I have noticed in battle reports (and through playing myself) that Raveners perhaps is a little too good. If I can, I would rather spawn 1 Ravener than 2 Gaunts. Raveners just about does everything: They provide armour saves, protect synapse, are better than hormagaunts in CC and the same FF as termagaunts. It has Infiltrate, which is crucial to swarms in order to perform assaults in turn 2.

I know that there is a modelling barrier, but as soon as that barrier is overcome, what stops me from fielding all Ravener (and some gargoyles) hordes?

Even with CC4+, I find that the problem remains. Are Raveners too cheap? Gaunts too expensive? Did the LV status on Tyranid Warriors cause Gaunts to lose their chief purpose, to protect the warriors?

I find this troublesome, and I toss this question out because I do think that there should be an almost certain presence of gaunts in a Tyranid army.

If you had the models, would you rather go all Raveners over all Gaunts in your common brood selection?

/Fredmans

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Well, not sure if you read any of the "Rage of Raveners" reports, but "all Raveners" swarms tended to get shredded pretty quickly and give up the "bulk" that Gaunts can generate in swarms, also, when "stuck in", such swarms can spawn back a max of one Ravener... where three Gaunts could potentially be returned.

As well, with Raveners it costs you 250 points to get an Uncommon Brood Group while Guants will only cost you 150 points.

I believe all those factors need to be taken into consideration over just the straight stats.

All that said, the stats and values of Guants and Raveners are all being examined... along with the LV status of Warriors.  

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Well, the idea with all Raveners would be to reduce some of the need of Uncommon Broods in the first place, whereas Gaunts give you more Uncommon Broods. The question was rhetorically put into two extremes, but at what point are Raveners "too common" compared to gaunts. If an army consists of 8 common broods: 3 Raveners, 2 Gargoyles, 2 Termagaunt and 1 Hormagaunt, then Raveners are suddenly the most common brood creature in the army.

I agree with you, however, that 250/uncommon is harsh and a natural limit to the presence of Raveners.

But I also have to say, that in the current version, I would not field a Tyranid army without 2 broods of Raveners.

/Fredmans

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I find their utility closely linked to LV warriors and AV tyrants.

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For me, Raveners were always the better choice, but the LV warriors were the final straw. Raveners now make much better bodyguards for warriors than gaunts, which is wrong fluffwise.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

So, it's thought that a Gaunt should be better at screening a Tyranid Warrior than a Ravener.

I've posted this elsewhere, perhaps lost in the crash, but here's a size comparison of a human to a Tyranid Warrior.  It's from Imperial Armour IV and suggests an average height of 2.4m and mass of 2.5 tonnes for a Warrior.

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I think you've got a hate-on for Gaunts,  

I don't see Raveners as the core of the Tyranid army, I don't see them as the rank and file- they don't even have a model.

But I've made my opinion on this aspect of the list quite clear- it's taking Tyranids in a direction devoid of Gaunts, a vision of the army that doesn't appeal to me at all.

It is not all about size (yeah, right    ). Ogryns and Terminators are both INF, h**k, even daemon princes are. It is also about game mechanics. In previous editions of 40K, you screened your synapse with gaunts. I do not know about the current edition, have not played it in fact, but "truesight" should at least let gaunts provide Tyranid Warriors with a cover save.

I am not at all suggesting that Epic should mirror 40K, but changing Warriors to LV made gaunts lose their "main" purpose, to protect their synapse. As they no longer can do that, Raveners have become much more important, and gaunts have become much more of mere requirements for uncommon selections.

I know there is a 100 points suggestion (I think I made it myself at one stage), but I think that would suddenly allow "popcorning" Tyranid Warriors. I would much prefer 125 points, and to take whatever measures to make Warriors worth 125 points.

/Fredmans

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But Gaunts are still important, especially to "bulk up" Tyranid Swarms, in all the games we've played where Gaunts are minimized, the Synapse Swarms get hammered, there's fewer targets for attacks, so they can be concentrated, they often wind up being out-numbered in assaults, and they can't spawn enough back to press on.

To be devoid of Guants means you've got no "cushion" around your swarms, every kill is of something "important" then and your swarms quickly break down.  At least that's been my experience.

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But that is *precisely* how the Hive Mind uses Guants, as "cheap crap"; they're supposed to go forward to swamp the enemy, not hang around the Warriors as bodyguards.

If you just put Raveners in a Synapse Swarm with Warriors, the enemy gets more bang for their buck if they've got mixed AP/AT weapons, additionally, most often the AT value is worse for many armies, with just Raveners, they can always pick the best option, but if you mix Ravs and Gaunts, they have to make tougher choices.

I'm pretty sure the "Rage of Raveners" battles showed the vulnerablily of relying heavily on Raveners.

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SUre, but if my opponent had spent half the Ravener points on Gaunts, he would've had large, hard to kill swarms, instead of small ones.

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Fluff-wise. raveners are used almost exclusively as a deep striking, tunneling menace that operates on their own, or with trygons. They are never refered to in the fluff as hanging around bodyguarding tyranid warriors.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread