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Raveners are already pretty good but their Deep Strike rule is not that great, so this is what I propose.

1)

Shooting weapons are free. Maybe +5 points if you want the Devourers.

2)

Surprise Attack

Tunnelling beneath the Earth, Raveners can Deep Strike into any Terrain without penalty. In addition, if they do not already gain a cover save their tunnelling as well as the surprise of their assault grants them a 4+ cover save.

So they get a 4+ cover save and they can maybe stand up to some shooting. I was going to say 5+ but everything else gives a 4+ now and flamers ignore the 4+ cover anyway.

Why not go further. Give them each a token, at the start of each movement phase they can choose to surface or submerge.

While submerged, Raveners can move 2D6" but cannot shoot, run or assault and gain +2 to their Toughness and Save. When attacked (shooting or CC) No weapons aimed at them count as having an AP value or as powerweapons. After the first round of close combat they count as being surfaced. During any consolidation move they may choose to submerged.

Eh, I'd just give them scout and infiltrate as well, given that many deployment options they'll be good enough to at least find a use.

Jack

Jackmojo wrote:Eh, I'd just give them scout and infiltrate as well, given that many deployment options they'll be good enough to at least find a use.

Jack

I second this, they would be good if they could be deployed in more ways. This would also slove the lictor's issues i believe.

Scout and Infiltrate would be cool but they should really get a cool tunnelling rule, as well.

Tri's rule is kind of neat although it is almost too Warmachine for 40k I think.

I like the scout and infiltrate ideas, but how about this: Make them 30 points and they have the following loadout: 2 sets of scything, rending claws, and can have any of the guns for 8 points. They're great as is (minus the save), but they're just too expensive with all the upgrades they need.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Either this, or here's another idea: They can assault the turn they arrive and can land in any terrain (minus impossible). Wouldn't that solve most of our problems with them?

I think that is a bad idea, the Deep Strike-assault, I think it is cheap/ weak. Of course they can no longer consolidate into new units. Speaking of which, the other option is just to give them 4+ carapace armour.

Two Scything and Rending would be cool, considering they could have six arms altogether.

The other thing they could do is make assault moves under other units, although that could be cheap as well.

Personally, i use tham alot, they have servered me well, a full brood of 6 with rendering/scyth and devourers. Thats 30 shots, S3, reroll to wound, plus the ability to pop light tanks and crush MEQ type troops.

The only 3 things i dont really like is the price, 50pts a pop [i usually get a good return but still in a horde army thats alot], there T/S, one of these needs to be increased by one to show either their toughness for borrowing all the time or the strength of borrowing all the time. Lastly, why take them with only CC weapons if you cant assault the turn you DS like a lictor.

My idea is to:
-+1T
-Add scout/infiltrate or lictor assault on DS
-drop the base cost to 20

Tacobake wrote:Scout and Infiltrate would be cool but they should really get a cool tunnelling rule, as well.

Tri's rule is kind of neat although it is almost too Warmachine for 40k I think.

I'd agree if it wasn't for every one already having a similar rule (GTG) but i just big fan of the tremors movies and think that's how these guys should be.

+1T sounds OK to me, and I was thinking earlier this week Warriors could use the same alongside Terminators, of course. The Warboss is T5 now.

Raveners could get Furious Charge, for that matter, not that they need it.

Raveners just seem like they are missing _something_.

If they were synapse critters that would solve a fair bit of their woes too (it would let them help the fast moving gaunts, and protect them from instant death).

I still vote they ought to get scout and infiltrate as well though.

Jack

Their key weaknesses seem to be their cost and inability to assault after deepstriking. Changing 1 of these would make them far more effective at their role. So either
A) Reduce their initial cost by 10 pts (30 pts is still not cheap)
B) Give them the ability to assault the turn they deepstrike (making them good support units to help out lictors)

And yes I also feel that they are missing something. But even with my above suggestions I still can't help but feel I havent quite got it right.

You know it would also be nice to add some wounds to the unit maybe some rippers swarms (allocate the wounds to them and Ravener will last longer) Fluffwise the rippers just followed the Ravener (so you can only have one ripper base per Ravener)

That is a good use for Symbiote Rippers in general, other than giving them close combat attacks. The Rippers, that is.

I would like to see that if they DS into or within 1" of an enemy Model then they do not roll on Mishap chart, and automatically placed into combat with that squad.
They may always assault the turn they arrive from DS.