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For those that use tyranid raveners, as a new Tyranid player (and relatively new 40k player), I would like to know how you use them to make them worthwhile? What configuration of weapons do you use? Do you set them up with your army or use them for popping out in enemy lines? How do you make them survivable, or effective in being a distraction or whatever to get their points worth out of them?

Unfortunately these days Tyranid Raveners are usually just jumping onto bayonets with the consolidation before attacks in assaults. I would probably use them with rending claws, and be very selective about the assaults I threw them into. Small units or things pathetic in assault are usually your preferred targets. A largish tactical squad of marines will smush the Ravener before it causes much damage so you will have to use multiples. Anything killier than tac marines will likely eat Raveners in one round. Maybe 3, to keep a decent amount of hitpower without making the unit too large and expensive. They just aren't very survivable with their stats, and I don't like to rely on deep striking.

What you say makes sense, however I have read a number of threads on tyranids where people have indicated that they still use raveners, and try to overcome their flaws. I was hoping that some more would respond. Perhaps than you are correct and it is pointless to take raveners at all in 5th edition.

Trygon..(Its what the ravener wants to be!) its a crying shame it cant be fielded in a standard 40k .. its only 300pts, you can actually field two (assuming thier a heavy-support choice) in a standard FOC with a hq/2xtroops & all.

They aren't as easy to use as they were in last edition, that's for sure. But I don't think they're useless in 5th. They still have a ridiculous assault range (19-24"), 2 wounds each, high WS, I and A.

They can get 4+ cover saves from gaunts, but ideally they should be moved up behind Fexes or Tyrants where LOS to them is blocked completely.

Whether relying on a gaunt screen for cover (iffy) or using the MC wall for LOS-blocking, Raveners are best used by assaulting simultaneously with a unit of gaunts. This can attenuate the "defenders react" issue.

If all of the defenders are in base-to-base with gaunts, then they don't get to move towards the Raveners when "defenders react". This is particularly effective when an opponent has spread out to avoid all the Stranglers and Deathspitter templates being thrown at them by the Fexes and Warriors in the rest of the army. The Raveners killiness helps with the "all my gaunts die to no-retreat wounds" problem, by evening up the combat result.

You still have to pick your targets - nobody in cover (Raveners can't get flesh hooks), and no huge squads of orks. But a marine tac squad should still lose combat to 3 Raveners + 12 spinegaunts, which are about equivalent in points to the tac squad.

The Raveners' high I will help run down any non-fearless units broken, or catch marines that try to retreat. If they wipe their target out, or get out-run by marines, use the consolidation moves to move the Raveners *back* and the gaunts *forward*, so that the Raveners are shielded by gaunts to give them cover saves.

They're also useful vs any vehicle except a land raider - charge them in for S4 rending attacks on rear armour. It helps if a Venom Cannon has stunned or immobilized the vehicle first, of course. 5 autohits with rending should put one rend out, and an S4 rend will penetrate rear armour of anything but a Demolisher, Land Raider or Monolith. Three Raveners = ~ 3 penetrating hits. Three Raveners are a lot less costly than many vehicles with rear AV10...

I would never buy guns for Raveners, they inflate the point cost and you'll almost invariably be running/fleeting. Deepstriking a unit with this much mobility is silly as well, unless you're following a Trygon out of its hole.

So in conclusion: Raveners on their own suck. But using them in combined-arms tactics with gaunts and or Venom Cannons can make them worthwhile.

Strangelooper wrote:
Whether relying on a gaunt screen for cover (iffy) or using the MC wall for LOS-blocking, Raveners are best used by assaulting simultaneously with a unit of gaunts. This can attenuate the "defenders react" issue.

If all of the defenders are in base-to-base with gaunts, then they don't get to move towards the Raveners when "defenders react". This is particularly effective when an opponent has spread out to avoid all the Stranglers and Deathspitter templates being thrown at them by the Fexes and Warriors in the rest of the army. The Raveners killiness helps with the "all my gaunts die to no-retreat wounds" problem, by evening up the combat result.

Y

Hmm I think youve got the wrong end of a chitenous stick here.. in terms with assault moves.

In the assault phase.. you first make all of your own assault moves with all you your assaulting sqaud then the opposing player gets to make thier 'defenders react' move.

With models that are locked in combat from a previous tern, those models assaulted by a new unit may make a 'defenders react' move as normal

- when it comes to fighting, the BGB bk (p41) mentions that units that are 'engaged' (base contact or within 2" of a based model from thier own unit) must fight the unit they are engaged

-- but if the unit is engaged with multiple units from the beginning of the combat (see the assault seqeuence), which mentions "...beginning of the combat (before any model attacked) may split.." which i assume means the period after the assault moves & defender reacts moves are made but before blows are stuck , the unit may split its attacks between the two units freely.

Therefor this screening with gaunts wont actually work.. as to "engage" the rav squad in CC, it must have atleast one model based with an enemy model (with the rest of the squad within coherency with it) now even if you have one unit of ravs with one model based (the rest within 2") and then another 20+ odd gaunts hordeying & surrounding basing the rest of the sqaud... that squad may delcare to put all of its attacks on the rav squad.

Granted they should get annhilated with that kind of attack but those High I ravs only have so many attacks so are still just as vunerable to counter-attack.

Why pair raveners with gaunts... 14Point per model hormagaunts (+1ws, +1I, +1S) which basically mirror all of the relative stats (S, I, WS, No.A's per points) & also have that narly assault range of 19-24"

Personally I think a few ravs for those rending attacks paired with alotta hormaguants (10+ broods) should work well, with a tyrant+gaunt wall infront of em.
The tyrants+gaunts infront, proving synapase & screen duties.. get close, the horms+ravs charge leaping past the tyrant+gaunts (synapse should still be fine next turn but it doesnt matter right now due to the charge) while the more forward tyrant+gaunt should either be able to charge or atleast move back into synapse range for the hormagaunts.

Having skimmed through the above posts, i wish to just add my own experence here.

Raveners excel at being a glass hammer, they can dish it out but cant take it.

Theres only two ways to arm them IMHO, either 2 sets of scything talons for high number of hits for hordes, or Rendering Claws and scything talons, with the option of a death spitter.

Remember that you need more than 1 so go 2 or 3, and if you have the points give them all deathspitters.

Fleet + beast > shooting + beast

Leave the deathspitting to your warriors who can do it so much more cheaply.

I'm not very enamored with gaunt support for anything in combat these days, considering how that any smart opponent with reasonable combat troops will kill a handful of gaunts to win the combat and cause no retreat wounds on both the gaunts and the Raveners.

Razerous wrote:
In the assault phase.. you first make all of your own assault moves with all you your assaulting sqaud then the opposing player gets to make thier 'defenders react' move.

Indeed, this is what I'm counting on with this tactic. It does require setting up your gaunts in the movement phase, such that they can't all make it into base-to-base with the target unit (or else they would block the Raveners from getting in), but still manage to "lock up" most of the enemy models:

1)In the movement phase (or when fleeting in the shooting phase): Move the gaunt unit up on the left-ish side of the target unit, so that the front 8-ish gaunts are 5-6" from the enemy. Keep all the other gaunts around 1 inch behind these front ones (so that their assault move won't take them into base-to-base). Move the Raveners up on the right-ish side of the target unit, so that they have access to the target unit from a different angle.

2)Assault with the gaunts. Around 8 will base 8 of the enemy troops, and the other gaunts move up behind those front 8 gaunts. Then assault with the Raveners - ideally you'll only get one into base to base with one or two enemy models, and the other two will have to hang out behind the first Ravener.

3)Defenders react: but only defenders who are not in base to base already get to move. So the gaunts have locked up 8 models, there may be only one or two that are able to move towards the Raveners.

Razerous wrote:

-- but if the unit is engaged with multiple units from the beginning of the combat (see the assault seqeuence), which mentions "...beginning of the combat (before any model attacked) may split.." which i assume means the period after the assault moves & defender reacts moves are made but before blows are stuck , the unit may split its attacks between the two units freely.

Therefor this screening with gaunts wont actually work.. as to "engage" the rav squad in CC, it must have atleast one model based with an enemy model (with the rest of the squad within coherency with it) now even if you have one unit of ravs with one model based (the rest within 2") and then another 20+ odd gaunts hordeying & surrounding basing the rest of the sqaud... that squad may delcare to put all of its attacks on the rav squad.

I think your assumption is incorrect. Check out the diagram on page 41. Only those enemy models that are within 2" of the model who is based by a Ravener, may direct their attacks against the Ravener unit.

If pulled off well, this means you might get only 3-4 attacks back at your Raveners, which is a lot better than all 10. Even four attacks from a tac squad is 2 hits, 1 wound and only 2/3 chance of an unsaved wound. As I mentioned, the best way to pull this off is with a unit that has spread out to maximum coherency. Packing tight is certainly a good way to defeat this tactic; but hopefully any bunched up units will be eating barbed strangler and deathspitter templates from other units in your army!

Razerous wrote:

Why pair raveners with gaunts... 14Point per model hormagaunts (+1ws, +1I, +1S) which basically mirror all of the relative stats (S, I, WS, No.A's per points) & also have that narly assault range of 19-24"

Personally I think a few ravs for those rending attacks paired with alotta hormaguants (10+ broods) should work well, with a tyrant+gaunt wall infront of em.

Sure, hormagaunts match the charge range of the Raveners and are definitely better in combat. That's a great combination, but it's a lot more expensive. Also, as you point out, the hormagaunts need their own spinegaunt screen on their way up the board, or else they'll get shot to bits. You could also run feeder-tendril Stealers + Raveners for even more punch (though there are much better ways to use Stealers).

I'd imagine that it would be a bit more difficult to gauge the 11-12" assault range of the hormagaunts rather than the 5-6" range of the spinegaunts, when setting up the unit to engage "all-but-one-or-two" of the enemy which is key to protecting the Raveners from the reaction move.

Also, after you sweep the enemy unit, you're stuck with consolidating your Raveners behind 14-point hormagaunt shields for cover, instead of 5-point spinegaunts (or preferably, 8-point spinegaunts without number).

Railguns wrote:I'm not very enamored with gaunt support for anything in combat these days, considering how that any smart opponent with reasonable combat troops will kill a handful of gaunts to win the combat and cause no retreat wounds on both the gaunts and the Raveners.

True...don't use this tactic on assault marines or orks. This is for taking out mid-sized units whose models have one attack each. Gaunt-only assaults tend to take no-retreat wounds from even those units, but the Raveners' killiness can push them over so that the nids win combat and either force a fall-back/sweep or cause no-retreat wounds of their own.

Assault troops should be getting shot by templates (strangler/deathspitter/warpblast), dakkafexes and charged by CC-fexes or Stealers.

I see what your saying about the gaunts locking up the opponents models and leaving only a slim gap for the raveners to assault through to.

You cant move models that are based that turn so those 8 other enemy models are basically locked with the gaunt.

But theres a 2" engagement range from any based models. So the ravener based model will be able to grab buddies from 2" around it to pile into the assault reguardles if those buddies were based themselves (its a choice thing but only within 2") so yeah.. you could seriously reduce the returning attacks yet still apply the full amount of your own rending attacks.

If your doing this over two turns with the raveners charging in second (if) anything is alive on the second tun.. the player can choose to move every model 6" towards the charging model.. Ahh they can react as normal meaning based models are already based thus cant react. Okay. Okay.. ill stop now!

Sorry

A bit off-topic, but does anyone else find it sad that these days, sending gaunts in to help a fight can actually make it go worse? They are there specifically to die fighting so the nasty bugs can do their job. Doing that these days causes the big bug to suffer for the gaunts doing what they do best.

Gaunts are for the shooty goodness & flesh wall duties. Hormaguants should be doing the fighty groundwork with big-bug support.

Having a 6pt model thats bs 3, has a assault 1 12" range gun thats str 4 with a re-roll on failed wounds.. well worth keeping the, shooty.

Saving the 1 pt per model to loose 1 str & the re-roll to gain a TL weapon isnt worth it. You may hit more.. and be able to buy another model every 5 but all those hits will have a hard time wounded even basic marines where-as massed broods of fleshgaunts will be able to shovel on the wounds, forcing people to roll alotta saves.

4's to wound + re-roll. 4's to hit.

5's to wound. 4's to hit with a re-roll.

Granted the logic could be it doesnt matter if you can re-roll to wound if you dont hit nething but the first option looks to be more favourable for the rolling. At +1 pt.. its worth it.

But Hormagaunts are base 10 points a piece and are only 1 attack each better than any other gaunt. They cost twice as much, but die just as easily. They can be made slightly killier by making them cost as much as a Space Marine. Not my idea of a fleshwall unit, or even a combat support unit. If I attack something with a Carnifex and Hormagaunts, the opponent will just allocate attacks at the gaunts and cause collateral damage to the fex. So much for drowning enemies in a tide of chitinous claws.

Personally, I would think it best to use Ravener to pick off weakened units, or units with low WS. My scouts have been ambushed more than once by a Ravener that I didn't notice.

they cost 14points.. and are then some of the best assault units in the game in my opinion. Granted the ork boy has some cool rules but you need a few upgrades to make them viable..somthing to about 10pts per model.

At 14point per model, a hormagaut brood would kick a slugga/choppa/shoota boyz mob ne day.

Raveners are also scary like this.

Buy 4 Hormagaunts with toxin sacs instead of a single ravener. Same assault range, same strength, twice as many attacks, twice as many wounds, and the save is just as irrelevant. Hell, they even take up about as much space on the table. Raveners are just awful in fifth edition, they have a great model but they are overexpensive paper tigers. Kill points and the change in rending ruined them.

Raveners are little more than bad and overexpensive warriors if you don't use their speed, and if you're using their speed then they will just get shot to death first.

ideally you want the strength to be able to wound realistically.. you want the I upgrade to go before MEQ's which is a real life-saver with the amount of wounds the enemy squads gonna take before they strike back & get the WS upgrade so that you hit more easily & they hit less.

Each of those upgrades will make thier points back.. even if orks charge you, you still go first with a silly no. of attacks. etc etc.

Raveners basically, are rending versions of hormagaunts @ 2.5x the price.

Razerous wrote:Raveners basically, are rending versions of hormagaunts @ 2.5x the price.

With 2x the wounds, +1 toughness, 2x the base attacks, and 2x the save (haha, ok that last counts vs Lasguns and CC only, true).

I guess Supergaunts would do just as well as Raveners; except they're slightly harder to hide and they'll die more easily to templates (8 hits on 8 Supergaunts, as opposed to 4 hits on 4 Raveners). Wow...looks like GW managed to point-balance Supergaunts vs Raveners pretty well! Who'd have thunk it?

It's possible that I'm biased because I have 4 Raveners painted up, and dread painting more Hormagaunts (much less attaching glands and toxin sacs to the little buggers).

they now work alot like lictors, used as a small hammer for juicy targets.
by all means, charge them into a unit of boyz and kill alot of em, but they cant take a return attack atall.

best off being used for small hidden units (dev's, lootas (small units) and things like kommandos)

they are like glass though, 1 bad move and they are gone, they wont surive much shooting, so covour is needed.

all in all, larger units work well, but no more than 1 unit, use them for picking on weaker enemies / characters left away from other units.

Thanks for all the interesting comments. This is the type of discussion I wanted to see how some people use raveners or why they dont work so well when used in various ways.