Reaver setup and field use

Hi there! So, after having my question about how to build my Kabalites resolved it's now time for the reavers. For the time being I have 3 that's not yet assembled. How would you build them and why? Is there an superior setup? (I know that it differs depending on the games youre playing but, for an overall use? This might come of as a rather stupid question, but Im fairly new to 40k and totally green when it comes to DE

Cluster caltrops are a must.
Then you can add a heat lance. Some people like them others don't. It's based on how you plan to use them.

I always run mine in multiples of 3 with a CC, per 3.

I never field the Lance, as I have Ravagers & Scourges for AT, but have found a few uses for the Arena Champ with a Power Sword.

Oh and I tend to go for 2 x 3 man squads rather than 1 x 6 man etc.

3 or 6 man teams. Every 3 get caltrops, and a Lance of your choice if you like. (I personally don't.)

All good advice. If you can't make up your mind, magnetize the gun on your caltrop guy so you can switch them out. That's what I did with mine!

If you do decide to magnitize have some green stuff handy to repair the gun turret when you drill: the space is a little on the small side and I ended up having to rebuild a small part of each turret. Nothing too hard but FYI.

Reavers and ranged weapon upgrades don't really mesh too well. Their 5+ armor can and will be ignored by almost everything that looks their way so you are going to be forced to jink if you don't want to get plastered.
Snapfiring single shot, short ranged weaponry is not reliable in the slightest especially since you are paying extra for those guns.
So stick with the caltrops, Reavers aren't Craftworld jetbikes and shouldn't be played like them.

Personally I have had decent mileage from a special weapon on the Reavers. Sometimes I have ended up not getting to make much use of the special weapon due to jink, but often there are circumstances where you can get to use it. Here are some examples:

Higher priority targets - sometimes there just isn't the firepower spare to force the Reavers to jink. That can be down to other high priority targets in the vicinity, or late in the game when there are less units on the board, or from saturating a small area with a lot of units.

Line of sight blocking terrain - with the turbo boost or the assault move, sometimes nothing has a viable line of sight to target the Reavers, but their movement the following turn is sufficient to make use of the special weapon.

Cover - with Skilled Riders, it is entirely practical to fly into cover, and that can give you a choice of perhaps a 4+ save and firing the special weapon, or the jink save and snap firing only.

Emerging from combat - if Reavers survive a combat, often they will be free to fire in the following turn. If they have sat two rounds in combat and then hit and run out, then they will definitely be free to fire at full effect.

Certainly no guarantee of value from the Reaver special weapons, but there are times when you wont need to jink, or you can engineer these times. It is one of the upgrades I usually want to take.

I usually run 18 reavers. 3 units of 6 or 6 units of 3 or a combination. Max caltrops of course.

Reavers have access to heatlances which is quite rare AND the cheapest blasters in the book... for some reason.

While I usually don't take guns on the 6 man units as they are jinking all the time, 3 man units are easy to hide and can gang up to put some powerful shots into rear AVs/MC/GMC.  

Tactics wise they are quite tough, 3+ jink and FNP by turn 3 but more importantly they can usually find a safe spot out of range/LOS. They can put wounds/hullpoints on anything in the game and with hit and run and skilled rider can be almost anywhere on the table in 1 turn. An excellent tactical unit.

I bought a sh*tload of used jetbikes and I want to use them. Have someone tried 2 9man naked squads for cover granting, hatch point blocking and all others nasty tricks seen in the Mushkilla guides?

Then, having more 3-man squads with blasters and CC, because the previous jetbikes will give cover to the shooting ones.

Never tried 9, seems like a waste. 6 can do all of Mush's tricks and is easier to manoeuvre.

Use multiple detachments (RSR) for more FA slots so you can use all your reavers.

I've been playing around with running heatlances lately and I've been enjoying them. It adds some more potential when hunting tanks and rear armor.

Squads of 3 or 6 seem the best as well. 9 seems like it would be to large of a footprint.

I used 9 recently at a GT in Omaha. I had a Farseer with them and they worked great. If plan on putting a character with them, I think 9 is the way to go for protection and overwhelming damage potential. The 9 worked great for things like Drop Pods as I was able to essentially screen almost my whole army so everything behind got a 5+ Cover Save base then when they survived the 5 Pods (some shot at the bikes some did not) they were set up perfectly for multicharges and I was able to maximize their HoW hits.

I have not tried 3 man squads, I feel they may be a little useless as they do not have enough HoW or reg. attacks to be worthwhile and with no shooting seem to either die or run away before getting to somewhere. If you need an objective grabber or denier, they may help with that.

If you do not want a character with them, I would go with 6 man squads. The point investment is small and they are large enough to take casualties and still be effective due to having 2 Caltrops.

I would ALWAYS take Caltrops no matter the unit size. IF the unit numbers 6+ I always take the Arena Champ for LD upgrade and the ability to challenge and use those Caltrops.

I do not like the special weapons on Reavers for reasons people have already said. They will most likely be jinking therefor snapshotting the next turn. I have tried them and at most (if people target them) they will shoot 2-3 times in the game.

I currently run 9 3 man squads, with CC and nothing else. The 3 man squads work wonderfully for saturation, objective grabbing, and forcing your opponent to overthink his game-play.

In all the examples of 3-model units, what loadout are you all using?
Just 1x Caltrops?
Nothing at all?
Gun, or even Caltrops + gun?

Just caltrops, in my opinion.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Just caltrops, in my opinion.

Exactly. Keep them super cheap so they really feel the pain dedicating anything to them in the shooting phase. Especially since you will probably jink anyway.

Ok! Thanks for all your thoughts on the subject! I'll make sure to throw on as CC as possible then. I do not think I have the patience to magnetize them all, so I'll go for cheap setups and plenty of models instead.

in 3 man squads you can use caltrops + weapon because it is possible to hide them in cover.

A 6 man squad is kinda hard to hide (especially against blast-templates), i keep them clear with 6 guys.

If you go 2x3 and 2x6, you can confuse everyone XD

I'm sure the points in these has been made already, but the photos are helpful:
Screening with Reavers
Blocking with Reavers

There are two advantages Reavers have which make taking lances worthwhile. The first is that you get to charge a unit if you pop the box it's inside first. Lances allows a unit to crack open those boxes and kill the unit inside in a single turn by themselves. Quite valuable when you have limited fire and you need to get stuff done. The other advantage is their speed which can allow them to easily get into positions to hit vehicles in the rear. Whilst the opponent is turning his tanks to face to the Ravagers head on these guys can get in behind and get to the soft rear armour. Both these give the Reavers extra versatility on top of their melee potential, in a list that rewards hyper-specialisation it's nice to have something that can handle multiple threat types.

The one thing that can be said of Reavers is that they're a really good unit and they can be fielded in multiple ways, a rarity in the DE list. You can field them in units of 3, 6 or 9, with or without special weapons and as cover-hoping pests, turbo-boosting threats or cover providing screens. And all of those strategies work well if you build your strategy around them.

Demantiae wrote:

There are two advantages Reavers have which make taking lances worthwhile. The first is that you get to charge a unit if you pop the box it's inside first. Lances allows a unit to crack open those boxes and kill the unit inside in a single turn by themselves. Quite valuable when you have limited fire and you need to get stuff done. The other advantage is their speed which can allow them to easily get into positions to hit vehicles in the rear.

Both good points but personally I feel that Reavers need to jink in order to have a chance to achieve either of those, as T4, 5+ is going to die to pretty much anything that looks at it. However, in a moment of delicious irony, the act of jinking would almost certainly prevent them from achieving either of those aims. It's a vicious circle but the upshot is that I almost never field heat lances or blasters on reavers.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Both good points but personally I feel that Reavers need to jink in order to have a chance to achieve either of those, as T4, 5+ is going to die to pretty much anything that looks at it. However, in a moment of delicious irony, the act of jinking would almost certainly prevent them from achieving either of those aims. It's a vicious circle but the upshot is that I almost never field heat lances or blasters on reavers.

I'm in complete agreement, after play testing my Reavers I found that unless you get a lucky 1st turn charge, by the 2nd turn you've Jinked & the shooting is wasted.

I also found that putting Lances etc on them moved them up a notch in my enemies targeting priority, which while it did distract fire from other units, meant they were wiped without shooting OR assaulting.

My Reavers have recently found TAU Marker Lightesque fame, enemies focus them 1st & the rest of my list becomes a lot less effective. Sadly because my Ravagers usually never take more than 1 HP a turn, it's a very effective strategy.

Combat Drugs, oh how I love those T5 Reavers is by far my favoroite so far!