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Hi, a friend of mine is looking to get into the hobby, he's rather clueless about the game rules so far, but delved deep into the fluff section (as in, incredibly deep. far more than I have before I got started) and after a few swings between potentail canidates (from Tzeentch daemons, to KdK to marines, back to chaos, and other rumble) he finally settled for picking ravenguard.
Says he likes the whole "special forces" feel they got, and I certainly understand it (and as far I can tell their rules follow that feel)


Unfortunately, its about the one marine army I'm not sure how to get started with.
So, I'm looking for a starting force to recommend him.


What is needed?

-Smallish, no point throwing too much cash into the hobby from day 1 (not like we are the richest guys ever). lets try o keep this at 150$ or lower, ignore codex cost.
-Point wise it should be at least 500, no more than 1000 (if it somehow hits that high under such budget) to allow a decent game, but not overwhelm.
-Raven guard fitting force, and bound army legal (formation or CAD working), as our local does not favor unbound.
-Not required to be top table competitive, but workable force that can hold it's own in it's point sector.
-Something that is fun to play, giving him at least minimal tactical choice, even with such a small force.
-Something he can grow from into a larger army later on, preferably over time and not needing a massive buy later on.


Now, I personally has Damocles, so he has rule-access to the talon force rules. that's not an issue, if you think something out of there is a good choice.

My initial thought was the pinion, but that's WAY too big, so my next idea was to go for one of the talon sub-formations, so he could if he wanted later add a pinion and make a whole force out of it (or just keep stacking formations)
The most appealing "initial forces" among them seems to be the shadow strike kill team, and the shadow force.
Now, I'd say Solaq, but I'm sure that if he had a shadow force-he's much rather have Shrike over Solaq. (Shrike fluff is one of the reasons hes into RG to begin with)

Yea, I'm a bit confused here and not sure what to recommend him to get.

With your budget, there is not a lot you can do (barring discounts or e-bay). And low point entry lists are rarely going to be balanced.

How does he feel about the official shrike mini? Does he like that, or just the fluff? Because you can make a pretty rocking 2xLC captain out of the VV box.

The Solaq box is not a bad deal, and the units in there are pretty good. And while I’m not fond of the special captain, he is unique.

One thing you should look into is what kind of list he wants to eventually play. You don’t want to pick stuff up for the 500 point list that are just going to collect dust later.

A lot of the RG stuff revolves around scouts and speeders, plus JP units. Can’t go wrong picking those up.

The Solaq box is probably your best value option

Other than that he could buy Shrike and a squad of Vanguard vets to accompany him + his choice of troops and maybe a rhino

If you're keeping it small initially, I'd recommend the forgeworld chapter rules: Raptors. A successor chapter to Ravenguard, much the same special ops flavour with better rules then the bog standard Ravenguard sans talon strike force. Paint them Ravenguard and run them as Raptors.

Their rules are free off the forgeworld site, and their character, Lias Issodon is great, he comes stock with the master of ambush warlord trait, so he can infiltrate himself and three other non vehicle units. Has a bunch of other special rules that contribute to the stealth and tricky approach. Has no official modal, so just convert him up.

A small army could be Lias Issodon and whatever three other units your pal wants to infiltrate with him. Tactical marines, centurions with Grav cannons, sternguard, whatever floats his boat. I'd recommend Lias to fill out the hq slot, two tactical squads with a special weapon and combi, and a 3rd unit of whatever (Grav cents are strongest on paper).

That is a nice start to a cad, everything can infiltrate and it saves on buying them marines transports. Latter on he can choose to expand further with raptors or switch to a talon strike force for bigger point games.

If you want to keep it as $150 or lower?

IGNORE THE SHADOW FORCE SOLAQ BOX.
You're looking at $50 for Sternguard, $40 for Vanguard, $30 for a Land Speeder. Add in around $30 for the price of most clamshell Captains and the box saves you nothing.

Now, you make a point about the Pinion being "too big" to start with--but the Battle Demi-Company boxed set is a REALLY good buy if he wants to go that way. It's over your $150 mark though as it is $220 for 30 Tactical Marines, 5 Devastators, a Commander boxed set, Dreadnought, and 5 Assault Marines--the infantry alone put you at $207 before factoring in the Commander+Dreadnought sets, so that one is a HUGE deal. It would help to keep this in mind if it is something he might be interested in expanding.

For $150? I'm going to suggest the following:
2 squads of Assault Marines
1 squad of Vanguard Veterans
Shrike

That will let him run the "Bladewing Assault Brotherhood" formation from the Kauyon book, and it comes in at $141.25.

Sloaq, as kanluwen says, offers no real discount, no reason cherry pick even if shadow force IS the path in the end.

He LOVES the shrike model, so that one is a no brainer pretty much.

Assault brotherhood seems a bit odd given the fact their abilities don't really function if they are the only thing around (jumping off board leads to auto lose, can't quite afford the DS thing) you sure about that making things work?

Demi company is not valid, he is not too much of a fan of tactical spam, and the commander and dread in it will be wasteful. (after all, pinion battle company does not support them, and is much more ravenguard)


Bryan01-you know raven guard tactics got buffed in kayoun, right? and as much as I personally LOVE the raptors (go issodon!), he's much more of a jump pack fan than I am, and raptors don't do jump packs.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Solaq, as kanluwen says, offers no real discount, no reason cherry pick even if shadow force IS the path in the end.

He LOVES the shrike model, so that one is a no brainer pretty much.

Assault brotherhood seems a bit odd given the fact their abilities don't really function if they are the only thing around (jumping off board leads to auto lose, can't quite afford the DS thing) you sure about that making things work?

To be fair, I didn't say it would be a super effective way of doing things--just that it's an option.

Demi company is not valid, he is not too much of a fan of tactical spam, and the commander and dread in it will be wasteful. (after all, pinion battle company does not support them, and is much more ravenguard)

The reason I suggested the Demi-Company box is because all of the components within it(barring the Dreadnought) are also used for the Pinion. You'd just need to add Scouts to the box.

The Dreadnought can be either sold off or saved for the "Ravenhawk Assault Group" formation. Add in that you can go 5 man Tactical Squads instead of 10 mans(I don't suggest this personally, you need the extra bodies to really go crazy when Outflanking) and you can have models leftover to kitbash your own Sternguard models, as each Tactical Squad box and the Devasator box comes with a Combi weapon that can be built as any kind of combi.

I ended up going the Demi-Company route myself as I had a boatload of Scouts, Vanguard, and Sternguard for my own Raptors force. For the price of the box it's kind of a no brainer in my opinion.

Bryan01-you know raven guard tactics got buffed in kayoun, right? and as much as I personally LOVE the raptors (go issodon!), he's much more of a jump pack fan than I am, and raptors don't do jump packs.

Raptors actually do whatever the situation calls for. They prefer run and gun guerilla warfare, but the individual companies/captains are given such a degree of autonomy that it's really silly they just "don't" do something.

Also, Raven Guard Chapter Tactics didn't change from Space Marines to Kauyon. It just reprinted them with added in Warlord Traits and Relics.

Well he's going to need a copy of space marines and a copy of the raven guard special rules which are found in kauyon campaign book, or by download from GWS in off form.

His army is going to consist mainly of scouts and vanguard veterans. The scouts can grant precise deepstrikes and ignores cover for the rest.

Vanguard veterans will be able to deep strike in turn 1 and assault turn 1!!!

I've played against this list several times. It is frightening for sure.

They don't do jump packs on the chapter tactics level of things at least.

And huh about the chapter tactics. wasn't aware the 7th edition codex changed that from 6th, thought it was only in kayoun that it got updated to be meaningful.
My bad.
Well, anyway. its better than the 6th RG tactics.

Ah, if he is going jump packs route, Ravenguard is the way. Although I feel outside of their kauyon formations, they are a bit lacklustre compared to other chapter tactics. So in smaller games, it might be a struggle to make it work.