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Heya guys long time no post. I could use your advice on this as I've not played properly for some time now and I might be a bit rusty.

I got some games workshop vouchers for crimbo and spent them on the new desolator squad (where you get a squad of chaos marines and a rhino in a box) and a set of raptors, mostly because I love the models.

I'm planning on using the chaos marines as havocks with loads of plasma in the rhino as a hard hitting shock squad but I'm a little torn between giving my raptors flamers or meltaguns.

On the one hand I have a really powerful image in my head of these guys swooping down to clear out entrenched infantry behind cover on objectives by flaming them and charging in to finish them off. I'd give the champion a power sword for close combat and meltabombs for opportunistic vehicle hunting. I really want this to work but I had some disappointment with a hellhound that always gets taken as a devildog now that's giving me deja vu.

I'm just a little worried that this tactic would just be ineffective against a lot of armies and melta gives the opportunity to take out vehicles or put a dent in some heavy units. I do have a melta terminator squad for suicidal deep-striking for now that's doing ok for now. What do you guys think?

Thanks for reading,
Jim.

I have a Squad of five Raptors armed with two Flamers because that's what my friends and I happened to collect 15 years ago. I've only had a couple games with them, but they've been ok. Most notably, they avoided being charged by a squad of Daemonettes because of the Flamers Wall of Flame ability, so that was kinda nice.

If I had the choice, I might go with Meltas for the AT, since they're already pretty good at assaulting, and meltas would allow them to engage something a little tougher. Then again the Meltas are a few more points, and I'm scraping for points, so part of me would rather just have bare Raptors with CC and Bolt Pistol.

On the plus side, Flamers are cheap and they burn the **** out of Pathfinders, so that's nice. The thing about Flamers is that you wind up rarely using them, but when you get them into the right situation they can be exactly the thing you want to have. I remember one game where I killed something like 15 guardsmen with two flamers with Assault troopers, and another game where I killed a couple Ravenwing Bikers with insane Jink saves, just because the Flamers ignore cover.

Chaos Raptors with flamers is a pretty good idea, even better when combined with the Raptor Talon formation from the Traitors Legion. You do have to take at least three of them thou, so I don't know if that is what you want.
But yeah, it is not a terrible idea if you want to use the unit to hit big blobs of enemy units.

Out of curiosity, can they burn marker drones well, too?

Martel732 wrote:
Out of curiosity, can they burn marker drones well, too?

Decent enough, Marker drones are T4, compared to pathfinders with T3, so your S4 flamer is going to do a bit less wounds on them on average.
They also got a 4+ save while the pathfinders only have a 5+, making them quite a lot tougher to wound with a normal flamer. But still, flamers are darn cheap and can deal a lot of wounds when the template hits just right, so I guess they will do alright.

Sounds like a job for heavy flamers

Sadly enough, raptors can not have heavy flamers.
You could give the Raptor Champion a combi-flamer for a whooping three flamer templates to unleash upon your foes.

I think there's arguments for both flamer and melta.

I don't think its a terrible idea but prefer meltas personally.
Could be fun to add a jump pack lord/sorceror with the burning brand of skalanthrax for added flamey goodness!

Thanks for the replies gang I think I'm going to go for it and stick the flamers on there. If it doesn't work out I might buy a second set for melta activities, it's a great kit.

Raptors talon sounds quite good, I'll have to consider that for my future buys. *edit* That sounds fun! Two flamers, combi-flamer and the brand in one squad!

You could always magnetise the special weapons and have fun with both, good luck!

Magnets! I'd completely forgotten about that thanks BassDrum that's what I'm doing for sure now.

Glad we could help out, magnets are indeed a very good idea.

Deepstriking w/o any scatter mitigation doesn't go well with flamers. Furthermore, if you're running raptor talon, killing infantry models with flamers can be a bad thing cause it increases the charge range.

I'd consider flamers if you field them on the board. It's melta otherwise.

I prefers to have flamers on bikes.
As a nurgle player on raptors I'd take either melts or plasma

Who do you typically fight? Flamers would be relatively ineffective for me as I normally fight Marines or equivalent...

 koooaei wrote:
Deepstriking w/o any scatter mitigation doesn't go well with flamers. Furthermore, if you're running raptor talon, killing infantry models with flamers can be a bad thing cause it increases the charge range.

I'd consider flamers if you field them on the board. It's melta otherwise.

It's not that much more risky than deepstriking them close enough for an assault. In either case you're all but fishing for a hit anyway. I would consider the charge after burning a bonus mind you.
That is to say I would make such a unit a dedicated horde melter with melee as an afterthought. I wouldn't say it's a competitive choice but it works wonders when they don't scatter.

I'd consider flamer raptors if I've already got anti armour, MC's and elite infantry taken care of with the rest of the list and I'm looking for more anti infantry

The issue I see is that your required troops will usually be well suited to dealing with infantry (unless you just go MSU cultists) and most other parts of the army can handle both infantry and vehicles. That applies to meltagun raptors too. On the other hand I suppose flamer raptors would be very good against horde infantry and inexpensive for what they do

It might be something to take Raptors armed with Flamers as part of a Warband and Raptors armed with Meltas as part of a Raptor Talon, since the former can't charge after DS, and they're Objective Secured (Flamers are okay for taking and holding objectives). Remember especially that unlike the weakling loyalist Assault Marines, Raptors keep their close combat weapon and bolt pistol and add a special weapon rather than replacing one of those things with a special weapon.

Melta are just too good at what they do. I can see flamers for grabbing objectives, but meltas are great for dropping in the backfield and taking something important out.

Hey guys, been a couple years since ive played and im making a comeback, I also am interested in the raptor talon, with the DS, assault shenanigans.

What mark would you guys be going for? Slaanesh?

Always MoN if allowed.

Solar Shock wrote:
Hey guys, been a couple years since ive played and im making a comeback, I also am interested in the raptor talon, with the DS, assault shenanigans.

What mark would you guys be going for? Slaanesh?

Hey! Glad you're back.
As for raptors, it has more to do with the legion you're running. Only black legion and word bearers have to make a choice.

well I want them to suppliment some orks (although likely the CSM will be the primary). So im thinking of using them to pin some units, or pop some transports early game, while da boyz zip up the board.

So I was thinking nightlords? For the night fighting to assist the boyz, and then maybe mark of nurgle? I suppose +1T is helpful is making them bog down the enemy.

It seems the general consensus is either alpha or nightlords?

Night lords can indeed provide a guaranteed night fight. They're still not worth it for the orks competitively-speaking but can be fun.

If you run them as nightlords with the new supplement they can't take marks. Cuz 'Lords are agnostic like that. For my Raptors I like to run them double melta, with either a combi melta or flamer on the champ along with a lightning claw, since you're already not getting the pistol bonus, and then meltabombs for punching armor.

You're probably gonna want multiple squads of deepstriking stuff though so you can hopefully take out the worst threats before they can retaliate. Terminator annihilation force, the raptor detachment, and the heldrake formation with a comm relay to guarantee most of it comes in turn 2 is your best bet.