Ravenwing Army Breakdown Part 4: Detachments and Formations

Ravenwing Army Breakdown Part 4: Detachments and Formations

This is the last analysis of actual datasheets. Let me know where we're going to go from here!

Ravenwing Strike Force
This detachment is crazy powerful. Ignore the lackluster command benefit and look at the force organization. 1-3 HQs, 2-12 fast attack and an elite slot. It's requirements are cheap enough you can throw in some bikes to support another army and it has enough space to spam black knights from hell to breakfast. You lose obsec but it means no pesky troops tax. Also be careful, characters on bikes can lead this army but do not get the ravenwing rule, so they won't be rerolling any jink saves. If you want some Ravenwing allies, take a librarian or interrogator chaplain on a bike, a command squad, a darkshroud and 2 multi melta attack bikes. For about 600 points you've got some very powerful units who can supplement pretty much any imperial army. Be careful about maxing this out. Few armies under 2000 points needs more than 3 squads of black knights, and ravenwing aren't perfect. They lack staying power in combat and don't have many effective ways of dealing with hordes. Try not to spend all of your points here and take some allies or greenwing to fill gaps in your army.

Ravenwing Attack Squadron

This formation isn't all that strong, but a land speeder and some bikes or attack bikes are great to add to any army. Although I ripped on the speeders in their entry, they aren't a huge tax on this formation when taken with similar weapons to their biker friends. If you plan on taking the components and have room for another detachment go ahead and take this formation. I would recommend grav gun bikes with an assault cannon/heavy bolter speeder, or multi-melta attack bikes with a double multi-melta speeder. +1 BS makes both grav guns and meltas far more reliable and solves the issue of babysitting them with a librarian to make them useful.

Ravenwing Support Squadron

I’ve made no secret that I’m not a fan of this formation, and several members of the community have tried very hard to convince me otherwise. To me this formation amplifies everything good and bad about Ravenwing Land Speeders. All the rules and special abilities they get look awesome on paper, but it’s got some glaring weaknesses. It’s very easy to make it jink, and it becomes almost-useless when it does. Being a unit of 4 vehicles, it’s very hard to hide it behind LoS blocking terrain, and it has all of the crippling weaknesses associated with being a vehicle squadron, especially to melee (it does NOT get to overwatch for itself). It also doesn’t extend the Darkshroud’s bubble, which means the shroud will need to be at the front of the unit most of the time. It’s not horribly expensive, but it’s not very useful either. Unless I see someone put up good tournament results using this formation in a way I haven’t seen, I continue to recommend that you give it a pass.

Ravenwing Silence Squadron

I was kind to the Dark Talon in my vehicle section, and it’s certainly the star of this formation, but a tax of two of the schizophrenic Nephilims doesn’t make up for the buffs this formation gives. As much as I’d love to see this used to one-shot a lychstar or riptide wing, the Nephilims will either need a big cost decrease or, more preferably, weapons that give them an actual identity, before it’s useful.

So that's all of the Ravenwing Datasheets. From here I could do an analysis of allies (probably in 2-3 parts) or wargear/special rules/psychic powers. After those I'll also discuss matchups. Let me know in the comments here or on reddit what you'd like to see next!