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Why aren't Bloodthirsters an answer to Stormravens?

7x S11 AP-4 Dd6 attacks (get a DP for re-rolls too), that does about 17 wounds to the SR doesn't it? With a bit of luck and a couple of BTs you could be destroying a SR a turn.

Why don't we like storm eagles and or fire raptors? Prescience and profit.

 luke1705 wrote:
Why don't we like storm eagles and or fire raptors? Prescience and profit.

Because we don't have money.

 mrhappyface wrote:

 luke1705 wrote:
Why don't we like storm eagles and or fire raptors? Prescience and profit.

Because we don't have money.

If you convert a storm raven to have the appropriate weapons, I can't imagine that too many people would take issue. If they do, there is a conversion kit IIRC but the cost of a raven + conversion kit does begin to approach the cost of the storm eagle

I've been taking out flyers with my Kharybdis and my Flying Deamon Prince of Deamon Khorne Deamon Claws. The amount of wounds is annoying but it isn't impossible to deal with without specifically gearing your army to deal with them.

What about a double lascanon sicarian ? Those Sicaran autocannon : Assault weapon without the -1 penalty to hit Hard to hit flyer seems great on paper for AA ?

mrhappyface wrote:Why aren't Bloodthirsters an answer to Stormravens?

7x S11 AP-4 Dd6 attacks (get a DP for re-rolls too), that does about 17 wounds to the SR doesn't it? With a bit of luck and a couple of BTs you could be destroying a SR a turn.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Stormravens could easily stay around 23" away from bloodthirsters all the time, hitting them with most of their firepower and virtually immune to their charge.

luke1705 wrote:Why don't we like storm eagles and or fire raptors? Prescience and profit.

That feels like a good option, but personally, I'd love to play something different than flyer spam.

 skybax wrote:

mrhappyface wrote:Why aren't Bloodthirsters an answer to Stormravens?

7x S11 AP-4 Dd6 attacks (get a DP for re-rolls too), that does about 17 wounds to the SR doesn't it? With a bit of luck and a couple of BTs you could be destroying a SR a turn.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Stormravens could easily stay around 23" away from bloodthirsters all the time, hitting them with most of their firepower and virtually immune to their charge.

If your smart, it's quite easy to force flyers into some very unforgiving options:
1. They drop into hover mode and open themselves up to being fired upon and attacked by everything else you have on the board.
2. Move their minimum range but put them dangerously close to the Thirsters.
3. Stay airborn and away from the Thirsters but force yourself off the board.

Used to do this kind of stuff in 7th ed vs Vendetta and Vutlure spam, people often underestimate the threat range of a unit with 12" movement and 2d6" charge (even more so now with command re-rolls). It only takes one slip up, for them to get distracted by one of your other units, then suddenly the Thirster is in cc and the flyer is basically dead.

 skybax wrote:

luke1705 wrote:Why don't we like storm eagles and or fire raptors? Prescience and profit.

That feels like a good option, but personally, I'd love to play something different than flyer spam.

And that's totally understandable. Not really my cup of tea either. But one of each I don't really think is spam, and I was only suggesting the 1 to transport something meaty like zerkers into combat. If you don't need that, I really do think a single fire raptor is quite exceptional.

Also, a Leviathan Dreadnought hits on 2's at 36" range. "Only" hitting a flyer on 3's (probably with re-rolls of 1 from a lord somewhere) isn't too shabby since IIRC the storm raven is T7 too. That's 8 damage a turn from the leviathan now that it can take 2 butcher cannons. We could do a lot worse than that

The problem with using blood thirsters is that they have more than 10 wounds, so they can be singled out and shot at. They may look sturdy at 16 wounds, but enough shooting into it can still take it out.

If we are facing 3 to 5 storm Ravens, their combined firepower can surely take out one Bloodthirster. And they will get first strike because our blood thirster can only fly 12 inches. We can't reach them but they can reach us first.

Now we could go for threat overload. Have multiple bloodthirsters, but that would get expensive really fast. A blood thirster is more expensive than a Storm Raven.

Multiple Daemon Princes are probably a better plan. DPs can be screened by the rest of your army. But again, you really need quite a few if you are relying on them to be the counter to Storm Ravens, because if its just one or two, those will inevitably get focused down and killed by his SR alpha strike. Let's say we take the extreme. 5 SR with some assault type troops in them vs like 10 DPs. He goes first, he hovers all 5 SRs at 25 inches and focus fires down maybe two DPs and injures a third one. Now 8 DPs fly forward 12 inches and assault move. Second turn, he gets to shoot with all his weapons for one more turn. (you might lose 3 to 4 DP in this second attack because he is now within rapid fire range). And his assault troops unload and charge in too. If you lose 4, you are down to 4 DPs and some are probably tied up in assault with his troops. He still have 5 full health SR which you haven't even had the chance to charge at yet...

With the price hike of soulburner petards, what do people think of storm laser decimators? They seem like fantastic anti-infantry dakkadreads with 10 str 6 ap-2 shots. Importanly, stormlasers are assault weapons, allowing the decimator to move and shoot accuratly unlike most other weapon platforms. For about the same price as a regular helbrute, theyre looking good to me.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
The problem with using blood thirsters is that they have more than 10 wounds, so they can be singled out and shot at. They may look sturdy at 16 wounds, but enough shooting into it can still take it out.

If we are facing 3 to 5 storm Ravens, their combined firepower can surely take out one Bloodthirster. And they will get first strike because our blood thirster can only fly 12 inches. We can't reach them but they can reach us first.

Now we could go for threat overload. Have multiple bloodthirsters, but that would get expensive really fast. A blood thirster is more expensive than a Storm Raven.

Multiple Daemon Princes are probably a better plan. DPs can be screened by the rest of your army. But again, you really need quite a few if you are relying on them to be the counter to Storm Ravens, because if its just one or two, those will inevitably get focused down and killed by his SR alpha strike.

Saying "daemon princes can hide behind screening units" and then saying "his alpha strike will kill your daemon princes" doesn't mesh.

If I were to go the bloodthirster route, I would use An'ggrath. Anything he touches turns to dust.

Skarbrand is enticing because you can stop them from falling back. I think in a list with An'ggrath as the scary bullet sponge, Skarbrand could do some work (obviously you would still need Daemon princes to engage them because Skarbrand's wings are too flimsy :( ). At least he can yell loudly at them.

But honestly? Exalted flamers. Characters that auto hit with their flamer. Smite spam (chaos can do this exceedingly well). And no one, literally no one in the game has better screening units for Storm Ravens to chew through. That -1 to hit AND a 4++...sweet baby Jesus

So our answer to Storm Ravens is to play a Daemon list? sadface. :(

It's almost impossible to beat a heavily skewed list without list tailoring. It also happens that Storm Ravens are slightly under costed its hard to find other units that can match them.

The good news is that they'll probably be adjusted in the new Space Marines codex and that if somebody is consistently spamming broken units then you don't need to play with them.

What about deredeo dreadnaughts? They can go into anti-air mode every other turn, that'd likely put some serious hurt on a stormraven.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
So our answer to Storm Ravens is to play a Daemon list? sadface. :(

If you'll recall, my first answer was to take a Storm Eagle or a Fire Raptor. There are only so many good answers. If you'd like another one, I can mention the Leviathan Dreadnought again. Tons of d2 flamer hits, and hitting with 16 str 8 d2 shots on 3's is hardly awful


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Anyway has anyone taken a look at the hellforged Falchion? Like the actual damage! Stick Kharn (or a regular chaos lord) next to that guy and profit! Or give him some good old pre science. Either way, it's a little expensive but I think kills a thing a turn and then some!

Yeah, anyway, maybe the points will be changed when the CSM and space marine codex comes out for the LR and the SR respectively. Right now, for SM players, it doesn't make sense to bring a LR when the SR is cheaper and better.

Anyway, I realised that a Blight Launcher shoots 24 inches, is assault 2, and does d3 damage with rend 2. Each plague marine squad can take two. So, anyone considered MSU plague marine squad spamming?

A basic minimum 5 man squad of plague marines with two blight launchers is 133 points. That's 4 shots of d3 damage which is pretty decent. The thing is, since they are assault, you can move, plus assault move and then shoot those things. If you want to add more firepower with synergy, the champion can use a combi melta (also assault) but its 12 inches. Leaving aside the combi melta, the basic sqaud with 2 launchers costs 133 points. So you can have quite a lot of squads of plague marines, all with blight launchers. At str 6, rend 2, d3 dmg, they can shoot anything, vehicles included. And at T5, with DR, plague marines are tough and should stick around.

Maybe complement this with a nurgle DP or two who can add to the CC aspect. The many squads of plague marines will screen the DP, who can counter charge anything within its quite long reach. The rerolls of 1s to hit will help too, not to mention the DP is a psyker. We can add a heavy support component too. If spamming blight launchers isn't enough. Like maybe some havocs squads. I don't know ... 12 squads of plague marines is just shy of 1600 points. 24 blight launcher packs 48 shots each turn which is a decent amount of ranged firepower already. The key thing to remember, is that ALL the units move 5+d6 and then shoot. So, this 48 blight launcher shots do not change even when you are moving at that speed.

60 plague marines and 2 DP can play the objective game too. When you think about it, its relatively fluffy, since deathguard is all about moving forward ponderously while weathering all sorts of heavy fire.

Think some more on the Sonic Dread and I can see going 2xBlastmaster and Missile Launcher being a good loadout. Both of the missile launcher profiles pair well with the blastmaster profiles. Plus you have good enough range that you can hunker down in cover and still laydown some good fire while shaving off some points for a fairly fragile for the points model

nice to see the FW faq makes rapier rules actually make sense now.

Is there any way to convert a hellbrute from the 7th main box into a contemptor dreadnough, or is it a silly idea? I still have one on the sprue which I have never used.

Also, what are people thoughts on using maggot lords mounts as giant chaos spawn? They are cheaper than forgeworld, and I honestly think they look better.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, what do you guys think will be better, a leviathan or one of the forge world fliers?

Leviathan seems more resilient if you can gain cover, fliers with the -1 to hit, seem also pretty good, move more, and seem to have more dakka (at least anti-infantry)

Flyers end up being slightly more expensive than the leviathan.

kaintxu wrote:
Is there any way to convert a hellbrute from the 7th main box into a contemptor dreadnough, or is it a silly idea? I still have one on the sprue which I have never used.

I wouldn't bother. The amount of work needed to be done to the Hellbrute to make it the size of a Contemptor and distinctly different to Hellbrutes / Dreads on the table is significant. You are far better off grabbing the BaC Single Pose Contemptor off Ebay.

 luke1705 wrote:


Anyway has anyone taken a look at the hellforged Falchion? Like the actual damage! Stick Kharn (or a regular chaos lord) next to that guy and profit! Or give him some good old pre science. Either way, it's a little expensive but I think kills a thing a turn and then some!

The Falchion looks amazing honestly. It's the last word in removing enemy heavies and super heavies. I like the look of the Fellblade and Typhon as well. I feel like all three are pretty versatile and will make their points back. Probably wouldn't take them in a game below 3k tho.

@Kaintxu

I am modding some Maggoth Lords into Giant Chaos Spawn.

Finished article (Not my painting)


As for dealing with flyer Spam.

I don't anticipate many opponents will be running those lists for very long.

The Levi dread with Butcher Array is probably our best option to counter these. Short of taking our own Flyers, such as a the Fire Raptor.

@mcsheehy

Looks great and while not much cheaper, you save some money both because they are cheaper and online retailer or LGS discount. Only issue is they are great for nurgle, what what to use if you want some for thousand sons once their codex comes out and everything needs the word?

How about Deredeos? the helical targetting array gives +1 to hit (which means autohits with an undamaged deredeo unless there are other modifiers)

so it's outputting an automatic 16 damage with the butcher array (before saves), or 15 with the ectoplasma battery, plus another 6 from the twin heavy bolters and 3D3 from the greater havok launcher (although the veil looks like a better choice). OK it cant be used two turns in a row but that's a significant amount of hurt to pump out on flyers in a turn.

Im sure you could do some further modding...

Chaos is Chaos after all.
None of the Daemons look pretty

Just fill in the Nurgley bits.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Charax,

Your +1 to hit cancels out the -1 to hit for flyer.

Plus, a roll of a '1' is always a fail. Regardless of modifiers.
Otherwise your taking a lord. (Which I suggest)

At that point, I'd just rather have my Levi dread hitting on 3's.

The dorito hits on 2's with helical targeting. With a standard lord or pre science you mostly don't miss at all.

Plus, a roll of a '1' is always a fail. Regardless of modifiers.

Correct me if i'm wrong but a roll of 1 with a +1 modifier can be a success

DreamIsCollapsing wrote:

Plus, a roll of a '1' is always a fail. Regardless of modifiers.

Correct me if i'm wrong but a roll of 1 with a +1 modifier can be a success

well.. a 1 always fails for attacks, wounds.. saves..

Honestly for the sonic dread the missile launcher is just not worth it.

I will take a blastmaster for 3 points more than a missile launcher anyday of the week. Plus the scourge gives 7! attacks. That is a great hybrid unit that brings lots of shooting while also being a Solid CC threat. All that for 173 points? Excuse me while I go convert some up.