So I went 5 turns and only killed 1 Space marine. WTF?!?!?

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Galef**

Table wrote:
There are several ways to bring magnus to a 2++ re-roll 1. And since its not a cover save you cant ignore it easily.

Indeed, but he alone is 1/3 of his entire army. So worst case scenario, you ignore him. You CANNOT, however, ignore your entire opponent's army.

**JNAProductions**

Only Black Knights have Skilled Rider.

**Galef**

JNAProductions wrote:
Only Black Knights have Skilled Rider.

Good to know. That brings up a question: Does the Dark Shroud grant Stealth or Shroud? I know it has Shroud for itself and the old version gave an aura of Stealth to nearby units, but dId this change in the new dex?

In the league we are playing, the RW guys isn't using Black Knights....yet. So that would have impacted our game.

-

**JNAProductions**

Stealth. Shrouded only applies to itself.

**PyrhusOfEpirus**

Galef wrote:
So this is not meant to be a rant, though parts of it may sound that way. I'd just like to get a general feel for how people have encountered Ravenwing.

Our LGS just started a league and we are currently only at 500pts. I am playing Eldar. I am trying to play competitive, but not TFG.
My list so far is
1 Farseer on bike,
2x 3 Windriders with 1 Scatter & 2 Shuricannons each,
2 Hornets
and 2 Shadow Weavers.

My very first game was against a Ravenwing Strikeforce with 2x 3 Bikes with 1 powerfist each, 1 Chaplain on bike, 1 MM attack bike & a Dark Shroud.
I have yet to fit Ravenwing, but have heard nasty things. All game his entire army had a 2+ re-rollable Jink save.

We played 5 turns and all I managed to kill was 1 Space Marine....and that was on turn 5. Nothing like this has EVERY happened to me...with any army, much less my Eldar
He ended up winning because of the objectives, obviously, as there was no way I was gonna get close to those powerfists.
To be far, he only killed 1 of my bikes and the Shadow Weavers, but it was still one of the most unsatifying games I have ever played. I have played games that were crushing defeats for me that were still WAAAYYY more fun because I actually got to participate in the game rather than rolling dice that don't matter.

Don't get me wrong, the guy I played was cool and it is about time that Eldar got some decent counters, but I am seriously at a loss here.
Am I supposed to load up on Dark Reapers, which I am not a fan of, just to regain an "all-comers" list?
Even killing the Dark Shroud still leaves the bikes with a 3+ rerollable Jink (because skilled rider).

In general, do you think that list like Ravenwing & Genestealer cults will change the Meta since they are very good counters to shooting armies?
Will this finally encourage a shift towards CC armies?

Let's hear your thoughts

-

what is there to say. 2+ re-rollable saves from ravenwing or tzeentch demons are am abomination in the game, and its a reason that tournaments do not allow them. Hopefully GW can wakeup before 8th edition and fix things like this.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

mew28 wrote:
Try spamming scatter lasers. Or fight them in CC to deny them any cover save.

you need to cause 36 wounds to get a single kill when something has a 2+ re-rollable save, this is no solution at all.

**Table**

Galef wrote:
Table wrote:
There are several ways to bring magnus to a 2++ re-roll 1. And since its not a cover save you cant ignore it easily.

Indeed, but he alone is 1/3 of his entire army. So worst case scenario, you ignore him. You CANNOT, however, ignore your entire opponent's army.

I do not think Magnus is "op". But its easy to give him a 2+ if you add demons and cheap. And since you should have demons in great number its most likely he is going to be sporting a 2+. In a fluff list, not so much. I also dont think you can ignore Magnus. He has to much dakka and 2 D ranged attacks and is a heavy heavy hitter in CC to boot. If you ignore him you are helping him make his points back. He will have to be dealt with in some fashion. Be that a tarpit to keep him from casting witchfires or turning ALL your guns on him. He is killable after all, it just takes alot to do it.

**Rippy**

>6 scat bikes under 500 points
>Not being TFG
K buddy

**Grimgold**

It sounds like there was some cheating and/or people not knowing their rules. First if it was a ravenwing strike force it would need a HQ with the ravenwing special rule, of which there are only two, Sammael (dark angel on a jetbike) and Sableclaw (an AV 14 land speeder). If you didn't see either of those he was cheating. Second, *during their first turn only*, if they turbo boost they count as jinking until their next turn without having to snap fire in the following turn. So they give up their first turns shooting to get close to you, and are able to shoot normally on the second turn. Any time they jink after that, they are snap firing at BS1 since grim resolve only affects overwatch, and not even that in the turn after a jink.

So here is how you fight them, shoot them, force them to jink, then move on to the next unit. Once you've crippled the fire power of a large section of their units, then you can double up on targets and hope to get one thru. The entire army is going to have hit and run, but you should still charge them as that is literally your best chance at getting a wound thru. If you forced them to jink, they will have to charge back in to do any damage anyway. In CC all of ravenwings special rules go away, and you will have a massive advantage in number of attacks and models.

Ravenwing is a supplementary force, because if fighting a person with a clue, they hit like wet noodles. They don't have obsec, so they can't play the objective game, they are not great in CC (except for knights which get up to the rousing rating of merely ok), and while they can be tough they do so at the cost of being able to hurt the enemy. The OPs problems were he didn't know their rules, and his opponent was cheating. Probably time to put down the pitchforks and torches.

**Galef**

Rippy wrote:
>6 scat bikes under 500 points
>Not being TFG
K buddy

Read my post again. I only had 2 SCATTER bikes. The other 4 had shurikens

Seriously, I am a bit tired of people assuming that just because I like bikes as my only troops (and have since 4th ed) that I only have Scatterbikes
Stop ostracizing me for continuing to use models that I have owned for a decade, long before they were OP. Less than half of the bikes I own have Scatter lasers

Grimgold wrote:
It sounds like there was some cheating and/or people not knowing their rules. First if it was a ravenwing strike force it would need a HQ with the ravenwing special rule, of which there are only two, Sammael (dark angel on a jetbike) and Sableclaw (an AV 14 land speeder). If you didn't see either of those he was cheating. Second, *during their first turn only*, if they turbo boost they count as jinking until their next turn without having to snap fire in the following turn. So they give up their first turns shooting to get close to you, and are able to shoot normally on the second turn. Any time they jink after that, they are snap firing at BS1 since grim resolve only affects overwatch, and not even that in the turn after a jink..

I think there is an FAQ (albeit a draft) that grants any DA character on a bike to be RW. If that is true, he has a Chaplain on bike, so it was "legal"
Everything else you mention was done properly.
The only things I think were done wrong were A) they shouldn't have has Skilled rider & B) the Dark Shroud should have only given Stealth.

I'm gonna give my opponent a pass because he made it clear in the beginning that he was unfamiliar with some rules (former player returning to this edition). I should have made him check more, I just hate being that guy that keeps asking "can you check that rule please?" like 4x every round.
Next week if he is at the store, I'll bring this stuff up with him.

-

**JNAProductions**

Common houserule is that every bike-equipped HQ gains the Ravenwing special rule. Since it's a little bit dumb only Sammeal and Sableclaw count.

**Grimgold**

I would never allow that and I play dark angels. The HQ restriction is there to gimp them in CC, otherwise it's like super friends without the need to take allies, grab a librarian and a chaplain and let the invisible black knight bikestar reign of terror begin. If they want CC capable ICs they need to take them from somewhere else, which means that they are going to have to take troops of one stripe or another which waters down how tough they can be for their points.

**pm713**

Grimgold wrote:
I would never allow that and I play dark angels. The HQ restriction is there to gimp them in CC, otherwise it's like super friends without the need to take allies, grab a librarian and a chaplain and let the invisible black knight bikestar reign of terror begin. If they want CC capable ICs they need to take them from somewhere else, which means that they are going to have to take troops of one stripe or another which waters down how tough they can be for their points.

So why do they have multiple HQ slots? If they can only take one HQ why have multiple slots?

**Galef**

I just checked, in the draft FAQ for DAs, it mentions an errata that was published in 2015 that allows any character on a bike to be chosen as the HQ for the RW strikeforce.
It does not, however, grant said character the RW special rules, so no re-roll Jinks for him.

**Grimgold**

Actually just double checked and the FAQ mentioned this particular problem quoting an errata:

Page 159 – Ravenwing Strike Force, Restrictions
Replace this with the following:
‘All units in this Detachment must have the Ravenwing
special rule (pg 148) or be a Dark Angels Character
equipped with a Space Marine bike.’

bleh, not a fan of that but RAW is RAW, so it's not a house rule, but a very poor and very intentional decision. I for one do not welcome our black knight bike star overlords.

**Table**

Take a few sicarins and shoot them to shiz.

**CrownAxe**

Table wrote:
Take a few sicarins and shoot them to shiz.

Hard to take a SM unit in an eldar detachment

Anyway they only get 2+ jink form the Night Shroud's stealth so if you just kill that then they go back to 3+ jink (which is still really good with reroll but is killable). Also you could adopt the ITC house rule that rerollable 2+ on succeeds on a 4+ for the reroll.

But also DA aren't a top tier army and did not change the meta namely because there is plenty of ignore cover in the game (White Scars have a relic, Perfect Timing from psyker armies, Marker Lights for Tau) combined with the few good assault units in the game means that 2+ rerollable jink isn't the end all be all of power.

**kingbobbito**

Grimgold wrote:
Actually just double checked and the FAQ mentioned this particular problem quoting an errata:

Page 159 – Ravenwing Strike Force, Restrictions
Replace this with the following:
‘All units in this Detachment must have the Ravenwing
special rule (pg 148) or be a Dark Angels Character
equipped with a Space Marine bike.’

bleh, not a fan of that but RAW is RAW, so it's not a house rule, but a very poor and very intentional decision. I for one do not welcome our black knight bike star overlords.

Not all of us want to run captain mediocre who also costs $50 for one dude on a bike and is also finecast. Especially not if we're just using 2 squads, no one wants to take a 200 point HQ for a 200 point detachment. Or are you just opposed to the psychic phase and think biker librarians shouldn't be allowed in a biker formation?

**kburn**

500pts is odd territory, as the game was not designed to be played at such low points. Any imbalance will be greatly amplified at such small points, so you get extreme rock-paper-scissors moments like you highlighted.

If you want to play skirmish, try infinity, its much better, much more balanced, and much more fun.

Otherwise, you can upgrade your remaining bikes to 6 scatbikes instead, but that puts you in the deep end of "that guy"

**Dakka Wolf**

Nothing more boring than watching two shoot and run armies playing each other.
You want satisfaction? Got a three step process for you.
1. Man up.
2. Locate your testicles.
3. CHARGE!!!
You might have lost, but then again you might have killed of the Powerfist rider.

**Gamgee**

You didn't even fight a Deathstar OP which are wrecking the ITC right now and the top list to beat. Space Marine super friends as its called. In a no holds barred fight with all armies at maximum cheese the Tau and their Ta'unar list takes it though.

Regular matches: Super Friends (Space Marines Deathstar)

Crazy Matches: Ta'unar (all hail the destroyer)

**Grimgold**

kingbobbito wrote:

Not all of us want to run captain mediocre who also costs $50 for one dude on a bike and is also finecast. Especially not if we're just using 2 squads, no one wants to take a 200 point HQ for a 200 point detachment. Or are you just opposed to the psychic phase and think biker librarians shouldn't be allowed in a biker formation?

Raven wing are an army that is more or less immune to shooting, sucking in CC was a reasonable compensation for that. Instead they jink their happy butts up to you, and then loaded up with three CC focused ICs and proceed to ruin your day, it's about a TFG list as you can get outside of the full superfriends. It's also not very fluffy, "Don't worry Deathwing, you guys just stay on the barge we got this, Brother lIbrarian Leviticus got a lucky roll and we have invis, so we're good". The superfriends genie is out of the bottle, and thanks to the current ally chart there is no real way to stop it, so I'm frowning on it with the full knowledge it's not making the meta worse, it's just making the ravenwing less likeable. That was a big draw for me, Nobody hates the dark angels because they know we choose this army for reasons other than FOTM, and everyone is stoked to see marines that aren't McCragge Blue or Wolfy.

As for disliking the psychic phase, I actually like it a lot, at least in theory. It's unique-ish to 40k, it can be have some cool dynamics, it's fluffy, but there are just way too many ways to break it right now. None of the buffs are balanced, and the usefulness of the powers is all over the place. If I had a dollar for every telepathy psyker I've fought in tournaments, I could have paid my entry to at least a few of them. That's another issue with psychic powers right now, they don't make armies different, they make them the same, and that's lame.

**koooaei**

Your answer is a mellee wraithknight. But it contradicts even further with "not being TFG".

The thing you could do is to either get ignore cover (magic, d-wraiths) or build a mellee unit which is clearly doable with eldar. As for mellee unit, it might be interesting. The mellee lancer bikers with a banshee mask autarch are gona be mvp vs ravenwing bikers if you manage to keep them safe from plazma for at least a couple phases. And here the rest of your shooters will help a lot - forcing them to jink. Or you could run a seer council but i'm afraid it's not going to be as effective point-to-point.

And that's a good way of running a previously underrated unit.

**AnomanderRake**

"Just roll on Telepathy" is the quick answer to this one. Melee Wraithknights are certainly a quick and easy answer to everything, but they're far from the only answer you've got.

**kingbobbito**

Grimgold wrote:
kingbobbito wrote:

Not all of us want to run captain mediocre who also costs $50 for one dude on a bike and is also finecast. Especially not if we're just using 2 squads, no one wants to take a 200 point HQ for a 200 point detachment. Or are you just opposed to the psychic phase and think biker librarians shouldn't be allowed in a biker formation?

Raven wing are an army that is more or less immune to shooting, sucking in CC was a reasonable compensation for that. Instead they jink their happy butts up to you, and then loaded up with three CC focused ICs and proceed to ruin your day, it's about a TFG list as you can get outside of the full superfriends. It's also not very fluffy, "Don't worry Deathwing, you guys just stay on the barge we got this, Brother lIbrarian Leviticus got a lucky roll and we have invis, so we're good". The superfriends genie is out of the bottle, and thanks to the current ally chart there is no real way to stop it, so I'm frowning on it with the full knowledge it's not making the meta worse, it's just making the ravenwing less likeable. That was a big draw for me, Nobody hates the dark angels because they know we choose this army for reasons other than FOTM, and everyone is stoked to see marines that aren't McCragge Blue or Wolfy.

But I do run DW alongside them. I run a lot of DW. I want to run a small bike force that can survive until turn 2 when the pain (for me at least) drops in. I'm totally TFG. So again, I don't want to spend 200 points on Sammy when buying a librarian saves me over 100 points. Unfluffy? Every time the RW is called in Sammael happens to be there? "Sammy's under the weather today, so looks like the RW aren't allowed to help out here". And the people that run cheesy superfriends lists simply don't care about the fluff, so let them do their thing.

As for superfriends ICs, allowing librarians/company masters/chaplains with bikes isn't any big deal. You realize that 3 ICs really isn't anything, right? You can already take 2 in a CAD. Want some CC power in your bike squads? Run a bunch of iron priests on TWC (the generally preferred choice, because S10). I think you can just straight up take 5 of them w/wolves as a detachment. Want more librarians? We already have that, it's called a conclave. No one thinks DA are cheesy because we can take an extra HQ choice, they think we're cheesy because we have a 2+ rerollable. The last thing people will call us cheesy for is "oh no, you can take a formation that lets you take a librarian instead of a unique character" or "you're allowed to take three HQ choices, that's totally broken!"

Seriously, what is your reasoning for thinking that taking more than 1 HQ is overpowered?

**rawne2510**

JNAProductions wrote:
Common houserule is that every bike-equipped HQ gains the Ravenwing special rule. Since it's a little bit dumb only Sammeal and Sableclaw count.

FAQ was that any IC on bike can be part of the HQ option but it didn´t give them ravenwing rule

**koooaei**

Not that it's gona help that much w/o precision shots or barrage.

**Mr. CyberPunk**

Elbows wrote:
I'll be honest. I wouldn't even play a game with anything that involved 2+ re-rollable...anything. That's just silliness that doesn't belong on a table.

Agreed, even 3++ re-rollable is stretching it. This is the kind of madness that makes the game unplayable

**Zustiur**

Just posting to confirm Dark Angel rules for anyone who's not sure.
1) The FAQ allows the chaplain on bike in the Ravenwing detachment
2) Ravenwing Bike Squads may take a powerfist on the sergeant. Ravenwing Black Knights cannot
3) All Ravenwing (not the chaplain) get the re-roll for jink
4) Ravenwing Bike Squad does not have Skilled rider, Black Knights do.
5) Dark Shroud gives Shrouded to itself only. Other units within 12" get stealth
6) Points of the models and gear listed comes to 445 with the bikes being bikes. It would be over 500 with black knights, so it was definitely bikes. I'm guessing the remaining 55 went on upgrading to veteran sergeants and the chaplain having other gear

Jink + stealth + Ravenwing is 3+ rerolled. Not 2+ rerolled.
There were definitely some errors in this game.

And yeah for tactical advice, Ravenwing are really bad in combat by themselves. 1 attack each. 2 attacks for the power fist IF he's a veteran. However, they have Hit and Run so can get out if they don't want to be there.

**koooaei**

Can darkshrowd re-roll cover?

**rawne2510**

I believe it has RW rule so yes