Black Heart and Dissies

I'm trying to sort my list out for painting, and I'm stuck on two decisions.

Firstly,black heart or flayed skull? I've played FS since the codex and find a lot of value in ignoring cover, rerolling 1s and the extra movement. But, black heart is tempting for the Writ and 6+++. I have an Air Wing which I could do as BH for the stratagem, but may make my battalion BH too.

Which brings me to question 2. I know general consensus is dissies over lances but I've never been anything but disappointed by dissies ravagers. Do they need the Writ to make them function? It's wounding vehicles on 5's that drags them down so much. I do understand they are far better for more target variety, but my ravagers are anti vehicle. That's what I need them for.

Run Dark Lances/Void scythes on your flyers with blasters everywhere for anti vehicle and dissies on ravagers for midrange stuff. The value of dissies goes up dramatically with access to Doom, less so with writ and I'd imagine DL and Dissie are pretty even with neither (though lances are more expensive which swings it). Personally I prefer dark lances on everything, I find rolling a big 6 for damage way more enjoyable than plinking off 2 here and there more consistently even if its more competitive.

Thanks, I always run mono lists so Psyker buffs weren't something I'd even considered! I can see how Doom would be a big buff to dissies.

For what it's worth, I've also found Disintegrators incredibly disappointing. My Ravager had one good round of shooting, where it disintegrated 5 Hellblasters (or whatever those Plasma Primaris Marines are called). However, every other time it's fired it's either plincked away uselessly at a vehicle (if I'm lucky, I might strip 2 whole hull points ) or killed 2-3 basic dudes.

It does seem very much that people are assuming Doom when they praise them.


Regarding Flayed Skull vs. Black Heart, I think it depends what you want to focus on. If you're focusing on vehicles (Air Wing, Spearhead) then Black Heart is definitely the way to go. 3" of movement isn't a great benefit to fliers or Ravagers IMO, and rerolling 1s on Rapid Fire weapons basically doesn't do anything. So you're really weighing Ignores Cover against a 6+++. Except that the 6+++ also comes with a Counter-Stratagem, a CP-regeneration Warlord Trait, and an artefact that can further buff Ravagers whilst keeping your CP-regenerating Archon out of harm's way.

Flayed Skull starts to look better if you're planning to focus more on Kabalites, as the BH bonus is basically worthless for them. Also, Ignores Cover is very useful for poison weapons as it means Marines and the like can't get a 2+ save against them.

Of course, if you're just taking the min troops required for a Battalion, you might well be better off with BH anyway, to double down on your good units.

I wrecked havoc on imperial knights with desintegrator. Writ of the Living Muse, but no doom.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

For what it's worth, I've also found Disintegrators incredibly disappointing. My Ravager had one good round of shooting, where it disintegrated 5 Hellblasters (or whatever those Plasma Primaris Marines are called). However, every other time it's fired it's either plincked away uselessly at a vehicle (if I'm lucky, I might strip 2 whole hull points ) or killed 2-3 basic dudes.

It does seem very much that people are assuming Doom when they praise them.


Regarding Flayed Skull vs. Black Heart, I think it depends what you want to focus on. If you're focusing on vehicles (Air Wing, Spearhead) then Black Heart is definitely the way to go. 3" of movement isn't a great benefit to fliers or Ravagers IMO, and rerolling 1s on Rapid Fire weapons basically doesn't do anything. So you're really weighing Ignores Cover against a 6+++. Except that the 6+++ also comes with a Counter-Stratagem, a CP-regeneration Warlord Trait, and an artefact that can further buff Ravagers whilst keeping your CP-regenerating Archon out of harm's way.

Flayed Skull starts to look better if you're planning to focus more on Kabalites, as the BH bonus is basically worthless for them. Also, Ignores Cover is very useful for poison weapons as it means Marines and the like can't get a 2+ save against them.

Of course, if you're just taking the min troops required for a Battalion, you might well be better off with BH anyway, to double down on your good units.

Some very interesting points in there and I think I'll probably run with Black Heart for a few games and see how it goes. I've been running 3 venoms with twin cannons and Flayed Skull, but thinking I will drop them to twin linked rifles and try BH. Use them more agressively inside rapid fire range. If they get charged I have a wave of wyches following behind, so drawing the enemy out is no bad thing. I do face a marine heavy meta in my area, so the deny cover was worthwhile. But then you don't get cover in CC.

dumpeal wrote:

I wrecked havoc on imperial knights with desintegrator. Writ of the Living Muse, but no doom.

I can see how the dissies could pull ahead at T8 and T9. The wound rolls are less and less heavily stacked in favour of the dark lances at that point, so their damage drops whilst dissies don't.

I love flayed skull, I think it would be very hard to stop using that obsession. It really shines I think with warriors in double splinter cannon venoms, you're getting all the full benefits of the obsessions for both the venom and the warriors inside, but I find ignoring cover can still be really nice on ravagers even though all their weapons have high ap.

Regarding disintegrator cannons, I don't use doom or writ, and I still find them great. Usually I have them firing at multi-wound models like primaris, tyranid warriors and terminators, which is where they really shine. I think you'll be disappointed if you count on them as your main anti-tank, you still want to have darklight especially against the rather common t7, +3 save vehicles, but I have found the added firepower of dissies to be handy when I really need to take out a vehicle, especially against knights.

I nearly always end my games with almost 1 Ravager alive...if I'm not using them for charging stuffs. Yes charging.

In this edition everything will die (even a Castellan against the right opponent), it's not something to mind about. The thing you have too flood your opponent with a lot of stuffs in the board.
If I (as an opponent) can take the decision to focus fire your Ravagers withou any doubt about it, you're doing something wrong. Play more choices with them, and use them to push your opponent in his decisions.

About firepower: Dissies are way more better than Lances. It's math. You will find that Dissies are extremely good against infantry instead of Lances, where Lances will be just silghtly better against veichles instead of Dissies. So all in all, 15 points vs 20 points, yeah...Dissies are just bettere. Everytime.
And I don't even play Doom.

Writ is good. But even without it (sometimes you will prefer to separate your Ravagers instead of playing them always whithin the Archon) they still perform damn well. I play them even on Raiders and Razorwings, there's no meaning about bringing in Lances for 20 points.
Blasters otherwise are great (expecially with Archons) because they don't force you to choice: you can pick both.
Haywire too. Etc etc.


...and btw if your opponent will waste all of his shooting power taking down 3 Ravagers, but your entire list is already setted for charges/scoring points/shooting back, it's a win-win. The threat level of a unit it's a value to consider!

Build in Dissies or even better: magnetize them!
About which Kabal...I've mine personal colour scheme so I can't help you. Try to figure out which one you will like to play more. It is all into your taste.