“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore”

Velcome to todays Rave review, yup the retro reviews have fallen somewhat by the wayside , partially as I feel it is somewhat pointless at this stage to discuss them , however I run on the assumption that at least some of the people that frequent this dingy part of the internet actually play with Eldar, hence they are here …. I promise the next one will be a retro… promise *looks shifty*

Couple o things before I wax lyrical, I made up my Scourges in the last few days, god damn those are nice models GoD.DaMn ! it is a dagger in my black heart that their rules are so full of fail especially now that all new armies will ignore stun/shake.

Secondly there is no artwork for the Void so I will mostly be showcasing LuckyNo5 from the Eye of Error ‘s Excellent Conversion as illustrations, lets hope GW’s turns out half as good when they finally get their finger out…

The Voidraven

 So, fluffwise I adore this thing, it got a proper fluff blowjob, not the Ward kind either, Ward-job ? ( that Driago fluffwank is damaging enough to turn anyone into a puppy rapist)

Sadly this is another unit that seems to be a washed out made-by-committee  representation of it’s description on the table, despite my crushing disappointment It’s still my fave heavy support choice in the book.

As much as I dig the blither and concept I have some deep nerd rage for the rules .

The chassis is pretty ok, for a DE vehicle, barring Vects Derp of Derpcraption (which you would never ever EVER take.) it’s the ‘toughest thing we get. 11 all over and close topped is actually fairly pitiful in the grand scheme of things and with the price tag it’s difficult to justify, consider you are running nearly 200 points for a usefully equipped one, its essentially a TL lascannon razorback…. Still 11 plus wither flat out or a 5++ is ok, hopefully you are playing in a manner where your planes get to first strike so the fragility can to some degree be sidelined, though if your enemy wishes it to be gone it WILL happen.

Weapon wise , at first glance you could be forgiven for thinking the guns are quite good, I can’t see any Imperials getting too thrilled about 2 short ranged lascannons on an expensive av11 platform though… my void is still yet to actually kill a vehicle , apparently the vehicle table and cover saves ask a bit too much of it ….

Really it just suffers from the same issue lances do in general , most of the time you are paying for a premium for a circumstantial rule that is only of value occasionally , having said thet the value of the Void Raven is that it offers an increased chance of penetrating the majority of targets compared to your usual glances, if the rumoured 6th edition fixy fixy for lances happens these will become great, currently I would rather have railguns and the rules fail to really give a sense of a black technology wunderweapon, again it slots neatly into my opinion that the DE book is subtly underwhelming offensively, especially vs armour, once more it is an expensive unit which is very fragile but does not have the offensive output to balance it’s weaknesses.

It also has access to the missiles available to the Razorwing, generally unless you are running two razors with it I would opt to take the missiles, mono’s are pointless because of the pricing you may as well pay for the str 7 re roll to wound Shatter fields which are my preferred choice.

The other interesting option is Implosion missiles, these boil my blood , it is again a great concept I would dearly like to run these even for fun, the rules are ok, not bad, it roughly translates into a one shot plasma cannon which would be great if they were not (are you sitting down ?) THIRTY POINTS ?!?!?!? each, Kelly what the hell were you smoking !? did ward sneak into the office just before you emailed the printers ? did you have a lucky test game with someone that made them knee jerk so bad that you had to double the reasonable cost of them ? it’s a weapon that does not synergise with the main armament so you will still have to choose targets, it’s utterly useless on armour and you get a weeny plate, 15 points would have been a good price, I would likely still use the shatters even then , as it is I doubt I will ever use them even in the most casual friendly game the pricing is so horrifically bad/out of wahck, they simply do not make sense , why even bother making it an option if you are going to make them that pointless ? AAAARGH !

Which neatly brings us to the void mine, this almost got a Ward-job in the fluff , the first time I read the DE book I was seriously stoked as I worked further down the page to read the rules for this device of righteous and terrifying apocalyptic destruction. I think I read and re-read the stats about three times in the desperate attempt to find something I had clearly missed, nope it was sh1te, depression ensued …  a doll in the image of Kelly San was stuck with pins then introduced to various kitchen appliances, blender… mmm soothing.

It’s a str 9 lance ap2 small template, one use …. Possibly the most staggeringly underwhelming thing in 40k by comparison with its described effects, except for maybe the Crucible of Failadiction. why carp on bout it’s awesomeness, design a model around that entire concept and then fail to deliver ? talk about all mouth and no trousers.

It scatters d6 , it’s not clear if you reduce your BS from this, my feeling is… not, so its on average no more accurate than it would be were it to just use the normal rules, it’s a superfluous rule. The bloody thing is crap, not worth using and not worth them bothering to write it up in such a fashion, sure you can go flat out and drop it, which is a gimmick at best, IT is a gimmick at best, would it  have really hurt to make is large blast and AP1 ? “removes from play” or ‘something’ of all the many things they could have done with such a cool concept we get this damp squi fuck you ? the main issue with it is , not only is it crap, but you have to move your expensive tin foil plane into very close range to use it, this is not a good plan, “hur Ima gonna move up nice and close to all da melta, I like melta it iz Warm herp aww da mine did nuffink again Derp” …

So De’s ultimate bomb of doom is worse than a simple Vindi shell ? If I was Vect  I would put ALL my weapon designers to immediate and horrible excruciating death, then hire some tech magus’ ….

I honestly see no value in the voidmine, none.

Ok so I have poured a fair bit of hate onto the Raven, but I would still field it competitively, I have to be clear that I do not think it is by any means an ‘optimal’ choice, I will drop it to squeeze in more important stuff elsewhere but If I have all those bases covered and the points are ‘spare’ then Ill ‘upgrade’ my Razorwing.

What I like about it other than the utter fluff/rules fail is that ultimately I get something slightly tougher than a ravager which statistically is essentially equal in terms of offensive output though generally you are more likely to see penetrates, which is important now everyone and their dog can seemingly ignore stunned and shaken results army wide. Not only that but you also get the pieplate spam which I appreciate from the razorwing, it’s pretty much a best of both worlds thing, admittedly you pay through the ass for that flexibility but in some builds I feel it’s worth having those options.

On the whole you see a slight boost to survivability and offense but what you are really paying out for is to have either the benefits of a Ravager or a Razorwing when you need them, technically it’s a slight improvement on the Razor again as I pay for shatters, no point paying for them on the Razor as it has Mono’s already.

Obligatory Topical humor Kitteh.

I think we are running out of Raves to do now, Just the Razor Left , though I feel I may actually do the Reaper and Tantalus too, the anal completist within must be appeased.

This will be my last post afore Crimble, so to all my readers and anyone else who happens to drop by, have a good one , HUMBUG! and good day ! *slam*