Void Raven Bomber

It doesnt make sense in the current rule set, i cant think of any strategy regarding this bomb that is not leading to untimely demise of super expensive atack craft.

We will see if 6th will bring Flyer rules, with what in leak book everything that has supersonic rule considered flyer and bombers generally have like a free template drop before they make atack run. Even with those rules bomb is somewhat of a nice extra, not something to be extremely happy about.

I'm not suggesting that the current effect may not live up to the fluffy expectation or might be a bit underwhelming, but surely comparing it to a Vindicator shell is not quite fair. The Vindicator is not a supersonic flyer with aerial assault.

It seems to me that the Void Raven's biggest problem is that for the extra points cost over the Razorwing, it doesn't come with missiles. This makes the mine itself a much larger point cost as the other differences are not very big.

Plus this kind of craft is very new and no other armies have anything very similar or even comparable really, so it might be currently nerfed a bit for balance sake, aside from the very reasonable possibility that it might be worked out in 6th edition.

And there is also the possibility that they were really worried about DE being overpowered as that generates a huge ammount of animosity in other players and is hard to undo because that generates animosity in the people who liked being overpowered. Maybe they did play it too safe. It's a lot less of a pickle to make something a bit better if it ends up being useless rather than put out a game breaking super unit that everyone buys only to have it handicapped later and make people quit the game. They don't want to sell us one model after all. They want to sell us hundreds of them to each of us over the rest of our lives.

But maybe it will be overpriced and underwhelming forever. No codex is perfect. If only they'd release the dang model so I can have another shiny toy evil space elf plane! It might not blow up the toy tanks and space knights as effeciently as some of my other toy planes, but it will be big and shiny and fun to build. ^_Q

The point I was trying to make is that the game effect of DE's ultimate weapon falls far short of a fairly commom/crude imperial weapon.

And yeah, DE book was clearly written with the breaks on, GK.....not , and look at the loathing and division it has caused.

I'm glad our book is far from broken, At the same time crapoy useles things that should not be so bother me
Conversly, the mine would have to be spectacularly destructive to be worthwile as presently alot of the time you may as well kiss goodbye to the Raven when you try to use it.

It has limited value as a deepstrike deterrant.

I think that you guys are all missing the point.

I don't and never have bought the VR for the void mine. I've just pointed out that it's far from useless, if you take advantage of opportunities to use it.

Instead, I pay the extra 30 points over the Razorwing (40 if you didn't buy the Splinter Cannon on the RW for some stupid reason) to upgrade the power of my lances. S9 lances are a MAJOR step up from S8 when dealing with AV12+. Easily worth the 15 points each against many opponents. Then, of course, my vehicle also gets the additional point of armor in all areas, a pleasant bonus that aids against a few more mid to high strength weapons.

The Void Mine is not something that I just randomly use. Often, I can go whole games without using them, and he VR will STILL win me the game. Like everything else in the codex, the VR is an offensive juggernaught that crushes things before they get a chance to respond. It wins me numerous games despite my relative lack of lance weaponry, thanks to the higher reliability for making penetrating hits vs. other similar weapons.

Umm, simply running the numbers (and in my playtesting) its not especially more effective than a Ravager, its certainly less cost effective, the difference is that one is more likely to do 'something' wheras the other is more likely to do lasting damage 'when' it does something.

Add in the missiles as supporting fire. Seriously. The thing is a gunboat of epic proportions, and I've beaten a great number of players with it. My Ravagers are far less reliable.

Mathhammer with this unit is very hard to get right, because it is a dual role unit. It can wipe off a dozen Space Marines in one round of shooting or kill a Land Raider each turn. It can even do both simultaneously under the right circumstances.

I think it has it's place, specially if it has a cool model. I can see both sides of the argument for sure. I personally run 2 Ravagers and 1 Razorwing. The Ravager is hard to beat and I just like the Razorwing model, so bit of what works and what I like mixed in there.

The bomber should have been better, either more effective mine or free missiles. Even more missiles maybe? When you think of a bomber you think of bombs, usually big ones that make a mess. The bomber is miss-named if anything, its just a Razorwing with extra armor and str 9 guns. The void mine should make a crater that you can see from space. Instead its like warmachines lil pecker missile from iron man 2.

Think of it less as a B-2 and more of an A-10.

The bomb may be useful in apoc games. I have been using a void raven in most of my games, never bothered with the bomb. Shoot missile, then go after tanks, or reverse if no missile volley worthy targets.

On the topic of Void Mines...
How far can the Vr move and use the Mine?
Is it 12" or 36" (supersonic)

it can be dropped at any speed so long s you would otherwise be allowed to use it (do as long as you aren't shaken/stunned)

Bomb can be useful when the rest of the model no longer is. I've had 1 or 2 games where I lost both void lances, had nothing else going for me with the model so i just dropped it on some inf (no more mech on the table to shoot at), took out most of the squad, then landed, got shot up, exploded took out last bit of the squad.

Yup. It can be an excellent option for killing paladins or sang guard

Good news,
I don't mean to question you, but why is it allowed to use the bomb weapon when moving faster that 12"?
I've made the Batwing model and am using this tomorrow- i'm sure someone will question me in dropping a mine on them after using 36", so I just want to be well prepared!

Cheers

Quote :

Q: Can a void mine be used regardless of the speed the
Voidraven Bomber is moving at in its Movement phase?
(p47)
A: Yes.

FAQ

Awesome!

thecactusman17 wrote:

Think of it less as a B-2 and more of an A-10.

FTW. It really is a heavier fighter designed for taking out armoured targets that just happens to have a silly little bomb.

The Voidraven.. sigh.

Great rules, great fluff, sad points cost. The damage it inflicts is not much about the same as a Ravager against most armored targets (2 shots at BS4 S9 Lance vs. 3 shots BS4 S8 Lance) and the cost is ~50% higher. If you're gearing it for multi-purpose roles, the Razorwing does it for cheaper. If you're looking for dedicated AT, the Ravager does it better.

With that said, I never take the Voidraven. I need better rules for the cost to be worth it to me. The AV11 closed-top just isn't worth the points invested.

Here's a rules question I'm not sure about...

If the Voidraven Bomber suffers a 'Weapon Destroyed' result, can the Void Mine be chosen as that weapon? I know that under current rules I believe your opponent picks the weapon, so it'd be rare that they would pick the Void Mine, but a paranoid opponent or a change in rules might change that.

Anyway, I love the idea behind the Voidraven Bomber. I'm waiting for the model to come out so I can get my hands on it and test it out. If it looks good, I'll throw it into my army. If the model doesn't appeal to me, then I'll stick with my 2 Ravager, 1 Razorwing loadout (I've found the Razorwing is best held in reserve, and pulling it up from one table edge later in the game to blow a squad off of an objective).

My meta doesn't have too many big AV12+ vehicles out there, but then again my meta changes for each tournament, and more often than not someone tries to run a Blood Angels Fast Vindicator or a Land Raider full of something nasty. Honestly though, I'd use the Voidraven just for the higher chance of penning regular AV12, like, say, the Stormraven. I've had more trouble with the Stormraven than any other vehicle out there, and having more shots from a Ravager hasn't helped me at all.

I also really want to work with a theme in my army, and that's being airborne. Later on, I might have 2 Voidravens and 1 Razorwing jetfighter, accompanied by squads of Haywire Scourges or Caltrops or Heatlance Jetbikes, and plenty of Venoms and Raiders. A little off topic, I've discovered that zipping Heat Lance Jetbikes behind your enemies vehicles to expose their AV 10 typically has those vehicles turning around to shoot at you, or unloading their troops prematurely, which makes them perfect targets for salvos of missiles from Jetfighters and Bombers.

Frankly he's welcome to destroy the damn thing, poor pitiful wretched thing, put it out of my misery.

AFAIK it would be much like HK's so yeah it can take a weapon destroyed result.

What the void raven is actually better for believe it or not is getting more reliable pene's on av 11-12, (especially 12) you can just spam DL's against 13-14.

to get a storm raven down you have to be prepared to use a silly amount of lances , I singe ravager is going to do almost nothing on its own in a vacuum , there is a reason the are only 105 points...

if it is your utmost priority to kill it then be prepared to fire every single lance you have at it, its the only way to even stand a chance of getting through AV 12 /cover , I think my current record is something like 36 lance shots over 2 turns to kill a vehicle, lances are woefully points inefficient VS AV 12, throw cover saves into the mix and it's a lesson in frustration more often than not.

What they do have in their favor is the 'potential' to kill any tank, sure you need a three than a five then another five (and sometimes them to fail a 4+ too) thats 4 opportunities to fail , however there is still the potential for each lance to kill any armored vehicles, in theory you could have a hot turn, if even half of the lance weps in your average competitive DE army had a hot turn and killed a tank thats ten ish dead vehicles ? unlikely , very much so , Impossible ? no.

one game recently, out of the blue my lances ran hot , 4 dead leman russes , a dead chimera and another crippled in one shooting phase..... one of my games at throne the very first shot with my first single blaster took out a 3+ cover GK storm Raven, so at least in theory the potential is there, and we do also have alot of individual sources of AT too , though this really only helps with the supression game as you can spend the minimum amount of shots to get 'a result' and move on to the next , rinse and repeat.

Though really single shot AT weps are not so brilliant not at 25 points or so (its fair to assume it represents a large chunk of a raiders cost), it's why despite being 'only' str 7 auto cannons and psycannons are much much better more consistent weapons, due to multiple shots or being twin linked and multiple shot.

Even Void lances whilst being pretty good at penetrating things, still need a 5+ to do something meaningful when you penetrate, and cover will see your chances plummet, this is one of my biggest beefs with the DE book, they are a glass hammer who's hammer is actually less effective than their opponents ability to destroy them ? and your opponents AT weapons often being of superior range mitigate the one real advantage we may of had , mobility. now even our fairly reliable suppression is being ignored by more and more books, you paid through the nose for those lances The.Nose.....

I think it's a little premature to play the 'Bawww, we're getting smothered by Codex Creep' ballad just yet.

I'm noticing a lot of Codices doing very well with unexpected lists, going all the way back to Orks. The only Codices that *truly* struggle against any others are going to be Chaos Marines, Eldar, and Tau, yet people still play them to effect. Newer Codices are, of course, going to be more 'point and click', but Dark Eldar were never that. We always took more finesse and thought, at the cost of the obvious, easy win conditions and net lists. (Draigo Wing, Logan Wing, Razorspam. We've had Venom Spam, but even that takes finesse).

Honestly, that's why I like DE. I'm not the best player, but DE give me a much bigger challenge than my current CSM (Take a bunch of plague marines and oblits, and if you can't make a dent in them by turn 3, you've lost).

Remember that a lot of our stuff can move a lot farther than other stuff and still fire its full compliment of weapons. 12" to get into range or a better firing position, or to zip 24" out of range and enjoy that 4+ cover save. Besides, the prediction in 6th edition is that vehicles are going to get a nice fat nerf, so all this Dark Lance spam is going to be utterly unnecessary in the future, and we can take a look at what Disintegrator Cannons and Shredders will bring to the table.

If, for some reason, DE do become worse as a direct result of rules within 6th edition, *then* we can get on the Codex Creep Complain Train, but I doubt that's going to happen.

With Voidraven Bombers, if they do get flyer rules, those Str 9 Void Lances are going to be even more valuable. The few vehicles people take will be really tough. Land Raiders, Storm Ravens, maybe even Predators, all in order to enjoy higher armor values or transport capacity with less risk to the squad inside. I don't think people will feel a need to take so many Rhinos and Razorbacks, since the chances of them exploding will go up. So, those bombers, preportedly, will become much more valuable because they'll get the rolls on the pen chart more often than not.

That's just a lot of speculation though.

I haven't tried one yet, but given the experience that pretty much everyone has of dark lances rarely cutting it when it comes to getting through armour, lance lascannons seem very good for just blowing stuff up, which is not an easy thing to do for Dark Eldar.

I can say I find my VRB much more effective on the table and the bomb when set up well can shock people who write it off as useless. After having a 10 strong wolves unit charge a venom and only break a weapon, I took the opportunity to move the venom away and drop a very accurate bomb on the nicely packed unit... 9 dead wolves later I was very pleased.

People are so quick to write the bomb off but I used it 3/4 games at the last event

We are more than capable of destroying any army in the game, with the sheer amount of lances we can get having them twin linked would just be silly. That being said I wouldn't mind seeing mech nerfed a little; I can't help but feel for all those horde armies this edition......

Two void lances is demonstrably inferior to three dark lances. Relative to dark lances, void lances are at their best against AV12 (or 13, or 14). Against AV12, three dark lances and two void lances will average the same number of penetrations, but the Ravager will get 50% more glances than the Voidraven. Against AV11 or lower, it only gets worse.

The Voidraven is a 35 point "upgrade" that makes your vehicle closed-topped and gives you a void bomb, while making it perform worse against every single target in the game except Blessed Hull Land Raiders.

Void weaponry should really be AP1. Our codex is sorely lacking it, and the voidraven is the perfect place to put it.