Reaver survivability strategy

If you're not going first you can reserve them, and take out the cover ignoring threat before they come in. Also have 48" movement that gives you loads of room to play with.

Its Death or Cake.


What can I do against Ignores cover large or small blast templets though when they get out on the field, it would be nice to have deep strike or outflank.  I was playing against IG and these guys are competative players so they bring the heavy stuff.  Cant seem to get a win against them.

Maybe I will use Illic for infiltrate and put my Reavers with him.

The guard have three weapons that ignore cover that you will see in competitive lists: the flamer, the heavy flamer and the Colossus.

Colossus are not cheap and compete with the manticore. None of those weapons get through FNP on reavers. The flamers are an annoyance but if you are running blasters on your reavers they won't be problem. As for the colossus if you go second reserve the reavers and make sure you take it out before they come in. It's also worth remembering it has a minimum range of 24" any shots fired within that distance scatter a full 2d6 and are not modified by ballistic skill making them unreliable to say the least.

Also what the hell do you need deepstrike or outflank for on reavers?

They can threaten infantry 48" away from the table edge, and with blasters they can threaten vehicles 30" away from the table edge, that lets them threaten the whole board when coming in from reserve (except in hammer and anvil) against infantry and 2/3 of boeard against vehicles. When you have threat ranges that big Reserve is your deepstrike/outflank.

Hope that helps.

Mushkilla wrote:

Also what the hell do you need deepstrike or outflank for on reavers?

They can threaten infantry 48" away from the table edge, and with blasters they can threaten vehicles 30" away from the table edge, that lets them threaten the whole board when coming in from reserve (except in hammer and anvil) against infantry and 2/3 of boeard against vehicles. When you have threat ranges that big Reserve is your deepstrike/outflank.

And they won't scatter/come in from a random board edge.

That said, I'm very annoyed with how little ignore cover we have in our army and also how often the enemy get to ignore our cover. Recently I've dropped my 9 man reaver unit down to 6 and dropped the champion to save points as I was finding I'd lose them quickly or not be able to use them at all as it would leave me too vulnerable.

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

I find I'm very much the death or glory type. Just can't resist boosting them across the table early on and then they get isolated amongst the enemy and get shot down through weight of fire.

This is my experience also.  If I got into the minimum range of the tank they are all grouped up together and now they get shot down by the bunched up group.

Also there was another vehicle that ignores cover too and it wasnt just a Colossas though I cant remember the name

The eradicator leman russ? No one takes that unless they are tailoring, as its overpriced. Not to mention it only has 36" range.

Just don't kamikaze your reavers and you will be fine.

Mushkilla wrote:

The eradicator leman russ? No one takes that unless they are tailoring, as its overpriced. Not to mention it only has 36" range.

Just don't kamikaze your reavers and you will be fine.

Griffon mortar?

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

Griffon mortar?

Doesn't ignore cover. Barrage weapons just ignore cover from intervening models or terrain. Not from area terrain or jink.

Mushkilla wrote:

The guard have three weapons that ignore cover that you will see in competitive lists: the flamer, the heavy flamer and the Colossus.

Colossus are not cheap and compete with the manticore. None of those weapons get through FNP on reavers. The flamers are an annoyance but if you are running blasters on your reavers they won't be problem. As for the colossus if you go second reserve the reavers and make sure you take it out before they come in. It's also worth remembering it has a minimum range of 24" any shots fired within that distance scatter a full 2d6 and are not modified by ballistic skill making them unreliable to say the least.

Also what the hell do you need deepstrike or outflank for on reavers?

They can threaten infantry 48" away from the table edge, and with blasters they can threaten vehicles 30" away from the table edge, that lets them threaten the whole board when coming in from reserve (except in hammer and anvil) against infantry and 2/3 of boeard against vehicles. When you have threat ranges that big Reserve is your deepstrike/outflank.

Hope that helps.

I used EVERYONES suggestions without tailoring my army, i rarely do that anyway. So I played this guy again and his list was completely tailored for my army. In the game he said that his colossus and manticores don't need line of sight to fire at me.  And when they do have line of sight then he can subtract the ballistic skill from the shot.  True?  

I barely lost.  I was winning and it was the last round the wraith knight was holding the objective (he was the only thing left on the table from my army) in the middle and it was pretty awesome.  My darkeldar were mostly wiped out by turn 2.

In the end me and someone were talking about it and it turns out the guy i played was wrong on some of the rules.  And he gave all his troops melee upgrades with and abilities to counter everything I did out of no where.  i could be wrong but when we added them up layer the points didn't even add up at the end of the game.

shadowseercB wrote:

In the game he said that his colossus and manticores don't need line of sight to fire at me.  And when they do have line of sight then he can subtract the ballistic skill from the shot.  True?

No offence, but this post and a few other posts of yours make it sounds like you don't have a solid grasp of the rules, and that's probably the main reason why you are losing so much.

Dark Eldar are an army where you need to know the main rule book, your own codex and your opponents codex back to front and inside out. Also knowing the rules helps you spot and stop cheating.

My advice is learn those rules (the main rule book ones are the most important). It will go a long way to making your gaming experience more enjoyable as well as making you a better player.

Hope that helps.

Yeah I dont know my opponents Codex's what so ever. I'll go buy a couple today and study them. When it comes to the rule book I know most of the rules that have to do with my army but when it comes to my opponents weapons/templates or abilities im not familiar with often.

The hard part is when your opponent interprets the rule book differently than you in the middle of the game.

shadowseercB wrote:

Yeah I dont know my opponents Codex's what so ever.

Because target priority and target saturation are so important in order to win with Dark Eldar playing without knowing your opponents codex is like playing blind. You really need to know off the bat what units will cause you problems and deal with them ASAP. You also can't afford to get caught of guard with some wargear or special rule you were not aware of, as often that will cost you the game.

shadowseercB wrote:

The hard part is when your opponent interprets the rule book differently than you in the middle of the game.

That's why I like to know the rules really well, and remember roughly where they are in the book. I'm lucky I seem to have photographic memory when it comes to 40k rules (if only this were true for the more useful things in life). Because knowing where the rules are and how they work lets you look things up and show your opponent mid game without wasting too much time (the mini rule book is great for this). At the end of the day it makes games run a lot smoother too.

I know what you mean.  My memory is extremely strong for work which is in the medical field but I'm, and of course I'm only speaking for myself, am an idiot at 40k.  I get the strategies on here that are reported and I play a ton of RTS games but I can't seem to grasp concepts when it comes to abilities, spells, and rules for 40k.  Some major things don't make sense, anyway thanks.

To be honest it doesn't help that GW are incapable of writing a rules that don't contradict each other or a rule book that doesn't have you flipping back and forth to find out how something works. So messy.

They're a miniatures company - not a game company, didn't you get that memo?

In other news, please continue to pay $50 for the rules to this game.

How long have you been playing? It's taken me over a year and a half to gets to grips with the game and am still learning, every game we have to look up at least one thing in the rule book.