Ravagers in 9th

I have 2 ravagers that haven’t seen much play. I’ve got a match up against Blood Angels next weekend and I’m thinking of bringing a DC ravager in a DT patrol. The BA list is heavy on infantry - lots of death company and sanguinary guard as well as intercessors and a few others. I’ll be running a squad of 3 DT cronos, so I’ll have some decent short-medium range anti-MEQ shooting, but I feel like a DC armed ravager could provide some solid anti-MEQ shooting, and just add another serious threat that needs to be dealt with.

How have folks been using their ravagers in 9th? I know DL is generally the way to go, but I already have enough of those I feel, unless I was facing a really tank or monster heavy list. I’d need to kill basically 7 death company (they’re running with jump packs) or 5 sanguinary guard for the ravager to make its points back. On average I’d be killing 4 marines per turn with it, so would need 2-3 turns of shooting, which might be possible with good positioning. If I use the DT ability I can bump my kills per turn up to 4.16, at the risk of causing a bunch of mortal wounds, so I would probably only buff it with DT if I really needed to take down a unit and needed that +1 on wound rolls.

Edit: ravagers can’t benefit from DT can they… well the rest of the post stands - how are you using ravagers?

The Ravager is Kabal only, so no DT. Personally, I really like the Dissi Ravager, but with the +5pts over the Dark Lance?
Dont get me wrong, it is a great unit, but in our Codex? There is almost always something better to choose.
Point for point? You will never ever use it. It is sad, but true...

But!!!!!
If you just play casual, the Ravager is great. It has a descent movement and a very high damage output.

I still really like ravagers and I almost always have one in my lists. I do love dark lances, but I really love disintegrators. But like Zenotaph said paying extra points for the disintegrators just isn't worth it. Especially with all of the -1dmg things out there like ramshackle, disgustingly resilient etc.

All of the above being said however, If you know what you are fighting and don't mind list tailoring, then against an Infantry heavy Marine build it is a great choice.

All good points, thanks. I don’t want to tailor my list too much, but I have fairly limited selection to choose from, I dropped a haemi and 5 mandrakes for the ravager, which feels worth it to me. It would be nice if the DC was damage 3 or heavy 4 for the +5 points above dark lances.

Ravagers can’t be affected by DT though right? I do like your point about DL ravagers. 3 DL’s is a serious threat that an opponent needs to think about, and it could take pressure off raiders, or conversely, if your opponent ignores the ravager then you can keep sniping night value targets.

And again: Ravagers are Kabal only. Dark Technomancer is a Coven.

I'm surprised nobody pointed off that Ravagers can't be DT.

Awesome, glad to see people discussing our "heavy" tank.

I play Competitive, and have been running a Lance Ravager in my Obsidian Rose patrol from day 1.

The main detriments to the Ravager is that its not Core, is quite fragile to dedicated AT weapons, and has shorter range than many of its counterparts.

Ive been able to mitigate this by running Obsidian Rose for the extra range and re-roll to wound (without both of these, im not sure if its worth it TBH).

You can mitigate the fragility by using our Never Stationary/ JSJ strat on it. I generally run 1 Trueborn and 1 Ravager, so the Trueborn are positioned so their raider can blow up and they will disembark behind a wall and the Ravager gets the Never Stationary to survive.

Now for the "Pro" section on the Ravager

#1 - The most efficient Lance platform. For under 50 points per lance, you cannot get a better deal in our codex. Lances are great, and more lances are more greater.

#2 - Great unit to screen out your backfield. Screening is very important, and we dont have many units that want to sit in the back field away from the action. The Ravager has a big footprint and enjoys staying well back from the fighting

#3 - Has decent durability, and the same profile as our Raiders. Units designed to take out Ravagers need to decide between the 140 point Ravager and the Raider costing 300+ points including all the dudes inside.

There are still a few more "Cons" to the Ravager, which I have not been able to work around.
-Costs 140 points so messes with To The Last secondary
-Gives up 2 VP for Bring It Down secondary, so you need to factor that in during list construction

All in all, I am all for Lance Ravagers. For the Dissie version, we have a lot of D2 weapons on cost efficient CC units like Incubi and Hellions. IMO you would be better taking another 80 pt Incubi unit if you wanted to kill a bunch of MEQs.

Thats my $0.02 anyway!

Dont forget the Venom. Somehow its a D2 carrier, too. But the Ravager is one of just 3 units in the entire Dex that can equip the Dissi.
So, maybe its just me, but somehow it would be nice, that carrying Dissies would be worth something.

@fisheyes I like your take on the ravager. I’m going to run a DL ravager in an OR patrol in a couple of games this week. I’ll definitely be using Never Stationary to try to get pot shots off and then dive back behind cover.

Have you had any luck keeping the ravager in strategic reserves?

Usually you are able to hide at least 2 Boats in your deployment zone. I keep the Ravager in the #1 safe spot, and the Trueborn in the #2 spot.

The rest of my combat boats are positioned where the guys inside can jump out behind a wall if the boat does go boom, preferably while also touching Dense cover.

So far this has worked in every game. HOWEVER, I have not brought this list into the current top AdMech Flyer spam list. Into that match, the Ravager will die 100%. If you reserve the Ravager, they will just kill everything else. I dont think Reserves are the solution to this problem.

In other matches the Ravager usually doesnt get targetted by Artillery. Death Guard PBCs generally target my Reavers/Hellions/Combat Boats.

I would try to avoid putting the Ravager in reserve 99.9% of the time. They cant help shoot things if they are not on the table

fisheyes wrote:

I would try to avoid putting the Ravager in reserve 99.9% of the time. They cant help shoot things if they are not on the table

I have a total opposite view on that. When I field a ravager (which is rather rare), I ALWAYS put it in reserve. For 2 reasons.

1- The obvious keep it safe during ennemy first turn.
2- Having a ravager in reserve tend to change how your opponent advance on the board. They are way more cautious, keep more things in back field and are less offensive. It's a gain for my others units.

Fair enough. What kind of Meta are you in, if you dont mind me asking? Im coming from a Competitive environment with AdMech/Sisters/GK/TS/DA and lots of other DE

My theory is that you want the Ravager contributing early to STOP the opponent from moving up too aggressively. So long as you deploy smartly, and screen out your flanks (I love you Mandrakes and PoF Wracks), the only thing that will shoot the Ravager is Planes and Artilery. And a Target Overload list build generally helps mess with the opponents target priority (You sure you dont want to shoot at Draz and his boys in this boat? Its like 400 points...).

If you go First, generally the Ravager doesnt do much on Turn 1. Maybe get a cheeky JSJ off, but most decent opponents wont leave their valuables sitting out in the open. IMO the Ravager comes into play on Turn 2 in this scenario, and you really want the mobility to get in those angles. If your just coming out of reserve, you may or may not get those same angles (and you cant JSJ out of harms way after).

If you go Second, then the opponent gets a whole turn to move up knowing your big Lance boat cant do squat.

Thats my oppinion anyway.

My main opponent is an imperial guard. I also face tyranids, skitari, skitari, orks, skitari, custodies, chaos.... it's pretty varied. I don't face many other dark eldar. The owner of the shop is dark eldar and it's pretty much it.

And when I field a ravager, I screaming jet it. So T2, it can be anywhere on the field to strike an isolated target. That's why my opponent keeps more things in his backside.

Fair enough buddy, YMMV.

I just find that the Never Stationary (JSJ) is the secret sauce that keeps my Ravager alive to Turn 3. Much more costly than the Screaming Jets, but I have found the Ravager a central part of my Anti Tank plan most games.

fisheyes wrote:

Fair enough buddy, YMMV.

I just find that the Never Stationary (JSJ) is the secret sauce that keeps my Ravager alive to Turn 3. Much more costly than the Screaming Jets, but I have found the Ravager a central part of my Anti Tank plan most games.

I tend to field a lot of raiders with 10-kabs. I don't really lack lance shots. Also, I've tried WWP 20-Kabs with 4 dark matter weapon. with poison tongue and metallotoxins, it generally works better than ravager.

Hmm, a maxed out 20 kabalite squad could field 2 DL and 4 Blasters. Thats a lot. But I dont know, if its helpful.
Difficult to hide, no Transport. And definetly a big target. Im not sure, if its worth it.

Yeah agreed, does not seem very much effective for the points cost

So after a nice 6 round tournament with over 100 people, I am finding that 1 Trueborn and 1 Ravager is not enough anti tank.

Had a Chaos Knight player just stomp me. Ran up everything on Turn 1, and basically went "Come at me bro".

All 12 lances in my army targeted it, followed up by 5 Inucbi, Draz, MW Succubus, and a Hatred Eternal Archon. Damn thing was left with ONE wound. I did not win that game XD

Ouch. So if all that fire power couldn’t bring down a knight, what would? Knights seem like a hard matchup for Drukhari to be honest. Night toughness, high wound models with lots of firepower are kind of our kryptonite

You definitely need more than just 1 ravager and 1 unit of trueborn if you want decent AT.

I keep thinking that I want a ravager and two trueborn units, but I just find taking the extra archon too much of a tax for the 2nd trueborn unit. Although some ppl do love it and I can see why. It's just not for me.

I think a 1 ravager, 1 unit of trueborn, a bunch of dark lance raiders and maybe a few kabalites with blasters and blast pistols for some characters and wyches it needed of you want solid AT. And as you all know Black heart or Obsidian Rose make our bug guns sooooo much more reliable.

I keep thinking I want 1 or 2 units of scourges with blasters as their deep strike and only being 100pts is really appealing sometimes. But I really love my shredder scourges so i tend to stick with that. But I am tempted.

Only Chaos knights have an invulnerable in CC, and they dont have any damage mitigation. So Damage 2 or Damage 3 weapons are quite spicy.

They also rely on a strat to get them to a 4++ vs shooting (5++ otherwise). So ideally you force the 4++ on one knight, then target the others.

My solution is to modify my army to get more lances. Current theory list has over 20. Combined with Obsidian Rose rerolls, hopefully that goes better next time.

Also, since its just one big model, they are VERY suseptable to Fight Last. You throw Draz and a few Incubi into them and they should do the job. My issue was he interrupted after Draz did his first roll, and killed all the Incubi before they could strike with the +1 to wound. That would have tipped the balance in my favor.

In the end, it was actually pretty good that I lost to him. I ended up playing a series of easier opponents as a result, which resulted in me placing in the top 10 of a 100+ person event. For sure this was a result of lucky draws, but I will take it anyway!

I am becoming increasingly dissatisfied with Trueborn as anti-tank; they're undoubtedly good, but considering I'm basically only taking an Archon to unlock them they're not necessarily 315 points good (including their transport cost here). Problem is; I'm not entirely sure what to replace them with.

The obvious option, in mind, is Talos as anti-tank. With Artisans, Heat Lances, Ichor Injectors and Gauntlets they're a big threat that are especially good at cracking open Ramshackle vehicles. Bonus points for being one of the more durable options in our Codex still, downside being that they're not strictly that efficient offensively.

Heat Lance Scourges are always an option. 100 points for the same number of special/heavy weapon shots as the Trueborn and their Raider combined with the benefit of a higher damage average, but the severe drawback of hitting on 4s whenever they move or deep strike.

One option that I've seen thrown around, which I'm honestly getting more and more curious about on paper, is using a custom Wych Cult of Precise Killers and Test of Skill. This actually makes basic Wyches a surprisingly viable threat against vehicles, but - man, losing access to the Cult of Strife relics and strats hurts. On the plus side it frees up Draz to be your warlord.

So, I dunno. There are clear alternative options here and I feel like I need to experiment with them.