I played a few games vs the ravenwing of my friend and this was a joke..... Shooting attacks are a waste, except if you have ignore cover, which isnt that commun because he has a 2+ jink save that he can re-roll... Flamers are great but since they are mostly F6 ap4, it means that he can easily use his 3+ save... The whole army has T5, twin-linked plasma canon or grav guns.... The worst part is the fact that he moves 12'' which make it so hard to charge him if he plays well. Plus, if he charge you he gets hammer of wrath and with the banner he can unlock himself without any risks of failing...

So far he is 10-0 and he played vs 4 differents armies... I know, Tau are the solution but he hasn't fight them yet... Chaos space marines also have some flamers that would give him some troubles....

To be honest, i just hate playing vs that army... Even more then necrons or eldars because i can at least shoot at them and do some casualities, which is impossible vs the ravenwing...

Am i the only one who thinks that is broken???

If they're jinking they're snap firing so do very little damage shooting wise

 CrownAxe wrote:
If they're jinking they're snap firing so do very little damage shooting wise

Who cares as long as they jink, you cant kill them and they kill you slowly. Plus they get to charge you everytime ( hammer of wrath, +1 attack, ... ) and then unlock itself without any troubles...

What are you playing?

 Eldarain wrote:
What are you playing?

I played GK and AD MEC with kastelan and destroyers, which usually do really great but shooting doesnt matter and slow units means good game haha

Well then you need to find the problems with your army, i won't say L2P because ravenwing is clearly incredibly strong but if you have NO units at all in your army that can catch a fast unit then it is clearly a list problem

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GAdvance wrote:
Well then you need to find the problems with your army, i won't say L2P because ravenwing is clearly incredibly strong but if you have NO units at all in your army that can catch a fast unit then it is clearly a list problem

Well im not stupid, i know i could fit some units that could do a bit better but the results always remain the same, plus you dont make a list purely to counter some1, that isnt friendly at all my friend. Moreover, if you play at tournements and you go ahead with a list made for ravenwing and you don't face one, what is gonna happen? You will get reck...

Simple solution, dont focus on killing him, focus on Objective taking. Ad Mech as serious staying power and can be extremely hard to move if they dont want to.

Slightly more complicated answer, get some Kastellan Robots swap out their fists for the Phosphor Blasters and use their Incendine Combustors, preferably after he has already Jinked from something else, then pummel him. Now he has a 3+ re rollable Jink (still not great, but better) then focus fire that unit. The best tactic i can think of against an army this maneuverable is to stick together and focus fire units down. Thankfully you can have a ton of Grav Weapons so you can scare him.

Heavy incinerator on a nemesis dreadknight or two? He won't want to charge that, and it can catch them, especially in conjunction with other units. Teleporter would help you place that template right where you need it too.

Disclaimer : i am not a GK player. I really dont know what i'm talking about except that ive played them twice.

Ravenwing are a very nasty deathstar with their 2+ re-rollable jink. Try to focus on moving around the edges of the board to avoid charges. Also, the source of the 2+ jink is an AV10 hevicle with 3 HP. Use psychic powers or any other source of ingores cover to take it and them the rest of the deathstar down.

While the dark shroud is alive you can have all of the flamer templates you like, we'll charge anyway and you don't get overwatch.

Crazy Jay wrote:
While the dark shroud is alive you can have all of the flamer templates you like, we'll charge anyway and you don't get overwatch.

The Flamers are largely to take away your Jink.

Can we get an Ignores Cover Ordinance Weapon?

You mean GW made a really popular army even more overpowered? As they say on Canada's east coast "g'wayyy!" :-) :-) ;-)

Play CSM and spam Heldrakes. S6 AP3 flamers will wound bikers on a 3 and ignore that pesky jink save and go right through the armor too.

On a side note, as a Dark Angels player, I should definitely get more Ravenwing if they are really as scary as this thread makes them out to be!

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Play CSM and spam Heldrakes. S6 AP3 flamers will wound bikers on a 3 and ignore that pesky jink save and go right through the armor too.

On a side note, as a Dark Angels player, I should definitely get more Ravenwing if they are really as scary as this thread makes them out to be!

Seriously. Coming off 6th DA codex I'm really happy were getting our moment in the sun. Also, sorry OP, but Eldar are much more difficult than Ravenwing, with Str D Flamers and the Wraithknights.

i am happy that ravenwing are good to be honest the dark angels have NEVER had a good book up till this point, since 2nd edition our army has at best been middle of the road at times and dreadful to poor every other moment. this would be the equivalent to orks getting a highly competitive book right about now its been a long time coming and you should be happy its here. there was a time where it was downright unheard of; if you had told someone that one day the dark angels were going to be monsters they would have laughed you out of the room

anyway the ravenwings biggest issue is a sustained fight, they cant stand to sit there and have a game drag out, slow him down and wether the storm as much as possibly and he is cooked like bacon.

alex0911 wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
What are you playing?

I played GK and AD MEC with kastelan and destroyers, which usually do really great but shooting doesnt matter and slow units means good game haha

2x ML3 librarians should get you cleansing flame at least once. 2d6 heavy bolter shots ignoring cover isn't terrible at all. Purifiers come with Cleansing IIRC too, so while they're not a standard choice (unless you've got allied pods), they should do fine in a rhino.

IIRC, GK can roll div as well, so get cracking on rolling perfect timing and then putting your libby in with your grav kataphrons for filthy, filthy rape of those dirty DAngles.

 CrownAxe wrote:
If they're jinking they're snap firing so do very little damage shooting wise

The formations makes them count as having jinked for the first turn and allows them to fire full BS for that turn aswell

What armies do you play OP?

die toten hosen wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:
If they're jinking they're snap firing so do very little damage shooting wise

The formations makes them count as having jinked for the first turn and allows them to fire full BS for that turn aswell

Only if they move Flat Out or Turboboost in round 1 / 2 if they arrive then. So one round no shooting at all.

alex0911 wrote:


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GAdvance wrote:
Well then you need to find the problems with your army, i won't say L2P because ravenwing is clearly incredibly strong but if you have NO units at all in your army that can catch a fast unit then it is clearly a list problem

Well im not stupid, i know i could fit some units that could do a bit better but the results always remain the same, plus you dont make a list purely to counter some1, that isnt friendly at all my friend. Moreover, if you play at tournements and you go ahead with a list made for ravenwing and you don't face one, what is gonna happen? You will get reck...

Frankly 2+ rerollable saves aren't friendly either. Tailor your list, when he says he had no chance he will know how it feels.

2+ re rollables have no place in the game and this is coming from a new Dark Angels player (friend gave me a LOT of bikes and termies).

A few groups of Kastellans plonked behind an aegis will give him a headache. Skitarri in a drop pod with an omnispex and arc rifles/plasma calivers to take out the darkshroud will seriously hamper his game plan. Hell, ally an inquisitor psyker level 2, roll on divination, hope for perfect timing and attach him to a unit of grav destroyers.

Marine Bikes (and bikes in general) are fairly hard to deal with currently. They have a lot of basic buff rules coupled with their speed and relative toughness.

If youre playing him regularly try tailoring a list with what you have or simply ask him to pick a few more varied units rather than 30+ bike spam.

Sir, I do believe you need the Sicaran battletank in your life. Oh, and IA13.

Trying to imagine how you get that save. Jink + skilled rider + darkshroud + what for rerolls???

If that's the case you can focus fire down the darkshroud and whatever is giving them reroll on saves (don't know what it is) and then they just become bikers.

Ravenwing Special Rule lets them re-roll jink.

How should my Dark Eldar handle them? We don't have much ignore cover at all and none of our combat units are powerful enough to deal with the Bikers due to T5 and our S 3 and their hit'n'run.

The only thing that really jumps out at me is the Medusae, with their S 4 Ap 3 flamers, but they'd only get a single turn after they Webway portal in before they get mobbed.

Anything you can suggest apart from Eldar allies?

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
How should my Dark Eldar handle them? We don't have much ignore cover at all and none of our combat units are powerful enough to deal with the Bikers due to T5 and our S 3 and their hit'n'run.

The only thing that really jumps out at me is the Medusae, with their S 4 Ap 3 flamers, but they'd only get a single turn after they Webway portal in before they get mobbed.

Anything you can suggest apart from Eldar allies?

Isn't the jink reroll on turn 1 only? Is that right?

DE are designed as a deep striking army. Just don't deploy much on turn 1.

No a turn one Jink re-roll still allows them to fire at full BS.

If it's turn 1 only, simply ignore the bikes turn 1 and focus your fire on everything else. I took out a darkshroud and 2 landspeeders with a mob of 30 or Boyz and shootas. He decided not to jink because "ork shooting" and I got a little lucky and glanced the lot to death with 60 shots.

OP, since you're playing Grey Knights, what about the Land Raider Redeemer?
Two Flamestorm Cannons seem like the perfect weapon to take down Marine Bikes (including Ravenwing) and they're immune to Plasma due to AV14 all around.
That said, they're expensive and would be very much still vulnerable to Grav Guns.

alex0911 wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

GAdvance wrote:
Well then you need to find the problems with your army, i won't say L2P because ravenwing is clearly incredibly strong but if you have NO units at all in your army that can catch a fast unit then it is clearly a list problem

Well im not stupid, i know i could fit some units that could do a bit better but the results always remain the same, plus you dont make a list purely to counter some1, that isnt friendly at all my friend. Moreover, if you play at tournements and you go ahead with a list made for ravenwing and you don't face one, what is gonna happen? You will get reck...

If you are determined to in no way change your list to have say a nemesis dreadknight or two that can both catch and kill bikers then frankly edited by RiTides

You cannot complain that you can't win without at least balancing your list a bit, if all you have are slow nits you'd lose in a tournament setting as well

Grab a dreadknight with a heavy incinerator and keep him behind BLoS cover until you can make a decent charge, then jump out burn some dudes and charge, that's not list tailoring it's trying something new out when you're losing constantly

The dark eldar have a lot going for them against raven wing. Your basic guns hurt them as easily as they do sisters of battle, you have low armor saves so any grav they have is almost useless, your reavers rely on hammer of wrath to get the majority of their damage in melee done, and your scourges will make short work of their support vehicles.

In general, msu the crap out of them. Bikes are on the expensive side, especially when toting around a bunch of plasma and grav. Hold objectives with redundant support, make them waste multiple turns to clear you off of objectives and win the game on points.

Sicaran battle tanks...they don't allow jinks. Thunderfire Cannon is also a great way to deal with them. And if you really wanna troll..... heldrakes!! The counters are out there, your just gonna have to ....pay for them....

Yeah, the Ravenwing has some nice tricks, but they are easy to counter. However if you don't tailor your list towards beating them they can be really nasty.
This thread has some great suggestions though.

Once again the rerollable 2+ ruins the game. Sucks that it's justs something that is probably not going away anytime soon.

So they have a rerollable cover save if they choose to jink - use weapons that don't care about cover saves. They'll fail 3+ armor saves the same as anyone else, and there aren't enough models in a Ravenwing force to really eat that many casualties lightly.

Yeah, with GK ally in some fodder, then counter charge and kill. There's also plenty of ignores cover arty options and the like. Go that route.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh yeah, ditto on the Sicaran. So worth it.

GAdvance wrote:

alex0911 wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

GAdvance wrote:
Well then you need to find the problems with your army, i won't say L2P because ravenwing is clearly incredibly strong but if you have NO units at all in your army that can catch a fast unit then it is clearly a list problem

Well im not stupid, i know i could fit some units that could do a bit better but the results always remain the same, plus you dont make a list purely to counter some1, that isnt friendly at all my friend. Moreover, if you play at tournements and you go ahead with a list made for ravenwing and you don't face one, what is gonna happen? You will get reck...

If you are determined to in no way change your list to have say a nemesis dreadknight or two that can both catch and kill bikers then frankly edited by RiTides

You cannot complain that you can't win without at least balancing your list a bit, if all you have are slow nits you'd lose in a tournament setting as well

Grab a dreadknight with a heavy incinerator and keep him behind BLoS cover until you can make a decent charge, then jump out burn some dudes and charge, that's not list tailoring it's trying something new out when you're losing constantly

My ennemi isnt stupid... He wont jump directly in my DK in cc, he will count his mouvement and with twin-linked plasma F7 ap2 or grav guns, its not even a challenge to take them down. L2P

Edited by RiTides: Rule #1 of Dakka is Be Polite

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
How should my Dark Eldar handle them? We don't have much ignore cover at all and none of our combat units are powerful enough to deal with the Bikers due to T5 and our S 3 and their hit'n'run.

The only thing that really jumps out at me is the Medusae, with their S 4 Ap 3 flamers, but they'd only get a single turn after they Webway portal in before they get mobbed.

Anything you can suggest apart from Eldar allies?

Our dark eldar without craftworlder allies struggle a bit against the new books in general, but it occurs to me that we have a few advantages that might help us out. Assuming you don't want to bring craftworlder allies with dark reapers (which hard counter Ravenwing if I'm not mistaken), you might try out our MCs. Some combination of Talos and Cronos units will be reasonably durable in cover and should also win in close combat pretty well. Lhameans in a transport are pretty fast and will wound on a 2+ in melee at which point those bikers are down to regular armor saves. Agonizers, while generally too expensive, also work pretty well as you're ignoring that high toughness and most armor saves. If you're weird like me and like to bring incubi or drazhar, both will have a relatively easy time wounding bikers (compared to many of our non-poison or MC units), and they'll ignore armor. Grotesques will counter grav gun bikes nicely if you can deliver said grotesques into combat.

While I don't really recommend this route, we also have enough poison and disintegrator shots to potentially kill a few bikes with weight of dice.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
How should my Dark Eldar handle them? We don't have much ignore cover at all and none of our combat units are powerful enough to deal with the Bikers due to T5 and our S 3 and their hit'n'run.

The only thing that really jumps out at me is the Medusae, with their S 4 Ap 3 flamers, but they'd only get a single turn after they Webway portal in before they get mobbed.

Anything you can suggest apart from Eldar allies?

Corpsetheif Claw? Its hard to argue with that many MCs

 Jayden63 wrote:
Once again the rerollable 2+ ruins the game. Sucks that it's justs something that is probably not going away anytime soon.

I really like the ITC's rule of 2+ rerollables being 2+/4+ so it makes it a lot less ridiculous to play against.

The speeders are AV 10 open-topped right? So duel heavy flamer dreadnought drop podded in can kill it.

There goes the 2+ rerollable and you actually made your points back for once with a dreadnought.

Win win

Take a calidus assassin an make him snap fire at you then light him up with ap2 poison flamer

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:
The speeders are AV 10 open-topped right? So duel heavy flamer dreadnought drop podded in can kill it.

There goes the 2+ rerollable and you actually made your points back for once with a dreadnought.

Win win

Except someone said the reroll on the jink is an army trait (probably a formation bonus) so killing the speeder is a bit of a depends on what else is being played solution.

 Jayden63 wrote:

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:
The speeders are AV 10 open-topped right? So duel heavy flamer dreadnought drop podded in can kill it.

There goes the 2+ rerollable and you actually made your points back for once with a dreadnought.

Win win

Except someone said the reroll on the jink is an army trait (probably a formation bonus) so killing the speeder is a bit of a depends on what else is being played solution.

Yes they can reroll it, but a 4+ rerollable is WAY worse than a 2+ ( darkshroud grants shrouded right?)

They might actually have to make a choice between just taking the armor save or jinking.

OP if you actually are interested in advice on how to deal with ravenwing and not just here to vent then here is my advice.

For GK there are a few options. The biggest answer however is strategy. The strategy against ravenwing is to shoot the units within range of the stuff you need to keep alive. Put enough shots into it to cause the opponent to jink. If the opponent jinks they will need 6's to hit which means they will kill very little. Additionally against GK melee will be a very poor answer as you are better per point in melee than black knights. The most important units to protect are the following.
*Libbies. The biggest answer to high cover saves in the GK army is to take as many libbies as possible. Each libby should then take telepathy for the primaris. You should easily be able to get off a psychic shriek with each libby. This will means an average of 3 deaths per libby with no cover or armour saves allowed. This will also help keep you alive as shrouding and invisibility are both excellent buffs against RW and the other powers will mess up their ability to retaliate.
*Dreadknight. Lots of people have said this but they have been somewhat shut down with reasons which are valid in theory but preventable with strategy. Grav/plasma talons will kill them is easy countered if you deploy smart and shoot the units when they are in range to shoot the dreadknight. Additionally when combined with some libbies using invisibility and shrouding the dreadknight will become very hard to kill (keep a toe in cover and it has a 3+ cover save). The dreadknight is just as fast as the RW and if they want to shoot it they have to get within easy charge range to do so (ie 18" range on the guns) thus it is actually more likely the dreadknight gets to charge something every turn assuming you keep it alive, which with the above tactics is entirely doable. After you charge you just need to intelligently smash to get out of combat on the opponent's assault phase rather than yours. This means smashing turn 1 against units of 3 or less (or 4 or less is you charge regular bikers).

Ad Mech is also largely a strategy game. It will largely depend on what type of army you field but the basic strategy is to use the shroudpsalm until you can get your kastellans on the forward objectives and your destroyers on the rear objectives. Keep shooting the highest damage output units so they will have to keep jinking (with phosphor blasters and grav they will definitely need to jink). Then just wait on the objectives until the enemy has to get in charge range of the kastellans to claim objectives. It should be essentially a stalemate until then due to the opponent continuously having to jink and the turn 1/2 turbo boost being negated by the high cover saves. Honestly if you play skitarii + admech then you don't have to do all this as you have a bunch of -1 cover save gear and fast melee options to help out.

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:
The speeders are AV 10 open-topped right? So duel heavy flamer dreadnought drop podded in can kill it.

There goes the 2+ rerollable and you actually made your points back for once with a dreadnought.

Win win

As I have to say nearly every week, speeder are not open topped!

That off my chest, ravenwing got a big boost but as soon as we are jinking our damage output drops massively.

Example from todays game;
First turn- RW support squad take out a wraith lord with one round of shooting involving 4 assault cannons.
Second turn- squad have jinked and manage to do no damage to a squad of wraith guard. that's 16 AC shots and 9 HB shots.

yes we can survive a lot longer but so can our enemies plus we may be fast but no OS troops.

To get the dark shroud bonus on other squads we have to stick together so a few large blasts can cause havoc (remember only the squad initially targeted can opt to jink).

Failing that use weight of fire.

 ionusx wrote:
i am happy that ravenwing are good to be honest the dark angels have NEVER had a good book up till this point, since 2nd edition our army has at best been middle of the road at times and dreadful to poor every other moment. this would be the equivalent to orks getting a highly competitive book right about now its been a long time coming and you should be happy its here.

The 3.5 'revised' book was brutally good. Maybe the second best 3rd Edition book, after Chaos 3.5. It's just that the original 3rd edition book was so unbelievably bad that people gave the revised edition a pass out of laziness, pity, or stupidity.

For all the people saying "just use ignores cover weapons", this isn't really a viable option all the time. To properly use such weapons its often necessary to put yourself right where the Ravenwing army will want you most, and even then often such weapons just are not capable of generating the number of wounds on T5 bikers to cause an appreciable number of casualties through a 3+ save.

There is very much a problem with 2+ rerollable saves. Likewise, while JInk may harm their shooting, most of the Ravenwing units weapons will be twin linked, and in many cases they'll be wanting to get stuck into assaults anyway so won't care too much.

There are some armies that won't care about the 2+ jink save. Tau can laugh at it. Other armies however will effectively have to tailor a list, and that's not something that's always possible or accepted, and doesn't work equally well for all armies either. Rerollable 2+ saves are a failure of game design, and that really should be acknowledged.

Welcome to Rock Papers Scissorshammer. You're trying to beat them at their own game. Think outside the box - try charging them.

I play a Chaos Space Marines Spawn rush list and fething roflstomped a Ravenwing player last week. Jink doesn't mean much when you're charging them with T6 dudes who don't have guns and laugh at Bolters and even Plasma Guns, because they're getting cover saves. Axe of Blind Fury lord is swinging a bucket of S6 AP2 attacks on the charge. Goodbye, squad.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
Welcome to Rock Papers Scissorshammer. You're trying to beat them at their own game. Think outside the box - try charging them.

I play a Chaos Space Marines Spawn rush list and fething roflstomped a Ravenwing player last week. Jink doesn't mean much when you're charging them with T6 dudes who don't have guns and laugh at Bolters and even Plasma Guns, because they're getting cover saves. Axe of Blind Fury lord is swinging a bucket of S6 AP2 attacks on the charge. Goodbye, squad.

Exactly! I have played loads of games with my ravenwing since the codex dropped and though they are much better they are far from unstoppable.

Eldar beat me with rate of fire, orks swarmed me with numbers and necrons just kept getting back up!

Sounds like your friend has a top tier configurated army and you don't, and that's the main issue.

Get Nemesis Dreadknights if you're playing GK, give them Heavy Incinerators + Psycannons + Sword + Shunt. You can also get Draigo with some Purifiers/Terminators to bash the bikers face in if they get close and personal and Gate around the board for objectives. The Purifiers psychic Nova power doesn't allow Jink saves. If he is going first then put your NDK's into normal reserves and Shunt when you come to the able. You can get basically anywhere you want without the risk of a mishap.

Don't spread your fire, focus on killing one unit completely at a time, it will shut down his power. Killing a few bikes from here and there won't get you far.

If you're playing CSM get 2-3 Heldrakes. They can basically autodelete the bikers.

You can also get a Nurgle Biker Lord with Burning Brand + Powerfist and slap him into a squad of 5-6 Nurgle Spawn. The Spawn don't care about Grav much. Tank with the Lord in front as their armoursave is nonexistent. Get Sicaran Battle Tanks that ignore Jink -saves.

Get a Callidus Assassin ( easy to proxy ) and slap her next to his bikes at start, it will almost certainly mess up his battle plan especially if you are going first, because you can possibly delete a whole unit instantly.

There are numerous options to destroying the Ravenwing.

If you don't want to/can't get the models that can deal with your threat then you're kinda out of luck.

Aspect Host, 2 squads of Reapers and one Squad of Swooping Hawks.

Swooping Hawks are there to kill the Darkshroud and vehicules with Haywire grenades.

Once the Darkshroud is dead, the Reapers will murder the hell out of everything else thanks to their "ignore jink" capability.

A squad of Reapers will kill an average of 4 bikes/turn so 8 bikes per turn if you field two squads.

DA are trivial for Eldar. Just as all opponents are.

 CrownAxe wrote:
If they're jinking they're snap firing so do very little damage shooting wise

Also worth bearing in mind that if they are running the special Ravenwing strike force detachment then they can zoom and jink on their first turn and still fire at full BS (just for that one time though).

As a hard counter to this, (and if you can afford it) the main autocannon battery weapon for the Sicaran Battle Tank from Forgeworld has a special rule where jink saves cannot be taken against shots received from it. Another option is if you have any walkers with AV13 or above that you can assault them with. You'd need to use some cunning tactics to catch them that way, but S7 plasma shots won't be as effective against the high armoured walkers. An ironclad dreadnought or furioso dread would laugh at S7 and then would wipe out a large proportion of the charged bike unit in combat before the remainder of them zoom away on their bikes. You might need a few distraction units to entice them to the area of the table you need them to be at for your heavily armoured walker to assault them.

Thinking about it most super heavies will be pretty invincible against Black Knights and Ravenwing bikers. Another strategy is to instead of thinking about what to do to destroy those RW bikers, think about what units are all but impervious to them. That way, they can whiz around the table and shoot all they want, but they aren't going to be able to do anything to any of your stuff. Think about what plasma can do nothing against and you have neutralised those plasma talons. If they use standard ravenwing bikers with grav or melta then use units with precision shots to concentrate fire on those special weapon carriers buried within the unit. Weight of shots should eventually get through that re-rollable jink save, especially since the grav and melta guns won't be carried by characters that can be saved by look out sir.

Purifiers dude. That cleansing flame spell is nasty on dark shrouds.

I feel your pain, just finished a tourney where my undefeated ravenwing played.... Another ravenwing list. I struggled very hard in that match! Things to remember to keep your opponent honest and help you out:
-he can't shoot turn one if he uses the turbo boost and jink rule.
-He has to declare jink when you declare shots. BEFORE you roll your dice.
-if he jinked he snap fires.
-plasma talon are only 18" range. If he's hitting you, a dread knight or fast unit can catch him.
-only black knights get the 2+ save, and only if there's a dark shroud within 6". Take out the shroud and they're back to a 3+

Things that I fear:
-Psychic powers like psychic shriek. With grey knights I would load up on the mastery levels and psykers for your next game.
-blasts. If the blast scatters and hits someone else, it's too late to Jink.
-assault. This is how I pulled out the win. No cover in assault. Yes he can hit and run, so assault him again. The dark shroud super fears assault.
-flamers.
-flyers.

Ravenwing are tough, and become almost invincible if you don't keep your opponent honest. Not saying he's cheating, but it's hard to tell from your posts if you both understand all the loopholes.

Super heavies aren't immune, a black knight gets like 4 to 6 rending attacks on the charge.

 piping_piper wrote:

-he can't shoot turn one if he uses the turbo boost and jink rule.

He can if he uses the Ravenwing Strike Force detachment. That formation says in the codex that they can turbo boost, jink AND fire at full BS on that first turn if they start on the table.

 Slaphead wrote:

 piping_piper wrote:

-he can't shoot turn one if he uses the turbo boost and jink rule.

He can if he uses the Ravenwing Strike Force detachment. That formation says in the codex that they can turbo boost, jink AND fire at full BS on that first turn if they start on the table.

INCORRECT. Speed of the raven allows you to turbo boost in turn 1 (or two if you used strike as one), count as jinking, and then fire full BS turn 2 (or 3 if you used strike as one). It DOES NOT allow you to turbo boost and shoot in the same turn.

Deathwing strike force can run and shoot the turn they deep strike however.

 piping_piper wrote:

Ravenwing are tough, and become almost invincible if you don't keep your opponent honest. Not saying he's cheating, but it's hard to tell from your posts if you both understand all the loopholes.

Ah well, if someone cheats everything can become next to invincible that is already tough. But RW can be dealt easily with many armies if they come prepared to deal with such a threat. In a tournament enviroment is not nearly always the case as its all about matchups.

Even my mates CSM list with 3 Heldrakes and 3 Sicarans could grind an RW list to dust with ease.

 Runic wrote:


Even my mates CSM list with 3 Heldrakes and 3 Sicarans could grind an RW list to dust with ease.

Even? As if this was just some random list he always run that shows that even a weak list can beat RW?! really?!! This is tailor made kill bikes list as is. This proves absolutely nothing.

 Lobukia wrote:
Even? As if this was just some random list he always run that shows that even a weak list can beat RW?! really?!! This is tailor made kill bikes list as is. This proves absolutely nothing.

It does well against a ton of things, and he runs it actively. What you claim is simply incorrect. It destroys many things beside bikes, including Dark Eldar, Gladius Strike Forces, Eldar Jetbike Spam, most horde style armies among other things. Even against a Decurion it is quite good.

It is exactly that, a list he always runs, it isn't tailor made, and instead of proving nothing it proves quite a bit, actually. Especially that you can beat other armies with CSM, a claim so many say is untrue. ( This will ofcourse be followed by comments such as "well ofcourse if you take those units" - what did you expect, Mutilators? )

Might be a spam build, but what isn't these days, that if something is irrelevant. It's a solid allround list that can deal with multiple threats, and if you add some allied Daemons with some Screamers and a Grimoire Herald it really gets going ( or perhaps Nurgle flies. )

My KDK like to munch on Ravenwing, their tasty.

Khorne's Skull cannon, while its true the Ap is laughable( they could at least gave it AP4), its still a STR 8 Ignore cover ordinance.

Shoot at the Darn Speeder thingy that give the +2cover save, since the thing only has a 5+ cover, and the rest of them becomes more squishy, also to benefit from this cover save, they need to be thightly packed, wich is nice.

Each of my models have nearly as much attacks that ravenwings units as models, with FC its a piece of cake.

Hounds from a Gorepack is like a real thorne in their side, to many wounds, for their firepower too high WS.

They stomp necrons hard. We have access to 3 ignore cover options, one of which is single use.

zerosignal wrote:
They stomp necrons hard. We have access to 3 ignore cover options, one of which is single use.

Why are you acting as if the Assault Phase doesn't exist? Necrons have one of the best assault units in the game - Wraiths. Use them.

Again, and I said this before, most people in this thread are trying to beat Ravenwing at their own game. They have crazy good Jink saves. You could either pay out the nose for Ignores Cover, or you could just charge them and maul them in assault.

I find a 5-man squad or two of LOTD with plasma cannon, meltagun and plasma pistol can knock decent holes in Ravenwing units. AP2 and ignores cover, along with decent resistance to return plasma fire.

If you have to list tailor that doesn't really prove anything. I do encourage my opponents to do so just for the challenge though.

 Necroagogo wrote:
I find a 5-man squad or two of LOTD with plasma cannon, meltagun and plasma pistol can knock decent holes in Ravenwing units. AP2 and ignores cover, along with decent resistance to return plasma fire.

Shouldn't you use a Plasma Gun instead of a Meltagun for this purpose though?

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

Why are you acting as if the Assault Phase doesn't exist? Necrons have one of the best assault units in the game - Wraiths. Use them.

Again, and I said this before, most people in this thread are trying to beat Ravenwing at their own game. They have crazy good Jink saves. You could either pay out the nose for Ignores Cover, or you could just charge them and maul them in assault.

Everyone has convinced themselves the assault phase no longer exists despite some of the most powerful units in a large number of Codex's being either pure melee or primary melee units

GAdvance wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

Why are you acting as if the Assault Phase doesn't exist? Necrons have one of the best assault units in the game - Wraiths. Use them.

Again, and I said this before, most people in this thread are trying to beat Ravenwing at their own game. They have crazy good Jink saves. You could either pay out the nose for Ignores Cover, or you could just charge them and maul them in assault.

Everyone has convinced themselves the assault phase no longer exists despite some of the most powerful units in a large number of Codex's being either pure melee or primary melee units

Because many of said units die like slime in the shooting phase. There are a few that don't, and they get spammed to death. 7th ed has tried very hard to take assault out of the game, that's for sure.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

zerosignal wrote:
They stomp necrons hard. We have access to 3 ignore cover options, one of which is single use.

Why are you acting as if the Assault Phase doesn't exist? Necrons have one of the best assault units in the game - Wraiths. Use them.

Again, and I said this before, most people in this thread are trying to beat Ravenwing at their own game. They have crazy good Jink saves. You could either pay out the nose for Ignores Cover, or you could just charge them and maul them in assault.

Oh, I did, but they died in a hail of twin-linked plasma, typhoon missiles and multi-melta shots; by the time they made combat, Black Knights and Sammael made short work of the remainder.

Black Knights with Librarian and Sammael support are strong in assault.

Also, charging that unit means taking a bunch of missiles and melta shots in overwatch at BS2 (some kind of support formation rule).

 Necroagogo wrote:
I find a 5-man squad or two of LOTD with plasma cannon, meltagun and plasma pistol can knock decent holes in Ravenwing units. AP2 and ignores cover, along with decent resistance to return plasma fire.

Why wouldn't you use a combi grav and plasma gun with that?

 Crazyterran wrote:

 Necroagogo wrote:
I find a 5-man squad or two of LOTD with plasma cannon, meltagun and plasma pistol can knock decent holes in Ravenwing units. AP2 and ignores cover, along with decent resistance to return plasma fire.

Why wouldn't you use a combi grav and plasma gun with that?

I go with the meltagun for help with cracking armour, if needed. Plasma pistol on the sarge over combi-grav as I hope he'll be around long enough to get more than one turn of shooting off.

Has anyone used triple-vindicators (vanilla marines) against Ravenwing? I'd imagine a S10 AP2 Ignores Cover 7" pie plate would put a pretty serious hurting on them.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
Has anyone used triple-vindicators (vanilla marines) against Ravenwing? I'd imagine a S10 AP2 Ignores Cover 7" pie plate would put a pretty serious hurting on them.

The thing about that is, you're dedicating 360 points to kill one unit, once you kill the first Vindicator that's 240 points wasted. Better Heavy Supports would be Siciaran Battle Tank or Whirlwind Scorpius w/ Battle of Keylek

 Runic wrote:

It is exactly that, a list he always runs, it isn't tailor made, and instead of proving nothing it proves quite a bit, actually. Especially that you can beat other armies with CSM, a claim so many say is untrue. ( This will ofcourse be followed by comments such as "well ofcourse if you take those units" - what did you expect, Mutilators? )

Yeah it proves that you can beat other armies with CSM when you spam Heldrakes and spam sicaran tanks from IA13. Of course this doesn't prove that you can actually beat other armies with the CSM codex itself, which is pretty tough in higher powered metas. Personally I prefer to call my codex useful if I can rely on more than a single unit from it AND not need to pull in a supplemental list from Forge World to be solid. Don't get me wrong, I love my IA13 units, but it is irritating that they are kind of necessary to succeed with CSMs in anything but a low powered meta.

 Skriker wrote:

 Runic wrote:

It is exactly that, a list he always runs, it isn't tailor made, and instead of proving nothing it proves quite a bit, actually. Especially that you can beat other armies with CSM, a claim so many say is untrue. ( This will ofcourse be followed by comments such as "well ofcourse if you take those units" - what did you expect, Mutilators? )

Yeah it proves that you can beat other armies with CSM when you spam Heldrakes and spam sicaran tanks from IA13. Of course this doesn't prove that you can actually beat other armies with the CSM codex itself, which is pretty tough in higher powered metas. Personally I prefer to call my codex useful if I can rely on more than a single unit from it AND not need to pull in a supplemental list from Forge World to be solid. Don't get me wrong, I love my IA13 units, but it is irritating that they are kind of necessary to succeed with CSMs in anything but a low powered meta.

Runic casts "Divination".
It's super-effective!

 Psienesis wrote:

 Skriker wrote:

 Runic wrote:

It is exactly that, a list he always runs, it isn't tailor made, and instead of proving nothing it proves quite a bit, actually. Especially that you can beat other armies with CSM, a claim so many say is untrue. ( This will ofcourse be followed by comments such as "well ofcourse if you take those units" - what did you expect, Mutilators? )

Yeah it proves that you can beat other armies with CSM when you spam Heldrakes and spam sicaran tanks from IA13. Of course this doesn't prove that you can actually beat other armies with the CSM codex itself, which is pretty tough in higher powered metas. Personally I prefer to call my codex useful if I can rely on more than a single unit from it AND not need to pull in a supplemental list from Forge World to be solid. Don't get me wrong, I love my IA13 units, but it is irritating that they are kind of necessary to succeed with CSMs in anything but a low powered meta.

Runic casts "Divination".
It's super-effective!

He divined that someone would shoot holes in his series of nonsensical posts? What a wizard!

When you post about spamming two units that are known to be lethal against jinking bikes and insinuate that proves Ravenwing can be easily beaten, and you claim this list proves CSM are competitive when one of your two spammed units isn't even in CSM, you can expect a heaping dose of criticism. The smartest thing you can do at that point is predict someone will shoot you down.

The Heldrake is a Codex: CSM unit. Allies and Add-ons (sounds like it's own RPG... ) is how the game is intended to be played these days, is why GW keeps pumping out all these "optional" books and dataslates and what-not.

So what we have here is a CSM list making use of resources available to CSM units, both in fact and in fluff. No one bitches when IG uses IA resources, or Codex: Tau use FSE, or CWE use Harlies.

Why the butthurtedness when someone builds something out of C:CSM and its available side-products that seems to work?

Oh, I'm not butthurt at all. Just pointing out how uninformative* the comment was and how utterly predictable (and correct) the immediate rebuttal was.

*Uninformative because a spam list that may as well be tailored to beat Ravenwing tells us nothing about whether it is easy or common for other TAC lists to beat Ravenwing, AND uninformative because a spam list whose cornerstone is a powerful Forgeworld unit in triplicate doesn't tell us a whole lot about whether CSM is a competitive codex. I will at least grant that it's better than running AdMech with Flesh Tearers drop pod taxi service and claiming BA is a competitive dex based on the experience, and it's nice that someone out there is enjoying using CSM, but come on. You can't spam the hell out of a few units, lean heavily on Forgeworld, come up with a mid-tier list, and then smugly poo-poo the general consensus that the codex is crap tier without someone rightly calling you out.

I recommend 6 Helturkeys and nothing else. Enjoy the backlash of hate you will get.

Martel732 wrote:

GAdvance wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

Why are you acting as if the Assault Phase doesn't exist? Necrons have one of the best assault units in the game - Wraiths. Use them.

Again, and I said this before, most people in this thread are trying to beat Ravenwing at their own game. They have crazy good Jink saves. You could either pay out the nose for Ignores Cover, or you could just charge them and maul them in assault.

Everyone has convinced themselves the assault phase no longer exists despite some of the most powerful units in a large number of Codex's being either pure melee or primary melee units

Because many of said units die like slime in the shooting phase. There are a few that don't, and they get spammed to death. 7th ed has tried very hard to take assault out of the game, that's for sure.

Assault is way more likely in 7th than in 6th, maelstrom objectives push units out into positions that are closer to the centre of the board

I'll start by saying that I'm still fairly new to the game so please forgive if my statements prove to be horribly incorrect...

I play both Grey Knights and Dark Angels but I have yet to pit them against one another (based on this thread, I will likely grab a friend and do this now). From my experience, Black Knights have great survivability (obviously) and are great in close combat. However, in CC they cannot jink. And Grey Knights, unless all equipped with force staves for some reason, will always have AP3 so they'll ignore their armour saves. Now of course with Black Knights having toughness 5 and GK termies and such having strength 4 it's a bit more difficult to wound. However, when it does wound it's an instant death (assuming there are no apothecaries in the unit).

Is the issue getting into close combat? Because from my experience, Black Knights want to be in close combat. Otherwise, assuming they jink all the time (which they likely are) they're shooting very poorly. Even with twin linked plasma. So from what I see, you either get them in CC and have a decent fight, or make them avoid CC and having them shoot BS1 plasma talons over and over.

On a final note, if you DS GK in shouldn't it fairly easy to get into CC? Even if the squad isn't wiped out, surely enough Black Knights will die to help lighten the load.

Black Knights are great in CC - but you almost never want to get into CC with GK unless you've got AP2 at a higher initiative/hidden in unit, can tarpit, or have enough bodies to get wounds through.

 Frozocrone wrote:
Black Knights are great in CC - but you almost never want to get into CC with GK unless you've got AP2 at a higher initiative/hidden in unit, can tarpit, or have enough bodies to get wounds through.

Fair enough. But with the same initiative and AP3 most of the time, wouldn't it be worth getting in there to see what damage can be done? With the exception of the huntermaster who might have an AP2 power axe, surely the GK can do some damage while maintaining their numbers. This is of course assuming it's Terminators in close combat.

 Slayer le boucher wrote:
My KDK like to munch on Ravenwing, their tasty.

Khorne's Skull cannon, while its true the Ap is laughable( they could at least gave it AP4), its still a STR 8 Ignore cover ordinance.

Shoot at the Darn Speeder thingy that give the +2cover save, since the thing only has a 5+ cover, and the rest of them becomes more squishy, also to benefit from this cover save, they need to be thightly packed, wich is nice.

Each of my models have nearly as much attacks that ravenwings units as models, with FC its a piece of cake.

Hounds from a Gorepack is like a real thorne in their side, to many wounds, for their firepower too high WS.

Dark shroud also has a 2+ cover save re-roll


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 PaulTheFirewoodSalesman wrote:
I'll start by saying that I'm still fairly new to the game so please forgive if my statements prove to be horribly incorrect...

I play both Grey Knights and Dark Angels but I have yet to pit them against one another (based on this thread, I will likely grab a friend and do this now). From my experience, Black Knights have great survivability (obviously) and are great in close combat. However, in CC they cannot jink. And Grey Knights, unless all equipped with force staves for some reason, will always have AP3 so they'll ignore their armour saves. Now of course with Black Knights having toughness 5 and GK termies and such having strength 4 it's a bit more difficult to wound. However, when it does wound it's an instant death (assuming there are no apothecaries in the unit).

Is the issue getting into close combat? Because from my experience, Black Knights want to be in close combat. Otherwise, assuming they jink all the time (which they likely are) they're shooting very poorly. Even with twin linked plasma. So from what I see, you either get them in CC and have a decent fight, or make them avoid CC and having them shoot BS1 plasma talons over and over.

On a final note, if you DS GK in shouldn't it fairly easy to get into CC? Even if the squad isn't wiped out, surely enough Black Knights will die to help lighten the load.

you got a point, GK are great in CC but the mobility of bikers allows you to dodge every single fights and choose you own battle. Being lock 1 turn means you can hit and roll and start shooting at full WS. Mobility is killing GK because their shooting is simply bad... Ravenwing does very good vs 90% of the game. Jink anything, choose your charges, unlock yourself, shoot again, hammer of wrath..... The only way i did win vs Ravenwing is by playing a Thunderwolf army, which was so easy haha But melee oriented armies are very rare !

 GoliothOnline wrote:
I recommend 6 Helturkeys and nothing else. Enjoy the backlash of hate you will get.

I would play against that list all day long, it would be an 8 hour day of 480 1-minute long games ending with having win-loss ratio of 480-0.

6 flyers and nothing else auto-loses at the end of turn 1; just like any army where you reserve everything and have no way to come out of reserves first turn.

 PaulTheFirewoodSalesman wrote:
I'll start by saying that I'm still fairly new to the game so please forgive if my statements prove to be horribly incorrect...

I play both Grey Knights and Dark Angels but I have yet to pit them against one another (based on this thread, I will likely grab a friend and do this now). From my experience, Black Knights have great survivability (obviously) and are great in close combat. However, in CC they cannot jink. And Grey Knights, unless all equipped with force staves for some reason, will always have AP3 so they'll ignore their armour saves. Now of course with Black Knights having toughness 5 and GK termies and such having strength 4 it's a bit more difficult to wound. However, when it does wound it's an instant death (assuming there are no apothecaries in the unit).

Is the issue getting into close combat? Because from my experience, Black Knights want to be in close combat. Otherwise, assuming they jink all the time (which they likely are) they're shooting very poorly. Even with twin linked plasma. So from what I see, you either get them in CC and have a decent fight, or make them avoid CC and having them shoot BS1 plasma talons over and over.

On a final note, if you DS GK in shouldn't it fairly easy to get into CC? Even if the squad isn't wiped out, surely enough Black Knights will die to help lighten the load.

Black Knights don't want to be in CC with terminators your right on that one, however for cost they'll utterly maul the terminators by just driving away and shooting the, and unless the terminators have ap3 they probably wont even need to jink

Getting into combat is the real problem, you need a Landraider or similar to do so and then your investing 400 points into killing one maybe two units of MSU black Knights, it's very difficult, a nemesis dreadknight withthe shunt is probably the best GK unit for dealing with BK

Well, if you stuff them into the Redeemer, that could melt at least two squads of BKs or other Bikers (POTMS + 2 Flamestorm Cannons = ), though it would definitely be expensive.

Big thing is, it would be immune to all the Plasma stuff but the Grav would do nasty things to it quite quickly.

Still list tailoring.

Well if they're legitimately struggling...
Not to mention it's not too hugely out there "I know I'm facing this guy, I'll bring this tank I know is good against that army", particularly if he was going to bring one of the other two Land Raiders instead. It's not like building a whole new army list just for "screw this guy in particular" purposes, which I think is what you mean.