How to keep a Razorwing alive

So, I bought two units on Ebay the other day, a Razor wing and another Kabalite squad, my question for the razorwing though, its armor all around is 10, I've never used aircraft before. So from what I've read in the rules its going to be zooming always, making it harder to hit? Units only get snapshots at it, which does give it some reliable cover, but, it will still give a good chance of dying, especially when I assume my enemy will unleash on it, especially when its raining Disintegrator fire, I'm also aware that if it gets a penetrating hit its chances of death are far increased, which is a scary thing at its point value, I am paranoid that it won't make it far chances of death are higher early in game too. Any tips? I wanna make a big impression my first time using it.

The razor wing is fairly cheap. It's a good aircraft. If the enemy is wasting much fire power on it. Good for you! Good for your ground forces. But you have to take care of sky fire and interceptor units before it's entering the game!

Can I choose when it enters?

No. It arrives with normal reserve rules. But you can leave the table again and automatically show up next round.

Hmm okay. I knew it goes off and comes back, I was just iffy, considering coming in at the beginning, its basically the only target for a good round before most of my others are in range

As a flyer it has to start in reserve so it won't be on the table until at least turn 2. You have precisely that long to deal with any threats to it, such as interceptor fire, because anything that so much as looks at it funny will probably wreck it.

Count Adhemar wrote:

As a flyer it has to start in reserve so it won't be on the table until at least turn 2. You have precisely that long to deal with any threats to it, such as interceptor fire, because anything that so much as looks at it funny will probably wreck it.

Only with skyfire. Other than that, it is safe . At least a bit.

Yes, as an aircraft I'm almost relying on that for it to live, just even with that, full squads firing, I wouldn't be shocked to see some lucky rolls that make it crash and burn early, guess it depends on the opponents priorities.

I've dusted mine off again this edition recently and so far I've been very pleased. Heres the thing if your facing multiple flyers its gonna go down eventually but you can draw attention away from your ground forces with it since they will need to choose skyfire meaning snapshots against ground.

My suggestion is keep it focused. Don't try and do the lance thing because its not efficient at that role. Tool it for anti infantry and give it night shields and it becomes a better more expensive disi ravager. Mine recently survived the full firepower of a stormraven all game and never went down due to 3+ jink. Made the raven essentially worthless while I was still able to wreck some havoc with his infantry.

Damn. I built both of mine with lances

They work fine with lances too - both dissies and lances have a lot of viability depending on local meta and the rest of your army.

I'm going to start using mine again, but only because I picked up a badass laser etched Dark Eldar template set and want to use it in a game.

Jimsolo wrote:

I'm going to start using mine again, but only because I picked up a badass laser etched Dark Eldar template set and want to use it in a game.

He's going to need to put that quote on his packaging.

Most of my regular opponents ignore if they lack skyfire or a flier of their own. As said earlier, if they have skyfire try and deal with it early. If they have a flier or fliers of there own try and get on the board after them. I take mine with lance upgrades, though I have one of the two magnetized for disintigrators.

@Jimsolo got pictures of that?

Were how... omg just take my money already

$20:

http://www.gdesignsinc.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=productdetails&virtuemart_product_id=213&virtuemart_category_id=74

Back on topic: if I were dead set on using them I would field as many units as conceivably possible in order to futz with the enemy target priority.

The razorwing is pretty much a no brainer, but past the initial blasts, you can't really depend on it to survive any more than our other vehicles.  Just try to keep it cheap and make it's points back on the turn it comes in - anything else is gravy.

The only real mistake you can make is making yourself vulnerable to interceptor fire.  3 Space marine stalkers for example will hit you with 9, str 7, skyfire rounds between your own movement and shooting phase - the full unit also ignores cover so you can't even jink.  That unit does cost more than a razorwing, but they can also fire at 2 units a round, including skimmers... so even target saturation won't help you much.

The disintegrators are a good call.  High volume ap2 is never a bad idea, although you forgo the ability to kill most vehicles effectively (including flyers).  This might actually be a benefit as enemies may likely ignore a flyer "only" kitted to kill heavy infantry.  Make him pay for his arrogance  

Be wary of (all) your opponent's threat ranges though, and don't be afraid to jink after the missiles drop.  I've seen a razorwing blown out of the sky by a single round of terminator fire with glances to spare.  You want to be killing termies at 36", not killed by them at 24".

Do people really shoot their entire missile wad in the first shooting phase with it?

That seems like an incredible waste.

I tend to use half of them on the first round when there isn't a tank that definitely needs some Lance love.

Jimsolo wrote:

Do people really shoot their entire missile wad in the first shooting phase with it?

That seems like an incredible waste.

I don't... I like firing 2 mono missiles + 2 dissies for 2 shooting phases in most of my games but from what I've read I'm in the minority.

That being said if I was facing a few enemy flyers and AA units I would shoot my entire missile "wad" the first chance I got!

Jimsolo wrote:

Do people really shoot their entire missile wad in the first shooting phase with it?

That seems like an incredible waste.

Really changes from game to game. When I need him to shoot an enemy flyer or am just dealing with a saturation of ground armor values, then yeah i'll probably spend one turn unloading all missiles into a big blob and then let him focus on firing lances. If I'm running 2 dissies for more ground control, then I tend to only fire two missiles at a time.

If your target is something like a necron warrior blob, then you probably won't be wasting wounds by firing all at once.

Jimsolo wrote:

Do people really shoot their entire missile wad in the first shooting phase with it?

That seems like an incredible waste.

Not typically these days although I will if I can catch someone blobbed up. I think the people who do this more commonly run the lance build so they are aiming for efficiency with their split purpose weaponry. At least that was myreasoning.

I watched a game last week where my buddy brought 3 razorwings.  1 got to fire all of it's missiles, and it did so when it came in.  The other two died with missiles in their racks.  I doubt any of them made their points back.

Pretty normal in my meta, which I'm sure has biased my opinion on the matter.  I generally just take more reavers or scourges anymore unless I'm really tailoring an anti-horde list, and then I let it all fly ASAP.