| rdfs:comment | - 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 of Man, 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 the late 41st Millennium, 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 st
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| abstract | - 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 of Man, 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 the late 41st Millennium, 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 role of a Space Marine strike force's Stormraven Gunships varies greatly from battle zone to battle zone and, to an extent, in response to the personality of the strike force's commander. Whilst most Space Marine Chapters utilise their Stormravens in concert with their other transport vehicles, there are a handful who have come to use them as the primary means of deploying Battle-Brothers to an objective, combining, as they do, the swift orbital descent of the Drop Pod with the battlefield versatility of a Rhino or Razorback. Twelve Power-Armoured Space Marines can be accommodated within the Stormraven's adamantium belly, ready to charge out of the gunship once the assault ramp clangs down, or to make an aerial descent via Grav-Chutes should a landing not be possible. Furthermore, the Stormraven can also carry a mighty Dreadnought in its rear cargo grapples -- it is the smallest Space Marine aircraft able to do so. Yet to use the Stormraven as a transport alone is to overlook its formidable array of weapons. Whilst the precise load-out varies greatly from gunship to gunship, the Stormraven's firepower is easily the equal of a Chapter's most potent land-based fighting vehicles, and more than capable of wreaking untold destruction upon a deserving foe.
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