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I'm coming into about 6 of them. Is that enough in a list to be considered effective? Also are they good? What's the most optimal way of running them? I play atm mostly Raider/venom spam with ravagers. Thanks!

 Jimsolo wrote:
Rather than going through a thread for every unit in the Codex, you might want to seek out a unit guide. Plastikente wrote a great one over on the Dark City forums. That might save you some time. It's very informative. I've found it to be quite useful in assembling an army.

That being said, I'm a little more fond of cluster caltrops than Plastikente is. I've found that they are more survivable and more dangerous when using Bladevanes attacks.

 Jimsolo wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
Rather than going through a thread for every unit in the Codex, you might want to seek out a unit guide. Plastikente wrote a great one over on the Dark City forums. That might save you some time. It's very informative. I've found it to be quite useful in assembling an army.

That being said, I'm a little more fond of cluster caltrops than Plastikente is. I've found that they are more survivable and more dangerous when using Bladevanes attacks.

I've read this, that's one user's opinion though. I'm interested in hearing more than one point of view. A primer only gets you so far.

I love RJBs but you do struggle to get your points back with them.

In answer to your question I think 6 is the minimum number for an effective unit but 9 would be better. Take the Arena Champion for the leadership and blasters if you might face armour.

Bladevaning rocks and is great fun - definitely the way to go as a rule. The jink save does make them very survivable when turboboosting.

 Captain Blood wrote:
I love RJBs but you do struggle to get your points back with them.

In answer to your question I think 6 is the minimum number for an effective unit but 9 would be better. Take the Arena Champion for the leadership and blasters if you might face armour.

Bladevaning rocks and is great fun - definitely the way to go as a rule. The jink save does make them very survivable when turboboosting.

Thanks for your response. What's the best way to use them? is a unit of 6, say better than a venom carrying 3 trueborn with blasters for anti tank?

Reaver Jetbikes are fantastic when using bladevanes (the upgrades to same are also killer). But they are one of those units that looks like a swiss army knife and usually fails to be. Anti armor and assault with them are risky due to low model count but will occasionally be something they can do in desperation. Generally they work best in groups of four plus by zooming from cover to cover, smashing a unit between points with d3 or more automatic hits at reasonable strength each time. It's a bit like having a squad of Marines pinging away with near impunity at units all game. They also have skilled riders which means they can end their move in area terrain (no dangerous tests!), which I've found a hidden gem myself. I'd agree that making their points back can be difficult, but they are there in my opinion to soften up a squad of enemies to one-two punch with a skimmer full of splinter weapons. They can however be difficult to put in a safe spot and using them aggressively without thinking through the next turn will get them killed fast.

aushlo wrote:
Reaver Jetbikes are fantastic when using bladevanes (the upgrades to same are also killer). But they are one of those units that looks like a swiss army knife and usually fails to be. Anti armor and assault with them are risky due to low model count but will occasionally be something they can do in desperation. Generally they work best in groups of four plus by zooming from cover to cover, smashing a unit between points with d3 or more automatic hits at reasonable strength each time. It's a bit like having a squad of Marines pinging away with near impunity at units all game. They also have skilled riders which means they can end their move in area terrain (no dangerous tests!), which I've found a hidden gem myself. I'd agree that making their points back can be difficult, but they are there in my opinion to soften up a squad of enemies to one-two punch with a skimmer full of splinter weapons. They can however be difficult to put in a safe spot and using them aggressively without thinking through the next turn will get them killed fast.

Would you say they're a good distraction from fire away from your skimmers?

I would say not so much as a distraction unless it's completely situationally necessary- they are far too expensive to use to eat fire. The best ways I've found to make your skimmers survivable are night shields and careful positioning. Even then, Tau are going to shoot you down. Reavers are in my experience an excellent support unit but as a distraction they are simply too fragile. If you can put them somewhere out of LOS maybe? Of course with Combat Drugs you never quite know what they can do until the game's upon you.

aushlo wrote:
I would say not so much as a distraction unless it's completely situationally necessary- they are far too expensive to use to eat fire. The best ways I've found to make your skimmers survivable are night shields and careful positioning. Even then, Tau are going to shoot you down. Reavers are in my experience an excellent support unit but as a distraction they are simply too fragile. If you can put them somewhere out of LOS maybe? Of course with Combat Drugs you never quite know what they can do until the game's upon you.

Aren't most tau units 36" range, and you're 36" ? So with nightshields you can out range them?

Blade vanning is a good rule, but it isn't what defines the unit. If you use them simply for bladevanes you are wasting a great AT unit and adding AI to an army already full to the brim of it. Blade vanes is just a way to add some damage in while repositioning, by giving them upgrades like cluster caltrops then you feel that you HAVE to blade vane to make the points back. A small unit should be a unit of six, two special weapons of choice (Both blaster and heat lance have pros and cons) lead by an champ with Venom blade. That way they are a durable unit when blade vaning until the time is right when, with the right drug rolls, run in and bully a small unit.

I figure a seasoned Tau player with experience against Night Shields is either going to bring longer range guns to the party or deploy further forward to lessen the protection of the shields. It's what I'd do. The primary utility of NS is against 36", and probably more important depending on your style, rapid-fire weaponry. That's where it comes in handy.

Dalymiddleboro wrote:

aushlo wrote:
I would say not so much as a distraction unless it's completely situationally necessary- they are far too expensive to use to eat fire. The best ways I've found to make your skimmers survivable are night shields and careful positioning. Even then, Tau are going to shoot you down. Reavers are in my experience an excellent support unit but as a distraction they are simply too fragile. If you can put them somewhere out of LOS maybe? Of course with Combat Drugs you never quite know what they can do until the game's upon you.

Aren't most tau units 36" range, and you're 36" ? So with nightshields you can out range them?

The sad thing is that a good Tau list can outshoot a Dark Eldar list with Snap shots. A unit of Broadsides with no Drones can move 6", Snap without any Marklight support and reliably down a Raider per turn, a Ravager at a push (a single Markerlight makes it almost a certainty). A Minigun Riptide just kills a vehicle a turn without breaking a sweat, an Iontide has a reasonable chance (best bet is firing the 3 shot version with a couple of Markers). That means you lose all your Ravagers turn 1, and Venoms just aren't going to put enough wounds through against Riptides and Broadsides.

Anyway, the issue with Reavers is that they are simply too fragile - they are essentially just Marines. As they aren't scoring they need to be bringing some damage output to the table and while Bladevanes are fun to use they aren't terribly effective.

good anti-tank guns, decent anit-infantry in blade-vanes, damn durable for DE at T4 jink+skilled rider, some of the best maneuverability in the game. Yes they are good, especially on terrain heavy boards.

They aren't some power house thats going to roll around blowing up everything in sight while soaking up tons of fire. But they are a consistent pain in the ass for their opponent. I think 6 is the perfect size. Less only gets one anti-tank gun and thats not enough to make the enemy consider the unit. 9 is too many bodies and they become harder to keep safe via maneuvering.

JubbJubbz wrote:
good anti-tank guns, decent anit-infantry in blade-vanes, damn durable for DE at T4 jink+skilled rider, some of the best maneuverability in the game. Yes they are good, especially on terrain heavy boards.

They aren't some power house thats going to roll around blowing up everything in sight while soaking up tons of fire. But they are a consistent pain in the ass for their opponent. I think 6 is the perfect size. Less only gets one anti-tank gun and thats not enough to make the enemy consider the unit. 9 is too many bodies and they become harder to keep safe via maneuvering.

Would you only take 1 unit of 6 in a list?



Also on a side note, wouldn't triple ravager lists just ID a bunch of broadsides?

Reavers are good, but can get expensive fast if you do a lot of upgrades.

IMO the best way to run them is in a squad of 6

You either give them 2 cluster caltrops

or

2 Heat lances.


If you give them cluster caltrops you basically just blade vane all day long. If you get into a situation where you think you might get caught, you either turbo boost very far away, or you move, shoot, assault a weak unit. They are best for taking out things like small troop units on an objective somewhere, artillery, heavy weapon infantry squads.

a good trick is to pick a target near terrain, bladevane the first turn somewhere out of LoS, hopefuly not too far from the unit you bladevaned. Next turn come around and shoot them with splinter rifles then assault. You want a situation where you will not kill them off in assault so you stay locked in during their assault phase, and will probably kill them then they be unlocked again during yours. This protects you from shooting more than being out of LoS.

If they have heat lances, you either want to sneak up a flank, and then heat lance next turn, or turbo boost and bladevane something not far from a tank or armor, and heat lance the following turn.

Reavers are not very good against tau, IMO, because of things like smart missile spam, and the general ability to ignore cover, and or fire outside of LOS and ignore cover.

you =CAN= kit them out to do both, and take 6 with 2 cluster caltrops, and 2 heat lances, and a arena champion with a venom blade or something, but for those points you could also have bought 2 squads of 6 reavers instead of one squad of 6 that is very kiited out. You may get more mileage out of 6 very kitted out reavers, or 2 squads of 6, depends on what you are playing so its hard for me to say.

Also be sure to not be near flamers when you end your move, flamers hurt :(

If you fire 3 ravagers with 3 dark lances each you will probably score 6 hits total. Which will probably be 5 wounds. So yeah that would ID some broadsides, but they probably get cover and you will probably hit a drone or something first...So look at killing 0-1 broadsides when you fire 3 full ravagers at them the first turn.

The big thing with Tau that hurts DE is the usual playstyle of the army. Our dirty tricks of isolating units to be utterly destroyed becomes problematic when an army is played like a well-armed turtle, which most Tau lists are- setting massive hard points and castling behind as much cover/ADL as possible. DE can struggle here since they don't have massive blast templates and the like without allies. There aren't many safe spots for armies with hard-hitting and fragile units like Reavers, Genestealers and Lictors to go after they do their damage. Supporting fire makes it even harder. That said placing a bunch of objectives as close as you can to your own defensible points can make Tau very cranky. They can be super mobile but are not often big on aggressive play. All bets are probably off with giant suit death stars. Could easily go in either direction fast.

blaktoof wrote:

a good trick is to pick a target near terrain, bladevane the first turn somewhere out of LoS, hopefuly not too far from the unit you bladevaned. Next turn come around and shoot them with splinter rifles then assault. You want a situation where you will not kill them off in assault so you stay locked in during their assault phase, and will probably kill them then they be unlocked again during yours. This protects you from shooting more than being out of LoS.

Didn't think this was legal. Thought the FAQ clarified that wounds are allocated not from the Reavers' starting position, but their ending position. (Which means you still have to end in LOS in order to be able to legally allocate wounds.) Am I wrong?

Dalymiddleboro wrote:
Would you only take 1 unit of 6 in a list?

Meh, take however many you want. They don't require you have more than one unit and there are other good choices in the FA slot as well. Give a try and see if you like em.

Jimsolo wrote:

blaktoof wrote:

a good trick is to pick a target near terrain, bladevane the first turn somewhere out of LoS, hopefuly not too far from the unit you bladevaned. Next turn come around and shoot them with splinter rifles then assault. You want a situation where you will not kill them off in assault so you stay locked in during their assault phase, and will probably kill them then they be unlocked again during yours. This protects you from shooting more than being out of LoS.

Didn't think this was legal. Thought the FAQ clarified that wounds are allocated not from the Reavers' starting position, but their ending position. (Which means you still have to end in LOS in order to be able to legally allocate wounds.) Am I wrong?

The FAQ does indeed say that but the need for line of sight is debatable. Wound allocation is only explicitly covered for shooting attacks and close combat attacks. Weird special rules like this aren't really either. Its basically the same question as as can a FMC vector strike and leave the board. I'd allow it because it seems more in the spirit of the rule. Afterall the out of sight language is the same as the out of range question. If you argue they have to be in line of sight then you also have to argue they are in range, whats the range? who knows, loose rules etc etc.

I'd go with them. They seem to always to make their points back after cutting my guardsmen with their cursed Bladevanes.

its not a shooting attack so there is nothing requiring LoS to the target, just that they are on the line between your start and end point of the turbo boost. You do not need line of sight to move over something, you just move over it.

The wounds being allocated from the end position means your opponent has to remove models from that direction, not your starting position, which allows you to often put hits on the back models and not the front models you bladevane.

Hmmm. The fact that it allows a cover save made me think it is a ranged attack, which kind of always made me think it was a shooting attack. The one time I tried to ask about that, everyone acted like I was out of my mind for suggesting otherwise. I think I'll whip on over to YMDC to see what the lay of the land is here. I would be pleased as punch to be able to bladevane people and then hide behind a hill. That would be awesome! If anyone wants to make their opinion known on this rules issue, feel free to stop on by and let everyone know what you think.