Hellions

Hellions have been fantastic for me. I wish they had some AP modifier but they put out so many shots and attacks that they still do work. I'll try them in a Raider next game. That sounds fun!

As for Reavers, I've found them useful against the Tau in my meta. I get them in the backfield and soften up the amount of overwatch I'll receive before I charge in. Mixing grav talons and caltrops is the key for me here. Getting max damage when charging is nice, but Tau want to be falling back. Making them regret it with caltrops has been fun! High Toughness and wounds helps survive those overwatch shots to tie up any unit.

Reavers and Hellions have not let me down but YMMV

Hellions worked pretty good when I took them in smaller squads. They were easier to hide in terrain that way.

That is what I am going to try. 2x5 Hellions in Venom.

I've used 3 x 3 reavers - blaster, ago, stunclaw, in my 2000pt list twice now.
Things i've noticed.

They are tough, 40+ bolter shots to kill 3 of them! More if T5.  
Not much shoots at them anyway as they are so fast and easy to hide. Our Skimmers/talos draw all the fire as they should.

Great in IGOUGO deployment.
3 drops, 1 on each flank and 1 center behind cover. You've given nothing away.

Very high threat range in shooting and CC. Extra 8" and shoot assault weapons is handy but not often needed.

Drugs are great. I used +1T,+1A and +2M on them.

I use them to support my assault units,  
add to AT shooting,
pressure his backfeild,
murderlate small/shooty/weakened units,
tie up shooting,
absorb overwatch,
Bait units.
grab objs,
block/bubble wrap


Now im not saying they are tounament worthy. Not at all.
They have impressed me thus far, they're fun, and im going to use them till they stop working.

Someone uses bolters? In my games of 8th I encountered max 10 bolters in any one army. My bikes get blown off by plasmas and eaten by things like Maulerfiends, etc. I would be happy to play them if people would shoot 40 bolters at them! :-D

Yeah. It's just an example.

They wouldn't even get the opportunity to shoot 40 bolters at the 3 reavers before i wasted them.  

Plasma and maulerfiends chasing my little reaver units instead of my skimmers is unlikely and would be to my advantage.

People do use trusty bolters here.
But we also have a few horde players, so they need some regular shots just to make sure they can thin hordes down.

@Painjunky - I play against plasmabikers... they will catch me if I want to assault something with the Reavers. I play against Biker Lord, which is dtto. I play against Heldrakes... they will catch me anywhere. I play against Daemon prince... he will catch me if I want to assault something. And finally I play against a sorcerer that can make any unit doublemove, so ANYTHING will catch them... Even Fiend. :-D

Just few examples of how my meta looks. Reavers are terrible in this environment. Thinning hordes is a job for berserkers and similar units or they are just being tied down by something tough while the mobile elements have fun elsewhere.

aurynn wrote:

@Painjunky - I play against plasmabikers... they will catch me if I want to assault something with the Reavers. I play against Biker Lord, which is dtto. I play against Heldrakes... they will catch me anywhere. I play against Daemon prince... he will catch me if I want to assault something. And finally I play against a sorcerer that can make any unit doublemove, so ANYTHING will catch them... Even Fiend. :-D

Just few examples of how my meta looks. Reavers are terrible in this environment. Thinning hordes is a job for berserkers and similar units or they are just being tied down by something tough while the mobile elements have fun elsewhere.

As i've already said "Now im not saying they are tournament worthy. Not at all."    

Now chaos is my second army. I'm a night lords man. I know how they roll and how fast they can be. They will be gunning for your skimmers, talos, tantalus etc first.  Unless I leave a small reaver unit hanging in the breeze (which i might for various reasons) they will easily hidden and largely be ignored in favor of bigger game.

Heh yea. Most of the time they just get "flamed" as the heldrakes position themselves for charge. :-D And that may be what hurt them most this edition - that anyone can shoot them and charge something else.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Sorry but if someone let a unit of 9+ Reavers "sneak up" on someone like Ghazghkull and didn't have other units protecting him then that's just bad play on their part. It doesn't make Reavers any better!

If u want to protect Ghazkull all the time, he will never charge. It's a win/win for me.

When Ghazkull engage, it's not so difficult to move Reavers nearest to him more than other units.

I know it's difficult to figure it out in theory, but in practice is way easy

aurynn wrote:

I agree. People often forget that they can sneak Ravagers almost as well as Reavers and assasinate characters with either lances or dissies.

No way. You will never have the mobility of the Reavers, nor the same amount of damage. In this work, Heat Lances are better, thanks to the reroll on the dmg.

But more than that, Ravagers will always shoot from far. Going near to the enemy with them is a suicide maneuver most of the time.

And last but not least, the Ravager is big. Reavers have small size base, and they can move up 24". You can make a snake in the middle of the hot zone, you just want that 1 of your reavers will be nearest to the character more than any other Reaver from other units.
In my last game I make a snake in this way, ended up like 1,5" from the boyz, and 1-1,1" from Ghazkull. With a Ravager I will never be able to do that.


PS: I run 2 Ravagers as well, but I prefer Dissies over DarkLances both against Veichles/CM and Infantry

I'd still rather have 2 Ravager, or you can take 2 Fliers. I dont like Reavers at all anymore and i have 30+ of them.

I have less trouble maneuvering Ravagers than I have with Reavers. I try to use Ravagers very offensively as I really need them only first 2 turns. They can die then for all I care. 2 reasons - against shooty army, they WILL die T2 unless you have 6 of them and second - against CC army they will get caught and mauled or won't be needed against melee horde army. I have 3 planes for the enemy to chase all over the field. Reavers wont ever be able to give me the same utility as Ravager or planes.

Safe bet is that any enemy should be able to kill 10-15% of your army per turn. Which is circa 300 pts. I usually reduce the amount by having only vehicles on board T1. It rarely happens that I lose a boat T1. With some swapping and movement I can keep my boats flying till T3. Reavers are too squishy for this denial play as they can be easily killed by anti-infantry fire. Large squads have trouble maneuvering, small squads increase your chance of going 2nd. Reavers are not good at going 2nd.

But its just what I use. It does not mean they cannot work for you. They failed me every time I tried them. Or maybe I failed them.

Yeah but I've never had my Ravager die before turn 4 so far, many games they dont time. Only the 3 players has even killed them in all my games, and it wasnt till late, turn 4-5.

Not saying you should not play with them or you locals meta lets them be better than my local meta, im saying for me, in my area and experience they are not worth it at all.

amishprn86 wrote:

Yeah but I've never had my Ravager die before turn 4 so far, many games they dont time. Only the 3 players has even killed them in all my games, and it wasnt till late, turn 4-5.

Not saying you should not play with them or you locals meta lets them be better than my local meta, im saying for me, in my area and experience they are not worth it at all.

I agree with this. I never go out without 2 DissyRavagers

aurynn wrote:

Heh yea. Most of the time they just get "flamed" as the heldrakes position themselves for charge. :-D And that may be what hurt them most this edition - that anyone can shoot them and charge something else.

I'd love that baleflamer to shoot a little 3 man reaver unit rather than strip wounds off a skimmer or important unit  
Reavers are soo easy to hide most units will struggle to get LOS and if they do who cares?
They can tank small arms like a boss, 40+bolter equivalent shots to kill 3! ). Big guns are saved for big targets and if not, great!, its win win.

amishprn86 wrote:

I dont like Reavers at all anymore and i have 30+ of them.

I own 24!
I know they are not the most competitive choice. I wouldn't take them to a tournament. They really need a pts drop. At higher pts games (i play 2000) Ive found that you can make them work if you really want to.

I dont remember when I played with any serious LOS blocker for the last time. :-D But I have a cityfight scheduled next. Weeeee!

How are you getting ravagers past T1 or2?!?

Mine get targeted and brought down so fast its not funny. Every game against AM I get T1 and that's it.

Deploy them last.

Deploy them in the back.

Play with LOTS of terrain and hide like little babies!

Well you cannot count on terrain as there can be nowhere to hide.

So offer to host.

And then FLOOD the board with buildings and trees and terrain.

We aren't the only army that will benefit from this, and I've found that playing with verticality can make for some very fun matches.

Massaen wrote:

How are you getting ravagers past T1 or2?!?

Mine get targeted and brought down so fast its not funny. Every game against AM I get T1 and that's it.

Normally, my opponet prefer to shoot to other units. Ravgers are not my major threat in my lists. If he want to, I'm happy to sacrifice them.


Yes a good tip anyway is to shooting at your maxinum range, always.

Why does everyone wants to use Disintegrator Ravager?
I used Disintegrator on a plane against death guard and it was utterly useless.

Even when shooting that drone I was only wounding on 5+.
Those guns did nearly nothing the whole game

After 3-4 games with 9 Dis Cannons i stopped using Dis Ravagers and now use 2-3 Lance Ravagers and have 2-3 Dis Cannons on my Raiders.

This is a perfect balance for me, sense i also use blasters everywhere.