I’m glad I held out from buying Raveners back in third edition. I wasn’t a huge fan of the sculpts from that edition. I was starting my tyrniad army so there was better stuff to spend my money on. Well, fourth edition comes along and some sweet Raveners were released. Yeah, they’re super fragile in game but that’s to be expected. They’re Tyranids after all. All of mine are armed with rending claws so with a little luck they can deliver a world of hurt.
I used the top arm slots to tell my units apart. One unit has a pair of scything talons for the top arms while the other has rending claws. It’s an easy visual cue that works for my opponent and I.
Whenever I put Raveners in my list I try to have them with a thorax gun. I find it difficult to put a lot of upgrades on my Nids. I prefer quantity over quality. Since Tyranids are so fragile I don’t find it worth it to stack the models with too many extra goodies. When points get tight I find the guns are one of the first things to go. If Raveners could access flesh hooks, however, I’d make sure to find the points available for that upgrade. Raveners really need assault grenades to make them more survivable.
I like using Raveners with Trygons and Mawlocs. It’s a nice themed list with serpents popping up from the ground. Tyranids are a fun army. There are plenty of themes to choose from. I used to participate in a lot of events and experimented with a lot of Tyranid lists. My favourite was a combination of with Genestealers, Raveners, Mawloc, Trygon Prime, Gargoyles and a Winged Tyrant (before flyer rules were introduced).
If you collect a 40K army and want to showcase your models drop me an e-mail. My address is on the sidebar. I’d love to show your models off for you.
So I had to do a double take when I logged in a couple of days ago. My stats page opens up when I log in where I can see number of page views, visitors, comments and likes. My record was in January 2016 after a local event. I had 282 page views while the number of visitors eludes me. Two days ago I had over 1000 page views and 700 visitors. My initial reaction was something must be wrong. Is the Roost getting attacked by bots? Time to call in the Dinobots.
Drycha WIP Pt III was posted on Reddit and things took off from there. Some may say big deal, I get that kind of traffic all the time. It was a special blogging moment for me. I’m used to 30-50 visitors per day so there was a wee bit of a bump in traffic. The tiny little obscure Roost had 15 seconds of fame and it was a lot of fun. Well, that’s all for now. Prepare for some more Drycha and the next Badab War YEG battle report in the next few days.
Thanks for reading.
The Roost of Turkadactyl 
When i decided to start tyranids i already knew that i want to incorporate raveners into my lists. I really like the idea and the look of them. But as you wrote nowadays tyranids are either too fragile or too pricy to be really on par with the rest of the universe.
Regarding the models i prefer the old metal models . But sadly they are really hard too get.
Yours looking good ! Like how you painted them
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By: Wolfsherz on March 25, 2017
at 8:46 am
There’s a few models that look great but have sub-par rules. sigh, it sure would be nice to have Lictors that actually cause a bit of terror on the board.
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By: Turkadactyl on March 25, 2017
at 9:27 pm
In the process of clipping, building and cleaning 30 MKIII modified tactical marines for my Carcharodons army (Shark Love!) but have found myself lately looking at other armies for furture endeavors. Orcs were the initial thought but I am not happy with the old ork models as they seem very static and…chunky. Tyranids were the second option as they are a biological and a good deal different than anything else on the board and are not really represented much in this area. Unfortunately I made the mistake of looking at the Adeptus Mechanicus Ruststalkers and Electro-Priests and falling in love with those models. I love the more “xenomorph” style ‘nids as I think they are more in line with what a biological menace would be but I do draw issue with some of the ‘nid models with guns….just throws me off a bit. DISTRACTION CARNIFEX!!!
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By: TheMetalBeard on March 26, 2017
at 3:31 pm
Never a mistake to look at the Mechanicus. I’m painting a Mechanicus army right now. Looking forward to seeing your Carcharodons and Mechanicus. Tyranids are fun regardless of having a good codex or not. They don’t need no allies to survive. Eat eat and eat.
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By: Turkadactyl on March 28, 2017
at 5:03 am
I will throw up some images when I get to painting. Still constructing though and I have some other work to do. Working on gap fill atm on the backpacks then I am likely to move on to adding a “cast steel” look to the MK. III armor. Going to wait on some tamiya basic putty and run that on a test model and compare it with the heavy body acrylic that another blogger suggested.
How far along in the mechanicus are you? Got some stuff painted to whet our appetite?
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By: TheMetalBeard on March 29, 2017
at 10:11 pm
I look forward to your posts.
I have two test models done. One Robot and one Destroyer. I have some touches to do on the Robot to break up the armour. the Destroyer is looking good. Takes a while to figure colours out. I tried one combination didn’t work. Had a painting night with a couple of buds and after some testing I have something that works.
Initially I wasn’t planning on doing an unveil until Inner Circle. Wanted to keep it close to the chest. I think I may since it will only help to get more suggestions to improve the models.
The main colour is the yellow I used for Drycha’s honeycomb. the supporting colour is black with sharp green highlights (ala Dark Eldar style highlights). I’m using purple for the cables. Leadbelcher for the exposed gears and such similar to the studio models.
I didn’t take any progress shots because I was really focused on getting the test models painted. Got a lot to paint by May 13.
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By: Turkadactyl on March 29, 2017
at 11:53 pm
I live your color scheme, and watching you post your older models reminds me that I have some that need to be photographed or updated.
Way to get a boost from the Reddit!
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By: Joe B. on March 29, 2017
at 9:07 am
Whenever I start an army I do a lot of picture hunting in the internet to get an idea of what to do. Just my way to repay the favour.
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By: Turkadactyl on March 29, 2017
at 9:31 pm
Cute little buggers. I particularly like how you did their armored bits. As for causing terror, well, I’m usually worrying more about the obligatory hive tyrant or the mawlock, but in my friendly games these guys can cause some trouble if you let them have their way.
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By: Ann on March 29, 2017
at 9:47 am
They’re a great support unit for sure. They’re great for distracting, albeit an expensive distraction. Fingers crossed they get ignored.
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By: Turkadactyl on March 29, 2017
at 9:33 pm
I remember the bad old days of 2013, when I used to play my husband’s Ultramarines against nids a lot. There’d my tactical marines be, minding their own business and not hurting anyone … just trying to bolter down some gene stealers scrambling from cover to cover when bam! A stupid Ravener in a Party Hat would pop up in front of them like a jack-in-the-box from the earth and gurgle either “Surprise!” or “Heeerree’s Johnny!”
It was a simpler, more innocent age in a lot of ways.
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By: Ann on March 31, 2017
at 9:02 am