[HH1.0] Raven Guard Tactics

[SkimaskMohawk]

Yea seeing as how none of the 30k flyer got new data sheets, it's kind of hard to play a set of rules halfway. Personally not too thrilled about yet another clunky and unasked for addition to the rules

[Nusquam]

The lightning is probably going to be dependent on kit, bombs=bomber, strafing run=attack, other than that fighter. Otherwise you have a fighter than can take bombs and have a weird loophole mechanically.

[defl0]

Yea seeing as how none of the 30k flyer got new data sheets, it's kind of hard to play a set of rules halfway. Personally not too thrilled about yet another clunky and unasked for addition to the rules

 

Agreed. I hate having to buy a book for a main rule reboot. That said, I do like the change to the Crew Stunned rule and I also like the idea of formations becoming a thing. The dog fight rules are pretty clunky though...

The lightning is probably going to be dependent on kit, bombs=bomber, strafing run=attack, other than that fighter. Otherwise you have a fighter than can take bombs and have a weird loophole mechanically.

 

I could see that. I was thinking along the same lines when I was trying to figure out it's role. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

 

Yea seeing as how none of the 30k flyer got new data sheets, it's kind of hard to play a set of rules halfway. Personally not too thrilled about yet another clunky and unasked for addition to the rules

 

Agreed. I hate having to buy a book for a main rule reboot. That said, I do like the change to the Crew Stunned rule and I also like the idea of formations becoming a thing. The dog fight rules are pretty clunky though...

 

 

I personally despise formations and race-centric detachments (decurion, gladius, etc) and one of the huge attractions to 30k is that these are missing from it. IMO a good amount of people who play 30k also share this, as do the devs since they've avoided implementing formations at every opportunity.

 

This kind of furthers my belief that DftS won't be implemented since it breaks some of the internal design of 30k 

[Nusquam]

Unless they go out of their way to make '30k flyer rules' it's what we got. I know my group and I are opting out of the dogfight phase as a personal choice. But we do like the expanded flyer rules. No more do they behave solely like fast skimmers. Flyers actually feel like their own unit.

 

Plus we already have things like Sub Orbital Strike Wings and Rites of War. Both are essentially formations and specific detachments. They aren't to 40k extremes, but are similar.

 

I know I'm glad that sub orbital wings aren't flat bad anymore.

[SkimaskMohawk]

I know a lot of people are simply opting out of this supplement, despite it being non-optional. If there's no new data sheets, and you're not using the dogfight phase there's not much left to use. As for rites being like formations, they're similar in the sense that you get bonuses after following some restrictions. But formations actively break the foc instead of just modifying it slightly and can be plugged into any army, as well as the fact that the bonuses only affect the units from the formation. One is a reasonably thought out system while the other is an incentive to buy the one click bundles.

[defl0]

 

 

Yea seeing as how none of the 30k flyer got new data sheets, it's kind of hard to play a set of rules halfway. Personally not too thrilled about yet another clunky and unasked for addition to the rules

 

Agreed. I hate having to buy a book for a main rule reboot. That said, I do like the change to the Crew Stunned rule and I also like the idea of formations becoming a thing. The dog fight rules are pretty clunky though...

 

 

I personally despise formations and race-centric detachments (decurion, gladius, etc) and one of the huge attractions to 30k is that these are missing from it. IMO a good amount of people who play 30k also share this, as do the devs since they've avoided implementing formations at every opportunity.

 

This kind of furthers my belief that DftS won't be implemented since it breaks some of the internal design of 30k 

 

 

I mispoke. I meant patterns. Not formations if the sense of a army building, but formations as is placement on the board. 30k already has patterns like models base to base getting rules. I like the dynamic. 

[pompeyladbfp]

I'm hoping none of the rules are used in 30k... 40k is so so bloated atm.

[defl0]

Well some of the rules are actually cleaner and better. Air superiority is a great rule for Raven Guard as well. 

[Terminus]

Air Superiority I like because it gives you some reserve manipulation that isn't a Damocles or fortification, although I think it could be toned down as either +1 friendly/-1 enemy, not both at the same time.  The attack formations and whole dogfight phase I can do well without.

 

The extra pivot on the flyer is interesting, but requiring a roll is silly when there is already a USR that allows for additional direction changes. They could do something like a tier structure where 4+ hull point flyers function as they do now in the core rulebook, 3-hull point flyers get one extra turn, and 2- hull-point flyers get 2.  Stacks with vector dancer. 

 

That would take care of any flyers already with rules, as you have a chart to reference. Alternatively, they could make tiers of Vector Dancer (1-2), much like the original rumors for 6th/7th. 

 

Or the simplest thing would be to probably just modify the core rules to give all flyers an extra turn and leave vector dancer as is.

Edited May 19, 2016 by Terminus

[defl0]

I'm writing and article on how Raven Guard deal with death stars, thought you all might have some input. Raven Guard down't really have the beat stick characters or hth units to go toe to toe with nastier death stars. 

 

So in general, I've had a lot of success with delay tactics or popping a spartan and shooting a death star to death, Death Stars like Gal Vorbak with psychers or termies with lorgar transformed can basically bounce our shooting.

 

Invisibility straight up blocks rending flamers if you don't go first. Even plasma seekers fall short. 

 

So where do you turn? Stomp? Strength D? LD bombs? Or just straight up tar pits like militia mobs? Forgelords and Termies with powerfists?

 

Or have you figured out something interesting I've missed? 

 

Thoughts?

[Nusquam]

Haven't we gone over that shooting deathstars is the way to go?

 

Psychic Shriek bypasses invisibility now. Though invisibility is still way too powerful. I don't think I've played with standard invis in casual or competitive play since the start of 7th. Didn't ITC nerf it too?

[defl0]

That's kind of a vague answer.

 

What would you shoot at Val Gorbak that are invis and 4+ invul?

 

What do you think is the most efficient option?

 

Units like plasma seekers are pretty useless.

 

My thoughts are that you would be better off grinding through the unit with high rate of fire weapons.

 

But you need a unit that kills crowds and doesn't rely on templates and with relatively high strength.

[Nusquam]

My point was: Who still uses standard(unnerfd) invisibility?

 

Its mechanically over the top. There's no good way to deal with it. Especially when you can just pick it with Lorgar or Belakor and throw it on kytans or worse. At that point there is nothing outside a warlord to target the battlefield.

 

But if you had to fight full invisibility then effects that target the battlefield like geomancy to spam DT tests. Or just push them away, but then they may DTW pretty easily. Beyond that you would just be playing into their game by feeding th em numbers.

 

If the invisible unit only moves 6 then your best bet is to ignore them, andor pop thier transport, and play the mission. If its some th ing like a kytan then you maybe have to feed it speedbumps and pray you can do objectives.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Its never a good idea to base tactics discussions around a non-official set of rules or faqs; ITC is hardly official and only relevant to some North American players.

 

Invisibility is annoying, but they still have to roll it. If they're doing lorgar+gal+spartan then they won't have much else. They also won't be able to cast it from inside the transport. If not, then they're really slow so just avoid them.

 

Any other deathstar just powerfist cataphractii 

[Terminus]

Lorgar doesn't have access to Telepathy, so you don't have to worry about Invisibility.

 

Belakor doesn't belong in 30K, IMO, first daemon prince or not. Created by an entirely different studio for an entirely different game.

Edited May 28, 2016 by Terminus

[SkimaskMohawk]

Ah right they nerfed him like that. 

 

Medusas/typhon>t5

 

Scorpius/cataphractii>t4

[Nusquam]

As long as it's a common practice you can make a mention of it. It's long the same lines as using the old ruin level rules; they are popular. Not everyone does it of course. That's why I also mentioned ideas for standard invisibility. And if we're going to popular events, ITC is among the biggest and most widespread ruleset. So many players will encounter it. Discounting it entirely is just as bad as only considering it. Hitting all the common high points is good for a broad discussion. Then should someone look for advice on vanilla or things such as ITC variants they have a good one-stop-shop.

 

I forgot Lorgar got ner'd. He needed it though; being able to pick invisibility and and put it on Kytans, or anything really, was way too much. I'm waiting until the power itself gets the bat. It just perfectly hits the sweet spot in this type of ruleset of near perfect evasion. Evasion effects(limiting/eliminating direct interaction from opponents) will always be more effective than buffs or debuffs.

 

Like I said before: There is no good way to fight them because it limits your ability to interact with it directly. You could tailor your list for fighting invisible units by bringing as many things with a high rate of fire as possible but that limiting in it's own right. Then it's still an uphill climb. Mechanically you're still better off ignoring them/limiting their movements and playing the objectives. Win the war because fighting that battle only helps your opponent.

 

Though with the mention of militia I could see a Liberation Mission of feeding as many fearless militia bodies as possible being cheeky. Not like they would be hitting very well anyway. Just keep them bogged. Might be the best, and perhaps only competitive, use for that RoW.

[defl0]

2 pt fearless guardsmen are totally competative. And honestly the ROW is solid. It's can be worth quite a lot of extra points if you pull off slay the warlord. Especially with nex.

[Nusquam]

There's nothing wrong with the militia stuff. It's great. Levy squads are amazing.

 

The problem is with Liberation RoW by comparison to other RoWs; especially the UM Vigil one for flavor and mechanics. While it's not mandatory to take allies, you have to in order to use all of it rules. That by itself is poor design. Had militia been integrated into the legion list it would be an entirely different beast. Alone in a vacuum it's not bad. Potential for stacking victory points through a warlord kill and could be great in a campaign. But in a normal game it's too much a one trick pony to be reliable. So then you approach the other buffs if you want to be competetive: Fearless militia. Which you can't join unless you have terminator armor, a pack, or bike because of infiltrate. So that limits a lot of HQs already or just plain centurions. Which isn't bad but still awkward. Librarians in termi armor come to mind.

 

So then what does the militia offer that marines can't do better? Bodies. Lot's of fodder. Normal dedicated marine units shoot better. Cost a little more, but do a lot more and survive a lot more unless you're spamming numerous shooting units for the sake of redundancy. At which point you probably aren't using this RoW. The ordnance batteries are the exception; Super cheap earthshakers you can put in a corner(which I am now considering to combat Iron Fire lists with phosphex rapiers, more on that later). But that doesn't interact with the RoW, it's just good things in general from militia.

 

So we have bodies to apply to the RoW. Levy blobs near marines for fearless blobs. Though you can get fearless and zealot for the whole game if you're a traitor already so that can't be the only reason you take this RoW otherwise you're intentionally hamstringing yourself. So you build them for a spam-able high volume low strength shooting that marches up the board. Dump shots into something then assault it or hold objectives. It essentially shifts some of the would-be melee attacks into shooting. Which is mechanically great, many of them won't get cut down before they swing. Now you haven't invested much since they're so cheap. You have to have nearby baby sitters to keep them fearless but transports with RG inside or other forward moving units make it manageable without too extreme effort. Then you have the one-off zealot pop that gives them a bonus in CC. Not bad, but requires a lot of coordination and timing to pull off well.

 

So now you have an aggressive army of fearless disposable guardsmen blobs. Not bad. Grab Feral and Jackers for Rage and +1A and they have near the same bite as cult horde but don't forsake their shooting. But those two alone could have been another 25 bodies per unit you give the buffs to. You don't need stubborn or a buff to leadership that also makes levies support so that leaves Survivors, Abhuman, Gene and Cyber, the latter two of which can't be taken together. Survivors forces grenadiers, which are also good but we need militia for fodder not marines-lite.

 

SO the winners are Abhuman for T4 and Cyber for a 6++. So say you take 3 max units of Levies for 150 bodies and grab them some laslocks. That's 400 points for 150 humans at 2.67 ppm that have T4, 6++, situational fearless, disposable, one-off zealot, and 18" S4 assault 1 shooting. In a 2.5k list that's less than a fifth of your total points but 150 models of pure objective grabbing disposable fodder that won't give up VP points for being killed(450 total because of the force commander himself). That is by no means bad. In fact it's great. Edit: Allied slots are 2 troops max, and abhuman are AoC to legions. This makes the allied side take up fewer points, but sacrifices numbers. When I don't have a raging headache I'll reexamine the crunch.

 

Against elite armies like PotL or low volume high strength armies, and niche against invisibility based armies, it would do well. Same with missions with field objectives. You could march up and feed bodies into the opponents fire and hold objectives while being able to shoot back as well. That is something this RoW does do well. Even perhaps in kill point missions where you force your opponent to deal with hundreds of disposable humans that cost a fraction of your points. So your heavy hitters like Mor Deythan go unaccosted.

 

Sounds great so far. But here's where it falls flat:

 

Take the same amount of effort you just out into optimizing Liberation Mission and apply it to a Decapitation Strike, Recon Company, Vigil Operation, Iron Fire, and a Drop Assault Vanguard 'all-comer' list with militia allies, not to mention knights, where applicable. Then dare to compare. It just does not stack up.

 

And of course everything has a weakness, that's why this game isn't copies of the same army over and over again. But not everything is objectively good outside a vacuum either. This RoW has one 'competitive' build, infinite fun narrative and cinematic builds don't get me wrong I can't stress that enough, but one build if you want to build around the RoW and not have been better off with a different one. That's spam-able blobs of fearless guardsmen that march up, take ground, shoot, and don't give up VPs. Splash in Nex, because he's good anyway not to try the always warlord kill but to treat it as icing on the cake that is the Murder Crow, and a fistful of earthshakers to taste.

 

So as much as I like the flavor of Liberation Force, it is relegated to narrative* and niche play. What would I change to make it better? As I mentioned before: integrate militia units into the legion list like the Army of Dark Compliance does and give the infantry infiltrate. Infiltrated Levy troops as the civilian population suddenly rising up among the enemy, Mor Deythan sneaking about targeting HVTs, Furies descending from the sky, and so on is just so beautifully Raven Guard. It would make it both fluff-wise and mechanics wise on par with Iron Fire and as if the Vigil Op were RG.

*Which, to be fair, is the main point of this expansion.

 

Now to explore the earthshaker batteries against iron fire. The list I played against had numerous phosphex mortars, medusas, and plenty of interceptor. WHich was very potent against my normal close-range-high-speed-low-drag elite RG army that does so well against WE, IF, and DG. And would be as well against the usual RG list I see. But that's only 36" of pain. I had considered a MoS and LC support squads to poke at range. But two ESC batteries from a militia nets 2 ESCs and 8 T7 bodies to keep them alive and sports range to reach anything. Plus they only cost 10 points over a single legion basilisk. Two shots and better survivability, plus you don't care about moving. They'll be out of Iron Havoc range(BS5 and -1 to cover is painful) as well.

 

Then because you're taking militia it gives you, you guessed it, levy fodder. Sweet disposable bodies. Run them up into the phosphex. They'll die horribly, but it forces your opponent to waste it on disposable troops while you position your heavy hitters. Then use the ESCs to snipe out the mortars. If you take Decap Strike and Maun then you'll probably go first for a free barrage on the mortars too. Use Maun for LoS and snipe out the launchers. Use the Jackers provenance to keep them from falling back. Should any levies survive then they can snag objectives.

 

A Commander with Jackers and Cyber, 2x50man levy units, and 1x3 ESC batteries with 23 crew is 575 points. That's 100 disposable bodies with a 6++ that won't run and 3 S9 AP3 36"-360" Ordnance 1 barrage shots hidden behind 20 ablative(23 total) T7 wounds. You could add more crew for more wounds if you need to fill out that occasional odd amount of few points at the end of list making too.

 

That alone fixes the biggest challenges I face when I field my RG:

• Lack of significant Scoring units
• Lack of bodies in general. Which is bad in high attrition missions, but not necessarily bad altogether.
• Ranged(beyond 36") AT

Then should I face Iron Fire that has things like basilisks; I'm going first more often to destroy some first, and mine can get cover against barrage from ruins.

 

Edit: let battlescribe convince me that 2 HS in an allied was legal. Fixed it.

Edited June 11, 2016 by Nusquam

[Caillum]

That's a pretty good write up Nusquam! It's a shame that the XIIIth got the XIXth's Rite of War.

 

One point I will make is about the Abhuman Helots provenance: it makes the Imperialis Militia count as Distrusted Allies to all Legions and Solar Auxilia. They won't be taking any objectives unfortunately.

 

Interestingly, Mechanicum don't care about Abhumans...

[Nusquam]

It does? Where does it say that? It doesn't say anything in the Abhuman description or the generic Provenance rules.

[SkimaskMohawk]

I think he's confused on what distrusted allies means

[Caillum]

Page 184 of Book V. Red box-out at the bottom.

[Nusquam]

Ohhhh it's on the warlord traits page. It makes sense, just unfortunate. Well then, just cyber I suppose so you always have a save. If you get a lucky roll on divination you could have 50 humans with a 3+. Used to do that with my Tzeentch cultists by taking a bunch of Heralds.