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Hi all,
I'm one of those suckers who bought the gorgeous ravenwing kits when the new DA codex came out. Now, there's been talk in the 5th ed rumors of area terrain being taken away. Like, poof, gone. Now, the few games that I've managed to get in have been close and I've relied on terrain to make it possible to not be tabled in 3 turns. The idea of having no ability to hide really scares me. Are other armies as effected by this as I think they are, and if not, what in gods name am i supposed to do?
All the best

What are you supposed to do?

If you have the pdf you'll see that all you have to do is use the outflanking rules. Holding your Ravenwing off table until they become availiable and coming on by the short board edges straight into the enemy. (probably another one of the stupider rules in the new ruleset)

Whoa wait, there is a PDF?

Area terrain being taken away does not mean that nothing blocks LOS.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Ozymandias: Don't you dare bring sense into this, you villain!

yeah true LOS, cover saves for shooting through area terrain.....

still sucks because it makes 1st turn a game breaker and removes almost all need to use movement strategically.
a throwback to 3rd edition-the static 40K game.

Just remember with the new scout rules all those Ravenwing attack squadrons will be able to use the outflank rules to come in on the table starting on turn 2 from one of your opponent's board edges. I think Ravenwing just got a whole lot better.

I've read that in the supposed 5th edition playtest rules .pdf the player that sets up first gets the first turn. At first glance this would certainly make that first turn easier for some people, be easier enough to edit in the .pdf going around, and it's not impossible that the set-up and first-turn conditions may be edited before release.

Still, the flanking stuff for Scouts and Infiltrators is pretty cool.

Ravenwing is already frigging worthless. The lack of los blocking area terrain will make it worse, but when you pour crap on a landfill it doesn't get any stinkier.

The wound allocation rules hurt Ravenwing too. Ravenwing has smaller squad sizes so they'll need to make saves for Veteran Sergeants and special weapons more frequently. This makes it much easier to negate their offense.

The wound allocation thing isn't that big of a deal. I never struggled to torrent of fire a 3 man bike squad, personally.

Also their 100 point tornados can only fire one gun on the move and lost all utility as an objective grabber.

I don't think coming in from a flank will do all that much for em either, as they don't have the numbers to roll a flank and quite frankly, having to come in from the short table edge makes countering it easier.

It was slowed to buy landspeeders in the ravenwing anyway but that's a good point.

If you guess how many landspeeder tornados I own that'll be another clue as to why I don't play my ravenwing =P

Longshot wrote:Ravenwing is already frigging worthless. The lack of los blocking area terrain will make it worse, but when you pour crap on a landfill it doesn't get any stinkier.

I disagree. I've only played 5 games so far but I haven't lost yet. They aren't Tier 1 but it is a surprisingly powerful army. Read my thread in Battle Reports.

Longshot wrote:It was slowed to buy landspeeders in the ravenwing anyway but that's a good point.

If you guess how many landspeeder tornados I own that'll be another clue as to why I don't play my ravenwing =P

Again, I disagree. One or two Tornadoes backing up Sammael is pretty powerful as people have to choose to shoot at the Speeders, Sammael, and T5 bikes. If you can hid the speeders for the first turn, they can jump out and put out quite a bit of firepower.

I will admit that if 5th Ed turns out the way I think, I may move more points into bikes and out of Landspeeders as having the ability to come on from the flanks and rear with units of 6 T5 bikes with fists supported by a Powerfist Chaplain and RW standard (one unit puts out 10 re-roll to hit powerfist attacks!). Against everyone but Orks and Nids this will be pretty devastating.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

If you guess how many landspeeder tornados I own that'll be another clue as to why I don't play my ravenwing =P

hehe as many as mine?

I disagree. I've only played 5 games so far but I haven't lost yet. They aren't Tier 1 but it is a surprisingly powerful army. Read my thread in Battle Reports.

the period from the start of 4th edition to the new CA release was the pinnacle of my pure ravenwings performance. land speeder squads, attack bike squads, bikers, the jink save, skilled rider. it was a small army but it always performed well and won most of its games.

i've recently re-wrote it with some non-ravenwing units and it has won for me so-far.

After reading the pdf that area terrain actually will block Line of Sight in 5th ed, and that it's the missing graphics that will make this clear.

Consider the following; "Obviously, models can't draw a bead on their target if there is a hill, a building or some other large and solid object blocking their line of sight." (pp 16, 5th pdf) and, "City ruins are area terrain." (pp 49, 5th pdf).

I think that, until we see the addition of the graphics, it's unwise to jump to the conclusion that area terrain will not block line of sight.

My impression was that if the area terrain still physically blocks line of sight, LoS is still blocked. Just put your laser pointer where the model's eyes are to see if you can get a bead.

Ozymandias wrote:
I disagree. I've only played 5 games so far but I haven't lost yet. They aren't Tier 1 but it is a surprisingly powerful army. Read my thread in Battle Reports.

Again, I disagree. One or two Tornadoes backing up Sammael is pretty powerful as people have to choose to shoot at the Speeders, Sammael, and T5 bikes. If you can hid the speeders for the first turn, they can jump out and put out quite a bit of firepower.

I will admit that if 5th Ed turns out the way I think, I may move more points into bikes and out of Landspeeders as having the ability to come on from the flanks and rear with units of 6 T5 bikes with fists supported by a Powerfist Chaplain and RW standard (one unit puts out 10 re-roll to hit powerfist attacks!). Against everyone but Orks and Nids this will be pretty devastating.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

I have read your battle report and continue to be unimpressed by Ravenwing. You're playing 1000pt games and at least in the one I read, you got righteously lucky and were not playing against a single tough army.

The thing you're not taking into account here is that having an Av14 skimmer and a predator in a 1000pt list is far from a typical scenario. When you step that up to 1500 or 1850 and you have the exact same amount of armor but your opponent has 50% to 85% more antitank guns, you'll see what I'm talking about.

Regarding target priority: There's no choice here. A seasoned opponent will kill speeders first, then bikes, then Sammael. It's an obvious tactical decision. Sammael does very little more damage than a landspeeder and is Av14. Which one to shoot at? Oh, I don't know. The Av10 one I guess.

I have played an assload of games with ravenwing and the army was far from a winning army even with 11 assault cannon speeders, MotRW, and 3 x 1 MM attack bike. I won about 50% of my games against tough, skilled opponents.

Against an opponent who knows how to play with a solid army, new Ravenwing are a 25% army at best. Go play it against even a poor Godzilla nids list and let me know how you do at 1500

I think the flanking rules combined with the rules for LoS being blocked by friendly units you will see Ravenwing become a more competitive army in the new edition. Even with the down play of speeders, bikes are still a solid choice and can benefit from having a large quantity of Multi-Meltas on attack bikes. Only time will tell though.

Longshot:

I said it wasn't Tier 1, but guess what, most armies aren't Tier 1! Yes, it will drop faster than a prom dress against Nidzilla, but most armies will so that's not really a fair comparison. I do think that it can be Tier 2 (maybe 2.5) in the hands of a skilled player. You make it sound like Ravenwing is Tier 4 or 5 and I highly disagree.

Ozymandias, King of Kings