Reviewing the Ravenwing

The last Ravenwing army of 9th ed

 Ravenwing - one of the three legs of the triangle of Dark Angels' sub-factions. They are the hunters who track down the Fallen and corner them so the Deathwing can smash them and bring them retribution. They are the fast maneuver elements that scout and outflank enemy forces for the battleline companies of the chapter. And they are the high-mobility army that offers an exciting style of gameplay to the Dark Angels player, contrasting with the slow but implacable Deathwing.

Or they used to be, at least. For most of 9th edition, when everyone was gushing about Deathwing Terminators and their perma-Transhuman ability, I was playing a pure Ravenwing list. Even when I finally caved and made a 1rst Company list, it wound up being led by Sammael and included a 10-strong squad of Ravenwing Knights and a pair of Talonmasters. I returned to pure Ravenwing for my last 9th edition list, building a list around 3 squads of 3 Attack Bikes and the Ravenwing Ancient, which finally gave me a reason to finish painting that sweet 2nd Company banner.

It only took me 4 editions.

When 10th dropped, I really wanted Ravenwing to be good. And, well, they aren't. There are a couple of decent units, but a lot more disappointing ones. So, I thought I might avail fellow enthusiasts of my admittedly-limited wisdom, and discuss the units and why I think they are either good or bad.

To start on a positive note, I'd like to discuss the units I think are actually good. At the top of that list, is the Land Speeder Vengeance. I think the Vengeance is the best unit the Ravenwing have going at the moment. The Vengeance is roughly comparable to the Storm Speeders in profile and price. It has one less Toughness and Wounds, but comes with an inherent 5++, so it'll tank some shots Storm Speeders would just take. Where the Vengeance shines is its main gun - the plasma storm battery. The PSB has good range, good AP, D2 on normal mode and D3 when supercharged, and is D6+1 Blast. That gives it a good profile for picking up D2 and D3 infantry, and is a not insignificant threat to vehicles and monsters when supercharged. It's Storm of Vengeance ability grants the possibility for out-of-sequence shooting when a nearby friendly unit is destroyed. The ability is not keyworded to Mounted units the way the Invader ATV's Outrider Escort ability is, so the destruction of practically any unit in your list can trigger the Storm of Vengeance ability. Park a Vengeance next to a squad of Scouts camping an objective and bait opponents into receiving a face full of plasma. Alternately, fly three of these things around together, obliging your opponents to trigger the ability. Unfortunately for me, I own exactly 0 Vengeances, and they're not exactly easy to find on store shelves these days.

My scratch-built counts-as-Sammael

The next best Ravenwing unit is Sammael. For his points, Sammael has a lot going for him - high mobility, good durability good shooting, and he shines in close combat, with the Raven Sword having 6 attacks at S6 AP -3 D2 and Sustained Hits 2! If he had Lone Operative, he'd probably pop up in most Dark Angels lists.

Unfortunately, Sammael is a character intended to be attached to a unit, but lacking any good units to attach himself to. The options are Outriders, Ravenwing Knights, and Ravenwing Command Squads. Of these options, I actually favor Outriders, because Sammael conveys shooting and charging after advancing, and Outriders automatically advance 6". So, Outriders can be used as a delivery vehicle and ablative wounds for Sammael. Unfortunately, while I think Sammael is good, I don't think he's so good that he justifies both his own price and the price of a squad to deliver him into close combat. If only Sammael had a unit worth attaching him to...

I suppose it's kind of damning that my list of good Ravenwing units is exactly 2 entries long, and one of those is heavily qualified. Into the mediocre department, I put the Dark Shroud. The Dark Shroud has a profile like the Vengeance (which it ought to given it's on the same hull), but trades good offense for a defense buff for surrounding units, granting a floating 6" bubble of Stealth and Benefit of Cover. That seems good in principle, but in practice armies have enough access to rerolls and To Hit buffs that Stealth is barely worth paying for, and Benefit of Cover isn't hard to get by moving and positioning your units well. I had a Dark Shroud in the first versions of my Firestorm list, but ultimately I found it not worth the points.

Next on the mediocre list, I'm going to include the Talonmaster. The Talonmaster has been nerfed a lot since his 9th edition glory days. Not only did his firepower get cut in half, but he also got reduced to hitting on 3+ instead of 2+. His close combat is mediocre for a 100 point character, with 5 attacks with an ordinary D1 power weapon - again, hitting on 3+ instead of 2+ like he used to. To add insult to injury, he has qualified Lone Op, having to be within 3" of a Mounted or Fly Vehicle unit to get it, and he hands out Ignores Cover, but only to Mounted or Fly Vehicle units. His one unqualified good ability is Master of Manoeuvre, allowing him a reactive 6" move if an enemy unit moves within 9": of him outside the Charge phase. That isn't really enough to redeem him in my eyes though. The one thing keeping me from rating the Talonmaster as outright bad is the fact you can park one next to a Vengeance, which is probably just worth doing, especially if you can park him next to more than one of them.

Dang these flyer models are sweet

I'm going to start the Bad list with both the Ravenwing flyers. I'm not going to get too in depth on the review of the planes. I rate them as bad because Aircraft are bad and they're both overpriced, costing roughly as much as a Redemptor Dreadnought, but having nowhere near the durability or overall threat profile of the Redemptor. I haven't used the flyers in 10th, and I haven't seen any lists where anyone has used them.

Also in the bad category are Ravenwing Black Knights and Ravenwing Command Squads, which I'm going to discuss together, because they share the same problems. Ravenwing Knights were really badly nerfed in the transition from 9th to 10th. They went from being a unit that could reliably delete virtually anything in the game to one that struggles to do anything useful.

The big problem with Ravenwing Knights is the loss of Weapons of the Dark Age. Not being able to spike their plasma talons up to D3 (or D2 without supercharging) really hurts their ability to deal with elite infantry, vehicles, or monsters.  Superficially, it seems like their damage output should be close to the same, because they gained Rapid Fire 1 on plasma talons, but the guns have only an 18" range, so to get Rapid Fire, the unit has to be within 9". Even with that, their ability to pick up W3 infantry is significantly degraded. Instead of every failed save picking up a model, it now takes 2 failed saves. So, whereas in 9th edition each Black Knight could potentially pick up 2 W3 models a turn with their shooting, now it takes 2 BKs to pick up 3 W3 models. A 33% reduction in damage output is no joke.  On top of that, plasma talons remained S7 (S8 supercharged), but the targets we'd put them into got considerably tougher. Terminators are T5, and most vehicles or monsters are at least T9, so Ravenwing Knights are wounding less often than they used to.

Having to be within 9" to get into Rapid Fire range obliges anyone playing Ravenwing Knights to engage in assault one way or another, and that's another area where Ravenwing Knights suffer. At first I thought that going from AP -1 D2 to AP -2 D1 was a side-grade, but I've changed my mind - it's a definite downgrade. Ravenwing Knights struggle to fight their way free of most infantry, and only really do chip damage to anything else even with their Knights of Caliban ability conferring Anti Vehicle/Monster 4+. Or to put it another way, last edition Ravenwing Knights could do a maximum of 4 damage a turn per model in assault. This edition, they can do a maximum of 3 damage.

Ravenwing Command Squads are a little better, but considerably more expensive for the privilege. They lose Knights of Caliban, but gain the abilities of the Apothecary, Ancient, and Champion. The Champion gives them a little more punch in close combat too, but not really enough to make them more than a modest threat to the games tougher units.

The sad thing is, if Black Knights' datasheet had remained more consistent with last edition, they'd be pretty good in a Stormlance detachment. In 9th ed, plasma talons had the Assault keyword. For some reason, they don't now. If they did, they could use Blitzing Fusillade and get Sustained Hits 1. D2 corvus hammers would have made Black Knights a pretty attractive candidate for being led by a character with Fury of the Storm, potentially gaining up to 2 Strength and AP. Combine that with the Shock Assault strat to give them the Lance ability, and a squad of Black Knights could have done some pretty good work on the charge. Why should the Space Wolves have all the Stormlance fun?

*I* could take a hammer!

I'd like to touch on the generic Space Marine "Ravenwing" units. Let's start with Outriders. I'm going to refer you to this article on Bell of Lost Souls.  I actually suggested doing a Hot Mess article to Goatboy a couple days before it popped on on BoLS. I don't have much to add to it, just if the sergeant could take a power fist, MAYBE they'd be marginally worthwhile.

The other generic Space Marine Mounted unit is the Invader ATV. I think the best thing I can say about the ATV is that it can be a relatively inexpensive, high mobility unit that can run around and do Secondaries. With the Onslaught Gatling Cannon, it's got enough firepower to be a threat to backfield or small utility units, like Scouts. I don't think the Outrider Escort ability is much worth playing around. If you're trying to play an all-Ravenwing list, you could use ATVs instead of Scouts or Inceptors for scoring Secondaries to stay theme-consistent. 

I'll also point out we could take our old, Legended Land Speeders, stick them on 100mm bases, and have them count-as-ATVs. It's what I plan to do.

I'm going to lump the Storm Speeders into one paragraph. In a nutshell, they're decent. The Hailstrike and Hammerstrike compare reasonably well to the equivalent price we would have paid for Land Speeder Tornados and melta-armed Typhoons. They're about twice as much as the respective Firstborn units, with higher toughness and twice the wounds, 2-3x the firepower, and useful abilities that buff the shooting of other units in your army. The Thunderstrike doesn't compare quite as well in the firepower department, but it makes up for it with the buff it gives. Adding 1 to Wound rolls for the rest of the shooting in your army is worth a premium. If there's a way to make Black Knights work, it probably involves Thunderstrikes.

I'm going to end with some predictions and wish-listing. For predictions, I think it's a pretty safe bet that Talonmasters are going to Legends. Both the kits that we used to build them have been discontinued, so it's not a great feat of prognostication to state they're skimming into the sunset. I'm going to go ahead and state that we're not going to lose Black Knights. I think we probably won't see Primaris Black Knights based on Outriders (though I wouldn't mind being wrong) because we're getting updated Deathwing Knights, and I'd imagine GW would like to keep something exciting for our 11th edition release.  That said, if GW released Outrider-Black Knights, it would give them a means to release a bike Lieutenant to replace the Talonmaster, and the Ravenwing range could use a bike Lieutenant. I also think it's not unlikely we'll get a Ravenwing-focused detachment. I'll honestly be surprised if we don't. A detachment like the Stormlance but with better synergies with Ravenwing units might be enough reason to put our biker boys back on the table.

For wish-listing, I'd like a bike Lieutenant. I'm definitely enjoying the benefits Strikemasters and Lieutenants are giving my Deathwing and Greenwing squads. Having a character I can attach to Black Knights that can carry a power fist and confer Lethal Hits and shooting and charging after falling back would really help out the Black Knights.

I also hope Black Knights get some serious improvements. I'd like to see them lose the Knights of Caliban ability because it's so marginal, and give them a variation of Weapons of the Dark Age. Something like +1 Damage when they supercharge their plasma talons would really be a major boost to them. Even if they could only do it once a game, I'd be a lot happier with them than I am now. I'd also like to see the sergeant be able to take close combat weapon upgrades. The Black Knight kit includes them, so just extend them a little to include power fists and thunder hammers and let us do the rest!

I know it's kind of a gloomy outlook for Ravenwing right now, but we've got our new codex coming around the corner. Let's hope GW gives our biker boys some love so we can start using them on the table without it being playing on hard mode!