New Chaos Raptor Tactics Discussion

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**Reavas**

I released a similar post in general discussion but was hoping to discuss tactics with raptors and warp talons with the new formation, which do you prefer taking and why? do you think this formation will be any good? what is the optimal load-out for raptor units?

Discuss below

**dracpanzer**

And a free jump pack for the Lord. Remember what they say about hope....

**Reavas**

dracpanzer wrote:
And a free jump pack for the Lord. Remember what they say about hope....

Yeah it looks great, didn't think we would get anything this good!

**Slayer-Fan123**

I'm still doing Raptors with two Melta Guns.

However whether I do MSU or not is a different question. Going all out with MoS with the Icon makes theme dangerous but really hurts the ability to deep strike. I'll likely do 5 squads with MoN (as Scatterlasers from a minimum squad will kill less than two as opposed to over two), all Melta Guns, and hope I pop transports. That's likely a better tactic.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm thinking the Lord will be hopping around with a MoN spawn squad. That's my ultimate plan.

**Reavas**

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I'm still doing Raptors with two Melta Guns.

However whether I do MSU or not is a different question. Going all out with MoS with the Icon makes theme dangerous but really hurts the ability to deep strike. I'll likely do 5 squads with MoN (as Scatterlasers from a minimum squad will kill less than two as opposed to over two), all Melta Guns, and hope I pop transports. That's likely a better tactic.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm thinking the Lord will be hopping around with a MoN spawn squad. That's my ultimate plan.

You should definatly give your raptor champion meltabombs, if the 2 meltaguns don't do the job your sorted. I might even start using warp talons now that they can survive into combat, they would DESTROY most troop units.

**Slayer-Fan123**

I had assumed Melta Bombs were mandatory on Raptors and Biker champions.

**GrafWattenburg**

Since you're forced to make a disordered charge, MoK is useless.

On Warp Talons, who still don't have grenades, Slaanesh is useless against a competent opponent.

So that's 50% of our marks out the window because GW fails at fixing the essential issue with one unit (in addition to the cost), and always has a need to penalize Chaos for some weird reason. Skyhammer gets zero penalties and a bunch of bonuses to get into combat (turn 1 entry, forcing gtg with devastators, potential for scatter mitigation).

But with my salt over, this is actually my favorite formation. Is it very competitive? Nah. Can it have its uses? Definitely Raptors were always shadowed by Spawn, Bikers and Drakes when competing for the 3 FA slots in a CAD, but they're a good melta delivery system.

A Chaos Lord with the Axe of Blind Fury, even when losing the Rage attacks, is still a nasty thing to get thrown in your face.

**techsoldaten**

This formation screams for Warp Talons, not actual raptors.

Deep Strike them next to your enemy's favorite long-distance shooter, blind them, and let the Lightning Claws do the rest. Anything that's not in Terminator armor is going to have a hard time with that.

I realize they don't have grenades and the charge would need to be a disordered charge. All that means to me is multi-charge, just tie up as many other units as possible.

**KhorneontheCobb**

I think MoT on the Warp Talons can be nice... Combine with Cursed Earth and now they have 3+, 3++. I think a lord with fist/claw combo, sigil, and MoT (3+,3++) sharing his grenades with the warp talons.. Few msu units of raptors with melta- maybe 1 with flamers. Probably MoN on the raptors, possibly MoS.

**Captyn_Bob**

I feel like comboing with the fist of khorne would be good

**Capamaru**

Well at least chaos got something partially useful out of this.

**Roknar**

KhorneontheCobb wrote:
I think MoT on the Warp Talons can be nice... Combine with Cursed Earth and now they have 3+, 3++. I think a lord with fist/claw combo, sigil, and MoT (3+,3++) sharing his grenades with the warp talons.. Few msu units of raptors with melta- maybe 1 with flamers. Probably MoN on the raptors, possibly MoS.

I still think the talons would need the dimensional key to be worthwhile. The formations works much better for raptors imho. Of course if you want to fish for a first turn assault with the new psychic powers you could totally let the warp talons leg it and add a sorcerer for veil of time. A rerollable 3++ should more than make up for the lack of grenades, plus the sorc might get might of heroes and can soften a unit with psychic powers and straight up melee.

**Slayer-Fan123**

If you're going Talons splurge for MoN/T. They're garbage so might as well try to keep them alive for a mild amount longer.

**Jancoran**

I have had great success with Night Lords, so this comes as a welcome surprise. It literally will not change my force at all, just make it better. And it already had done well.

I just happen to have come into possession of one of the really cool looking metal Jump Pack Chaos Lords, which i was lacking and had been proxying otherwise so i am twice as jazzed for this development now that I can field the force exactly as it should be!

Three cheers for positive developments.

**nareik**

GrafWattenburg wrote:
Since you're forced to make a disordered charge, MoK is useless.

On Warp Talons, who still don't have grenades, Slaanesh is useless against a competent opponent.

So that's 50% of our marks out the window because GW fails at fixing the essential issue with one unit (in addition to the cost), and always has a need to penalize Chaos for some weird reason. Skyhammer gets zero penalties and a bunch of bonuses to get into combat (turn 1 entry, forcing gtg with devastators, potential for scatter mitigation).

But with my salt over, this is actually my favorite formation. Is it very competitive? Nah. Can it have its uses? Definitely Raptors were always shadowed by Spawn, Bikers and Drakes when competing for the 3 FA slots in a CAD, but they're a good melta delivery system.

A Chaos Lord with the Axe of Blind Fury, even when losing the Rage attacks, is still a nasty thing to get thrown in your face.

you just have to spam pinning tests if you don't have grenades. If you are going slaanesh, you may well already have pinning from your sonic weapons, slaanesh sorcerer (lol) or hadesdrake (lmao). Popping the transport of the thing you want to charge also forces a pinning check. You can force more than one pinning check per turn/phase.

So yea, it requires synergy and won't work against autopass pinning.

**koooaei**

No scatter mitigation, no reserve manipulations, disoriented charge.

Unfortunately, tis formation is not nearly as amazing as people want it to be. Loyalists allready got skyhammer that they only use for devastators and a vanguard vet one. Both formations know when they're gona be on the table. Vanguard vet one can even DS without scatter near 2 scout squads or near one of the numerous sm beacons and they ofc don't loose attacks on the charge and get 5 ppm power weapons.

I have faced the vanguard vet formation and it's possible to play around - i focused down scouts and than vets had to scatter (like raptors do) and only 1 squad made it to combat. Now raptor formatin is objectively worse in every respect other than Lord.

It's gona be good if there's a way of mitigating or getting rid of scatter. But i can only think of dimensional key that won't work till at least turn 3 and would eat up a precious relic slot or daemons with a banner - but that's only for warp talons and only d6 scatter reduction.

**MechaEmperor7000**

To me this is a very support-based formation. It's not meant to be a standalone army (indeed if you want to use the ability to the fullest, it can't be standalone) and the two units are more useful as counter-units. Dropping a squad of Raptors armed with two flamers then charging a unit can devastate hordes and even force a respectable amount of saves on high-armored infantry. Warp Talons can be devastating when they come in at just the right time and not losing a 30-some-odd point model due to shooting phases. And the Raptor Lord basically can pop in and delete entire units if armed correctly. The major draw of this formation is alpha-striking; your units are completely invulnerable until they deepstrike in, in which case they can cause a lot of havoc before the opponent can respond (unless they're tau and have interceptor shenanigans). Because of this I feel like they should be used to systematically cripple your opponent and provide a distraction for your actual main force.

I would pair this up with the Fist of the Gods; the heavy armor you can bring from that formation fills in a lot of the holes in this one; long ranged weapons means your opponent will have to get close to you, scattering his forces across the board and leaving more room for you to deepstrike. The tanks are also more likely to survive.

**SicSemperTyrannis**

Feth Khornes Bloodstorm, this is the way to go

**Reavas**

A lot of people were suggesting take a murdersword with the chaos lord with jump pack. It could essentially act as your own personal assassin, one that your opponent can't really stop either

**locarno24**

I still think the talons would need the dimensional key to be worthwhile.

The problem with the Dimensional Key is that unless you can somehow contrive for the bearer to be in an assault on turn 1, by the time it's enabled 2/3 of your reserves have already arrived.

Since Warp Talons have the Daemon rule, cursed earth is a better buy.

**harkequin**

locarno24 wrote:
I still think the talons would need the dimensional key to be worthwhile.

The problem with the Dimensional Key is that unless you can somehow contrive for the bearer to be in an assault on turn 1, by the time it's enabled 2/3 of your reserves have already arrived.

Since Warp Talons have the Daemon rule, cursed earth is a better buy.

With the new psychic powers, if they are as close to the loyalist ones as expected, there are easy enough ways to make it into combat turn 1.
For 235 points you can get 2 ML3 sorcerors, one with the dimensional key, and 75% chance of getting electrodisplacement for a turn 1 charge, just hit a scout squad, kill 1 model and bam.

If you get it turn 1, you now have a Lord coming in on turn 2 that can land anywhere, with 4 + D6 S6 WS5 attacks at AP2 and initiative 5.
and 2 raptor squads which can harrass smaller units like objective camping scouts, or can even melta a tank.

The new psychic powers can make or break a lot of these formations

**Slayer-Fan123**

Reavas wrote:
A lot of people were suggesting take a murdersword with the chaos lord with jump pack. It could essentially act as your own personal assassin, one that your opponent can't really stop either

Literally nobody is suggesting the Murder Sword. Do NOT spend points on the murder sword.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

koooaei wrote:
No scatter mitigation, no reserve manipulations, disoriented charge.

Unfortunately, tis formation is not nearly as amazing as people want it to be. Loyalists allready got skyhammer that they only use for devastators and a vanguard vet one. Both formations know when they're gona be on the table. Vanguard vet one can even DS without scatter near 2 scout squads or near one of the numerous sm beacons and they ofc don't loose attacks on the charge and get 5 ppm power weapons.

I have faced the vanguard vet formation and it's possible to play around - i focused down scouts and than vets had to scatter (like raptors do) and only 1 squad made it to combat. Now raptor formatin is objectively worse in every respect other than Lord.

It's gona be good if there's a way of mitigating or getting rid of scatter. But i can only think of dimensional key that won't work till at least turn 3 and would eat up a precious relic slot or daemons with a banner - but that's only for warp talons and only d6 scatter reduction.

And as I pointed out in another thread you live in Casual City where Mutilators are considered a good pick. Either your opponent is garbage or the Vanguard loadout is. Of course you aren't impressed.
This is an excellent way to get cheap Melta into a list and possibly finishing off units on an objective. This will be effective against Scatterbikes but will fair less well against Gladius lists.

**koooaei**

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

And as I pointed out in another thread you live in Casual City where Mutilators are considered a good pick. Either your opponent is garbage or the Vanguard loadout is.

Ofc, your unlimited experience from GT City is outweighting it. Try to come to understanding that sm allready have it. They have a BETTER version of it. And yet tou don't see them running around left and right winning everything like it's no big deal.

I'm not saying it's garbage. It's an ok formation. Just not really amazing as there are still a lot of obstacles that involve high levels of unreliability.

**Orthon**

I am thinking of running 3 specialized squads that are very effective at doing one thing:

Lord jump pack, sigil, pair lightning claws (the GW model for lord on jump pack)

Raptors x5 w/2x flamer, combi-flamer, power sword
-A bully weaker infantry and flush them from cover unit.

Raptors x5 w/2x melga-gun, comb-melta, power fist
-A tank hunter unit.

Warp Talons x5, mark of slanesh
-Lord joins them, so a unit of I5 lightning claws to hunt marines.

**nareik**

I think for your flamer unit you either want a power mace or lightning claw (which is just a better sword as you replaced his pistol with a combi).