Your thoughts on the SM Stormtalon

[MajorWesJanson]

The nose turret and rotating sleeve need to go, and the assault cannons mounted up inside the nose. Otherwise, I like it.

[Bunnahabhain]

I though the dread-knight and storm raven were bad, but this thing is far worse.

The concept itself is perfectly reasonable though. A somewhat scaled up land speeder would be perfect.

[The Marshel]

It's so close to looking great but so far at the same time.

As forgeworld and chapter house have proven, the stormravens needed just minor adjustments to get it looking good. Three storm tallon is the same really. For me it's mostly the wierd assualt cannon mount. It's tempting to run land speeder tempest as count as. The enclosed cabin makes them look more of a flyer then the speeder and they have missiles and an assualt cannon, so you're not too far off for weapons

[Yodhrin]

I though the dread-knight and storm raven were bad, but this thing is far worse.

The concept itself is perfectly reasonable though. A somewhat scaled up land speeder would be perfect.

Exactly, I simply can't fathom why GW didn't release an up-gunned, up-engined Land Speeder to fill this role, that's the entire point of their existence after all, to provide close-air support for Marine strike forces. Instead they come out with this....monstrosity, which like the Storm Raven will have to be shoehorned awkwardly into the background. If they were hoping to encourage people to buy a new model rather than just converting a Land Speeder, they're out of luck, because that's exactly what I'll do if I ever feel the need to include one; I'll buy a Chibi Chicken the same day that my rampant senility causes me to praise Matt Ward as an incisive master of prose.

[x-esiv-4c]

Looks like an Advanced-Wars / World of Warcraft hybrid.

[Jericho]

Some of the proper scans of the WD pages make it out to look a bit nicer than originally shown... still not great but I think it's easily fixable with Landspeeder bitz. Some sick part of me wants to buy one just to prove it can be salvaged.

[Lord Damocles]

Abomination.

the Imperium has never been one for aerodynamics, but Marines are just trolling them now.

As well as being ugly as sin, it's also completely unnecessary from a gamplay standpoint. Want a marine flyer which looks like a pimped landspeeder? Tempest. Or something completely new for no apparent reason, whatever.

[Spider-pope]

I like the model enough to want to use it in my armies, but not enough to just buy it for display purposes. Which pretty much means as a Dark Angels player i won't be buying one for the foreseeable future.

[loveless]

I like it well enough. I won't buy one, though.

[insectum7]

Looks terrible. Really, really awful. It's like one of the execs had his 8 year old kid design it. I could have probably done better when I was 8.


If the rules are remotely decent I might custom build something.

[althathir]

I like it, it doesn't look like it could fly but you'd never fit ten marines in a rhino either . I may change my opinion after seeing it in person (the first set of pics of the ultra one were really underwhelming), that said I don't really mind that my wolves didn't get it.

[Jericho]

Abomination.

the Imperium has never been one for aerodynamics, but Marines are just trolling them now.

As well as being ugly as sin, it's also completely unnecessary from a gamplay standpoint. Want a marine flyer which looks like a pimped landspeeder? Tempest. Or something completely new for no apparent reason, whatever.

Yeah the fact that it basically has the same weapons loadout as the existing Tempest kit is a bit of a piss-off. I always did like the Tempest...

[Erazmus_M_Wattle]

I wasn't sure to start with but having seen the plan view from the German White Dwarf I have come to love it.

Actually it fits right in with the storm raven. I can just imagine a storm raven with an escort of three of these. Pity you can't have both in the same army.

[Haravikk]

I think it looks awful as pictured; fit the missile pods and take away the Assault Cannons and it wouldn't look too bad, but those assault cannons just look ridiculous, as do the lascannons, and also the heavy bolters to a degree.

The thing I just really don't get is what is the point of it in game-terms? It just seems to have all the same weapons that any other vehicle would have, which is boring and only seems to devalue the space marines tanks in favour of something that can ignore enemy deployment and terrain use; both of which are things that are really meant to be key tactical elements to the game.


I could understand if it was armed with something more specialised or useful, for example, if it just had a pair of relatively weak Pinning missile pods then it would be a great support unit for assault troops as you could force the enemy into cover while you advance. But with it being a flying tank it just doesn't seem to add anything to the game; at least the Storm Raven has transport capacity, so you can use it to deliver troops quickly, the Stormtalon meanwhile just seems to aimed towards making games of 40k more frustrating.

I mean, I don't like the wider trend of fast skimmers in the first place, as they're just plain annoying to play with and against since GW haven't yet developed the model that will remain hovering in place when you let go of it. Flyers in Apoaclypse are okay in terms of representing fast air-strike attacks, but fast skimmers can get about with relative impunity which just seems to break the game more than they complement.


Of course aircraft are a reality in the 41st millennium, but I much preferred it when 40k battles just represented a small, key portion of a larger battle, where aircraft were something you knew about but didn't have to bother with. Flyers in Apocalypse complement that idea since it's hard for them to get in any prolonged shooting, but the last thing we need is every army having hovering gunships; at this rate we'll have vehicles, and anti-vehicle vehicles, and nothing else. I really hope that's not all 6th edition will turn out to be.

[Polaria]

From what I've seen so far it looks pretty damn ugly. Nothing I wouldn't expect, by the way, since the Stormraven did look and is damn ugly, too. Seems like all Space Marine vehicles are destined to look like boxes. Some of them are just flying boxes.

[BrilliantAntelope]

I think I am the only one that is thinking, it could have been worse. I honestly don't mind it. I agree with those who say the Assault Cannon is bit bulky, and the tail could be longer, but overall, it's pretty ok. I will never get one, but I won't be grossed out to see some on the tables.

Also, it IS far off from what I was tossing around in my head for it to look like. I was thinking more of a smaller Thunderhawk without that dumb cannon on it's topside and more guns on it's wings.....Or like the Storm Eagle. Because THAT is a smexy model. But oh well.

[BrilliantAntelope]

I think I am the only one that is thinking, it could have been worse. I honestly don't mind it. I agree with those who say the Assault Cannon is bit bulky, and the tail could be longer, but overall, it's pretty ok. I will never get one, but I won't be grossed out to see some on the tables.

Also, it IS far off from what I was tossing around in my head for it to look like. I was thinking more of a smaller Thunderhawk without that dumb cannon on it's topside and more guns on it's wings.....Or like the Storm Eagle. Because THAT is a smexy model. But oh well.

Gotta love slow internets doublin' dem posts

[Vaktathi]

Conceptually and rulese-wise, not too bad, though they really just need actual flyer rules rather than hamfisting more and more special rules onto Fast Skimmers.

visually, it looks ridiculous.

[daa6]

Like the top and back not sure about the front and weapon under turrent...?

Will make for interesting options though... Wonder what is coming for the rest of the races out there...?

[Konovalev]

Flying ****.

Tail is too stubby, nose cannon laughably oversized, props are also stubby and small. Twin-linked assault cannon just looks bad as a nose gun in general, and you can't even swap or upgrade it for something else like a single autocannon.

I'd rather stick a flight stand up a space marines butt and say the stormtalon is in stealth mode than ever actually field the model.

I think the rules are decent though. I'm looking now for ways to convert a KA-50 into 40k to run as one.