their points, which is odd seeing as though GW never seem to get anything bang on.
Overall I'd probably go for two talons over one raven if I had a choice.

I'm not interested in using the Raven's transport capabilities, with the possible exception of a few Scouts.

So it sounds like the Talons are a better buy for straight aerial firepower.

Stormtalons are better. Their main downside is that they take up a Fast Attack slot, which you might want for something else.

 Frozocrone wrote:
The better gunship to compare the Stormraven against would be the Fire Raptor Gunship - and the latter is almost always going to be the better pick.

This is the real answer


However, just between the two, if you're specifically looking at gunship functionality, I'd say the Stormtalon, particularly as you can get two for the price of a single Stormraven.

 DanielBeaver wrote:
Stormtalons are better. Their main downside is that they take up a Fast Attack slot, which you might want for something else.

Too bad you can't take squadrons of them. They are dirt cheap. I am actually considering running a second one and giving them TMLs instead of SMLs (too bad TMLs are harder to magnetize). Talons are great AA due to their TLAssC doing well against more AVs and either missile launcher being able to clean up what they don't kill. Ravens aren't terrible, not much AA fire is strong enough to bring one down easily. They can lay out a bunch of fire (definitely give them the TLAssC instead of the TLLC, it is statistically better) with the Storm Strike missiles and MM in front. Since it has PotMS, you can actually get a split fire attack. It is debatable if the Hurricane Bolter sponsons are worth it. I magnetized mine so if I have the points I can through them on.