Red Grief first turn assault ideas

We've all tried using a red grief reaver squad as a first turn charger.
Start them off and just let them rip, and lock something up (especially tanks)! Yeah!

And then the enemy disengages and shoots the hell out of them.

Oh.

Now while it is nice they wasted a small amount of shooting or a squad or two assualting them the red griefers die pretty easily and often without much consequence other than shutting something down for a turn.

So I've been thinking; is there a way we can expand on this and make somehting that achieves the goal but perhaps does somehting more. And this is what I've come up with.

Take an empty Red Grief Raider, advance it up the board, with ether sails (if necessary), shoot with the dark lance/dissie and then charge with our large base attempting to lock multiple things up.

So now they have a 10 wound T5 4+ save unit with a 5++ in the middle of their lines with a dark lance/dissie (cheaper is probably better here) that needs to be dealt with otherwise it is going to consistently get in the way, and will take a fair bit of shooting/assaulting to do so, and even then it was only a transport worth 80 points.

This may not be the best solution, but I feel like there is more tech to be had from the red grief's ability for the first turn charge that we haven't explored.

The biggest difference is that Raiders probably won't make it to anything worth locking down turn 1.

I think a 60 point trade to keep Predators or Devastators from shooting for a phase is worth it. It could also save you from having to burn 3 CPs on AoV in the case of Preds (or other similar things with stratagem boosts).

So yeah, let them kill my 120 points of Reavers on turn 1. They weren't shooting at things I actually cared about.

Think about it this way - since we don't really need screens that much (except for the Black Heart Archon/Ravagers), our "screens" are effectively against shooting by getting off turn 1 charges.
Would you pay 60-120 points for a screen to stop Death Company from charging something important? Then why wouldn't you pay that amount to stop something that's equally as deadly in shooting?

Pick 8+ Reavers;

get them +1 T;

Do your first turn charges;

Cast on them Lightning Fast Reflexes and see them going down absorbing a lot of attenctions.



Of course you have to forecast if your charge will gets you some tactical value or not. I don't like small Reavers units.

LordSplata wrote:

Take an empty Red Grief Raider, advance it up the board, with ether sails (if necessary), shoot with the dark lance/dissie and then charge with our large base attempting to lock multiple things up.

Where is the rule that allows this? I also saw a similar concept in another reaver thread about how it was possible to get nearby units into CC when piling in and during consolidation as long as they still remain in CC with the unit they actually charged. Is it really possible to get 2 units into CC with a single unit charging? And what about that piling in and consolidation shenanigans?

Never seen rules about any of these, would help to have a definite place to cite and explore the fine details of these rules. If it is possible for me to do these reaver shenanigans, I want to know how.

this is why i plan to use my reavers as throw aways/meat sinks. no reason to give them upgrades or larger than min squads.

but with 2 wounds drugs, pfp a bunch of three man squads, it think it prevent a LOT of enemy shooting in their first shooting phase which preserves our ability to hit hard, by giving your other units time to move up the table relatively unmolested with their full fire power turn 2.

im using three units of three. sure they will die horribly as soon as he falls back, but 6 wounds high toughness, and pfp means they will likely need to overshoot to take them all out, or risk the one guy left tying them up again. then again my entire cult detachment is dedicated to tying things up in melee in 3 successive waves (reavers->hellions-> wyches) while my kabal shoots at what ever isn't.
so if they actually do any damage its a bonus.

Cerve wrote:

Pick 8+ Reavers;

get them +1 T;

Do your first turn charges;

Cast on them Lightning Fast Reflexes and see them going down absorbing a lot of attenctions.



Of course you have to forecast if your charge will gets you some tactical value or not. I don't like small Reavers units.

Add the "double dose" stratagem to make them T6 for a turn

Crokadilla wrote:

LordSplata wrote:

Take an empty Red Grief Raider, advance it up the board, with ether sails (if necessary), shoot with the dark lance/dissie and then charge with our large base attempting to lock multiple things up.

Where is the rule that allows this? I also saw a similar concept in another reaver thread about how it was possible to get nearby units into CC when piling in and during consolidation as long as they still remain in CC with the unit they actually charged. Is it really possible to get 2 units into CC with a single unit charging? And what about that piling in and consolidation shenanigans?

Never seen rules about any of these, would help to have a definite place to cite and explore the fine details of these rules. If it is possible for me to do these reaver shenanigans, I want to know how.

You can consolidate into the nearest model....which not always is the unit you charged

You pile in and consolidate towards the nearest model, which as Cerve said doesn't have to be the unit you charged. your charge move can be in any direction you want so long as one model ends within 1" of the unit you charged.

Unless you declared the charge, you cannot make a fight attack against them (but they can swing on you). But you didn't really care about that anyway, because you charged a shooty unit to keep them from shooting and not a choppy unit, right? ....Right?

Regarding Reavers, do you think there would be any more benefit in using them as Blaster platforms that have the potential for tying units in melee? As in, not being so aggressive with them in the early stages of the game.

Or are they only worth it as first-turn chargers?

Chippen wrote:

The biggest difference is that Raiders probably won't make it to anything worth locking down turn 1.

You say that, but given how Devastators and the like are often positioned at the back of the board, with other units/terrain in the way, I often struggle to get to them with Reavers on turn 1 as well.

Chippen wrote:

I think a 60 point trade to keep Predators or Devastators from shooting for a phase is worth it. It could also save you from having to burn 3 CPs on AoV in the case of Preds (or other similar things with stratagem boosts).

Speaking personally, I find that my Reavers often get blown off the field, killed in melee/overwatch and such. So, I'm generally paying 180pts to lock down 1 enemy unit (since I'll have 3 squads but only one will actually manage to do its job).

That is why I lean towards larger squads. Not only does it make investing stratagems more rewarding, it also extremely distracting to your opponent to have a big unit of bikes in his face even if they aren't particularly threatening to him. So they end up doing their job even against flying gunlines.

The blaster v. nothing debate I haven't reached a conclusion on.

I leave the blasters off the bikes. Most of the time you're advancing anyway, so why pay 17 points to shoot once at a 4+?

Also, a lot of folks assume turn 1 charges aren't a thing any more because of deep strike changes and try to be more aggressive with shooters. But if I do manage to make my opponent hide shooters, forcing them to move and shoot on a worse BS or be easier to hide from, mission still accomplished. And if they get shot off the board? Maybe, but the other guy has to spend way more points than 60 to kill those bikes, so that's a trade I'll make all day.

So still on the basic idea of using a raider to lock up the opposition, but working it more into my list rather than being as a tax, or as an additional later game benefit.

Yesterday I ran a squad of wyches in a red grief raider along side a squad of reavers.
The general idea was the reavers would charge a backfield unit or two to gum them up, which gave the raider the tactical flexibility to:
1. Not have the wyches shot off the board first turn.
2. If the enemy advances , drop the wyches off giving them +3 inches of threat range, while the raider gets to eather sails its way to a secondary backfield unit.
3. position the wyches for a second turn assault and once the reavers are shot off the table and the wyches are dropped off the raider runs off and gums up their back line repeatedly disallowing their shooting.

To be honest - i don`t think we need first turn assault.
In my opinion it`s far better to set up all melle units at turn one, so most of them can charge next turn. Besides, Enemy simple won`t start close enouth if he knew what we capable of.

But if there is posibilities to lock in some good stuff with reavers of raider - than we should probably use this oportunity

For me, I like to use 3x3 Reavers with Blaster and Grav-Talon... You never know, you can "surprise" a lone character with a Blaster shot if the guy has not many troops or if you kill his protection...
It usually also permits to choose each drugs on the other Wych cult units (having +2 movement, +2 LD and +1 T on 3x3 Reavers seems to be the most efficient to put everything else on Wych/Succubus).

They are 80 pts expandable units that can get a maelstrom objective with their 26/28" or 35" movement phase (I could make the "control every objective" on a turn 1 once... You could see my opponent face when i made 6 VP on a single Maelstrom card.

You have to play carefully. You can place them behind walls or outside Los to charge so no counter charge. Its harder to do with a pack of 4+ in a unit.

So question Turn1 charge ? Well, it depends of so many factor.