Ravenwing in reserve or on the board

[ZONKEY]

Hello brother,

 

I wish to ask the brotherhood a question, I am fighting a lot of static gun line armies is it worth me keeping my ravenwing in reserve to outflank or on the board to swoop in, I have deathwing arriving mainly turn two, any advice would be great :)

[Komrk]

Tau were my first army and I only recently switched to a more mobile strategy. It depends on your list, if you can provide rolling cover for your bikes in the form of Rhinos and LOS blocking terrain you should start them on the board. If not, keep them in reserve to keep them alive as long as possible.

[SvenONE]

The only 3 things really worth keeping in reserve in a RW list are the attack bikes or the bike squads, and black knights. The landspeeders don't come with scout (Darkshroud does though) so if they are coming on they're coming in wayyyy behind the rest of your army.

I rarely keep bikes squads in reserve, and if I do it's maybe 1 squad. The only reason I WOULD do it is dependant on my opponents deployment (they won the roll). For instance I usually run a flamer bike squad, if my opponent is running a horde army and deploys spread across the table I will. I'll deploy melta bike squads in reserve if I see they've deployed vehicles at the edges of the board. Even then it's rare because if I'm running a banner, and I don't want to take away a target for my opponent to shoot at (they'll shoot at banner) and I don't want to miss out on the 16 or so TL-Boltgun shots.

Attack bikes are almost always kept in reserve, I like MMABs so much i stopped magnetizing my attack bikes. Outflank is so good with them as well as the added protection of them NOT giving up first blood. If only there were some set of rules that I could attach it to my attack squad!!!

One of my RW lists I play once in awhile uses a Landspeeder support squadron (4x MM/HF, but you can do anything really) and a tactical squad in a drop pod w/ locator beacon. I play that list for fun and usually against someone who I've played a lot but hasn't seen yet, they usually ignore the drop pod and the landspeeders pop down and burnninate everything.

Edit: Komrk actually makes a good point, it does depend on your list. I for instance run RW lists that are almost exclusively bikes and rarely feature any APCs or infantry models save for maybe a devastator squad (which is obviously just sitting somewhere). If you were doing RW heavy, but mixed, starting RW bikes in reserve is actually a decent move since you can deploy your "firebase" or infantry units back from your deployment and draw your enemy in for the outflank.

The risk you run by putting too much in reserve are units coming in piecemeal and being easy-pickins for your opponent.

[Disciple of Caliban Sgt]

Personally it depends (Big help I know). What I mean is I usually use my Ravenwing for Anti Armor with Melta and Multi Melta. Attack Bikes I almost always outflank. This does two things: One keeps them from being shot to you know what first turn and Two it usually means my Opponent starts worrying and often places their armor in a not so great position for them (Psychological factor is great). This can also allow me to place just my regular Ravenwing Meltas in a position to scout up and move 12" and still get a nice in Melta range shot on their armor. And if the three guys get toasted so what? 85pts for an exchange of a tank I will take any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Now if you want an alpha strike on the Infantry bring maybe a Flamer and possibly a Libby with Pyromancy and let them scout up and fry something.

 

My personal opinion. When I face a gunline I bring some of my RW on the board and either split the flanks or load up on one flank so the termi's get a good teleport spot. If you face Tau or Imp Guard and can get the space (and depending how big a Terminator Contingent you bring) I find Belial with Two Heavy Flamers for Non Scatter plus Split fire is great for roasting a large blob or squad out of cover. The bolters add some more wounds so I would put them on the most threatening unit and let the second flamer take a target of opportunity. 

 

For Heavy Infantry use Ravenwing Black Knights or Deathwing Knights or lastly just shoot them off the board. That's hard to do with DW but if you bring enough Assault Cannons they'll die. CML I find are good if you are walking your DW otherwise I like the Assault Cannon better that's just me.

 

As for Plasma Cannon's (not that you asked) but I find one or two PC's don't cut it for me. They either barely hitting anything with the small blast or barely wound because my dice hate me. I love them on a Devestator squad toting four of them then they wreck face but with one or two I find I never get enough damage unless I'm really lucky for about one turn.

 

So to sum up, I usually buy 6 RW and the Attack bike. All Melta's and then split them up into two three man and the AB. If I have a target I race the Melta up to it and let it die. Reserve the Attack Bike so it scares the paint off my enemy and use the other three guys for teleport homer duty and keep them in cover on whatever flank I want to attack. Never land in front of the gunline if you can help it. One side or the other so only half the army can shoot at you and you can roll on one of their flanks.

Good Luck

DoC

 

Edit: and Svenone Ninja'd me to it!

[shortysl]

Haven't actually played my Ravenwing list yet so my opinion is of course just theory, but I'm planning on running 3 full squads of bikes with plasma guns and veteran sergeants that will deploy with the rest of my force. I then have two 3-man bike squads with attack bike, all loaded up with melta weapons, that I plan on using to outflank.

 

The idea of course is that the two small squads will outflank in order to nuke armoured 'strongpoints' (battle tanks, bunkers, counter attack units). As this will occur on turn two at the earliest, it gives the rest of my highly mobile force a chance to get into a position where they can threaten the enemy deployment zone/gunline. This, in theory, forces the enemy to divide his attentions, but without the benefit of his heaviest units (which have hopefully been neutralised by the flanking melta teams.

 

I will understand if you apply more than a little scepticism to the effectiveness of this plan, seeing as how I haven't had chance to see if it works yet!

[Cactus]

My go-to Ravenwing squad (because it's painted) is six strong with two meltaguns, a multimelta attack bike and a land speeder typhoon. I've used them in whole or in part to support Deathwing, both infantry and mounted, and power armour gunlines. They bring mobility that my typical 'heavy infantry' style sorely lacks and the flexibility to threaten or frustrate any target.

 

With Deathwing infantry the bikes have to deploy so I can deep strike my terminators. In this case I tend to combat squad the unit. This provides more units on the table, thus allowing more units in reserve, and allows me to spread the teleport homers so I have some options when the Deathwing deep strike. I'm not entirely convinced this is the best policy because three-man squads die so easily, but they are easier to hide. Sometimes.  Maybe I just need more bikes.

 

With the mounted Deathwing the terminators all deploy in land raiders and the bikes go in outflanking reserve, probably without splitting into combat squads because that's another unit to make a reserves roll for and risks diluting their effectiveness if they don't arrive together. This army might be led by Azrael, in which case they're a scoring unit too. Bonus.

 

Supporting a power armour force they outflank, as above. I'm working on some Ravenwing Black Knights to try out in the same role.

[ZONKEY]

That sounds painful