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 Kingsley wrote:
A five-man Ravenwing Command Squad with Apothecary (and potentially Sammael) should be quite hard to kill, especially on a table with enough terrain. It is somewhat vulnerable to barrage sniping, but barrage weapons are not very common right now and are far from reliable in any case.

Except for thunderfire cannons. I expect we will see more of those soon.

I think you would be a bit surprised to see how easy it is to kill 6 MEQ bodies with Tau and Eldar. They just have the required tools to deal with command bike squads. The only way to run a banner of devestation is to put it in a LRC.

Don't take my word for it. Go look at the results from the NOVA open. What was the win/loss ratio of dark angles? How many DA armies were in the top 20?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
Yea i know. I should really not post something while having low blood sugar. You get pretty mad at everything X-X

Comment retracted

Same thing happens to me too

 labmouse42 wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:
A five-man Ravenwing Command Squad with Apothecary (and potentially Sammael) should be quite hard to kill, especially on a table with enough terrain. It is somewhat vulnerable to barrage sniping, but barrage weapons are not very common right now and are far from reliable in any case.

Except for thunderfire cannons. I expect we will see more of those soon.

I think you would be a bit surprised to see how easy it is to kill 6 MEQ bodies with Tau and Eldar. They just have the required tools to deal with command bike squads. The only way to run a banner of devestation is to put it in a LRC.

I think you would be a bit surprised to see how easy it is to protect a small-footprint unit that can move 12" and turbo-boost.

 labmouse42 wrote:
Don't take my word for it. Go look at the results from the NOVA open. What was the win/loss ratio of dark angles? How many DA armies were in the top 20?

Almost nobody played Dark Angels at the NOVA open. That doesn't, however, mean that they are bad.

Breng77 wrote:

jamin484 wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
2 hits is hardly a lot. And what about eldar? They auto kill it turn 1.

They use their shield and then lose the best tank in the game. I love it when people make the mistake of shooting their serpent shield at my crappy wee dark shroud. I would swap a dark shroud for a wave serpent any day. The really silly thing is they've wasted that shot on something that has no offensive output. The shroud is great because people either shoot at it (which is great, as its basically a wasted shot whether you kill it or not) or they don't (which is great because it jumps about helping anyone who is not in combat, which should be almost no one in the enemy shooting phase due to hit and run). In my experience, you only need the cover save for the first turn, after that you can hide in combat.

So if the cover save is so good how is someone killing it a waste. Mis spend 1 of several serpents killing it, then unload the rest against bike units....oh and since I moved I have 4+ cover at worst.... And against serpent spam + wraithknights you are hiding in combat with what exactly? The wraith knight? Cause as the eldar player I'm not to upset by that.

As for it being out of Los how does that work against multiple serpents (or tau smart missiles) while still giving all your bikes a 2+ cover save?

Also I even forgot about the buff commander, no need for tau to marker light you at all.

Sorry the dark shroud was good until tau and eldar came out, not it is a waste of points that could be better spent elsewhere.

The serpents die if they shoot their shields. 10+ melta guns at close range will see to that, then you assault what's inside the serpents, and hide in combat. A wraith knight is unlikely to survive a round of shooting and combat with a squad of black knights. Ony one model needs to be within 6 to give the unit stealth, and the shroud is easy to hide.

RW are not a top tier army by any stretch. The banner is too east to snipe out and they don't have enough to deal with serpent spam which sensibly doesn't fire its shield and just boosts away. That's why they may be stronger by including WS. Aritficer armour SS captain to tank for the banner squad and allied grav guns for WS;s at range and MC's.

You dont have to decide witch 1 to use, go with both..... you can make a death star allying White scars to DA. Samael+Chapter master on bike with thunder hammer+White scars command squad in bikes with gravgunsand apothecary yo get a 2++ squat to place in the front of your army as fire magnet so your RWCS`s with plasma talons and Rad greanades, you melta RWAS, you grav White Scars bike squats, your dakka banner and your DA librarian with PFG and prescience survive.
White Scars as allies just make RAVENWING go crazy better. Ive seen that command squad acting as fire magnet for 2 turns eating my enemy full army shoots while the rest of my guys totally erase them in 2 turns. It reminds me Necron Wraiths eating everyting the oponent have to shoot at them and still reaching their targets... If you feel specially evil buy the master an eternal shield...

 Kingsley wrote:

 labmouse42 wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:
A five-man Ravenwing Command Squad with Apothecary (and potentially Sammael) should be quite hard to kill, especially on a table with enough terrain. It is somewhat vulnerable to barrage sniping, but barrage weapons are not very common right now and are far from reliable in any case.

Except for thunderfire cannons. I expect we will see more of those soon.

I think you would be a bit surprised to see how easy it is to kill 6 MEQ bodies with Tau and Eldar. They just have the required tools to deal with command bike squads. The only way to run a banner of devestation is to put it in a LRC.

I think you would be a bit surprised to see how easy it is to protect a small-footprint unit that can move 12" and turbo-boost.

I have to agree with this. From playing Eldar, my Jetbikes survive more often than not, and I don't tend to Turbo Boost very far with them that often. And they are only T4.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
I have to agree with this. From playing Eldar, my Jetbikes survive more often than not, and I don't tend to Turbo Boost very far with them that often. And they are only T4.

Here is the thing. Your Eldar jetbikes are trying to stay as far from any engagements as possible. They also have a 48" move per turn to do this.

The command squad needs to be within 6" of friendly units on the shooting phase to do this. This means if they want to do the jump - buff - jump trick they have to stay 12" from the 'front lines'.

Its much less doable. I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying its not in the same ballpark as keeping 3 jetbikes hidden.

 labmouse42 wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
I have to agree with this. From playing Eldar, my Jetbikes survive more often than not, and I don't tend to Turbo Boost very far with them that often. And they are only T4.

Here is the thing. Your Eldar jetbikes are trying to stay as far from any engagements as possible. They also have a 48" move per turn to do this.

The command squad needs to be within 6" of friendly units on the shooting phase to do this. This means if they want to do the jump - buff - jump trick they have to stay 12" from the 'front lines'.

Its much less doable. I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying its not in the same ballpark as keeping 3 jetbikes hidden.

I was more referring to Bike Squads in general; I didn't think you were referring to a Bolter Banner RW Squad specifically.

One downside is that the banner carrier is not a character, so is vulnerable to precision shots and skills which mimic their effect.

This aside, it is a fact that the banner bearer is both the strongest and weakest link in a RW list, and when he dies (which inevitably he will vs a good opponent) then the firepower out put of the army is drastically reduced. Whitescars have no such weakness, and also have no reasons to form a huge blob of bikes which limits mobility somewhat.

 labmouse42 wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
I have to agree with this. From playing Eldar, my Jetbikes survive more often than not, and I don't tend to Turbo Boost very far with them that often. And they are only T4.

Here is the thing. Your Eldar jetbikes are trying to stay as far from any engagements as possible. They also have a 48" move per turn to do this.

The command squad needs to be within 6" of friendly units on the shooting phase to do this. This means if they want to do the jump - buff - jump trick they have to stay 12" from the 'front lines'.

Its much less doable. I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying its not in the same ballpark as keeping 3 jetbikes hidden.

If that's how you use the dakka banner you are using it badly. It should always be at least 30" away from the enemy unless the squad is going for an assault. All bolters are salvo 4 at 24" the dakka banner hould be 4 to 5" further back than this, then it should turbo boost after shooting has been buffed further back still and preferably out of line of sight. The key here is that the turbo boost happens in the shooting phase so you can do it after everyone has benefited from the salvo 4 bolters, and ignore terrain to do so (like through a LOS blocking wall for instance).

Thing is with that though, if you are always Turbo-Boosting with your Banner Bearer, then you are never firing the squads Plasma Talons, so all of a sudden you are effectively paying 230pts for this Banner now rather than 65pts.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
Thing is with that though, if you are always Turbo-Boosting with your Banner Bearer, then you are never firing the squads Plasma Talons, so all of a sudden you are effectively paying 230pts for this Banner now rather than 65pts.

Yeah, I only tend to fire the plasma talons once or twice a game. That's usually enough to account for a riptide/wraithknight/TEQ squad though

Sandokann wrote:
You dont have to decide witch 1 to use, go with both..... you can make a death star allying White scars to DA. Samael+Chapter master on bike with thunder hammer+White scars command squad in bikes with gravgunsand apothecary to get a 2++ squad to place in the front of your army as fire magnet so your RWCS`s with plasma talons and Rad greanades, your melta RWAS, your grav White Scars bike squats, your dakka banner and your DA librarian with PFG and prescience survive.

White Scars as allies just make RAVENWING go crazy better. Ive seen that command squad acting as fire magnet for 2 turns eating my enemy full army shoots while the rest of my guys totally erase them in 2 turns. It reminds me Necron Wraiths eating everyting the oponent have to shoot at them and still reaching their targets... If you feel specially evil buy the master an eternal shield...

A Space Marine Chapter Master does not unlock a Command Squad, just an Honour Guard, so it'd have to be a Captain there.

Even though it doesn't make a huge difference I would put a Librarian with power field generator in with the command squad, as the 4+ invulnerable save could make them more resilient if targeted with AP2/3 fire. If you're sitting behind the other Ravenwing bikes you're probably far enough away not to be targeted by the massed anti-personal fire that kills bikers so quickly.