The Army

Like many of us, thanks to Covid the time to paint a new army had never been greater, and with no motivation to chase the meta, giving in to painting whatever is in vogue. 

When 9th edition was launched, I just had to get another Space army painted, and this time the Raven Guard came calling! 

The tail end of 8th edition saw Raven Guard dominate, but things would change for 9th edition, and as special butterfly I figured taking advantage of people now suddenly overlooking Raven Guard Space Marine chapter was a good idea. All by taking a variety of my favorite units and painting them up as fast as I could. 

I wanted a Raven Guard force that really leaned into the sneaky elements of the Chapter, this meant a lot of snipers of course! When the project started, we didn’t know about the Captain nerfs, so I started by going full Phobos Captains, along with max Eliminators, and at the time troops Sniper Scouts. Little did I know how things would evolve once the 9th edition Space Marine codex was released. What wasn’t affected by the new codex though was running Vanguard Veterans, all with classic Thunder Hammer and Storm Shields. I also assumed correctly that Centurions would get nerfed (besides not being very fluffy) and decided to paint up some Aggressors instead.

This left me with what I felt was a solid core of backfield shooting and aggressive hit and run units, mostly thanks to the stratagems and Warlord traits the Raven Guard had access to. To round out things I wanted to a hodgepodge of units; Chaplain here, some Intercessors there, and a Thunderfire Cannon to round things out. The idea was to be mostly foot slogging mobile and avoid taking vehicles.

The core would thankfully stay the same with the Space Marine codex release, with me only adding in some Tactical Marines, because I lost a troops thanks to Scouts moving to elites. The big change though was having the luck of catching a local store deal on Firestrike Turrets and getting six of them! These fairly ignored units, I felt fit perfectly with my Raven Guard taking advantage of the Raven Guard chapter tactics.

Now I felt like I had a unique army that you wouldn’t find anywhere else on the battlefield, using a lot of the strats and traits that make the Raven Guard unique and exciting.

The Raven Guard army was also a fun combination of first born and primaris, that I really shows the transition of old Space Marines to new ones. As you will see in the battle reports, the transition from pre and post 9th edition Space Marine codex is pretty dramatic, but one that holds true to what type of Raven Guard army I set out to make.