Blood Ravens Chapter Tactics

[Brother Casman]

Alright, so I know there's a few of us Blood Ravens players on the B&C, and I'm sure we've all had the thought that our chapter could use their own doctrine and stratagem. Well, I hope to pick your brains and perhaps put together a little something here in the Homegrown Rules forum.

 

So, what are the Blood Ravens known for?

• they're codex compliant, with a higher than average number of librarians
• they're warrior scholars, using careful study to determine the best way to defeat their enemies
• their librarians use divination to aid the study of the foe, and sometimes lead strike forces
• their Chapter Master and Chief Libarian can be the same person (Great Father Azariah Vidya), but not always (Gabriel Angelos)
• they're known to have good relations with the Adeptus Mechanicus, Grey Knights, Salamanders, Deathwatch, and many others
• they're a fleet-based chapter

I consider the first three points above to be the most meaningful, especially the emphasized portions.

 

You'll note that I'm mostly not including the various Dawn of War story outcomes, and there are a couple reasons for that:

• I mostly consider Dawn of War to be non-canon. (Though I'll scavenge useful tidbits)
• I don't want to tie these prospective rules to a single point in time. I'd much rather capture the feel of the Blood Ravens when they're conducting normal operations

Are there any important points above that I've missed? Should I reconsider my stance on the Dawn of War stories?

 

I do have a couple ideas I'd like to share at this point, though they'll need refinement.

Doctrine: I was thinking that the Blood Raven doctrine could reflect their scholarly and divinatory efforts, and so I was thinking that once both armies have deployed, the Blood Ravens could redeploy up to 3 units anywhere in their deployment zone.

Stratagem: This one is a little harder, but one idea I had was to let an Infantry or Biker Squad ignore negatives to hit for 1 Command Point.

 

So, are these too strong? Too weak? Any other ideas or opinions?

[Dark_Jober]

 

I do have a couple ideas I'd like to share at this point, though they'll need refinement.

Doctrine: I was thinking that the Blood Raven doctrine could reflect their scholarly and divinatory efforts, and so I was thinking that once both armies have deployed, the Blood Ravens could redeploy up to 3 units anywhere in their deployment zone.

Stratagem: This one is a little harder, but one idea I had was to let an Infantry or Biker Squad ignore negatives to hit for 1 Command Point.

 

So, are these too strong? Too weak? Any other ideas or opinions?

 

 

Hi, brother! I'm also working in developing my own version of my favourite chapter, so I'm gonna invest my time helping you.

I think for the Chapter Tactic (Doctrine) you should copy another SM chapter, maybe adjusting, adding or removing someting, equal when working on Stratagems.

Let's say we want to create one single CT and at least 5 Blood Raven's stratagemes.

 

I think Chapter Tactic should be an effect or rule you can use more than once per game, so I'm going to suggest to reconsider your doctrine:I think there are no SM chapters that can redeploy 3 units, but you could copy the Strike from the shadows stratagem from the Raven Guard. (So stratagem 1)

 

You must think about how they fight, so we could search in other codexes for inspiration. They are a codex compilant chapter so SM, DA and BA should be the main sources, but not the only ones. They have many psykers, so Thousand Sons could be nice as source of Stratagems, if Blood Ravens has many Librarians, maybe the Stratagems "Chaos Familiar" and "Cabalistic Focus" could be nice and fluffy.

 

For the Chapter tactic they have visions, so they plan really well and have more reaction to changes than the enemy, so I think it could be nice using the Salamander CT as a way of representing that knowledge about what is gonna happens and when. 

 

Chapter Tactic: "Divinatory efforts" (Salamanders)

Stratagem1: Sfts (Raven Guard: C:SM)  -> "Knowledge is power"

Stratagem2: Chaos Familiar (1000sons) -> "Astral projection"

Stratagem3: Caballistic Focus (1000sons) -> "Librarius Conclave"

Stratagem4: Abhor the witch (Black Templars: C:SM) -> "Resist the warp influence"

Stratagem5:

 

 

These are only a few ideas I had in few minutes, you should think how fluffy they are and what do you want to develop from fluff into the gameplay

Stratagem1:

[Brother Casman]

Hey Dark_Jober, I see where you're coming from and I agree that it's the easy thing to do, but I don't want to just use existing doctrines and stratagems. I'd think that we could come up with something unique to the Blood Ravens.

 

That said, a review of the current ones is a good idea. I'll take some time to look them over.

[Cpt_Reaper]

I do love the Blood Ravens, so I'll offer any assistance I can.

 

Your idea for a doctrine is a great idea, but I would personally change it to D3 units for the sake of balance. Additionally, when using Chapter Tactics: Blood Ravens the Chapter Master Stratagem can be applied to a Captain or a Librarian (If applied to a Librarian simply add the Chapter Master rule).

 

Your stratagem is pretty decent and reflects the Blood Ravens well. I personally cannot see anything else to add, seeing as my add-on to your Chapter Tactic essentially adds two unique Stratagems to the Blood Ravens.

 

For a Warlord Trait: Reroll Deny the Witch tests, or gain a 6+ Deny The Witch if they do not have one. Good for Captains, better for Librarians.

[Brother Casman]

Yeah, I went back and forth in my head on a flat 3 versus a d3 for the redeployments - I think I'll adopt the d3 change. Ideally, we'd get some playtesting with it.

 

Good call on the Chapter Master Stratagem - I kind of forgot it was a stratagem!

 

I hadn't given much thought to a Warlord trait; that's a good one to keep in mind, though it'll be very situational.

[Wargamer]

Their Chapter Tactic should be Simultaneous Defensive Deep Strikes: Everything in their army can Deep Strike.

 

Their unique Warlord Trait is Bloody Magpies: They can take relics from any Chapter.

[Brother Casman]

Yeah, those are examples of everything I had hoped to avoid. Do you have any other ideas?

[allegedlynerdy]

Everything deepstriking would just mean that they'd auto lose turn 1 unless you dropped stuff. Unless you meant it as everything as in every unit type, not every unit in a list.

[embalancer]

 

• I mostly consider Dawn of War to be non-canon. (Though I'll scavenge useful tidbits)

 

 

I'd like to help as I've tried in the past and all that happened was creating monsterous point sponges though this was before in previous editions 

 

what parts of the books do you think are worth saving? (and be specific as I don't want to taint myself with Goto if i don't have to) 

 

would stealing the DW mission tactics be worth co opting? 

 

Also would creating a squad of lexicanium be worth thinking about? (I'm thinking a toned down version of a GK strike squad) or are we just sticking to tactics and stratagems not units and characters?

[Brother Casman]

At this point, embalancer, I'm thinking we can stick to just tactics and stratagems. Units and characters can come later, perhaps.

 

And yeah, I've been looking into the other codexes, like the Deathwatch, mainly to (hopefully!) spark new ideas.

[embalancer]

I think the best way to go about it would to go about it as a Eldar/DW mix. with a few psyker boosts (like copy and paste the eldar ones) and the DW specific stratagems for specific enemies ... though they might not be as powerful but more broad such as lumping all of the chaos factions together in one stratagem rather than having one for deamons and one for CSM. 

 

How does that sound?