TACTICA RAVENWING By Daniel Custodio ( Chaplain Lucifer ) |
This article has been reproduced with kind permission from the author. It's use here is not intended as a challenge to the original authors copyright and is reproduced here for the sole purpose of enhancing the Dark Angel spirit and the warhammer 40,000 experience |
My objective with this article is to give some basic tips to the neophyte Ravenwing player about one of the most difficult armies to master. This article contains points of view from me and several other Ravenwing players. While it's not the perfect guide, I'll strive to take it the most helpful and accurate that I can. Without further ado, here it is. Section One Unit Overview. Headquarters - The mandatory ones: Master of the Ravenwing on Speeder: This character has some skills that can enhance your army. The ability to let one unit to re-roll it's "to hit" rolls can help you get the accuracy you need on crucial rolls like multi melta shots. It also has a cool night fighting bonus and a nifty "fly-by" attack with it's sword (that can instant-kill T3 characters ) One other highlight is the high BS coupled with linked weapons that can tear trough light infantry (and light tanks) like a hot knife through butter. Unfortunately this comes with a price tag and it costs as much as a Land Raider, but it's armour is lighter... It has a good Inv. Save that can save it against the incoming shots but it's still quite vulnerable to massed fire. Master/Grand Master of the Ravenwing on Bike: The Master/Grand Master are almost the same on profile, the Master being more geared towards small games while the Grand Master is more oriented for bigger games as he can have access to better wargear such as the Sword of Secrets and the Lion Helm. While the M/GM on bike doesn't have the nifty Speeder version abilities , he can make is presence felt in close combat. Usually he comes with a Ravensword, but if you are using the GM profile, for some points more you can switch the Raven sword for a Sword of Secrets witch is better. One other thing that we can count on is the ability of the M/GM on bike to project his Ld to other squads, which is quite handy for all sorts of Ld tests! Usually I run a GmoRW on bike with a pistol (for the extra CC attack), a Sword of Secrets (close combat nastiness) and an iron halo for personal protection. Other equipment can also be handy: The Lion Helm that can provide an inv save to the GM and a squad (be careful because you can have either the halo or the Helm but not both), artificer armour for protection from normal CC attacks (handy vs. armies with low power weapon/Ap count such as Necrons, Tau, IG) , meltabombs for tank busting and frag grenades to assault into cover if needed. Headquarters - Optional ones: Chaplain: This character can turn a squad fearless plus it boosts a squad (and himself) in close combat when charging. It's a solid and relatively cheap choice, if you like getting into fights. A chaplain and a GM attached to a bike squad can munch trough almost anything when charging but beware, you might end up in the middle of nowhere looking into enemy gun muzzles. Equipment: I usually give him a bolt pistol and that's it. If you got points to spare, get the extra wound. If you're fighting enemies with low power weapon count (like Tau or Necrons) artificer armour might come in handy too. Meltabombs and frag grenades make nice compliments if you have the points. Librarian: Now, this is one solid (although expensive choice). By using the Librarian with "veil of time" or "might of heroes" you'll have a rock solid CC fighter even if you can't use the force weapon that turn. Give him "fear of the darkness" and drive him into the enemy lines (carefully of course), thanks to the speed of the bike he'll disrupt most armies battle lines by making them fall back with this awesome psyker power. "Fury of the ancients " combined with the bike speed can cause some havoc on the enemy because the librarian as the speed to manoeuvre in a way to target several enemy squads at once. Elites: Techmarine: Nowadays the Ravenwing can field a techmarine as a choice. He can add some more HtH punch into your squads, since he's a decent hand to hand fighter. Joined with bike squad he can use his signum to improve their aim (to get those crucial melta/multi-melta shots). He also has the extra bonus of being capable of repairing speeder weapons, but it's a long shot... If you have points to spend , all HQ slots filled up and you need something extra, the techmarine is a good compliment to a RW force. Troops: Bike Squad: There's so much to say about bike squads that I'll divide it into sections. Size: You'll want four or five bikes, no less, or they'll be "inefficient" both in shooting and close combat. "Suicidal" units of three bikes with two meltas can be used but frankly RW doesn't have the luxury for that, since every bike counts plus there are cheaper tank hunters in a RW army. There's also an advantage in using four bikes instead of three. With two casualties sustained, a four man bike squad is still a scoring unit while a three men bike squad suffering two casualties is no longer a scoring unit. Armament: Basically the most wise tactic is to use two weapons of a kind to specialise, usually different weapon setting in a squad will sometimes give only half results. In a Ravenwing army your primary headache will be heavy armour/ heavy troops so usually two meltaguns are the best way to compliment the bike's bolters (which take care of infantry nicely). They are short ranged, but RW speed can help mitigate that fact. Flamers are good vs. horde armies like orks, but their short range means two things: - if you cause many casualties, the enemy can remove them in such a way it can leave you without charge range (if the plan is charging) - the short range of flamers means if you're unsuccessful killing the threat, you can be vulnerable to a charge. Plasma guns. These are very good vs. infantry and not bad vs. light/medium tanks, but they have a very unstable nature. Rapid firing them is hazardous to the gunner and we're talking about a 50 pts model here... Another thing is that the plasma gun is a rapid-fire side arm, so if you fire it you cannot assault. Meltaguns tank killers by excellence, especially after the new AP1 rules. they are the most versatile choice for a Ravenwing squad because you can use the bike's bolters to deal with infantry and you can switch to the meltaguns if you need to hunt tanks or heavy infantry. It's only drawback is the short range, so you got to get close to your prey in order to kill it. Be careful when approaching to kill transports. If they don't get entangled in the wreckage, they can extract vengeance. Sergeants: Usually bike squads are meant for shooting, because they don't have the numbers to hold in close combat unless they're facing light infantry, and even then, numbers can drag them down. Still, a couple of bike vet. sergeants in Ravenwing bike squads is not a bad idea, because sometimes it's good to be in CC.. and sometimes CC comes to us even if we don't want to. The power fist is a good choice, because it's lethal, versatile and the bike's toughness ensures that the sarge will usually survive to strike. Another option is a lightning claw, but it has a high price tag and doesn't grant an extra attack unless you buy a pair (and a pair of LC's look weird on a bike), so a master crafted power sword can be a good replacement for the lightning claw. Those power weapon attacks can make you win the combat, and make the enemy fall back, which means you can either run them down or just freed in the next turn to roam the battlefield, riddling the enemy with bolter shots. Attack bikes: Ravenwing has the option to use attached attack bikes. Personally I recommend to first fill the heavy support slots with Attack bikes and only then use attached attack bikes (more on that later). Attack bikes should be compatible with your squad, so if you have an anti-infantry bike squad, HB bike is the best option, the multi melta being the best bet if you have a bike squad with two melta weapons. Although good on paper, mixing weapon load out is not advisable because with Ravenwing your squads must be good at what they do to ensure their potential is not wasted. Imagine you're going tank hunting with two meltas and wasting HB shots or you're hunting orks with bolters/flamers and you have multi melta firing! |
TACTICA RAVENWING |
