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Given that's it's very possible that 2 of my regular opponents might bring 5 or more vendettas or stormravens. How do you build an Ultramarine list that can still handle hordes that'll likely also need to deal with flying transports with strong firepower that'll be dropping plasma vets or sternguard.

We play blind lists and random opponents. I'm not looking to tailor or hard counter... just a good 500 ish point nugget (whirlwinds? Stormtalons? Devastators?) or just bunker up and try to ignore 15 lascannons that can block assault and are hard to hit... or the even worse Stormraven firepower?

Fight fire with fire? Bring 4 Storm Ravens? >_< Sorry, a flying aircraft type of army is very specialised and hard to counter. Not a lot of options unfortunately. Even though Aircraft are easier to hit this edition, its still not easy because they bring firepower, mobility and they are still harder to hit than the typical model.

So you need something with high BS (to survive the -1 to Hit) and high strength shots (to pierce the T7). Long range is also desirable so you can shoot it over its mobility.

Since you also want a cheap option, I'd recommend the Tarantula Sentry Gun with twin lascannon. 500 points should get you 8 of them. Even though they don't move and the BS isn't ideal, 8 of them is 16 lascannon shots at 48" range with plenty to spread out for board cover.

Bear in mind of course, that if he brings a storm raven army. He can almost stuff his whole army into the ravens. He will likely start first due to having lower drops. So, yeah it looks good. But how many of those sentry guns will be left after he finishes shooting 4 Storm Ravens worth of guns into them...

Bring lots of stalker tanks with guilliman for the re-rolls. Still cheap enough to bring a whole rest of your army.

Does core GW have something equivalent to stalker tanks? You guys are using all these options which are from forgeworld which I have never heard about because my friends and I don't play forgeword ... >_<

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Does core GW have something equivalent to stalker tanks? You guys are using all these options which are from forgeworld which I have never heard about because my friends and I don't play forgeword ... >_<

The stalker is core GW. Heavy support, Index Imperium 1, the page to the left of the storm raven.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Bear in mind of course, that if he brings a storm raven army. He can almost stuff his whole army into the ravens. He will likely start first due to having lower drops. So, yeah it looks good. But how many of those sentry guns will be left after he finishes shooting 4 Storm Ravens worth of guns into them...

I mean, they're multi-wound and T5 so actually pretty durable.

That said, it'd take almost all the Stormraven's shooting to seriously cripple them. Since he only spent about 500 points on them, he's got like 1500ish to retaliate. I'd say that's a pretty good counter from a heavy alpha strike hit.

Ah ok my bad.

I don't know... Hurricane bolters can spit out 24 shots within 12 inches (not diificult for a Storm Raven to get within 12 inches). And that's just one of the possible weapons on the Storm Raven.

Also, I would absolutely second just taking Guilliman. OK so you hit on 4's with your devastator squad. Guess what? That's a 75% hit rate even against flyers. They're taking 3 (maybe even 4 with the signum) lascannon shots to the face each turn from a single squad.

Same problem though. A mass flyer army knows what is dangerous. He will likely start first because of fewer drops. And he will train all his storm Raven guns on your devastators.

Consider what 4 storm ravens worth of Hurracane bolters, assault cannons, and etc will do to your devastators. He doesn't need to shoot Gulliman because Gulliman can't touch his Ravens.

Telling you stalkers are the easy counter. With guillimans rerolls you are putting serious wounds and they are survivable from the standard bullet hose stormraven since they are T8. Take 3 in a spearhead detachment and you still have most of your points left over for your army. Also super helpful against eldar and Necron vehicles.

I guess its worth doing more research into Stalker tanks. Haven't seen them used much at all really. @_@

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Ah ok my bad.

I don't know... Hurricane bolters can spit out 24 shots within 12 inches (not diificult for a Storm Raven to get within 12 inches). And that's just one of the possible weapons on the Storm Raven.

Oh yeah, it's gonna hurt. No doubt about that. Not sure you can avoid that against flyer armies unless you're fielding nothing but elite super-soldiers.

That said, the Stormravens will waste shots overkilling. It's pretty easy to take each Tarantula as it's own unit so that's 8 targets they have to divide between. Not sure we can really mathhammer target selection but it's there.

He just needs to make sure his retaliation inflicts as much damage as he just took.

I agree Devastators are too weak and expensive. Centurion Devastators night work better. Though I'm the guy trying to build a 2k list of almost nothing but Centurions and Custodes so maybe a bit biased

Unsure of what your list looks like, but perhaps:

Spearhead Detachment
+ HQ +

Techmarine [5 PL, 78pts]: Conversion beamer

+ Heavy Support +

Stalker [6 PL, 124pts]: Two Icarus Stormcannons

Stalker [6 PL, 124pts]: Two Icarus Stormcannons

Stalker [6 PL, 124pts]: Two Icarus Stormcannons

++ Total: [23 PL, 450pts] ++

Or:

Air Wing Detachment
+ Flyer +

Stormhawk Interceptor [9 PL, 168pts]: 2x Assault cannon, Icarus stormcannon, Skyhammer missile launcher

Stormhawk Interceptor [9 PL, 168pts]: 2x Assault cannon, Icarus stormcannon, Skyhammer missile launcher

Stormhawk Interceptor [9 PL, 168pts]: 2x Assault cannon, Icarus stormcannon, Skyhammer missile launcher

++ Total: [27 PL, 504pts] ++

Sorry, what's the firing power of an Icarus Stormcannon? a Storm Raven has a lot of wounds on a 3+ save. Its not that easy to kill one.

The way I see it, you need a lot more than that. He will likely get first move (because of few drops). Then 4 ravens should have enough to take out or so severely wound two interceptors or talker tanks that they are irrelevant. That then leaves you facing 4 ravens with just one interceptor or one tank. Yes, you have the rest of your army. So, I guess the remaining 1500 points better be able to do something against flyers or they will be irrelevant as well.

 buddha wrote:
Telling you stalkers are the easy counter. With guillimans rerolls you are putting serious wounds and they are survivable from the standard bullet hose stormraven since they are T8. Take 3 in a spearhead detachment and you still have most of your points left over for your army. Also super helpful against eldar and Necron vehicles.

On paper, the stalkers seem like an easy answer because they hit well, but I actually don't like them as an answer if you're using Guiliman because the increase in efficiency when re-rolling 3+ to hit is a lot worse than the increase in efficiency when re-rolling a 4+ to hit (meaning Guiliman does a lot more for devastators or any other heavy weapons that don't have "skyfire").

Plus the -1 rend and 2 damage is really lackluster when you're facing anything more than 1 storm raven. Do the math. It takes a billion stalkers to kill 5 storm ravens, or it takes 32 turns (I'm rounding of course )

Cutting out the Techmarine in my suggestion for a fourth Stalker brings you to virtual points-parity to three barebones lascannon-equipped devastator squads (496 for the Stalkers vs 495 for the Devastators). While they benefit from Guilliman, that's another 360 points; without knowing OP's list and with the only stipulation being that he has 500 points budgeted for this, going to assume it's unrealistic to suggest he include Guilliman in this.

With that said, unless my math is horridly wrong (and I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case) four Stalkers still cause fewer wounds in a firing phase as the three Devastator squads would on average, though not massively so (~8 wounds for the Stalker vs ~14 for the Devastators)

So damage-wise the low AP really hinders the Stalker's damage against the Stormraven; however, in exchange you do get a force that is massively more survivable and durable. The Devastators net you 15 T4 3+ saves vs the Stalkers' 44 T8 3+ saves; which could the Stormravens sweep off the board first?

In the end, will likely depend on what the rest of OP's list is so better synergies could be achieved.

Edit: If anything this discussion suggests the Stormraven may be slightly under costed for what it can do with how much durability it brings.

Would vanguard vets with a couple of hammers do the job? They're not locked into the anti-air role, but should fulfil it decently... right? If I was up against that I'd definitely take a pair of stalkers, but the utility of vanguards hitting air and ground seems pretty alright.

5 vendettas seems bad. That's 1150 points dedicated to specialized anti-tank/monster that'll be awful against anything that isn't tank/monster.6 shots on 4+. 3 land. 2-3 wound. So each stationary vendetta is removing 2-3 marines/turn.

Obvious counter seems to be a bunch of regular infantry, right? Hordes? Lascannons are very inefficient against hordes.

And if he wants to move forward to drop dudes with his vendettas, he'll be hitting on 5+. That's ork accuracy. That means he'll be removing 1-2 marines a turn with each vendetta. Honestly, if he's got 1150 tied up in vendettas I can't see him having much more of anything. Trying to bring down the vendettas might be more trouble than it's worth. You might be able to just throw a bunch of marines into cover/out of sight and wait him out.

I haven't played against flyer spam in 8th so this pure conjecture on my part.

A pair of Stormhawks could do the trick. They're a little inaccurate, but the Storm Ravens will struggle to hurt them as most of the Storm Raven's weapons (depending on the exact load out, of course) have poor AP and the Stormhawk rerolls armor saves. The Stormhawk can also have a much longer range than the Storm Raven, again depending on the respective load outs of each flyer, so you could get a positioning advantage. If you team them up with some Assault squads or Vanguard Veterans and a character to give them rerolls you should be able to knock out a Storm Raven per turn pretty easily.

My best idea for now might be dakka preds or dreads near a chapter master or Guilliman (I'll have one of the two anyway).

 Saber wrote:


A pair of Stormhawks could do the trick. They're a little inaccurate

I think they're actually very accurate. For fly units, Skyhammer is at +1, and the other weapons benefit from the Stormhawk's interceptor rule.

5 Primaris Psykers with a Commissar

5x 40 pts.
1x 31 pts.

231 pts for 5 smites. Should kill most of one a turn. All are characters - just bubble wrap them.

For 500 pts, make it 10.