Email in: Storm Raven viable? 1850 list

"Okay, based on the recent discussions of the Storm Raven, I tried to fill in what holes in an army it could fill. It's a fast transport with superior anti-tank firepower that is not scared of being in close. On the minus side, it's expensive and does not really enjoy missile launchers or autocannons.

Here's what I ended up with. Unfamiliarity with the BA codex means it's almost certainly suboptimal, but I think it's a start.

100 Librarian Shield,BL

135 Sang Priests (1 Terminator)
210 Terminators TH+SSx2

180 Ass Squad (Melta Infernus) RB (LasPlas)
180 Ass Squad (Melta Infernus) RB (LasPlas)
125 Ass Squad (Melta) Rhino

115 Baal Pred
115 Baal Pred
115 Baal Pred

150 Vindicator Dozer Blade
150 Vindicator Dozer Blade
215 Storm Raven EA (MM, AC)

Very few marines, meaning the storm raven is basically doing the land raider job - cheap hammer unit. Tons of suppressing firepower, lots of armor 13, and the fast vindicators. Always wanted to try fast vindis, it's the best use for the demolisher cannon (well, except the Medusa, but that's very fragile)."

Personally, the list in comments from this post by Eddie is one of the better Stormraven lists around . The big issue with Stormraven lists is you're putting a lot of units, into one unit. Normal transports are generally 1+1 whilst the Stormraven is 1+1+1 and often each unit is well over 100 points and can quite often be 600-700 points. This makes it very difficult to generate a balanced list with Stormravems as you really need two to ensure you don't suffer from egg basket syndrome (which is the issue with your above list). What Eddie's list does is provide two rather impressive rock units without breaking the bank. However, I have the feeling a better use of Stormravens atm is using them as fire support. This isn't the best use of them as they are great at delivering combat units and Dreads due to their fast skimmer status and ignore melta rule but delivering both units is quite expensive. Otherwise I'd rather see a Stormraven list just deliver a Dread or combat unit.

So with this list I'd be dropping both of the Vindies because of their issues with only having a single gun and exposing their side armor for another Stormraven and I'd equip both Ravens with MM/PC/Hurricanes for a lot of firepower and both anti-tank and anti-infantry much like a Crusader but cheaper and more mobile (but less survivable to ranged guns). You can then put small ASM squads or IST squads in them to make them scoring and pop out for last ditch melta if necessary. We'll keep the Baal Preds but perhaps add HB sponsons to them and ditch the ASM Rhino squad and change the LasPlas squads to TL-assault cannons. We want to be able to stay quite mobile and shoot our weapons and move forward if necessary. We'll also drop the Terminators since we are running the Stormravens as fire support and then we can either run Dreads or Sanguinary Guard. The problem with both options is they must move forward rather than having the option (ah if only we had normal Dreads...). Let's see what we have currently:

Libby
2x5x ASM w/melta, infernous, RBack w/AC
2x5x IST w/2x melta
3x Baal
2x Raven w/PC, MM, Hurricane, EA

which totals 1435 points. So let's see if we can't expand upon our premise. Remember, rather than an assault force we're aiming for a fast and mobile shooting force. We'll add another Razorback squad and we can either add a third Stormraven (but it will be empty) or fourth Razorback. We'll add the fourth Razorback instead here and we fiddle with points to equal 1850 and get:

Libby w/hand-flamer
3x5x ASM w/melta, infernous, RBack w/AC
5x ASM w/melta, RBack w/AC
2x5x IST w/2x melta
3x Baal
2x Raven w/PC, MM, Hurricane, EA

Totals: 1850 points
9 tanks
31 infantry

So not very assaulty but a lot of mobile firepower. To make it more assaulty we'd drop the Baals down to MM/HF Speeders and add in some Terminators or Sanguinary Guard.