Is the FW Reaper overpowered?

From an unrelated thread:

Khain mor wrote:

Our Reapers are pretty overpowered, in pairs they're horrible against mech armies.

We have had a couple of other threads about whether or not the Reaper and other FW vehicles are worthwhile, and I have noticed an increase in people mentioning taking Reapers in pairs. I am actually considering filling all three HS slots with them in the near future.

But this is the first time I have seen anyone express this thought. I find them very powerful when they hit, but limited with just the one gun, and still beholden to the God of Cardboard.

What do others think of them now?

I think if they were overpowered then people would be actually running them in any competitive sense.

Who here runs them over the humble Ravager?

What does their weapon do that is better than 3 dark lances/disintegrators?

Nar, they are ok, but they dont leap off the page as awesome.
It could be Handy, Parking Lot of Mech Guard might be a nice target for the blast weapon, or not since its small blast, kill shock rule is ok. But really, you are better off with Haywire blasters in scourges, on a slot arguement if nothing else.

One shot is very unreliable. That's my problem with them. Not to mention they are 30pts more than a ravager and come with enhanced sails for no reason.

Mushkilla wrote:

One shot is very unreliable. That's my problem with them. Not to mention they are 30pts more than a ravager and come with enhanced sails for no reason.

To look AWESOME of course I agree that the Reaper is decent, but risky given the fact that one weapon destroyed result screws the effectiveness of it 100%

You know, I've never come across the Reaper... tell me moar?

But can't the reaper provide up to 4 haywire hits? One from the first STR 7 AP3 and the other 3 from the D3 result?

And I guess the one weapon is a still an issue- Has anyone considered using a farseer to cast prescience on a reaper to reroll those scatter/miss results?

I guess it's throwing more points at a problem. But maybe it'll be effective? (Since you wouldn't be getting the farseer in a vacuum)

It's D3 Haywire hit and 1 normal S7 hit that may result in a glance or a pen. At least that's how I see it.

I find it a tad confusing because in the rules it labels the single hit as haywire and then the additional Kill-shock rule which states the D3 Haywire hits. So I assumed that was on top of the pre-existing STR 7 AP 3 haywire hit- otherwise why list the weapon as haywire when you could simply list it as Kill-shock?

This thereby puts (at least in my mind) the total number of attacks to a potential 5. 1 STR 7 AP3 hit, 2-4 haywire hits.

In 6th if a weapon has haywire then it must use the haywire rule rather than rolling to pen whereas in 5th a haywire blaster could potentially glance an haywire an AV10 vehicle. However the Reapers entry clearly states that it rolls to penetrate and then haywire. This is a 5th edition entry superceding 6th rulebook rules but ho hum.

Deamon wrote:

It's D3 Haywire hit and 1 normal S7 hit that may result in a glance or a pen. At least that's how I see it.

That's the thing exactly, I do admit you need some luck, but it can inflict pretty massive damage

Haywire mode for small tanks, in case you have several next to eachother, but otherwise you've got the value of the Strength itself to inflict damage.

With a lot of luck you can touch 2 vehicles, if they're armor 10 or 11 , the S5 can damage it and you've got the haywire damage after, meaning 4 possible damage points. it's a 5" blast, don't forget it guys. It's a big blast, it's not impossible to hit 3 vehicles with some insane luck.

Same with Kill shock mode, S7 more than enough to damage quite a lot of tanks, then you've got 3 possible damage rolls, again make 4.

Remember the Ravager has only 3 shots, I don't think I have to fight anyone to agree that these do miss.

In reality the Reaper performs something close what a ravager does, but with several you feel ithe difference a lot more.

Having several, you do feel the extra damage more, that's why they're better in pairs or even triple. 12 damage shots, compared to 9

When I said overpowered, I wasn't really saying they're more overpowered than our ravagers, the fact is, both these vehicles are overpowered. With luck, this guy can inflict more damage than a ravager though.

BTW something you guys are horribly underestimating is the haywire, which fails only on a 1 roll. this is a very big deal. Those 3 DL fail because, after having to hit, you haveto roll to wound, with haywire this is not a big deal.
The glancing hits aren't much of a problem, seeing the sheer amount of glancing hits you can inflict, you can expect a lot of crippled enemy vehicles. You don't destroy them, but who cares if a transport can't move it's screwed, if a heavy support has no guns it serves no prupose either.

Sky Serpent wrote:

I think if they were overpowered then people would be actually running them in any competitive sense.

Who here runs them over the humble Ravager?

wanderingblade wrote:

You know, I've never come across the Reaper... tell me moar?

This is very weird, it's quite common, most people who own one, got it for the fun, but it works, the proof, when they have one, they will often use it. Take the old FW raven flyer, a nice bunch of people owned/own it, but nobody ever bothered to bring it, unless it was apoc and even then... With the reaper, you've got 0 doubts.

The major reason why it is a commonly owned vehicle is because it's cheap. (yes it's cheap, if you want to complain about prices, leave GW, check out the new bigger tau suits, are those cheap? Not really)

It is seen in competition, less I admit, but if used competitively, I've seen them in pairs mostly, like you say, most hurtful vs an imperial guard
tank company.

Google the Tantalus and the reaper, both are quite common. I own the old FW flyers, the Raven and the weird Razorwing, if you googled the FW Razorwing, you used to find only 2 models online besides mine. You did find a lot more ravens, but still nothing compared to how many tantalus and reapers you find and that's not counting everyone that doesn't even bother posting theirs online.
Quite a few people play at warhammer world, either regularly or from time to time. If you're a regular at warahmmer world and you play dark eldar, it's pretty safe to assume you've got both models, since you can order those right there. Same with some american retailers, I know several american selling GW shops (non official ones) that also allow you to order FW models for free ,no transport charge, just order and pay the model only.

Usually when you stick to the same group of peoeple you don't see too many Forgeworlds, however if you start playing in bigger cumminities, go to different cities to play tournaments, you start becoming quite familiar with forgeworld models and that's when you usually finally get to see a reaper in real, just so many dark eldar players, someone is bound to have one.

Quote :

you are better off with Haywire blasters in scourges, on a slot arguement if nothing else.

5 scourges with 2 haywires, less damage potential, S4, shorter range, very expensive individual, very fragile, even with the better armor. Like it or not, slower than a skimmer. In reality the fragility will be the problem. You can complain all you want about our 10/10/10 skimmers, but they're still vehicles, who are tough to kill with average luck. A ravager can survive an entire battle with some luck, give scourges all the luck in the world, they will be killed no matter what. They have big guns, big threat, easy to kill, any enemy will be happy to shoot them down.

On the more expensive, nobody really cares, check out how expensive a trueborn squad equiped to work as anti tank is. check out warriors equiped anti tank, compared to our humble ravager. Check out the flyers, more expensive, nobobdy complains, they also have 1 less DL.


To resume:
The extra points don't really bother anyone, but in short, the Reaper perform close to the ravager, it's a nice replacement, certainly worth buying. It's not that expensive for a FW model. It does have more damage potential. The model itself is a reason alone to use it, it's awesome, admit it.

The raven would see much more use if they didn't botch the pricing in the Aeronautica book. 200+ pts for a Venom with a twin linked dark lance that counts as a flyer? Sure it has a list of special rules as long as your arm, but most of them are useless, and others don't exist. BTW, props on having that old star wars inspired razorwing.

I do enjoy my Tantalus as a Grotesque transport, it does surprisingly well for it's price, and draws a ton of attention.

I haven't jumped on the reaper yet, I can definitely see how it will perform equal to the ravager vs. armour, but I think it would not have the same effectiveness vs. heavy infantry that the ravager does.

One point I would like to make is that while the FW stuff isn't more expensive, it often is a more advanced kit, require more assembly and modelling time in most cases. So a harder model for the average player, for not much better overall performance plays a factor as well.

I love them i often play against Nids or Necrons and find they perform better than ravagers against both armies.
Blowing monstrous creatures to pieces is alot of fun!

ive been eyeing up the reaper for a couple of weeks and went to war hammer world last sunday where i nearly picked one up. i have been really disappointed by my razor wing in game and with more and more ways of downing them they are becoming an expensive option, so i will add a reaper to my list i think and remove the wing at roughly the same points cost, no harm done, no points rebuilding, and NO waiting til turn 4 for it to turn up.

Please do not use chat/leet speak. Using numbers in place of words is not allowed. Cheers - Cavash.

I find if your going to use them two or more is better, once your opponents know what they can do they will be a prime target. I have two but intend to have three so i can run all reapers or all ravagers.
I have stopped taking our flyers unless you come up against flyer spam you can out maneuvere flyers due to our speed.
I'm hoping they reduce the points cost of the raven strike fighter in the next apocolypse update i will then be taking those .

The main thing is getting point value and if playing with multiple reapers if those extra points in cost for reapers are best used else where.

Also the range sucks and no matter what position you put them in they will get stomped in the front line when they are in range of something that is worth the while of its weaponry.