Voidraven Bomber

I have not had a chance to use the new Voidraven Bomber and I was wondering about its viability on the battlefield. Is it an auto take? How many would you take (if any)? How should it be used? Etc. Any and all advice is welcome.

Short story: it's terrible.

Long story: with no real role focus, its armament is too expensive and too varied to be a good selection. The bottom line is that it brings too little gun for too many points. Everything it does, something else does better and at a lower cost.

Which is too bad, because it's kind of a pretty model. I've wondered about converting one into an Eldar flyer.

Enemy shoots a voidraven bomber, and then
- It jinks and thus become useless (no blast weapon, snapshoting lance, arguably possible to drop the bomb though)
- Or it doesn't jink, likely be wracked, and thus become useless (AV11 to AV10 now? Why oh why GW)

All in all, RWJ is way superior to it IMO

It has access to Implosion missiles, which means its initial entrance can be pretty spectacular against TEQ if they don't have any interceptor weapons. If they do then it doesn't even manage that. If they have any AA left after your entrance you either jink or die, wasting a whole lot of points.

It should be good but I think the reason it isn't is the cost. It's too expensive stock and the missile upgrades are way overpriced.

Concerning the issue of jinking, this is the same weakness that almost all fliers suffer. If they can come onto the table and unload their weapons they're gold. If they come on and have to jink they're wasted. No different to an other flier there. But the Void Raven should probably be sporting Stealth for it's cost (giving a 2+ jink with Night Shields). that'd help a lot.

It's weaponry is pretty god - Dark Scythes can clean up TEQ's, the Void Lances can pen any armour 50% of the time and the Void Bomb is pretty good at both vehicle pen and infantry mop up. It's just the missiles that let it down because they're expensive.

To be really good the unit needs Stealth (this is in the fluff) and it needs a cost reduction to both the base model and the missile upgrades. And maybe some funky rule to ignore intercept because it's supposed to be impossible to see it coming until it appears above you and blows you to kingdom come!

Demantiae wrote:

It should be good but I think the reason it isn't is the cost. It's too expensive stock and the missile upgrades are way overpriced.

Concerning the issue of jinking, this is the same weakness that almost all fliers suffer. If they can come onto the table and unload their weapons they're gold. If they come on and have to jink they're wasted. No different to an other flier there. But the Void Raven should probably be sporting Stealth for it's cost (giving a 2+ jink with Night Shields). that'd help a lot.

It's weaponry is pretty god - Dark Scythes can clean up TEQ's, the Void Lances can pen any armour 50% of the time and the Void Bomb is pretty good at both vehicle pen and infantry mop up. It's just the missiles that let it down because they're expensive.

To be really good the unit needs Stealth (this is in the fluff) and it needs a cost reduction to both the base model and the missile upgrades. And maybe some funky rule to ignore intercept because it's supposed to be impossible to see it coming until it appears above you and blows you to kingdom come!

Night Shields already give Stealth so it would only be a 3+ jink save and would still make the bomber worthless in the following turn.

I can't speak to other people's experiences but I've found mine has been far from terrible. I've used mine many times and found while it has died horribly a handful of times, it usually makes its points back and on occasion it goes on absolute tear crushing vehicles left and right.

The trick with running it is to have an escort fighter, to protect it from enemy flyers. My choice is the Nightwing its a FW flyer and I kitbashed mine out of a Razorwing. With a 2+ jink, double bright lances double shuriken cannon's its a true ace and usually minces enemy flyers or keeps them jinking the whole game.

A Razorwing will work too though, not because its going to down enemy flyers, but because it'll help draw some AA away from the Raven.

In all honesty its a bit of a luxury, but if you need high strength anti-vehicle fire power its a very good tool, due to the speed and defense inherent to all flyers. If you have a good solid list that you trust to handle duties on the ground, the Void Raven is viable choice. Don't look for it to hit a grandslam everytime and I think you'll find its a decent performer with valuable offensive tools. And if you have a dedicated escort like a Nightwing, Crimson Hunter or even a Razorwing the Void Raven can excel.

What weapons do you equip it with?

Quote :

And if you have a dedicated escort like a Nightwing, Crimson Hunter or even a Razorwing the Void Raven can excel.

All I heard was: it can excel if the enemy is busy shooting at way more dangerous targets, which also cost less points than the void raven

From my experience I would have to say it really depends on how common skyfire and intercept is in your area. I'm one of the few people that play with flyers in my area so I have had some success with it.

Septimus wrote:

Quote :

And if you have a dedicated escort like a Nightwing, Crimson Hunter or even a Razorwing the Void Raven can excel.

All I heard was: it can excel if the enemy is busy shooting at way more dangerous targets, which also cost less points than the void raven

Seconded - I was like...so, I guess I'd take a couple of those then, and not bother with the VR

I would suggest buying a razor wing if you don't already own one and proxy it as a void raven bomber jus incase you get buyers remorse. Or if you really like the model buy it and proxy it as a razorwing (the razor wing is better but our fliers just don't produce results for the cost).

Problem with the void raven is the points cost for it to end up doing nothing and it's pretty big so it may or may not benefit from cover as well as a razorwing.

In all honesty, the ability to put out a S6 AP2 Large Blast before the enemy can fight back is really solid. The ability to put out 2 is insurance.

Having to lay down 4 on the same target (because you can bet that you'll be a target after that entrance and be jinking for the rest of the game) is overkill. This is bad, because that overkill is costing a lot of points.

No, it's not a large blast and that's why I hesitate to pay 15 pts for one small-blast non-barrage missile.

I have five Eldar flyers (3 RWJs, 1 CH, 1 HW) and use them frequently. RWJ is cheaper anyway, CH has double possibility of hit on snapshot, and HW has quite cool psychic defenses (Conceal, Shrouding, and the mighty Invisibility).

I really really wanna buy & use VR well, but cannot find a good way to go.

lelith wrote:

No, it's not a large blast and that's why I hesitate to pay 15 pts for one small-blast non-barrage missile.

Really?

Oh. In that case yeah it's flat out crap.

Heck, you get the option of upgrading Void Lances to Void Scythes, which are S8 AP2 Lance Blasts that can fire all day. And they're free!

I've found it to be very good for performance, but agree it is over priced. A fighter is probably better across the board.

The first volley of missiles is awesome. It does what other Dark Eldar don't, take it hordes.

The bomb misses every game. I don't know why I try.

The void lances are decent.

Once people realize the missiles are gone, they seem to ignore the Bomber.

I've only played a handful of 40k games so far and I'm currently involved in a tournament at my local club. My list has a Voidraven and I've had mixed results, I think you have to accept that it's going to get blown up pretty quickly but I've found that if you fly it on and let off as many weapons as possible straight away it's actually quite good as long as you chose the right targets. I only really took it because I really like the model and was kind of determined to make it work.

I have had mixed results as well. I have had numerous Games where it has done nothing or gotten shot down.

BUT I have had the opposite as well.

1 game it came on and dropped a bomb on a squad of Deepstriking termies that came in before the bomber and killed 6 of the 9.

1 Game I dropped the bomb on a Death Company squad killing 9 of the 10.


The fact is its way over the cost it should be. Should be down in the 130s +30 for lower missile upgrades.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I have a tournament I'm hoping to go to in a couple months and this really helped. I was originally thinking of using the VRB for AA and AT support, but now I'm thinking there would be other more effective options out there. Still a nice looking model though haha.