Had another game against Raven Wing last night. This time I did not steal initiative. He hit my lines hard knocking out 2 wave serpents and pinning one squad. Being put on the defensive turn one, I screwed up my target priority with him breathing down my neck. Everything looked really grim as I tried to consolidate my avengers into terrain and circle the wagons so to speak.
Big advantage to the Raven Wing is hit and run. I could not tie up his models with my wraith knight and when they jump out of assault on my turn they get an extra 3d6 movement. It was looking grim as by turn three I was down to a full unit of avengers and an unscathed wraith knight. Was going to call the game there but I decided to see what kind of punishment the wraith knight could take. I almost tabled him lol. Through combat and assaults my wraith knight took down all but 1 of a squad of bikers and 1 squad of raven knights and a command squad on bikes. My avengers took down an attack bike and flubbed against his dark shroud. Game ended on turn 6, he had 1 bike with plasma gun, 1 attack bike and the dark shroud left. My avengers were still 10 strong and my wraith knight was down to one wound. After the game I realized I forgot completely that the wraith knight has hammer of wraith hits as well lol. Could have made a difference but c'est la vie. My opponent played a strong game and out played me.
Man the raven wing is a tough nut to crack if you don't have first turn. Especially the raven wing knights. From here on in they are target priority number one. Still like my wave serpents though so I don't plan on making any drastic changes in the immediate future except perhaps dropping my fire prism. Perhaps its because my opponents have treated it as a large target priority is why I've found it underwhelming. This could be a good thing. But I can drop 2 fire prisms to pick up another wraith knight. And that thing is simply boss. I'm also going to start turning my mind to allies. That is all I guess for now.
Remember the serpent shield ignores cover, so can get around boosted cover saves and totally jack up the dark Shroud. The key then is to take out those S7 and S8 shots as quickly as possible.
ReplyDeleteYa, I totally screwed that up, my target priority was way off. Should have taken out his night shroud first, then attack bikes, then raven knights. Next game I think I'm going to drop a squad of avengers and take some dark reapers and a wave serpent. Should up my dakka considerably. Then take some jetbikes to play hide and seek. Really thinking hard on a second wraith knight as well. 1850 list would look something like this:
ReplyDeleteHQ:
Farseer - speer (goes with reapers)
Troops:
2 x 10 Avengers - wave serpent, holo, lasers
2 x 3 jet bikes - shuriken cannons
Fast:
7 warp spiders
Heavy:
7 Reapers + 1 Exarch - fast shot, night vision, wave serpent, holo, lasers
2 wraith knights - Suncannons
Total 1850
Man how did he take out your Wave Serpents so quickly? He just ground them down through HP loss? Sounds like a brutal first turn. Way to pull off an admirable finish though!
ReplyDeletetwin linked plasma from command squad and raven knights. couple of multimelta shots plus assorted plasma guns throughout bike squads. samuel also had his plasma cannon. a lot of plasma was in double tap range.
ReplyDeletewith his 12 inch scout move he was right on my deployment zone edge turn one. skilled rider had him driving through terrain and buildings lol.
with tau hammering helldrakes, i think there will be a lot more raven knight armies on the table. its a solid army
I've read your battle reports and it seems as though the Prisms/Falcon were dead weight. I am personally dropping Fire Prisms in my lists as their damage output is not worth their points for me =(.
ReplyDeleteRegarding your last game, it may have been a loss but it looked more like a win with how much damage you did =). It made me look at the Wraithknight again as I think 1 or 2 will add a nice element to your army. Especially against Tau as Tau seem to focus these days on spamming S5,6,7 which don't scare the big guy so much...Move 12, run and then next turn charge hopefully?
Anyway, Reapers are great! Get the Krack missile upgrade, put behind Aeigis with a Spiritseer+Conceal for perpetual 2+ cover and kill things dead. Tau Commander with Tank-hunter/Ignore cover makes Dark Reapers insane, as well. Maybe Reapers, 2 Wraithknights and an Aegis would be a solid Heavy slot allotment?
Good luck in upcoming games, seems like Dires in Serpents are here to stay, they have so much potential against so many targets!
Ya I want the prisms to work because I have them painted lol. Part of me thinks 3 x 10 avengers in serpents, 2 wraith knights, 2 ranger squads to block scout moves and 5 wraith guard with d-scythes might be the way I roll in the future. Also would go with iyanden force org to give spirit seer the healy helmit. One wraith knight is cheaper than 2 fire prisms, more durable and has comparable fire power (absent range). Need to buy another wraith knight though...
DeleteThe Iyanden dex is cool and all, though I think that losing Conceal/Reveal is huge enough to just stick with the regular codex.
DeleteBattle Focus is only really good if you are footslogging a bunch of WG/WL/WK IMO.
Its the wargeer that heals the wraith knight that interests me. Also like the warlord table and the that the wraith knight can be a warlord.
Delete