Hi,

To start, congrats on the award at TOS, judging from the battle reports, it was well earned and well deserved. A major stinking shame about the painting but what can you do? Your army may not have gotten the credit it deserved but judging from the comments on your blog and on flickr, I’d say it definitely got some great exposure.

Regarding the subject at hand, I’m trying to build up my force up to 1750 points and I’m trying to see if it’s worth it to run 2 Razorwings 1 Ravager rather than 1 Razorwings and 2 Ravagers. From reading your tournaments I can see you had great success with the fighters but are they, in your experience, worth running in pairs to get the extra redundancy and assurance that “something” will show up by turn 3?

Thanks in advance,

Dark_Gear

Hello Dark gear,

As for ToS I feel I had some luck there too, as much as I like a good old supervilian style gloat I feel uncomfortable claiming it was all me, true I had some bad dice but there were a couple of times the dice were very kind to me at just the right moment, one particular instance sticks in my mind….

Thanks for your email, yeah my feelings about best painted have mellowed somewhat, my army is what it is. Also since you emailed  GW spotted them on Flickr and has asked me to write some stuff and ran a feature on” Whats New Today”

1750 Is a good level, my favorite for competitive games, 1500 is too tight and you just end up stripping down to the most soullessly efficient thing you can create (well that’s my inclination anyway) with 1750 the extra slack allows you to breathe a little and even be a little more creative with the list, if you have a solid 1500 core that really works what’s wrong with spending 250 points on some stuff you want to include ? or padding out the 1500 core with some more eclectic/experimental choices ? TBH if I really went into the 1750 I took to throne on a pure risk/efficiency basis the Incubi/Archon would be gone as both are expensive and only circumstantially useful, a couple of times when they should have been useful they have bounced so they really are in the list as an Indulgence. Anyway I digress.

Razorwings are a conundrum they cost a fair bit more than a Ravager and are harder to get cover for , FF’s help a bit in that department but its then more points. Conversely I tend to run mine with dark lances, a flickerfield and an additional splinter cannon. For me there is not even a contest with the dissies, it kills infantry stuff dead anyway so you wont particularly notice them but you will miss two lances, besides, with a splinter cannon and two lances it still has 8 shots ?

Long range AT is precious for DE there are a couple of approaches you can take, Unless the scenario or opponents setup allows you to get away with it I would pretty much always tend to reserve the Razor, obviously you need to make a judgment call, but most of the time mine is reserved, the theory being I WILL get to fire, there is no danger at all of it not getting to go, obviously this opens up the reserves can of worms (I still think DE should have reserves manipulation) hopefully your opponent is not entirely meched and/or you can either tempt something out of it’s box or failing that open it, derp strikers are fun too, obviously the bigger the units your opponent runs the better the pie torrent will be, now bear this in mind, by not taking the ravager you are three lances down, technically only one , however as you assume you will most often be in reserve you cannot bank on those lances in the early game, best value is achieved when a disembarked squad is right next to the vehicle you target the vehicle so your lances are doing something worthwhile and place the templates so the hole is on the vehicle but the template covers as much of the infantry nearby (usually get all of them) often you can net yourself a double kill this way, if you are feeling lucky there are times you can get away with deepstriking behind a tank/unit then even the str 6 is hitting AV10 , nice if the opportunity arises.

Diet humor break:

Just a note- sometimes you can and should and need set it up on the table, that’s something you will have to learn to judge for yourself. If I find myself doing it any time soon I’ll take a note of the situation.

Back to my point, as you are technically lances down you need to make sure the rest of the army can carry itself AT wise , for example I toyed with the idea of  running a triple Razor list bu took raiders elsewhere and three units of Reavers to make sure some tins get opened so I can pie them, venoms did not go in the list as anti infantry should be well covered.

Hmm I think the single Rav will prob die quite early, you honestly need pairs for redundancy and  to get the volume of lances required to do ‘something’  ANYTHING pleasegodwhywontitWORK!!

I would either take one or three razorwings, if taking three you need to build the list around that, DE are complex, even using the Razorwing is not simply point and click, you have to think about what you are doing, you need to get used to the fact it may not arrive when you need it , trying to set up things or it’s arrival will not always pay off but if things do come together it’s great, sometimes you will have to make the most of a bad situation and kill what you can, with the lance setup even if  it does turn up and there is nothing De-meched or you can’t de mech anything for it that turn at least you have lances right ?

Incidentally I will probably swap out my Razorwing for a Shatterfield bomber when it is available as it is technically tougher than a Ravager, offers a similar statistical kill probability as a Ravager and will do pie plate storm nicely, of course it will cost a few more points but in theory at least it’s worth it as you get teh best of both worlds, maybe I’ll jiggle the list and try play testing it.

You could try play testing with a pair but making a judgment call I would say you want one or three. Three will/should impact how you build the rest of the list whereas one can be added to almost any list as long as it has solid AT already , my current list has 18 lances and 2 heat lances not including the razor (so 20 and 2 HL’s total), I pack some haywire Wyches too, as you know my own preffered setup is two Ravagers and a Razor.

On the subject of reserves, usually Ill either put as much as possible on the table (and prob reserve the razor) or reserve everything, by having only one thing in reserve it minimises the impact of fail reserves rolls on your overall game plan. likewise reserving everything ensures you should at least have some stuff come on.

I Hope that helps

Edit: there are a few guys who read this blog who know their stuff  so maybe they will be able to expand/offer their experience.