How do you actually run Reavers?

If we came out 6 months later I strongly believe they'd grant shrouded.

TeenageAngst wrote:

Using them with Strength from Death makes them pretty potent but I'm talking normal Dark Eldar Reavers.

As unit screens that sounds pretty good, I could see them escorting some Grotesques or the like. I don't see bringing 6 units of them though. That'd leave me either cutting into my warriors or cutting into my anti-tank, which is a role they can't really fill.

Hey TA. In regards to anti-tank, I often play vs SM free parking lots and my reavers do much of the anti-tank heavy lifting. They usually open more cans than my lances and haywire.

They roll over light tanks and i don't see many heavy tanks in my local meta.

If we came out 6 months later darklight weapons would cause blind checks on hits, our vehicles would cost 20 points less across the board, night shields would give us Veil of Tears for moving 12", and combat drugs would be army wide.

Also, Grotesques will maul open light armor. Light armor is never really the issue, the issue is heavy armor. Knight Titans, Land Raiders, Leman Russ tanks, etc.

It frustrates me so much that if you get cover saves from multiple sources they don't stack. Anyway...

@TeenageAngst As most if not all of this has been said, perhaps I can contribute by presenting it as a list; I find that can be helpful to me when it comes to this sort of thing.  Here is how I run Reavers:

No more than 3 models per squad - but at least 3 squads
Naked or Cluster Caltrops - leave the pew pews to our tasteless cousins
Maximize benefit of small footprint to hide behind LoS blocking terrain
63 points is often too cheap a unit to devote anti-cover weaponry to (unless it is a large blast and your opponent can target a bunch of your small units hugging the same cover close together)
Unlike Grotesquerie they can grab objectives with TBoost
Unlike warriors in venoms they prefer melee combat to shooting
Like with all MSU-style forces, you can divide your forces more evenly to deal with targets with the minimal amount of force to reliably stall or destroy (usually destroy) the target
Last time I checked, you can use them to screen your other vehicles and grant them cover saves if necessary
Squad of 3 w/Caltrops is Cheaper than naked warriors in a venom
Especially w/Caltrops they can threaten vehicles if you can charge a vehicle's rear

Only real drawback I can see is Combat Drugs making their effectiveness slightly random per-game.

I also disagree about light armor being an issue.  Our Darklight weapons, Haywire Blasters, and Heat Lances all perform the best against Armor 14.  They're much less efficient against light vehicles and hence mass light vehicles is terrifying for us (or at least to me).

We're of opposite opinions on that I'm afraid, as Battle Company is one of the few things I have no fear running against. The issues I deal with are all Knight lists, Wyvern spam, and Riptide Wings supported with drone nets. I'm not thinking the Reavers are going to be particularly good against those.

Well if your meta is really so focused on big things then yes. I wouldn't run them either. They might be good against Riptide wings because Riptides are only T6 I believe (so even S3 can hypothetically wound them, although of course Rending will be doing most of the work), but Knights (of imperial and craftworld varieties) are indeed not the units to be taking Reavers against.

What are Wyverns? Aren't they those IG anti-air specialty tanks? Why would they be spammed unless you knew you'd be taking fliers or DE?

Wyverns have 4 S4 twin-linked barrage small blasts with 48" range, Ignores Cover, and Shred for something like 60 points. Often people will run 4-8 of them and chuck 16 scatter dice at a time on the table, walking the template over whatever their intended target is. These things can get something like 30 S4 hits on a single unit of 5 dudes and will do as many wounds with Shred.

I've never faced an all knight army myself, so my knowledge is only secondhand.

However, some of the competitive players here who have say Reavers are very good against Knights.

If your opponents tend to run their Riptide Wings with Ignores Cover support systems, then that's going to be a problem, I agree. (My meta tends to see Alpha Strike or Flyer heavy lists from the better competitive players, so the Tau players tend to run the support systems that let them pick up Interceptor.)

If they're spamming Wyverns, then that would be a problem, too. While Wyverns are categorically awesome, I haven't seen them played in great numbers either here or really anywhere I've been. That's one that's always left me puzzled. I assume there's a reason why they aren't more popular, but confess I'm not familiar enough with Guard to know why. (Is there an Imperial Guard website similar to the Dark City? Think they might have some insight into a huge glaring weakness for the Wyvern?)

If your meta is set up the way you say, I think you might be right in avoiding the Reavers. (Although, in that case, I'm a little puzzled as to how you do well with Mandrakes.)

All of that advice is from before the FAQ though unfortunately. Reavers took a nose dive against Knights because their attacks automatically allocate against the front AV13 no matter what. So you need 6+/5+ to glance them with the bladevanes, and 6+ on the cluster caltrops, but neither can pen it. Couple this with 6 hull points and it becomes untenable at 3 or more knights. This is also assuming you aren't playing strict Reaver spam in lawrence's style with 2 blasters per squad of 6. For that style cascading layers of squads should allow you to focus down at least 1 knight per turn and often more. At least on paper I'm unfamiliar with this style in personal use tho since I usually cap at 9-12 bodies total no matter how many squads I choose to bring.

I bring either 3 squads of 3 each with an arena champion and a cluster caltrop or I bring 1 squad of 6 with an arena champion 2 heat lances and 2 cluster caltrops. In any case the Champion is holding a CC and very occasionally I bring 2 small squads of the above with 1 of the larger ones. Reavers are the unit that can do anything. They can hurt anything short of a stompah and they can get anywhere, but that doesn't mean they should. I support mine with a mix of balestrike bands, wraithguard, or scourges when I need pure AV. I usually accompany my squads with some combination of the following all on jetbikes: Autarch with laser lance, banshee mask, laser lance, and fusion gun; Prince with Shard, divination, shadowfield; Farseer w/singing spear. with 3 small squads I shuffle my characters between squads on the fly, with any large squads I make a microstar. I'm hesitant to call it a deathstar as at less than 500 points true death stars will put it down if they aren't crippled first, but it will wreck any offensive minded force that enters it's threat bubble without doing real damage.

amorrowlyday wrote:

So you need 6+/5+ to glance them with the bladevanes, and 6+ on the cluster caltrops, but neither can pen it.

The Caltrops can't pen 13? 6+6+d3 means they pen it on a Rend roll of 4+, doesn't it? Or did I miss something.

Good pull regarding the FAQ. That might change some of the thoughts about Reavers in the community at large.

No you're right, I just projected my prejudices on the pen table against super heavies onto my answer. Caltrops are actually going to pen on 3+ on the rend roll so 6+/3+, but can't cause an explode result, and since super heavies basically ignore everything else I just discount those results. So 6+ on it's own to glance since the pen result is irrelevant.

My meta has a lot of Wyvern spam, which I guess is what turned me off from the Reavers in the first place. I do well with the Mandrakes because people know they cost nothing and thus don't shoot at them until they do have to shoot at them and then an entire squadron of Wyverns has to shoot a single 3 man squad of Mandrakes.

Hmm. You don't ever field your Mandrakes with anything else anywhere near them then, I'm guessing? (Otherwise presumably they would walk a couple of the blast markers onto the Mandrakes after they'd hit their primary target a few times.)

Not usually, my Mandrakes are 3-man armies.

Sounds like your meta shapes your lists a little differently than the norm. If it works for you, rock on. From what you're describing, you're right--Reavers aren't a terrific fit for you.

TeenageAngst wrote:

My meta has a lot of Wyvern spam, which I guess is what turned me off from the Reavers in the first place. I do well with the Mandrakes because people know they cost nothing and thus don't shoot at them until they do have to shoot at them and then an entire squadron of Wyverns has to shoot a single 3 man squad of Mandrakes.

Wouldn't that also be true with a 3 man squad of reavers?

Reavers cost 2x as much and stick out like a sore thumb on the battefield. Mandrakes aren't a threat and thus attract zero attention until it's too late.

My experience has been similar. Bikers and any kind of aerial unit attract more attention. Infantry units with statlines as pathetic as the Mandrakes don't tend to draw much fire.

Reavers do cost more (whilst still being quite cheap) and draw more attention because reavers are a real, mobile threat.

This is a good thing. Target saturation, pressure units threatening units and objs and all that.
Ignore them at your peril.

Reavers don't stick out like a sore thumb when there are 6 units of them supporting a distraction carnifex like a grotesquerie or wraithknight etc.

TeenageAngst wrote:

I guess I'll just have to field enough of them to test them out. It's going to be hard to justify them over anti-tank though,

Reavers with cluster caltrops and 2 blasters are great at popping transports. I honestly haven't had any issues with tanks. The worst things I ever run into is knights, then I ignore and kill the rest of the army. I'm going to a major ITC event in a few weeks and I'm running 30. They have been real strong in playtesting so far. They are even better as Yanari faction because you can run them really hot and benefit from a unit dying.

My list is

CAD1:
HQ:
farseer on jetbike

troops:
2 units of 3 scatbikes

fast:
3 units of 6 reavers with CC and blasters (1 a champ)

LoW:
Double D WK with 2 scatterlasers

CAD2:
HQ:
llamean

troops:
2 units of 3 scatbikes

fast:
1 unit of 6 reavers with CC and blasters (1 a champ)
1 unit of 6 reavers with CC and blasters (no champ)

Falchos Blade:

2 units of 2 skyweavers with zephyrglaive
1 voidereaver no upgrades

So far, no amount of armor has been a problem.

It looks to me that you are running all the components (apart from a warlock conclave) of ynnaeds net formation which I have found to be stupidly good at getting to exactly where you need o be with the scat bikes and reavers to trigger a chain of Soulburst a that will win games. Have you looked into running them as ynnaeds net?

I'm not running them as Ynnari unless I'm going to a competitive event.

Vlad wrote:

It looks to me that you are running all the components (apart from a warlock conclave) of ynnaeds net formation which I have found to be stupidly good at getting to exactly where you need o be with the scat bikes and reavers to trigger a chain of Soulburst a that will win games. Have you looked into running them as ynnaeds net?

I have not. I lump up around the WK and just jump on the middle of the table. It's such a big footprint I haven't had trouble getting everywhere I want to be. I prefer the Harlequin formation as well since you get to reroll jinks. It makes a REALLY resilient unit.

TeenageAngst wrote:

I'm not running them as Ynnari unless I'm going to a competitive event.

Fair enough. The same principles still apply. The PfP rules are really great too, especially if you take a couple units of kabalites with blasters and a haywire grenade sybarite.

I rarely run my warriors with blasters and never with a haywire grenade, they're not worth the points IMO. I like them to be as disposable as possible. PFP gives them all solid bonuses which helps them get their jobs done. Not as good as soulburst of course but it's good. I'd rather have dedicated antitank or antipersonnel than mixed units.