8th Editon Space Marines - Getting sneaky with it?

Warhammer 40,000 – Back in 2003 when I started the Twilight Ravens chapter they were based on the Chapter Approved Ravenguard rules. I did this because I loved the logo and the local meta was skewed toward Chaos Marines, so the idea of Marines that hit chaos on threes seemed like a good idea. Over time my chapter has evolved with the editions and now fits in the generic marine realm. I have models from the entire range and with a few tweaks of building a new model here or there I can build most anything I want to play. This means that since I devoted myself to marines as my primary army the Twilight Ravens haven't be shelved even if tactics and army builds changed with each edition. With eighth edition I want to do something different with my marines and until the codex comes out with chapter tactics (I really hope Forge World comes out with a pdf chapter tactics update to go along with the indexes) making do with the generic Index entries will have to do.

Looking through the index the Raptors stood out to me as an interesting chapter. I had picked up the special sniper squad from the Horus Heresy 30K line but didn't really have a use for them so they sat on my shelf with the other random Raven Guard models I've picked up over the years, when something comes out that has the icon on it I use for all my marines I tend to pick it up just in case. (I might use or convert it, and I learned my lesson when I neglected to get the landraider doors with the raven skulls that's no longer in production).

Looking at the Chapter Master for the Raptors Lias Issodon the abilities he gives are a little different than they were in the Badad War books. The focus seems to be on ambush and hitting hard then getting out. Really a common theme for Ravenguard Successors so I decided to focus on that. To represent Lias I decided to use the sergeant from the Mor Deythan unit. The sniper rifle and cloak make him look pretty sneaky and "grim-hunter-ish."

His special ability is to essentially deep-strike three infantry units. I think the company veterans are the best choice for this. Three units of five with combi-meltas/melta-guns will be nasty to pop up and take out some scary tanks or high-value targets. I popped the sniper rifles off the rest of the Mor Deythan models to represent the sergeants. Since these are all vets I tried to mix up the armor and give some unique character to each model.

The next part of my core force would be some scout units. In the last edition the bulk of special rules for Ravenguard/Raptors involved scouts, so even if they're not as good I need to include them in the force. Snipers will be the bulk of the units but I'll also include a group with shotguns and a Landspeeder Storm to be the lighting raid group.

I'm going to include a Vindicare Assassin just because it seems like the type of agent that would pop up in this type of force. High value targets call for a specialist. Not to mention I'm going with a sniper theme and you can't get more iconic than this guy.

While not the sneakiest model with a big flag flapping in the wind, a company ancient seems like a good call with the company vets. A possible free shot when a model is removed is to valuable with a low model count force like this. Similar reasoning has me including a chaplain as my second HQ. With chainswords the vets get three attacks each in close combat. Re-rolling those is worth having this guy within 6".

To bring my core up to 2000 points I'm going to include a Fire Raptor and Relic Sicaran Battle Tank. Both of these will lend some fire support and seem to be a good fit for hit and run attacks. I can easily swap this portion of the army around to make it fit what I want to play each week but as a core force I think this is strong.

Most of these units have enough paint on them to put on the table but, I'm going to focus on completing this list to my top standard before moving on to other personal projects.