Talos V. Razorwing

So, the Talos is by far my favorite model but I personally don't see it ever being a better third heavy choice over the Razorwing. Does anybody think differently?

i would take a voidraven over ether

It really depends on what your army is lacking when you come down to the heavies slot.

The dark eldar have great anti-infantry in their splinter-cannons so for me I never take a razor wing which I view as primarily an anti-infantry flier.

I personally have been running two taloi in my lists recently with great success. I take them with a TL Liquifier and stock TL Splinter-cannon I take a unit of beasts as a forward threat and have the taloi coming up behind generally unhindered and crashing into oppenent lines for their greatest strength is in close combat. I have made the switch over to these models because of some of the lists being played in my area as of late focus on infantry and I feel my ravagers have been lacking in that department.

The idea of my list is to take mid field with my units as to limit the movement of my opponent, limit flier damage and just overall pressure my opponent into making mistakes. So far been doing well.

I haven't seen the switch over to Infantry yet. every time i field the Talos it just plays as a distraction because everyone knows how he destroys ground units. thus giving an extra turn for my paper tanks to live and DL the crap out of transports and heavies. But with the razor I can DL one turn and use my templates the next

If you like the model then use it. It's a bargain for it's points, the problem is it competes with ravagers, so you need to fill in your AT elsewhere. You also need to force target saturation so running 2-3 is normally a good idea as you get the required critical mass.

Remember it doesn't it need to get across the board.

It has a 36" range splinter cannon and can sit in midfield where all the objectives are and then your opponent needs to come to you. It's an area denial unit. Start it 12" into the board in area terrain (Monstrous creatures now benefit from area terrain), move it forwards 6" or 6"+d6 (run) if there are no targets, and you are in the middle of the board turn 1-2, and can threaten anything within 18", cause it's not like overwatch bothers a talos, so there is no reason not to try a 10-12" charge. With the liquifiers anything that comes within 20" (6" move + 8" flame template) is going to be in trouble, whilst the 36" range twinlinked splinter cannon can just cut up infantry/oppoents scoring units whilst you sit and wait for your opponent to advance.

Not to mention it's a lot stronger this edition.

The Talos has Gained:
-It benefits from area terrain (MCs can get cover from being in area terrain this edition).
-It gets cover saves for only being 25% hidden, so it's easier to give it a cover saves with our infantry.
-It gets a free S7 hammer of wrath attack (makes it a lot more reliable against tanks) at I10.
-It hits vehicles on 3s (this makes it's melee attack reliable at taking out armour, even on a low roll)
-It has smash attacks so it can really mess up vehicles and characters, and if you roll a 1 for you number of attacks you have nothing to lose! Also if you get an odd number of attacks you round up.
-Random charge lengths are great for talos as they are tough and can shake off over-watch fire with ease, so their potential threat range has increased by 6". They might only have a small chance of succeeding the longer charges, but when you laugh at overwatch there is no reason not to attempt it! On the other hand your opponent can't afford you getting lucky and rolling a 9-10" charge, this has made the talos an even better area denial unit.
-FNP changes, these are great for the talos as it now gets the "invulnerable" it always needed and it stacks with armour. Despite going from a 4+ to a 5+ this has made the talos far more survivable, as before most weapons that would shoot it would ignore it's armour and FNP.
-No retreat wounds are gone! So you can actually use it to support other units in close combat.
-It's now scoring in 1 out of 6 missions.
-It now causes fear, not great but when it does work it's handy.
-Overwatch with liquefiers and splinter cannons makes it even more daunting to charge.

The Talos has Lost:
-Screening units only give a 5+ cover saves.
-Furious charge +1I, striking before marines was nice, but most of the times they are in cover anyway.
-The ability to stun-lock vehicles is gone so haywire isn't such a great choice.
-You can't assault out of portals, not really a big deal if you equip it with a heatlance/liquifiers (I personally always start mine on the board).
-Infantry can attempt to run away if they can't hurt it, but they still risk getting caught.
-Infantry can attack it with a single grenade per model in close combat. My guardsmen are going to run away, because they can't hurt your talos! Yes they can hurt it, they have krack grenades, enjoy needing on average 18 krak grenade attacks to inflict one wound (27 with FNP). My high initiative eldar are going to run away from the talos, because they are I5-6 and will get away, and they are only S3 so can't hurt it! Yes they can, because your expensive aspect warriors have plasma grenades that are S4 (on average 36 plasma grenades attacks are needed to inflict one wound, 54 if the talos has FNP)! So to be honest this is actually an advantage...

Here are some battle reports where I used Talos (with pictures):

BR10: The Black Buzzards VS SM Salamanders
BR11: The Black Buzzards VS CSM New Codex
BR16: The Black Buzzards VS SoB Mech

Hope that helps.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, Razorwings got the shaft in 6th ed and should almost never be used in an all comers list.

I'm further going to say that Ravagers are the crutch that keep us Dark Eldar players from growing into the changes brought about by 6th ed. Many of us (my self including) imediately assume that when making a list 2-3 ravagers (unless you doing WWP which you probably aren't) are just going to be thrown into that list and therefore you only really have room for 1 other heavy and probably the first thing that pops in to your mind is well I may want to take a flyer because I need that right?

But what purpose do those Ravagers serve? cracking open transports? picking out a couple of termies?
And if you go up against a large foot marine army or foot-dar (espically with an ADL) then what do the ravagers do? why do we consider them manditory when they blow up from a single melta shot?

well against footdar your shooting avatar and WL with them.

Also you have to look at the versitility of DL now. Not only are they good at AT and anti-MC, but their ID properties and the ability to "snipe" characters standing out in front means that if they fail their LOS, they might as well be dead. Also add in the ability to move 12 and shoot means that there is almost no place for a character to hide in a squad after a few guys have been stripped by venom fire

Having a mobile long range lance that's on board on turn 1 (instead of showing up at earliest on t2 and not necessarily being able to fire every turn). You need flyers to take care of other flyers (and they're pretty good anyway) so I'm taking 2 flyers and a Ravager.

Are both those Flyers Void Ravens?

And is there some list types you find to be pain points?

Gotta say I love my void raven, it does a great job everytime I field it.

Sorry for the off topic guys but I have two Razorwing Jetfighter models and as far as I know there is no Void Raven model. Can I use the sane models, is it mandatory that I make some kind of conversion or something?

What do you guys use for Void Raven models?

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Having a mobile long range lance that's on board on turn 1 (instead of showing up at earliest on t2 and not necessarily being able to fire every turn).

But still, to have a lot of rockets and dissies at turn 4 - 5 does have its merits, as enemy trying to take objectives and getting out of transports.

@Siegfried Most people will just use the Razorwing and say it's a Void Raven but there are actually some really awesome conversion in the conversion section of this board. The only thing that I see to go on is in the Fluff section for the void raven in the codex is that it basically says it has the same body as the Razorwing with different wings and an extra gunner.

In a fun game, please, use a talos if you like the model.

in a tournament? Don't even think about it. There are far far too many missles and plasma 9especially with 6th edition) in the tourney scene to even consider taking a Talos.

But to be fair, I have a dual force org tourney coming up, and i was toying with a 6 talos, 10 man grot list led by Urien! That might give some people pause...

I just got a new Talos, and I've really enjoying putting it together with 6th in mind. I haven't yet been able to test my assertion, but they seem like they'd be brutally effective in smaller games - cheap enough that we don't cripple our force by taking one, but 'ard enough that it can't be ignored.

It's also worth mentioning to those of us with regular Necron foes that the Gauss rule no longer automatically wounds on 6, meaning that Monstrous Creatures like the Talos can take significantly more Gauss fire than a similar vehicle. Combine that with AP2 close combat, and it might be able to mess with Necron target priority.

@Skulnbonz - you could make the same arguement to not take any Dark Eldar unit since Missiles and Plasma will kill anything we have especially a ravager or a venom.

Tallos behind an Aegis Defenise Line is probably the hardest thing to kill that we have, I wouldn't say they are not competitive now that we can take 6 heavy slots with the double org. I was running 3 Tallos and 3 ravagers but recently had to switch it to 2 Tallos, to put in a void raven (Curse the IG!)

Black Death wrote:

Gotta say I love my void raven, it does a great job everytime I field it.

with black here. the void raven cames in later but the AI it can get and the AT it has are some of the best in the game that we get: str 7 largblast re roll to wound................ya and the str9 lance is just sexy
that said the talos has it's moments d6 attack +1 if you charge and it draws alot of fire leting your troop's get to where they need to be
i would only think of geting the void raven or the talos for HS talos is beter then the cronos and the void raven has A11 not A10 like the razorwingand has beter AT then the ravager yes both cost more but that's what make's them that good 1v1 a SM can out do a Kablite every time SM cost more but is banced out with the numbers in the end 10SM cost more then 10 Kablite do and yes it would work if there was not a cap on how many you can run in the end just points.....Apoc.... so i recomend 2void raven and 1 talos or if you are running a 2x list 1ravager 2talos and 3void but that's just me

A Void Raven isn't necessarily better then a Ravager. Even if you ignore the fact that the Void Raven comes in T2 (or later!) and has limited mobility, the Ravager gets 3 DL shots to the Void Raven's 2 VL shots. More shots equals more hits and more chances to do damage (even if it is -1 Strength). When you add to that the fact that it's significantly cheaper I really can't agree with the statement that it has "better" anti-tank then a Ravager.

I wouldn't say not to take a Void Raven (or Razorwing) if you want to but they are hardly a must have in my book.

Skulnbonz wrote:

In a fun game, please, use a talos if you like the model.

in a tournament? Don't even think about it. There are far far too many missles and plasma 9especially with 6th edition) in the tourney scene to even consider taking a Talos.

That's ironic. The highest scoring Dark Eldar list at the NOVA OPEN this year was:

6th place: Ryan Deane - Eldar/DE foot list inclusive of 2 Talos and a Cronos

@ Murkglow, I think the voidraven ends up being better than the ravager for AT because it can also reliably take down flyers along with normal tanks, and it gets more effective than the ravager as AV's decrease which for me is good since I normally use haywire wyches on things that have AV 13 or 14 unless my heat lances/void lances don't have any lower AV to shoot at. Of course that might work differently for you as you'd probably have a different playstyle

Here is my Void Raven. I used 2 razorwings to make it.

@Black Death, lovely Void Raven! Seamless conversion and beautifully painted - airbrushed? Reeaally wished my airbrush worked properly

Re the OP, I used a single Talos almost religiously through our previous codex, and as Mushkilla points out they have certainly got better. I used to enjoy running it with a foot squad of Warriors, they certainly seem a lot less squishy if you have a monstrous creature there to back them up.

Unfortunately we don't get 10 warriors with 2 dark lances anymore to stay at home and mess things up; I found that a Talos was always a good babysitter for these guys. Lately though I've been considering putting a squad with one dark lance and one blaster behind an Aegis with an Icarus, and supporting them with a liquifier Talos, 'hiding' behind an advancing curve in the Aegis. The idea is that the Icarus will make up partially for not taking a flyer (depending on what you do with the other two slots of course), and synergises nicely with the dl/blaster guys. The Talos eats anything that gets near them.

I hope to try it out over the holiday season.

wittykid wrote:

@ Murkglow, I think the voidraven ends up being better than the ravager for AT because it can also reliably take down flyers along with normal tanks ...

However it only comes on at the earliest turn 2 and has limited movement (90deg turn and 18" min).

Air brushed-yes. Thanks! in all the years I have played, I've come to realize sometimes we just have to make our own models.

Yes Mushkilla, you are correct about the movement abilities and still my flyers seem to be the most resilent in a game. I am still working on a playable list.

was thinking of a dualforce org with 6 voidraven and the rest being one hemunk and troop's