Discussion: Raven Guard

So I got in an e-mail recently and since I haven't had much time this weekend to do any significant posts (though I'm glad to see Mercer's 'death of the meltagun was appropriately taken by most people...), I thought I'd drop this e-mail in.

"Hello all,

I keep on loving the blog and its still my favorite 40k one out there. Keep up the good work!

A friend of mine was considering moving on form his Orks and start trying out a marine army and wants to have just a fun fluffy army but still wants it to do well. He is really interested in Raven Guard because he really like the fluff and the cool forgeworld kits. So he and I were discussing how to make this army limiting ourselves to ASM, Vanguard Vets, land speeders, scouts, tactical squads (in drop pods) and dreadnoughts (in drop pods). But then we thought using blood angles because that way we could have ASM at troops, have access to honor guard, have access to Stormravens (i know ONLY Grey Knights and BA have them but i think they fit in a raven guard theme. plus it is called a StormRAVEN), and use DotA which fits the Raven Guard's skill with jump packs. The thing is, if we go with BA i want to stay away from a lot of specific blood angels things like baal preds, sanguinary guard, furioso dreads and things like that. Sanguinary priests might be an exception to this rule but only if you guys decide they are absolutely necessary to make the list work. So im asking what you guys think will work, CSM or BA and what would this army generally look like?

thanks for your time

KingCronan"

So let's take a quick peak at what the SM and BA books offer us in terms of Raven Guard fluff and what KingCronan wants.

Space Marines:

• Shrike (obviously fluffy...) though he's only really a good unit when you grab some TH/SS and make a 1st and 10th list (there have been a couple posted up on 3++ before)
• 1st and 10th is an easy and effective theme to make
• cheap vehicles in every slot (though not so fluffy for RG)
• VV are really bad so not a great option here
• ASM are pretty bad as well with access only to flamers and not being scoring

Blood Angels: 

• ASM as scoring and access to meltaguns; this is a great boon for any army built around ASM
• Stormravens are accessible which certainly fits the fluff and combined with Speeders gives a fast and saturated force (though you aren't going to be accessing Dreads)
• Sanguinary Priests would really be needed to make the list work so you'd need to shoehorn their fluff in 

Anyway those are some really broad strokes. I think if you're looking for a more scout focused force and are happy with taking Terminators, go with Codex: SM and make a 1st and 10th list (not 30 TH/SS mind...). You could run a list like this as well for BA and include Stormravens/Speeders but points would quickly become an issue. If you were looking for more of an ASM focus I'd obviously lean towards Blood Angels as they really good with meltaguns and scoring. You could run a pure Jumpers lists w/VV, HG, ASM, etc and avoid BA specific things (Scouts and Devs can also be included) but once again, Sanguinary Priests are necessary. ASM + Stormravens/Speeders & Scouts without the Terminators is also an option as was discussed in the Stormraven post with the Stormravens acting as gunboats.

Anyway those are my thoughts but I'm not too well rehearsed in the Raven Guard literature/fluff. So any other thoughts from others? I'm sure fester will come along and encourage the use of his 1st and 10th concepts ^^.