Formation-ing an opinion: The Evolution of Formations in 40k

Formations seem to have become an integral part of army building in 40k these days. Whether that is a good or bad thing is for each individual to decide, today I thought I would take you through my thoughts on formations and how I feel they influence the vast universe of warhammer 40,000 these days.

Not a free transport in sight......

Right off the bat, it is only fair to let you know dear reader, that I rarely use formations in 40k. This is not due to some particular stance on the use of formations, I just like the Combined Arms Detachment (CAD) and find it the easiest way to make up an army and what I have been used to for many years. The second issue is that even with my vast collection of models for some armies, I sometimes still struggle to have the basic requirements for many of the formations that I can field, so am limited in this respect too. The one exception to this is the Ravenwing Strike Force from the 7th edition Dark Angels codex. Being a big fan of Ravenwing (and bike) armies, I have utilised this formation a lot in recent months, even taking an all Ravenwing army to the recent Blog Wars X tournament using the formation and having a measure of success with it in my games.

 

So this is where these opinions and impressions come from, a player who generally doesn't use formations, but has some experience both playing with them and against them in a competitive and casual environment.

 

Also, a note of nomenclature. I tend to use Formations and Detachments interchangeably when talking about them. I know that there are differences between the two, but to me, the comments on one could be equally applied to the other.

 

The Early Days of Formations

 

Force Organisation Chart

You could argue that one of the earliest instances of the use of formations in 40k was the introduction of the Force Organisation Chart in 3rd edition 40k (I certainly would argue this, and since this is my article, I can do what I want!).

Hasn't changed much at all.

Prior to 3rd edition, armies were constructed using the percentage system. Your army would be composed of units/models based on the percentage of the points used, for example; 25% or more core units, up to 25% characters, etc.

 

When 40k was re-launched with 3rd edition in 1998, a new mechanic for army building was introduced- the Force Organisation Chart (now known as the Combined Arms Detachment). For the first time, units in an army were separated into 5 different types; HQ, Elites, Troops, Fast Attack and Heavy Support. Players constructed armies by selecting units from "slots" in the force organisation chart and calculating their points cost for the unit until the agreed upon points limit was reached. The only compulsory choices in your army were one HQ and two troops slots. This limit still applies today in the CAD.

 

The idea was to allow players to build themed forces, more representative of typical armies your fraction would be likely to field. Your army would consist of an HQ unit to lead the army and two units of core troops to provide the backbone of the army. Additional troops units could be used to bolster your force and more powerful units could be taken from the other slots, though in lesser numbers to represent their more limited availability.

Hobby Costs- November 2015

As part of my ongoing look at my hobby costs for the year, here are November's numbers:

 

• -£10.00          Sold Citadel wood leaves
• £3.00 (OT)    Postage Costs
• £5.16 (OT)    Ebay charges
• £11.50 (WS) Landspeeder (ebay)
• £17.00 (WS) Scout Bikers
• £60.00 (OT)  Blog Wars X costs
• £17.78 (WS) Bikers and Landspeeder (ebay)

Total for November = £105.44
Running Total = £1036

The biggest expense this month was the trip down to Stockport for blog wars X. While I was there, I also treated myself to a box of Scout Bikers to use with the new White Scars formations I recently reviewed. For this reason, I also picked up some more bikers and landspeeders from ebay.

I only sold one item this month. Someone on twitter was looking for spare leaves from the citadel wood kit. I had a couple of sets lying around and got rid of them.

Only one month left in the year to tally up. In the new year, I will be doing a review of my hobby costs for 2015, looking at what I spent and where it went.

Battle Report 33- 1850 pts Ravenwing vs Eldar

This week's battle report comes from a practice game that I had the night before Blog Wars X. When I arrived in Stockport on Friday night, I had a game against Pete's Eldar army in preparation for the tournament the next day.

My army consisted of:

 

RAVENWING STRIKE FORCE

Sammael- on Corvex (with CS)

Interrogator-Chaplain- Space Marine Bike, Mace of Redemption, Auspex, Meltabombs (with BK)

 

5 Ravenwing Commnad Squad- Ravenwing Company Banner, Apothecary, Grenade Launcher (CS)

 

5 Black Knights- Grenade Launcher, Huntsmaster has Meltabombs (BK)

5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 grav guns, sergeant has Meltabombs (RB1)

5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 plasma guns, sergeant has Meltabombs (RB2)

5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 meltaguns, sergeant has Meltabombs (RB3)

Dark Talon- Rift Cannon, Two hurricane bolters, stasis bomb (DT)

Ravenwing Landspeeder- Multimelta, Typhoon Missile Launcher (RL)

 

RAVENWING SUPPORT SQUADRON

Ravenwing Darkshroud- Assault Cannon

3 Ravenwing Landspeeders- Heavy Bolters, Assault Cannons (RSS)

As a note, due to the comp rules of the tournament, a 2+ re-rollable save (cover or invulnerable) became a 2+/4+ save. This reduced the effectiveness of the Darkshroud by a marginal amount. My Warlord trait was set with Sammael, giving me +3" to charge and turboboost moves.

Pete's army consisted of:
Prince Yriel (with W2)
Spiritseer- Rune Armour, Shuriken Pistol, Witch Staff (with W1)
4 Windriders- Shuriken Cannons (WR1)
4 Windriders- Shuriken Cannons (WR2)
9 Wraithguard- Wraithcannons (W1)
5 Wraithguard- D-Scythes (W2)
Wave Serpent- TL Scatter lasers (WS1)
5 Wraithguard- D-Scythes (W3)
Wave Serpent- TL Scatter lasers (WS2)
6 Swooping Hawks- Exarch (SH)
Wraithknight- Suncannon and Scatter Shield, Scatter laser (WK)

Pete's force was Wraith-heavy and was going to be tricky to deal with. Putting the D-Scythe Wraithguard in the Wave Serpents was problematic, as he could jump out and most likely eliminate any unit he wanted with their flamers. The Wraithknight would prove problematic too, as my Ravenwing army lacked the grav heavy set-up of my White Scars, but hopefully the massed plasma could deal with it.
Pete's warlord trait gave him -1 to my Reserve rolls and his Spiritseer got Cleansing Flame, Hammerhand and Banishment.

We decided to play the kill points mission, as I thought this would be the toughest challenge for my Ravenwing against Pete and wanted to test them.

Blog War X- Ravenwing Army Review

Once I have completed a tournament, I like to take a look over my list and battle reports to see how the army performed; what units met expectations and which units didn't really do much in the game. With my battle reports from Blog Wars X now finished, it is time to review my list and see how it performed.

 

As a reminder, my list was:

 

RAVENWING STRIKE FORCE

Sammael- on Corvex

Interrogator-Chaplain- Space Marine Bike, Mace of Redemption, Auspex, Meltabombs

 

5 Ravenwing Commnad Squad- Ravenwing Company Banner, Apothecary, Grenade Launcher

 

5 Black Knights- Grenade Launcher, Huntsmaster has Meltabombs

5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 grav guns, sergeant has Meltabombs

5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 plasma guns, sergeant has Meltabombs

5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 meltaguns, sergeant has Meltabombs

Dark Talon- Rift Cannon, Two hurricane bolters, stasis bomb

Ravenwing Landspeeder- Multimelta, Typhoon Missile Launcher

 

RAVENWING SUPPORT SQUADRON

Ravenwing Darkshroud- Assault Cannon

3 Ravenwing Landspeeders- Heavy Bolters, Assault Cannons

First off, my results at Blog Wars X were way better than I was expecting. I didn't think I had taken that tough of a list to the tournament and was really surprised with how well some of my games went. I don't know if this was due to some great dice rolling from me and some poor rolls for my opponents, but I don't think I faced any weak armies over my three games (in fact, Matt's army was specifically designed to counter lists like mine). With that said, let's take a look at my units and see how they performed.

Sammael

The Ravenwing Chapter Master was a compulsory choice for my army (in that I wanted to take the Ravenwing Strike Force and needed a special character), but I probably would have taken him anyway.

Sammael was my Warlord in all three of my tournament games (as well as the practice games), mostly due to the fact that he is a tough character (T5, 4+ invulnerable and Eternal Warrior) and for his guaranteed warlord trait (+3" to charge moves). His warlord trait is very handy, allowing me to risk long range charges with a greater chance of success.

His plasma cannon can be pretty powerful, but it does come with risks. In game 1, he almost killed himself firing it during the game, taking two wounds when it overheated. In fact, a lot of the time, I never got to fire the Plasma cannon as I was too busy Jinking with his unit.

In combat, Sammael was quite successful too. He did fight in a couple of challenges, but these were against low level sergeant models. In game 1, he slaughtered a power fist wielding sergeant to help save his squad from harm and took out several of the enemy Command Squad too. In game 2, he wiped out a unit of Eldar Jetbikes in combat and secured an objective on his own. In game 3, he took out some Pink Horrors in combat, but them embarrassed himself by being slaughtered by a lowly Thousand Sons Champion in a challenge.

Sammael certainly works better when provided with re-rolls to hit in combat (he does get one with the master-crafted sword), as occasionally you will roll poorly and struggle to get many hits with him in combat. His strength of 4 is also a bit unfortunate as he can often struggle to take on more powerful characters or even bike-mounted foes.

Overall, Sammael worked very well in the army, only dying in one of the three games. I would definitely take him again.

Blog Wars X- Armies on Display

Hi everyone, here are some of the photos of the armies on display at Blog Wars X.

 

First up we have some of the entrants for best army.

Blog Wars X: Game 3- Ravenwing vs Chaos Space Marines/Chaos Daemons

Welcome to the third and final battle report from my games at Blog Wars X. Game 1 and Game 2 had seen two solid victories for my Ravenwing, meaning that in game 3 I found myself at the lofty heights of table 1 for the final game of the tournament. What was even scarier was that I actually had a shot a winning the whole tournament!

Game 3 was a maelstrom mission using a modified Blog Wars tactical objectives deck. There were 18 cards in the deck, three drawn each turn and six turns in the game, so you could potentially score every card during the game. The six seize objective cards were worth 2 pts each, the other cards were worth 1 or 2 pts depending on what the card was. Impossible to achieve cards were discarded before the game began (cards that became impossible to achieve as the game went on had to be kept) and one card could be discarded at the end of each turn.

I was exceedingly nervous going into this game, given how high I was placed in the rankings (I must have been either 1st or 2nd). I was even more nervous when I saw that I was playing Matt and his Tzeentch Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Daemon army. Matt and I had chatted during the day and I found out that my army was the exact kind he expected to face at Blog Wars and had designed his army as a counter to it. He had at least three AP3 flamers in the army and all his psykers would be taking psychic shriek (great against bike armies), with Ahriman being able to cast it 3 times in one phase. To say this was going to be a tough game was a little bit of an understatement.

As a reminder, my army consisted of:

RAVENWING STRIKE FORCE

Sammael- on Corvex (with CS)

Interrogator-Chaplain- Space Marine Bike, Mace of Redemption, Auspex, Meltabombs (with CS or IC)

5 Ravenwing Commnad Squad- Ravenwing Company Banner, Apothecary, Grenade Launcher (CS)

5 Black Knights- Grenade Launcher, Huntsmaster has Meltabombs (BK)

5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 grav guns, sergeant has Meltabombs (RB1)

5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 plasma guns, sergeant has Meltabombs (RB2)

5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 meltaguns, sergeant has Meltabombs (RB3)

Dark Talon- Rift Cannon, Two hurricane bolters, stasis bomb (DT)

Ravenwing Landspeeder- Multimelta, Typhoon Missile Launcher (RL)

RAVENWING SUPPORT SQUADRON

Ravenwing Darkshroud- Assault Cannon

3 Ravenwing Landspeeders- Heavy Bolters, Assault Cannons (RSS)

As a note, due to the comp rules of the tournament, a 2+ re-rollable save (cover or invulnerable) became a 2+/4+ save. This reduced the effectiveness of the Darkshroud by a marginal amount. My Warlord trait was set with Sammael, giving me +3" to charge and turboboost moves.

Matt's army consisted of:

CHAOS SPACE MARINES:
Ahriman (with TS1)
Chaos Sorcerer- Level 3, Spell Familiar, Meltabombs, Skalanthrax (with TS2)
9 Thousand Sons (TS1)
Rhino (R1)
9 Thousand Sons (TS2)
Rhino (R2)
Helldrake- Baleflamer (H1)
Chaos Predator- TL Lascannons, two Lascannon sponsons (P1)
Chaos Predator- TL Lascannons, two Lascannon sponsons (P2)

CHAOS DAEMONS:
Lord of Change- level 3 psyker (LoC)
10 Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (H2)
Burning Chariot of Tzeentch- Blue horror crew (FC)

His warlord trait allowed him to Infiltrate one unit. For the plethora of psychic powers, he got:

Ahriman- Tzeentch's Firestorm, Boon of Mutation, Endurance, Life Leech, Psychic Shriek
Sorcerer- Life Leech, Enfeeble, Psychic Shriek
Lord of Change- Flickering Fire, Cursed Earth, Sacrafice, Dark Flame, Summoning
Thousand Sons 1- Tzeentch's Firestorm, Breath of Chaos
Thousand Sons 2- Tzeentch's Firestorm, Breath of Chaos
Horrors- Flickering Fire, Infernal Gaze, Summoning

Blog Wars X: Game 2- Ravenwing vs Eldar

Welcome to my second battle report from Blog Wars X. Having won my first game, I found myself at table 4, going up against Tess' Eldar/Dark Eldar army.

 

The mission was the Emperor's Relic; a modified Relic mission with an immobile Relic in the centre and one objective for each player in their own deployment zone. The Relic was worth 10 pts, your own objective was worth 5 pts and your opponent's was worth 15 pts. Secondary objectives were also in play.

This was one of the missions I was worried about , as I only had one objective secured unit in my list (the tournament rules grant Sammael objective secured for this mission), so would have to completely control any objective I wanted to grab.

 

As a reminder, my army consisted of:

 

RAVENWING STRIKE FORCE

Sammael- on Corvex (with CS or S)

Interrogator-Chaplain- Space Marine Bike, Mace of Redemption, Auspex, Meltabombs (with CS or IC)

 

5 Ravenwing Commnad Squad- Ravenwing Company Banner, Apothecary, Grenade Launcher (CS)

 

5 Black Knights- Grenade Launcher, Huntsmaster has Meltabombs (BK)

5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 grav guns, sergeant has Meltabombs (RB1)

5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 plasma guns, sergeant has Meltabombs (RB2)

5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 meltaguns, sergeant has Meltabombs (RB3)

Dark Talon- Rift Cannon, Two hurricane bolters, stasis bomb (DT)

Ravenwing Landspeeder- Multimelta, Typhoon Missile Launcher (RL)

 

RAVENWING SUPPORT SQUADRON

Ravenwing Darkshroud- Assault Cannon

3 Ravenwing Landspeeders- Heavy Bolters, Assault Cannons (RSS)

As a note, due to the comp rules of the tournament, a 2+ re-rollable save (cover or invulnerable) became a 2+/4+ save. This reduced the effectiveness of the Darkshroud by a marginal amount. My Warlord trait was set with Sammael, giving me +3" to charge and turboboost moves.

Tess' army consisted of:

Prince Yriel (with FD)
Farseer- Singing Spear (with W)
3 Windriders- Scatter lasers (W1)
3 Windriders- Scatter lasers (W2)
3 Windriders- Scatter lasers (W3)
6 Fire Dragons- Exarch (FD)
5 Wraithguard- D-scythes (W)
7 Warp Spiders- Exarch (WS1)
Wave Serpent- Scatter Lasers (WS2)
5 Dark Reapers- Exarch (DR1)
5 Dark Reapers- Exarch (DR2)
2 Warwalkers- Bright Lances (WW)

Archon- Webway portal, Shadowfield, Haywire Grenades (with W)
5 Kabalite Warriors (KW)
Raider- Nightshield (R)

His warlord trait gave him +1 to seize the initiative and re-rolls on his reserve rolls. His psychic powers were Eldritch Storm, Will of Asuryan and Mind War.

Quite a tough Eldar list to face. The Archon/Wraithguard/Serpent combination meant the unit could deep strike anywhere on the board and D flame a unit of his choice. The Fire Dragons would embark on the Raider to deep strike also. Jetbikes are a pain as they are really fast and can put out a lot of firepower. Dark Reapers are great against Bike armies as they are AP3 and ignore Jink saves, meaning my Ravenwing would be in trouble.
Thanks to the +1 to reserve rolls from the Autarch and the re-rolls to reserves from the warlord trait, the Eldar reserves were practically guaranteed to arrive on turn 2.

I won the roll for table side and chose the side with the Ruins to deny them to Tess. I won the roll for deployment too and elected to go first, hoping to hit the Eldar hard before they could strike. I deployed everything forward, the Ravenwing support squadron covering the Command Squad.

In reply, Tess set up only three units. The Warp Spiders and warwalkers deployed in the rocks to my right, with the Kabalite warriors deploying to the left at the back.

Deployment and Scout moves. The shields represent the objectives.

Blog Wars X: Game 1- Ravenwing vs Dark Angels

Welcome to the first of my battle reports from my games at Blog Wars X (run by Alex at From the Fang). This was the second time that I had attended Blog Wars, the first being Blog Wars 9 earlier in the year. Last year, I finished 13th out of around 50 gamers, so was keen to see if I could equal or beat my result this time around. It is an awesome event (not just for bloggers) and I got the chance to meet up with some fellow bloggers and some friends I made at the last tournament.

 

A big thanks to Luke (from Darksun Life), Pete and Daniel for letting me join their (rather sizeable) contingent this year at the tournament and for being great company over the weekend.

 

I also have to mention all the wonderful bloggers I met up with (it is called Blog Wars after all);

• Luke from Darksun Life. I met Luke and his mates at Blog Wars 9 after chatting on the 40k addicts facebook page. It was nice to finally meet them and have someone to hang out with for the weekend. We even faced each other in the final game of Blog wars 9. I lost, but it was a great game. Luke had recently got back into blogging (and started vlogging) after a long absence and I look forward to seeing what appears on the blog from now on (as well as going back and reading his older stuff).
• Rob from "From the Horus Heresy to Infinity and Beyond". I feel a kindred spirit with Rob as we both started blogging about 40k at pretty much the same time (he beat me by 10 days!). Rob brought a fantastic Death Company army and was a great bloke to finally meet and chat to.
• Dave from Confessions of a 40k addict. Dave's blog was a great inspiration when I was starting mine and he brought his fantastic Nids army once again to Blog Wars.
• NafNaf from Objective Secured. NafNaf had his amazing Thunderwolves army with him again. We actually faced one another in the first game at Blog Wars 9. It was a bloody affair, full of terrible dice rolling on both sides.
• Alex from "From the Fang". Last, but by no means least, the power behind Blog wars. Alex has put on 10 Blog Wars, two of which I have been fortunate enough to attend. I always have an amazing weekend when I have gone and hope to keep going to his events in the future.
• Everyone else from the weekend who I may have missed and everyone who made it such a great weekend. Special thanks to Leicester Sabres who welcomed me in to the ranks and for the staff at the North West Gaming Centre for all they did during the weekend and for putting on an amazing game of Werewolves on the Friday night.

 

Last time round, I took my White Scars to Blog Wars, this time I wanted to give my Dark Angels a go. As Blog Wars is a friendlier list event (particularly filthy lists are returned to the owners for modification and only 2 detachments are allowed with no multiple detachments such as Decurion and Battle Company allowed), I decided to take my all Ravenwing force as a nice thematic army that still packed a good punch. I posted my list earlier, highlighting my choices and what I saw as the strengths and weaknesses of the list.

The first game of the tournament was good old "Purge the Alien" using Hammer and Anvil deployment- kill one another with Blood Points awarded for killing each enemy unit (equal to the victory points cost of the unit if destroyed or half points if taken below half strength/wounds/hull points).

 

Fresh-faced on Saturday morning, I found myself at table 14, facing Ian and his own Dark Angel's army, consisting of the Ravenwing Strike Force and Deathwing Strike Force, but with his own Guardians of the Covenant army featuring a Razorwing/Doomwing force. This would be an interesting match up; I would get to see how annoying my re-rollable Jink saves were going to be first-hand.

 

As a reminder, my army consisted of:

 

RAVENWING STRIKE FORCE

Sammael- on Corvex (with CS)

Interrogator-Chaplain- Space Marine Bike, Mace of Redemption, Auspex, Meltabombs (with CS)

 

5 Ravenwing Commnad Squad- Ravenwing Company Banner, Apothecary, Grenade Launcher (CS)

 

5 Black Knights- Grenade Launcher, Huntsmaster has Meltabombs (BK)

5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 grav guns, sergeant has Meltabombs (RB1)

5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 plasma guns, sergeant has Meltabombs (RB2)

5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 meltaguns, sergeant has Meltabombs (RB3)

Dark Talon- Rift Cannon, Two hurricane bolters, stasis bomb (DT)

Ravenwing Landspeeder- Multimelta, Typhoon Missile Launcher (RL)

 

RAVENWING SUPPORT SQUADRON

Ravenwing Darkshroud- Assault Cannon

3 Ravenwing Landspeeders- Heavy Bolters, Assault Cannons (RSS)

As a note, due to the comp rules of the tournament, a 2+ re-rollable save (cover or invulnerable) became a 2+/4+ save. This reduced the effectiveness of the Darkshroud by a marginal amount. My Warlord trait was set with Sammael, giving me +3" to charge and turboboost moves.

Blog Wars Bound and 500 comments!

 

This morning I am setting off to Stockport with my Ravenwing to attend Blog Wars X (run by Alex at From the Fang).

 

Good luck to everyone heading there. If you read my blog and are going to blog wars, please stop by and say hello, always nice to meet people at tournaments and put a face to the name.

Also, in another arbitrary milestone, this morning I hit my 500th comment on the blog! I promise, only a small fraction are spambots (and only about half of them are my replies)! Thanks to everyone who contributes to the comments, it makes a difference to know that people are interested in what I am posting and really helps keep me motivated to posting regularly. 

Blog Wars X- My Ravenwing List

So, for Blog Wars X, I had decided to take an all Ravenwing army to the tournament. With Blog Wars being a friendlier type of tournament with no extreme lists (though that doesn't mean the games are not tough!), I thought I would take a more thematic list down to Stockport. With the new codex and the awesomeness that is Ravenwing, I put together a proposed list and went about playtesting the army to see how it would perform (for my efforts on this, check out my Battle Reports).

 

After several games testing the army, the list I have decided to go with is:

 

RAVENWING STRIKE FORCE

Sammael- on Corvex

Interrogator-Chaplain- Space Marine Bike, Mace of Redemption, Auspex, Meltabombs

 

5 Ravenwing Commnad Squad- Ravenwing Company Banner, Apothecary, Grenade Launcher

 

5 Black Knights- Grenade Launcher, Huntsmaster has Meltabombs

5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 grav guns, sergeant has Meltabombs

5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 plasma guns, sergeant has Meltabombs

5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 meltaguns, sergeant has Meltabombs

Dark Talon- Rift Cannon, Two hurricane bolters, stasis bomb

Ravenwing Landspeeder- Multimelta, Typhoon Missile Launcher

 

RAVENWING SUPPORT SQUADRON

Ravenwing Darkshroud- Assault Cannon

3 Ravenwing Landspeeders- Heavy Bolters, Assault Cannons

 

Total= 1845 pts.

 

Not too many changes from my original list, only one significant one; swapping the Librarian for the Interrogator-Chaplain.

Hobby Sunday 25/10/15- Dark Talon/Nephilim jetfighter

With my White Scars command squad and Librarian being finished last week in preparation for Rapid Fire 2015, it was time to turn my attention to my Dark Angel's flyer.

 

With Blog Wars X fast approaching at the end of the month, it was time for me to get cracking with painting my Dark Talon. I had previously magnetised the flyer in order to be able to field both variants. Having never magnetised anything before, I was quite pleased with how it turned out in the end, but now it was time to get painting.

 

What I love about Ravenwing is that once the undercoat is done, a lot of your work in painting the model is essentially finished as the major colour in the army is black. I started off by giving the metal areas a drybrush with Boltgun Metal to pick out the details.

 

Next, the areas to be painted white (the wings, Ravenwing symbols and Dark Talon iconography) were given a coat of Dawnstone grey. In the case of the iconography, this was drybrushed over the black undercoat.

Blog Wars X- Proposed Ravenwing Army

Earlier this year, I attended Blog Wars 9 (run by Alex who runs From the Fang) and had so much fun that I decided to attend Blog Wars X later this year.

 

Last time round I took my burgeoning White Scars army. I had three great games against three great opponents and decided that this time I would stay with a bike army, but change chapters. I have decided to take my Dark Angels, but not only that, I will be taking an all Ravenwing army! I have really been enjoying the new Dark Angels codex and want to see how the boys in black will perform in a competitive setting.

 

I've been thinking of taking the Ravenwing for a while, so much so that I contacted Alex to clear up the Ravenwing Strike Force issue. For those of you that don't know, the Ravenwing Strike Force comes with three HQ choices and the ability to re-roll your warlord trait. The only problem is that all models/units in the formation must have the Ravenwing special rule and the only HQ unit with this rule is Sammael (either on his jetbike Corvex or in his landspeeder, Sabreclaw). This means that those inviting two spare HQ slots go to waste and my bike-mounted Librarian has to cry into his pillow at nights as he can no longer ride with the big boys. Although there are ways to field other bike-mounted characters (such as running Unbound, it's not like I needed friends anyway), but no way to get them in an all Ravenwing army.

 

Alex recently made a ruling on the Ravenwing strike force, which boils down to:

• Sammael is a compulsory choice for the Strike Force
• Other characters may be taken. They must take a Space Marine bike and swap the Deathwing rule for the Ravenwing rule.