Ravagers in a casual environment

So I'm in a narrative campaign at my local shop, and most of my opponents are new, or just want to play themed lists and such. Im 100% sure Im not taking a BH spearhead against him, but are Ravagers still too OP outside of that?

SHould I take less?

Maybe throw lances on one or two?

Kinda thinking it might be fun to build a Brigade with them...using Scourges for Fast attack and Mandrakes for Elites......But I dont want him to feel I'm powergaming of course.

It's going to be a 2000pt game, so maybe 3 ravagers isnt too much for that point level?

I dunno, Im worrying too much about this lol

Casual pickup games I run 2 and a razorwing at the points level. They are cheap and really good, but they seriously aren't that op, especially if you don't run a writ archo nEar them. Then they just become good weakly armoured fire bases.

If you want to run a not too op list it is more about how you go about your list creation than the units. How tight is your list design, is it all trying to achieve the same purpose in the battlefield. If not then it is probably a weaker list and is probably good to play with.

So run all the tactics you want to try out in one list, and keep the core of your list (in my case the 2ravagers and a rwjf) in there. It won't wipe the floor with them and you'll get to try out a different tactic and see how it fits for you.
Last time I ran 2 wwp warrior bombs and red grief raiders gumming up their line. Learnt I do t really like the warrior bombs, although I can see that one squad as a back field harasser and objective taker might be awesome. And red grief raiders are a great dual purpose unit.

I play 2 at Casual and tend to not use re-roll auras on them, i just have fun with them and move them around.

Taking 3 might be a bit much but 2 will probably be fine.

Um sorry guys but when did we become OP? Or rather, any of our units. I’m finding that to become a worrying trend on our forums, Ravagers and Grots especially. Anyone calling those OP clearly hasn’t played vs Reaperspam (with a bastion) or Pink Horror-spam. Just sayin.

In a 2K gane I woulndt even regard 3 as too strong. Bring along some weaker units like a Cronos or have fun with obsessions that aren’t top tier would be my suggestion. Have fun and make sure your opponent does, too!

@BlackCadian wrote:

Um sorry guys but when did we become OP? Or rather, any of our units. I’m finding that to become a worrying trend on our forums, Ravagers and Grots especially. Anyone calling those OP clearly hasn’t played vs Reaperspam (with a bastion) or Pink Horror-spam. Just sayin.

In a 2K gane I woulndt even regard 3 as too strong. Bring along some weaker units like a Cronos or have fun with obsessions that aren’t top tier would be my suggestion. Have fun and make sure your opponent does, too!

I don't consider them overpowered, I just don't think they're a particularly fun unit to play against in multiples.

I don't think we need to write brutal minmax lists for casual play but 3 Ravagers isn't backbreaking and part of the fun of this game is problem solving and overcoming tactical obstacles, give your opponents a chance to handle efficient, capable, and deadly units.

@lcfr wrote:

I don't think we need to write brutal minmax lists for casual play but 3 Ravagers isn't backbreaking and part of the fun of this game is problem solving and overcoming tactical obstacles, give your opponents a chance to handle efficient, capable, and deadly units.

Yeah, I think you're probably right.

@Soulless Samurai wrote:

@lcfr wrote:

I don't think we need to write brutal minmax lists for casual play but 3 Ravagers isn't backbreaking and part of the fun of this game is problem solving and overcoming tactical obstacles, give your opponents a chance to handle efficient, capable, and deadly units.

Yeah, I think you're probably right.

A consideration as well is to handicap your playstyle rather than your list. Instead of making "inefficient" choices at the list design stage just make "inefficient" choices during gameplay.

If it's just casual play and you and your opponent have a good rapport, you get to teach them more about how your army runs and what it's capable of, everyone gets to learn something and improve.

If you play against new players, using sub-par units to give yourself a handicap is not the best way to go. When I play against a new player, I give myself a point handicap and then, try to build a strong list. It trains you to play when you're unlucky with the first round, and lose a lot of units, and it trains your opponent to play against what's really threatening in our army.

@dumpeal wrote:

If you play against new players, using sub-par units to give yourself a handicap is not the best way to go. When I play against a new player, I give myself a point handicap and then, try to build a strong list. It trains you to play when you're unlucky with the first round, and lose a lot of units, and it trains your opponent to play against what's really threatening in our army.

Nah, i ask them if they want easy, med, or hard.

@amishprn86 wrote:

@dumpeal wrote:

If you play against new players, using sub-par units to give yourself a handicap is not the best way to go. When I play against a new player, I give myself a point handicap and then, try to build a strong list. It trains you to play when you're unlucky with the first round, and lose a lot of units, and it trains your opponent to play against what's really threatening in our army.

Nah, i ask them if they want easy, med, or hard.

That would deternime the amount of handicap I give myself. How do you play "easy" with him? By goofing around, playing badly and playing bad units? He will never improve himself.

@dumpeal wrote:

If you play against new players, using sub-par units to give yourself a handicap is not the best way to go. When I play against a new player, I give myself a point handicap and then, try to build a strong list.

That seems no better. If you want the new player to play against a full-strength list, fine.

But you can't complain about handicapping yourself by taking sub-par units (which apparently refers to anything that isn't a third Ravager ), only to then suggest a different way of handicapping yourself.

No, no, you shouldn't have fewer points than your opponent. Just give him normal dice while you use ones with no 6s. That'll make you cope with rolling badly.

I personally can't play easy...its just not in my nature. Especially with old Dark Eldar, where target priority and movement decisions were such a huge deal.

so I find it better to use less-effective tools

@dumpeal wrote:

@amishprn86 wrote:

@dumpeal wrote:

If you play against new players, using sub-par units to give yourself a handicap is not the best way to go. When I play against a new player, I give myself a point handicap and then, try to build a strong list. It trains you to play when you're unlucky with the first round, and lose a lot of units, and it trains your opponent to play against what's really threatening in our army.

Nah, i ask them if they want easy, med, or hard.

That would deternime the amount of handicap I give myself. How do you play "easy" with him? By goofing around, playing badly and playing bad units? He will never improve himself.

Depends on what they bring, if they have bad units then i;ll bring bad units, if they make mistakes tho i'll teach them why not to make those mistakes, but i also wont go out of my way to do things like "pr-measure 2mm movements so i cant get a multi-charge with pile in-consolidates to tie up his tanks that he hasnt played with yet" i want him to play with all his units at least once, if that means losing a good shot, then thats ok.

I also see it as a time to play with bad units so that i can play with them, Hellions are great for against new players, they wont get shot off the table and will be able to be played with, but are not strong enough to deal to much damage to fast.

Its all dependent on the person, list, age, etc..

@Soulless Samurai wrote:

@dumpeal wrote:

If you play against new players, using sub-par units to give yourself a handicap is not the best way to go. When I play against a new player, I give myself a point handicap and then, try to build a strong list.

That seems no better. If you want the new player to play against a full-strength list, fine.

But you can't complain about handicapping yourself by taking sub-par units (which apparently refers to anything that isn't a third Ravager ), only to then suggest a different way of handicapping yourself.

No, no, you shouldn't have fewer points than your opponent. Just give him normal dice while you use ones with no 6s. That'll make you cope with rolling badly.

When you start against a new player and want to go easy on him, you have to handicate yourself in a way or another. You can decide to play badly, use units you don't usually use, don't use some good units, play with less points.... All of them works, but I think some are better than the others.

I think it's better to use the best units you can get, but use fewer than usual. This way, he'll train himself against opponent he'll face one day and will know what works against them. He will also learn why some of his units don't works. None of that is possible if you use non-standard units.

I'm not only talking about the 3-ravagers, even if it's the question of the thread.

In terms of playing against new players, what really makes the game good and enjoyable is having a reasonable list but also giving him advice throughout the game. Explain him your strategies. Tell him of your weaknesses. Assist him on target priority and explain why you'd choose one target over another, what is your process of arriving to the conclusion. You can also perform some sub-optimal moves for the sake of spectacle, illustrating along the way what you should not usually do so that he can go and try to goad his opponents into making such a miatake in the future.

This way you can still have a reasonably strong list, but your opponent will learn a lot more, will be much more engaged and will have fun.

The conversation is digressing a little, but I'm finding it quite interesting. I disagree that running sub-optimal units is not the best way to help newcomers learn. As a fairly new player, facing model variety has been a fantastic way for me to learn what my units can and can't go up against. It helps you judge units and interpret how to deal with differing threats. But variety does mean bringing good units as well as the weaker ones. Just spamming weak units and avoiding the good ones won't help with understanding target priority etc.

I'd agree with that.
It also creates a more fun to play list as you get lots of different units to play with, all with their own tricks.

And you can play in a stronger manner because your list is not a strong crutch to rely on.

If anyone thinks bring only weak units to help a new player then misunderstands what it means to be a good teacher, you need some struggle, but not to much to turn them all.

You just gotta up the stakes for them. Being a knife along, and every time they make a tactical error, you take a piece of one of their fingers. They’re gonna learn quick. If they don’t, at least you’ll have a nice bowl of finger food as a consolation prize.

I just realized your portrait picture is two people having sex.

And every time I see you post I cannot help but think, "Amish porn? That cannot be terribly exciting."

Yeah man, Ankles and collar bones are the new sexy

I still consider myself as a new player. But I think if I would really want to give an opponent an advantage, I would give him more CPs. Like double or triple the usual.

The upside by giving him more CPs is that he can also toy around with stratagems he hasn't used yet because of CP shortage. And if he uses it for re-rolls he will learn much faster when it is worth to re-roll and when not.