Stormraven Tactics Part 1 - Weapons

Ok so the Stormraven Gunship is a brand new piece of kit for Blood Angels. It's new to the 5th Edition and of course the model was only released a few weeks ago. However already i feel confident enough to say that my Stormraven is pretty much the centre piece of my army.

This thing has a weapon for eveyr occasion, so i'm going to go through the Stormravens capabilities and weapons one by one and give you all my thoughts on how a Stormraven can be most effectively used.

So the first and most obvious things to note are the weapons. The Stormraven is armed with 3 main weapon systems, with an optional 4th. So the first of these weapon systems can be either a set of Twin-Linked Heavy Bolters or a Twin-Linked Multi-Melta and for an extra 25pts can even be upgraded to the Typhoon Missile Launcher.

Now the first thing to do is identify the purpose of each of these weapons systems, so obviously Heavy Bolters are great against anything from Light to Heavy infantry and can even be useful against some very light armour, i.e Radiers/Ravager, Land Speeders, Sentinels (Not the Armoured versions however) and many other open topped light vehicles. There strength of 5 combined with an AP of 4, and 3 shots per turn means they bring down anything short of space marine infantry with no effort at all and even space marines might take a few wounds from them.

So next is the Multi-Melta, obviously once again this is particularly good against armour, get in close (Within 12") roll to hit, re roll if failed, 2 D6 to penetrate with strength 8, plus 1 to any rolls on the damage table, and then sit back and watch your opponent break down in tears as you melt his favourite Land Raider into a puddle of liquid metal. Of course these only get 1 shot per turn which is great against armour but makes for a difficult task when trying to kill squads of 10 or more men, especially when playing for Kill Points.

Lastly is the Typhoon Missile Launcher, with the ability to fire both Frag (Strength 4, AP6, Small Blast Template, Heavy 2) and Krak (Strength 8, AP3, Heavy 2) shots, this is a weapon ideal at both killing infantry AND armour. Of course Frag shells aren't quite as good as a Heavy Bolter for killing infantry, and Krak shells loose the Melta rule and AP 1 of the Multi-Melta, but the fact that they're an all round useful weapon and that they each get 2 shots per turn makes Typhoon Missile Launchers a great weapon to use.

Then comes Weapon System 2, for this you have a choice of Twin-Linked Assault Cannons, Twin-Linked Plasma Cannons or Twin-Linked Lascannons. Once again Assault Cannons are great against virtually any infantry at all, and even good against light armour, not to mention their rending special rule means they can even take down heavier armour if your lucky. The fact they get 4 shots a turn just makes them all the more useful.

Lascannons don't even need to be discussed really, they are and have always been one of the absolute favourite weapons of practically any Space Marine, Chaos or Imperial Guard player since they first appeared in Warhammer 40,000. With the second highest strength available in the game, and the second highest AP value available in the game, the stopping power of these weapons is unbelievable, the only drawback, as with the Multi-Melta, is that they only get one shot a turn, making them ideal against enemy armour, but just not enough against large numbers of infantry, i mean sure they'll make Terminators turn and run, but unless your opponent is using his terminators in squads of 1 then your going to struggle to rack up kill points quickly.

And lastly, once again we have a neutral option, the Plasma Cannon, not quite as good against amour as a Lascannon, not quite as good against infantry as an assault cannon (Altho it does use a blast template so its entirely possible it could even do better than an assault cannon sometimes) This i'd say is the inbetweener again. With a strength 7, AP 2 and small blast template this will wreak havoc amongst even the heaviest infantry squads, and will even melt a nice radioactive hole through most vehicles.

Next you have Bloodstrike Missiles. Often overlooked, these missiles are fantastic against vehicles, ok they'd struggle to bring down a Land Raider (altho rolling 2 6's for penetration and damage would still do the trick!) but anything else would sufffer seriously under fire from these badboys esepecially if you hit it with all 4 of the Stormravens Bloodstrike Missiles at once. As a rule i'd say if you finish a game with your Stormraven intact and it has any of these left then your not using your Stormraven properly.

Now finally the optional 4th weapon system, a pair of Hurricane Bolters. Now these set you back an extra 30 pts but against most opponents it's worth it for the extra kills these things can rack up. With a 24" range or the ability to double up on shots at 12" for a total of 12 shots with Twin-Linked Bolters making them fantastic against infantry. Of course it depends on your opponent, after all Boltgun fire would bounce of any vehicle as if it was a volley of BB's from an air rifle. So if your opponent isn't using large numbers of light infantry it might be worth saving the 30pts to spend on weapon upgrades elsewhere in your army.

Now to actually decide what configeration to use for each battle. At this point i would say that i Magnetised every weapon on my Stormraven so i constantly have the choice, and some players who play in a more relaxed environment would allow you to count weapons as slightly different to what they are just to save you having to buy 18 £41 kits just to be able to field any Stormraven Varient. Anyway the point is I like to think carefully about which weapons to arm my Stormraven with before a game.

Now as i've mentioned in earlier articles I mostly play against my Dad, who is a Dark Eldar player. So against him my standard build would be Typhoon Missile Launchers, Assault Cannons and Hurricane Bolters. This being because with Typhoon missile launchers its still a 3+ to wound Dark Eldar even with Frag shells and ok his Kabalites still get armour saves but 5+ saves aren't all that likely to pass anyway. Assault Cannons get 4 shots per turn, and being Twin-Linked that in most cases means 4 kills per turn. And lastly Hurricane Bolters. Any Blood Angels player (Or Space Marines in General) who's played against Dark Eldar will tell you that a round of boltgun fire into a squad of Kabalites is enough to cut their numbers down to half in just one turn in most cases. This means Hurricane Bolters are perfect for mopping up the survivors after the Missile Launcher and Assault Cannon have done their bit. The other advantage to this build is that against Dark Eldar, who don't have any real armour (Except the 2 flyers that are yet to have models and are still only AV12) and use mostly open topped vehicles, all of these weapons with the occasional exception of the Hurricane Bolters, can tear them down with ease.

Now i also occasionally play against a few other players, Most noteably a Space Wolves player, a Tyranids player, and an Imperial Guard player. Now against the Tyranids i usually use the same build as against the Dark Eldar, however the Space Wolves and even more so the Imperial Guard require a little more attention to detail. Now against the Space Wolves i normally go with an Anti-Armour build, figuring that if I can deal with their armour using my Stormraven, then the Death Company and Dreadnought that drop out of it can mop up the remaining infantry. So for this I'd use the Twin-Linked Multu-Melta, Twin-Linked Lascannon, and wouldn't waste the extra points on the Hurricane Bolters that would struggle against Space Marines anyway.

Against the Imperial Guard however i have to be careful. They are capable of fielding massive numbers of infantry or large collumns of vehicles, and the Stormraven is generally only going to be geared up for one or the other. Now i've found 3 builds to work in this case, none of them exceptionally well, but all of them well enough when teamed up with the rest of my army. The first is using all the neutral weapons, so the Typhoon Missile Launcher and Plasma Cannon. Unfortunately though unless i can get behind his vehicles some of their armour can still laugh that off as if the Stormraven wasn't even there. The second and third build i've tried both involve mixing and matching different weapon types, These would be using the Multi-Meltas with the Assault Cannons (Particularly good against vehicles but ok against infantry) or using the Heavy Bolters with the Lascannons (Particularly good against infantry but still ok against vehicles). Now my Hurricane Bolters in each of these builds only equate in if my oppenent is using large numbers of infantry, which often they will be.

Now what i say really is that for most games you'll have an idea before hand who your opponent is and what they are going to use against you but think carefully about how to set up your Stormraven before hand and provided it doesn't find itself the target of every tank killing gun on the board just for being a Stormraven (Which i have to say happens a lot to me unfortunately)  then it should really start to prove it's worth pretty quickly, especially when you find yourself winning games 10 kill points to 0.

Look out for my Stormraven Tactics part 2, should be up soon.

Later guys