Ravagers, what to do with them now?

DL ravagers aren't going anywhere. They might drop out of favor for awhile but they'll be back. Here's why, the alternatives just aren't durable enough to carry the load alone. Everything that hurts ravagers i.e. ignores cover, wastes scourges, reavers, tb etc too. Outside of allied AT they're still the best option.

I'd say a pretty good anti-tank component would be

a 3 DL ravager with Night Shields (prioritizing anything with 14 armor all sides)
a 5 man unit with 4 Heat Lances (prioritizing anything with 14 armor all sides)
a 6 reaver unit with 2 heat lances, 2 cluster caltrops (prioritizing anything with a 10 rear armor, and weak side armor)
a 3 DC ravager with Night Shields (prioritizing anything with 10 rear armor)

with some supporting raiders to work with.

Most likely if the opponent isn't a moron, getting a DC ravager behind a Predator/Russ isn't going to be a very likely proposition

Brom wrote:

DL ravagers aren't going anywhere. They might drop out of favor for awhile but they'll be back. Here's why, the alternatives just aren't durable enough to carry the load alone. Everything that hurts ravagers i.e. ignores cover, wastes scourges, reavers, tb etc too.  Outside of allied AT they're still the best option.

I agree with this. What Ravagers bring to the table few other options do, and they still do it pretty affordable compared to the alternatives.

I'm actually intrigued that being 25 points more expensive + a shift of -6" range (and, really, it's just 1 snap shot at -6" range, everything else would be the same) is suddenly game breaking for them. Functionally, it's reasonable to argue that the whole night sheild thing might be superior to the FF on the whole, and certainly if you jink the snap shot of one lance won't even be a consideration (though I admit I'd probably just try to game it behind cover to avoid having to jink)

But...meh, I think I'll still be running Ravagers - they still fulfill a unique aspect and the closest competition they have is haywire Scourges which, will doubtless see play - but I see those more as competition for the Trueborn option, not the Ravager one.

Thor665 wrote:

Brom wrote:

DL ravagers aren't going anywhere. They might drop out of favor for awhile but they'll be back. Here's why, the alternatives just aren't durable enough to carry the load alone. Everything that hurts ravagers i.e. ignores cover, wastes scourges, reavers, tb etc too.  Outside of allied AT they're still the best option.

I agree with this. What Ravagers bring to the table few other options do, and they still do it pretty affordable compared to the alternatives.

I'm actually intrigued that being 25 points more expensive + a shift of -6" range (and, really, it's just 1 snap shot at -6" range, everything else would be the same) is suddenly game breaking for them. Functionally, it's reasonable to argue that the whole night sheild thing might be superior to the FF on the whole, and certainly if you jink the snap shot of one lance won't even be a consideration (though I admit I'd probably just try to game it behind cover to avoid having to jink)

But...meh, I think I'll still be running Ravagers - they still fulfill a unique aspect and the closest competition they have is haywire Scourges which, will doubtless see play - but with those more as competition for the Trueborn option, not the Ravager one.

It is funny how an auto include gets discarded, when it is no auto include anymore ;-)

I'm with Thor665 and Massaen, the 3 lance ravanger is still pretty solid but it will not need to do all the heavy lifting, that's all. And the 3 x dissi ravanger was always good and had a place.

I agree ravagers will still have their place.

What do people think about raiders needing to pay for dark lances now? Are people going to bother with that upgrade?

Quote :

I'm actually intrigued that being 25 points more expensive + a shift of -6" range (and, really, it's just 1 snap shot at -6" range, everything else would be the same) is suddenly game breaking for them. Functionally, it's reasonable to argue that the whole night sheild thing might be superior to the FF on the whole, and certainly if you jink the snap shot of one lance won't even be a consideration (though I admit I'd probably just try to game it behind cover to avoid having to jink)

There are 2 issues with that:

1) an 25 points increase on a single model is a 75 points increase on 3 models. Thats another venom less than before.
2) The Ravager needs to stay mobile as his weapon angles are very narrow. If you try to get it behindvover you have good chances of blocking 1 or even 2 of your weapons LOS

i would argue that points increase is a wash given you are saving a bunch of points on nightshields and or flickerfields now...

I think Ravagers are fine... but they can't be your sole choice for AT. I think you'll have to diversify your AT with Reavers, Void Raven, and Scourges. I actually think diversifying the builds was the primary MO of the codex authors. Every unit kinda needs a buddy unit to share the load... Wyches and Incubi need a screening unit, and overwatch shield, and all the AT units need another unit to draw fire... the only catching being that unit redundancy is not the solution like it used to be. If you field only Ravagers for AT, and they all jink your could be in huge trouble the next turn. If you field only Void Ravens and they jink same thing. If you field only Reavers with blasters etc... and they all turboboost you have no AT, so you gotta diversify and present a variety of threats at all ranges across the board. At least thats how I see it.

Hm, I always used my ravager with dissies, since our play group always was Infantry heavy,
with just a few vehicles. Let it be Terminators, Crisis, Nid Warriors, you name it, I killed it.
Shouldn't have changed that much in the new dex.

Mushkilla wrote:

I agree ravagers will still have their place.

What do people think about raiders needing to pay for dark lances now? Are people going to bother with that upgrade?

I'm changing my raiders over to Disintegrators, because I think they're likely to be jinking every turn. Three good antipersonel snap shots have a better chance of accomplishing something than a single antitank snap shot.

Calyptra wrote:

Mushkilla wrote:

I agree ravagers will still have their place.

What do people think about raiders needing to pay for dark lances now? Are people going to bother with that upgrade?

I'm changing my raiders over to Disintegrators, because I think they're likely to be jinking every turn. Three good antipersonel snap shots have a better chance of accomplishing something than a single antitank snap shot.

Agreed, Dissie Ravagers if they make my lists at all. IMO they aren't the only AT option we have any longer and personally I would rather take Scourges with heat lances for the melta bonus. Given the points hike on Ravagers and the ability to take 4x special weapons in 5 for Scourges the AT role shifted from Heavy to Fast Attack for me. I suppose if someone wanted to take a lot of Reavers in the FA slot they would have to choose either Lance Ravagers or Blasterborn.

It's not that I think ravagers are bad now, and I still intend to use the dissie loadout for at least one, but I think there are more versatile and efficient options for anti armor than the lance loadout.

Scourges aside, I'd rather take a razorwing than a lance ravager now that they're so close in cost. You'll have one less lance shot, but the 4 stock missile will also let you wipe out an infantry unit and I believe it'll be tougher than the ravager because they're snapshooting at you. Furthermore, I find anti air is always a weakness for my dark eldar and I frequently have to face a pair of heldrakes or nightscythes which each frequently lay waste to multiple vehicles in a turn (damn that beam you can't jink against). Thus, the razorwing has one less lance shot (while the ravager might be snapshooting it's 3rd anyway), but also threatens infantry units and air units for a similar cost.

Whilst tinkering my list, i came to the same conclusion as well. We'll always need DL ravagers, but having them in conjunction with some other anti-tank, like Scourge/Reaver heat lances. I'm going for Dissie Raiders with my warriors to kit them out for pure anti-infantry slaughter

As for the other anti-tank that is suddenly vogue, haywire scourges suffer from the same problem as heat lance scourges. As soon as they shoot, they are in range to a lot of weapons. So Haywire scourges at most destroy 1 tank before they blow up.

Haywire Scourges on average strip about 2 hull points, 3 on a good day, and 4 if your dice is loaded.

PainReaver wrote:

Whilst tinkering my list, i came to the same conclusion as well. We'll always need DL ravagers, but having them in conjunction with some other anti-tank, like Scourge/Reaver heat lances.

As for the other anti-tank that is suddenly vogue, haywire scourges suffer from the same problem as heat lance scourges. As soon as they shoot, they are in range to a lot of weapons.

But with the ability to take more and more dangerous units, we can have alot of threat from multi directions.

Lets say im play against Tau, Infiltrating Mandrakes with 8 venoms, 2-3 DSing, 1 with WWP and a A Court (or in raider) Scourges DS a long with them while a Flier or 2 comes in, with Bikes with blaster/caltrops waiting to charge.

Now with Venoms being a threat to force saves on broadsides, Mandrakes killing Path finders, Sourges taking out vehicles and the Court just looking scary to alot. The Tau may not go for those Scourges.

Im a huge fan of supporting and synergy. If I cant support a unit and it is going to just hit once and die with no hope, I would rather change my list to help them out if I can.

This is why Im seeing a bad problem with Ravagers ATM, I just feel a static play style isnt the way to go (For me at leas) anymore, and we have so many other things going for us in this new book.

To me, and I don't speak about resilience, but only capacity to bring down a superheavy.
Just as a comparison: 5 HW scourges costs less than a 3 DL ravager, and bring 4 shots against 3.

If you deepstrike 3 units of each behind, let say, an Imperial Knight (which is to be seen as an ally in almost every imperial list, SM, IG, etc... , so 50% of turnament games).

3 ravagers will provide 9 lance shots, 6 hits, S8 against AV12 --> (4+) 3 hull points, maybe better if you roll an explosion, which wil be an additional D3 hull points.

3 units of HW scourges will provide 12 HW shots, 8 hits --> 6-7 hull points.

Of course, you have to deep strike in the right place, at the same time, avoiding the IK shield, etc, etc... a lot of "if".

Maybe you should have both, scourges and ravagers. It should not be a problem as they do not compete for the same slot in the army.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Massaen wrote:

Ravagers are now correctly priced. They have been under priced for more than a decade!

LOL. Ravagers were just about worth considering with the old codex, despite the lackluster effect of lances. With the new codex changes (lance) ravagers are completely overpriced garbage.

This.

Even before AP2 was nerfed to oblivion, Lances still weren't a great weapon. Also Ravagers pay for their mobility by being incredibly fragile. It's supposed to be a trade-off - not just 'pay a ton extra for mobility, and still be really fragile. Oh, and did we mention that we're taking away your mobility anyway? Thanks for shopping with GW - your custom is important to... HA, no, couldn't keep a straight face.'

I suppose they want us to use the deep strike component.

I will agree that anyone who had Ravagers as their core anti-tank component will need to shift stuff up.
Of course I would have thought that before the new codex dropped too

LSK wrote:

Maybe you should have both, scourges and ravagers. It should not be a problem as they do not compete for the same slot in the army.

Exactly. Ravagers become more effective when other effective options exist. Diversify your threats. Since delving into allies I found 2 ravagers the sweet spot for my purposes. Now I'll be going pure again for some testing but I suspect this will still hold true. For DE I feel shooting IKs is the secondary plan if you can't speed bump them with reavers and such.

Raiders otoh I will be sticking with dissis. I made this change awhile back and don't see any reason to bring me back to lance now. The other benefit of dissis besides a 5 pt drop is they jive better with TGLs which I will be including. Suddenly raiders are damn threatening to other xenos armies.

I've put together a list for a game in a couple of weeks time, and it still includes all three Ravagers - two with lances, one with disintegrators. I quite often end up leaving my Ravagers sitting still if there's not much that can see them anyway, now they don't have to move to get a jink save. Even before that came in, I'd be nudging them an eighth of an inch and saying "I moved. Jink save!"

As the list also includes two squads of haywire Scourges, a lance Razorwing and my compulsory six Reavers with two heat lances, I'm not worried about anti tank. But I can see me dropping one of the lance Ravagers ultimately, maybe to add more bodies to the Reavers or another whole squad of them. I would never leave home without at least one triple lance Ravager though, and the disintegrator one just caused so much carnage when I used it last (first game for it!) that it's an auto include for me every time now. It just gets rid of stuff so much more reliably than splinter weaponry. The cost of lances on Raiders which almost aren't worth firing with means I might well switch them for disintegrators too. It just seems inefficient to pay extra for something that never does anything.

Looking on the bright(ish) side, I think Ravagers are now fairly amazing heavy infantry/light vehicle killers with the standard dissie load out.  Everyone is (rightly) upset about the loss of AP 2 on the Husk Blade, but I think having 9 AP 2 shots per Ravager is nothing to sneeze at.  To me, their role has just been clarified now.  The new book has moved their anti-armor role to Scourges, DSing Blasterborn, Reavers, Taloi, and Grots/Sslyths, which seems to make Ravagers a decent choice to bring if you'll be up against TEQ, Broadsides, Riptides, etc.  I'm not saying they are a must take, I'm just suggesting that they have a very clearly defined role now and they can still be effective in that role even though it is more limited than their old one.

sweetbacon wrote:

Looking on the bright(ish) side, I think Ravagers are now fairly amazing heavy infantry/light vehicle killers with the standard dissie load out.  Everyone is (rightly) upset about the loss of AP 2 on the Husk Blade, but I think having 9 AP 2 shots per Ravager is nothing to sneeze at.  To me, their role has just been clarified now.  The new book has moved their anti-armor role to Scourges, DSing Blasterborn, Reavers, Taloi, and Grots/Sslyths, which seems to make Ravagers a decent choice to bring if you'll be up against TEQ, Broadsides, Riptides, etc.  I'm not saying they are a must take, I'm just suggesting that they have a very clearly defined role now and they can still be effective in that role even though it is more limited than their old one.

I agree! Formerly we had to take tri ravagers because we needed the lances. Now there are better options in scourges. Tri dissy ravagers maybe one of the better anti heavy infantry weapons in the game.

Absolutely!  Start  the game with 2-3 of them in ruins, give them Night Shields, and now you have 18-27 Strength 5, armor-ignoring shots which have a 3+ cover save without Jinking.  If your opponent is running any kind of heavy infantry (or say, TWC!) or AV 10/11 vehicles, these could be very irritating.

Im not sure if the scourges are "better options" as they are T3 infantry which probably gets blown up after they killed a vehicle.
The armies I face most are quite AV12 vehicle heavy (Guard with lots of wyvern and chimeras for example), so everything that ever dares to leave a vehicle gets blown to bits by wyvern batteries.
That means for me: yes scourges are probably going to get one bubble wrapped wyvern (if im lucky, as 4 HW Blasters is not a 100% chance, in fact on average you will cause 1 hullpoint if you factor cover in) and then die a horrible death to either laserpointers or another wyvern. Thats 120 points traded for 65.

"nd option are Reavers which probably will jink the whole game as a 5+ save is not really good to keep them alive when they dart for vehicles. That means your heatlances are gonna be snapshots (that is if the Wyvern just decides to ignore them entirely).

Lance Ravagers will probably be useful for finishing off vehicles that have been brought down to one hull point by haywire blasters and such. They can also still instant death T4 multi-wound like Broadsides and can chip wounds off of MCs. Not great at it, but it's something to do while they aren't finishing off vehicles.

Statistically they're about the same as disintegrators against those things but have the ability to hurt any vehicle. In exchange they aren't as good against single wound models. They should really be a straight trade like before, you shouldn't have to pay.