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From Codex Dark Eldar, Bladevanes:

When moving with Turbo Boosters, a Reaver unit may slash its foes with its bladevanes. Mark the start and end points of the unit's move, and trace an imaginary line between the two points. Once the move is complete, the unit inflicts D3 S4 AP- hits per Reaver on one unengaged, non-vehicle unit that lies under the line, resolved immediately. Cover saves may be taken as normal.

Nothing here nor in the DE FAQ restricts hitting anything other than vehicles and units in combat.

From 40K Rulebook FAQ:

Q: How do maelstroms, novas, and beams - or indeed any weapon that doesn't need to roll To Hit or hits automatically - interact with Zooming Flyers and Swooping Flying Monstrous Creatures?
A: Only snap shots can hit Zooming Flyers and Swooping Flying Monstrous Creatures. Therefore, any attacks that use blast markers, templates, create a line of/area of effect or otherwise don't roll to hit cannot target them. ...

The question is, does this FAQ ruling apply to bladevanes. Bladevanes automatically hits, but its not a shooting attack. Opinions?

There is nothing in the FAQ that specifies the restriction is only against shooting attacks.

Bladevanes don't roll to hit, so they don't harm FMC.

Sounds like Reavers are engaging in a Vector Strike before the attack had a generic name an rule set. Well, a Vector Strike with the notable limit that it cannot effect vehicles. Its not RAW, unless its in the Dark Eldar FAQ somewhere, but since Vector Strikes can hit flyers I would agree to let it hit my Flyrant.

Rumbleguts wrote:
Sounds like Reavers are engaging in a Vector Strike before the attack had a generic name an rule set. Well, a Vector Strike with the notable limit that it cannot effect vehicles. Its not RAW, unless its in the Dark Eldar FAQ somewhere, but since Vector Strikes can hit flyers I would agree to let it hit my Flyrant.

I wouldn't hah, not like those Deldar don't have enough of an advantage against Niddies already

Rumbleguts wrote:
Sounds like Reavers are engaging in a Vector Strike before the attack had a generic name an rule set. Well, a Vector Strike with the notable limit that it cannot effect vehicles. Its not RAW, unless its in the Dark Eldar FAQ somewhere, but since Vector Strikes can hit flyers I would agree to let it hit my Flyrant.

The attack is granted due to the blades on the vehicle; hence why it is a Bladevane attack; not Vector Strike. They are two different rules with their own restrictions. If it was meant to be a vector strike attack, they would have FAQd it when all of the FAQs came out to update the codexes for 6th.

clively wrote:

Rumbleguts wrote:
Sounds like Reavers are engaging in a Vector Strike before the attack had a generic name an rule set. Well, a Vector Strike with the notable limit that it cannot effect vehicles. Its not RAW, unless its in the Dark Eldar FAQ somewhere, but since Vector Strikes can hit flyers I would agree to let it hit my Flyrant.

The attack is granted due to the blades on the vehicle; hence why it is a Bladevane attack; not Vector Strike. They are two different rules with their own restrictions. If it was meant to be a vector strike attack, they would have FAQd it when all of the FAQs came out to update the codexes for 6th.

I suppose its true if they intended to make it a Vector Strike they would have FAQed it, but then again, they missed quite a lot of things in the FAQ, as this section of the forum proves.

That the blades are mounted on the rear of, what sounds like a jet bike, doesn't really mean anything, When my Hive Tyrant performs a Vector Strike, what exactly Is it hitting with? The spikey, sharp and boney parts of its anatomy, not its perfectly functional boneswords, for some reason.

Since these reavers don't have the Vector Strike rules, by RAW, I would agree they cannot, strickly, use that attack against a flyer. But I think it makes for great story and if we ever played each other if he wanted to perform high speed raking attacks with Reavers against my Hive Tyrant I would just smile and say, "Go for it!".