Reva Fundamentals.

[Maniacal_cackle]

I've picked up Reva recently and really been enjoying the crew. I'm still learning my way around the crew, but thought I'd share my thoughts on the fundamentals.

What is the crew trying to do?

At its core, Reva's crew is about a few things.

1. Reva is one of the (ranged) beaters of the faction. Alongside Vincent, this means the crew has a fantastic threat range.
2. Position control.
3. Generating positive flips for card advantage.

Reva is a min 3 beater, making her have one of the strongest attacks on a master in the faction. Throw in the triple actions, ~18" threat range for the triple attack, and the myriad of positive flips (channelled flames, focus spam from blasphemous ritual, etc), and she just threatens some very strong beats. Vincent and some burning rounds out the rest of the damage.

Backing this up is position control. The crew fits into a few categories.

You've got the highly mobile stuff like Reva, Waynudo, and Lampads. These ensure you have a model where you need it to be.

Then you've got the shieldbearers, locking things down and bashing them around. Ashigaru from Toshiro can help lock things down, and Lampads are one of my favourites for bogging things down while the rest of my crew gets into position. EDIT: Oh, and corpse candles! Nothing more frustrating than a 1-cost model engaging your opponent's and forcing them to use disengage or an action (and then they get a pyre marker on them for killing it).

Finally you've got the 'turrets.' Vincent and some versatiles can basically move into an area and control it. Anything that goes near Vincent (or carrion emissary, grave golem, etc) risks taking quite a bit of damage. Worse, Vincent himself is extremely difficult to kill, so once he claims territory he is hard to dethrone.

This ability to really control the positioning of the battlefield makes a huge difference to the crew's survivability. Reva is pretty squishy (despite the positive flips to defense), but if opponent's can't reach her to hit her, she's doing well.

Cards?

The crew doesn't have many cards.

Instead, it generates card advantage by spamming positive flips.

Sadly, this means you have to be extremely picky with cheating. I typically hope to cheat three cards: 2 high flips and one high target number. Hoping for any more than that is going to end up in disappointment, so I keep my expectations low. This leaves potentially 3 cards for discards, meaning the crew usually has plenty to feed Vincent and Lampads. It does mean having to let a few TN duels fail.

So a key element of this crew is knowing when to accept a hit, when to accept a miss, and when to fail a target number.

Bizarrely, though, I find myself saving cards for cheating defensively almost as often as offensively. Possibly because there's so many positives to offensive attacks, and this crew can be so grindy (Reva's min three attacks really add up, so drawing out the game is something I want to do). Maybe it's because I'm playing against an alpha-striker a lot at the moment, and defensive cheating blunts alpha strikes.

The Switch

As a positioning based crew, you need to be really good at 'the switch' with Reva.

At one moment, you'll be jostling for position. At the next moment, it'll be an all out brawl between your models. Typically this is going to happen at the transition between turns 1 and 2, or between 2 and 3. Sometimes it'll happen at both of those turns with the jostling back and forth.

You need to hit the switch with a few factors going for you:

• You're going to lose initiative (you just generate too many pass tokens and can't afford to cheat initiative).
• So you need to have multiple points on the board where you're creating a rough situation for the opponent (like threatening to kill a model). They can't deal with every problem in a single activation. You need pressure everywhere.
• Their really key/strong models will ideally be tied up. This is one of my favourite uses of Lampads and Toshiro's Ashigaru. The more the enemy is tied up and having to grind through your models (especially with 2" engage on Ashigaru), the longer Reva is munching through their crew with min 3 attacks.
• Your key pieces need to be protected in some way (usually by distance for Reva, and by distance + tankiness for Vincent). Your sacrificial pieces (lampads, ashigaru, grave golem, etc) are what you're wanting to tie up the enemy with to protect your key beaters (Reva + Vincent/Emissary/Asura/whatever).

Thoughts?

What do you all think? How am I doing grasping the fundamentals? What do you disagree with, and what would you add to this? Really enjoying this crew, it is very challenging to play but starting to feel pretty potent! So keen to hear more thoughts on it to build upon previous discussions.

[Da Git]

I'm not really sure I'd say the crew has fantastic threat range if you compare them to other ranged crews as there's nothing with a range over 10" (& only Vincent has that). Compare this with say Perdita or Parker where basically everything has range 10"+ or even just like Sonnia, Levie, Alice, Von schill's rocket. Even in Ressers, there's quite a few 10" attacks (Schtook, Anna, Manos, Kirai) and lots of solid 8" attacks (generally without the projectile).

Add to this for Reva to have any range, there needs to be a corpse within 2" of the target, so the enemy needs to be coming to you. If they out-range you, (read in South Park ski instructor voice!) you're gunna have a bad time...

The crew seems to be made up of specialists, it's seems very much the Eldar Aspect warrior Swordwind if anyone knows 40k, with each piece being part of the puzzle, providing their niche and if you remove one, it all falls down. I think this is why I've been taking so many versatile models as they are well, more versatile. For example the Draugr dies way too quick for me, so kind of needs GST, in which case why not take the Grave Golem for 1ss more?

How often do you find yourself using Toshiro? He seems good, but is another drain on SS for summoning and other than Draugr (who gets +flips anyway), Revenant minions don't have great attacks or stats...

I'd be curious to see some example crews.

[Maniacal_cackle]

7 hours ago, Da Git said:

I'm not really sure I'd say the crew has fantastic threat range if you compare them to other ranged crews as there's nothing with a range over 10" (& only Vincent has that). Compare this with say Perdita or Parker where basically everything has range 10"+ or even just like Sonnia, Levie, Alice, Von schill's rocket. Even in Ressers, there's quite a few 10" attacks (Schtook, Anna, Manos, Kirai) and lots of solid 8" attacks (generally without the projectile).

Add to this for Reva to have any range, there needs to be a corpse within 2" of the target, so the enemy needs to be coming to you. If they out-range you, (read in South Park ski instructor voice!) you're gunna have a bad time...

The crew seems to be made up of specialists, it's seems very much the Eldar Aspect warrior Swordwind if anyone knows 40k, with each piece being part of the puzzle, providing their niche and if you remove one, it all falls down. I think this is why I've been taking so many versatile models as they are well, more versatile. For example the Draugr dies way too quick for me, so kind of needs GST, in which case why not take the Grave Golem for 1ss more?

How often do you find yourself using Toshiro? He seems good, but is another drain on SS for summoning and other than Draugr (who gets +flips anyway), Revenant minions don't have great attacks or stats...

I'd be curious to see some example crews.

Toshiros aura is largely irrelevant, regardless of crew I find. He is so slow he can't keep up with minions you want to have the aura.

I take him when I want Ashigaru (symbols of authority, sometimes assassinate). So not too often so far (but have played less than 10 games with Reva).

Ranged wise, Vincent can make two attacks at 15 inches. And yeah, Reva involves setup, but it'll be rare you can't have a corpse marker somewhere relevant turn two. Especially as you can throw a minion in their face, where if they kill it you get a corpse (sometimes I actually hope they kill my Draugr).

I agree, versatile models are probably going to be better, but I'm trying to play the keyword models first to get a feel.

Though last night I played Jack Daw. How are hanged and lampads the same cost??