First game with GK, dealing with ravenwing

Hi honored brothers.

For my first game with my glorious Grey Knight army, I had to deal with a Ravenwing Army, with an incredible number of plasma / twin-linked plasma bikes, assault bikes with melta and Dreadnought with Heavy plasma / missile launcher.

Oh, and I was first to deploy, placing my own dreadnoughts to open fire on the first turn, but my opponent seized me the Initiative... I had 3 servo-skulls on the board, but having to face a full army with AP2 weapons


At the end, I lost the game, enable to make my terminators reaching the bikes to CC, wiped out by plasma / melta. My best unit on this game was 5 interceptors with halberds, which destroyed 2 entire bikes units at turn 2 and 4. I also had a psyrifle dread who destroyed land speeders and assault bikes.


So my question is, how do you deal with a Ravenwing army ?

HQ :

Grand Master, Force Sword, 3 servo skulls, rad grenades, mastercrafted weapons

Elite :

10 purificators : 1 incinerator, 3 psycannons, 6 halberds, psybolts, in a rhino

Troops :

5 terminators : sword + mastercarfted for the Justicar, 1 psycanon, 2 hammers, 1 sword, 2 halberds, psybolts
10 terminators : Mastercrafted halberd for the Justicar, 2 psycannon, 2 hammers, 1 warding stave, 1 banner, 3 halberds, 1 sword, psybolts

Fast attack :

5 interceptors : halberds, psybolts.

Heavy Support :

Dreadnought, 2 twin-linked autocanon, psybolt
Dreadnought, multi-melta, powerfist with heavy flamer.

Greetings brother

This might be a little strange as a question, but what did you intend for your force to do and what mission were you playing?

Ravenwing are fast moving and, the way they generally operate, you can bet they will be in your face and, most likely, charging you.

There must have been an overall plan for your force when you put it together; did you achieve what you set out to do, if not, do you know why?

My friend told me he will play Dark Angel, but not specifically Ravenwing : he has so many DA figs that he can play a Ravenwing army, a Deathwing army, an army with lots of tactics... So I decided to build an all around list.

We played The Relic, with a "normal" deployment.

I am intersted in knowing how experienced GK deal with Ravenwing armies

I think it depends very much on the terrain.  In general I'd probably stick to cover and ensure units were close enough to each other to charge anything in rapid fire range.

The interceptors are your best chance of getting to the relic quickly, but you'd need more of them and to use grand strategy to make them scoring.  I tend to find interceptors absurdly useful in most situations, especially with two incinerators.  Then it would be a case of teleporting in the terminators half way upfield so they can grab the relic from their flimsily armoured friends, find cover in your main line and hunker down.  

I suppose the ravenwing probably got to the objective first, so it would be a good idea to wait it out while they toodle along at 6" a turn and then use psychic communion to teleport the terminators in at the same time that you shunt/ jump pack the interceptors into place.  I'd do my best to take care of the plasma cannons first though- they would be bad news for deep striking heavy infantry.

All this said, if the terrain is sparse or you fail to deep strike on target you're in trouble.

As soon as you have the relic the Dark Angels would have to come to you, making hand-to-hand combat much more likely.

It's always going to be uphill against plasma wielding bikers.  Considering the number of armies your friend can field, the fact he decided to take one tailor-made for killing terminators strikes me as suspect.  As in, if you had an ork army he would have taken an army of tactical marines with artillery.
Rich kids and their toys.

@ Sai : Yes, you're right .

I always play balanced armies, able to deal with any situation, this is my point of view : building armies just to destroy your opponent is not fair-play and really boring on the battlefield : even if you win, there is no glory.

On this battle, we have not been able to seize the relic : I stayed in the covers not to be wiped, but I had reaaly good line of fire on the relic and I destroyed all his troop choices as he tried to get it. I am really impressed by the psycannon : three of them in my interceptors squad allows me to keep him at bay for 3 turns.

I did some mistakes, mainly on the deplyment of my terminators : I used them poorly, and by the way it was my interceptors, purifiers and dreadnought who did the job. With a better strategy and deployment of my termies, I would have won : next time I would pop them all behind hid lines, t have his army in crossed fires between terminators on one side and purifiers / dreadnought on the other side : I will use his mobility against him.

I want my revenge !

Not the interceptors, the 10 purifiers

Psycannons are beastly. But yes I'd say take your revenge. Last time I played Dark Angels the guy was fielding a mix of bikes with Sammeal as an HQ and a horde of deathwing knights guarding Ezekiel. If he's doing any dark angel termie variant I can say this. Do no engage in CQC. Deathwing knights can take storm shields and few of our weapons can pierce his 2+ armor to begin with. For them your best bet is to kite them along and shoot at them with Psycannons.

Yep, have allready faced DA termies army, but I was playing tyranids. I killed his Deathwing knights by shooting them to death with my termagaunts