Ravenwing Tournament Report

[Centurio]

I played my Ravenwing in a 1250 point tournament yesterday. I knew I would potentially face 1-2 Imperial Knights armies and Necrons with a Transcendent C'tan. Here is the list I used:

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Sammael


5 bike Command Squad with 1 grenade launcher and Standard of Fortitude.


RWAS, 3 bikes, 2 meltaguns, attack bike with multimelta
RWAS, 3 bikes, 2 meltaguns, attack bike with multimelta
RWAS, 3 bikes, 2 meltaguns, attack bike with multimelta

RWAS, 3 bikes, 2 flamers, melta bombs, attack bike with multimelta
RWAS, 3 bikes, 2 flamers, melta bombs, attack bike with multimelta

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Game 1:

My opponent used 3 imperial knights with battle cannons and a 5 man Grey Knight strike squad led by an Inquisitor.

Deployment was Hammer and Anvil (?) and the scenario was 2 objectives in our deployment zones.

I went first and due to scouting I put 5 multimelta shots on one of his knights, but to little effect (2 Hull points). I was a little worried at that point since I expected to do more. He moved his knights and fired a lot of battle cannon shots, getting direct hits with every shot (he only scattered once the entire game!) I made a lot of cover saves, but lost bikes to the shooting as well as assault. My turn 2 I concentrated a lot of melta on his seneschal and took it down. I also knocked the wounded knight down to 2 HP. Once again he shot his cannons and assaulted and killed more bikes. The next turn my Black Knights shot the wounded knight and did 1 hull point with shooting, then assaulted it and finished it off. The explosion scattered away but caught Sammael (who I had forgotten to split off) who Look Out Sir'd the wound to a Black Knight. This caused a lot of contention and I told my opponent I would just remove Sammael, but others agreed that you could look out sir a D hit. Either way it didn't matter to me. Next turn, he had moved his last knight onto the objective in my deployment zone, chasing a flamer squad away. I had shot it with some multimeltas and wounded it, and one of my remaining Black Knights shot it in the back, penned, rolled a 5 on damage (explosion) and took it out. This left Sammael and a flamer squad shooting at the GK squad (who were cowering on his objective in an open topped bunker) until they were finished off.

Game 2:

My opponent was playing Tau/Eldar with a Riptide, a Wraithknight, Longstrike, a wave serpent, 2 fire warrior squads (1 led by a Fireblade cadre), and a guardian squad led by a farseer.

Deployment way the diagonal one, mission was the Relic.

Once I again, I had the first turn.

I scouted forward then moved everything forward. I shot a fire warrior squad and broke it, causing it to flee off the table (First Blood !). I then turbo boosted everything else forward and made sure every unit was in range of the Standard of Fortitude. On his turn, he shot me. A LOT. He killed Sammael (Slay the Warlord) and all but 1 Black knight, plus some other random bikes. But it wasnt enough. 2nd turn I concentrated my melta on the Riptide and destroyed it. (He got a little cocky I think, and jumped it towards me (not that he could've gotten away anyway). I also did 2 wounds to the wraithknight. I assaulted the fire warrior squad that had his warlord in it, first with an attack bike (to take his ridiculous overwatch) then with a bike squad. We ran them down and killed them all. I moved attack bikes to get the relic. His turn he blasted my attack bike off the relic and the wraith Knight assaulted a bike squad. He killed my bikes that were about to assault his tanks. I did have 4 attack bikes left and some other random bikes but there was no way I was taking out the wraith knight. I realized that with linebreaker I would have 3 points and he was only going to have 1 without the Relic, so I assaulted his last remaining troop choice (guardians) with everything I had left and we basically stayed in assault for the rest of the game. The wraithknight didnt get in there and kill them fast enough so I got linebreaker and the game ended with a 3-1 Ravenwing victory.


Game 3:

My reward for doing so well was to face the Necron player in round 3. Transcendent C'Tan, 5 immortals, 7 warriors with a lord and a cryptek in a transport.

Deployment was standard and the mission was Kill Points.

This was the worst-case scenario for me (literally).

Once again , I went first.

Basically, I put 5 multimelta shots on his transport on turn 1 and did nothing. The C'tan came out and killed some stuff. Not too bad yet. Next turn I did 7 wounds to the C'tan (rad grenade/plasma talons/mass melta) but he made every invuln save! I also shot his transport with melta and krak grenades and did nothing once again (terrible pen rolls). I had Sammael set up for an assault of the contents so it would have been significant if I opened that transport up. I tried to assault his immortals but rolled snake eyes. Next turn the C'tan erased more of my army with his D template and 6d6 S8 AP3 shots. Sammael died to mass necron infantry shooting. Next turn I had another go at the transport but only did one hull point. That was pretty much it, the rest of the game was him hunting down and killing my remaining scattered bikes. I felt like I had a decent chance but my bad luck stopped me in my tracks. In a different scenario, I think I could have won by scattering my bikes and (presumably) killing his troop choices (if I could actually destroy that transport).


Overall I placed 3rd in the tournament so I am pretty happy.


The ability of Ravenwing to concentrate a lot of firepower where it's needed each turn was amazing. I think they are pretty good vs the things that people can bring using the Escalation rules.



 

[Dark_Master]

Nice one, particularly like the Riptide takedown

 

DM

[Polythemus]

well done. and dude damn... you have got a lot of attack bikes. if i ever need to borrow some now i know who to go to.

 

Tacitcally, Ive had to deal with the transcendent ctan before. Sounds like your luck was a bout as good as mine. that thing is a real PITA. the only thing that you can really fight him with is hammernators. dwk dont work so well versus things with reliable a invul save and lots of wounds. obvious not an option to you in an 1250 tourney but still...

 

sounds like the first two games were well played. nice work on the riptide and wave serpents. suprised the inquisitor in te first game didn't have servoskulls. but taking down three IKs is no mean feat. the Dark angels honor you brother!

[Centurio]

Thanks.  I haven't played RW that much in this edition.  It seems that being aggressive pays off.  The MSU nature of the army and the Standard of Fortitude helped me survive the shooting phases.  This is the first time I have used that standard, I have used the Standard of Retribution in previous games.  At higher points I will bring full squads so I can decide to combat squad them or not.  Those attack bikes were really handy with a 24" threat range for the 2d6 armor penetration you can really concentrate fire on something.   If you kill it with the first shot or two, the other attack bikes can turbo boost or shoot different targets.  The attack bikes are also useful for taking overwatch and tying up small units in combat.  I'm probably going to add 2 vindicators and bring a 2nd RW grenade launcher for 1500 points.  I want to instant death a Riptide.

 

I think I can beat the C'tan army if my rolls are a little better (or maybe his a little worse) and in a different scenario. 

 

The inquisitor didn't have servo skulls because 3 Knight Paladins, a 5 man Strike Squad, and a bare bones Inquisitor is exactly 1250 points.

[Centurio]

This weekend, I played in another tournament using this list. It was a small tournament with only 4 players. We usually have 8-12 but most of our club was out of town.

 

Game 1:

 

I faced an unbound CSM list consisting of nothing but one squad of Thousand sons, Ahriman, and many sorcerers, with a total of 17 Mastery Levels.

 

He took the first turn, summoned a bunch of Daemons, and scored several cards (conveniently matching the objectives he was near. However he had underestimated my list's ability to mow down his many units of lesser daemons, and I managed to keep his numbers in check while using hit and run to reposition. On the last turn I managed to score 3 of my objective cards and nearly wipe out his thousand sons/sorcerer unit and win the game.

 

Game 2:

 

My opponent was an Ultramarines player and brought Tigerius, grav centurians, sniper scouts, a couple of tac squads, and an imperial knight.

 

On turn 1 he managed to wipe out Sammael and the command squad with his centurians and the knight. On my turn 1 I blew up his knight, but due to my over-enthusiasm and lucky scatter on his part I lost 3 attack bikes and 2 bike squads in the explosion. From that point he was mopping up with Perfect Timing on the centurians . I attempted to get my remaining units into assault but couldn't make a charge and the cards just weren't there for me to score. However he split Tigerius from the centurians on his last turn, so I used hit and run to kill him with a bike and attack bike for slay the warlord. But it was not enough and I was crushed.

 

At this point the other two players decided to drop since they had no chance of winning(these two have a habit of this ) so the UM player took 1st and I took second.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

Well done. :) Tough uck losing Sammy and the Command squad on turn 1. That is hard to recover from.

[Centurio]

Yeah. If just a few had survived they would've charged the centurians and it would've been a whole different game!

 

Sammael DID tank 14 grav gun wounds though (!!!!!)

[SnakeChisler]

Shame you didn't pen the Necron transport must have been uber unlucky with your Melta and super lucky with his jink

 

C'Tan was always going to be a big ask but if you'd have destroyed his transport he'd have been stuck for the rest of the game so you could split off all over the board making it impossible for him to pick off more than 1 unit at a time.

[Centurio]

Yeah that was the previous tournament but basically the necron player's dice were hot and mine went cold.

[Centurio]

I have decided to add the following units to my 1250 pt Ravenwing army, to bring it to 2000 points:

 

FAST ATTACK:

 

6 Black Knights, 1 with grenade launcher

 

 

Allied White Scars, to be painted as Angels of Absolution:

 

HQ

 

Captain

Space Marine Bike

Thunder Hammer

Articifer Armor

Combi-grav

 

 

Command Squad

Space Marine Bikes

4 Combi-grav

Apothecary with Narthecium

 

TROOPS

 

Bike squad

+2 Bikers

2 Grav-guns

[Chaplain Lucifer]

Allied white scars posing as the noble Angels of Retribution? Heresy!

[Centurio]

Hmmmm, I can't disagree 100% with that, but I think its a good way to bring in some grav weaponry. I may not need it with all my melta and plasma, but its a nice way to deal with several things. :)

[aekold]

Why don't you give your black knight squad 2 grenade launchers? The ability to fire both a rad and stasis grenade is golden. making sure that you black knights strike before other marines and hit them on 3's is awesome.

 

White scars allies open up a whole new world of options.

 

I would suggest adding a dark shroud speeder to you army. Since the stealth effects al friendly units, your white scars will ben having a 2+ cover save.

Furthermore if you join sammael to the white scars the gain skilled rider USR and also have a 2+ jink save.

 

I am a bit hesitant to give a non eternal warrior character a thunderhammer. It would be a shame if he only got to swing once.

 

The grav command squad is pure gold. I used them in my last tournament and never regretted fielding them.

[Centurio]

All good points.

 

2 grenade launchers... I simply wanted to maximize my plasma shots, no other reason. I think I have 12 BKs and only 2 have GL. I may give that squad a try but I love the twin linked plasma shots.

 

Darkshroud... I have used it before with good results, but I am hesitant to have only 1 vehicle that will attract a lot of attention. Plus it will make me want to bunch up even more. I've found that my army gets quite scattered out by turns 2-3.

 

The thunder hammer could probably be dropped. I don't intend for the command squad to engage in assault with a unit that is assault oriented, I just threw in the hammer to let him kill vehicles and give him some punch. Besides, a S10 attack is need to ID him. If I wanted him to engage tough units I could give him the shield eternal but I was trying to keep that detachment at 500 points or less.

[Prot]

Good job on the games. You took some nasty opponents on with what seemed to be a single, non allied, battle forged army. Nice job.

 

On the Darkshroud, I used it through all of 6th and a few times in 7th. My advise is to take it because you're right it will get shot to hell and back but it tanks a ton of stuff and right now you are experiencing the alternative: Sam and his hotdog stand take all the hits otherwise.

 

You will find the second you include the Darkshroud, it becomes the priority to opponents. To compliment this idea it does open up other options in the 'let's flood the table with medium AV' strategy by adding Typhoon speeders as self contained squads and/or extending your troop choices by tacking one on to your troop squads. (This is a nice touch to a turbo'd last turn Typhoon acting as objective secured in late stages of the game.)

 

Just a few things for you to consider but I think you've got the core of the army down pat. Again, really nice job. :)

[Centurio]

I've thought about running as many land speeders as possible, just because people say they suck. I have a Sammael conversion, a darkshroud, a vengeance, 3 typhoons, 3 with assault cannons, and 6 with heavy flamer and multimelta. LOL!

[Centurio]

And thanks Prot, ill try to keep up the good work. I have a tournament coming up on the 13th. I don't know the points level yet but I will probably use the Ravenwing.

[Prot]

Yea great work as said earlier. You have me itchin' to pull out my Ravenwing! It's been a while!

 

I stopped using the Darkshroud for a while in 7th, but with skilled rider handed out by Sam and the Knights, if you combine the Shroud I think it was giving me a 2+ Jink-o-rama in 7th edition. The Shroud itself was getting... a 3+?

 

Sorry my memory is foggy I play 400 armies and several games a month.... I kind of was peeved at how Jink was changed for 7th because I felt the shroud helped with the save enough, but the shooting went down considerably.

 

Anyway backing up a bit, the Black Knights being my favorite unit in the codex was always at least 5 men. And once I pulled the Shroud I noticed instantly that the Black Knights took all the firepower instead! Well either them or Sam.

 

Try it as an experiment and let us know what you think.

 

For Typhoons I was always on the fence. it seemed the Attack bike was better because I lacked Armour so they always took concentrated fire. For a mix I would include the Shroud PLUS the Typhoons just to flood low AV targets. They did have a bit of synergy.

 

For Maelstrom (which we play almost exclusively) I found the problem was zooming too far up, in a clump with the BoD made a bad gap at my table edge and I had difficulty grabbing anything. That's when I started using the Bastion with Quad + Devs on it. They could always tumble out for an objective if necessary until then they did a good job shooting armour for the Knights when possible.

[Centurio]

 

I played in a 2000 point tournament at our local game store this weekend. I think we had 12 players.

 

For this tournament I added an IG Combined Arms Detachment with a Company Command Squad, 2 Infantry Platoons (1 Platoon Command Squad with 4 flamers, and 2 infantry squads each), and a Stormsword super heavy tank (The Shadowsword variant with a 36" range S10 AP1 10" blast with Ignores Cover).

 

The Stormsword is nice because it can keep up with Ravenwing and kill everything. Ravenwing and the infantry squads keep it bubble wrapped and safe from the primary threat... deep striking melta.

 

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GAME 1: ORKS

 

I faced Orks with a couple of battlewagons full of tank bustas, a bunch of boyz, a couple of Trukks - one with Mega-Nobz in it, a max squad of Kustom Whatever Kannons (S8 AP2 blast), and a max squad of lobbas (or whatever artillery has barrage).

 

There is probably other stuff but it didn't matter.

 

 

The ork player, one of the best players in our local area (and who ended up taking 1st), was sure that he would lose this round and was very fearful of the Stormsword.

 

I took the first turn and drew my objective cards. I didn't have much I could score on, so I tried to concentrate on killing things and slowing his advance. I fired the Stormsword at the Kustom Kannon squad, trying to get a battlewagon in the same shot. The 10" circle scattered wide and I only killed 4 grots. The rest of my army didn't really kill anything of note either.

 

His turn, he advanced forward, charging Meganobz into my guard screen, and moving boyz onto objective 3. Then he used those Kustom Kannons to blast my Black Knights and killed most of them. He scored several cards and got about 4 points, I think.

 

On my turn I moved an attack bike to capture Objective 3, which I believe I had 2 cards for at this point. I killed the Mega Nobz and fired the Stormsword main gun at the orks and battlewagon around objective 3. Once again it scattered but I hit a good amount of orks and the battlewagon, but rolled badly on the wounds and didn't kill enough to clear the objective entirely. We failed to penetrate the wagon, and a couple of follow up melta shots also failed. There was one ork contesting objective 3. I fired boltguns from a bike squad at him.. nothing. Fired another squad... nothing... Fired 2 IG squads.... nothing. Fired a couple of attack bikes... no damage. Basically, all my small arms fire on that side of the board failed to kill that one ork, costing me the objective. This was big because I had 2 cards for it, and a card allows you to get a bonus for controlling more objectives than the opponent, or maybe a certain number of objectives. So I went from getting a lead in points to being beind a couple of points.

 

The rest of this game was basically him drawing objective cards, blasting me with kustom cannons, and scoring points while I haplessly tried to kill his orks.

 

I think I lost with a score of something like 4-13.

 

 

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GAME 2: TAU

 

This game I faced a Tau army with nothing but battlesuits. I don't know much about the Tau, so I can't really identify much about his list, except that he had 3 units with S7 AP4 missiles (IIRC), and 2 units of Broadsides with missiles. He had 2 characters with Fusion and Plasma guns, and a squad with plasma guns.

 

I really hate the Tau.

 

I deployed the Stormsword and bubble wrapped it to protect from his deep strikers.

 

He deployed his suits in a big cluster, but I reminded him of my 10" S10 AP1 circle and he decided to spread out a little instead.

 

I chose to take turn 1, but he seized. I didn't expect this and had some issues with my placement of models because of it (Specifically Sammael and my Banner).

 

He fired some of his missiles into my Black Knights squad, killing Sammael, my FNP Banner, and all but 2 Black Knights. My saves/FNP rolls were really bad. He then wiped a couple of bike squads with his missiles. FIRST BLOOD and SLAY THE WARLORD.

 

I'm not going to lie, I was pretty pissed about the dice rolling after the previous game, and I felt pretty dejected and hopeless. So I just charged forward at him with everything I had.

 

His commander had nowhere to get totally out of LOS, so the Stormsword blew him up and made his markerlight drones go away. My bikes and attack bikes concentrated on his other HQ and killed that squad and his markerlight drones.

 

On his next turn his fire was a lot less accurate but he still erased a couple of units. On my following turn I killed the fusion gun squad, which had deep struck in. At this point I just unleashed the Stormlord from its bubble wrap and drove it and my remaining black knights around killing everything. My guard squads and bike squads got on the objectives.

 

Final Score: 23-4 in my favor.

 

 

 

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GAME 3: NECRONS

 

 

I faced a necron army with a Lord (that had a 3+ invuln with reroll 1s), 2 flyers with warriors inside, the annoying small skimmer thing, a barge, an immortals squad, and a big warriors squad. He was using a detachment that did not have Objective Secured (very important point).

 

 

We both tried to play the objective game. He used an item to deep strike his immortals (with several characters) from his side of the table to behind my superheavy, but only did 1 HP. All my flamer weapons concentrated on that squad next turn and did 82 flamer hits. Needless to say that squad was wiped out. I spent most of my Stormsword shots trying to kill his Lord, who happily tanked every shot. Towards the end we were pretty even on casualties, but he was 2 points ahead. It was a very close game. Time was called and I had the last turn. This was the scenario where you draw a number of cards equal to the turn number. I thought I could probably draw cards and score a couple of points to tie him or maybe win by 1 point if I were really lucky. Well... I drew Supremacy and Domination (IIRC... may be wrong on the names)... One gives 1d3 points, and the other gives 1d3+3 if you control EVERY objective. He DID NOT have Objective secured, so I shot some, turbo boosted around, and captured all 6 objectives plus another Secure cad I had and Linebreaker for a total of 8 points for that turn!! (Rolled kind of bad on the d3s).

 

Final Score: 13-5 Ravenwing Victory.

 

 

 

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I took 3rd place in the tournament, so not a bad showing after all. 1st place went to the Ork player, and 2nd place to Space Marines I think.

 

 

I think I am going to take the Ravenwing to the Nova Open this year.

 

Last year, the Nova Open was 1850 points so I am working on that assumption. I had a crazy idea to try so, I am going to add these things to my list and start practicing:

 

- 1 Ravenwing Attack Squadron: 3 bikes, 2 melta, attack bike with multimelta (for a total of 6 bike squads and 6 attack bikes)

 

- 1 Squad of Black Knights (7 BKs with a grenade launcher)

 

- 2 DarkShrouds

 

[and drop 2 meltabombs]

 

 

 

I am considering adding a 2nd character instead of the RAS. I'm thinking an Interrogator Chaplain on a bike with the Mace of Redemption might be good. Him leading that squad of Black Knights would be brutal...

 

 

 

 

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[Chaplain Lucifer]

Many think objective secure is of no importance, but sometimes is crucial and can be the difference between victory and defeat. Nicely done brother Centurio. I'm sure you could beat the Orks as well if not for the appaling luck.

[SnakeChisler]

Agreed Obj Secured is a potent weapon for the Raven wing

 

I play Tau quite a bit & you need a PFG somewhere, other armies have ignores cover as well I'd stick with the 1 DS

 

& well done sounds like you had the dogs luck against the Ork player

[march10k]

Where does it say no LoS! on a Strength D hit?  I would not go around letting my opponents make up the rules as they go along...most people I play against want to see it in black and white, and I'm the same way.  The other gamers were right to back you up!

[Loar]

the only thing I can think of is that if you roll a 6 or whatever the model is removed from play, seeing as this is not specifically an allocated wound i guess the argument is that you couldn't look out sir it?  Im not sure thats the only thing I could think of off the top of my head, if someone knows for sure or can explain it better that would be great

[Centurio]

Keep in mind that the first tournament was my last game of 6th edition. So there's no use in trying to figure that out... I can't remember the points of his argument. I was willing to concede Sammael and keep the game moving because he was not that important in the overall battle.

[Centurio]

Someone posted pictures of my NOVA GT army:

 

http://www.feedyournerd.com/uploads/2/4/0/4/24044140/3474011_orig.jpg

 

http://www.feedyournerd.com/uploads/2/4/0/4/24044140/2748447_orig.jpg

 

 

I'll post the list and some battle reports tomorrow.