Reavers, numbers, and layouts

I have one squad of 6 reavers. I just purchased 3 more to make a squad of nine...armed with Blasters.

Now, should I stick with a 9 man squad, go for two 6-man squads?

If I go for two 6-mans.... Should both have blasters? SSHould I give one Heat Lances or Cluster Caltrops?

Choices Choices!!

Mushkilla.

Paging Mushkilla.

Yep, Mush is THE guy when it comes to reavers. I can say I've had success with his setup of 9 reavers 3 HL / Blasters (I personally prefer the HL) and Arena Champ with Venom Blade.

Units of 6 tend to work for me as well, I use these without the Arena Champ upgrade.

I think you should go either all ranged upgrades or all caltrops, not a mix of both since if you're using one, you're not using the other - wasted points. Personally I think DE armies have a lot of anti infantry everywhere, we're mostly lacking anti armor, hence I like the ranged weapon upgrades more.

For anything in detail... Mush

Wouldn't it be easier to link every one of Mush's posts than to have him rewrite his doctoral thesis?

If you want your Reavers to jump in, shoot, then scoot into terrain, blasters are often the better choice.

If you want to turbo behind the enemy on turn 1 or 2 and be a fire magnet, you'll probably want that Arena Champion and probably Heat Lances (meltas make people freak out a bit).

If you want to spend the entire game turboing into safe places, then contest objectives in the late game, consider Caltrops.

If you just want a harassment unit, 6 guys is doable. 3 guy units tend to evaporate quickly without accomplishing much.

If you want a troubleshooter unit that comes in from reserve and wins the game for you, you'll probably want 9 guys, good guns, and an Arena Champ with a Venom Blade.


From what I've seen Mush usually does the later. With such large squads (usually starting out of line of sight or in reserve) he tends to try to bladevane something to death the turn they come on, getting FnP and a 3+ cover. Then usually follows it up by hitting targets that his other dudes are focusing on.

So, engage a bunch of dudes with your normal army at range, Reavers come on & hit something fragile on either end and then roll up the flank. Or, at least, that's my take.

The three builds I see as most viable are the following:

6 Reavers, 2xHL - 156pts
- Cheapest option, HL over blasters here for more reliability in popping a tank. Harassment or distraction unit.

9 Reavers, 3xB or HL, Champion w/(optional) VB - 243-258pts
- Great build, blasters have they advantage of range helping the units survivability, heatlances have a good chance at popping a tank. The champ here is highly recommended for the LD bonus. I take the VB on him when I can to give them a little more CC punch. Good at everything Reavers do if you don't make any rash decisions with them i.e. leaving them near flamers!!!

2 x 6 Reavers, 2xHL - 312pts
- More points overall but you have two very distracting units, can take opposite flanks or overload one, bladevane two targets, hit two vehicles however, not all your Reavers benefit from an acquired PT, they can flee more easily than with the champ and at 6 models he's harder to justify here.

I should add two other tactics that I utilise with Reavers. Firstly, I often take a Haemon and start him with the one unit of 9 thus giving them FNP from the offset. He them jumps in a Venom with Wracks (still benefiting from FNP and the Reavers fly off and do their thing. However, I don't do this when I see it fit to start them in reserve. Sometimes it's better to deploy them on the table, other times, deploy them off.

Second tactic is including a Farseer with Jetbike and Doom. If I'm running HL I'll take a Singing Spear with him but otherwise not as it's 12" range. He can set them up with Doom, or roll on Divination Table. Misfortune
and bladevaning is killer against Marines, ignoring cover and firing is killer against IG, against a flamer or cover ignoring list the 4++ is awesome (especially with FNP if you're including the Haemon trick) or if you don't get the result you're looking for prescience and shooting is great. Especially if you then charge. This last option always allows you to twin-link a Ravager T1. You don't have to start the Farseer with the unit as well if you want to keep them in reserve. He also removes the need to have a Champ for the LD bonus as he is better at LD10.

Just some food for thought.

HL are barely more reliable than blasters in popping a tank bar the AP1. The effective range is what makes the blaster better IMO

Some good advice here on different Reaverbuilds. I agree with Massaen on sthe superiority of blasters over heatlances. Yeah the heatlances get the tank destroyed better than blasters but that 9" (+jetbike move) leaves you more easily to enemy retaliation range. 18"(+jetbike move) is much safer getting you usually more than 24" away from original target and hopefully those that come to take you out are even further away.

I can't add much to the above advice, it's pretty solid. I must say that Reavers are one of my favourite units in the DE army

I would like to say though, that I really do like the heat lance, though blasters definitely are the superior choice. The reasons I can think of for using heat lances are 1) they're fun and exotic, 2) in larger army lists, every 3 points you save by choosing a heat lance over a blaster can go towards another choice. For some reason I have a bit of an affection for heat lances. Don't know why

Though I did have one amazing time with Heat Lances when one heat lance totalled a tank and then managed to vaporize a decent amount of Marines in the same game. Still, a Blaster probably would have done the same job...

Im planning on 1 6 bike squad with two blasters, or 2 6 bike squads for larger games. Maybe one squad with blasters and the other one with heatlances?

I'm in the process of building and painting 12 Reavers to add to my existing 6. I have built 3 Heat Lances, 3 Blasters and 6 Cluster Caltrops. My main issue is that everything is on the underside of the model and trying to see what bike has what is a nightmare unless I spend all game picking them up and checking!

Count Adhemar wrote:

My main issue is that everything is on the underside of the model and trying to see what bike has what is a nightmare unless I spend all game picking them up and checking!

Could you not mark each of them - say, with a painted design or a transfer - using a different design for each weapon type, so you know which has what at a glance?

Erebus wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

My main issue is that everything is on the underside of the model and trying to see what bike has what is a nightmare unless I spend all game picking them up and checking!

Could you not mark each of them - say, with a painted design or a transfer - using a different design for each weapon type, so you know which has what at a glance?

Yeah, I've been trying to work out subtle ways of doing something like that. Might try different heads on the riders.

You can paint the head lances in a different colour from the rest of your dark lances. They are pretty visivble. Remember, if you can not see the upgrades, chances are your opponent definativaly can not see them, so you can make them more visible? :-)

My special weapons in the squad are the ones that have the ponytail coming out of their helmet. I color the hair red, so its pretty easy to spot

My special weapons have a different color of runes on their jetbike, very easy to spot.

My HL riders have gold visors, Blasters have silver visors, caltrops are painted brightly and are very visible from above and behind. Also, everything is magnetized, so if I want to run all HLs or all Blasters I can just say 'shiny metalface = special weapon'.

Massaen wrote:

HL are barely more reliable than blasters in popping a tank bar the AP1. The effective range is what makes the blaster better IMO

Not quite true. If you use the reaver's speed to get the 2D6 armour pen bonus (which is why we are having the discussion over the range advantage of the blaster), it becomes a significant advantage:

vs AV12+
1 blaster hit will cause damage (glance/pen) 50% of the time.
1 HL melta hit will cause damage (glance/pen) 72% of the time.

That's better than, say, the difference between the chances of hitting with BS3 and BS4.

And for getting the important 'explodes' result vs AV12+ (very useful if you're up against any HP3 or HP4 tanks):
1 blaster hit gets it 11% of the time
1 HL melta hit gets it 29% of the time

Blasters get the advantage of being able to run away further, and of having S8 for shooting at non-vehicle units (monstrous creatures for example), but at the moment I prefer having melta weapons as a very reliable fall-back when all the darklight stuff fluffs it vs a big nasty vehicle (or that one chance you have of shooting down a flyer that has just dropped into hover mode) - with three, you are getting a very good chance of causing heavy damage, if not outright blowing it up. Fits better with the way I play anyway.

[quote="Squierboy"]

Massaen wrote:

And for getting the important 'explodes' result vs AV12+ (very useful if you're up against any HP3 or HP4 tanks):
1 blaster hit gets it 11% of the time
1 HL melta hit gets it 29% of the time

Is that including the roll to hit? That's useful mathammer. So what is the % chance of popping a vehicle with three heatlance shots within melta range vs the probability of popping a vehicle with 3 blaster shots?
Muchas gracias!

mug7703 wrote:

Is that including the roll to hit? That's useful mathammer. So what is the % chance of popping a vehicle with three heatlance shots within melta range vs the probability of popping a vehicle with 3 blaster shots?

It doesn't include the roll to hit (since the chance to hit is the same with either weapon, it won't change the results when directly comparing them).
However, with 3 shots, you would score 2 hits on average, so just multiply the percentage chance by 2.
i.e. 22% for 3 blasters & 58% for 3 HLs.

There is also a chance to score multiple HP deductions and wreck a tank that way, but it's a bit complex to work out & I'm too tired for that! It would add a small percetage chance to the above figures, but not a great deal.

Okay thanks man! Nice to know Heatlances have more than a 50% chance of killing a vehicle.

I had a feeling that the 2d6 for armour pen values was a significant advantage. Thanks for the input. I think I now know why I love heat lances so much in my Fast Attack choices

Been thinking of adding a Autarch on a Jetbike with a Melta & power weapon to my Reavers. Mostly to echo the whole Jetbike HQ thing we used to be able to do in 3rd.

Yeah... I'm aware that a Presience Farseer with a Spear is strictly better in all ways. Cheaper too.