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Any good strat for them?, i run a 14 man squad with 2 meltas and icon of khorne, tag along my chaos lord with MoN and daemon weapon. It has proven a great unit in CC, however a lil slow on some deployments like dawn of war. I was wondering if anyone got a nice strats on what to charge with them, which mark is the best, field them from the beginning or deep strike them? Any advice to improve my use of them would be awesome.

That is for general advice on them, however any suggestion on my specific unit would be even better , the rest of my list is a DP with wings, 2 squads of vanilla CSM on rhinos, a LR with 5 mixed termies, a squad of daemons and 3 oblies. (2000 pts), my biggest problem is that most of the time they just destroy the unit i charge on my assault turn, so next one the whole squad eats lots of fire, due to the numbers usually the icon, the champion and 2-3 raptors survive along with the lord and get to charge and destroy another unit.

You could consider swapping the icon of Khorne for one of Nurgle, which wouldn't cost them too much in hitting power, but would make them substantially more resistant to enemy small arms and close combat attacks. This might result in having a larger number alive after that round of counter-fire.

They are icons.
'Best' is subjective.

IoT is expensive for what you get.
IoN is expensive no matter what.
IoS is situational.
IoK is pretty all-comers.
IoCG IMO is the best, just cause it's cheap.

The raptors' role includes:
Special Weapon delivery and Combat Initiators. They are pretty lacklustre iconed or not in general.

The issue I have is that they don't get true marks, and with a fearless lord joine with them, they can potentially drag his sorry ass off the board as they are not fearless.

I think 8-10 is a decent number, able to hide/advance behind a rhino...I'm generally underwhelmed with raptors.

I used to use:
10 Raptors, 2 Claws, 2 Meltas, IoCG, but I've ended up going for 20 Lesser Daemons instead, and have been happy with them.

I think his concept of a BIG squad has some merit. Certainly the larger the squad, the more efficient the icon is, since its cost is fixed.

I love Raptors and I consider them the "Knight" chess piece of the Chaos army. They are one of my favourite units and Im surprised more lists dont bring a squad of them (maybe because the models are expensive?).

Here are their crucial advantages:

-Move 12" (obviously)
-Can jump over buildings, rhinos, impassable terrain, etc. for a surprise attack
-Have the longest melta range in the army, at worst tied with oblits multi-melta (if they roll a 6 for slow and purposeful). While a unit of CSM in a rhino can move 12 + disembark 2 + melta 6 is longer, they cant assault to get into the safety of CC, and their rhino can be destroyed leaving them slow footwalkers.
-Can take 2 meltas at any squad size
-Can hide a sorceror (or lord I guess...) in the unit. If I were to ever use lash, I would definitely put the Sorc in a unit of raptors.

Disadvantages:

-No rhino means less armour on the field
-AP3 ordnance templates

Loadout

Personally, I would never go above 10 raptors. I know the benefit from the icon costs less and less per model, but I would still never go above it. Reason being that if something were to actually target it, such as a squad of nobs/assault terminators/any other elite option, youre still going to lose. If they enemy puts a few templates on you, youre still going to lose the entire squad.

I like to take advantage of the 2 meltas at any squad size advantage. I generally keep my raptor squads between 7-9 raptors. This makes them easier to hide and keeps them cheap(er) just in case my opponent does go after them. I generally keep them around 230-250 points total, the same size as a regular CSM squad.

So for 7-9 Raptors its:

-2 meltas
-Icon of Chaos Glory
-Champ
-Fist

=210-250 points.

Compared to 390 for 14 and Nurgle. Id rather take two squads of the above (7 raptors) for 420 points (30 points more) and have 4 meltas and two seperate squads, as well as 2 fists.

Sanctjud wrote:
The issue I have is that they don't get true marks, and with a fearless lord joine with them, they can potentially drag his sorry ass off the board as they are not fearless.

Yeap, this has happened before :(

I know i could just replace them for other units, i mean i don't lack the models, however i have this attachment to them, being one of my first units on 40k, trying to build my night lords army. So i try to field them and make them effective. Fluff game is awesome and all, but no one likes being destroyed by your opponent.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mmmmm two squads of 7 raptors actually sound nice... i'd have to buy another 2 models for the melts thou, that would be 2 squads con 8 raptors

Its best to run them in squads of 15 as it reduces the overall cost per model as someone has stated.

15 Models w/ 2 Meltaguns w/ Icon of Nurgle/ whatever.

370 points.

DO NOT BUY AN ASPIRING.

Keep a Winged / Warptime Daemon Prince with them. He cannot join but he can sure as hell keep up.

How about a 5-man squad of Raptors with 2 meltaguns. Keep it cheap and make them a primarily anti-tank unit to jump up and meet the oncoming enemy Land Raider. At 120pts it's not a bad buy.

If you put a daemon prince+wings+warptime with a squad of 15 raptors (following them or whatever) I would see that as the number one thing to destroy on the board with my ranged weaponry, considering none of them can ever be in a vehicle and with a monstrous creature and a squad that large I don't see them avoiding any fire.

Breaking it to two squads of 7 or 8 seems more efficient, but I don't field any raptors so I'm just saying what I'd do if I saw them. It all depends on the situations also of course, but yeah...

/Shrug.. I used my 10 man with 2 princes moving around together...not that interesting IMO.
I would very much rather have a CSM squad in a rhino...

But different strokes for different folks.

I finally ran a squad of these guys in a game last week and I loved them. They weren't steller but definetely worth it. As a result I've decided to have them replace my heavy support choices which usually included 2 Oblits and a Defi. My loadout on them is like so

10 Raptors, 2 Melta, IoK, Champ w/ fist.

They also work better with the single unit of daemons i run and the dual lash. I do agree that 2 small squads would work well, I'll have to try that out soon.

I usually run Slannesh for the theme of my army, but Mot I say t5 jumptroopers are not a joke. on top of that 2 meltas or flamers?

Meltas to break the troop transports and get at the squishy bits inside.

Just use the troop transports as mobile cover ; you only need 8 in cover in order to get the save.

Out of Line Of Sight is IMO superior.
In addition, double lash makes alot of things better, Raptors themselves are not so 'steller'...so buffing something else that we all know works (oblits/defilers) is more logical.

Sanctjud wrote:Out of Line Of Sight is IMO superior.
In addition, double lash makes alot of things better, Raptors themselves are not so 'steller'...so buffing something else that we all know works (oblits/defilers) is more logical.

I agree out of LoS is better however, it's kinda hard to hide 14 models, at least at my LGS where the terrain seems to be poor, and it's a rare event when a unit is completely out of LoS, even for 1 man units.