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How good are white scars? I'm building a raven wing army, as I reckon they have much better options than white scars? Any one think differently? Discuss...

White scars have much better options than ravenwing. They start out with better abilities. Then they get TFC, stormravens, and stormtalons. This means where ravenwing falls apart to 2-3 helldrake builds the white scars can kill the helldrake and fight on. They get one of the best tank characters in the game in the eternal warrior chapter master with a 2+/3++. They get grav guns to remove wraithknights, riptides, and tervigons with ease.

There is exactly 1 thing the ravenwing can do that the white scars cannot do better; banner of devastation. However the problem with this is you can never make the banner squad tough enough to survive the return fire and hordes can be handled very effectively with TFCs in a white scars ist.

I have however had some luck with mixing white scars with ravenwing to gain the AA, grav guns, and tanking chapter master for my ravenwing banner of devastation list. However with escalation being released this build is useless in any escalation game and so hasn't seen much testing since then.

Ha, ok! So seems ravenwing are a little out decked by the normal marine dex! Typical! I was wondering if the fact that a ravenwing stack squadron can take an attack bike and a land speeder as part of the troops selections would help? Or the fact that black knights are awesome? Or that you can build command squads on bikes?

I did see what you're saying though, but things like TFC or storm talons don't appeal to me! But I'm building a pure raven wing army, with the exception of 2 land speeders and a dark shroud it is a pure bike list! 33 bikes, 2 attack bikes, 1 jetbike!

I also did the pure bike list. As long as you don't encounter helldrakes (or really any ignore cover, ignore 3+, troop killer flyer) then you will be fine. You might manage 1 helldrake well enough but once you hit 2 helldrakes the opponent can mop you up too fast.

Black knights taken as ravenwing command squads are pretty good actually. The problem is the same as all ravenwing though just magnified due to cost. Helldrakes kill black knights as if they were grots.

Have you thought of taking vengeance battery with quad icarus lascannons? Or air defense missile launchers from forge world?

1 thing the Ravenwing do better is banner huh? You're forgetting

Black Knights
Darkshroud
Teleport homers with some of the best terminators you can get
\

I am not forgetting any of those;
1) Black knights, I mentioned them but the discussion is only valid when you ignore helldrake 2+ lists and grav gun command squads are about as effective in the white scars dex. I love the black knights and think they are great but the dex does not support them properly.
2) Darkshroud tends to be a gimmick but how is having an inbuilt +1 jink not better than stealth until someone splats the HP2 skimmer?
3) He said pure ravenwing. Though let us be honest if you are talking about making the list stronger deathwing is probably not a good addition. Fun, fluffy, and in general a pleasant experience but not a strong TAC list unit.

How is it that I never see a Power Field Generator being talked about in the "Pro Dark Angels" column. Couple the 4++ with T5 and access to FnP (through an Apothocary or the even less talked about Banner of Fortitude, which I assume no one ever plays with) and you'd figure Heldrakes and other AP3, cover save ignoring weapons wouldn't be burning up units like so much tissue paper.

I understand the model count is low, but a unit of Black Knights with a 4+ invul backed up with FnP is going to be a pain to get rid of, or at least take a decent amount of resources to do so...

Can you take the flying, Stealth giving, DJ booth and take advantage of that with White scars?

Also, run a joint list, paint them black and white, it could look pretty good.

I love Ravenwing... I'm going to my damnedest to "make it work".

I don't know much about White Scars so, I can't add anything regarding that, other than I may ally them with something in the future if needed.

Here's my list to counter some of my meta of triple helldrakes, Tau farsight bomb, dual dreadknights, necrons...

At 1750

HQ:
Sammy on Bike

ELITE:
5x Deathwing Knights

TROOPS:
3x Ravenwing Bikes with 2x melta guns
1x Ravenwing Attack Bike with Multi-melta

3x Ravenwing Bikes with 2x melta guns
1x Ravenwing Attack Bike with Multi-melta

3x Ravenwing Bikes with 2x melta guns
1x Ravenwing Attack Bike with Multi-melta

3x Ravenwing Bikes with 2x melta guns
1x Ravenwing Attack Bike with Multi-melta

FAST:
2x Speeders with CML and HB

2x Speeders with CML and HB

2x Speeders with CML and HB

Heavy:
Mortis Contemptor Dread with CML + Kheres Assault Cannon

Played this list three times already... with the bikes threatening early in the game, the Speeders just chewed out my opponents.

I took out a dual helldrake list as well...

It's all about positioning.

Nice list, those Deathwing Knights are pure gold in the hands of the right general.

The Mortis Dreads (regular dreadnoughts that get skyfire / interceptor when they don't move) and the mortis comtemptor realy help Dark Angels against heldrakes.

White Scars bikes are cheaper (as they don't have built in teleport homers) and they have access to grav guns which is huge. A command squad on bikes (space marines) is pretty equal to black knights. Sammael is also a bit sub par though not terrible.
So in my opinion White Scars do pure bikes better and Dark Angels do terminators better and their ravenwing is built around delivering something deadly like Deathwing knights (which are way better than most people give them credit for)

Overall, I would go with the whitescars being slightly better. Here are the pros and cons:

Ravenwing pros
Banner of devastation
Black knights/ ravenwing command squad - Ravenwing banner
Utility Librarians with PFG and divination
Cheap scoring units - Ravenwing can get a scoring unit of 3 bikes, or 1 attack bike. This lets them have more, smaller, scoring units on the table than whitescars.
Come with scout as base

Whitescar pros
Cheaper bikes (Much cheaper)
Better jink saves
Better HoW
Grav weapons
Decent flyers (though I'm still not sure how needed flyers are in bike lists however)
No need for a special character - Bike chapter masters can be kitted out to be far more durable and dangerous than sammael.
Khan - not great on his own, but does solve the issue of no scout if you want it

Now what do these mean? Well if it comes down to claiming objectives then Ravenwing should have it due to having more troop choices. However, whitescars will get far more bikes on the table, and so may clear them off more easily.

Ravenwing give away first blood very easily due to their small units, and also suffer when playing killpoints games.

The difference in points between the bikes, and the base improvements are a large reason why I would say whitescars are more competitive.

If I was making a pure bike army, I would say that a whitescar primary, with DA allies would work best. The allies would consist of a libby on bike with PFG, a Ravenwing comand squad, some sniper scouts, and some Black knights.

Many of the benefits that DA get, can be gained by taking them as allies.

I lose most of my marines from weight of fire, not fancy AP weapons. This makes jinking and power fields and cover all T-totally useless. If the enemy forces enough 3+ saves, you'll fail them.

T5 does help with this, but the increased model cost hurts in return. From this point of view, I have to come down as White Scars being a better overall choice for bikers. Which is a travesty, I agree. RW should be hands down better, and they aren't.

I did wonder if the scars would pip it being a) the later release and b) in the generic marine dex. It's not going to make me change, I've always been a ravenwing boy, since 4th Ed in fact! I just wanted to know which bike army was better.

It massively annoys me that ravenwing don't get skilled rider as standard! That should be a no brainier! But oh well, thank The Lord for dark shrouds!

I do love black knights, one of the main reasons I won't switch. I am a sammael fan. (And yes, I know he's crap!) and I prefer the personalisation options. Anti air isn't a massive issue for me for 2 main reasons, 1 my meta has almost no fliers at all, and 2 I actually think jet fighters aren't that bad!

Keep the comments coming though, it's interesting listening about the scars!

I actually think jet fighters aren't that bad!

Sorry, but if you are reffering to the DA flyers then you are wrong. They are Bad. This is should be a universally accepted truth. Same with the landspeeder vengeance. There is no way these models are competitive.

Ravenwing can still be competitive, however compared to the whitescars they really lack versatility in list choices. For RW to be competitive you will normally have to run either a devastation list, or black knight spam.

Whitescars however get to mix it up a lot more due to having more options like thunderfire cannons and decent flyers.

What would you consider black knight spam? My 2K list has 20 black knights, 12 bikers, 2 attack bikes, 2 speeders, a shroud, a Libby on a bike, and sammael...it includes a dev standard, a PFG (all of a sudden) and apothecarys. It also has 4 melta guns, 2 multi meltas and 2 typhoon launchers.


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And why are they so bad?

That's not nearly enough firepower for a 2K list. Go look at an Eldar or even C:SM gunline at 2K.

Not nearly enough? It's 20 twin linked plasma, or 40 if in rapid range, and 48 twin linked bolters at full range? I know it's not quite eldar size of fire, but it's pretty high. I haven't included the HQ choices, attack bike weapons or typhoons!

One problem with the White Scar bikes is adding in allies creates strange focus fire scenarios as the white scars models get +1 to their jink and their allies don't. RAW focus fire shots can't be Look out sir to models with better cover save (Even when you are not using the cover save because your armor save is better!). So this has killed my dark Angels allies for my white scars, can't put a DA libby in any white scars unit and can't have the chapter master protect the black knights (the black knights skilled rider adds +1 to the chapter master in addition to his +1 so they can focus fire on the unit avoiding his 2+ save.
Any how my white scars bikers all have ravenwing looks to them

 Khaine's Wrath wrote:
Not nearly enough? It's 20 twin linked plasma, or 40 if in rapid range, and 48 twin linked bolters at full range? I know it's not quite eldar size of fire, but it's pretty high. I haven't included the HQ choices, attack bike weapons or typhoons!

20 Plasma shots is respectable but its actually not that much when its your main chunk of firepower. Imo the biggest issue is the 18" range on the Talons, its a big drop off compare to real Plasma. Sitting at 24" you still eat plenty of firepower to the face, but you aren't going to get charged very often (the idea being to kill what you have range to to push things out of range completely). Inside of 18" is easily within charge range of mobile assault units and puts you into the 12" range band for all those burst fire units (Guardians, Rapid Fire units etc). Comparing shot for shot with an Eldar Serpent spam list for example, the issue isn't so much the volume of shot difference (assuming at least 6 Serpents at 2k, thats an average of 24 T/L S7 shots) or the quality of the firepower (imo its about the same, Ignores Cover is actually about as useful as AP2 most of the time) its the range/threat range difference. Eldar can reach out and touch you from their back board edge, Talons have to be up in your face, which means they can't avoid anything and always get punched back pretty hard.