Ravenwing Speeders

[luthhero]

So I so a few posts when the new DA book dropped about a speeder army floating around but haven't seen much sense.  Aside from the logistics (and cost) of putting so many speeders together, has anyone actually given the Ravenwing Strikeforce speeder army a try?  I'm curious as I have found a pile of speeders on the cheap and wanted to build some lists starting at 1000 -1850.  It seems like a couple of Support Squads to support it and then just tailored speeders would be pretty formidable.  

[SnakeChisler]

Yes kind of I have 7 but 4 go into the support formation the other 3 are run as singles with double HB then I include attack bikes for anti armour + the Ravenwing command

 

There better & cheaper at backfield support than bike squads due to thier longer range & cheap enough points wise to spam

[luthhero]

Ya it seems with support squads giving them a constant cover save and then jinking if need be keeps them alive and just lots of guns on the cheap.  Plus with a plethora of them on the field people shooting them down seems extremely hard.  Even ignores cover armies like Tau.  Plus you have Sammy flying around in his sweet caddy with an Invun save.

[ValourousHeart]

It was probably my post you read... My crazy RW idea.

I have 15 speeders and a dark shroud in my collection.

 

I picked up 2 storms for a conversion project, and used the main body frames as a proxy for 2 vengeance speeders just to try it out.

 

So at 1500 points I had 18 speeders on the board.

 

Unfortunately I have only faced unbound DE and Tau lists with it, so my results are abysmal.

 

I'm sure with a bound list from ether of those codex I would have had my work cut out for me... But a gimmicky bound list from our codex doesn't have much of a chance vs some of the unbound combos the other codex can field.

 

Their lists were designed to table marines in a single shooting phase. Luckily the dark shroud and it's support squad survived that first round and everything came in on T2. But my speed meant nothing to the DE and I was out numbered by boats, not to mention all the troops in the boats. And the Tau had this FW Riptide with an AP3 flamer that gets to go back in to reserves on my turn if I look at it.

 

I'm probably going to have to go to a different store to find a game that will give me a better feel for the army.

 

I feel the army should have a chance vs a themed army.... Well as long as that theme isn't "there will be no survivors!"

[Master Toddius]

So at 1500 points I had 18 speeders on the board.

 

Unfortunately I have only faced unbound DE and Tau lists with it, so my results are abysmal.

 

Against Tau you have to play on a table with at least some Blocking LOS terrain. I'd also always go second and hide a squadron of speeders and then deep strike or come from reserve with the rest to out maneuver the crisis suits dropping in. Tau is probably the hard counter to anything relying on cover saves anyways. Thats a hard battle to win.  

[luthhero]

Tau do seem rough but don't they only ignore cover for the most part from Marker Lights?  And do those marker lights have split fire?  As far as DE I thought for sure you just out threat them or shoot their skimmers and such down.  I mean its all in the flow of the game so things change.  I agree though Valorous that the unbound lists do get some sweet toys.  

[ValourousHeart]

The DE list was brutal. Every unit was in a boat, and they had more boats than I had speeders. Every shot was twin linked except for the 3 3 DL boats which really didn't need to be twin linked.

 

The boats also got saves vs everything... And even junking didn't affect the accuracy of their shooting because transports are not affected by the jink rules.

 

Which is something that never made any sense to me.

 

FYI I'm not say he played the rule wrong, I'm just saying that transported units should not be immune to the effects that their transport suffers.

[luthhero]

What was in the DE transports?  Because I would think heavy flammers would be sweet to DS against them.  Either way I think its worth exploring more.  I had a funny 1000pt list drawn up that seemed awesome for the upcoming adepticon team event.  But I dunno.  I truly wish we have Land Speeder storms so we could jink and shoot out of transports.  

[ValourousHeart]

HF could have been useful. My SOB army usually does well against DE, but this army still out numbered my sisters list and that is my hoard army.

 

The transports had the cheapest units with blasters. I believe that a 7-10 man unit with 1-3 blasters in a raider is less points than we spend on a LS w/ HB & TML.

 

And then they had bonuses like everything getting twin linked, a cover save without jinking (I believe), and a bonus to their jink.

[luthhero]

Hmmm that does seem rough.  I did like the original post you made and I believe there is def a well rounded list there but it will take practice and patience to get it to handle a variety of items.  I wonder if the ole HF/MM setup might be an option to have around or something for fighting hordes of open skimmers like that.  

[ValourousHeart]

I never liked that build much as the weapons are not synergetic... Although they might be good in that match up. But it puts me really close to haywire range.

 

I always preferred the HB/AC and mm/AC.

[luthhero]

Those are sweet setups as well.  I thought about just double HFs at times just for situations like that or Hordes still.  The MM/AC I had not considered but I see its value.  I think Sammy is the blue print for the old AC/HB setup.  I think the developers were telling us something there.  Thats a lot of shots coming from that setup.

[GruntAngel]

Can a unit in a transport fail their morale save or are they immune?

[twopounder]

Can a unit in a transport fail their morale save or are they immune?

 

Embarked units are immune to morale and pinning.

[Ultra Magnus]

HF could have been useful. My SOB army usually does well against DE, but this army still out numbered my sisters list and that is my hoard army.

 

The transports had the cheapest units with blasters. I believe that a 7-10 man unit with 1-3 blasters in a raider is less points than we spend on a LS w/ HB & TML.

 

And then they had bonuses like everything getting twin linked, a cover save without jinking (I believe), and a bonus to their jink.

 

A Raider dedicated transport can take splinter racks as an upgrade, which give his splinter weapons twin linking but not any of his anti tank options so these things shouldn't have even been able to scratch the paint on your skimmers. 

 

The only unit that can take more than one blaster is his elite Trueborn unit and not his basic Kabalite troops which are limited to one. 

 

The +1 bonus to their cover save comes from a piece of wargear called a nightshield and the cover save without linking is a first turn only detachment bonus.

 

I own both the Dark Eldar and Haemonculus Covens supplement and just wanted to make sure your opponent didn't take you for a ride rules wise...

[ValourousHeart]

Ultra Magnus,

Thanks for helping out with the DE rules.

 

I'm sure he was playing right, I'm just unfamiliar with his rules.

 

Can't raiders take a single dark lance? Or am I thinking of older rules?

 

And correct me if I'm wrong but isn't a single twin linked blaster better than a melta gun at taking down a speeder?

 

Hopefully the mods see this a just looking for clarity and not discussing unapproved armies.

[march10k]

I never liked that build much as the weapons are not synergetic... Although they might be good in that match up. But it puts me really close to haywire range.

I always preferred the HB/AC and mm/AC.

Tornadoes FTMFW!!!

[SnakeChisler]

 

Can a unit in a transport fail their morale save or are they immune?

 

 

Embarked units are immune to morale and pinning.

Not quite true if the vehicle suffers a penetrating hit they take a leadership test to see if there snap firing or not, exact wording is in the BRB.

[twopounder]

 

 

Can a unit in a transport fail their morale save or are they immune?

 

Embarked units are immune to morale and pinning.

Not quite true if the vehicle suffers a penetrating hit they take a leadership test to see if there snap firing or not, exact wording is in the BRB.

 

 

A leadership test is NOT a morale or pinning test.

[luthhero]

So I think this idea of all speeders needs to be seriously broken down into what the army wants to do.  I know I know we all want to win.  But I mean each part.  The beauty of the speeders is that they are very versatile.  You have an answer to every situation.  Now 40k at this moment is in a healthy spot I think as there are some great rock-paper-scissor games going on.  So being able to create groups of speeders to fight the situations is pretty easy.  I honestly don't know that Sammy will draw much fire due to more immediate threats from the rest of the list.  I'll post a breakdown I think will highlight each speeder type and what it fights.  I've been scouring ebay right now for cheap beat up speeders that I can strip and repaint.  Looking forward to advancing this discussion.  

[ValourousHeart]

Well the obvious targets are going to be:

 

1) light infantry / hoards / 4+ or worse.

2) heavy infantry / 3+ or better.

3) light vehicle swarm / AV 10-11.

4) heavy vehicle anvils / AV 12-14.

5) decide if we even want to bother with a way to deal with flyers.

 

I think we can agree that the tornado and typhoon is going to be the right path to take as an AB is the better platform for a single heavy weapon.

 

That means we only have these configurations to consider.

 

HB/HB

MM/MM

HF/HF

HB/MM

HB/HF

MM/HF

HB/AC

MM/AC

HF/AC - not sure when this will make sense.

HB/TML

MM/TM

HF/TML - not sure when this will make sense.

 

Dark Shroud

Vengeance

[luthhero]

Wow thanks for that VH.  I had become distracted with work and family and didn't get to do that.  I agree with the HF/AC and HF/TML.  Both of those I think can be tossed as I can't think of any time those would be helpful.  Otherwise all the good combos need to br broken down with your 1-5 arrangement.  I think number 5 is where will will be with this.  The only time we might fire is the interceptor on the Support Squad.

[Master Avoghai]

I'm very insterested in this type of crazy army list/ project, but I hve a question regarding the organisation of the army.

 

Supposing you have enough speeders to play any solution, what would be the good proportion of speeders alone vs speeders in RWSS formation?

 

Do you think you should go all for RWSS? => much more efficient at shooting though no HQ and less flexible

All for RW detachment => very flexible though lacks the interception and +1BS of the RWSS

Mix of two? But how many RWSS? 1 or 2? Both with vengeance or with dark shroud?

 

+++edit+++

 

For 1500 pts I manage to do this :

 

Sabreclaw

 

LS with double MM

LS with double MM

LS with double MM

LS typhoon

LS typhoon

LS typhoon

Darkshroud

Nephilim

Dark Talon

LS vengeance with assault cannon

 

+ RW Support Squadron

Darkshroud + 3x LS tornados

 

Total : 1505pts

 

I've include 2 flyers because I think that air support with this type of list can be very annoying and remain in the theme.

 

The questions I have are :

Should I gather the second shroud or the Vengeance with the typhoons or the double MM?

 

For the purpose of reach the 1850pts limit, I have the option of :

 

- get a 2nd Nephilim and play them in a formation => free FA spots

- get more speders that I can gather around the free shroud or the free LSV

- adding more speeders to the existing squadrons...

[luthhero]

I'll go on record saying I am not the expert on this and in fact I don't know that many people have gone all in on speeders in this edition yet.  The thing with flyers is that yes ours got better from last edition but still are pretty expensive.  You can get 3 speeders for the price of the Nephlim.  Thats 3 targets and 6 total Hull points.  Granted the Nephlim is slighly harder to kill with AV 11 but if they have any sort of anti air then its not gonna sit around long.  Although the Silence Squadron at 1850 could be good and would just look awesome on the table.  I'm not saying the flyers are bad I'm just thinking how much pain can we dish out per point with more speeders vs 2-3 flyers.  Now I know that it isn't always about mid-maxing our points to just create the ultimate list.  People want to have fun and enjoy the minis on the table.  So that being said me personally I am trying to get as many speeders on the table within 1850 that I can.  That includes Ravenwing Support Squadrons and our Plasma Speeder.  

 

In answer to your other question on the number of Support Squadrons you should take.  I think 2 is a safe number as well as maybe take some solo Dark Shrouds.  This army is going to be flying all over the table for objectives and to redeploy all over the place.  Having a mass amount of Dark Shrouds allows you to splinter off and focus on certain other groups of your opponent's army and keep parts of your army jinking and others firing depending on the situation.  It is nice to free up some FA slots by taking the Squadrons but I think forming up groups of 2x Speeder configurations lets us make a focused attack force.  Anyways this post is getting long.  I am slowly putting speeders together so I should have enough to do some testing soon and will let you guys know my results.  Looking forward to more discussion.  

[Master Avoghai]

I understand your feeling about flyers but actually who really field anti air? More over, who will field enough anti air to refuce the silence squadron to silence? :P

The maximum you can expect is one flyer being targeted and eventually destroyed but not more.

Then your opponent will have to deal with 2 flyers and I bet that your primary target will be the AA unit.

Moreover we often forget how speeders can be sensible to air unit like shooting deamon prince or hive tyrant. Having 2 flyers able to deliver 5 S6shots + 2S7 shot against such targets is priceless. Even TL bolters could be lethal because they can lead to a crash test and then the flying mobstruosity could be finished by our speeders.

 

 

I perfectly understand your point though. Full speeders should be full speeders. I've made this list as an example and the good point of it is that you can switch one unit for another.

 

I've actually managed to make a 1850 list consisting of

 

Sabreclaw

 

3x1 MM speeders

1x LSV

 

Silence squadron

2 Neph

1DT

 

RWSS 1

1 DS

3 typhoons

 

RWSS 2

1 DS

3 tornados

 

The good thing with this list is that you can gather the LSV and the LS with MM in a third Support squadron and then put the flyers in the strike force rather than the silence squadron.

Then you deploy your 3 RWSS and keep the rest (sabreclaw and 3 flyers) in reserve and make them arrive turn 2 automatically thanks to the formation bonus.

 

The advantages with the 1st solution is that you can deploy more MSU. Drawbacks : your reserve are random

The advantages with the 2nd is that your MM hits on 2+ and that you secure the reserve arriving... Drawbacks : you cannot divide your firepower and will also give the occasion to your opponent to concentrate its shoots...

 

 

I think the key with a speeder lists whatever its composition will come through the balance between the RWSS and the lone speeders.

Too much SS and you'll have big packs of targets that will be easy to target. Not enough and you'll only have fragile units with BS4.