Ravager

A Ravager a heavy support variant of the Drukhari Raider chassis, with space normally reserved for Kabal members filled up with two additional sponsons. The changes made can be seen with the mounting of three devastatingly powerful heavy weapons. Upon the battlefield it fulfils the role of armoured fire support, engaging the heaviest of enemy targets, though in comparison to one of the Imperium's tanks, it is akin to a swift-winged raptor to a lumbering beast of burden. Ravagers are so fast and manoeuverable that they can ambush an enemy tank and destroy it in a single devastating pass, disappearing again before the enemy knows what hit them.

The targeting arrays of a Ravager are outfitted with as much information about their quarry as their Kabal can muster, and each grav-skiff's crew briefed as to the best way to annihilate the enemy vehicle in question. This ensures that the Ravager's capricious gunners focus on a particular task, such as crippling the enemy's prized war engine, bringing an armoured column to a shuddering halt or denying the foe his means of escape. Once this task is achieved the Ravager crew have carte blanche to swoop around the battlefield, causing whatever carnage they see fit and pitilessly obliterating whoever happens to fall under their gunsights.

It is perhaps indicative of the wider mindset of the Drukkhari that the Ravager, the most ubiquitous of their gunship designs, bears little more in the way of armour plating than the personnel transports of Mankind. Speed is prized above all. Sacrificing armour plating for speed, a Ravager is the proof of the efficacy of this design. During a planetary raid, a Ravager squadron is fully capable of appearing from nowhere, delivering the death blow to a Titan of the Adeptus Mechanicus in a single volley, and then disappearing over the horizon before the behemoth has even toppled to the ground.

Sources[]

Codex: Dark Eldar (5th Edition), pg. 45