Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Ravenwing Army Breakdown: Army List Examples


Ravenwing Army Breakdown: Army List Examples

As requested by you guys, here's two example lists that I’ve run in tournaments. Next week I’d like to review some user submitted lists, so send me your Ravenwing tournament armies!

Ravenwing supporting a deathstar
Inquisitorial Detachment:
Ordo Xenos Inquisitor, Power Armor, Liber Heresius, Psychotroke Grenade, Level 1 Psyker, Rad Grenades
Inquisitor Coteaz
Henchmen Warband, 5 Crusaders, 4 Death Cult Assassins, Psyker, Priest w/ Eviscerator, Priest. Land Raider Crusader Transport, Psybolt Ammo, Dozer Blade

Ravenwing Strike Force:
3 Black Knights
3 Black Knights
Darkshroud
Attack Bike, Multi-Melta
6-Man Command Squad, Banner, Apothecary, Champion, Grenade Launcher
Librarian, Eye of the Unseen

White Scars Librarius Conclave:
Level 2 Librarian, Axe
Level 2 Librarian, Bike, Wrath of the Heavens, Sword
Level 2 Librarian, Bike, Hunter's Eye, Axe

Analysis
This is an older list I ran in my first few tournaments. As the title says, this is a good example of using Ravenwing to support a death star. The librarian on foot joins up with the henchmen warband to give them hit and run, while the other librarians have far enough movement to move in and out of range to channel to him, depending on how much you need to get his spells off. Death stars give you a lot of board control and this one can easily go toe-to-toe with similarly costed death stars like lychstars. In general 3 black knights can handle small units such as tactical marines, but you could split the command squad into the other two units to have either 3 units of 4 or 4 units of 3 if you need to.
With all lists, you should consider your win condition. This isn’t playing out a turn-by-turn imaginary game (a practice I think has very little value due to the inherent randomness of the game), it’s looking at the missions for your format and figuring out how you win them. For this list, your win condition is going to be using the star to control the board while your bikes claim objectives (either turn by turn or at the end, you can do either depending on your matchup). This means you may need to play a little conservatively with your bikes if you need to score at the end, because it's far more important that they survive to snag objectives at the end.
This list works well in both NOVA and ITC and matches up well against most other deathstar focused lists and ones that rely on monsters like gundam tau and flyrants. It has an ok (50-50 probably) matchup against Eldar, both scatterbike and warp spider spam. Daemons, Khorne Daemonkin and Battle Company will give them the most trouble, which is a common problem for all small, elite lists. The reason I personally stopped running this list is because I found it was too vulnerable to bad luck (or “shenanigans” as i refer to it). Obviously luck always matters in a game involving dice, but it only takes one lucky shot to cripple the land raider and force the star to footslog. Lack of troops also gives your opponent a free secondary in NOVA format matches, which may or may not be a problem.

An old picture from when I ran this list, as usual sorry for the blurriness


Ravenwing as the core of an army
Ravenwing Strike Force:
Librarian, Bike, Eye of the Unseen, Auspex
6 Black Knights
6 Black Knights
6-Man Command Squad, Banner, Apothecary, Grenade Launcher
Darkshroud

White Scars Librarius Conclave:
Level 2 Librarian, Bike, Hunter's Eye, Sword
Level 2 Librarian, Bike, Axe
Level 2 Librarian, Bike, Sword
Level 2 Librarian, Bike, Axe

White Scars Combined Arms Detachment:
Chaplain, Bike, Auspex
3 Bikers
3 Bikers, 2 Grav guns, combi-grav
Attack Bike, Multi-Melta
Attack Bike, Multi-Melta

Analysis
Barring any major changes or revelations, this is the list I’ll be taking to the NOVA GT this year. After briefly trying out a knight to replace the Inquisistar (he works fine, but I still had no troops and didn’t like giving up free points) I settled on just maxing out black knights and bringing some stuff to support them. This list lacks long-range units, but is incredibly mobile, making it great for ITC and score-at-the-end NOVA. Typically I roll the chaplain and 2 librarians up into one star with the command squad, while the DA libby and 2 other librarians join other black knight squads or bike squads. Having troops was important, and obsec has certainly helped a few times while practicing with this list. The multi-melta bikes could definitely be replaced, but having some disposable units who have longer range than the rest of my stuff is nice, especially because I am lacking melta everywhere else.
This list is all about the black knights, and the win condition is using the black knights well. They’re fast, hard to kill with shooting, have excellent shooting, and have decent melee plus hit and run. The conclave, chaplain, and other bikes all exist to support, clean up after, or score for the black knights, because they will be able to take on almost every similarly-priced unit. This list can do both score as you go and score at the end missions, but is a bit better at scoring at the end of the game thanks to its speed and the number of small units.
In terms of matchups, this list also has an ok matchup against both popular flavors of Eldar. Deathstars and tau are good matchups. As I said above, MSU armies like Battle Company, Daemons, and Khorne Daemonkin are a tough matchup for any small, elite army and are definitely this lists worst matchups. Ultimately this list gives more room to outplay your opponent than the inquisistar, but will be less forgiving both for and against less experienced players (running a star/gargantuan/superheavy against an inexperienced player often causes them to do very stupid things). This list also won’t be affected much if GW’s FAQ removes chapter tactics when DA models join a Codex Marines unit, because the black knights already have hit and run, so at worst you lose hit and run when the DA libby joins a White Scars unit.

I’m still taking submissions for next week’s viewer-submitted list review. Show me your best 1850 tournament list that includes Ravenwing! Comment here or message me on reddit!

2 comments:

  1. What do you pick for the disciplines for the librarians?

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    1. There's no hard and fast answer to that, it depends on the matchup. Against Tau or a death star usually telepathy for invis, but a lot of daemons and Khorne Daemonkin armies dont ignore armor much, so Librarius is usually better against them

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