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It has been a while and I am not sure if this is the proper place for this (listbuilding is tactical if you ask me) but I have been wanting to start playing ravenwing for a long time now. It has been two years. Anyway I would like to ask a few questions to bike players and other ravenwing players.

1. What is the best way to play bikes on the board.

2. What are some good squad loadouts for ravenwing attack squadrons?

3. What is a good landspeeder loadout?

4. Are the flyers any good? I am really interested in hearing this from someone who has played them.

5. Any list ideas in general

6. What is the best way to build a ravenwing army starting from dark vengeance and another dark vengeance bike squad?

I am interested in what people have to say and really want to play a bike army. Thank you for your time.

I played RW for a year straight.... WS do it much better. I was very disappointed by the lack of options and traits they have. I tried to to stay pure RW and it didn't work to we'll.

 SheSpits wrote:
I played RW for a year straight.... WS do it much better. I was very disappointed by the lack of options and traits they have. I tried to to stay pure RW and it didn't work to we'll.

I really just want to play ravenwing, I am not looking for a top tier army I just like the flavor and ascetic of ravenwing better, I would just like to get some ideas on how to use them and how to kit them out.

 SheSpits wrote:
I played RW for a year straight.... WS do it much better. I was very disappointed by the lack of options and traits they have. I tried to to stay pure RW and it didn't work to we'll.

Man, that ain't much advice for someone that wants to play Ravenwing.

For most lists, start with Sammael and a 5 man Ravenwing Command Squad with either the banner of devestation or banner of fortitude. Most serious RW lists have another HQ (usually a Libby but I like a chaplain) with another 5 man Ravenwing command squad sporting the Ravenwing company banner.

Attack squads should either be maxed naked to pump out Bolter shots, with the Dev banner. Or armed with meltas to provide AT. If I have spare points I give the sarges power weapons to charge units hit by a stasis or rad shell. Hit & Run allows you to keep shootin. Throw in attack bikes for more meltas and ObjSec goodness.

I've had the best luck with Typhoon Speeders. Melta speeders get targeted quickly, as do heavy flamer speeders. However when they hit, they hit hard.

Flyers are bad. We all love the models. We all hate the rules. S6 missiles? C'mon. You can try the Talon in conjunction with the Dev banner, but that's just a novelty. The Niph with a TLLC might kill a flyer every third game.

Purchasing the RW battle force is never a bad call. That, or some black knights. But if you don't have Sammael he's a requirement. Some searches in the lists forum should give you some solid suggestions - the army has been around a while now.

 UnadoptedPuppy wrote:

 SheSpits wrote:
I played RW for a year straight.... WS do it much better. I was very disappointed by the lack of options and traits they have. I tried to to stay pure RW and it didn't work to we'll.

Man, that ain't much advice for someone that wants to play Ravenwing.

For most lists, start with Sammael and a 5 man Ravenwing Command Squad with either the banner of devestation or banner of fortitude. Most serious RW lists have another HQ (usually a Libby but I like a chaplain) with another 5 man Ravenwing command squad sporting the Ravenwing company banner.

Attack squads should either be maxed naked to pump out Bolter shots, with the Dev banner. Or armed with meltas to provide AT. If I have spare points I give the sarges power weapons to charge units hit by a stasis or rad shell. Hit & Run allows you to keep shootin. Throw in attack bikes for more meltas and ObjSec goodness.

I've had the best luck with Typhoon Speeders. Melta speeders get targeted quickly, as do heavy flamer speeders. However when they hit, they hit hard.

Flyers are bad. We all love the models. We all hate the rules. S6 missiles? C'mon. You can try the Talon in conjunction with the Dev banner, but that's just a novelty. The Niph with a TLLC might kill a flyer every third game.

Purchasing the RW battle force is never a bad call. That, or some black knights. But if you don't have Sammael he's a requirement. Some searches in the lists forum should give you some solid suggestions - the army has been around a while now.

Thank you, could I ally in guard for air support?

I had a descent amount of luck with the black knights. I ran 9 with a Libby and PFG had the darkshourd close by. Twin linked plas shots and rending CC attacks was nice.

Guard is a great way to up the body count and fill in holes. Air Support is definitely one of these holes. Vendettas, Vultures and Avengers will all help you out big time.

If you want air support without the Guard I'd look at the Fire Raptor or Storm Eagle. If you need AA and don't mind adding some Deathwing elements Contemptor and normal Mortis dreads are awesome.

Allie in codex space marines and take stormravens and talons. Plus they should be battle brothers. You could also paint them up RW style and they would flow great.

Huh, I will look into those. I really like the idea of backfield vets or platoons, platoons are good bubble wrap and if deployed properly can prevent deepstrikers for a max of until your opponet focuses them.

What scale of army are you looking at? And you fully intend to do pure ravenwing? I'm asking, because in 1000 or less I think Sammael is way too much. I run a librarian on a bike for less than half his points, then just take two squads of "support" sniper scouts, there to reinforce my ravenwing. They compliment the army well, being able to hunker down in ruins that you normally don't want to drive bikes through.

In games you do plan on running Sammy, I cannot tell you how much I love knights, especially if you have turn 1. Scout them in as far as you can get them, then try and get in some turn 1 rapid fire with those plasmas. Make sure to utilize the plasma as early in the game as you can, as opponents will do their best to make you jink and try to force you to constantly jink with them.

Try looking for some dark vengeance bikes on ebay, or see if you can buy a DV set with 2x DA models if you are interested in branching out. (The librarian from this is easy to convert onto a bike).

For air support go with the SM flyer dataslate, or get a fireraptor.

Get 5-10 black knights.

Edit: As others have said however, whitescars are better. I like the RW look more, but I still use my RW models with WS rules for their cheaper bikes and gravguns.

Here are some ideas that I used when I played ravenwing,

Keep you bike squads pure bolters, don't add in any melta or plasma (aside from maybe melta bombs). Put in melta attack bikes for your AT.

Command Squads are awesome, IIRC they are slightly cheaper than black knights add in BoDevastation and the champ. If your can, put a command squad for each of your HQs. Mine are usually Sammy on a bike and/ or Libby on a bike. In games higher than 1500, I almost always add a Libby

If you want speeders, I would go with either double melta/ flamer or Typhoon. I never really bothered with the special speeders. The shroudspeeder is nice but Jink ruins your shooting phase so you have rely on cover + shroud to get a good save.