Storm Ravens in 1000pt army

I'm a fairly low experience gamer, with more "codex" knowledge than game experience.
Been toying with the idea of a small Storm Raven Assault force.
The image of a few heavy armed assault transports flying in, dropping off a small elite force, taking out the target, and then flying back out, seems too good not to try.

However, is this a perfect movie scene, while in reality a method of suicide?

Here's the current list for the idea:

HQ (100)
Brotherhood Champion

Troops (360)
GKSS (8x : 1x Incinerator 1x Halberd on Justicar)
GKSS (8x : 1x Psycannon 1x Halberd on Justicar)

Fast Attack (410)
Storm Raven (MM, TLLC)
Storm Raven (MM, AC)

Heavy Support (130)
Dreadnought (MM, Fist with Heavy Flamer and Psy-flame)


What are your idea's and experience's?

i think this list can cause some serious damage in the blink of an eye but it can go really bad when you dont have the initiative on turn 1. i would switch the HB to a MM on the second stormraven.

Souba definitely has a point. If you don't have first turn, you're almost forced to put your SR in reserve which puts the randomness in your plans. Starting on the board and not having 1st turn will almost see your SR's blown out of the sky (if your opponent has any decent AT units).

Still, in the right scenario, this build can work very well.

I agree, but it could still be quite effective. Keep in mind that you're also slightly less likely to see some heavy AT action at 1000 points (it'll still be there though). One thing though, is that an 8-man strike squad with 2 heavy weapons? If so, keep in mind that you can only have 1 heavy weapon for every 5 models in the squad.

Brother Brentk: Just checked the codex and your right. Cheers
I've also made the changes you've suggested.

So it's a one trick pony, but a lethal trick if played right?

i just had the idea of switching the Bchamp for Coteaz so you get the initiative reroll

Hey, why didn't I think of that?
Well Done Brother

What about a psychic inquisitor with psychic communion?
They hide out of sight, and call in an air stirke.

no... not good. if you deepstrike in you are sacrificing alot of your damage potential. also you bring your units probably drip per drip into the game wich will make it easier for your enemy to shoot you down. run in full force i would say.

I think you may have misinterpreted the idea. I'd take psychic communion, to make sure the SRs both arrived at once, with their payloads, and only have the inquisitor (and maybe henchmen) on the table for the first turn.
This was only as a back up to not getting first-deployment/first-turn, with insufficient cover to hide both the SR's behind.

Its a generalisation, but everyone I know who has tried to deepstrike SR's in a competitive environment has deeply regretted the decision.
We do have skulls which help, but I would be very wary.

I wouldn't recommend attempting to DS stormravens for the same reasons already said. It's just such a big template, and if any of it hits the enemy or terrain then you've at best delayed its arrival and at worst lost half of your army right off the bat.

It is a tricky situation if you don't have first turn. Let's say you do have a psychic communion =I=, you don't have first turn, and you don't steal the initiative, so you opt to keep both stormravens in reserve (not DS, just regular reserves). I imagine the following would happen quite often: Opponent's first and second turn, nothing really happens. Your first turn, nothing really happens. Your second turn you roll reserves and you roll a 5 or 6 for one dice and a 1 or 2 for the other; even with psychic communion you can't stop one from coming in and the other from staying behind. Now you've got half your army against his whole army. They do some damage, but ultimately take much more damage than they deal. On your third or fourth turn, your other half comes in. By now it's too late as your forces were too staggered. Psychic communion only helps when your roll is one above or one below what it really needs to be, which will only happen 1/3 of the time. This means that you can use it as something that's just kind of helpful, but never rely on it.

With that said, I would probably still try it out for some fun and to see if you can make it work. You could always try to kind of hide the half of the army that comes out first. Coteaz is definitely a good idea, as he almost guarantees that the opponent won't steal the initiative. With Coteaz, you'll basically have first turn on almost exactly half of your games. The scenario I proposed above would happen probably less than half of the time (you could actually run the probability if you feel so inclined), so it should usually be okay. Worst case though, you've got to hide half of your army while waiting a turn or 2 for the other half to come in.

I would have to disagree with you, Brother BrentK. This example is totally situational and reflects one of many possibilities of the game. As much as the there's the chance of not coming on the second turn and beyond, it'll all depend on what he puts in reserves. He's got so few units, that putting everything for deep strike would be a silly and bad play from his part.

Now deep striking the SR is as valid as deep striking a unit of Paladins, Terminators or any other unit capable of doing so. The risk of putting one major threat on your opponents rear end is paid in full with the scatter. A well placed deep strike point would do wonders to your plans, even when the scatter dice gods are not with you there. So I think that deep striking SR are quite good and depending on the situation, very useful.

Now I have to agree with brother Souba, since the army is relying to heavily on SRs perhaps the best move would be to use them as gunboats. Or maybe start with one unit inside one SR. It'll all depend on the game you're playing. I'd actually would recommend dropping the dread and adding one more GKSS squad, one Interceptor Squad or perhaps, points permitting, one Purgation squad.

Okay, I was admittedly probably being a bit too pessimistic there. The main reason I pointed it out was because it's basically the worst case scenario if you keep both SR's in reserve (talking about regular reserves, not DS'ing). On the DS'ing comment, I'm probably just a scaredy-cat when it comes to using deep strike

I do agree with removing the dread. In my experience, 2 dreads hurt, 1 dread is just annoying. With that in mind, the points would likely be better spent on something else.

Coteaz seems to be the best HQ at the moment for this army list.

Replace the Dreadnough for purifiers or intercepters?
Purifiers are heavier hitting, specially at the close-range/CC this army will be fighting (I perfer to bring the fight to the enemy), but the intercepters will be better for maintaining mobility (to hit the weak points), as currently the entire force is mounted in SR's.