1550pt Reaver spam attempt

Hello! This is my first post, although I've been lurking for about 6 months. I started playing Dark Eldar back when you could give Haemonculi a Reaver Jet Bike, and have loved the Reavers ever since.

Below is an attempt at a semi-competitive list utilizing as many reavers as I logically can into 1550pts.

Succubus, archite glave
Grotesques (4)
Raider, night shield

Warriors (10)
Raider, night shield, splinter racks
Warriors (10)
Raider, night shield, splinter racks

Reavers (3) CC, heat lance
Reavers (3) CC, heat lance
Reavers (3) CC, heat lance

Reavers (6) CC, heat lance (2ea)
Reavers (6) CC, heat lance (2ea)
Reavers (6) CC, heat lance (2ea)

Ravager DL (3)
Ravager DL (3)


A few things:
1) I will NEVER use Eldar. I've been playing on and off for around 14 years and have avoided them so far.
2) I will probably switch out the raiders for Venoms as I build them.
3) I want to embody the speed aspect of DE, so I would prefer to not use "slower" models.

I've read a few of the threads regarding reaver tactics and squads of 3/6, but would also love input from anyone who runs them.

First: Why 9 warriors inside of raiders and not 10?
Second: Splinter racks. Always.
Third: Dark lance upgrade for raider would be welcome. You'll have trouble bursting heavy tanks with cluster caltrops and you'll have to jink every turns to keep your reavers alive. So, drop the heat lances on the reavers. With the remaining points, try to get a third ravager.

dumpeal wrote:

First: Why 9 warriors inside of raiders and not 10?

That was a mistake with my numbering of reaver squads. I adjusted the original post.
This leaves me with 33pts, so night shields on the ravagers, or 3 heat lances on reavers?

Firsdtly, welcome aboard !

Draco wrote:

Reavers X3 cluster caltrops,
(Above X9)

Does this mean you have one squad of 3 Reavers and one squad of 9 Reavers?

Draco wrote:

1) I will NEVER use Eldar. I've been playing on and off for around 14 years and have avoided them so far.

Good stuff

Draco wrote:

I've read a few of the threads regarding reaver tactics and squads of 3/6, but would also love input from anyone who runs them.

Smaller units simply tend to be more economic, and shrewd usage of them yields similar output than a larger unit can provide. Check out some of these guides Here with some uses for Reavers. No doubt you already know most about these points since you've played them for a long time, but it's always handy to reiterate.

Thank you! I will definitely read up on anything I can get my hands on, and I'm running 9 squads of 3.

currently you have no where to stick your lhameans. (likely why you originally had 9 warriors in each raider). Unless of course you plan to just park them somewhere in hiding.

currently you have no where to stick your lhameans. (likely why you originally had 9 warriors in each raider). Unless of course you plan to just park them somewhere in hiding.

Yes, so probably dropping two warriors to fit them. Puts me at 49pts. Maybe a Mandrake squad? Or night shields and heat lances.

Draco wrote:

I will definitely read up on anything I can get my hands on, and I'm running 9 squads of 3.

I like it. There's a member on these forums who routinely runs a lot of them too with great success. I believe he owns something like 45 Reavers total (and lots of guardian jetbikes), but I can't recall his username.

Draco wrote:

Yes, so probably dropping two warriors to fit them. Puts me at 49pts. Maybe a Mandrake squad? Or night shields and heat lances.

You can't put Lmahaen's into any squads as they're not independent characters, and I'd veer away from Mandrakes unless you have a very specific reason that you wish to include them ie a super fluffy list.

Honestly, I suggest getting Shock Prows on all the Raiders, or possibly even the Ravagers, well before I even consider buying Heat Lances for Reavers or Night Shields for Ravagers.

Shock Prows truly are a hidden gem in the codex and often overlooked. Once the Raider's drop off warriors to an objective, they can zoom across the table and steal another one (Objective Secured ftw). You can also clear a path for your Reavers to engage the right targets through the chaff - such as a platoon of Guardsmen bubble wrapped around a Leman Russ Squadron.

How many Reavers do you have? I would consider dropping the Ravagers for more if that's an option - assault units tend to become exponentially more powerful as they gain in mass. If you're running them in squads of 3 there is no way every single squad is going to get shot at each turn, so strap on the Blasters (or heat lances based on meta - for me being able to Instant Death T4 models is quite important).

Raiders switching to Venoms is a good plan; a Reaver spam list will benefit from really maxing out its MSU capability.

Also, while they're not game-breaking, Warlord Traits are useful to have. It'll only cost you 10pts to get a Sybarite or Arena Champion for that free trait, so I'd highly recommend that. If you want to use a more traditional HQ a Succubus with an escort (either Grotesques or Incubi, though I figure thematically you'd prefer Incubi?) wouldn't be unwelcome - and I've had very good experiences with the Animus Vitae in my Reaver spam lists. Once Reavers get Furious Charge they're essentially faster and better Harlequins - that S4 counts for more than you'd think.

If you do go that route some Grotesques are very useful though; it's very nice to have a solid resilient unit to tie the enemy up while Reavers bounce in and out with Hit&Run and caltrops.

First off, I appreciate all of your input.

After taking the cities opinions into consideration, especially my mistake with the Lmahen's, I'm thinking one RSR detachment might make more sense. I edited the op to reflect the new changes.

I like the Succubus/Grot idea as a spear head into the opponent. I also want to stick with heat lances on the reaver units because I want every unit to be considered a threat at "all" times. I currently own 2 un-built venoms, so they will be phased in as I build. Having 3 small reaver units, along with 3 larger units will hopefully give me some additional versatility especially when objective sitting is required.

The current list build gives me 15 lances, a fully mobile army, decent close combat, and I think a fair amount of unit saturation. I had 8 points left over, so I'll probably ad a dark lance to a raider.

All reavers by default can hurt up to AV 13 in melee with bladevanes. With Cluster caltrops, they could hurt up to AV 16 if such a thing existed. You don't need the heat lances for them to be a threat, and you don't WANT the points invested in said lances to make you question whether or not to JINK. The answer is YES. You always want to jink with reavers. They're too expensive and fragile not to do so against anything with an AP value. They can hurt ALL vehicles or toughness values in melee. That's what they do. Focus on that.

I'd drop all the heat lances and take as many cluster caltrops as possible. It looks like you have a couple units that could get another caltrop. Also, your original idea of running a 2nd formation/cad was good in that it provided more target saturation. Running 9 units of 3, each with cluster caltrops, is better than 6 units because it provides more targets. Units that put out a lot of firepower, such as is necessary to kill a unit of 6 reavers in one go, will be wasting the additional shots if forced to shoot at a unit of 3 reavers. This would be my suggested list, very close to yours while meeting your specifications:

DE CAD:
1 Lhamaean in a Venom w/2 Splinter Cannons 75
10 Kabalite Warriors with a Sybarite(Warlord) in a raider w/splinter racks 160
10 Kabalite Warriors in a raider w/splinter racks 150
3 Reavers w/CC 63
3 Reavers w/CC 63
3 Reavers w/CC 63
2 Ravagers w/ Dissies 220

DE REALSPACE RAIDERS:
1 Lhamaean in a Venom w/2 Splinter Cannons 75
10 Kabalite Warriors in a raider w/splinter racks 150
10 Kabalite Warriors in a raider w/splinter racks 150
3 Reavers w/CC 63
3 Reavers w/CC 63
3 Reavers w/CC 63
3 Reavers w/CC 63
3 Reavers w/CC 63
3 Reavers w/CC 63
TOTAL: 1547

Against AV 10-11, dissies are comparable to dark lances due to the extra shots. Against pretty much all elite infantry, dissies will be far superior. You don't really want to shoot at AVs higher than 11 with dissies. It's sort of a waste, but that's what your reavers are for.

This list gives you about 50% more target saturation, so that your opponent can't shoot everything, and/or wastes shots on small units, while more than doubling the ammount of splinter fire you have.

At opportune moments, against units that have flamers or otherwise overwatch that is scary for your reavers, you have 2 sacrificial Lhamaeans to disembark and charge to eat the overwatch without giving up slay the warlord. You also get a warlord trait, since the Sybarite is a character. This list also gives you 4 units (2 warriors, 2 Raiders) with objective secured, which has won me more tournaments than I can count using last turn objective grabs from non-obsec units.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

All reavers by default can hurt up to AV 13 in melee with bladevanes. With Cluster caltrops, they could hurt up to AV 16 if such a thing existed.

I'm not a veteran player, so I may forget somes rules, but... How can cluster caltrop hurt AV16 vehicules? They do 1D6 Str6 hits. A Str 6 can only hurt an AV12.

dumpeal wrote:

I'm not a veteran player, so I may forget somes rules, but... How can cluster caltrop hurt AV16 vehicules? They do 1D6 Str6 hits. A Str 6 can only hurt an AV12.

They have Rending. Rending adds a D3 to penetrating hits on any penetration roll of a 6. That said, I don't know how my math got messed up, but cluster caltrops can damage up to AV15. S6 +1d6 +1d3 = 15.

Those numbers may appear daunting to reach to at first glance, but bear in mind that: #1, you're unlikely to see AV15 a lot, and #2, they're all autohits, so you go straight to rolling penetration. Against the much more common AV12 or AV13, 1 squad of 3 reavers with caltrops will average 1 pen/glance per charge. In those cases, you're likely going to need to gang up on the vehicles to take them down in a timely fashion, hitting them with multiple small squads simultaneously.

That said, since you'll likely be able to hit rear armour often in melee, AV10 and AV11 are likely to be your most common target number, which you'll handle with ease. Against AV10, the same squad will average 2-3 penetrating hits per charge.

I need more Reavers...

Yeah, me too. They're awesome, but sort of expensive models.

@the OP: Oh, also don't forget their normal attacks. Once they have furious charge from power from pain, they can damage AV10 with their normal melee hits too, of which a group of 3 gets 9 per charge. Also, if you get +1S from drugs, you can damage AV10 from turn 1.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

All reavers by default can hurt up to AV 13 in melee with bladevanes. With Cluster caltrops, they could hurt up to AV 15 if such a thing existed.

I guess I'm a little worried about getting there, but you are right. The list you quoted seems closer to my original intentions. My goal is to continue to add more reavers to my armada (maybe 2-5 more squads?) and will probably remove the ravagers as the points go up.

This was a ton of help.

Glad we could help! You should post some pictures of your army once you get them all painted up and such!

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Glad we could help! You should post some pictures of your army once you get them all painted up and such!

I definitely will. Currently working on magnetizing the reavers...

But don't forget that hammer of wrath attacks unlike normal close combat attacks, are resolved against the facing they charge. So no auto rear attacks.

CptMetal wrote:

But don't forget that hammer of wrath attacks unlike normal close combat attacks, are resolved against the facing they charge. So no auto rear attacks.

Hopefully with the 12" move I can stay behind most of the armour.

But their normal attacks(of which they get 3 each on the charge) ARE still autoresolved against rear armor, even if the HoW's aren't. Could make a big difference when you have +1S drugs and furious charge!