HH 2.0 The Ravenspire: XIXth Legion Tactica

[Dont-Be-Haten]

Yeah I play it as S10 in challenges with the warlord. Honestly though I would be more opt into playing traitor's No God's or Masters for the increased stats against named characters that aren't primarchs.

 

It's just a big difference in list building.

[SlickSamos]

I think RAW is S12 but RAI is S10 and that they should've written something like 'increases strength by 2' instead. 

 

Edit: perhaps 'attacks have +2 Strength when ...'

Edited November 13, 2022 by SlickSamos

[Lord Krungharr]

I got creamed by Thousand Sons today.    Weird deployment with me in the middle circle and the Sons on either short edge.  He had Deepstriking tac squad, plasma support squad, vets..and deployed a castle to my left of plasma cannons, deredeo, pair of rapiers, lascannon squad, and numerology squad?   

 

I deployed two Scorpius tanks in the middle, infiltrated Mor Deythans w combivolkite in rhino, tac squad to my right, scouts, and recon guys w Vigilator and Master of signals, deepstruck my Deliverers, outflanked my pair of lasmelta javelins.   

 

I was brain dead all day so didn't think to just hold my right side w my Line units and defend the center enough for me to score later on. Instead I put snipers right in the center, though on high terrain, and all my tough stuff went hard left.

 

I ended killing all but the rapiers and praetor and techmarine over there, but failed my Deliverers charge to his Praetor turn 5 so couldn't kill his warlord.  He killed off my snipers enough so I only had the Vigilator to try to pin his right tac squad and tie for points, but he made his Evade save!  So he contested my side zone points and got the center w his other tac squad.  The terrain blocked my speeders and Mor Deythans from seeing them to shoot at.   

 

Good game which I blundered but proved terrain and deployment makes a big difference.    Infiltrating almost everything let's one see where the enemy is going, which if awake and functioning, should help one deal with threats more adeptly. 

 

I wonder if Mor Deythans are worth taking over more speeders, or my assault squad w power lances.  They only get the Fatal Strike once, though I guess they're not bad in assault.  But another Line Units certainly would have proved useful.    Deliverers are great though!   As are Recon guys.

[MichaelCarmine]

When playing against Astartes - i recommend using Infravisors. they provide nightvision, which also negates any shrouding(evade)-saves your opponent might want to take.

I tendto give it to all my squads, since "blind"-weapons are very scarce amongst Astartes (only conversion-beamer), but relatively widespread with Mechanicum.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

That's what I do also. The units that have good shooting get Infravisors. Ignoring shroud is so powerful.

 

When you have high strength weapons at range that can ignore all damage mitigation via double strength & ignore shroud.

[Lord Krungharr]

I forgot about infravisors!  But I didn't realize it gives the whole unit the ignore Nightfighting, thought it was just the character buying it.  That's excellent, and I'll do that next time for sure (always seem to have at least 2 turns of NF).  

 

Gotta upgrade my Scouts to Recon Squad too.  I think it's worth it to get to 3+ armor, as there's plenty of AP4 but not much AP3 shooting going around...other than the Vindicator and Rad Missiles.  And if it's rending plasma AP4, need cover anyways.

 

Not sure RG have as good of army traits as some other Legions, my other go-to is Iron Hands (since my guys will be black and white and silver anyways).  But I love some of the RG units and sneaky fluff so they'll always at least be an allied detachment if not Primary.  Next painting unit will be Deliverers and Recons, they were my MVPs.

[SkimaskMohawk]

7 minutes ago, Lord Krungharr said:

I forgot about infravisors!  But I didn't realize it gives the whole unit the ignore Nightfighting, thought it was just the character buying it.  That's excellent, and I'll do that next time for sure (always seem to have at least 2 turns of NF).  

 

Gotta upgrade my Scouts to Recon Squad too.  I think it's worth it to get to 3+ armor, as there's plenty of AP4 but not much AP3 shooting going around...other than the Vindicator and Rad Missiles.  And if it's rending plasma AP4, need cover anyways.

 

Not sure RG have as good of army traits as some other Legions, my other go-to is Iron Hands (since my guys will be black and white and silver anyways).  But I love some of the RG units and sneaky fluff so they'll always at least be an allied detachment if not Primary.  Next painting unit will be Deliverers and Recons, they were my MVPs.

 

Night vision only needs one model in a unit to have it for it to apply to a unit, though I'm not sure on whether the  ballistic skill bonus spreads. Regardless, ignoring all the night fight modifiers is super good as you noted it can basically always be up on the first turn. You also get to remove defensive tools like shroud (rip antigrav units) and shroud bombs/spectra cloaks, which would otherwise only be considered in LOS if they were within 18".

 

It's unfortunate how badly scouts are outclassed by recons. The scoring and 3+ armour are a pretty big difference, maybe the scouts should have some wargear options held back to give them a bit more utility, like the augury scanner and meltas bombs. 

 

The faction trait is harder to quantify. Objectively, infiltrate is better than it was in 1st, getting a bonus save is better than nothing, and outflank is....probably better than it was. Vehicles used to get nothing, so that's an objective bonus too. The thing that sours a lot of raven guard players is that ravens talons don't care for the reroll 1s. But, that's offset by dreads and thunderhammers getting a bonus when they didn't.  So, imo, it's better than when I played raven guard in 1st. Is it better than other legions current traits? No; it's pretty middle of the pack. But the strength really comes from their special units and unique wargear.

[Lord Krungharr]

I guess Scouts can spread out a little more being Skirmish , so 3" coherency?  Harder to shell with rapiers etc that way.  

Can't wait for a real new assault squad kit which may or may not include stuff for a Recon squad.  The 40k Sniper Squad kit is difficult to make a decent Recon squad from because of the capes.  But the shotgun Scout squad, with the sniper rifles, and Astartes legs/pauldrons makes a good Recon Marine.  Just twice as expensive but then you get caped Shotgun Scouts I guess.  

[SkimaskMohawk]

36 minutes ago, Lord Krungharr said:

I guess Scouts can spread out a little more being Skirmish , so 3" coherency?  Harder to shell with rapiers etc that way.  

Can't wait for a real new assault squad kit which may or may not include stuff for a Recon squad.  The 40k Sniper Squad kit is difficult to make a decent Recon squad from because of the capes.  But the shotgun Scout squad, with the sniper rifles, and Astartes legs/pauldrons makes a good Recon Marine.  Just twice as expensive but then you get caped Shotgun Scouts I guess.  

 

Unfortunately the recons also have skirmishers lol. The scouts claim to fame is the light subtype which lets them run further and move through cover. You can do some really interesting things with wolves or world eaters melee scouts to threaten turn 2 blitzes, but other legions tend to just do better with recons.

 

And ya, recons are expensive unless you have 3d printer access; I got 15 printed for about 45$. 

[Dont-Be-Haten]

13 hours ago, Lord Krungharr said:

I guess Scouts can spread out a little more being Skirmish , so 3" coherency?  Harder to shell with rapiers etc that way.  

Can't wait for a real new assault squad kit which may or may not include stuff for a Recon squad.  The 40k Sniper Squad kit is difficult to make a decent Recon squad from because of the capes.  But the shotgun Scout squad, with the sniper rifles, and Astartes legs/pauldrons makes a good Recon Marine.  Just twice as expensive but then you get caped Shotgun Scouts I guess.  

To be honest; Scouts are not good. They are a compulsory troop without line, unless you take the Recon RoW, which is worse for RG, you get more mileage out of support squads. 

 

Having an entire army of infiltrators, with scout if you bring Corax makes units like Recon and scouts obsolete. After more games I 100% agree with @MichaelCarmine on a unit of Seekers over a Recon squad or scout squad. Despoilers or Tacticals with an Apothecary are the best troop options for us.

 

If you want shotguns the best option is to pick up the bits from the Death Watch veteran squads and shave off the iconography.

On 11/18/2022 at 1:38 PM, Lord Krungharr said:

I forgot about infravisors!  But I didn't realize it gives the whole unit the ignore Nightfighting, thought it was just the character buying it.  That's excellent, and I'll do that next time for sure (always seem to have at least 2 turns of NF).  

 

Gotta upgrade my Scouts to Recon Squad too.  I think it's worth it to get to 3+ armor, as there's plenty of AP4 but not much AP3 shooting going around...other than the Vindicator and Rad Missiles.  And if it's rending plasma AP4, need cover anyways.

 

Not sure RG have as good of army traits as some other Legions, my other go-to is Iron Hands (since my guys will be black and white and silver anyways).  But I love some of the RG units and sneaky fluff so they'll always at least be an allied detachment if not Primary.  Next painting unit will be Deliverers and Recons, they were my MVPs.

RG are a Finesse army that requires overlapping your units. Being able to increase your damage output by 33~50% on any unit with an IC in it is one of the best traits in the game. It all comes down to how you utilize and optimize your abilities and army special rules. Like re-rolling 1s to wound natively on the turn you charge with Thunder Hammers, Powerfists, dreads etc. against non-IC units.

 

There's a lot more on how RG work, you'll just have to go back a few pages to get more info.

 

 

[Mandragola]

For me the two RoWs that stand out are definitely recon company and decapitation strike. Both do cool things but also have some fairly major, and annoying, disadvantages.

 

For the recon company it's annoying to have to bring recon squads that don't benefit much from being RGs. It's worth saying they do still benefit a bit. Night vision is cool for snipers, for example. And while they aren't particularly good they also aren't at all bad. They do benefit from 6+++ shrouding too. Cheap squads with shotguns or bolters are perfectly fine as well and the melta bomb option, while expensive, is worth considering.

 

The big disadvantage is not being able to bring "heavy" stuff. This is a really irritating restriction in that it seems to catch a really arbitrary selection of stuff. You can't have HWS or Javelins but you can have all the Spartans and Kratos that you like. And you can have a titan if you like. I find this pushes me towards predators and contemptors for my shooting, and those units are both pretty good.

 

Decapitation Strike is cool. It gives a surprisingly big advantage for units like Seekers, plasma and Mor Deythan. It means that more than half of your shots will get those 4+ bonuses - things like precision shots, breaching and rending, because some of the 1s you reroll become a 4+. Of course, you'll sometimes want to refrain from sniping out an IC so you can keep the bonus for longer! It's also a big help in melee, probably meaning you don't need to bring a Chaplain, but of course you tend to be able to reroll 1s to wound in melee already for various reasons.

 

The downside of only getting 1 HS slot feels pretty severe to me though. That's a big penalty to long-range shooting. You do get access to Javelins though. I'd actually consider a squadron of Predators or a couple of Leviathans in the HS slot.

 

I'd quite like to try a Liberation force. I just don't really like the Solar Auxilia list though. The main bonus of getting hatred if you're within 6" of your allies requires those allies to be within 6" of a close combat, which is not what they want at all. 

[SlickSamos]

RE Recon: I believe that Heavy units start in reserve so you still have access to them (but yes it is very random and silly restriction).

 

RE Decapitation: 1 HS slot does kinda suck but as you've already pointed out you can take a squadron to offset that.

 

I think for RG Decapitation is better than Recon, but not strictly better due to access to more Seekers and more HS units.  

 

I think some Rite of War have an ideal points which they work for as well.  It strikes me as Decapitation works well up to around 3k points with perhaps 2k5 points as the sweet spot due to the HS limitation.  Not so sure about Recon but the additional HS slots add more room for growth beyond 3k...

[Mandragola]

One of the other things that influences the decision is whether you're taking allies, Lords of War etc. Those don't benefit from Decapitation strike but they do enjoy going first. The more stuff you have that doesn't benefit from DS, the more of an argument there is for taking RC.

[leftfield010]

Hi All,

 

So I have (foolishly) signed up for the Warhammer day narrative event and I'm basically starting from scratch!

 

I need to work towards a 3k list and I'm going to do a decap strike list

 

My starting point is

 

2 x 10 man tactical squads

2 x 10 man tactical support squads

(1 with melta and rhino and the other with volkite)

1 x 10 man dark fury

1 x 5 man Mor Deythan

2 x contemptor dreads with las cannon and fists

1 x 10 man heavy support squad with las cannons

Praetor with jump pack and talons

Vigilator

 

Not decided on upgrades etc yet but trying to work out if this is a reasonable start and will work in a narrative event. Also what else I should be looking at

 

Thanks in advance!

 

[Dont-Be-Haten]

12 minutes ago, leftfield010 said:

Hi All,

 

So I have (foolishly) signed up for the Warhammer day narrative event and I'm basically starting from scratch!

 

I need to work towards a 3k list and I'm going to do a decap strike list

 

My starting point is

 

2 x 10 man tactical squads

2 x 10 man tactical support squads

(1 with melta and rhino and the other with volkite)

1 x 10 man dark fury

1 x 5 man Mor Deythan

2 x contemptor dreads with las cannon and fists

1 x 10 man heavy support squad with las cannons

Praetor with jump pack and talons

Vigilator

 

Not decided on upgrades etc yet but trying to work out if this is a reasonable start and will work in a narrative event. Also what else I should be looking at

 

Thanks in advance!

 

I run a similar list. I would advocate for a Master of Signals over a vigilator. Giving a unit BS5 re-rolling 1s is absolutely smashing. Especially in that Lascannon Squad. Hitting on 2s, wounding on 2s, and ignoring shroud is brilliant.

 

I would save points by going Gravis Melta over Gravis Las. Though I'm also a big advocate for the Plasma Cannon and it's points efficiency on eating infantry units.

[suxdavide]

On 12/9/2022 at 8:41 PM, leftfield010 said:

Hi All,

 

So I have (foolishly) signed up for the Warhammer day narrative event and I'm basically starting from scratch!

 

I need to work towards a 3k list and I'm going to do a decap strike list

 

My starting point is

 

2 x 10 man tactical squads

2 x 10 man tactical support squads

(1 with melta and rhino and the other with volkite)

1 x 10 man dark fury

1 x 5 man Mor Deythan

2 x contemptor dreads with las cannon and fists

1 x 10 man heavy support squad with las cannons

Praetor with jump pack and talons

Vigilator

 

Not decided on upgrades etc yet but trying to work out if this is a reasonable start and will work in a narrative event. Also what else I should be looking at

 

Thanks in advance!

 

I'm not in love with that hss with lascannon. The whole list is supposed to be highly movable, whilte that particular unit (although being extremely good) is not following the theme.

Why note Javelin? Normal speeders too :)

[Dont-Be-Haten]

Something I've been think about is taking a Recon squad as a tax to get a storm eagle in the list. Would make the storm eagle around 300 points, but would give a scoring unit and a flyer...thoughts?

[Mandragola]

On 12/13/2022 at 4:01 PM, Dont-Be-Haten said:

Something I've been think about is taking a Recon squad as a tax to get a storm eagle in the list. Would make the storm eagle around 300 points, but would give a scoring unit and a flyer...thoughts?

Out of interest, what's stopping you taking a storm eagle (or whatever else) as a FA slot - are they just full?

 

I'm considering something a bit similar myself. If I run Ravens and Sisters together it may make sense for the SoS to be the main detachment. I might then run my RG allied detachment as a recon company, in which case I could have seekers as troops (though not Line) with a Land Raider transport. That would be a way to get a bit more armour and anti-tank in the list.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

1 hour ago, Mandragola said:

Out of interest, what's stopping you taking a storm eagle (or whatever else) as a FA slot - are they just full?

 

I'm considering something a bit similar myself. If I run Ravens and Sisters together it may make sense for the SoS to be the main detachment. I might then run my RG allied detachment as a recon company, in which case I could have seekers as troops (though not Line) with a Land Raider transport. That would be a way to get a bit more armour and anti-tank in the list.

Spot on. My Fast Attack slot is full. I run a 10 man Fury Squad a 10 man seeker squad and land speeders for anti tank.

 

I have a storm eagle and some extra mor deythan that I could do head swaps on to make recon marines out of them.

[suxdavide]

22 hours ago, Dont-Be-Haten said:

Spot on. My Fast Attack slot is full. I run a 10 man Fury Squad a 10 man seeker squad and land speeders for anti tank.

 

I have a storm eagle and some extra mor deythan that I could do head swaps on to make recon marines out of them.

 

What's the seeker loadout? Do you tend to use them embarked or?

[leftfield010]

On 12/10/2022 at 8:34 PM, suxdavide said:

I'm not in love with that hss with lascannon. The whole list is supposed to be highly movable, whilte that particular unit (although being extremely good) is not following the theme.

Why note Javelin? Normal speeders too :)

Yeah I love the idea of Javelins, kinda hoping they make a plastic version before I went for them

[Dont-Be-Haten]

Just now, leftfield010 said:

Yeah I love the idea of Javelins, kinda hoping they make a plastic version before I went for them

I would treat them like a sniper squad with a MoS. Hitting on 2s re-rolling 1s, wounding on 2s re-rolling 1s and ignoring FnP and Shroud is really strong.

46 minutes ago, suxdavide said:

 

What's the seeker loadout? Do you tend to use them embarked or?

Nah just sneak them up the board with bolters. After following @MichaelCarmine's advice, I can't see many lists without them foe Raven Guard. The ability to dictate so many AP2 shots on a unit is awesome. The only downside is making sure the unit you pick out isn't going to brutally nuke them with return fire. So I am currently running a telepathy Librarian in a tactical squad to infiltrate up and pin a unit followed by sniping out everything else with the seekers.

[suxdavide]

3 hours ago, Dont-Be-Haten said:

I would treat them like a sniper squad with a MoS. Hitting on 2s re-rolling 1s, wounding on 2s re-rolling 1s and ignoring FnP and Shroud is really strong.

Nah just sneak them up the board with bolters. After following @MichaelCarmine's advice, I can't see many lists without them foe Raven Guard. The ability to dictate so many AP2 shots on a unit is awesome. The only downside is making sure the unit you pick out isn't going to brutally nuke them with return fire. So I am currently running a telepathy Librarian in a tactical squad to infiltrate up and pin a unit followed by sniping out everything else with the seekers.

Why so many?

 

If I'm not missing something the only way to achieve vp2 is through breaching and scorpius rounds.

10 seekers --> 10 shots * 5/6  (let's assume we bought infravisor so that night time is not an issue) * 1/2 ( breaching 4+) --> 4.2 wounds on average

[SkimaskMohawk]

3 hours ago, suxdavide said:

 

What's the seeker loadout? Do you tend to use them embarked or?

 

What I do for night lords is bolters with a vigilator attached. They both benefit from shooting the marked for death target and the vigilator can force pinning on the unit at -1 to prevent return fire (now that it's been actually fixed, though their own return fire is now less oppressive). He also benefits from their augury scanner to help disrupt deepstriking.

 

Raven guard are a bit better at killing ICs in decapitation strike, but would be a bit worse at the pinning bit. 

[Dont-Be-Haten]

10 shots hitting on 2s re-rolling 1s. Anything 4+ is precision. Then you wound on 3s, re-roll 1s and anything 4+ is AP2. On average you are getting 10 hits, 8 wounds, and you place the AP2 on Apothecaries and Centurions. Or you take out Sergeants with AA so they aren't tanking shots off weight of Fire.

 

I've had a large amount of success with them tbh. This also allows you to control the middle of the board with their 24" range. People don't expect it to be good either, then the Seekers ravage a unit, snipe out characters and IC and they are only 200 (245 if you bring an Apothecary) points to boot. 

 

My last outing with them averaged 10 hits, 5 precision, and 6 AP2 wounds.