ravagers vs trueborn

I was just doing points up for effectiveness. With the major increase in price for ravagers, I have looked at Trueborn.
5 Trueborn with 2 dark lances is 95pts. Add in a Dark lance/night shield raider and it is 170pts

A ravager with 3 dark lances and a night shield is 140pts

30+ points and you lose mobility, but you also have 2 lances that will still fire at full ballistic skill on a jink (3+) and a unit that will still generally have lances to fire if their transport is destroyed. Thoughts?

It's the old sniper build in a new form, and isn't shabby. Also be aware you can always deploy outside of the Raider (in a handy tall ruin maybe) and then allow the Raider to move around freely while the Trueborn snipe.

I personally think you're better off going with the Blasters for them, as it maintains mobility for the unit and can up your firepower though at a sacrifice of range.

I also like blasters, but they can be outdeployed, with their short range...

I think the Sniper unit definitely has a place in the new codex. Power from Pain is a dream come true for them. Turn 3 FnP? Awesome. Stick them in a Ruin and you're looking at 2 Lances with 4+/5+ saves and 3 ablative wounds for pretty cheap.

Only downside is the lack of manoeuvrability and their weakness to Templates (and S6, but if someone is wasting S6 on 5 Trueborn then you've probably already lost).

Aschen wrote:

I also like blasters, but they can be outdeployed, with their short range...

6" move + 6" deploy out of vehicle + 18" blaster range = 30"
Stationary Trueborn w. Lances = 36"

If 6" is the make or break point for you then, sure - but I don't think it's actually that easy to hide from Blasterborn barring poor deployment of the Blasterborn.

That does, however, leave your Blasterborn awfully vulnerable. I treat Blasterborn as a 24" threat range and would only ever disembark them like that if it was utterly imperative that something receive those 4 Darklight shots.

Though from T3 onwards with FNP and good cover it would be tempting, if you could do it without Dangerous/Difficult Terrain coming into it.

If you need to silence mech, then Turn 1 *is* imperative. That's what they're there for, if I have a turn I'm not shooting them at mech then I have a turn I'm wasting points on them.

I also will admit I disembark them a lot, and they tend to survive just fine. The trick is having so many other targets that your opponent is overwhelmed by the choices. Yeah, maybe he'll shoot the Trueborn, or the Ravager, or the Raider with a squad with a Blaster in it - but each of those is a threat to him and his mech, and my basic plan is to hurt him enough early that he won't be able to hurt enough of me afterwards to stop all of my tools.

This is actually not a bad point. plus when blown up, the survivors are scoring units that can act, another point in favor of the plan, assuming they survive the blast (i spose it depends strongly on what turn it is). Tick tock.