Raven Guard 3rd Company - Tactical Squads

Tactical Squads 2, 3, 6

 To continue on from my previous post, we now take a moment to look at the Troops Choices in my 1,000 point list for Adepticon.  To round out the Talon Strike Force I need 3 Tactical Squads so here you'll find the 3 units of the army that gave me the chance to field the Talon Strike Force Detachment for all the quirky Raven Guard special rules.



When developing the list I wanted to have options moving forward, so I built one list with a Plasmagun, one list with a Grav-Gun and one list with a Meltagun.  Additionally one Sergeant is armed with chainsword, bolt pistol, one with a boltgun and one with a Combi-Melta.  These units all seemed to perform very well at Adepticon last year and always became a challenge for my opponent to take out completely.  The list included a lot of bodies, 41 I believe in total as I didn't have any tanks in the army, only a drop pod, which you'll see was a dedicated transport to my melta unit.  In general in 7th edition these guys were a great place to start to build my detachment and then layer on other units after.

In eighth edition I have found the Tactical Squads to be much less effective.  For one the 3+ armor save now is constantly being reduced to a 5+ or less and with weight of fire from a lot of vehicles and other units the Tactical Squads just do not last very long.  I've found the Intercessor squads (even without the special weapon) to be much better value as a troops choice at 100 points.

The positive thing about these 3 is that they allow me to bring a Battalion Detachment for the additional command points.  In my 4 games with my Raven Guard I've had more command points than any of my opponents.  I've found command points to be very rewarding and so will likely continue to bring battalions in the future to ensure I have options.  Especially now with the Raven Guard stratagem to set up in the shadows.  Moving forward in 8th I will likely try to finish off the squads to get up to 10 and bring in a Las Cannon or some other heavy weapon that will hopefully justify the cost more.

Tactical Squad Savaar - 2 (Plasmagun)

 Tactical Squad Kolaro - 3 (Grav-gun)

Tactical Squad Rolark - 6 (Melta, Combi-Melta)

Dedicated Transport - Drop Pod

 So to expand a bit on Tactical Squad Rolark.  These guys were supposed to be the other heavy hitter in the list, dropping down in a Drop Pod and unleashing the meltaguns.  They (as I'm sure you'll likely guess) performed very poorly over the course of my games during the weekend.  I consistently rolled 1's and 2's for their to hit rolls meaning my Combi was wasted or I would not even get a shot to hit before they would be destroyed on the counter.  When I was able to use the unit in the Team tournament as part of a Demi-Company I would use my Tactical Doctrine (when I remembered) on the turn they came down to re-roll their to hit rolls.  This made them much more consistent, and effective for that matter.  However, I still found myself rolling 1's to wound, or just enough to glance on my 2d6 Armor penetration roll.

In 8th edition my 35 point unit I spent hours on is now 105 points and with the addition of the RG Stratagem is basically useless.  Oh well, I'll move on and maybe bring it just to look cool on the display board in future tournaments.

The drop pod was a fun unit to paint as it let me experiment a bit with the Airbrush and gave me a lot of wide open paneling in which to add battle damage, chips, scratches, etc.  Additionally it allowed me to use some of the transfers from the FW transfer sheet which are very cool.*

 I hope everyone is enjoying the Raven Guard posts.  I believe I have one more unit that hasn't been seen on here yet, but I will likely also re-take my RG Scout pictures and repost now with my better light set up and backdrop.

*If anyone is wondering where the harnesses are for the drop pod, I wasn't lazy by not including them.  I got the drop pod second hand and they were not included.