Heavy Support - the Gold Standard

Alright, I think it's pretty much common wisdom that one 'can't go wrong' with 3 Ravagers. However, I've seen more and more lists featuring Razorwings to great effect; more importantly, non-DE players I've talked to seem to agree that our beloved Jetfighter is, in fact, a bit overpowered!

How do you all feel about this? Any min-maxers out there who have found the Razorwing a better buy (even if it's just for 1 HS slot)? If so, why?

I prefer Razorwings for many reasons.

1) Have you seen the model, I mean come on if the Ravanger model is sexy than the razowing is smexy! (yeh it gets it's own word)

2)Duality- With two Dark Lances and it's missles mean it can threaten anything on the table.

3)Is it overpowered? Erm no, the main people who seem to be screaming overpowered from what I've seen are Wolf players who just had there Long Fang squads mauled. (good riddance!)

4) It also cost 155pts for AV10 all round vehicle. If you struggling to take down a AV10 jetfighter your doing something wrong.

5)I love them and will be fielding two in my list along with a Voidraven, there just too good looking not to use, and while they might not be as optimal as the Ravanger, they still do almost as a good a job as it does but with 4 juicy pie plates along side.

TheDuke

@Raneth - your question is multi-layered and not easy to answer.

I do not feel the Razorwing is overpowered/under-priced. Let's look at it logically;

Ravager = 105
Razorwing = 145

For +40 points I get;

close topped (this is a good thing)
+4 pie plates (this is a good thing)
+1 splinter rifle (...ummm...a good thing...sorta, I guess. It's good if you pay even more to upgrade it, but as stands it's useless, really)
-1 Lance (Boooo! Terrible!)
Total inability to get cover saves except on the most awesometacular of tables (Booo! Terrible!)
Slightly better at preventing cover saves vs. vehicles it's shooting at, but not vs. infantry which is what it's good for shooting at (Meh...sorta good?)

Do you see the runaway super awesome win in that? I don't. I see a vehicle that is priced basically like the Ravager is and the price difference makes reasonable sense to my mind (if anything, I think it should be cheaper - closed top and minus a lance for +4 missiles is +40 points, really? Especially when we can look at the Voidraven and see what you value those missiles at? Meh.)

I have fielded them a few times, and even am starting to develop "my list" for fielding them. But I think there's an important thing to understand; Razorwings are NOT hot swappable with Ravagers.

If I build a good list with Ravagers and suddenly magically have extra points and go 'awesome' and switch out any number of the Ravagers for any number of Razorwings...I will have just made my list weaker.

Razorwings are anti-infantry.
They are anti-infantry even if you leave the lances on them.
They serve a totally different function than tri-lance Ravagers.
So if you want Razorwings - build a list where you think you can field Ravagers with dissies - then you'll be onto a good Razorwing list, and at that point they'll serve you fine.

Good? Yes.
Competitive? Yes.
Worth working into a list? Yes...but nly as long as you understand what it's doing to your anti-infantry and anti-mech requirements.

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@TheDuke;

1. Beauty doesn't translate well to being 'better' than a Ravager
2. Duality or less focused? I don't think it's very dual purpose - personally.
3. I agree.
4. I agree.
5. As mentioned above, they also cost 10 points per pie plate, basically - which is hardly a wtfomglolbbq moment of value. You are really paying for what you're getting - no hidden value here.

Thor665 wrote:

Do you see the runaway super awesome win in that? I don't. I see a vehicle that is priced basically like the Ravager is and the price difference makes reasonable sense to my mind (if anything, I think it should be cheaper - closed top and minus a lance for +4 missiles is +40 points, really? Especially when we can look at the Voidraven and see what you value those missiles at? Meh.)

Point-for-point the Razorwing is indeed nothing more than a fair deal, but the main point of grief seems to be its ability to churn out 4 pie plates in one go (which might well cause over 40pts worth of mayhem). I do share your view in that one can't just swap one out for the other.

@Duke: I have to admit I'm sort of looking for an excuse to try and field the Razorwing competitively.

I have played with the razorwings for a couple of games... but overpowered is something else.

Don't get me wrong. I love them and they can be worth every penny and more. But you have to learn to play with them! Otherwise, they go down faster than you can say banana.


So play them, use the beautifull model as an good excuse to go field 3 of them.
They can be tons of fun!

It's definitely not overpowered. I agree with Raneth about the grief over the pie-plates, took out a squad of Grey Hunters today, but having suffered under some much cheaper Thunderfire cannons on occasion, I am not sympathetic.

It's AV10 and very, very vulnerable. It is a lot of fun to use, and worth it's weight in gold. It is also much, much more versatile than a Ravager. But no, it is not overpowered.

I think I'd prefer an extra Ravager as they don't end up missing with all their missiles when the crazy scenario you are playing says it's foggy and you can't subtract your BS from the distance dice!

That said mine will be back on the table for the Apoc game in Langley if it happens.

I guess the reason why the Razorwing is getting more popular is because 4 large blast templates is much more economical than a wave of splinter cannon shots and/or waves of lances striking at infantry units that are in cover. Potentially devastating to horde armies, but a death sentence on those devastator squads or Lootas.

The waves of splinter shots are good against monstrous creatures and medium-sized squads and the wave of lances are a godsent to transports, MeQs and Monstrous Creatures, but against horde these weapons are quite mediocre.

I would personally try to play with three of the razorwings, but that would also means that I need to have more raiders into the list to cover for the absence of 3 lances that I would find more handily on the Ravager.

Generally I find that my Razorwing is an alpha strike vehicle, it arrives, unleashes the missiles and then that's about it. I field mine with Dissies as I have a lot of Marines to get through and it does a decent job of thinning stuff out. The same as with all Dark Eldar units you need to use it in the right way and that AV10 is a huge liability, it can easily be taken out by a cheap as chips Predator.

The biggest problem here is that you want to protect your investment, mine clocks in at 175pts because of the SC upgrade and the shields. However, autocannons can take it out pretty easy at up to 48" and the only weapon you have that will allow your nightshields to keep you safe from that are the missiles, which are 1 shot, after that you have to get closer and then you open yourself to being blasted, even worse if the opponent has Lascannons. I enjoy fielding it, it's a nice model too, however, I may move back to my third Ravager and see how my list plays with that and the extra 70pts I'll have.

SirTainly wrote:

I think I'd prefer an extra Ravager as they don't end up missing with all their missiles when the crazy scenario you are playing says it's foggy and you can't subtract your BS from the distance dice!

The fog balanced things out though, as it enabled my sexy jet fighter to survive long enough to get up close and real personal with it's cannons. A 2nd Ravvie mightn't be a bad idea though, since your first took a swan-dive so early

I don't protect my Razorwing at all. I get it on and use to max potential straight away to try and disrupt my opponent's plan as early as possible, and then if it survives for a few more turns it is a very potent gunship. I do often hold back one or two missiles as a potential late-game deciding factor.

I will say this, in the weekend tournie that SirTainly and I just played, we had six games each. I played Space Wolves twice, including the eventual best general winner, Grey Knights, Daemons, Orks, and of course SirTainly's other Kin. My Razorwing only died once. It did get hit a few times, only 4 or 5, but the Flickerfields weaved their magic every other time. I Deep Struck it 5 of the 6 games, but only in one game did it refuse to come on until the fourth turn. The rest of the games it was on the table from turn 1 (Advanced Reserves) or turn 2. So no one can say that they didn't have plenty of opportunity to tag it if they wanted to.

Got lists?

I'm already running 2 Ravagers, (the second one lasted until the penultimate turn) don't use a third because of the club comp rules (although I now have the models to do this thanks to a trade with Mike Major). For those outside our club, we can only run 2 of the same choice outside of the troops FOC slots.

My List was:

Duke Sliscus
7 Trueborn + Carbine
2 Trueborn + Cannon
Raider + FF

4 Trueborn + Blaster
Venom + SC

2 of the following Squad
7 Wyches
1 Wych + HG
1 Wych + S&I
1 Hekatrix + Agonizer
Raider + FF

2 of the following Squad
4 Warriors
1 Warrior + Blaster
Venom + SC

2 of the following
Ravager + FF + NS

SirTainly wrote:

I'm already running 2 Ravagers, (the second one lasted until the penultimate turn) don't use a third because of the club comp rules (although I now have the models to do this thanks to a trade with Mike Major). For those outside our club, we can only run 2 of the same choice outside of the troops FOC slots.

Nice list. Gotta love the Duke! On topic, if I weren't allowed to field a 3rd Rav, I'd definitely have included a Razorwing - HS choices are some of the best we have! But if you meant you were only allowed 2 HS slots... keep 2 Ravs. It's not like a Duke list needs a lot of supporting AI

Thanks.

We can have 3 HS, but not 3 Ravagers.

Problem is to add the Razorwing you'd have to drop something, and so many of the Astro scenarios needed troops with "hands" to pick up crates etc, and the flyer can't do that. Also I never really felt short of of firepower, so other than templates I'm not sure what advantages it would have brought - and the only time I fought a supposed horde army - orks, it was small squads all in trucks, almost DE style.