Minimum Vehicles to Make a Single Ravager Viable

Hello All!

First real post in the forum - I've been lurking for a while soaking up the vast wealth of knowledge on here and posting the occasional army list but felt it was finally time to speak up. Thank you to everyone for all the resources you've provided because they've been absolutely invaluable!

Anyway it's been years since I've actually played a game of 40k but have been casually collecting in the interim and am now trying to figure out a good way to bring some of my models to the table. I love the character of the DE units almost across the board, leaving the problem of cool stuff ADD when it comes to unit selection. Repetition of a just a few effective units isn't something I can bring myself to do! Now I really have my mind set on reavers, beasts, and taloi and have been trying to find a way to bring them all together in a list that's still relatively competitive.

With the models I currently have I was thinking something along the lines of a full units of reavers, a full unit of beasts + baron, a couple taloi, 3 blaster warrior squads in venoms and a medium sized wych squad in raider. Now at 1500 points that leaves just enough points to add in a ravager (which I would have to buy).

My question is, with only 4 other vehicles on the board does that make any sense? From what I've read ravagers really need other targets to occupy enemy AT or they don't stand a chance - especially if there's only one of them. With so many points tied up in the beasts/reavers more transport based units aren't really an option. I was hoping the beasts and taloi would provide enough target saturation, but I still wonder does a single ravager have any place in such an army? And if not what other options are there (if any) for some long range AT on turn 1?

Anyway hope I'm not being too demanding - looking forward to contributing more as I get some actual experience and move beyond mere theoretical wanderings! And of course thanks for your help.

-Cymera

The Taloi will occupy AT fire as well.
A conservatively used one should be ok, even if it dies, it'll eat fire that wont be blowing raiders

how do you have your reavers decked out? they can be anti tank as well. if you have multiple squads, you might be able to designate a squad just FOR vehicles. ive only had a few games with DE so not sure if this is valid advice. I know that i have had bad luck with only bringing two, never thought of only bringing one. however, it might work as they might not see it as much of a threat if played like dominicJ says.

DominicJ wrote:

The Taloi will occupy AT fire as well.

Keep in mind that this only works if the same anti-tank gun has the option of shooting both units. You're doing very little to mitigate anti-tank fire if you're all the way across the map doing something else.

It's not so much the ravager you should be worried about, it's your transports without saturation they will be in big trouble. And you won't be able to count on them getting anywhere.

How many point are you playing at?

What's in your transports?

I find I can get away with six vehicles at 1500pts, I have tried less, but the units just end up getting stranded (one of the reasons I dropped the wyches and now use warriors as they don't need their transport to function). The talos and the ravager will both draw fire, but you can expect to lose transports early on, so investing in upgrades like splinter racks, night shields, flicker fields and so on might not be worth while (as those venoms/raiders will die).

I think you could get away with it as long as you don't have close combat units in those transports and you are playing at 1500pts anything more and you will need more saturation. Reavers do not count in this case as anti infantry fire is far more effective against them so I would never count on your opponent firing his AT at them.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the tips! The list I was thinking of just wasn't coming together on paper - I've decided to shuffle things pretty drastically and go the WWP route for some fun (more of that ADD I was talking about - there are just so many ways to approach DE). I still seem to have the same problem with transports though.

Is having nothing but 5 transports (1 raider, 4 venoms) on the board at turn 1 just inviting disaster?