Raven Guard Tactica Overview

Raven Guard Tactica and Overview

All infantry in a Raven Guard detachment that is not in Terminator Armour or Jump Infantry gains Infiltrate and Fleet. This is huge, you can have your entire army deploy almost anywhere on the board outside of 18"/12" of enemy models. This means you can start the game on top of Objectives with your troops, further up field for Assault troops, in better terrain with your heavy support squads etc.

Secondly; all Terminators, Jump Infantry and both kinds of Bike (jet and wheeled) gain Furious Charge. Furious charge terminators are amazing anti marine death machines: Lightning claws, power swords all Ap3 at Str5 + I5(!!!) Assault marines (who are cheaper now, whoop!) attacking with both hammer of wrath and at Str5 + I5. Any I5 Ap3 weapons that now wound on 3+ is brilliant, Lightning claws even more so as they have Shred. Seriously this is awesome, ask any Emperor's Children player.

The drawback for this Legion is that you cannot have more Tanks than Infantry (but your infiltrating marines can give their tank transports Infiltrate). This might seem too limiting but it's not too bad. Dedicated Rhino transports might prevent you from getting Sicarians as HS but you no longer really need Rhinos (Unless you're against Phosphex spam) as your Infantry gets up the board and to objectives faster due to Infiltrate. I say scrap the Rhinos and take assault vehicles like Spartans and Land Raider Phobos's for your amazing Furious Charge Terminators.

With Infiltrate, a Master of Signals with a Heavy Support (Plasma?) team could do some serious damage turn one with their opening salvo.

If you go down the Assault Marine route with your Raven Guard furious charge is a massive boon but remember that your other infantry also has Fleet which might help them catch up.



In terms of their Legion Rites of War:

Liberation Force is a comparatively weak Rite themed around making Fearless auxilia ally bubbles and which gives very little benefit for your actual marines beyond one turn of Zealot.

Decapitation Strike, on the other hand, is a very powerful Rite of War: Reroll the first turn is nice (I'd use reroll to go second because...), you get access to drop Drop Pods which is awesome.

Dropping in marines wherever you want them with their own annoyingly hard to destroy armoured cones is great. Drop pods are great for diverting heavy weapons fire from your other Armoured units. Deathstorms Drop pod become elites which are nice as you only get ONE HEAVY SUPPORT SLOT, but they are still overpriced for what they do.
Essentially this Rite gets you the benefits of drop assault without the drawbacks of no ground units.

Angel's Wrath is amazing with Furious Charge for your assault marines, I5 hit and run is great.

Armoured Spearhead allows you to infiltrate land raiders full of nasty units up the field. Dedicated transports must have a unit to go with so you have equal Tanks to Infantry. Infiltrating land raiders with assault ramps (Phobos) or packed with support squads can really mess up your opponents.

Pride of the Legion is good for terminators with Furious Charge as troops, veterans are cheaper now too so that's nice too. Infiltrating/Outflanking marksmen with sniper suspensor missile launchers. Rending Heavy Flamers? WS5 power swords infiltrating, yes, please. There're many options here.

Outcast sons can be good for an assault army, Infiltrate, Furious Charge, re-roll sweeping advances, potential scout on top of Infiltrate. This is pretty swish. Furious Charge Dark Furies with re-rolls on sweeping advances are amazing (more on these guys in a later post)

Drop Assault RoW is nice? I guess? Just take Decapitation Strike, who are you kidding. 

Recon Company can be good is you're not taking terminators. Shrouded 1st turn for all infiltrators (read; your whole army) is pretty good. Heavy support squads love this, lets them get better into position and gain extra survivability for a first turn strike (going second) or a follow-up beta turn two strike (going first 1st turn).



That about wraps the Raven Guard overview. I'll be doing character and unit focuses later (Mor Deythans and Dark Furies, yas!), finally followed by a Primarch focus on both Corax and Kurze.

Thanks for waiting for the blog to come back.
Happy Wargaming all.