Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Ravenwing Army Breakdown Part 3: Vehicles

Ravenwing Army Breakdown Part 3: Vehicles

I'm going to take a break from tournament battle reports to finish this up. If you'd still like to see those as well let me know.

Darkshroud
The second most important part of a ravenwing army, after black knights. The darkshroud plays to all of the ravenwing’s strength. It’s cheap, gives you fear (which almost never comes up but is hilarious when it does), ignore overwatch and stealth. Plus it has shrouded for itself. Which means 2+ rerollable jink saves, which it can also provide for nearby black knights (and a 3+ for other ravenwing). A darkshroud is a core part of every ravenwing army and taking two is fine if you have the slots/models. Generally one darkshroud can cover 2-3 units early on when you’re being shot at. Never bother with the assault cannon upgrade, there’s always a better way to spend 10 points. Like black knights, you need to be very careful with positioning your darkshroud and keep it away from ignores cover and assault. Not being open topped and 3 hull points will help against weak weapons like heavy flamers or smart missiles but in general you want your shroud out of line of sight, unless you’re using it to block charges or something.


Stealth and Shrouded makes it hard to take a clear picture of this thing

Ravenwing Land Speeder
They've got a pile of weapon options, they're fast skimmers, and they benefit from rerollable jink. On paper they look like they're perfect for a ravenwing army. Unfortunately, they're also made of that paper, with only 2 hull points. They also can't tie units up in combat and don't come with Scout unless they're in a formation. Attack bikes do multi meltas equally well or better, missile launchers aren't particularly useful and heavy flamers can't be used while jinking. This makes land speeders a poor choice most of the time, especially when accompanying other ravenwing units.

Land Speeder Vengeance
Like the regular land speeder, the vengeance doesn't really fill a role that's needed while being less survivable than bikers. The plasma turret seems cool and the extra hull point helps, but for the price of 3 black knights you get a plasma gun with 3 shots or a large blast. Neither are twin linked and taking a librarian just to babysit this guy with divination is an awful idea. Most of the time it will glance itself to death if your opponent doesn't throw a squad of 5 tactical marines at it first to kill it.

Nephilim Jetfighter
Continuing a trend among Ravenwing vehicles, the Nephilim doesn't really fill any strategic niche. It seems to be an air to air duelist but the S6 gun it comes stock with is pretty useless for this, and it can't swap out its heavy bolter for something more useful. It's missiles are only s7 ap 3 which doesn't help against other fliers and aren't good for strafing ground targets. If you switch the bolter out for a lascannon you'll have 3 different weapons with different strength and ap, meaning one of its guns will almost always be wasting shots. It's survivable, but most fliers already are.

The most heartbreaking part is that it's the only Space Marine flier that doesn't look like a flying toaster.

Dark Talon
I'm going to lighten up on the Ravenwing vehicles for this last entry. This thing is silly and potentially a bucket of fun. The Stasis bomb turns Eldar into Tau in cc and can be dropped independently of your other weapons. Also the one time it wounds a stormsurge or necron overlord will be a story you tell your friends about for years. The rift cannon is equally goofy with a chance to spontaneously start dragging things into the warp. Plus it has some hurricane bolters in case you're feeling Orky and want to make some noise. I wouldn't call it great but it's funky weapons aren't terrible and might find their way into a list or two for dealing with death stars or static armies (not that you see much of the latter anymore).

Up next, Detachments and Formations!

No comments:

Post a Comment