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I have been playing Warhammer 40k off and on for years and recently decided to get back into the hobby choosing Blood Angels I know they have a lot of unique units of a variety of kinds like sanguinary guard, death company, baal predators and the dreadnoughts. But I thought it would be really cool to have a new dedicated transport. Hell it doesn't even need to be a BA only vehicle but it could be a skimmer that's open topped and allows for 10 jet-pack units in the style of the d-day landing vessels if that makes sense. Especially considering flyer and reserve changes in the "Death from the Skies" book. Comments?

(I wasn't sure if the Death from the Skies rules were enforced but either way I think the air superiority thing is weird and having only fighters fire at other flyers with full ballistic skill strips the BA of their only AA, doesn't it?)

"D-Day style landing vessels" - You're pretty much describing Drop Pods. If you don't like that you've still got the Caestus.

What function do you want the vehicle to have? It's a transport for jump infantry, that skims but doesn't fly. It sounds like you're taking a Dark Eldar raider and painting it red rather than using storm ravens as intended.

SR suck though. Feth intentions.

The Stormraven can embark jump infantry anyway, I thought? And it definitely has assault vehicle.

Alternatively, you've got the Caestus Assault Ram, which can pack in 10 marines, and (as far as I recall) ignores the Bulky rule - it can certainly pack 10 terminators.

(I wasn't sure if the Death from the Skies rules were enforced but either way I think the air superiority thing is weird and having only fighters fire at other flyers with full ballistic skill strips the BA of their only AA, doesn't it?)

Yes and no. A Stormraven may only be snap firing, but a twin-linked assault cannon, even snap-firing, is pretty good at persuading a fighter to jink.

More importantly, if you've got them coming in en masse, you've got the fighter formations, which can give you a 4+ invulnerable save and interceptor - being able to unload 4 stormravens' guns into a flyer before it ever gets to shoot goes a long way to persuading attacking flyers to sod off.

They are expensive, but then they're pretty damn tough for flyers.

They're crap, even without Death from the Skies. With that, they become unplayable.

Martel732 wrote:
They're crap, even without Death from the Skies. With that, they become unplayable.

So, is being overly negative your shtick? By this point, we get it: You are pissed that BA are not good. whining about it any time the space vampires are mentioned is not helping. Either that, or I've missed a long-running joke.

To OP: That kinda sounds like you mixed the assault ram and the drop pod IMO. There's also the fluff 'problem' that the IoM doesn't really bother with skimmers (lack of tech and what not.) Maybe a new transport flier or assault drop pod like the dreadclaw?

 Brennonjw wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
They're crap, even without Death from the Skies. With that, they become unplayable.

So, is being overly negative your shtick? By this point, we get it: You are pissed that BA are not good. whining about it any time the space vampires are mentioned is not helping. Either that, or I've missed a long-running joke.

To OP: That kinda sounds like you mixed the assault ram and the drop pod IMO. There's also the fluff 'problem' that the IoM doesn't really bother with skimmers (lack of tech and what not.) Maybe a new transport flier or assault drop pod like the dreadclaw?

Fluff doesn't matter. WK and Riptides are common as dirt.

How are either of those relevant to this debate? I get it, you're salty that they're OP: you're right, they are, and most sane people have conceded as much many times over by now. Most of the threads about that have usually managed to go down the rabbit-hole and get tangled up on "but if you nerf them, BA still suck rocks". This is not particularly helpful.

The Stormraven sucks hosewater. Got it. Isn't this thread about cooking up something to ferry jump troops into the battle, but doesn't suck hosewater?

I'm not sure I have any real ideas for a flying version. To make that work it'd either have to be much tougher - and now we're looking at things like superheavy flyers, void shields, invulnerable saves, etc - or much cheaper. I would sorta like for the Imperium to have some kind of ground-based assault transport that's less bloody expensive than the Land Raider, though.

Anything open-topped and fast. Done.

Yeah, jade_angel has the idea. Of course i'm new but to my knowledge Stormravens can only be disembarked when they skim. And even then isn't it a psuedo deep strike thing? Regardless yes its about having a vehicle that can move 12 inches and still be viable in terms of protection. Hell even if it loses all weapon capabilities. Whether that's a fast vehicle or a skimmer i'm not sure what would be best.

Brennonjw I was unaware that was part of the lore but sounds very interesting. Again limited knowledge but isn't it the techmarines and admech that make the Imperium vehicles? And if they are very grounded in their design and approach then the stormraven's even more of a one-of and a cool vehicle!

Valkyrie not IMO. I kind of think of drop pods very similar to how they were used in Dawn of War 2: like a reinforcing point. I think having a vehicle you can place on the board turn 1 and zip up would be cool!

As a side note are there any vehicles in the game that have good Armour (say av 12-14 all around) but are open topped also? Like as a balancing feature. Because as a stereotype it seems like all skimmers kind of suck Armour wise but of course have a jink save so maybe that's why?