Raptors - Chasing the Meta

Warhammer 40,000 – Space Marines, you seem to hear about them no matter what you listen to or read - which in my opinion is a good thing. As the iconic army of Warhammer 40,000 it’s great to see them getting the bump in power and subsequent bump in popularity. While the internet may cry foul and lament the fact that their force doesn’t get the love … I am reaping the rewards with my own army and loving just as much as my clients.

This time my Raptor client has embraced the current meta and sent over some new models for his force. The Raptors if you are unfamiliar are a successor of the Raven Guard. They got a special character in the Badab War books that used to make bolters sniper rifles if they stood still. With the indexes Lias got extra sneaky and able to make up to three mini-marine units deep strike with him. The go-to choice for me was Veterans squads with combi-weapons. Fast forward to the Raven Guard supplement and you now have multiple ways to set up turn one charges with any unit in your book. Suddenly my client needed some new models.

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Assault Centurions, Jump Pack Chaplain, Jump Pack Librarian, Smash Captain on Bike, Chaplain Venerable Dreadnought and some bolter sergents/sternguard round out this batch. Between Warlord traits, prayers, Psychic powers and stratagems there are multiple ways to put those Centurions in someones face turn one. Even more fun is casting Shadow Step to dump a character into their lines, oh look at that Chaplain Dreadnought is a character, guess he doesn’t have to worry about walking across the board. Mixing this batch in with what I’ve painted for him previously is going to make somebody sad.

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Painting on these guys is pretty basic olive green, wash and several highlights to take them to a higher end tabletop finish.

Sneaky Space Marines - Playing with Raven Guard Successors

Warhammer 40,000 – I’m super bummed. Space Marines finally get their day in the sun with a glut of new rules and the Internet can’t stop complaining about how over-powered they are. I don’t get it ever since I started playing this game every time a new book came out it took some time to adjust to the new options, although the rapid fire pace books are coming out now makes it hard to adjust as there are just so many things that are good. Which I think is a good thing and heathy for the game. Instead of looking at the marine release as one over-powered army it should instead be looked at as 6+ unique armies with their own play-style, which if any other factions suddenly got six brand new armies I think the impact would be very similar.

Anyway, I’m a fan of Space Marines and always have been. The new books have given every model in my collection a chance to shine and I love building new lists. I do have some favorite units like the Vanguard Vets, Chaplain and Captain so they tend to find their way into more of my lists than not but I’m trying to push each list in a new direction.

Twilight Ravens Fourth Company - Progenitor - Raven Guard • Successor Traits- Master Artisans, Whirlwind of Rage

BATTALION ONE
HQ - Captain: 2x Chainsword, Jump Pack, Warlord Trait: Shadowmaster Relic: Teeth of Terra
HQ - Chaplain: Litany of Hate, Exhortation of Rage, Jump Pack Relic: Master-Crafted Weapon, Plasma pistol Hero of the Chapter: Swift and Deadly
TROOP - Scout Squad: 4x Sniper rifle, Heavy Bolter Camo Cloaks
TROOP - Scout Squad: 4x Sniper rifle, Missle Launcher Camo Cloaks
TROOP - Scout Squad: 5x Astartes shotgun, Power Fist
ELITE- Vanguard Vets - 4x Chainsword & StormShield 6x Dual Chainswords
HEAVY- Mortis Dreadnought - 2x Twin lascannon
DEDICATED TRANSPORT- Land Speeder Storm - Heavy flamer

BATTALION TWO

HQ - Librarian: Enveloping Darkness, Shadowstep, Combi-flamer, Force sword Jump Pack
HQ - Lieutenants: Chainsword, Master-crafted boltgun
TROOP - 10x Intercessors: Auxiliary Grenade Launcher Stalker Bolt Rifle, Chainsword, Korvidari Bolts
TROOP - 6x Intercessors: Auxiliary Grenade Launcher Stalker Bolt Rifle, Chainsword
TROOP - 7x Scouts: Astartes shotgun
ELITE - Apothecary
ELITE - Eliminators: Bolt sniper rifle, Camo cloak

Raven Guard have a weird Combat Doctrine bonus, being in the Tactical Doctrine gives them +1 to hit and wound rolls against characters. The effect is pretty strong but very situational. My initial thought was to bulk up on snipers, turn one gives you an extra AP to potentially clear threats and turn two moves you into character sniping mode. Popping the Target Sighted stratagem makes that big Primaris unit able to target characters, hitting on 2’s, causing additional mortal wounds on 5-6, which is pretty solid, 3CP is a hefty cost to pay to take out a character but I don’t know that splitting their fire will make sense. Most likely the Lieutenant and Apothecary will camp next to them buffing up the unit. I gave the Sergeant Korvidai Bolts so he can target units 42” away an out of LOS. I don’t know how strong it will be but it feels in theme.

The Scouts and Mortis Dread help to compliment the shooting and provide some additional threats to pull attention away from my other threats. Nothing crazy here more or less just objective holders/campers that can shoot when a target presents itself.

Since the focus of Raven Guard Successors isn’t solely shooting based I worked in another layer of threats with my old stand-by units of a Chaplain, Captain and Vanguard Vets. Added to this mix is a Librarian. The mix of traits, prayers, relics and psychic powers I chose allow them to ignore overwatch, charge after advancing, deep-strike closer to another unit and give a unit -1 to hit makes for a pretty nasty assault element. First turn charges are totally possible the question is what do I go after? From prior experience smashing somebody first turn is great, but if you do to good of a job that assault unit winds up flapping in the breeze in front of a gun-line eager to blast them to oblivion. I imagine I’ll learn the right play with a few games under my belt.

The list above is geared for 1500 point games which have become our weekly standard. In the event that I need to bump up to a 2,000 point list I’m considering adding in the following:

OUTRIDER

HQ - Chaplain in Terminator Armor: Litany of Hate, Recitation of Focus, Combi-flamer
FAST- Assault Marines: 6x Jump Pack, Thunder hammer
FAST- Inceptors]: 6x Assault Bolters
FAST- Land Speeders: Assault cannon, Multi-melta

Of course as with my previous article I may need to bring this down to a 750 point list for a team game if we have an odd number of players on any given week. In that case I’d take the list down to:

BATTALION

HQ - Librarian: Enveloping Darkness, Shadowstep, Combi-flamer, Force sword Jump Pack
HQ - Lieutenants: Chainsword, Master-crafted boltgun
TROOP - 10x Intercessors: Auxiliary Grenade Launcher Stalker Bolt Rifle, Chainsword, Korvidari Bolts
TROOP - 6x Intercessors: Auxiliary Grenade Launcher Stalker Bolt Rifle, Chainsword
TROOP - 7x Scouts: Astartes shotgun
TROOP - Scout Squad: 4x Sniper rifle, Heavy Bolter Camo Cloaks
ELITE - Apothecary
ELITE - Eliminators: Bolt sniper rifle, Camo cloak