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I've just recently switched over to the DA codex and I was wondering how well a combo-deathwing/ravenwing force works in casual games from around 1,200 - 1,800 pts. I'm planning on simply replacing my tactical marines with termies and ravenwing squads (scoring landspeeders sounds fun to me!) and I was just hoping someone could give me some pointers/correct my incorrect assumptions.

Not many people are taking the speeder that comes with the ravenwing squadron anymore. 100pts for it is somewhat insane.

I would recommend sticking to 3 man bike squads with the attatched attack bike. I would only do a 6 man squad if you are going to pay for the chapter standard and apothecary. Plus that unit is the only one I would ever plan on getting stuck in combat.

Giving your termies thunderhammer + stormshield will just make you pissed off whenever you see another marine army so just don't do it.

One of my favorite terminator loadouts is
4x lightning claws, 1x heavy flamer, chain fist.

Typically I will do two of those with one of them having the chapter standard. And then two more terminator squads with power fists, storm bolters, a chain fist or two and an assault cannon.

The bikes always have melta guns and multi-meltas on the attack bikes to provide your anti tank.

Three single land speeders in your fast attack slots isn't too bad price wise.

A big decision is whether you field both belial or sammael. If you want single speeders then you need sammael, if not sometimes you can get away with not using him and just putting bikes in your fast attack slots. THis allows you to buy a different second hq, which normally is a chaplain on a bike.

Warmaster wrote:Not many people are taking the speeder that comes with the ravenwing squadron anymore. 100pts for it is somewhat insane.

I would recommend sticking to 3 man bike squads with the attatched attack bike. I would only do a 6 man squad if you are going to pay for the chapter standard and apothecary. Plus that unit is the only one I would ever plan on getting stuck in combat.

Giving your termies thunderhammer + stormshield will just make you pissed off whenever you see another marine army so just don't do it.

One of my favorite terminator loadouts is
4x lightning claws, 1x heavy flamer, chain fist.

Typically I will do two of those with one of them having the chapter standard. And then two more terminator squads with power fists, storm bolters, a chain fist or two and an assault cannon.

The bikes always have melta guns and multi-meltas on the attack bikes to provide your anti tank.

Three single land speeders in your fast attack slots isn't too bad price wise.

A big decision is whether you field both belial or sammael. If you want single speeders then you need sammael, if not sometimes you can get away with not using him and just putting bikes in your fast attack slots. THis allows you to buy a different second hq, which normally is a chaplain on a bike.

Am I to understand that their storm shields are those crappy 4++ in close combat only variants? Ugh.

Why do I need sammael if I'm going to run single speeders? I assume it's because my bikes then become troops rather than FA, but if I'm missing something let me know. Also, I don't have the jetbike sammael model, I'm using the ravenwing speeder. Is it any good at all?

Oh, and to help me clarify, if you do decide to take the attack bike and/or landspeeder, do they have to stay in cohesion with the bike squad? I hadn't heard anything regarding that.

Actually the attack bike is a little different for ravenwing, it is always a separate unit. You can never deploy it as part of the normal squad. Same with the landspeeder.

Yep crappy 4++ save variant.

Your assumption is correct, it's just so you can run the bike's as troops and save FA slots. I prefer the speeder to the jetbike model myself. But if you are using him on the speeder then I would definitely look into getting some more speeders to move around to get more target saturation.

Warmaster wrote:Actually the attack bike is a little different for ravenwing, it is always a separate unit. You can never deploy it as part of the normal squad. Same with the landspeeder.

Yep crappy 4++ save variant.

Your assumption is correct, it's just so you can run the bike's as troops and save FA slots. I prefer the speeder to the jetbike model myself. But if you are using him on the speeder then I would definitely look into getting some more speeders to move around to get more target saturation.

I'm picking up typhoon speeders slowly as a complement to his AV14 monster and using the ravenwing squadron upgrade sprues to assault cannon the speeders.

Which leads to my next question...

I understand that assault cannon speeders are fluffy for ravenwing squadrons, are they any good? I'd like to maintain some flavor.

Well so the ravenwing attack landspeeder is assault cannon heavy flamer (the one you can buy if you take the full 6 man bike squad).

It's expensive (100pts). And these days it isn't all that great. Actually I would advise against taking any speeders in a double wing list. Mainly because they don't have teleport homers.

Here's a fairly simple double-wing list it's at 1700pts. So you can add some different gear around to get it to 1750 and it also allows you to drop 1 squad to get it down to 1500.

HQ
1 Belial

Troops
3 Terminators w/ power fist, storm bolter
1 Terminator w/ chain fist, storm bolter
1 Terminator w/ power fist, assault cannon

3 Terminators w/ power fist, storm bolter
1 Terminator w/ chain fist, storm bolter
1 Terminator w/ power fist, assault cannon

4 Terminators w/ lightning claws
1 Terminator w/ chain fist, heavy flamer

2 Terminators w/ lightning claws
1 Terminator w/ lightning claws, chapter standard
1 Terminator w/ lightning claws, narthecium
1 Terminator w/ chain fist, heavy flamer

Fast Attack
1 Ravenwing Squadron[
2 melta guns
1 attack bike w/ multi-melta

1 Ravenwing Squadron[
2 melta guns
1 attack bike w/ multi-melta

1 Ravenwing Squadron[
2 melta guns
1 attack bike w/ multi-melta

Warmaster wrote:Well so the ravenwing attack landspeeder is assault cannon heavy flamer (the one you can buy if you take the full 6 man bike squad).

It's expensive (100pts). And these days it isn't all that great.

Actually the one that you can take in the attack sqaudron to make scoring is Assault Cannon + Heavy Bolter (not heavy flamer).

The only speeders with taking for DA are Sammael's and MM+HF.

Alos, I hate to be a nay-sayer, but Warmaster's termie set ups are TERRIBAD. Since a Doublewing list like his requires you to take advantage of DW Assault and DSing, you need to make your termies as survivable as possible. This means that every termie needs to be uniquily equipped within each squad to take advantage of wound allocation.

Something like this is required when your termies are dropping in and being exposed to the enemy:
PW+SB (or CF+SB)
PF+AC (or PF+HF)
PF+SB
LC
TH+SS

Plus one squad will have the mandatory Apoth/Standard..this allows you to mess with this squad's weapons a little more, while still being unique.

A Ravenwing bike squadren costs 30 more points than a vanilla bike squad. Adding 3 additional bikes increases the durability of the squad, and costs 25 more points than 3 vanilla marines.

They have a few other differences over vanilla marines.
All your bikes get a scout move. This lets you get 12" closer with your melta-guns. 3 of these can be used to take out a land raider on turn 1 if your opponent deployed poorly.
All your bikes are fearless. This is good vs. shooting and pinning but is bad in assault.
Your sergeant can have a bolt pistol and power weapon.
An attached attack bike splits off to form their own squad of 1. This is bad for giving up VPs, and good for creating a nasty tank hunter with a scout move. Combined with the bikes above, you can really put a hurt on the opponent before they even move.

Try and use those to your advantage.

Alerian wrote:

Warmaster wrote:Well so the ravenwing attack landspeeder is assault cannon heavy flamer (the one you can buy if you take the full 6 man bike squad).

It's expensive (100pts). And these days it isn't all that great.

Actually the one that you can take in the attack sqaudron to make scoring is Assault Cannon + Heavy Bolter (not heavy flamer).

The only speeders with taking for DA are Sammael's and MM+HF.

Alos, I hate to be a nay-sayer, but Warmaster's termie set ups are TERRIBAD. Since a Doublewing list like his requires you to take advantage of DW Assault and DSing, you need to make your termies as survivable as possible. This means that every termie needs to be uniquily equipped within each squad to take advantage of wound allocation.

Something like this is required when your termies are dropping in and being exposed to the enemy:
PW+SB (or CF+SB)
PF+AC (or PF+HF)
PF+SB
LC
TH+SS

Plus one squad will have the mandatory Apoth/Standard..this allows you to mess with this squad's weapons a little more, while still being unique.

We are going to have to disagree because I don't want to waste squad firepower in my shooting squads. Same thing for my hitting power in the assault squads. But to each their own ! Yeah I was thinking of the tornado which gives you the option or maybe it was just wishfull thinking on the ravenwing speeder. The most I would do in a shooty squad is pw+sb, cf+sb, pf+ac,2xpf+sb (but i don't because pw's suck!). And I just don't think it's worth it in my assault squads.

labmouse42 wrote:A Ravenwing bike squadren costs 30 more points than a vanilla bike squad. Adding 3 additional bikes increases the durability of the squad, and costs 25 more points than 3 vanilla marines.

They have a few other differences over vanilla marines.
All your bikes get a scout move. This lets you get 12" closer with your melta-guns. 3 of these can be used to take out a land raider on turn 1 if your opponent deployed poorly.
All your bikes are fearless. This is good vs. shooting and pinning but is bad in assault.
Your sergeant can have a bolt pistol and power weapon.
An attached attack bike splits off to form their own squad of 1. This is bad for giving up VPs, and good for creating a nasty tank hunter with a scout move. Combined with the bikes above, you can really put a hurt on the opponent before they even move.

Try and use those to your advantage.

I like the sound of an attack bike in MM range on turn 1. And if I recall correctly ravenwing bikes all have teleport homers on them, so there's a good possibility of deep striking right in the midst of a hapless enemy.

One thing you will need to check with your opponents is the ruling on turbo-boosting. The da book prohibits you from turbo-boosting during scout moves (which no one was allowed to do during 4th). But the faq didn't clear it up if it was allowed. Most people rule that you can't.

Warmaster wrote:One thing you will need to check with your opponents is the ruling on turbo-boosting. The da book prohibits you from turbo-boosting during scout moves (which no one was allowed to do during 4th). But the faq didn't clear it up if it was allowed. Most people rule that you can't.

Oh I was just going to follow the book rules. It doesn't make any sense to not follow them as they're pretty explicit.

I personally think you should take both sammuel and belial as it makes all your bikes and termies scoring...

This is a pretty huge boon. It makes target prioity much more difficult for your enemy.

Also as characters they are pretty good.

Ultimately the first turn termi deep strike and scout move makes the list very alpha strike so I think it's a concept you need to embrace.

Also, it hasn't been mentioned but I think landraider is a pretty good fit in this list. Sure it eats up a bunch of points but having to deal with a land raider is bad enough, but when it scores with 2+ armor save models inside it you can basically plan on at least having that unit making it to the end game.

Plus with the land speeder sammael you can basically do your own version of AV 14 spam.

deFl0 wrote:I personally think you should take both sammuel and belial as it makes all your bikes and termies scoring...

This is a pretty huge boon. It makes target prioity much more difficult for your enemy.

Also as characters they are pretty good.

Ultimately the first turn termi deep strike and scout move makes the list very alpha strike so I think it's a concept you need to embrace.

Also, it hasn't been mentioned but I think landraider is a pretty good fit in this list. Sure it eats up a bunch of points but having to deal with a land raider is bad enough, but when it scores with 2+ armor save models inside it you can basically plan on at least having that unit making it to the end game.

Plus with the land speeder sammael you can basically do your own version of AV 14 spam.

Oh, I'm definitely bringing both Sammael and Belial. The prospect of scoring terminators and landspeeders is too appealing not to.
I'm not planning on spamming anyone with AV14 though. I have to play nice to keep my gaming group interested.

oddjustice wrote:
Oh, I'm definitely bringing both Sammael and Belial. The prospect of scoring terminators and landspeeders is too appealing not to.
I'm not planning on spamming anyone with AV14 though. I have to play nice to keep my gaming group interested.

Because of the way it's worded attack bikes and land speeders always count as scoring even if you buy them as fast attack choices (I think it's both the attack bike and speeder, it may just be the speeder). However if you do that the actual bikes do not.