So i need some help with my reavers

Dat_Other_Guy wrote:

If they have ignores cover, hide them behind BLOS terrain.

Unless they are Tau with Smart Missiles or Tyrant Guard with whatever funky weapon they have. Both of these ignore cover, don't need LOS and punch straight through our 5+ save. It's like they were designed to take out Reavers.

Plastikente wrote:

Dat_Other_Guy wrote:

If they have ignores cover, hide them behind BLOS terrain.

Unless they are Tau with Smart Missiles or Tyrant Guard with whatever funky weapon they have.  Both of these ignore cover, don't need LOS and punch straight through our 5+ save.  It's like they were designed to take out Reavers.

And Wyverns, don't forget them!

I read this thread with attention as I own 9 reavers with 3 CC in my current list (1850 CAD, no ally)
189 pts... and they have never been a *gamechanging* unit.
In the same FA slot I also have: one unit of HW scourges and one razorwing with 2 lances.
I run also 2 ravagers with 3 dissies (i love this setup), and 2 blasterborn raiders with blastarchon + wwp... and a naked voidraven (meh...).
troops: 4 venoms with 5 kabalites inside for grabbing objectives.

I played 3 games against semi-competitive lists (tyranids, ravenwing DA, and orks). 3 wins.
The razorwing jetfighter has proven to be very good, so did the scourges, but the reavers...

In my setup, I am quite sure that 9 jetbikes is too much, 6 would be better, but I was even wondering if i shouldn't get rid of the reavers to bring one more scourges unit or one more razorwing...

I'd say that reavers performance depends on your list and how you play them.
As I am an "aggressive" player, I tend to expose them too much, so they die quickly by my own fault.
They are fragile, I know that, and despite my knowledge I can't help myself sending them on the front line as I consider them an assault unit... which they're not! They are a guerilla unit and must wait for the right moment to eliminate one complete enemy at a time, and then hide again.

Depending on your playstyle, reavers can be very powerful or completely lame.

I bring reavers as counter-invisibility, as that power takes up quite a lot of room in my local meta.

Khordajj wrote:

I really don't like MSU Reavers. Just because they're smaller units doesn't mean you can hide them. You have to move them up the board eventually.

If you're going to MSU, they're best left unupgraded. At least that's my opinion. Someone can probably tell me why I'm wrong

The point of MSU is not "easier to hide" but multiple targets that make you waste shots. You still take a lot of 3 reaver squads (6x3 for example) so you still can charge with multiple small squads.

The 2 wyvern battery back there will deal easily with a blob of 9 reavers. But 3x3 will make him waste so many wounds.

That 2 Marines back there that refused to die when their squadmates went down? Wanna shoot/charge them with 9 Reavers and lose a lot of wounds or send 3 to deal tith them while 2x3 can do something else?

Likewise if you need 9 Reavers to do something you can easily just use 3 squads instead of a big blob of 9.

So what's the verdict on Reavers here?

Loadout 1- Relatively cheap, cheerful toolbox- 6x, 2x CC, 2x HL- 146
Loadout 2- Go big, or go extinct- 9x, 3x CC, (3x HL), AC w/ Ago- 224 (254)
Loadout 3- Mosquitoes- 3-4 units of 3x, 1x CC, 1x HL- 219 to 292 pts

It depends what you want from them.

If you want a small unit to poach rear armour of tanks or grab a few maelstrom missions you want to minimise the footprint of the unit, make them look as un-scary as possible and utilise as much cover as possible. So you probably want a unit of 3 with a heat lance and maybe a cluster caltrop.

You want a unit that is more styled towards cracking light armour and hitting hard in assault then a 6 man team with two cluster caltrops, perhaps an arena champion with agoniser or just power weapon just to finish off stuff before running off. Squads bigger than 3 attract a bit more attention and so they will be jinking, so shooting is not going to really happen.

I think 6 is the better option most of the time, its big enough to survive a bit of overwatch, it hits hard and is fairly survivable (for dark Eldar). Squads of 3 are good in maelstrom, but not as much of a combat threat and fairly vulnerable if someone does get to shoot them! Squads of 9 are effectively a squad of 6 but hits even harder, but they have quite a big footprint and attract a lot of attention and attracting attention is never good for cult/kabal units!

I did the numbers for 6, they are brilliant for hunting smaller squads (like Devs or Pathfinder teams). The heat lances are there just in case there's an opportunity to use it.

The thing about reavers, they live and die by their jink save. Running msu reavers has an opportunity to overload the opponent's ignores cover weaponry, but so to do other factors in your army. Take that into consideration.

Another thing about reavers, they get up into the opponent's face immediately. That creates a paychologial pressure. If they are the only unit applying that pressure they are more likely to be singled out for extinction, but again other units in the army can do the same.

ShadowcatX wrote:

If they are the only unit applying that pressure they are more likely to be singled out for extinction, but again other units in the army can do the same.

Very true. They need to support other units that are also used aggressively.

I think of them as vultures. While other units draw attention the reavers can grab obj and kill the vulnerable units and vehicles.

In a RSR det I take 3 x 6 with caltrops or sometimes HL or blasters. Love em!

Its why I would reserve them almost every time, they are great late game once they start hitting turn 3+ they can really hurt

Agreed.

T2+ Move into a position to be effective next turn ideally while grabbing an obj.

T3+ Bring the pain. Chase the maelstrom points.

T5+ Grab linebreaker if needed.

My reavers bag more points than the rest of my army put together.

I'm afraid I just don't get them. If we assume a turn 3 charge, for the same price you could have had 2 Venoms shooting for those 3 turns. So before you have charged with the bikes, assuming cover and terrain has allowed you to do so without just getting wiped before doing anything at all, my 2 venoms would have forced 36 saves on pretty much any unit I want. The only thing the bikes can do differently, is (very unreliably) try and caltrop rend a vehicle. Meh.

Hellstrom wrote:

The only thing the bikes can do differently, is (very unreliably) try and caltrop rend a vehicle.  Meh.

The strength of bikes is they are reasonably tough and have 48" movement, jump shoot jump, skilled rider and hit and run, for dirt cheap. Everything else they bring, hammer of wrath, shooting, etc is just gravy.

Bikes win you the game with their movement.

Yup, reavers really epitomise dark eldar in this edition. Fast, fragile and hard hitting. Also, I would argue that all but coven units, the movement phase is what wins us games

I'm with Mush => the movement has it, particularly in maelstrom games (or Drunken Commander, as they call it at my local GW "Get that one!... No, get that one!... Now kill that flying thing!... What do you mean there are no flying things?! *hic*")

I will often start at least one of my squads on the table just to freak the opponent out with how fast they are. I'm generally running 2 or 3 squads of 6 with CC and HL in my 1500pt lists at the moment.

Plastikente wrote:

I'm with Mush => the movement has it, particularly in maelstrom games (or Drunken Commander, as they call it at my local GW "Get that one!... No, get that one!... Now kill that flying thing!... What do you mean there are no flying things?! *hic*")

That's an entertaining way to see it

I like to bring 4 units of 3 bikes with blasters and a razorwing. Even with ignore cover, there's just too many of them to worry about while my ravagers blast everything away. They move, pop some blaster shots off and then assault move. At any time they can move across field and claim an objective. I never run CC as they are expensive and anytime I have tried, they died horribly after inflicting minimal wounds.

Bikes have always been successfull for me.
Use them nearly every game. Had a great game with them the other day were the managed to take out a crisis squad, devilfish transport, parahna, hammerhead and a ethereal.
Running two squads of four with only caltrops as the upgrade.
Running them in small squads they still pack hurt, and it dosnt draw so much attention to them either.