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Lately I have been purchasing lots of bikes and started to create a pure (or almost pure) ravenwing army. So far my luck has been quite good as they havn't lost. But I havn't played against the toughest of opponents and I am always looking for tips and tricks to make my list better. So without further ado here is my list.

Sammael - 200
Corvex

Ravenwing Command x 4 - 240
1 Grenade Launcher
Apothecary
Banner of Devestation

Black Knights x 4 - 168
1 Grenade Launcher

Black Knights x 4 - 168
1 Grenade Launcher

Darshroud - 90

Bikes x 6 - 240
2 x melta
meltabomb
Attack Bike w/ MM

Bikes x 6 - 240
2 x melta
meltabomb
Attack Bike w/ MM

Bikes x 6 - 170
2 x flamer

Bikes x 6 - 170
2 x flamer

Scouts x 10 - 140
Camo/Bolters

Total: 1826

So I still have 25 points left and I am not too sure where to put it, let me know your thoughts!

The obvious setback with this list is the lack of AA. My plan is to do overwhelm my opponent with sheer amount of fire and do my best to wipe out most threats by turn 2 when any fliers may come in. By turn 2, all of my bikes should be in the enemy deployment zone which means their flyers can't shoot at me most likely (min'm 18" for fliers). Then hopefully 12 knights with twin linked plasma will be able to do damage on the fliers' usually weak back armour.

Other than that I think the important areas are covered such as anti-horde, anti-tank and anti AP2

The army lacks anti-air.

MikeWingg wrote:

The obvious setback with this list is the lack of AA. My plan is to do overwhelm my opponent with sheer amount of fire and do my best to wipe out most threats by turn 2 when any fliers may come in. By turn 2, all of my bikes should be in the enemy deployment zone which means their flyers can't shoot at me most likely (min'm 18" for fliers). Then hopefully 12 knights with twin linked plasma will be able to do damage on the fliers' usually weak back armour.

wuestenfux wrote:The army lacks anti-air.

Woah, good thing you pointed that out, otherwise OP would have never known. Such a great revelation....

A lot of your point totals are off, and by my math you are actually 25 points over, not under. Ravenwing always have AA issues, but hopefully you can hide in CC, or as you plan get in close. Helldrakes are super hard counters obviously, but hopefully you can charge in by then.

Put the black knights in a squad of 6 w/2 grenade launchers each, and make the command squad 5 bodies(I think it is?). You could buy an ADL for the scouts to camp behind and provide AA, or maybe get an extra attack bike or 2.

Thanks for the feedback Serling, I did a recount on the points and found that the command squad is 255 instead of 240 leaving me 9 points under, which i will simply just use for a few meltabombs.

Also about combining the ravenwing squads i like to keep as many different units of knights as i can so i can lower more units toughnesses making my bolters more effective. My command squad will likely be turboboosting with sammael and receive a 2+ jink save to stay alive for the first turn or two before they start to output some damage of their own

As for the air, I prefer not to use the aegis just because i want this to be a pure in your face scout army and have nothing sit back, I don't plan on this list seeing any game with more than 2 fliers in the opponents list as my FLGS doesn't see much flier spam, so hopefully my knights will be capable of dealing with any pesky enemy fliers. But there will be some fliers i simply wont even need to worry about (e.g.. Vendetta) as this list makes most specialized tank killing units a lot less useful

Sammy does not need to be with the command squad, as they already have skilled riders. He is best off giving extra cover to a random ravenwing squad, and splitting your plasma fun. He can also make use of the bolter banner, and his jetbike can jump so your always in range(protip, all you need is 1 model in the squad for bolter banner fun, and skilled rider helps keep it that way. Having a jetbike is also fantastic).

I agree about being in your face all out assault. To this extent, I would even drop the scouts for 2 more attack bikes and/or more knights(even if you plan on outflanking mass bolters, you could do this with bikes...). The only flier your absolutely screwed against are hellturkeys, but if you get first turn you can turbo boost, minimize losses and then hide in assault. Dakka banner is great at grounding FMC's, then follow with plasma talons to kill. Obviously if you go second against triple drake you might be totally boned, but that is a risk you have to run. Dakkajets and scythes can be pretty scary, but your plasma talons and even bolters against AV10 can do the job if needed. Against a wraithwing crons, your either stuck getting shot by tesla out the wazoo, or fighting wraiths in CC...so, yeah.

I understand that you want to stack multiple grenade hits against key targets, but then you only need the minimum to field a launcher. 3 bodes outflanking can show up with plasma and a rad/stasis grenade as needed. However, as I read it, stasis/rad shells will not stack. On p.61 of the dex, it says "one or more" so RAW they will not combine. Having separate squads gives you the ability to grenade more targets, but I would still go with 3 man teams outflank/6 or 9 on the table. You can always throw a rad and stasis shell out there, or 2 rad just in case you scatter like crazy. The strange paradox of the grenade launcher is that sufficient plasma talons will do the job more often than not. However, going against -1 T, I and WS really does help should an assault be required. TLDR, make your knights 1 squad of 6 1 squad of 3.

Check your troops and darkshroud again, they are bit off.

 Dr. Serling wrote:

wuestenfux wrote:The army lacks anti-air.

Woah, good thing you pointed that out, otherwise OP would have never known. Such a great revelation....

A lot of your point totals are off, and by my math you are actually 25 points over, not under. Ravenwing always have AA issues, but hopefully you can hide in CC, or as you plan get in close. Helldrakes are super hard counters obviously, but hopefully you can charge in by then.

Put the black knights in a squad of 6 w/2 grenade launchers each, and make the command squad 5 bodies(I think it is?). You could buy an ADL for the scouts to camp behind and provide AA, or maybe get an extra attack bike or 2.

Yeah, absolutely.

Being competitive without anti-air is not going to work.
Armies with Night Scythes or Helldrakes will rule against a force which has almost no counter.
I'd integrate one or two flyers.

Thanks again for the feedback guys. Serling I think you are right about sammael and putting him with an attack squadron instead. The only reason i put him with the command squad is because I was thinking about pesky armies such as tau who could just take away my 2+ cover and kill my bolter banner no problem, so if sammael were with them that would be 3 extra wounds with a 4++ with FNP. which would make them a lot more survivable but against most opponents sammael will be with a different squad.

In regards to replacing the scouts this actually happens to be all the Ravenwing models that i own besides a librarian on a bike who i left out to get more units. When i said about going all out in your face, i don't mean assault (besides from the Black Knights of course!), I only use assault to hide from the opponents shooting phase or when playing against S3 opponents that can only wound on a 6+ other than that I will stick to pure up close/mid range shooting. But my idea with the scout squad is to infiltrate them midfield and bring the bolter banner up to them so they can dish out 40 shots of their own.

As for outflanking or reserving my bikes, I am not a huge fan and it hasn't worked for me and hasn't had the same overwhelming effect. I have always been a player who likes to have almost everything on the board turn 1. No outflank, no reserve, usually no fliers. Onnly things i do are deathwing assault and drop pod assault which is majority turn 1. But anyways.... Let me know on any other tweaks you may suggest or what I could maybe do with the 140 pts my scouts are filling.

Thanks!

About the point totals i am sorry but I have been making this list without the codex in hand:p


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also about everyone commenting about my lack of AA. Read the first post as to how I deal with it. Also, I luive in Canada so there is a very good chance I will not be playing any big tournaments any time soon, only local ones where people usually don't bring highly spammed air armies. The most I will see is probably 3 scythes, 2 hellturkys and for the daemon/nid players 2-4 FMC. However FMC arn't too much to handle with the amount of grounding tests i can make them take.

So I will not be putting an aegis or any fliers or any allies into this list, so please keep that in mind with the comments. My main opponent / friend of mineis a necron player who uses 2-3 scythes so I have had lots of practice killing them with my ravenwing alone so i am confident enough with my AA for what I will be up against


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Anyone?!?!? I want some feedback up in here