Goatboy’s 40K: Raven Guard Rules – Meet the Sneaky Marines!
Goatboy here. The Raven Guard looks really interesting. The Sneaky Marines are the chapter that will end up being a lot more interesting to play with.
Goatboy here again and the short drought of Marine goodness has finally ended! We got some new rules and boy are they pretty dang good. They both feel good, with the Iron Hands feeling a bit more powerful but the Raven Guard looking a heck of a lot more interesting. In fact – that is my super quick review – Iron Hands are solid beat sticks, and the Sneaky Marines are the guys that will end up being a lot more interesting to play with.
Now don’t get me wrong – both are very powerful in their own ways. I just think as a whole Iron Hands are going to be useful in just about every match up. They have solid rules, solid abilities, and a set of Stratagems that will find uses throughout every matchup. Raven Guard is the Marine army for the player that wants to outplay the opponent using layers and layers of sneaky rules and abilities. It’s probably why I like the Raven Guard book more – beyond my desire to have as many Emo Marines as I can.
I’ll start with the meh portion of this. While I like the books, there are a few things that annoy me. First – why didn’t the Phobos troop models come out with the army that is finally built to use and abuse Phobos armor? It is a shame. While the Eliminators coming out is a good thing, we need to have that new troop choice for this army to work. Of course, if you are a crazy person like me, you would have gotten a ton of Shadowspear models to have all your Infiltrator models just like I have all my Chaos models. It just feels like a loss of combo purchase material. Besides that, I think the books lack of special units beyond two special characters is kinda annoying, too. I know adding a bunch more units could be annoying, but when you compare Ultramarines bonanza of Special Characters and even White Scars two choices it feels kind of annoying. We only see each book having one single choice. You’d think some kind of Iron Father for Iron Hands, as well as a special Phobos jump captain, would be things to help sell more figures. But again – maybe it just didn’t work and limiting some of these options is needed.
Let’s go into what I think is good about these books. Both of them provide a unique play style of Marine army. This is great because it lets a Chapter be unique and forces you to think about what style of Marine you want to play. Do you want to go to the layered concept of surgical strikes like the Raven Guard can produce or do you want to go to the pure hammer that is the Iron Hands?
I think the Iron Hands will be the easier army to get running right while Raven Guard will reward the sneaky player like Bad Touch Ben Mohile – until his Salamanders come out and he has the true burinator army burning everything into a crisp. The mixture of Stratagems, Psychic abilities, Warlord Traits, and even Relics help drive home that while both of these Marine books are clad in black armor – they are completely different.
Let’s deep strike into the Raven Guard
Raven Guard Quick Review
New Unit
Review: A-
Thoughts: While Shrike’s rules are not nearly as game-breaking as some had hoped (Strength feels low, cost seems high) he is pretty dang good. He saves you 2 CP from creating a Chapter Master (important as pure Marine builds to get all the rules do run low on CP when building an army), hits pretty well, has a potent default warlord trait (no Overwatch is good), and he has two powerful reroll auras (charges for Phobos/Jump pack and hits for all Ravenguard). I think he will show up in most Raven Guard armies, he is just a steal for a Chapter Master for your army.
Extra Rule
Review: B to A+ – depending on Character Meta
Thoughts: This is one of those powers that is most likely to shake up the Meta – it has gotten pretty character Heavy as of late. The new Chaos armies are moving away from the old builds and looking towards Knights, so having a +1 to wound a giant Monster turn 2+ seems pretty good. Again it feels kinda mean, especially when a lot of armies are going to feel the heat from bolters raining down on them. Beware the Sneaky Assault Cents that are coming to a neighborhood near you.
Warlord Traits
Review: A-
Thoughts: I like most of these as they add some intriguing abilities to the army – depending on how you set it up. There is a lot of power in the Smash Character setups within this army, especially things like Chaplains that start their turn chanting their prayer to kick butt then disappear and reappear ready to smash someone. All set up to re-roll charges too. Seems like a pretty dang good army for Character smash options (look for Friday for a character-based list). They still have the no Overwatch warlord trait, as well a sort of Flip Belt power. Overall I like them. They feel very Raven Guard like, and while good doesn’t feel completely broken.
Relics
Review: B+ to A- (Depends on what the game ends up looking like)
Thoughts: The Relics all make sense for a sneaky assassin based Marine army. I like the Armor of Shadows a lot because it can do a number to any of the hard-hitting units that hit on a 2+. They, of course, have a Lightning Claw replacement as well as a pretty mean little Character sniper option with a three shot, dam two gun. I think the Jump Pack becomes very powerful depending on if you are going all Hero Hammer with your army – it rerolls charges, charges after Advance, and does a random mortal wound. The successor options are ok, but I really feel most Raven Guard armies are not going to be Successor armies bar me messing some funky relic combos.
Stratagems
Review: B
Thoughts: It feels a few of these Stratagems are over costed a bit. There is one that forces opponents to spend an extra CP on a 5+, but it costs the Raven Guard player 2 CP to activate. I feel that it is going to be so rare that costing it 2 CP is too much. The 1 CP power to move models at the beginning of the turn seems very good as it was before. Mix that with all the new Smash Characters and no overwatch abilities plus Phobos options, and you got an army that will be in your opponent’s business very quickly. They also have a pretty fun one that lets them reroll all hits when attacking a Word Bearer, Iron Warriors, Night Lords, or Alpha Legion unit. I am glad they don’t hate the Renegade legions yet. Overall the strats are ok. They can help you get into assault and allow some redeployment. This can be good as the army can burn a lot of CP, and since they don’t need a ton to function during the turns, they go all or nothing quickly and still work.
Psychic Powers – Umbramancy Discipline
Review: B+ to A- depending on your army build.
Thoughts: I think this power has two very powerful psychics followed by the common kinda meh powers you see. They do have some cool “power up” options for Librarians, which is neat. You can also easily set up a ton of murder marines that are ready to get mixed in, start chopping, and maybe win a game or two. Enveloping Darkness seems powerful as it shuts off a units overwatch and then makes them have a -1 to hit. This seems pretty brutal for Tau, especially when mixed with a no Overwatch warlord trait. After that, Shadowstep seems good as you can easily pull a character up into the darkness and then magic missile them out to destroy something as needed – especially with all the Reroll charge options and bonuses you can get.
The Verdict
Overall I like the Raven Guard because hero hammer can be really interesting. Look for a list on Friday to showcase this and then most likely next week some kind of Dreadnought brick for the Iron Hands. I think the old Goatboy style would gravitate to Iron Hands, but the dreams of jump pack Heros coming to take all your candy has me feeling the emotional baggage that is the Raven Guard. Up next in another tidbit of Marine goodness is the Iron Hand quick review.
~What’s your favorite supplemental codex so far?
