Considering ravenwing/ Dark Angels

[ThatOneMarshal]

Hello my hoody wearing brethren! I've been trying to figure out an army to play with in 40k due to the fact that 30k isn't as popular as I thought at my club.

 

I've long loved the look of the dark Angels and It seems they have a lot of the things I like in an army. The Ravenwing are fast, durable, and elite which I absoluetly love however I have a few questions:

 

Are the ravenwing overpowered? Would I be a :cuss for bringing them? I know they require the 2+ retold able jink save, can they compete without that for friendlier games? The toughest opponents I face are decurion crons and battle company but I also face semicomepetitve games as well.

 

How would you go about building a ravenwing army? How many bikes speeders etc do you normally have? I know bike armies are quite expensive normally so if anyone has any tips for doing a cheaper way I'm all ears.

 

In the fluff is there any examples of successors with alternative colors for ravenwing?

 

Is sammael any good? I know he is no longer required to access the ravenwing but he still is pretty damn cool.

 

Can ravenwing do assualt at all or is it best to stay far away?

 

Thanks guys!

[twopounder]

Hmm, I should set a couple things straight here - 

 

Sammael was never required to access Ravenwing, he just made them troops/scoring. They have always been available in the army list without him.

 

He's one of the best characters in the game, but usually best used from a distance. He does have eternal warrior while on a bike, so he can lend weight to assaults if necessary. The speeder has front and side armor of 14 and a 4++, so it's very hard to shoot down.

 

There are a number of successor chapters, but the Ravenwing is technically only part of Dark Angels proper. However, as the unforgiven still essentially operate as a full legion, it's generally accepted that successor chapters have the same overall company formations.

 

Ravenwing are not "durable" in the sense you may imagine. There is rule padding that increases their survivablility (re-rollable jink, hit and run, ravenshield, etc), but at the end of the day they are still in power armor and still highly vulnerable to ap3 template/ignores cover weapon.

 

Are they overpowered? Yes and no. Last edition they were pretty brutal, with black knights being hands down the best unit in the game. part of that was their ability to make t4 units suffer instant death from str7, then fire ~18 twin-linked plasma shots at it. This ability has since been removed. However, they remain an extremely powerful unit. They're basically genestealers on bikes with power armor and twin-linked plasma guns.

 

It will really come down to how you run your list. Putting everything in the Ravenwing Strike Force allows you to scout move forward, jink with re-rolls, and fire at full BS on turn 1. The enemy assault can be blunted with 5 vehicle landspeeder squadrons and ravenshield.

 

But how much of that you do, as well as how you form your army, is ultimately up to you. There are a lot of "gotchas" you can pull on people, like denying them overwatch and screwing up their assault move. The psychic powers are pretty mean as well.

 

Ravenwing is not on the easy spectrum of the game. You can't field enough to go toe-to-toe in close combat (though knights will cut through pretty much anything, including land raiders) and bikes tend to drop off pretty fast. Remember that they are not as resilient as terminators but have roughly the same squad size (3 - 6). I stay away from close combat with my regular ravenwing bikes and prefer to use highly targeted firepower.

 

On the other hand, they're very fast and can do hit and run moves to snap up objectives at the last minute. They are almost surgical in their firepower, getting plasma, grav, and melta-guns right next to priority targets.

 

As for building a RW army, start by going to ebay and typing in dark vengeance bikes. Last time I placed an order they were  pretty cheap. The knights you'll have to bite the bullet on. I had enough spare bike parts around that I could order the plasma talons, gun shields, and some spare parts to build 10. But if you're starting fresh, you'll need to throw down the cash or do some very, very heavy converting. 

 

You can get all kinds of weapon bitz off ebay too. I tend to holster some of the weapons so they are clearly represented on the bike, but not necessarily being held, though many are being held. As a tip, the holstering actually makes it easier and safer to pack them away. There are generally landspeeders being sold off all over ebay and craigslist, so those aren't too bad.

 

Then you'll want attack bikes, which is a bit more tricky. I generally run 6 squads with a multi-melta armed attack bike in each. That gives me 12 squad weapons and 6 multi-meltas worth of fire power that moves at 12" per turn.

 

MOTRW is easy - buy a RW landspeeder. They come with the parts to make him.

 

The big thing about ravenwing is to keep track of your objective. You don't have any throw-away units and you'll need to find value in every loss.

 

Finally - remember to keep moving.

[ValourousHeart]

Here is the list you will want to start with.

 

Sableclaw

12 Bikes

2 Attack Bikes w/ Multi-Melta

2 Land Speeders w/ Heavy Bolter & Assault Cannon

 

That is a solid core for Ravenwing and gives you flexibility in both deployment and in growth opportunities.

 

Additionally that 750 point army will teach you all of the basics you will need to know about how RW works and how to play it.

 

Ravenwing is a mobile gun line.

That means you really want to stay out of CC.

The exception to this is Black Knights.

 

Eventually you will want to get the following.

 

RWCS - 6 Bikes all the options

RWSS - 3+speeder & a Dark Shroud.

 

Having your Dark Shroud in the back only protecting your RWSS isn't wrong, but it isn't optimal either.

If you take your speeders with HB/AC and keep them behind your bikes, you can give out stealth to your bikes and help clear off tarpits.

 

The RWSS has great rules that make it a good pick.

However, 1 attack bike and 1 land speeder make a great pair in the RWAS... and you can outflank with them both.

If you like the idea of a couple of Attack Bikes running about your opponent's deployment zone, you are going to love what a couple of speeders can do back there as well.

 

Outside of the RWSS, I like to run my speeders as units of 1.

That mitigates the effect of jinking and also requires more units to stop you quickly.

Sableclaw and 4 Land Speeders with HB/AC (run as units of 1) running up a flank will destroy anything, it is hard to stop that, and it is hard for your opponent to justify killing sableclaw over the other speeders.... and all for under 500 points.

[SnakeChisler]

Against battle company then the DA version is solid double Lion with some neat support units

 

Ravenwing with Black Knights & Speeders are a great combo

 

Single Lion + Ravenwing make a great middle ground army

 

For beating crons I use a variety of tactics, they can't Hack psychic or pass a blind test to save thier life