How to Beat Ravenwing with Space Wolves

Having trouble beating Ravenwing? We'll show you how to beat them with your Space Wolves, because while a Toughness 5 army on Bikes, backed up by Attack Bikes and Landspeeders, led by a guy in an Armour 14 Land Speeder may seem like a challenge, there are ways to chase them down and wipe them out.

Ravenwing are one of the fastest, most versatile armies in the game. Able to Outflank en masse, make brilliant feints with their 'Scout' moves or just mow down your men with torrents of mobile firepower while blasting apart tanks with a plethora of melta guns and multimeltas, Ravenwing are a rare sight on the tabletop, but still shouldn't be underestimated.

Based on my gaming experience, I'm going to explain how to beat a Dark Angels Ravenwing army with Space Wolves, while explaining what to look out for and how to best utilise your units to deal with each threat.

Sure, the Ravenwing may not be great in close combat, but there's more to this game than just beating things up!


RAVENWING ARMY STRENGTHS

Speed
It's not just the fact that the entire army can Turbo Boost 24" that's the issue when fighting Ravenwing, it's the face that all Bike units have the 'Scout' ability, allowing them to move up to 12" after deployment, but before the first turn.

This allows the Ravenwing player to push forward before the game has even begun, or to fall back, effectively feinting or pressing an advantage in deployment, leaving enemy forces too far away to act or too close to escape a horde of Space Marine Bikers.

Of course, the 24" Turbo Boost allows the whole army to relocate or contest objectives very quickly, leave the enemy to try and catch them or struggle to shoot them down with a 3+ invulnerable save.

Finally, the ability for units to Outflank (because of having the Scout ability), also allows the many, many small Ravenwing units to appear from all directions and occupy a large portion of the board. Because spreading out and having a huge space of movement is vital when playing this kind of army.

MSU: Many Small Units
Because the Ravenwing squads can Combat squad into 3 bikes, 3 bikes, 1 attack bike, 1 land speeder tornado, this gives the Ravenwing player a high numbers of troop choices, but also a high number of units which are generally fast, tough and difficult to pin down.

However, in a Kill Points game, these units can be combined into one big unit of bikes accompanied by a Land Speeder, so the army doesn't have to give away quite so many Kill Points.

Master of the Ravenwing
Sammael, the Grand Master of the Ravenwing has to be taken in order to field a Ravenwing army in the first place. Ravenwing players will typically take Sammael on his Jetbike with a Master Crafted Power Sword and a Plasma Cannon. If they do, then it's a happy day, because his Armour 14 Land Speeder will make mince meat out of most of your units.

He inflicts many more casualties with the twin linked, BS5 heavy weapons while being incredibly fast with an Armour Value of 14, so he should be able to dodge all those melta guns, which makes Armour 14 particularly problematic for most armies.


RAVENWING ARMY WEAKNESSES

Low Numbers
Despite their speed and toughness, the greatest weakness for the Ravenwing is their low numbers. So if you can attack them with weapons that effectively negate their increased Toughness or you can tie them up in close combat (or just generally box them in), then they become even weaker due to their limited numbers.

Just like the Dark Angels Deathwing army, the Ravenwing start out very strong, but every casualty will have a big impact on the overall performance of the army as whole.

Don't forget that all Ravenwing units are Fearless, which has it's own pros and cons. But not being able to run from a losing close combat means that units are far morely likely to be destroyed.


TYPICAL RAVENWING ARMY LIST

The essence of a successful Ravenwing army is one which capitalises on all of their strengths, from the ability to take lots of melta guns and multimeltas to breaking into many small units. This is a pure Ravenwing army, although many people will include a unit of Deathwing Assault Terminators to give the army some close combat punch.

Sammael Grand Master of the Ravenwing on Landspeeder

Ravenwing Squadron:
6 bikes: sgt, powersword, 2 melta guns
1 attack bike: mulitmelta
1 landspeeder tornado: heavy bolter and assault cannon

Ravenwing Squadron:
6 bikes: sgt, powersword, 2 melta guns
1 attack bike: mulitmelta
1 landspeeder tornado: heavy bolter and assault cannon

Ravenwing Squadron:
6 bikes: sgt, powersword, 2 melta guns
1 attack bike: mulitmelta
1 landspeeder tornado: heavy bolter and assault cannon

Landspeeder Tornado:
Multimelta and Heavy Flamer


Ravenwing Strategy VS Space Wolves

A Ravenwing player will want to maximise the strengths of their army as much as possible, which means taking away the Space Wolves' speed and firepower.

Priority targets are the Rhinos full of Grey Hunters, followed by the Long Fangs. However, the Ravenwing player is going to have a tough time of this, because their melta guns are carried by the Bikes, which can easily take out the Rhinos, but will get charged by the Grey Hunters in the following turn as a result.

They can either do this in big Ravenwing Biker units and eventually get wiped out along with the Grey Hunters in close combat, or they can send a small 3-man Biker unit forward with 2 melta guns to be sacrificed (along with an Attack Bike) to get the job done. Then hose down the Grey Hunters with the rest of the Bikes and probably charge in to finish them off.

Meanwhile the Land Speeders (led by Sammael) will combine their firepower to eliminate a single Long Fangs pack at a time.

It's a tough juggling act of judging distance and firepower, but if the Ravenwing player can sacrifice half of their bikes to nail the Rhinos, and use their Land Speeders to wipe out the Long Fangs, the army can fall back and wipe out the remaining Grey Hunters with all of their long ranged anti-infantry firepower.

Space Wolves Strategy VS Ravenwing

On the flip side, as the Space Wolves player, you need to take away the Ravenwing's advantage of speed. The best way to do this is by moving forward aggressively, which will keep those Land Speeders back from your Lonfg Fangs (and hopefully out of range) while your Long Fangs provide covering fire to either wittle down the number of Ravenwing Bikers with Krak Missiles or target the Land Speeders.

I'd recommend taking down a good number of the Bikers as a first priority. Because they're Toughness 5 you will be amazed at what a difficult time your Grey Hunters will have in killing them in close combat.

Use your Rhinos to effectively box in the mobile Ravenwing forces and minimise the number of 'pockets' on the board that they can zoom units into and escape.

Once you've got them pinned down, you can jump on them with your units and tear them to peices in close combat. And as always, make sure you have 2 Grey Hunter packs on 1 Ravenwing Bike squadron to ensure that you win close combat as quickly and decisively as possible before moving on to the next target.

Ignore Sammael's Armour 14 Land Speeder until the end of the game. It's horrible when it shoots at your units, but you're less likely to take it down with your Lascannons than if you target the regular Land Speeders and you need to wittle down the Ravenwing firepower as quickly as possible in order to give your Long Fangs the upper hand in long ranged firepower.


CONCLUSION
Identifying the strengths of the Ravenwing and taking those strengths away is the key to a successful strategy. Alternatively, if the Ravenwing player chooses to Outflank a number of units, or all of their units, simply deploy (or fall back to) one flank and dominate that side of the board. Because if you can easily wipe out half of their units, taking out the other half with long ranged firepower should be easy!

Just remember that you need to close the distance in order to take away their speed and hit them with as many shots and close combat attacks as you can muster.