Anyone play all Ravenwing?

[he_plays_guitar]

Hello Brothers,

I have a huge interest in building an all Ravenwing Army to complement my Deathwing and Greenwing armies...since it's the only Dark Angel avenue I have yet to explore, I thought I would ask the other experts on the Rock to see what you think. Obviously taking Sammael is a must, but what do you do to make your Ravenwing special, and not just a bunch of bikes driving around. For example, do you take large landspeeder squads? Do you run with a certain loadout for each bike squad? And do you supplement the Ravenwing in any way, for example, using the Deathwing? I would love to hear your views on what works and what doesn't.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

My advice may be a bit outdated since I have gone almost two years without fielding it. Also look at this thread http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...howtopic=111353 . It's from 4th ed but still largely applies to 5th. The playstyle of the army hasn't changed much from 4th.

 

Ravenwing are a hit and run army.. You want to keep moving and not get bogged down in combat. You'll need to move in a way that it's most of your army against a part of his, ie, you'll have to bite chunks instead of taking it on all out. That means you'll probably spend some turns just turbo-boosting. the also is very good at capturing objectives, but not so good at holding them, mobility is the key. Your priority targets will be anything than can match your speed and any big guns that can nullify your 5 toughness and kill your speeders.

That squad the army composition will vary a bit from player to player and metagame to metagame. some will prefer Sammael on bike, some on speeder.. If you're going speeder heavy, then Sammael on speeder is probably the best bet... if you're bike heavy.. then he'll use his jetbike to mingle (as much as he can as a non-IC)

For me I always had a big 6 men squad, with apoth, standard, 2 plasmaguns, attcak bike and LS Tornado. It was the only squad I could count on to go into CC where needed.. rest of squads at bare minimum with 2 meltas and AB with MM. Nowadays Typhoon speeders are very attractive options so I wouldn't leave home withou at least two. Back in the days I used MM&HF but the Typhoon now is where it's at, IMHO.

My army never had any outside help, just pure ravenwing. After a steep learning curve they were fun and rewarding to play and could always pose a threat to the opponent no matter what. It's not a top tier army but It's isn't a bottom tier like many like to label it.

 

I hope that helped.

[ForTheLion]

Well , at 1750 point, you could have say about 5 squads of RW, 1 srgt with PF/PW and 2 melta bikes as well as AB/MM, and 1 squad of Deathwing. i know you said only ravenwing, but i think at least 1 squad of THSS termies is a must as a shock factor.

 

You rely alot on going 1st, turbo boost in the scout move and you should be around 12 inches away from him. Turn 1 comes and youu get the DW squad coming in 6 inches away from him, its got 1 cml, this means you got 15 melta shots in turn 1 , AND you can assault ! playing against an army of toughness 3 etc its enough to win, when faces with say GK, you should play the hit and run game as mentioned above.

 

PS: ive also noticed that in the us ppl tend to think that the latest FAQ doesnt apply to the dark angels, having played in the uk and greece, i can tell you from personal expirience that GW representatives in these countries say that even tho your codex says you cant turbo boost in scout phase, there has been a genereal rulebook FAQ that negates this.

 

+++ REMOVED LEET/CHAT SPEAK, AGAINST B&C RULES. CL +++

[riddles]

this thread is only a week old, so i'm guessing you're still looking at this?

 

Firstly, codex overrides rulebook, so you cannot turbo boost in your scout move. that has always been the case.

 

I play my ravenwing slightly different to RW armies i've seen on the net, so I may get slammed for this but, here goes.

 

Scouting meltaguns are good, but a canny opponent can deploy far enough away that you certainly won't be in melta range and may not be in range at all. scouting multimeltas, on the other hand, are big and clever.

 

For a while at 1750 i was running the following:

Sammael - in his speeder - 205

 

RW - 3 bikes, 2 meltaguns, mmab - 190

RW - 3 bikes, 2 meltaguns, mmab - 190

RW - 3 bikes, 2 meltaguns, mmab - 190

RW - 3 bikes, 2 plasma, mmab - 200

RW - 3 bikes, 2 flamer, mmab - 180

RW - 3 bikes, 2 flamer, mmab - 180

 

LS Typhoon - multimelta - 75

LS Typhoon - multimelta - 75

LS Typhoon - multimelta - 75

 

Predator - hb sponsons - 95

Predator - hb sponsons - 95

 

I would have liked 1 more plasma unit and 1 less melta unit, but I couldn't fit it in within the points limit. So, you have 12 scoring units. All are fearless, so need to be completely removed from play not to claim/contest objectives. You have a lot of mobility to limit your enemies fields of fire. You have alpha strike potential (6 mm attack bikes should net you 3 tanks), and you have anti infantry backup from the typhoons and predators, not to mention Sammael's uber speeder. Going second, you can reserve every single one of your bikes and still give your fire support units cover.

 

Problems:

- true hordes. You do not have the guns or combat potential to kill 180 orcs.

- killpoints. you give away 18 KP, which is higher than even the razorspam armies, and any alpha strike you do is likely to trade 1 kp or theirs for one of yours.

 

I went with this list because i love scouting multimeltas in a mech heavy environment and because i think the LS tornado is overpriced and limits your tactical flexibility because it stops you outflanking. It did quite well for a while before I benched it for my deathwing. I'll probably come back to it later this year.