Surviving a Deathwing Assualt

[gonzo]

Hey All,

 

There is a tournament this weekend and I decided to enter (thanks to those who helped point out some holes in my list).

 

With the improvements I made I can mostly confidently make a good stand against most of the armies I'm likely to face; mostly necrons, guard, space marine, and chaos SM. There is only one thing that I am not quite sure how to handle. The Deathwing Terminator assault.

 

There are 2 dark angels players in this tournament and I know they are both going to be using this tactic and taking Belial. My concern is how to get past the first round of firing (potentially 36 shots, 12 of them rending). In past games, I did not fair well against either of these players when they used the DW assault (one going so far as to laugh in my face when doing it as I was unaware of that tactic at the time). Its kinda irked me. So now I would like to, if I may, pose a few options and get feedback on how to survive this attack. This is assuming your opponent is playing a 1750 list with 6, 5 man termy squads.

 

My first though would be to deny it to them.

One way could be to deploy your forces in a manner that would make it difficult (and dangerous) for them to deep strike behind or in the middle of you. Since they have to land not within 1" of your models, you can cover a good area with a 10 man tac squad (or 4) so when they scatter, which they have a good chance of doing, they would land on top of your troops and have to use the mishap table. At best, they are lost, on average they are misplaced (and placed anywhere by you, HA!), and possibly they come later. DW assault follows all the normal deep strike rules so there should be no contestation about this.

 

Another thought would be to surprise them.

Take a 3 scout squads (or whatever you can fit). Deploy your army to present a not friendly are to jump into, but leave a good sized space open behind you (enough to deep strike into). Then take a scout squad and mine that area. Then mine areas where you weak points would be so you dont get outflanked but leave a lane open for you objectives/assault so you dont trigger your own mines on your own troops. If a DW squad shows up behind you, they trigger the mines and inflict 6-8 S4 hits on average. That would be at least one kill I would think, even with a 2+ save.

 

Finally, you can just duke it out. Or shoot them.

In my opinion, shooting them would be much safer. Take a lot of melta weapons with you (melta guns, multi-melta, combi-melta) and just fry them if you can. They're fearless, so the quicker the better probably before they can get into CC range. Even with their invuln save, a squad of termies is not going to survive 2 or 3 squads worth of rapid fire bolter and melta goodness. Getting into CC range would be bad from my experience, and against termies its possible, actually probable, that a whole 10 man squad is going to die. Best to shoot them with as many AP2 or AP1 weapons (plasma cannon blast template would be good for this possibly) as you can afford.

 

(Semi) Final Thoughts

Taking out the opponents Deathwing squad is a tough task, but not impossible. Everything has a weakness and we just have to find out what theirs is. If anyone has a thought, a correction (im not infallible) or a proven tactic, please share.

 

Cheers,

[ShinyRhino]

Here's a few things that you might try against a deepstriking Terminator army:

 

Deploy your squads in or near cover, to gain saves from the assault cannons. To minimize the places they can safely drop into, form an X shape, or a box with your squad. This covers the largest footprint, and therefore denies the most ground to the deepstrike target.

 

Take a librarian with Null Zone, and hit them with krak missiles, meltas, lascannons, etc etc. The 5+ invulnerable isn't all that great, and forcing rerolls will bugger those he succeeds on.

 

Massed bolter fire. Volume of fire into a 5-man squad is a good way to crack them open, or at least get wounds through onto the sergeants and special weapon guys.

 

Landspeeder Storms. These bad boys screw up all deepstriking like magic.

 

That's all I can really say without seeing the exact details of your list. If you're mechanized, deploy yur squads outside their Rhinos on the first turn. Double the footprint for board coverage to reduce available deepstrike target area.

 

 

 

Your scout thing won't work. #1 - regular scouts don't get cluster mines. #2 - scout bikers can buy them, but they're only usable on terrain. Unless your opponents like to deepstrike into terrain, they won't do much.

[Gornall]

Two words... plasma cannons! :D

[gonzo]

Good info ShinyRhino.

 

My army is geared toward CC mostly. I only have 1 rhino (need more money first) and that goes to the heavy hitting Pedro and honour gaurd to get them in as fast as possible. The rest are just deployed as close as possible (25 tacs, 10 sterngaurd w/2 las). The tac squads have plasma cannons; Gornalis suggestion I already considered and am using.

 

Another way, which may be funny, is to not deploy at all. Just roll everything into reserves.

 

Stop laughing and read on.

 

Your opponent goes 1st, and hes going to do a DW assault if you deploy (still basing off of a 1750 list). He can throw 3 termy squads at you right away and chew you up with over 30 shots. Now, if you hold everything in reserve, he wastes his opportunity for a DW assault. He either has to not do it, or spread out his forces to cover the entire 72 " of edge you can come in on. End turn 1 and he has 3 squads probably spread out or covering objectives. Either way you can come in on the weak point in his defenses. At turn 2, he rolls half of his reserve termies (say 2 more squads) and places them either reinforcing objectives or to cover assault routes. Then whatever reserves you roll (estimate half your force for a 4+) you can deploy and have a far easier time assulting possibly 10 termies, versus being surrounded by 30. Also, by the end of turn 2, you have (hopfully) gotten off a round of shooting. While your opponent has had nothing to shoot at for 2 turns.

 

I realize that with this route you would have to crush them quickly to take the objectives (should that be the game) or to avoid being surrounded by the other squads running into the combat.

 

Also, ShinyRhino, thanks for the correct. I meant scout bikers, but didnt look hard enough at the rule. Still, it may work if you have terain between you and them. But I see your point.

 

Any other thoughts?

[Warprat]

The biggest problem I see, is that you are CC oriented, with almost no fast movement capability. If you shoot, you give up movement pretty much. You have a huge force multiplier with the extra attack granted by Pedro though, and the Sternguard can score. Does your Honor Guard have the Chapter Banner? If so, you can split Pedro and the Honor Guard up to cover two areas.

 

The Deathwing on the other hand, can move, fire and assault to full effect, each and every turn. Storm bolters have a 24" range on the move, while you only get 12." They can afford to fall back before your advance, whittle you down, then assault. So avoiding first turn assault only helps you so much, unfortunately. Once the Deathwing have teleported, though, if they wish to fire on that turn they must stay grouped up. That would be the time to hit them with plasma cannons. But if you arn't deployed, you can't hit anything. And next turn they can just spread out.

 

I would suggest, perhaps, setting up a Refused Flank in both your corners with your Tac Squads and Sternguard. That makes teleporting near your positions hazardous, as he can scatter off the table very easily. He then must group up in front of you and make a choice, stay in a small groups on the turn of teleport and hope you don't plasma him while he fires on you, or scatter his groups in the run phase and forgo firing. I would hold Pedro and the Honor Guard in reserve. You then have the choice to reinforce one group, or the other, overwheming the Deathwing locally on one flank. Then shift to the other.

 

Somehow you are going to have to grab objectives and plasma him as opportunities present themselves. Try to use cover to avoid his fire and give you better saves against his assault cannons. Hide as much as possible and make him come to you. When he does get there, try to have local superiority.

 

Or you can just spead out all over the place and make him take down down each of your scoring squads. But that tactic will deney you the CC leverage that Pedro can bring.

 

 

 

Hope that helps!

 

Warprat ;)

[Giga]

A good way to avoid deathwing assault is to keep your infantry in transports, and to make creative use of smoke to protect the most important vehicles.

 

This is what happens if you get to play first and therefore set up first;

 

Deploy everything on the table. Put transports in area terrain (so if they blow up, your marines will still have cover), and pop smoke on everything. The deathwing guy deep strikes with 3 terminator squads (as that is half of his 6 squads). Unless they deep strike behind them (which should be very risky, if you deploy properly), their storm bolters won't be able to harm your rhinos. If they all have assault cannons, that means 12 str 6 rending attacks. These have rather small chance of harming really hard stuff (land raiders), and a pretty good chance of busting side armors. Anyway, it's 12 shots, statistically 8 will hit, much less will penetrate, and then you have your 4+ cover save. Theoretically, you shouldn't suffer much from the initial deathwing assault. After that, it's 1750 pts of your army against 15 or so models. Wipe them out with volume of fire, lascannons, plasmas, meltas, demolisher cannons, assault with power weapons, etc. Then destroy the rest of his army piecemeal.

 

If you play second, then things can be a little more complicated;

 

Deploy your army in a protective circle. Hard stuff (land raiders) and expendable vehicles (rhinos and razorbacks) up front, and all the easily-killed stuff (attack bikes, speeders etc.) behind it. If you make a dense formation the opponent won't risk deep striking behind your wall of vehicles, or too close to the board edge. Hence, he'll probably deep strike in front of your wall, destroy a few transports (your squads should be hidden within), and then it's up to your 1750 pts to decimate his ~15 models. If you can steal initiative from him, do it, and then pop smoke with all your vehicles that wouldn't have cover otherwise.

[Bannus]

My army is geared toward CC mostly....

 

...Pedro and honour gaurd .... The rest ... (25 tacs, 10 sterngaurd w/2 las).

 

 

Any other thoughts?

Yeah - you might want to put more close combat units in your close combat army.

 

Either that or switch to a shooty strategy, since your army caters to it. :P

[gonzo]

My army is geared toward CC mostly....

 

...Pedro and honour gaurd .... The rest ... (25 tacs, 10 sterngaurd w/2 las).

 

 

Any other thoughts?

Yeah - you might want to put more close combat units in your close combat army. :blink:

 

Either that or switch to a shooty strategy, since your army caters to it. ;)

 

Sorry, i forgot to mention the dreadnought (AoBR version w/ melta), the whirlwind (which isnt much help against termies) and my 5 man terminator squad with assault cannon and powerfists. I would prefer a shooty army (and have a decent enough one I guess) but many a game have been lost because I have crap CC support. Some more rhinos/razorbacks or a land raider are my next vehicle buys.

 

Giga, thanks for the advice. I was thinking that, depeding on the terrain we play on, a protective circle would be good way to go. I really need more armour in my army, but I will have to do the best with what I have. So instead of CC I may gear them more towards shooting.

 

Its difficult to anticipate what one would do. Too many variables with the mission, deployment, terrain, special rules, etc that go into a game. Still fun to try though.

[Deathwing]

Some thoughts from a Dark Angels player

 

I wouldn't hide things in reserve against a Deathwing army with your army. It's something I would probably want you to do. That would allow my relatively superior squads to gang up on you as your forces arrive piecemeal. Though I suppose you could set up away from my guys, but would force you to use more time to get to the objectives or to get to my guys and as mentioned my squads would have full mobility, firepower and assault capability compared to yours. Remember also that Deathwing Assault is an optional rule unlike Drop pod assault so I could hold things in reserve until later turns and hope everything of mine comes down all at once. (worst case scenario is that all of my units drop in on turn 2 while only a small handful of yours comes on, then you'd be really screwed)

 

One thing to do, as suggested earlier, is to gang up on each squad with volume of fire. Aside from Plasma cannons, large amounts of armour saves will eventually down them. Just remember to concentrate on each squad until it is dead or that lone terminator will romp through your lines or contest your objective.

 

As for deployment strategies, don't spread out. Again it would allow me to use my relatively superior squads to take apart your army piecemeal. Instead you want to be able to bring about your full firepower on each squad as it comes in. Losing a full squad of terminators is not something I'd want as I have less units to contest and I've given up a kill point. Having several 2-3 man squads is a position I'd love to be in as those 2-3 terminators can still wreak havoc in a gun-line and I can contest more objectives and I haven't given up a kill point. If I do hold my terminators in reserve for later turns, don`t be intimidated or scared into redploying your forces, stick to your game plan of having as much of your army shoot mine as possible.

 

Also, don't be afraid to throw a sacrificial unit in front of them. If the Deathwing squad assaults one of your units, you want your unit to run or be wiped out so you can bring your army's firepower to bear on the surviving terminators.

 

Hope it helps you if you face those players. Though I must admit it's odd seeing someone ask for help against the Dark Angels.

[Giga]

Giga, thanks for the advice. I was thinking that, depeding on the terrain we play on, a protective circle would be good way to go. I really need more armour in my army, but I will have to do the best with what I have. So instead of CC I may gear them more towards shooting.

Rhinos, razorbacks, land raiders etc. are all great not just because of their firepower/speed, but because they protect your army from the worst of the enemy shooting. Even if they destroy a transport, you will only suffer some strength 4 hits from the explosion, which means your opponent is wasting valuable firepower on your cheap vehicles, rather then on your army.

 

BTW, pedro + honor guard isn't exactly the happiest cc combination. Pedro himself is a rather bad cc character, since he strikes at I1 and has 4+ invulnerable save. That means that, on average, one or two hits from a power fist are enough to insta-kill him. I'd keep him out of cc, if I were you. However, keep him close so that your cc units benefit from his attack aura.

 

As for deployment; if it's dawn of war, always let him go first if you can and don't put anything on the table. It totally messes up their game if they have to deep strike onto an empty board.

[gonzo]

Deathwing, thank you very much for your opinion and suggestions. I was on the fence about what to gear towards, as doing an all around army will not work in this tournament I think. Now, I will most definitely gear towards shooting as I am comfortable with that style. Thanks for the advice.

[ShinyRhino]

One other thing you must do, to allow you to plan ahead, is force your opponent to decalre which of his units is deploying by which method. If he declares all of his terminator squads are teleporting in at the beginning of the game, none of them are walking on from the board edge. That gives you some minor security in knowing that the far board edge is relatively "safe" to walk/drive along.