This article will cover a specific list that I will be taking to a regional tournament in the Seattle Metropolitan Area, TSHFT OPEN (http://www.tshftopen.com/), ran by a long time TO and awesome persona, Zen from Bloghammer.net.
Some of you might recognize me as MikhailLenin, the French Overlord, the guy that wrote that super (aka: Ultra!) boring (aka: Awesome!) article about my Sisters of Battle and GK ally army that I have been seriously enjoying as the dismay of my local 40k cohorts. But since I reserving their 2013 reappearance for BAO, I was going to take something shiny and new for me for TSHFT OPEN.
Originally I was going to be taking a Necron with CSM allies and then GW decided to drop a bomb on me by releasing the DA Codex a week before the event. At first I dismissed the usual exhilaration of new SM codex because who needs angrier, flawed, hateful super humans? Turns out I did (Who’s got two thumbs up someone’s Wallet (aka: rear-end)? GW!). I used to play a White Scars army back in 4th using Ravenwing rules and then in the early days of 5th edition with the new shiny SM codex but they were soon shelved to follow more interesting ventures. But once again this new Codex offers me the childhood glee of being a Loyalist Commander to the best Astartes Legion to have ever been created! (aka: Historically based on the military force that to this day holds the record for largest dominion of Earth.) But what spark this resurgence of Loyalist Mongolian Bike Fever? (Note: No, not yellow fever…)
- Hit and Run on every Ravenwing Biker Unit.
- Scout on every Ravenwing Bike Unit.
- A Biker unit actually geared for Close Combat. Ravenwing Black Knights.
- The Removal of Fearless from Ravenwing Units. Which I dislike all through 5th Ed and I will go into why later.
- Skilled Rider being located on the elite units.
As you can see from the list above, the changes to the core mechanic of the Ravenwing Units is that they essentially have all the tactics and rules that reflect a fluffy White Scars Company. In the Mini Dex they got from WD in 3rd edition, they had Hit&Run and the first early versions of Outflank. They also had a totem that increased their turboboost distance (Rapid Manoeuvre Warlord Trait from Sammael achieves this for his unit also). They also had the “Born in the Saddle” rule giving them Skilled Rider essentially.
But enough about fluff! What about functionality!?! Well first here is the 2,000 Points list:
- HQ – Sammael – Raven Sword, Adamantite Mantle, Corvex, Night Halo.
- Unlocks Ravenwing Attack Squad as Troops and Ravenwing Command Squad.
- Corvex: Jetbike, Plasmacannon, TL Stormbolter.
- Raven Sword: AP2 Mastercrafted Powersword.
- Adamantite Mantle: Eternal Warrior.
- Not a Killy Character but unlocks what I want, provides decent firepower but especially adds some soaking wounds to the Command Squad to help protect the Banner.
- HQ – Librarian – Mastery Level 2, Auspex, Space Marine Bike, Force Staff, Psychic Hood.
- Auspex: Model forgoes shooting to lower cover save by 1 of a target unit within 12”.
- I would choose Telepathy for Invisibility to make the Command Squad resilient. The other disciplines have potential too but I feel Telepathy gives me the more tools in the bag at the moment.
- Force Staff is just an aesthetic choice.
- Being Mastery Level 2 with his Psychic Hood will provide most often a 4+ Deny the Witch Roll to all units within 6” (assuming the Psyker is of lower level).
- Helps shore up the Command Squad more by adding more wounds.
- HQ* – Ravenwing Command Squad – 3x – 2 Corvus Hammer, 2 Plasma Talons, Champion w/ Blade of Caliban, Apothecary w/ Narthecium, Standard Bearer w/ Banner of Devastation & Grenade Launcher.
- Expensive 3 Bike Unit but with the HQ characters, it would help lower the risk to losing the Standard Bearer.
- Champion upgrade is mostly to gain the Character rule for shooting.
- Narthecium is for Feel No Pain to the Unit.
- Banner of Devastation is what this unit is all about. For 65 Points you gain the following Bubbles:
- All units within 12” Re-roll to Morale and Pinning.
- All units within 6” grant their Boltguns Salvo 2/4. This essentially makes any Biker Unit with Twin Linked Bolters within 6” (only 1 Model is required to be within) an incredibly deadly volley of bolter round. Being Relentless means the the Bikes can fire 4 Shots, at Max distance while moving and still retaining the ability to assault. Essentially making the 6 men Attack Squad able to fire 24 Twin-Linked Bolter rounds at 24”.
- The Grenade Launcher offers an additional benefit that multiplies the effect of the Banner + Bike even more which is access to Rad Grenades. For a 12” Str 3 Small Blast, it has the nasty effect of lowering a Unit Toughness by 1 as long as 1 model is hit by the blast (Also means you can affect multiple units with 1 blast assuming they are close enough to each other). This reduction also reduces the Instant Death Threshold meaning that all the sudden my Bolters rounds would Insta Kill T2(3) models. But it also means they wound on 2’s on anything that was reduced to a T2 and on 3’s to anything reduced to a T3.
- Troops – Ravenwing Attack Squad – 6x + 1x Atk Bike – 2 Plasmaguns, Multimelta.
- Troops – Ravenwing Attack Squad – 6x + 1x Atk Bike – 2 Flamers, Multimelta.
- Troops – Ravenwing Attack Squad – 6x + 1x Atk Bike – 2 Meltaguns, Multimelta.
- Troops – Ravenwing Attack Squad – 6x + 1x Atk Bike – 2 Meltaguns, Multimelta.
- Troops – Ravenwing Attack Squad – 6x + 1x Atk Bike – 2 Meltaguns, Multimelta.
- Scoring, Fast, Tough, and as long as they are within 6” of the Banner makes them an effective anti-infantry unit.
- Fast Att – Ravenwing Black Knights – 5x – 4 Plasma Talons, Power Sword, 1 Grenade Launcher.
- Plasma Talons: 18” Str 7 Ap2 Rapid Fire, Gets Hot!, Twin Linked. Good compliment to help shore up Anti-Heavy Infantry and not atrocious at hunting Flyers.
- Grenade Launcher as stated before but in addition to comment on another useful Mode of fire is the Stasis Grenade which works like the Rad Charge except it has no Strength but reduces the WS and Ini of the affected unit(s) by 1. Allowing this more Close Combat Centric Unit to hit MEQ on 3’s in the charge and striking before them.
- Corus Hammer: The entire unit minus the Huntsmaster is equipped with these and Bolt Pistol. They provide +1 Str and Rending in Close Combat. Essentially making each model 3 Attacks and 4 on the charge with Rending.
As most of you will notice the army has what I call a Combo (even maybe perhaps a 1-trick Pony, get it White Scars, Mongolians, Ponies! Comedic Gold right there!) essentially around the TL Bolters of the Bikes and the Banner and to a lesser extent the Rad Grenades. Assuming the Banner can live past the first turn of enemy fire, you are on your way to put down a lot of hurt quickly. The other downside is essentially requiring that your army moves into this massive bike fest bubble but I soon realized that no matter what you do, you are essentially stuck doing this as all those bikers will take all the open space in your deployment very quickly. Other double edge sword are the Attack Bikes which always function as independent models and thus are likely to give away First Blood very easily but also greatly increase your effectiveness of firepower. I will be blunt and state that this army has a very Nasty Alpha Strike capability because of Scout for it allows your army to be in the perfect shooting position right off the bat. But the army still suffers from the same pitfalls as I had in late 5th Edition with my Vanilla Marine version. T5 used to mean a big difference but with Tzeentch Flamers, GK and Psybolt, Necrons with Tesla, Helldrakes from CSM, Poison from Dark Eldar there is a lot of armies that mechanically make your T5 Marines just as durable as T4 Marines. While it almost has 50 Models on the table, it is still a very small number relative to some of the firepower from certain builds. I hope to see how far I can take them at TSHFT this weekend. I will let you all know how it does and if it punches Reecius or Frankie in the proverbial “ballsack” or vice versa.