Tactics for Kayvaan Shrike (and the Raven Guard) in 10th …

[Filius]

Dear wise and all knowing Ravens,

 

I cannot emphasise enough, how delighted I am to have a reason to post here. Fate put me in the amazing situation to help four sons of friends of mine on their way into the Hobby. One of them started a Raven Guard Army with a Ravenstrike Battle Force and I had the privilege to assist him during his first ever 40k match (against Necrons). I didn't have the chance to spend a single thought about what to do with the Army. Thanks to the Nightbringer and the Doomstalker, he was tabled after three rounds. But I was also quite uncertain what to do with Kayvaan after reading his Datasheet.

It looks like it doesn't make sense to let him join a unit due to Lone Operative (esp. as he can't join any units with the Ravenstrike Box). But his shooting is also worse than his melee abilities. But at the same time, he had no chance to bring down either the Nightbringer, nor the Doomstalker. And OC 1 makes him bad at holding Objectives … sooo that leaves him with the "Echo of the Ravenspire" Ability and good melee against S5 oder less.

 

Sooo … to me this reads like … deep strike close to an quite isolated weak enemy infantry unit he has hope to wipe out, in order to make use of Lone Operative Echo of the Ravenspire. Then use it to go for another of these Units.

 

Is that really the best thing you can do with Kayvaan?
Has anyone already used other tactics successfully?

 

As always: Thanks a lot on advance!

[Dracos]

Since we are in the “Age of the Index” I would either a) not use Shrike until the Codex comes out (or until your friends build an assault squad -preferably from Primaris models and jet pack bits) or ….

 

b) I would talk to my opponent pregame and use Shrike as a proxy model for a Phobos Captain. I don’t magnetize but I would imagine doing so with a regular and jet pack couldn’t be too difficult and you could get a lot of use out of the model that way. Most pick up games opponent won’t care if you leave the jet pack on and ignore it as long as it’s talked out ahead of time.

 

Phobos Captains don’t kill much but they are a very useful force multiplier. 

 

Good luck 

[Filius]

Thanks! That sounds a bit underwheliming, but I guess, we'll see the Spaces Marines Codex as one of the first … so … that's fine.

[Dracos]

Yeah KS always has been pretty sub-optimal for Primaris army builds. Never made sense to me he crossed the Rubicon other than … cause. There’s not one Primaris unit he slips into naturally … yet. One assume jump pack and tacticus Primaris are on the way at some point but until then.  Shame they just didn’t dress him up in Inceptor armor. Was a chance to build  a unique unit to travel with him other than Assault Squad but bigger 

[WAR]

I never understood why he couldn’t join inceptor squads 

[Dracos]

I know he could in 8th but it wasn’t optimal as they are not very good at melee. I didn’t really play much in 9th because powercreep was insane. 10th is a whole new world for HQs and not a good place for armies built mainly with Primaris units. 

 

It’s a strange universe where Apothecaries don’t heal and Primaris are wearing Terminator armor, where Melta rifles have the same range as some pistols and Knights skirmish better than infantry. Emperor save us poor grunts. 

[tajj]

I bought that box and yeh he doesn't really fit with it at all. I suppose they sort of envisaged him as a this jumping, hard to hit solo strike character but he doesn't quite have the power to kill anything off to make him useful. I've slightly kitbashed mine so I can use him basically as Shrike or a basic Jump Captain, because I am doing a successor chapter. But even as a jump captain he doesn't have much going for him.

 

As a suggestion you could suggest that the guy gets some assault intercessors (they come in so many kits you can probably pick them up cheap on ebay/second hand sites etc.) and then get the jump packs that GW still sell on their store, it's £6 in the UK for a pack of 5 so pretty cheap.  

 

You then use them as either assault marines with jump packs (which are going legends) or vanguard vets with jump packs. But when the very likely primaris jump pack units come out, they can be used as them just as easily. 

 

That would give him a squad to go with and use now without the worry of it becoming obsolete later and it wouldn't cost a huge amount. Assault Intercessors are about £10-15 on Ebay from what I can see, so the whole lot would be about £20 for a squad of 5.

 

He then gives basically lone operative to the squad, which is pretty huge for a jump pack melee unit. He is by far the best jump pack leader across any SM faction, because of his two abilities. The main issue jump pack units have is being wiped/weakened by long range fire before they get into melee, then being exposed if they wipe the unit they charged because of the tighter consolidation rules and he helps massively with that. 

 

If you aren't concerned about the ones going into legends than Assault Marines probably best as they are fairly cheap at 115 pts for 5 and they have a rule where they do a mortal wound on a 4+ for every model in the unit, so 5 of them plus Shrike are going to do 3-4 mortals just on the charge. Then you can have one Eviscerator in a squad of 5, a power fist sgt for some extra punch, so you'd have 3 S7 2 damage attacks, 3 S8, 2 damage attacks, 12 chainsword attacks and Shrike's 7 attacks with 2 damage.  More than enough to likely wipe out most light infantry squads, especially with the extra mortal hits. They can then go back into reserve and do it again. 

 

 

[Filius]

Ahhh … buying Assault Marines and putting First Born Jump Packs is a great Idea. One of the other boys is just selling his old Space Marines cheap among the boys and he has 10 of those. Fits great! Thanks for the help!

 

And as he plays among friends only, the regular Assault-Marines are indeed also an Option. Thanks for pointing out!