My Dark Angels and their showing at Conflict Scotland

[Grand Master Raziel Secundus]

Hello folks

 

I recently (April 18th) took part in the Conflict Scotland doubles tournament fielding my Ravenwing. The rules for the tourney were simple, a legal 1000 point army made up of either 2 500pt allied armies or a single 1k army. I went with my team-mate which was my 13yr old daughter and we fielded Sammael in his landspeeder and 2 full attack squadrons.

 

The setup was 3 battles over the whole day. The first round was an objective grab mission, the second was sieze and control, and the last round was annilation. My first opponent were Orks. Now like many people here, I feel the recent 'dex releases are egeared toward "power-gamers" and are therefor not very fair to older codexs. That said, I will never stop playing my DA and see it as a point of honor to "fly the colors" of our chapter. Now I know the ork codex had several glaring overpowering elements and guess what I came up against. It was a full biker squad with warboss and 2 30-ork nob mobs. Now that only meant that my 17 units were up against 67 orks and the biker squad alone could soak up alot of fire thanks to being a complex unit with feel no pain. Well, I lost the die roll and was made to deploy and go first so I reserved the lot, counting on a late game objective grab. Well, 1st turn was uneventful, the orks simply made a long conga line joining up 3 objective markers with a single mob and the ork bikers running from the back of the map to the front... Well, as my luck was not with me, my 2 attack squadrons and Sammael all came in turn 2 and from opposite map sides (not good for long drawn out games) Well, I concentrated fire from squadron 1 on the closest mob and completely killed/routed the lot. But then in his turn my speeders took fire from his other mob and bikers and scratched 1 speeder. And Sammael made a good showing taking out 5 orks from the other mob. Well, this went on for 4 turns and on turn 6 I was down to 1 attack bike and 1 speeder. I had positioned myself near 2 objectives and managed to clear his other mob from the 3 they were holding leaving it on turn six me with 2 objectives and him with half a mob and 4 ork bikers with 1. Now I had hoped it would end there, but the dice had another cruel tist for me and it went to turn 7. His bikers closed on my speeder, killed it and left me with 1 objective to his 2. But considering I had just gone 7 turns with the beefy orks, I was actually quite proud of my showing.

 

So at the end of game 1 - W0/D0/L1

 

Now my second round (the sieze and control, spearhead setup) was against a IG/Blood Angel army. This time I won the die roll and let them go first, but noticing they were setting up without actually supporting each other, I choose to set up on the right side of the field opposite the Blood Angel player (he had 1 TAC squad and 1 Devastator squad). And my luck was back, as I stole the initiative and proceeded to do an end run sweeping from the right putting the blood angels between me and the IG. I managed to kill his devastators completely and route his TAC squad, leaving the IG to do nothing but berate the bloodangel player. By turn 3 I had eliminated the blood angels as a threat and was closing on the IG, after some exchange of fire, by turn 5, the IG player was left with only his main HQ sitting in cover on his objective. At this point I in true Ravenwing style, launched Sammael and his squadron into an assault into his stronghold and proceeded to kill all but his commander. Now here is were there was one of those moments at a tournament you hate, the judges were calling time (we had gone the full lenth of our game) and the IG player said thats it, its a draw since I had no unit one my objective and we were both contesting the other. I felt robbed because we had not completed my turn as I was going to sweeping advance on him and he knew he'd die. So I was not a happy bunny.

 

So end of 2nd game - W0/D1/L1

 

Now the last round was again not looking good for me, as it was against 'nids! This whole tourney I seemed to get put up against the latest codexs, and I felt as if they were being unfair in their pairings but what can you do. Anyways, the 'nid players had that Doom of whatever it's called, one of those things that poops out the gaunts, a trigon prime, and warriors and genestealers not to mention spore mines and those homogaunts :D At this point I was looking at reserving and hoping not to come on to the map till turn 5, but no such luck. I won the die roll, and reserved and the nids moved toward the center of the map anticipating my outflanking. Well, turn 2 Sammael and squadron 2 came on (Sqaudron 1 had an apothicary upgrade) and proceeded to blast away at 2 groups of gaunts. My speeder and attack bike harrased his trigon prime and luckily his Doom thing was clear on the other side of the board and of no use to him. Well, turn 3 saw me eliminate 1 group of gaunts and knock 3 wounds off that trigon. Then turn 4 my 2nd squadron came in from the opposite side and immeditely hammered his doom guy and knocked it down to 1 wound. By turn 6, I had lost 1 attack bike and a couple of bikers from squadron 2, but had racked up 5 kill points from gaunts, spore mines and the trigon. And we actually went to turn 7, him Doom guy fell and I lost 1 speeder. So the final score 7 kill points to me, 3 to the nids.

 

And end of game 3 - W1/D1/L1

 

Now, at the time of the tourney I felt cheated in the first 2 games as they could of so easily been a better result than I got. But having had over a month to think it over... I think that I was cheated before I even got to the table. All the armies I went against were clearly more overpowering than my army, but I still proceeded to give a very good account of myself and I can only say when I go back next year, I will take the same army and some better dice and I will prevail....

 

Any comments?

[Interrogator Stobz]

Nice work against the newer dexes, and Kudos for sticking to the DA dex.

 

I recently used a Khanwing vs the new BA book, I didn't stay pure to try to eeck(sp) out some advantage but still got handed my butt and effectively wiped out by turn 3,(turn one was full reserved so double ouch).

EVERY one of his units overpowered everone of mine, his manouvering ability completely negated my speed and he caught me in short order and smashed me.

 

I fear we have our backs to the wall before we even look at the table now more than ever.

 

I even commented to my opponent after replaying his army with my Mono Khorne army that it was no fun to play against his force as I could see no options to even secure a draw, poor/average dice inthat game ensured another epic defeat.

 

GW's design changes really take the fun out of an otherwise great game :D

 

Onward

 

Stobz

 

PS I am sorry if that all sounds too fatalistic, I am up to the challenge of beating his BA but have yet to find a concept that has a reasonable chance.

[Grand Master Raziel Secundus]

Well,

 

I have both Deathwing and Ravenwing and I took the Deathwing to the last tourney and didn't fair too well simply because my model count for 1000pts was only 13 models and just not enough firepower. The Ravenwing did better due to their 5 toughness and manueverablity, but I still agree until there is a leveling of the playing field we are going to come out at the bottom. I noticed every 'nid, IG, and Ork army were more cheese than substance, when I chose the DW/RW it was strictly for the history and story behind them and their dark motives not their stats, so I'll just wait for that new DA dex with patient resignation... :D

 

Cheers and thanks for reading

[Bringer of Redemption]

Not a bad job at the tournament for using an underpowered codex (at least in relation to the fifth ed. codexes).

 

I would tend to agree that at 1000 points deathwing just doesn't do enough, and the model count is way too low to make it viable. However, one of my personal favorite ways to get around this is to take a mixed Deathwing/Greenwing list. With Belial as your HQ, you can take one DW squad and a Tactical squad, (or more of either) plus a decent amount of support.

 

I've found that the best way to play such a list is to have the tac squad hold ground, as they can be hard to shift (especially when in cover) while the DW can act as a "Shock and Awe" type unit, coming in by Deep Striking or DWAing, hitting hard, and then letting the rest of the army's firepower cover them as they continue to inflict damage. And since the DW are scoring, they can storm objectives later in the game. It's not a perfect solution, but it's not bad either, and it's generally pretty fun to play--although there are some armies where deep striking your deathwing against them amounts to a monumentally bad idea.

 

--BoR

[RayJ]

BoR above has the right idea for 1000 points I think. The biggest problem with our codex is that it almost fails to operate at all under 1500 points. The block-buying structure restricts the firepower and durability of the units in such a way as to really make things hard on us. However, Belial, the typical DW squad, and a tac squad will come in at about 650-670 points (assuming you buy the deathwing apothecary who is only more awesome as the points in the game go down)

 

This will allow you to flesh out the last bit with some mech and/or bikes to take the heavy fire off of your troops.

 

What I'd seriously consider is going with a small RAS unit of 3 bikes and an attack bike for 190-ish points and grabbing a predator, vindicator, or dreadnought to flesh out the list. If you have the points, gear up the Ravenwing sergeant, but overall the 3 bikes should be harassment and putting themselves in situations likely to kill them (since they'll be hitting the big targets with meltaguns). The attack bike gives you another scoring unit (giving you 4 with combat squads. That's great for a 1000 point game), the ability to deal with armor, a decent assault unit, and units that can complement each other well on the battlefield.

 

From my count, this army will sit at 22 models (10 tacs, 6 termies, 4 bikes, 2 vehicles) which is fairly respectable, especially for such an elite army. There are, of course other viable options at 1000 points, but going with a single wing gives yourself a huge uphill battle as you won't have the weapon redundancy or versatility to take on all comers.

[Master Toddius]

Great Job with the List, Great job with the results. I like it when people actually Don't take DW. Tired of watching this forum go from the Dark Angels forum to the Deathwing forum.

 

Long Live the RavenWing! :huh:

[Gillyfish]

Well I think recognition is in order that you took one of the hardest armies that it is possible to take. I know it was said in third edition, but Ravenwing require a lot of skill to use and a lot more tow in with. If you get to the end of the battle and the Ravenwing are still a potent force, you know you're up against a good 40k player.

 

Yes, the second game in particular was annoying, but to make such a good showing against a modern codex, kitted out to kill anything it comes across, speaks of a player who knows their own army well and uses its advantages to the full. So I'd say that overall, you did very well indeed. Who knows, maybe luck will be on your side next time?

[Maxamato]

Hi!

 

Congratulations for your results!

 

Tired of watching this forum go from the Dark Angels forum to the Deathwing forum.

Yes that's true, very sad. ;)

I hope that will change a bit because I think that our Dex can do more than only DW. :lol:

 

 

Regards

Maxamato

[Grand Master Raziel Secundus]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I used to take my RW for granted religating them to support the DW. But in 5th, especially against some of these beefed up horde armies, the fearless, toughness 5 bikers are the way to go. Perhaps by this time next year, there may be an update to help us, and if the new WD is to be believed, when they released the new eldar units they commented that releasing new treats for armies via WD could be more common in the future... lets watch this space :D

 

Cheers and Happy Hunting