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Actually no. Fortress is well worth its points, especially for defensive play. In terms of armor and dakkadakka, crewed Fortress is equivalent of 3 Land Raiders.

If I had a model, I would bring it to every single game of over 1000pts. every. single. game. Model is big, beautiful and hard to destroy. Unless I feel like playing Belial and all Deathwing Terminators.

Umm. You do that.

The fortress does not have the dakka of 3 land raiders. It has a couple heavy bolters (if you pay for them), a single TL icarus and a missile. For basically the points of a Land Raider.

It takes up half the table (which is nice) and provides you with fire point less bunkers and battlements to sit on.

The other forts (aegis and bastion) are generally better buys unless you reaaaaallly need LOS blockers.


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And, of course, if you don't crew the whole thing, your enemy gets into it and now they have free armor 14 bunkers.

That missile is freakin awsome.

I'd pay 250 pts for a Land Raider that has a TL-skyfire-interceptor range 96" lascannon and a large blast Krak or Frag missile launcher.


It just becomes 4 seperate AV14 buildings instead of a single AV14 vehicle.


And BTW, there is only a single access point on the backside. You can easily defend that to prevent the enemy from getting in.

Single access point makes it worse then since you can only disembark through that to get objectives.

I'm not putting models in the Fortress so they can score objectives. Don't be so narrow minded.

We're well off the beaten track here, but whether you put them in there to score objectives or not, it is a downside of the fort.

I guess you could put non-scoring units in it, but then you're leaving your scoring units vulnerable.

The BoD bike list hinges on the BoD go figure. A single Stern guard Pod with combiweapons would easily wipe the Command Squad and then the firepower of the bike list drops by 75%

Canny play and making sure to bubble wrap your CS will give you some protection but you suffer from problems of grouping.

The weakness of the SoD list is:

Low model count
Reliance on one model, the standard bearer
Must stay within 6" of standard bearer.

The advantages are numerous and I think everyone can figure them out.

I

I think I might be giving the Banner with a Gunline in a Fortification. With a FoD it could be a hard egg to crack along with some Veterans and Tactical Squads.

Personally I think a LRC is a better bet. It gives you a bigger footprint for your banner, the best protection especially with a powerfield toting IC in there. If you keep the CS cheap it will only run you about 400 points or so. Not bad and you still get the ridiculous firepower of the LRC to boot.

Here is what I have been running and it's been quite effective

Sammy

Liby, auspex, level 2 staff, bike, power gen

Rw command, apothecary, dakka banner, rw grenade launcher

6 bikes, attack bike mm, 2 plasma, typhoon

Same as above

Darkshroud, assault cannon

Same as above

Nephilim, mega bolter

Vengeance

This is my 1750 list, now I'm going to drop the vengeance as its crap, also the plasma guns as they seem redundant, this should. Net me enough spare points get another rw attack squad or a black knight unit, still testing but I like it so far

I've been reading these topics and you guys seem to forget a certain troop unit that can start 18" from the enemy and has boltguns. Yes, I'm talking about scouts. Infiltrate a bunch of those bad boys and then drop / teleport the command squad of your choice behind them first turn.

I'd say tacticals seem to be a better choice for most other lists, but I think scouts excel here for a few reasons. Cost: scouts are cheaper than tacticals and you don't have to pay for a transport to get them to the front. This makes them very expendable. Alpha Strike: the scouts start turn one 18" or closer to the enemy and can fire the salvo 4 first turn.

The downside to the scouts is that they are BS3, 4+ sv, and only ld 8. You could get Azrael to boost all of their leadership. You can also play around with adding Librarians to the command squad (if they are drop podded) and then moving the libbys to join scout squads. This lets you have scout squads go to ground and then get back up (thank you new FAQ!).

Can units benefit from the Banner if its inside a Land Raider with either a DW or normal Command Squad? If they can then I like the LR builds better than the Ravenwing COmmand Squad builds.

12" scout + 12" move +24" range for full salvo=48"range into the enemy deployment zone. Range is not an issue for raven wing. Starting on turn 1 every biker can start to dish out 3&5/9ths bolter hits which is more than a pair of tac marines/grey hunters rapid firing (2&2/3rd). The ratio is 6 tl salvo 4=17 regular double tap MEQ bolters. Ravenwing is no joke when it comes to dakka, it just has a glass jaw. A single non character 1 wound model doubles the dakka for most of the rest of the army.

Even with the glass jaw ravenwing has a good chance of winning a tournament. They have some weaknesses that some armies will be good at exploiting.


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 kaiservonhugal wrote:
Can units benefit from the Banner if its inside a Land Raider with either a DW or normal Command Squad? If they can then I like the LR builds better than the Ravenwing COmmand Squad builds.

Yes, but it's expensive and the banner loses mobility if the lr is immobilized or destroyed.

I think people overestimate the mathematical chances of sniping out the Ravenwing standard bearer. I'm assuming that most list will run him with one or two tough IC bikers to protect him from direct fire.

Most character's are not armed with low AP high powered weapons, do you give your characters plasma pistols? So typically you are looking at 1.2% chance to take him out per character per shot. Let's say you did spring for something like a combi-plasma. Well that should help, now your chance per shot is around 4%.

There are few cover denying weapons that are AP3, looks at the helldrake. A direct hit with the baleflamer will most often cause two unsaved wounds in the 5 man squad and 1 unsaved wound in the 3 man flavor. Usually giving you a round to strike back.

Perhaps you happen to have the FoR or a Basilisk, though they are rare birds. Let's say a direct hit will cover 3 models. This is a 80% chance of smiting him, pretty good but that only happens about 1/3 of the time so it's really only a 26% chance of satisfaction.

The Vindicare assassin... doesn't fair any better with only a 25% chance per round of eliminating the standard. Though my guess with superior mobility you are going to ensure the assassin eats a hail of bullets first.

Getting more obscure we can look at the Colossus, seemingly the perfect tool for the job. Grabbing our analysis from the Basilisk we get a 63% chance to take him out. It's not going to get too much better than that.

Is it invincible? Far from it, but T5 3+ AS 4+ CS with FNP, especially bracketed by tough IC's like Sammael ensure you will most likely have a chance to unleash plenty of horrible dakka. If you are really concerned about cover denying attacks then slap a powerfield on an accompanying IC and all the cover save denying options start to look grim.

If I run into this list I'm going to be thinking how much brute force I can apply to the unit, though I better hope I have plenty of 36"+ range shooting.

I'm concerned about precision shots. Who cares if you have 2 IC in the squad. The fact is that as much as statistics are fun for everyone, anyone can roll a 6 at any time in this game and that means any old sergeant can force that standard bearer to make saves (and 3+ with FNP isnt the best), and he's not a character so he doesn't even have a 4+ look out sir roll, he has nothing vs precision shots.

Even if you like your statistics sooo much, if the Vindicare assassin is 25% that's 100% by turn 4. I want him alive into turn 5-6 & 7 if I can make it that way.

Yes sternguard are nasty. That's why you have a power field generator in the raider. You also move the formation of bikes along side the raider 12" a turn for the sake of their cover save.

There are loads of ways to field this, for me the most safe without going full cheese of several crusaders, is the bikers flanking a crusader (which has a power field generator within on a passenger).

They all have a 4++ if you're smart. A LR has a lovely 14/14/14 4HP and a 4++ Throw in extra armor to count stunned as shaken and even deathwing vehicle so they have to reroll penetrates if you want them too.

Also the DA land raider is the only one that can get dozer blades in the game (I think), so I'm not worried about it passing over any annoying terrain either.

Those bikers are all T5 3+/4++ (within 3" of the raider, have the front models within 3" for the 4++) and this is a mobile threat. Marines have to stay still, but bikers are relentless.

The banner for me (as per my above post) for me would be on a deathwing command squad running TH/SS (on the banner, probably x5). Once that raider pops thanks to any sternguard etc I wouldn't be as concerned about their safety, but honestly I don't expect it to pop and with those termies my bikes can move around with 6" of whatever they want to sit on for the game. No one likes TH/SS termies. If it does pop, they can keep up reasonably well, without any guns they just run every turn.

I play for fun, not competitively, so being competitive a few things might change (eg normal command squad over terms to save points). Personally, I can see the efftiveness of these moving 12" & firing for 2-3 turns before the termies get out and do their thing & frankly as a battle develops different priorities take place, I wouldn't mind losing a turn or 2 of the banners use, if that means it survives to the end of the game, that's just me though

Edit: typos

Even if you like your statistics sooo much, if the Vindicare assassin is 25% that's 100% by turn 4.

Actually it's only a 69% chance by turn 4. I love running the Vindicare in my own armies but he's a very easy model to kill with massed shooting, which a Ravenwing standard of devastation list delivers very effectively. I don't think the Vindicare is a viable counter. Hidden Basilisks or a Colossus are good, but Ravenwing is also good at suicide melta bikes. Double Dragon is probably the worst match up.

I think the Raider list idea has interesting potential too, though it too has it's nasty counters. Lose one and you lose your mobility.

The best artillery to snipe him would be a pair of griffons or a manticore. The griffons can pretty reliability land 5 hits/turn, 2/3 to wound, 1/3rd fail armor saves=5 hits each with a 2/9th chance of sniping the banner or forcing a fnp roll.

The manticore is even better if it has divination as it wounds on a 2+ and ignores fnp, but that's a 260 point combo. Personally I say squad 3 griffons is better just force a lot of armor/fnp rolls. The most durable bike unit it can be in has an apothecary and sammy with sammy in front and the banner in the middle. With the banner in the middle griffons can dump an easy 6 hits onto the banner per turn, 9 or 12 if luck holds up and the bikes are at all clustered. If the banner isn't in the middle and if off to one side and the rear an outflanking vendetta can easily snipe it. The bikes need to cluster a little bit to protect themselves from vendettas, and spread out to avoid griffons. It's a nice catch 22.


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Do ravenwing command squads have skilled rider?

The command squad and black knights both have skilled rider.

Interestingly enough in the THSFT tournament the winning list ran into exactly this matchup. Two Griffons and a Manticore. Seems like he manged to take them down, though he felt some luck was in play for him.

Ravenwing command squads should turbo boost and stay within range of a turbo boosting shrine thingie speeder. A 2+ jink is pretty survivable.

You could always replace the storm bolters on your terminator squads for combi-weapons for 6pnts a model. Essentialy netting you scoring sternguard squads in terminator armor.

Wolfwood189 wrote:
You could always replace the storm bolters on your terminator squads for combi-weapons for 6pnts a model. Essentialy netting you scoring sternguard squads in terminator armor.

Terminator squads do not have this option, only characters with access to the "terminator weapons" wargear list can do this, terminator squads will have to keep within the wargear in their entry of the army list