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I have 6 raveners with scything tallons and rending claws. I loved them in 5th edition.

Now i compare them to shrikes and warriors and I have a really hard time figuring out the role of the ravener.

Summarison:

Warriors: Have synapse. Cheapest. Are troops. Can take heavy weapons anf boneswords mixed. All in all very olayable in 8th edition.

Shrikes: Same as above (including the 4+ save.) 6 points more, moves 12. Is fast attack.

Raveners: Is 3 points more then warriors, 3 points less then shrikes. Moves 12. Does NOT have synapse. Only have a 5+ save. Can mount a cheast weapon. Can deepstrike. Has a very bad leadership save.

So the way I see it you always want as much synapse as possible. Warriors seems like a great buy. If you want frontline synapse and mellee shrikes as easaly worth paying 3 more points then raveners because of a better save, synapse and the posabilaty to take bone swords.

Where does that leave ravaners?

- They can teqnically have '3 arms' but combining scything tallons and rending claws ruins that.

- You need to utelise deepstrike or shrikes just beat them.

- Spinefist are good with 4 attacks.

Please guide me. I am confused.

You said already most things.

If you want to deepstrike some Horde murdering capabilities, the Raveners are perfect. Depending if the Scy Tals grant you +1 or +2 attacks, they also have 5 or 6 A with 2x Scy Tals. That is one more than Warriors. And Horde seems to be a thing right now.

In principle you could deepstrike 9 Heavy Bolters with a unit of Raveners. That is also quite awesome.

The only two things about Warriors which I like more are Synapse and Heavy Bio-Cannons.

The big challenge of raveners is the lack of synapse and leadership 5. Just shoot 3 wounds into those 5+ (did I mention shrikes have 4+) and force a leadership save. That is a 50% chance of loosing between 1 to 3 raveners in the leadership round.

 Niiai wrote:
The big challenge of raveners is the lack of synapse and leadership 5. Just shoot 3 wounds into those 5+ (did I mention shrikes have 4+) and force a leadership save. That is a 50% chance of loosing between 1 to 3 raveners in the leadership round.

Shrikes are completely better in every aspect, go for them

I have 6 raveners fullt painted with emotional attachment.

I have 0 emty warriors laying around. I have 0 wings around. My budget is 0. ^_^

Proxy them with your Raveners since Shrikes models do not exist

I think they work well using synergy with other deepstriking models.

Bring them in with a Trygon, and warriors, they synapse gives removes their LD problems. Trying to get more warriors up close requires quite a bit more points cost wise. Or the tyranocite with another HQ model.

Or you can use a flying tyrant as your synapse with deepstriking raveners, you can project synapse 30" from your deployment zone turn 1. So you could bring him, a trygon, a squad of guants, and the Raveners right to your opponents doorstep. Probably just keep them cheap at 23 points with double talons,

Raveners are 4 attacks vs a warrior/shrike's 3 attacks.

On a sidenote:
Remember that Shrikes are flying, which also has one drawback. Anti-Air Weapons can fire at them for +1 to hit.

You can pop up Raveners with a Trygon Prime and some Genestealers. That is a lot of points but also pretty fearsome.

Also a Sporecyste with his resonator ability is maybe nice for Raveners far off your Troops.

What units do have anti air? I have not seen any.

I was thinking running the ravaners with warriors and a regular trygon.

The warriors seems so far good this editon (First time since 4th?).

The cost of a trygon prime vs a trygon is a huge price tag for just some shots and some synapse. Warriors fix that very well.

I have not mat hammered it, but I asume a group of warriors are harder to kille then a trygon prime.

PS: The soiricyste do not have synapse?

 Niiai wrote:
The big challenge of raveners is the lack of synapse and leadership 5. Just shoot 3 wounds into those 5+ (did I mention shrikes have 4+) and force a leadership save. That is a 50% chance of loosing between 1 to 3 raveners in the leadership round.

True But if you run a Formation(s) with plenty of CPs, you can burn 2CP to autopass a morale check. Right now I am thinking Nids work best as a Brigade That runs 9CP, plus 3 for Battle Forged. 12Cp FTW!

To be honest I don't think Raveners compete with Warriors or even Shrikes, as synapse they have a clear slot in certain cases. Where I think Raveners compete is with Genestealers - both are non-synapse fast, killy units. And the issue with Raveners is that point for point, they lose out to Genes big time. The advantages they have are their speed, inbuilt DS, and only losing damage every 3 wounds (though that is offset by vulnerability to multiwound weapons)... And I suppose the option for ranged as well.

As death blobs genes beat em, as cheap DSers Lictors do, and as fast units Shrikes win out. I do struggle to figure out if they have a niche.

Could combine Raveners with the Red Terror for a bonus to hit.
Sure, Shrikes can do that too with a Tyranid Prime. But the prime only moves half as fast, so can't really keep up.

The GW Red Terror model is kinda old and ugly, so I've got this one on the way.
http://hydracast.blogspot.co.nz/p/crimson-terror-coming-soon.html

Yeah the red terror is a ravaner lord. But all ravaners have terrible leadership. Once the leadership saves comes in (LS 5) you have a 50% of loosing one ravener. 33% change of loosing two or three.