[HH1.0] Raven Guard Tactics

[defl0]

Actually they do well for me and don't get pasted because they tend to have more range. They are lower priority to kill when things are up in their grill like mor deythan, or even 20 tacs with a chaplian.

 

I often go close to all infantry, so infantry focused weapons end up spread thin and tank weapons are useless or at least not efficient point wise. Plus you could add tank hunter if you wanted :)

Edited November 26, 2015 by defl0

[Nova_chron]

Hmm interesting idea what weapon would you take

[SkimaskMohawk]

It really depends. Mor deythan tend to use their burst on the first turn (RG tending to have the first turn and scout and infiltrate in Rhino tend to put them in perfect position), so they're not a threat any more. Tac marines and a chaplain aren't an immediate threat, are they going to Bolter a squad over 12" or something? they need to be in combat to be effective, so that means they're not a priority. That leaves the devs, famously attractive to scorpii and typhons already, now a main threat on the ground turn one

[defl0]

Agreed it depends. But but I run mor deythan in grips of 7. 5 c flamers, 2 melta,rhino c melta. So first turn I often tank hunt if there is no infantry target of opportunity. Works well with the 6 grav that are also vehicle hunting.

 

20 tac with a chaplian is charging you turn turn 2. And spread out to charge everything. It's usually unignorable...

 

My lascannon devs tend to last a long time and do great. Especially if I giving character support for tank hunting and a camo cloak.

 

Autocannons work well too for lighter vehicles,but them you have to start comparing them to the efficiency of a sicarian,or preds or a fire raptor or deredeo.

[Hesh Kadesh]

Doesn't have move through cover. Enemy moves further away, hits you with Graviton blast and leaves you stranded. Alternatively, they put a podded Dreadnought in your face, who kills the Chaplain and leaves you wailing against WS5 AV12 or even 13+ (after htting you with Grav blasts, of course to turn your 6+d6 move away into a 2d6). 380ish pts sunk into tactical squads are, bleh.

 

Unignorable doesn't mean they actually do anything. Mixh rather soend that same investment on a pair of scoring tacs who can ram an enemy off of an objective, and use my actual AT (a Meltabomb/pfist on a sergeant doesn't count imho).

 

Potetnail.to catch someone unexpectedly, sure, but the more games you play against RG, can't see why a praevian and a trio of Vorax or pair of Castellax for similar cost aren't going to do better.

[Sircyn]

Ten man scoring tactical only do that, and die. They don't kill the bad guys or pose a threat other than capping an objective on the back field if your opponent doesn't look at them.

 

20 men with a cameleoline chaplain can push the midfield, infiltrate and fleet mean they can pick their ideal target and get a good match up.

 

Turn one they are moving into position as your drop pods and mor Deythan strike.

 

Bum rushing enemy vehicles with krak grenades, or their infantry with a horde of CCW attacks turn two. They add a lot of tough scoring bodies that dont run away and tie up their shooty units in combats/ remain a problem till the last man.

 

Turn three you've bullied your easy targets or your elite combat specialists are here to peel the enemy off your blob. Or you can leave them to tie up a unit to the end of the game, countless times I've wasted an opponents Horus to whacking a handful of tacticals every turn instead of killing my useful units.

 

 

I find them a great way to make use of a compulsory troops and (in smaller games without maun) HQ.

 

Typhons do exist. Not everyone runs them. As Raven Guard we have lots of points efficient means of dealing with them. It's 6 none flare shielded HP. It's easier to deal with a Spartan, which most armies can already kill in a turn.

 

Since I've put marines on 32mm bases and spaced them out, blasts have been less of an issue for my infantry. Still gonna hurt, but is the typhon going to use its one turn of shooting before it dies on nuking a dozen tacticals or on something else that's up in his grill?

Edited November 28, 2015 by Sircyn

[Hesh Kadesh]

I'm intrigued as to your list.

 

How do you deal with the typhon?

 

It has 6HP; so averaging 1 failed haywire, either by an opponents positioning of units for a cover save, or it takes out the Graviton thanks to its 48" range, you're playing thenodds a bit. Rerolling for Sieze is good, but it requires a 6+ all the same.

 

People are also learning to use shielding Thallax with their Djinn Sight. Allies are beginning to come back a bit.

 

Sure, not everyone runs a Typhon, but you're hurting your own damage potential. You are also risking getting gibbed by a Contemptor Dreadnought first turn counter podding.

 

10 man tacticals are NOT going to get killed.

 

They are in reserve, wasting the least amount of points. Because lets face it, you are either CC focused and doing nothing ranged wise, or going shooting, doing very little in either phase.

 

Grav puts you in difficult terrain slowing you down, and leaves you heavily dependent on where exactly you are going to.

 

Horus chewing Tacticals, eh, he does that anyway. 8-10 attacks on the charge, gibbing the Chaplain with Worldbreaker leaves a squad at usually -5ish to combat res. Horus is fearless, so won't be going anywhere, just leaves a squad of reavers to come in.

 

Congratulations, you've done no damage.

 

Horus is a rare Primarch. He doesn't just need to not make his points back. He has already taken out nearly 400pts of tacticals, and the rest ofn his stuff - the Precision Bombardment, the ability to Seize on a 4+, outflank and the ability to take things like Veteran and Terminator Squads without Pride of the Legion costing them VP's means he can throw them in wherever necessary.

 

Plus, he has Deep Strike without Scatter and he can avoid the Alpha Strike.

 

That said, oranges and apples. Different strokes, different folks.

 

I don't like throwing 400pts at a unit in a bid to make them useable when all they bring is S4 AP-.

[defl0]

Against a typhon I deploy the grav cannons and out flank the infantry... It's usually dead before I come on the table.

 

Hesh, what's up with the contemptor comment? So the contemptor drops in and shoots killing basically nothing if they are are in cover. A couple guys if I'm not.

 

If you stay in the pod and I kill it you can't assault next turn. If you don't I can gib it or at least injury it with gravs.

 

If you do get the charge off, I have 2 melta bombs, which will get you eventually.

[defl0]

Also. Horus is... well Horus. He's 500 pts of awesome.

 

Even so. Let's say I rapid fire him and he charges me. That's 40 shots re rolling ones to hit and wound. That's 8.5 wounds. Now you charge me. That's close to another 2 wounds from overwatch. Now you charge. You will kill some. You might even get a couple percision strikes, but most likely I will look out sir them. So get I another 9 to 4.5 wounds depending on how many you kill. Plus 2 ap2 wounds.

 

So yeah, in 2 or 3 turns you will chew through the squad, but you will have taken 15 to 20 saves on a 2 plus and another 2 on a 3++,on just turn one alone.

 

So horus walks away with one 1, maybe 2 wounds left statistically.

 

Re roll hits and preferred enemy adds up quick. Plus I didn't add in the chance you might be blinded from the chappy defensive grenades or you could even be concussed from the grav cannons.

 

Anyway, it's theory hammer but in a tete e tete they get their 400 points out of him, and if you roll saves slightly worse than average, he's waking a thin line of dying.

 

In most lists, those points would be spent on 5 combi flamer mor deythan in a rhino and 10 tacs.

 

In the end they pretty much do roughly the same damage to horus.

 

In my lists I usually run out of elites quickly, and you can see how 250 pts turns a point sink into really solid unit.

 

I've run this squad in about 25ish games now. I've never lost the chaplain. I think I lost the tac squad once when it was small and I bounced the chappy to another unit.

 

It's not for everyone,but especially with the missions in book V, I tend to need some hth.

 

But really the strength of the unit is the re roll krack grenades against transports and the like. I usually end up getting charged, and defensive grenades and re roll attacks in usually a rude surprise ;)

Edited November 28, 2015 by defl0

[SkimaskMohawk]

I think your math might be a bit off. Or mine might be. I've been drinking. You get just over 5 wounds from the initial rapid fire, 1 from over watch (assuming he kills 2 with his ranged weapon) and then, after the statistical 6 kills horus will get in, another 4. He fails one save. #value

[defl0]

Lol. No I had a few too. I think it was me. 

 

But yeah, I redid the math. He takes a smidge shy of 3 wounds over 4 combat rounds. 

 

But still... He could easily chew through 4 tac squads in that much time. So it depends how you look at it. 

Edited November 29, 2015 by defl0

[Slips]

Well, its not as bad as Vulkan or Mortarion against them since they have AoE Attacks >_>

[defl0]

Lol. Yeah. They are absolutely beastly.

[Sircyn]

For Typhons I usually use a pair of drop grav contemptors and by turn two my flyers (lightnings, storm eagles) or the dreads have finished it off.

 

I'll either outflank my infantry or infiltrate on the opposite side of the board from it. We usually play 8x6 with los blocking terrain for 2.5k+ so its not unreasonable to expect to get away with this as on the move the typhons range drops.

 

All depends on deployment and dispositions of forces etc. But that's why reliable reserve denial is good, as you can react to stuff like that better.

 

All that said I've played about 16 smaller games with the Ravens at 1k or less on 4x4 in dense terrain and this may be colouring my impressions. By comparison I've only had a couple of big games using the Ravens (usually I play 5k+ with my death Guard or Mechanicum).

 

In the smaller games an all infiltrating army is amazing.

 

In larger games I need somewhere to put maun, and I think with cameleoline, defensive grenades and fearless they are nigh impossible to shift from a midfield objective without dedicated assault units or a well positioned typhon/Medusa battery (which will be threatened by my AT assets to give my opponent some choices to make).

 

I will experiment with minimum troops (say in pods to pad out my drops to allow for a melta support squad) or rhinos for the protection. To see if I can squeeze more points into other slots.

[defl0]

I see a bunch of you guys use drop contemptors. Do you like them? How do you usually run them?

[SkimaskMohawk]

double grav. you just stay inside on the drop and shoot

[Nusquam]

I have two that are chainfist/kheres. Sometimes a grav. I don't always fight Spartans so i like to give them a little more teeth against other targets.

[Nova_chron]

How are people thinking of using terminators I know they don't really fit the legions tactics fantastically but seems a shame not to use some when they are just so darn pretty

[SkimaskMohawk]

Dreadclaw?

[Sircyn]

Double grav and chain fist. I always take them in a pair to make sure I kill a normal vehicle outright or make a mess of a Spartan for other things to finish it.

 

The pods size also mean you can block the Spartans axis of advance, wasting a turn if they want to drive around you. Or if you drop behind, they have the choice of disembarking their terminator blob in their deployment zone. Or leaving two contemptor dreads behind.

 

As for terminators I'm going to try them outflanking in a dark wing. All armed with plasma they can arrive turn two, disembark and gut a terminator unit, then charge and finish them of the next turn. Or otherwise run around punching out vehicles with chainfists.

 

They could waste a turn zooming to get into the right position depending on the situation.

Edited December 3, 2015 by Sircyn

[Count Douclar]

On the topic of dark wings, is using a dark wing or even a storm eagle good? I know that due to machine spirit you can shoot two targets, so basically have it deep strike, have the unit in it jump out and potentially hit 3 units the turn it comes down. Also it offers AT (never really used lascannons, so dont know how viable they are for AT).

 

Also, what is the best unit to put in them apart from terminators? Again, I know that Mor Dythan are better in a rhino due to infiltrate and scout (for that first turn alpha strike). How about using Maun to have the flyer deep strike first turn, would that be a viable tactic?

[Nova_chron]

I don't think flyers can deep strike turn one

[Slips]

They cannot unless your army permits you to roll for reserves T1 Or you have a Skyshield which lets them start on the board.

[Hesh Kadesh]

Maun explicitly can bring his Dedicated Transport on iirc. Problem is, he cannot join other units and do so. I'm AFB so a bit off the ball at the moment, but long story short, only unit DT is bought for may start game in, if Maun joins another unit, he is part of that unit for all purposes, which means he cannot bring them in first.

[Slips]

Pretty sure Maun's rule states that it comes on automatically the moment you start rolling for reserves.

 

Unless Decap lets you roll T1 Reserves, thats an auto T2 Entry.