Ravenwing Squadrons

[Kajae]

I've been looking at how people have been building out their Ravenwing Attack Squadrons, and it seems most people completely forgo giving their sergeants power fists, meltabombs, or anything else.

 

I know for green marines everybody always says to give the sergeant a powerfist.

 

With Ravenwing, is the objective to completely avoid combat as much as possible? Do people attempt to destroy everything with bolter and missile shots?

 

I'm looking at adding a full attack squadron to my army and then maybe eventually fielding an army of 2nd company and would like some tips.

 

Thanks!

[Raern]

I don't have as much experience with Ravenwing as some but my thoughts are:

 

3-bike suicide/special weapons teams are already too expensive, so keep the sgt cheap as an ablative wound if you're MSU spamming.

 

A 6-bike squadron with apothecary and banner should have either a powerfist or a power weapon to make it more lethal in assault. Depending on the rest of your list and intended target I'd seriously consider giving the sgt a plasma pistol and power sword to provide an extra low-ap shot before assaulting.

 

A 6-bike squadron without the apothecary and banner is too expensive in my opinion, especially if it's not scoring due to no Sammael. I wouldn't field it like this myself. But I'd probably run a powerfist if I did since there are enough toughness 5 wounds to hide the fist for a round vs most enemies.

[Brother Immolator]

With Ravenwing, is the objective to completely avoid combat as much as possible? Do people attempt to destroy everything with bolter and missile shots?

 

Answered yourself.Ravenwing are not assault units.Except when you have one certain biker sergeant from a game once were he massacred two whole tau firewarrior teams by himself.But thats a rare occurrence.

 

There is a reason they can rapid fire and move :P

[Chaplain Lucifer]

For Ravenwing squads like Raern stated, it's only worth kitting out the sarge if it's a tooled 6-man squad.. on 3-men squads points spent in sarge are wasted.

[Freman Bloodglaive]

Which is true of bikes throughout the Space Marine Chapters.

 

My Space Marine bikers shoot shoot and shoot some more, and then when they've finished shooting they do some more shooting just because.

 

If I want to assault I use a tooled up command squad and/or a biker captain.

 

Bikes mount too few attacks for the points you pay to be engaged in assault with them, and Ravenwing are fearless which means once they're in combat they're there until they die.

 

Make use of your mobility to ensure you're never tied up in combat... and speaking from experience never get within 6 inches of that immobilised killer kan in order to meltagun him, because you just know you're going to miss, he's going to get off his grot rigger roll, and then he's going to kill your bikes... which is an ignoble way to die... though very funny.

[ValourousHeart]

I am sure you can read lots and lots of articles on the merits of 3 man squads and attack bikes.

 

But don't take the advice on 6 man squads and speeders from people that don't use them.

It is a bit like a virgin sex counselor... what the heck would they know.

 

PM if you are interested in finding out how a speeder heavy army works.

And before anyone says that they can't work.... remember... how would they know since they don't play that type of army.

I have faced off vs. some very strong IG, SW and BA builds and have showed those players that DA still have a strong codex.

[Brother Immolator]

I stand on the same boat with ValourousHeart.

[timmytool]

We have some good options for our good old Ravenwing

 

as I see it we have 4 main RW units

 

in order of usefulness

1 RWSS 1 typhoon with MultiMelta 75pts *3 is a must (if you dont use up all your FA slots with these guy your doing it wrong)

2 Sammael & command sq (yes he cant romp with the sq but one needs the other): 1melta assault bike 1 speeder 6men 1apoc 2plasmaguns vet sergent with plama pistol and ether the PW/meltabombs, powerfist or stock(points not permitting)

3 the good old 1multimelta assault bike & 3 man sq 2 meltaguns and a meat shield sergent no upgrades

4 the whole battleforce, 6men/2meltaguns 1multimelta assault bike the speeder the vet does not need upgrades but if the points permit the powers fist works best then the PW/meltabombs, PW. The plasma pistol is usually overkill for the vet in this sq.

 

without Sammael 1 and the normal bikers dont score, but the assualt bikes and the non 1 speeders are always scoring with or without Sammael :)

[krewl]

I would not rule out Ravenwing sarges for cc, as long as you keep in mind that you still need to avoid getting stuck in cc.

 

In my RW 1750 list I play sammy on the jetbike, a chaplain on bike and a fully kitted 6 men squad with banner, apothecary, powerfist and 2 plasma guns (Relentless allows you to shoot and still charge.).

Using that squad wisely it will hurt non dedicated cc units (So you could say charge a assault marine squad, but not things like nob bikers or thunderwolf cav or TH&SS termies etc. As they will maul you.)

Also included is offcourse the MM attack bike, you take as many as you can on those.

 

The Fast attack slot should indeed be filled with 3 x 1 Landspeeder typhoon with multimelta, to good to pass up.

 

Then my 4 x 3 men squads have 2 specials (Usualy 3 dual melta, 1 dual flamer) and I give the sarges powerweapons. Why you might ask?

For one, Ravenwing sarges have a bolt pistol with them, so they have 4 attacks on the charge, making them better then their marine counterparts (Though sadly without the option for a combibolter.)

second that is 4 x 15 points I can not spend well in my list on another unit, als I have points left for a meltabomb on all for the odd chance that you run into a vehicle.

 

Offcourse 3 men is laughable in cc even with a good sarge, so I tend to multicharge 2 or 3 units into what I am attacking. That way they can still do some support in cc, but you should always play as if cc is bad for you, because.. uhm, well it is bad for you. Ravenwing are a shooting army thats very fast, so you get to pick where you fight. Anything tougher then say an assault squad should be avoided and shot to bits if at all possible. You can however use your cc ability to mop up leftovers.

[march10k]

I've had some luck with a power sword sergeant, but only in a full squadron with attached interrogator. Otherwise, skip it. Maybe give him meltabombs in a suicide melta squadron...

[Darth Badguy]

Would anyone ever do a plasma/narthecium squad, 3 guys, two plasma guns, one plasma pistol, one of them as the apothecary? Seems pretty pricey but potentially good at vaporizing terminators or monstrous creatures.

[timmytool]

Would anyone ever do a plasma/narthecium squad, 3 guys, two plasma guns, one plasma pistol, one of them as the apothecary? Seems pretty pricey but potentially good at vaporizing terminators or monstrous creatures.

 

as each man in the sq has upgrades even one wound would hurt dearly, a full 6man sq with the upgrades however is a good choice.

[march10k]

Would anyone ever do a plasma/narthecium squad, 3 guys, two plasma guns, one plasma pistol, one of them as the apothecary? Seems pretty pricey but potentially good at vaporizing terminators or monstrous creatures.

 

as each man in the sq has upgrades even one wound would hurt dearly, a full 6man sq with the upgrades however is a good choice.

Another option is naked sergeant, plasmagunning brother, plasmagunning apothecary. It's complex, so no problem dumping the non-savable wound onto the sergeant! It's much cheaper than taking 6 bikes for basically the same plasma-power. I wouldn't take a PP in the first place, they cost too much for what you get.

[captain Angel]

I had wonderful luck with them the other day. I charged them into a unit of chaos terminators. They held out for four turns thanks to the toughness 5 against strength 4 power weapons. they won me the game.

[breng77]

I will go on record that I don't see how the speeder heavy army works (I won't say that it cannot, just that I don't see it)

 

1.) Unless you are taking multiple speeders in each RSS you pay a high premium for each speeder. 320+ points for the squad + speeder ( and I assume at least 225 points for 3 typhoons, and 205 for sammi) so minimum if you are doing that is 1070 for 5 speeders (6 if sammi is a speeder as well). Now if you are playing 2k you can fit anther 2 full squads (or 3) and a few more speeders in the RSS (2 squads brings you to 1710) Then if you throw in 3 more speeders you are at 1860 + upgrades to squads gets you near 2k or you can drop a few speeders and get attack bikes.

 

2.) Armies like GKs can just put out so much fire that kills AV10 (pretty much everything in the army), I'm really not sure how this would go.

 

Now if there is a good deal of LOS blocking terrain, perhaps you could do alright, but against some GK lists (and some guard builds) I have seen I just don't see speeders surviving unless they can hide. (5 Psyflie dreads kill/disable ~5 speeders a turn, possibly more if squadroned)

[timmytool]

I will go on record that I don't see how the speeder heavy army works (I won't say that it cannot, just that I don't see it)

 

1.) Unless you are taking multiple speeders in each RSS you pay a high premium for each speeder. 320+ points for the squad + speeder ( and I assume at least 225 points for 3 typhoons, and 205 for sammi) so minimum if you are doing that is 1070 for 5 speeders (6 if sammi is a speeder as well). Now if you are playing 2k you can fit anther 2 full squads (or 3) and a few more speeders in the RSS (2 squads brings you to 1710) Then if you throw in 3 more speeders you are at 1860 + upgrades to squads gets you near 2k or you can drop a few speeders and get attack bikes.

 

2.) Armies like GKs can just put out so much fire that kills AV10 (pretty much everything in the army), I'm really not sure how this would go.

 

Now if there is a good deal of LOS blocking terrain, perhaps you could do alright, but against some GK lists (and some guard builds) I have seen I just don't see speeders surviving unless they can hide. (5 Psyflie dreads kill/disable ~5 speeders a turn, possibly more if squadroned)

 

 

It's not a speeder heavy army that we are after..... RW is more about the bikes, attack bikes and then the speeders as a team, (unlike DW were it is all about the termi's).

 

BTW if your personal goal was to make a speeder heavy army you would be making 1+ of the RWSS would filed with 3-5 speeders as you said the cost of making a 6man RWAS with the speeder can get coslty but it is always a scorring speeder(with or without Sammael).

 

For your no.2 point, RW especially a speeder heavy RW are be highly maneuverable, and GK are not so much and they have a limited range for most/all of their main squads.... You get the gist take out their long range sq and tanks then sniff out squads around the main core of the army till the army is gone.

 

Like every army the scissors paper rock theme will mean you have bad match-ups its how you deal with them that shows what stuff you made of.

[templarphoenix]

Answered yourself.Ravenwing are not assault units.Except when you have one certain biker sergeant from a game once were he massacred two whole tau firewarrior teams by himself.But thats a rare occurrence.

 

For me, ravenwing IS assault unit, or just I fought too many space puppies play longfang+rune priest(jaw+living lightning) inside some kind of terrain....

 

I build my ravenwing flamer + plasma gun, sarge with pw. (attack bike MM)

 

Bikes do have scout, which most of time flanking for me, and great assault distance (move up to 12, and charge 6, does not slowed by terrain), so most of time I can get in CC with enemy shooting teams (longfangs, DE warriors, IG squads, or even their command squad) at the turn they arrived. They won't survive at the end of game most of time, but they do really "waste" lots of enemy serious fire power by CC with them, which offer chances to my LRC, terminators, rhinos, or even another bike squad to charge in.

 

Well if they survived long enough, and I still got some terminators held in reserve, well, hehehe....

[breng77]

For your no.2 point, RW especially a speeder heavy RW are be highly maneuverable, and GK are not so much and they have a limited range for most/all of their main squads.... You get the gist take out their long range sq and tanks then sniff out squads around the main core of the army till the army is gone.

 

The problem I see is that prior to GKs Bike armies including RW operated as a mobile shooting army at 24" range (most shots have this range, short of Typhoons, and any heavy bolters). The problem with GKs is that all of their shooting is 24" +. People claim poor range on GK armies and this is largely a myth. Razorbacks are S6 at 36" (which can kill all of your long range and is far more durable than speeders.), and most GK lists run 3+ dreads, which give them ample long range fire.

 

That said when I was playing RW I tended toward lots of MSU bike squads with attack bikes. With a few speeders (AC/HB at the time though now they would be typhoons.)

[Brother Immolator]

Answered yourself.Ravenwing are not assault units.Except when you have one certain biker sergeant from a game once were he massacred two whole tau firewarrior teams by himself.But thats a rare occurrence.

 

For me, ravenwing IS assault unit, or just I fought too many space puppies play longfang+rune priest(jaw+living lightning) inside some kind of terrain....

 

I build my ravenwing flamer + plasma gun, sarge with pw. (attack bike MM)

 

Bikes do have scout, which most of time flanking for me, and great assault distance (move up to 12, and charge 6, does not slowed by terrain), so most of time I can get in CC with enemy shooting teams (longfangs, DE warriors, IG squads, or even their command squad) at the turn they arrived. They won't survive at the end of game most of time, but they do really "waste" lots of enemy serious fire power by CC with them, which offer chances to my LRC, terminators, rhinos, or even another bike squad to charge in.

 

Well if they survived long enough, and I still got some terminators held in reserve, well, hehehe....

 

Not many attacks,too large a signature,few bodies and fearless.That for me is a mixture of CC disaster.

[IanSturrock]

I like the plasmapothecary / plasma biker / sarge combo, as it can hurt anything in the game bar AV14. It's especially good for getting side/rear shots on stuff like predators, chimeras, battlewagons, etc., which can be tough to crack from the front but which you can use your superior speed to get around.

 

My rules of thumb when playing RW are as follows:

 

1) Each squad gets a multimelta attack bike. Our MMABs are very good value, particularly compared to any other RW units.

2) 3-man squads + MMAB are better value than 6-man squads + MMAB, simply because of (1).

3) Each 3-man squad gets 2 identical special weapons. Sarge gets nothing except maybe meltabombs in a meltagun squad if you have the points (so you can follow up with meltas and kraks against that vehicle you absolutely have to kill). 2 Flamers, 2 Plasmas, 2 Meltas can all work. If you're following (2) you don't need all meltas, since you get so many MMABs.

4) Sammael comes on his jetbike if you have no other vehicles in the army; otherwise he comes in his speeder. Usually these days it should be speeder, since the three TML/MM speeders in the 3 FA slots are such good value.

[krewl]

I'm basically with you here, with the exceptions of the one 6 men unit I support with the banner and a chaplain.

It's just that RW (and DA in general makes it so hard to spend an odd 50ish points, so I tend to powerweapon the sarges as I have no other place to park the extra 60 points. As I said before, the bikers ar horrible, the sarges are not half bad in cc. Combining charges makes for usable situations where you can win cc.

 

Also, if you spend all FOC slots on 3 men units and an attack bike you would end up with 1600 points (1 dual plasma, 2 x dual flamer and 3 x dual melta) what would you spend the other 150 points on as a chaplain is pretty useless without a squad he can buff and our librarians are also not hugely powerfull. (Both would fit neatly in a 150 point slot if fitted with a bike.)

 

Not critisizing, just curious how a 1750 point list would look for you.

[ValourousHeart]

I will go on record that I don't see how the speeder heavy army works (I won't say that it cannot, just that I don't see it)

....

2.) Armies like GKs...

....

Now if there is a good deal of LOS blocking terrain, perhaps you could do alright, but against some GK lists (and some guard builds) I have seen I just don't see speeders surviving unless they can hide. (5 Psyflie dreads kill/disable ~5 speeders a turn, possibly more if squadroned)

 

I haven't had a chance to play since the GK codex came out... except once or twice, but I was dusting off my sisters those games.

So I don't really know what I will do against GK... yet.

 

Everyone on this board says that they can kill 5 or 6 speeders a turn with any old list that they can think of.

Now while I have no doubt that if you know my list you can tailor yours to beat it soundly... I have also never seen anyone knock off my speeders that quickly.

 

According to the BRB the board should have 25% terrain.

However most boards tend to be played with about 15% terrain and little to no LOS blocking terrain.

If you try playing on a board with 25% terrain, and enough being LOS blocking terrain so that say a Long fang unit doesn't have an unrestricted view of the entire board... you will come to understand that the codex and lists that are considered to be the best are only good if they play on a board with little or no terrain.

 

 

Just curious how a 1750 point list would look for you.

 

I typically play games that are 1k, 1.5k, 2k and 2.5k and as such I have built my army in 500 pt blocks.

6 bikes, an attack bike, a RWAS speeder and a RWSS speeder plus upgrades fits nicely in 500 points so the army scales nicely too.

 

Occationally I will play other point levels and this is what I would run at 1750.

 

Sammie - speeder

3 x 6 bikes w/ 2 Melta guns, PW, MB (one with Apoth).

3 x attack bikes w/ MM

3 x Speeders w/ HB & AC (scoring)

3 x Speeders w/ MM & AC

 

I don't have delusions of RW combat prowess... and I have spent point on CC acordingly. (45/1750, or 2.5% of my points.

 

The game plan is to keep local superiority (usually by playing man to man), anticipate which units will be able to charge me next turn, avoid or eliminate those threats, sweep the board cleanly and systematically.

[breng77]

The issue with most GK lists is that between Psybacks, Psycannons, and Dreads they have enough firepower to kill av 10 and 11 vehicles (or at least disable them.) Even GLancing at 24" range with strom bolter fire.

 

Every Dread Deals about 3 damage results per turn average to a speeder (2-3 pens, 0-1 glance), so even with cover that is usually 1 pen getting through, now with speeders as you have them kitted out(and in general) an immobilized or better result effectively takes them out of the game.

 

A psyback averages a little better than 1 damage result (more likely pen then glance). Every damage result (other than weapon destroyed) effectively reduces the utility of that vehicle (shaken is usually ok).

 

Now many of the GK lists I see are running at least 3 dreads and 5+ Psybacks (I have seen 6 Psyback, 5 dread lists as well) The ones with 3 dreads are also usually sporting 6+ psycannons, which can also pen speeders.

 

Now as you say if you have a good ammount of LOS blocking terrain, I have made similar bike/speeder armies work against GKs by using my whole army to eliminate a portion of my opponents army. The problem is that this is often not the case (especially for speeders since they are not that low to the ground). The other issue (especially with the AC setup) is that in order to do much damage you are going to need to move into LOS, and GK have mobile fire power in dreads and Psybacks (which also really cannot be shaken/stunned), against things like Long Fangs if they need to move to see you they cannot then shoot, not the case at all with GKs.

[ValourousHeart]

Those are some very reasonable points you make about GK.

Again I haven't faced them yet so I don't know how I'll fair.

 

However, according to internet wisdom IG should steam roll me... but they don't, in fact they are a codex that I have the highest win ratio against.

Now that could be due to lots of reasons... but the IG players in my area are not slouches, and build some tough lists as far as "all comers" go.

But my army is designed to open cans... and so in a mech rich environment my army excels.

 

On the other hand an all foot Ork army is not typically seen at most tournaments, but when you build an Ork list with the idea of getting as many boots on the board as possible, you have just played paper vs my rock.

It doesn't matter that I hit most or all of the time... nor that I kill anything that I hit... I just don't have enough bullets to dent that army.

 

How would GK fair against that list?

 

Razor spam does not concern me... I have faced it from every other codex, and it is dull and predictable. 5 rifleman dreads is a little more interesting. But honestly i am more concerned with 3 Ironclads in drop pods than I am with 5 rifleman, even with psybolt ammo. That extra point of armor is far more valuable than just ignoring stun/shaken.

 

As to the terrain issue since I play at the local GW store, all of the terrain is GW kits, with a few customer creations. Plus I have a decent amount of GW terrain in my personal collection. I have seen some other companies products that are a good scale. But most of the home made pieces I have seen tend to be rather tiny. They are usually not to scale and they are built only with infantry in mind. Had those builders kept a Rhino and Land Raider on the table while building the terrain, they might have gone a bit wider or taller. It seems that it is a fairly common problem for shops to either lack or just have relatively small terrain for their tables. It might not be a bad idea to have a terrain drive for your store... especially if they are planning on hosting a tournament.

 

I find that the easiest way to show players just exactly how much terrain they should be using is to measure off a quarter of the table and pack in all of the terrain they want to use into that corner. Try to get varying heights of terrain (not all tree bases nor all tall buildings). Once you have discovered how much terrain you are going to be using, then spread it out around the table... The sad part is that almost always when I show people this do I hear them say that I have put too much terrain on the table, dispite the fact that I have showed them form the start this it is 25% (usually less do to gaps).

 

If you do have a terrain drive, don't look at getting the most little pieces out of the kits... make good usable pieces. And keep a Rhino, Land Raider and maybe a battle wagon or Devilfish around for perspective.

[IanSturrock]

krewl, yeah, RW points are often odd! So at 1750, agreed, I'd probably go for that one 6-man squad, taking something like:

 

Sammael on Speeder 205 pts

Ravenwing Attack Squadron, 2 plasma, apoth, banner, power sword, +3 bikes, 1 multimelta 355 pts

Ravenwing Attack Squadron, 2 plasma, 1 multimelta 200 pts

Ravenwing Attack Squadron, 2 meltas, meltabombs, 1 multimelta 195 pts

Ravenwing Attack Squadron, 2 meltas, meltabombs, 1 multimelta 195 pts

Ravenwing Attack Squadron, 2 flamers, power sword, 1 multimelta 195 pts

Ravenwing Attack Squadron, 2 flamers, 1 multimelta 180 pts

Ravenwing Support Squadron, Multimelta, Typhoon, 75 pts

Ravenwing Support Squadron, Multimelta, Typhoon, 75 pts

Ravenwing Support Squadron, Multimelta, Typhoon, 75 pts

 

Admittedly I've not tried pure Ravenwing against Grey Knights yet -- I've been using a lot of DW lately, just because of our Typhoon and Storm Shield upgrades.