Heresy! Ultramarines Captain Lysander Agemman

I've been using my Black Reach Captain since I started bringing my own painted figures to the table. I usually play him with artificer armor and a relic blade for 145 points. I often use him as a human shield for a Tactical Squad and, more recently, for a stand-in Sternguard Squad. However, once my opponent breaks out the AP2 S8+ weapons, my Captain doesn't have much confidence in his 4+ Iron Halo save and is content to let his loyal subordinates throw themselves in the line of fire. The same goes for when he's down to a single wound. This is fine when the subordinate is a Tactical Marine, but less so when the Marine is a member of the Sterngaurd. In a recent game against Bryce's Tau, I let 50 points of Sternguard die before I finally declared that the Captain was a coward and should be taking his own saves.

Thinking that a Captain with a 3+ invulnerable save would make a better human shield, I recently gathered the parts to build a relic blade-wielding, storm shield-carrying Captain. With artificer armor, the model would cost 160 points. Before I could start building him, though, it occurred to me that 160 points was a lot for a model that can still be instantly killed by melta weapons, railguns, lascannons, etc. if he doesn't make his 3++ save. Even more disappointing is the fact that a plain Captain doesn't do much more than shield the other members of his squad: no nifty abilities, no modification of rules, nothing. A Librarian has various powers while a Chaplain is cheaper and gives his squad Liturgies of Battle. So what does a plain Captain do for you?

In that moment of doubt, the seeds of heresy were sown.

Shielding a Tactical Squad is all well and good, I thought, but I'm starting to field Sternguard. Not only do I want to protect them, but I want to buff them too. Isn't there a character that can do that? At first I thought that the one I wanted was Pedro Kantor, but all he does for Sternguard is to make them scoring. Our group tends to play annihilation games, so making units scoring doesn't matter too much. As I looked through the codex, I found who I was looking for: Captain Lysander of the Imperial Fists 1st Company.

Does he come in blue?

For a mere 40 points more than my proposed relic blade/storm shield Captain I could get a four wound Captain with Terminator armor, a storm shield, and a master-crafted thunder hammer that hits at Strength 10 and adds +1 to rolls on the vehicle damage table. He brings his Bolter Drill rule to any unit he's with, meaning that the squad re-rolls failed to hit rolls for any bolter-type weapon. Sternguard special ammunition looks even better when their bolters are effectively twin-linked. Lysander's Bolster Defenses rule could help out just about any squad, especially Sergeant Telion's snipers. Finally, Lysander has the Eternal Warrior rule; weapons that inflict instant death mean little to him.

My problem was that Lysander is the Captain of the Imperial Fists 1st Company. Although the codex specifically allows you to rename a character and use his rules for any Marine Chapter, I had previously vowed only to use known Ultramarines characters. (I have all the named Ultramarines in pewter, although only Telion has been finished). Early on I intended to quickly finish Sicarius, Captain of the Ultramarines 2nd Company, and to field him as my HQ. But with a Captain already done and my army desperately needing reinforcements elsewhere, Sicarius got pushed back. Now I'm not in any hurry to finish his model; although he has some interesting abilities and rules that can affect the entire army, I don't feel that any of them would significantly improve my game right now. Although artificer armor and feel no pain make him more resilient to small arms fire than almost anyone, he only has a 4++ Iron Halo save and can still be instantly killed. I don't think I'll be investing 200 points in Sicarius until I have a Command Squad with a couple storm shields to protect him.

Lysander, on the other hand, doesn't really need protection and has some amazing wargear and abilities that I envy. Out of curiosity I googled "Ultramarines Lysander" and found that a lot of players were using the model's rules to depict Agemman, Captain of the Ultramarines 1st Company. Other than his name, the fact that he was promoted from 2nd Company Captain to 1st Company Captain after the Battle of Macragge, and a few other snippets from a handful of novels, we know little about Agemman.

I love the idea of fielding the Captain of the Ultramarines' Veteran Company, even if I have to borrow another model's rules to do it. Since GW hasn't given us a description of Agemman's wargear and abilities (although some rumors suggest they might), here's my homegrown backstory to justify using Captain Agemman as a Lysander stand-in:

Armor and Resilience: At the time of his death defending Macragge's Northern Fortress, 1st Company Captain Invictus was wearing a suit of armor known simply as the Regent's Armor. This suit of Terminator armor had been passed down within the Ultramarines Chapter from 1st Captain to 1st Captain for millennia. Like Captain Sicarius' Mantle of the Suzerain, the Veteran Company Captain's armor had been known to enhance the resilience of the wearer. Upon recovery of the armor, Chapter Master Calgar requested that it be restored by the Ultramarines' Master of the Forge himself.

While Captain Agemman has been known to wear a suit of artificer armor when mobility or agility is essential, he typically wears the Regent's Armor both for the honor associated with it as well as for its enhanced protection. The Regent's Armor, combined with Agemman's natural resilience, grants him four wounds and the Eternal Warrior rule.

Weaponry: While Agemman wears the armor of his predecessor, he has chosen not to wield a power fist as Invictus did. Shortly after receiving the Regent's Armor, the Captain chose a set of wargear from the Ultramarines' armory that befit the commander of a Veteran Company. While the storm shield he chose was an ordinary one, the thunder hammer was found to be different.

While many heroes of the Astartes wield legendary weapons with portentous names, Agemman merely refers to his weapon as Malleus (i.e., "hammer" in High Gothic). Originally believed to be a standard (although somewhat ornate) thunder hammer whose origin has been lost, Malleus was found to strike with unusual strength and effectiveness. Whether this is due to some long lost technology incorporated into its design or because the weapon has found a worthy owner is unknown. Malleus is a master-crafted thunder hammer that strikes at S10 and adds +1 to rolls on the vehicle damage table.

Bolter Drill: Agemman expects more from his Veterans than he did from his rank and file Marines in the 2nd Company. Bolter-type weapons are some of the most basic and characteristic weapons of the Space Marines; Agemman expects his men to show more than simple proficiency with them. This is particularly the case with the Sternguard Squads since special ammunition is too precious to throw away with missed shots. Agemman therefore requires all his squads to perform regular bolter drills while personally running similar drills on those occasions where he finds himself leading members of other companies. He has found that very few Marines are willing to disappoint the 1st Company Captain. Any unit Agemman joins can re-roll fails to hit with any bolter-type weapon.

Bolster Defenses: The Ultramarines and the Auxilia spent the bulk of the Battle of Macragge trying to hold their ground against the Tyranid swarms, suffering heavy losses. Although the 1st Company inflicted irrecoverable losses on the Tyranids during the battle for the Northern Fortress, the Veteran Company was annihilated in the process. Agemman has vowed that his Veterans will never meet the same fate as their predecessors. With the help of the Chapter's Techmarines, the 1st Company Captain has learned the art of reinforcing defensive positions. Thus, Agemman has the Bolster Defenses rule.

Telion, Scouts, and Cover Saves

Yesterday morning I was preparing for the second half of our Cabal's 1250 point mini-tournament that was to be held that evening. (After a brutal bloodbath, Jon and I ended up in a draw.) Part of my force was a five man Sniper Scout Squad led by Sergeant Telion. While I was reading through several forums discussing the use of Scouts, I found something that I had completely missed.

Prior to the release of 6th Edition, the description of the camo cloak found in both the Space Marine and Imperial Guard codexes said that "A model wearing a camo cloak has the stealth universal special rule." Camo cloaks could be purchased for Scouts at 3 points each. However, a player had the option to upgrade his Scout sergeant to Sergeant Telion. Telion didn't have a camo cloak as part of his wargear, but he had the stealth rule. As the 5th Edition FAQs clarified, if a single model with the stealth rule were part of a squad, the rule was conferred to the whole squad. Thus, bringing Telion made camo cloaks redundant. As long as the Sergeant was still alive, all models in the squad benefited from +1 to their cover saves per the stealth rule.

Of course he has a camo cloak.
That's not just a fancy cape.

Shortly after the release of 6th Edition, the revised FAQs made a few changes to both camo cloaks and Telion. The one I noticed at the time was "Add Camo cloak to [Telion's] wargear". This made no sense to me; the FAQ hadn't deprived Telion of the stealth rule, so why add a completely unnecessary camo cloak? What I had missed was the redefinition of the cloak's effect. Both the Space Marine and Imperial Guard codexes had been revised to say that "A model wearing a camo cloak has +1 cover save".

It wasn't until yesterday that the implication of these changes hit me. The camo cloak doesn't confer the stealth rule anymore, it improves a model's cover save by 1. Instead of being a redundant piece of wargear on a model that already has the stealth rule, the effect of the cloak is to improve cover saves that have already been modified by the stealth rule. The result is a model that has +2 to its cover saves. When GW added a camo cloak with the revised wording to Telion's wargear, they effectively gave him the shrouded special rule. Thus, if Telion takes cover behind a wall, he gets an impressive 2+ cover save. When I wondered why they didn't just give him the shrouded rule, it occurred to me that they didn't want Telion to confer shrouded onto his Scouts; they want us to pay for it.

Now here's where it gets really crazy. Since Telion confers stealth to his Scouts, and since a camo cloak now grants +1 to a model's cover saves instead of giving it the stealth rule, you can purchase camo cloaks for the rest of Telion's squad and give them the same awesome cover saves as their sergeant. Telion doesn't simply replace camo cloaks now, he can make them better. However, if you need to save a few points you can forgo the camo cloaks and settle for +2 to Telion's cover saves and just stealth for the Scouts.

Apparently, the stacking cover saves for Sergeant Telion and the fact that his squad can benefit from them too by purchasing camo cloaks has been relatively well known since last summer. I don't know how many games I've played since then in which Telion would have been saved by the revised rules. He benefited from his improved saves for the first time last night, but his men had to go without cloaks since the Cabal's tournament lists were locked in two weeks ago.

Under 5th Edition, I found a lot of people who considered a Scout Squad, particularly one with Telion, to be too expensive. Although they had the scout and infiltrate rules, Scouts had a poorer weapon skill, ballistic skill, and armor save than a Tactical Marine while costing 13 points versus a Marine's 16 points. Once you added a camo cloak, a Scout cost exactly the same. If you took the base cost of a five man Scout Squad (75 points) and subtracted out the cost of four Scouts, you'd find that a basic Scout sergeant cost 23 points; a mere three points less than a Tactical Marine Sergeant who has identical stats but is equipped with power armor. When you bought the 50 point Telion upgrade, you ended up with a 73 point model with some awesome special rules but only a single wound, a 4+ armor save, and a 3+ cover save in most circumstances.

By changing the definition of a camo cloak and adding one to Telion's wargear, GW gave the Sergeant a 2+ cover save in many circumstances without increasing his cost. And since the effect of cloaks now stacks with stealth, his Scouts can also have 2+ cover saves behind walls and ruins for only three more points per model. The icing on the cake is the ability to purchase fortifications and emplaced weapons in 6th Edition. A 50 point Aegis Defence Line can give your Scouts a 2+ cover save in a location of your choice. For 50 points more you can put Telion on a quad-gun, making it BS6 and giving it precision shots. Or, for a mere 35 points, you can give Telion a 96" range Icarus lascannon for sniping enemy HQs or other important targets (with BS6 he'll be hitting over 86% of the time). The cost of Scouts in general, and Telion's cost in particular, seems a bit more reasonable now.

Immediately on the heels of the FAQ, the following setup started bouncing around the Internet:

10X Scouts (8 with sniper rifles): 140 points
Sergeant Telion: 50 points
9X Camo Cloaks: 27 points
1X Missile Launcher or Heavy Bolter: 10 points
Aegis Defence Line: 50 points
Icarus Lascannon: 35 points
Total: 312 points

Now this is a fairly high price tag, but it makes for a pretty impressive firebase that's manned by ten models with 2+ cover saves, eight 36" range sniper rifles that wound anything on a 4+ and can rend, a missile launcher or heavy bolter (with Hellfire shells), and a BS6 sergeant who always makes precision shots and who will be hitting his chosen targets with an extra long range lascannon 86% of the time.

I look forward to testing this build out, although it obviously has a few weaknesses. Most apparent is the fact that you'd have to keep certain units away from the defence line. Heavy flamers or equivalent would eat this squad alive if allowed to get close.

Misunderstanding the Stormtalon Escort Rule

In a previous post I stated that the Stormtalon's Escort rule made little sense in the context of 6th Edition flyers. Under the impression that the Escort rule worked somewhat like a teleport homer or a locator beacon and that an escorting Stormtalon had to arrive within 6" of the escorted unit, I said the following:

The flyer's minimum movement of 18" complicates the requirement that it arrive within 6" of a unit of infantry or a ground vehicle coming in from the table edge. The flyer can't come on to the table from the same point as an infantry unit since it would outpace them. If it accompanies a vehicle, the vehicle has to move at cruising speed to keep up with the Stormtalon and is therefore of limited use. If the Stormtalon comes onto the table some distance away from the escorted unit's entry point in order to end its movement within 6", it will most likely have to stop at an angle that could leave most of its weapons facing away from the enemy.

I've found a number of forums where posters also assume that the rule requires the flyer to stick close to the escorted unit.

However, when I read the slightly revised Escort rule in Death from the Skies and then reread the rule in White Dwarf, I realized that I had misunderstood it. Here's what the "Aerial Assault!" issue of White Dwarf said about the Escort rule:

If this is done [i.e., escorting], do not make reserve rolls for the Stormtalon. Instead it arrives at the same time as the unit it is escorting. The Stormtalon must move onto the board within 6" of the point that the unit it is escorting entered by. [emphasis mine]

The phrases "must move onto the board" and "the point that the unit it is escorting entered by" indicate that the rule has nothing to do with where the Stormtalon or the escorted unit end their movement, but with where they begin their movement. In the rulebook, a phrase such as "move onto the table" refers to the beginning of a unit's movement as it arrives from reserves. And "the point that the unit it is escorting entered by" is so obvious that I'm embarrassed that I misunderstood it. I had been reading the rule as if it said 'the Stormtalon must end its movement within 6" of the escorted unit' when the models could actually end up relatively far apart as long as their starting points were within 6" of each other. My prior complaint about escorting infantry or vehicles was invalid.

Now that I understand the rule, I can see why the revised version found in Death from the Skies prohibits the flyer from escorting outflanking units. I found on several forums that some players had been assigning a Stormtalon to escort an outflanking unit and then using the Escort rule's requirement that the two points of entry be within 6" of each other to allow the Stormtalon to outflank as well.

Death from the Skies and Thoughts on Marine Flyers

I ordered the Death from the Skies compendium on February 15th during the few hours in which it was still listed as "available for Advance Order" (2/15/13). It arrived yesterday along with the Imperial Guard codex I bought to avoid having to pay for shipping.

The Book

To be honest, I haven't done much more than to flip through Death from the Skies. Rather than work my way through it as I usually would, I immediately opened it to the Stormraven and Stormtalon entries (I'm expecting a Stormraven and two Stormtalons to arrive from TheWarStore any day now). Once I committed those portions to memory, I took a few minutes to actually look at the rest of what my $33 bought me.

The book is beautiful, having been published in the colorful and detailed style that we've come to expect with 6th Edition 40K. After a few pages of artwork (including an awesome painting of a Heldrake crouched on a Valkyrie and burning a hole through its cockpit) you come to a short introduction. Following the introduction are about 15 pages describing the Battle for Cardrim, which is reprinted from the June 2012 White Dwarf ("Aerial Assault!"). Nearly 20 pages of air war missions and optional dogfighting rules follow. Some of these look interesting, but I don't really see our cabal playing too many of them. As usual, there are several pages of professionally painted models, several of which originally appeared in White Dwarf. The final 17 pages contain the updated rules for all flyers released prior to 6th Edition as well as a convenient reference page.

While the preceding content is interesting, I think most players are interested in the rules section. The book contains significant changes to the Stormtalon and introduces the Codex Space Marine version of the Stormraven; material that goes beyond the scope of the average FAQ. However, there appear to be very few, if any, significant changes to other flyers that haven't already been addressed elsewhere. A comparison between the Imperial Guard codex entries for the Valkyrie and the Vendetta and the entries in Death from the Skies shows that the only difference is the unit type and the deletion of the Deep Strike and Scout special rules (these changes have been addressed in the FAQs). While the FAQ for the Ork codex says that updated rules for their flyers are located in the new book, I couldn't find any substantial differences between the June 2012 White Dwarf and the compendium with the exception of unit type, which was already addressed in the 6th Edition rulebook. Points values and special rules seem to be the same except for the deletion of the obsolete Aerial Assault rule (more on that later). The terms "flyer" or "flying monstrous creature" have been added to the wording of rules that only mentioned skimmers before. And the Fighta Ace upgrade that gives the Dakkajet BS3 against flyers, jetbikes, skimmers, or zooming flying monstrous creatures has inexplicably been renamed as Flyboss. Unfortunately, I can't tell if there have been any other changes since I don't have the relevant codexes.

In short, the only ones who actually need the content of this book are Codex Space Marine players and Ork players who missed out on "Aerial Assault!". As an Ultramarines player who has wanted to field a Stormtalon since it was released and who has coveted the Stormraven since the earliest rumors indicated that flyer rules would be incorporated into 6th Edition, I fell into the category of those who needed Death from the Skies. I know that having to buy a $33 book just to get a few pages of updated flyer rules has become a sore point with hobbyists who have to be more frugal, but as a person with a bit more disposable income than some, I was happy to add such an attractive book to my collection. And from a more practical standpoint, this relatively low cost book allows me to see what any Necron/Ork/Dark Eldar/Marine player standing on the other side of the table might be bringing to the game. The various armies' flyers have a huge variety of unique weapons and abilities that can come as a nasty surprise to the unaware (I was certainly unsettled when Kevin demonstrated the Voidraven's S9 AP2 void lances and mines).

As I said before, the bulk of the changes affect Codex Space Marines. I'd read enough rumors about the revised rules that I wasn't really surprised by what I found, but it was still nice to see it for myself on the printed page. Here are some of the changes that will interest my fellow Astartes players:

The Stormraven
Well before I had the book in my hands, it had been officially confirmed that Codex Space Marines can now field the Stormraven. The in-universe reason given for why my Ultramarines can now take a Stormraven is very similar to the justification given for allowing other Chapters access to the Black Templar's Land Raider Crusader pattern:

The Stormraven Gunship is a relatively recent introduction to the armouries of the Adeptus Astartes. Indeed, as befits a bureaucracy as labyrinthine and cliquish as that of the Imperium, there are no official records to explain the vehicle's emergence. Certainly, the Stormraven began service and proved its worth within the Grey Knights and Blood Angels Chapters, and some records suggest that it was not meant to see broader use until the Adeptus Mechanicus were fully satisfied with its performance. However, in such dire times as these, when the fate of Humanity itself rests on a knife's edge, the Adeptus Astartes need every weapon they can find, sanctioned or not, and many Space Marine Chapters now field a handful of the aircraft alongside their more traditional strike vehicles.

The Codex Space Marine Stormraven is nearly identical to the Blood Angels' version. The only difference is the four S8 AP2 stormstrike missiles it carries instead of the Blood Angels' S8 AP1 bloodstrike missiles. The Army List section of the book presents the Codex Marine Stormraven as being the base model while two smaller boxes indicate how those fielded by the Grey Knights and the Blood Angels differ (e.g., "Stormravens in detachments chosen from Codex: Blood Angels must replace their stormstrike missiles with bloodstrike missiles"). Unfortunately, the box for the Grey Knights' Stormraven neglects to state that their flyer is a Fast Attack choice; an oversight that briefly led to the model being listed in the army's Heavy Support section on GW's own website. This has since been revised through the Death from the Skies errata, which clarifies that the Stormraven is still a Fast Attack choice for Grey Knights. With this correction in place, there are no changes to the Grey Knights' or Blood Angels' Stormravens that aren't in the online FAQs.

The fact that a correction was issued almost immediately upon the book's release is certainly a mark against it, but it's better than the multiple errata that several of my $100+ engineering text books required.

It should be noted that the Stormraven has been nerfed somewhat with the release of Death from the Skies and the FAQs. The Shadow Skies/Skies of Blood rules enjoyed by the Grey Knights and the Blood Angels, respectively, have been changed to the generic Skies of Fury rule that also applies to Codex Marines. The new rule requires any units that jump out of a zooming Stormraven to behave as if they are deep striking, but with the additional requirement that any scatter will result in having to take a Dangerous Terrain test. (Thank goodness 6th Edition allows armor saves to be taken for failed tests.) I believe this means that GK Interceptors have lost the ability to land without drifting and Blood Angels jump troops can no longer avoid taking a Dangerous Terrain test or scatter only 1D6 per the Decent of Angels rule.

It looks like GW is explicitly discouraging the use of Skies of Fury as a combat tactic in favor of more orthodox deep striking methods. The only advantage of Skies of Fury is that it allows two units (the Stormraven and an embarked squad) to enter play at the same time. Other than that, your expensive Vanguard or Terminator Squad might as well be performing a standard deep strike. Most other units that don't have the ability to deep strike unaided can take a cheap drop pod that is a lot more likely to land your troops in the right place and intact. (Does GW really think that any Marine player in his right mind would load a Tactical Squad into a Stormraven instead of a drop pod?)

Now, I'm not saying that the Skies of Fury rule is worthless, just that it would be better named "Skies of Risk Management". Ideally, a Codex Marine or Blood Angel Stormraven assault would go something like this: the flyer zooms out of reserves and onto the table, shoots up a target unit, survives a round of shooting, goes into hover mode, allows a squad of jump infantry to disembark, shoots up the target unit some more, and then the disembarked squad uses its jump packs to assault the target unit while benefiting from the Hammer of Wrath rule. However, conditions in Warhammer 40,000, like real war, are rarely ideal. A Stormraven and its expensive cargo may very well arrive on a table covered with Vendetta Gunships, quad guns, Icarus lascannons, waves of Lootas, etc., where there's a high probability that the flyer will be shot down before it can go into hover mode and discharge its passengers. In those circumstances, Skies of Fury simply provides a way for troops to leave the vehicle more or less safely while the pilot contemplates going down in a blaze of glory. In other words, you probably shouldn't deliberately plan to disembark a squad from a zooming flyer, but instead think of it as a last ditch effort to save it.

Stormtalon
I bought the "Aerial Assault!" issue shortly after it came out, although I didn't even buy a Stormtalon until recently. Death from the Skies has changed the flyer's rules quite a bit, making the flyer even better but rendering the White Dwarf issue worthless to me except for the painting tutorial. For starters, the Stormtalon now has the unit type of Flyer, Hover rather than just Flyer as listed in the back of the 6th Edition rulebook. (That a vehicle characterized by vectoring engines and downward-pointing nozzles could lack the Hover type is laughable.) It has retained its melta-resistant ceramite plating and its wargear options. However, the points cost of the base flyer has been lowered by 20 points while the cost of the weapons upgrades have changed: the cost of the skyhammer missile launcher has been reduced by 10 points and the cost of the twin-linked lascannon and typhoon missile launcher have each been increased by 10 points. Despite the increased cost of two of the weapons options, the net result is that a Stormtalon with any loadout will now be slightly cheaper than it was under the White Dwarf rules.

All of the Stormtalon's special rules have changed; several of them drastically. The Aerial Assault rule allowing the flyer to fire all of its weapons after moving at cruising speed is completely gone since it was superseded by general flyer rules. The Stormtalon still has the Escort Craft rule, which is nearly the same as before, although the prohibition on escorting deep striking units has now been extended to outflanking units as well. The Hover Strike rule has been deleted entirely and has been effectively replaced (more on this later). Finally, the Stormtalon no longer has the Supersonic rule. This makes a lot of sense; the Stormtalon is clearly meant to be a close support aircraft, not a supersonic fighter, and wouldn't typically need the extra movement distance granted by the Supersonic rule.

The biggest change to the Stormtalon's special rules was the de facto replacement of Hover Strike with Strafing Run. Hover Strike was a unique rule that gave the Stormtalon BS5 while firing at non-skimmer targets in exchange for becoming a Skimmer type vehicle that must remain stationary during the preceding movement phase. This rule was horribly situational since the only time it would be beneficial to turn an otherwise hard to hit flyer into an immobile skimmer with a slightly improved ballistic skill was when a high value target absolutely had to die. Strafing Run also started out as a unique rule that was first given to the Dakkajet in June 2012's White Dwarf. Shortly thereafter, the rule found its way into the 6th Edition rulebook.

Like Hover Strike, Strafing Run gives a Stormtalon BS5 when shooting at any unit that is not a skimmer or a flyer. However, Strafing Run doesn't require that the flyer remain immobile or even to go into hover mode. In other words, a zooming Stormtalon can fire a twin-linked assault cannon and its other weapon (two of the options also being  twin-linked) at BS5 as long as it's not shooting at a skimmer or a flyer. I know a lot of people laugh at giving a boost to a BS4 vehicle that can carry so many twin-linked weapons, but I've missed too many shots with a Razorback's twin-linked lascannon to scoff at the slight edge that the improved ballistic skill gives you.

As a side note, our Ork player, Jon, is seriously displeased that my Stormtalon (without upgrades) now costs as much as his Dakkajet while having better armor and an absurd ballistic skill thanks to Strafing Run. The fact that mine has only two hull points and his has three gives him little comfort.

Codex: Space Marines Stormraven Rumor Confirmed

Today, as rumor predicted, GW released the Death from the Skies compendium. Also, as rumored, it was officially revealed that Codex Space Marines now have access to the Stormraven.

So, it does come in blue

Almost immediately after reading the original rumors, I started to develop a few "Flying Circus" lists that employed a combination of a Stormraven, one or two Stormtalons, and a Land Speeder squadron. Hopefully the Codex Marine Stormraven will have rules that allow disembarking during zooming similar to those for the Blood Angels' and Grey Knights' Stormravens. If so, I'll probably add an Assault Squad to the mix.

Land Raider Crusader Sponsons and 6th Edition Disembarking Rules

I've mentioned before that I've keenly felt a lack of close combat ability in recent games. To rectify this I've been working on an extra large squad of Assault Terminators (four with lightning claws and three with thunder hammers/storm shields) to be led by a Chaplain in Terminator armor. With plenty of AP2 on our Cabal's gaming table, I'll be loading the unit into a Land Raider Crusader.

As I looked at the Crusader model, the question of where to place the hurricane bolters came to mind. Like the standard Land Raider, the Crusader has a front port and a rear port on each side: one houses a weapon sponson and the other is an access hatch. The position of each is up to the modeler. Traditionally, the lascannons on a standard Land Raider are placed in the rear ports. Fluffwise, this position seems reasonable; since the twin linked lascannons would use a lot of power, you'd probably want to place them closer to the tank's engine. Additionally, lascannons have a low rate of fire and would probably be of little use against the unit that's about to be assaulted. Thus, it wouldn't be too much of a problem to disembark troops in front of the main weapons. From a practical standpoint, lascannons have sufficient range that placing them farther back on the vehicle will have little effect on hitting the target, which will generally be far enough away that the rear-mounted lascannons' fields of fire will overlap. (Although nothing requires the modeller to mount the lascannons in the rear and there are plenty of models out there with forward mounted sponsons.)

Hurricane bolters in rear location

The Crusader's hurricane bolters are a different story. Given that hurricane bolters are most effective at 12" and that you want the bolters' fields of fire to overlap a relatively short distance in front of the Crusader, the most logical place to position the guns is near the front of the vehicle. While I've often heard that it's also traditional to put the hurricane bolters towards the back, GW artwork and several of GW's models show that the guns' position varies from tank to tank. I would think that a forward position would make the most sense from a fluff perspective; unlike the Land Raider, the Crusader is very likely to be rapid firing into the unit that will be assaulted. With the hurricane bolters blazing away as the assault squad disembarks, it would be unwise to place access doors in front of the guns.

Hurricane bolters in forward location

Unfortunately, 5th Edition made it difficult to place the weapon sponsons in the forward location while taking advantage of the vehicle's full carrying capacity. As the squad inside disembarked, all models were required to remain within 2" of an access point and had to maintain unit coherency. The Land Raider assault ramp is just barely large enough to disembark five Terminator models per those rules, meaning that if you loaded a Land Raider or a Land Raider Crusader to capacity (six and eight Terminators, respectively), one or more models would have to use a side hatch to disembark. The rear hatches are too far away from the assault ramp to easily maintain unit coherency and the need for one or more models to run around the sponsons would limit the unit's effective assault range. I've found several 40K forums where players admitted that they wanted to mount a Crusader's hurricane bolters up front but were worried about trying to disembark large squads.

Sixth Edition has made disembarking from a vehicle a lot easier and rectified the problem of Crusader weapon placement. From page 79 of the rulebook (emphasis in original):

When a unit disembarks, place the models one at a time, using the following method: place the first model in base contact with one of the vehicle's Access Points. If the model cannot be placed in base contact with the Access Point due to the vehicle's flying base, place it so its body is in contact with the Access Point. In either case, a disembarking model's base cannot be placed within 1" of an enemy model or within impassable terrain. The model can then make a normal move - Difficult and Dangerous Terrain tests should be taken as normal, but it must end its move wholly within 6" of the Access Point it disembarked from (we assume that any distance that is lost because of this has been used getting out of the Transport). Repeat this process for each model in the unit. At the end of the unit's move, all models must be in unit coherency.

"Wait, aren't we supposed to cluster around the ramp first?"

So, instead of having to cluster around the doors like in 5th Edition (a rule that seemed to be at odds with actual military practice), a squad can now conga line out of a single door, with the first models out making room for the ones behind them. Alternatively, they can leave from several doors that may be more than 2" apart, as long as everyone ends up in unit coherency at the end. This gives players a lot more flexibility when disembarking troops while also reflecting how real world troops would rush out of a transport.

Since 6th Edition allows a fully loaded Crusader to discharge all eight Terminators one at a time through the assault ramp and out to a distance of 6", the squad is no longer dependent on the vehicle's side hatches. Now players can model the Crusader with forward mounted hurricane bolters without worrying about being able to disembark a large squad.

I have to wonder how many Space Marine players have since modified their Crusaders to take advantage of the rule change.

I Hope This Rumor Is True

Warhammer 40K rumor blog Faeit 212 has been reporting that GW will soon be releasing a compendium called Death from the Skies; a book that will cover those flyers released prior to 6th Edition. Supposedly the book is intended to update earlier flyers' rules while ignoring flyers that have been or will be released under the current ruleset. While a rules update isn't particularly exciting, what is of interest is the claim that the update will permit Black Templars and Codex Space Marines to field the Stormraven.

Does it come in blue?

I've been jealous of the Grey Knights' and Blood Angels' flyer ever since 6th Edition introduced flyer rules. The vehicle is larger than the Codex Marines' Stormtalon, is more heavily armed, and is AV12 with 3 hull points versus the smaller flyer's AV11 and 2 hull points. However, I noted the two flyers were clearly intended to fill different niches; the Stormraven is an expensive gunship and transport while the cheaper Stormtalon is effectively a fast weapons platform. Rather than competing for the same role, it seems like the Stormraven and the Stormtalon were meant to complement each other, just as aircraft carriers are accompanied by smaller warships and support vessels or bombers and transport aircraft are often escorted by fighters. The Stormtalon's unique Escort special rule suggests that this is GW's intention. (This rule allows a Stormtalon to accompany another unit arriving from reserves without having to roll for reserves itself as long as the flyer ends up within 6" of the escorted unit.)

When the Stormtalon was released as a skimmer under 5th Edition, the Escort rule made sense. Although the Supersonic special rule gave it greater range than the average skimmer, the Stormtalon could still move slow enough to allow escorted troops and vehicles to keep up. Then 6th Edition was released, the Stormtalon became a flyer, and the Escort rule became a lot less useful. The flyer's minimum movement of 18" complicates the requirement that it arrive within 6" of a unit of infantry or a ground vehicle coming in from the table edge. The flyer can't come on to the table from the same point as an infantry unit since it would outpace them. If it accompanies a vehicle, the vehicle has to move at cruising speed to keep up with the Stormtalon and is therefore of limited use. If the Stormtalon comes onto the table some distance away from the escorted unit's entry point in order to end its movement within 6", it will most likely have to stop at an angle that could leave most of its weapons facing away from the enemy.

[Update 3/3/13: A rereading of the Escort rule indicates that the above argument is not valid.]

The Stormtalon was obviously intended to be a flyer from its inception, so GW must have known that it would be difficult for it to escort a ground unit once 6th Edition was released. On the other hand, it makes perfect sense for one flyer to escort another flyer, especially if the latter is a larger transport or bomber craft. For that reason, I had thought it likely that GW would make an additional flyer available for Codex Space Marines. Given that the Stormraven model already exists and is clearly part of the same design lineage as the Stormtalon, I find the rumor entirely plausible.

Image from Bell of Lost Souls

Bryce has encouraged me to get a Stormraven regardless of how the rumor turns out. Although my fellow Cabal members are flexible and would let me use one, I couldn't bring myself to field a model I'm technically not supposed to have. Thus, I eagerly await either the confirmation or the refutation of the rumor. Until then, I can't stop thinking about the consternation my opponents would experience when my Stormraven flew onto the table with its Stormtalon escort.

I wonder which Stormtalon and Stormraven weapon configurations would complement each other the best...