TPM Blood Angel is back with some thoughts about everyones favorite bonus tank rule, The Power of the Machine Spirit.
I have not been all about the Storm Raven like a lot of Blood Angel players.
I just don’t think it will make it into the most competitive builds, but I might be wrong. The power of the machine spirit might just tip the balance and force its way into my army list.
The vehicle does have an impressive armament. It sports a multi-melta and due to the wording of the PotMS it can fire this bad boy after moving flat out. It nice to always be able to fire an extra weapon, than what you normally could!
This means that if the Blood Angel player goes first he/she can blaze their Storm Ravens across the table 24 inches and pop off a few multi-melta shots hopefully crippling the hardest targets on the enemy’s side while still receiving the 4+ cover save and being immune to the extra effects from enemy melta. NICE!
For a melta gun to take down a Storm Raven after this alpha strike has been employed your enemy is going to have to get decently lucky. Even if they do hit you’ve got the 50/50 cover save to fall back on. On top of that, do you really care if your Ravens get grounded after you’ve already delivered your 24+ assault troops and a few dreads to the enemy lines? Probably not.
It can deliver a dreadnought which I think is great. It ‘helps’ make the dread survivable giving them an additional level of protection just like troops get while hiding inside a vehicle. I’m still not a fan of dreadnoughts but if I take Storm Ravens it seems like a waste not to utilize their additional transport capacity.
All the cool weapons and ability to transport dreads and jump pack troops is trumped by the PotMS and the ability to effectively alpha strike land raiders, thunder wolves, battle wagons and more. People are going to absolutely hate having this done to them.
The Storm Raven’s aren’t cheap points wise and there isn’t a model for them yet so that will limit their appearance on a lot of gaming tables but I think the over all novelty and usefulness will inspire a lot of players to make their own (IE MBG on this very blog).
Over all I am not convinced that the Raven Rush is going to be more effective than the Raider Rush but it does seem like it will be fun to play.
-TPM Blood Angel
What do you think? Alpha with ravens, or deepstrike them in? I love me some rampaging dreadnoughts in the morning!
About the Author: TPM
