DW Competitiveness

[themadlbb]

So I have always loved the dark angels fluff, and Terminators have always been my favorite SM model. So let me just ask: How competitive is a properly made DW army? Any thoughts as to what a competitive list would be? Sorry if this is in the wrong place, feel free to move it if it is.

[krewl]

The short answer: Yes.

 

The longer one depends on your points level, but mine is mainly DW squads and it's so rock hard I've had people ask to not bring it normal play anymore.

 

My 1750 list:

Belial (Claws) (130)

 

5x TH&SS, CML, Apothecary, (265)

2x TH&SS, CML&SB&Chainfist, PW&SB, PF&SB (240)

2x TH&SS, CML&SB&Chainfist, PW&SB, PF&SB (240)

2x TH&SS, CML&SB&Chainfist, PW&SB, PF&SB (240)

2x TH&SS, CML&SB&Chainfist, PW&SB, PF&SB (240)

2x TH&SS, CML&SB&Chainfist, PW&SB, PF&Chainfist (245)

 

2x Solo MM Speeder+typhoon (150)

1750

 

I tend to work with 2 blobs of 3 units supporting eachother as there is almost nothing in the game that would easily whipe one unit of termies, let alone survive the 2 countercharging units after it. Front squad walks in a screening formation so the others have a 4+ vs any scary shots, each unit has 3++ saves for lascannon shots etc, in short, darn hard to remove.

 

While walking I shoot 12 missiles a turn which are unshakable and hard to take out at all making for a high total missile count dureing the game.

 

Chainfists and massive ammounts of S8 mean I am not scared of any walkers or landraiders (Unless the last moved >6") and then still I have 2 MM to support that.

 

Else the speeders go on stay alive duty to contest later in the game or lend their weight of fire to the army. In KP missions they are a small enough part of the army that you can throw them into reserves to save them a bit and hide untill late game when many threats have been removed.

 

6 Scorin units mean that you can easily threaten all objectives and even a lone fearless terminator will be able to claim something late game so none ever go to waste.

[Brother Immolator]

My perspective is based on what you name competative.

 

In a local shop if there is no metagame then id say yes.You will trash em most of time.

In a grand tourney if you want to win it id say no.You will go far enough with a good list but in the end you will find a player that will have a list that plays to the all termy armys major flaw.And the major flaw is that it isnt an all commers list.You cant reliably counter hordes(non elite orcs/non zila nids) or heavy armored lists(guard).That is not to say its impossible its just that they arent geared for that and you dont have the numbers or mobility.

 

On the bright side though they are the best terminator army out there and let the wolves say about their loganwing what they want.After the update the deathwing shines as the terminator elite once again.

 

And also brother Krewl there are tons of things,that can wipe out termies easily.And since i assume you are refering to TH/SS ones i will remind you of the nightbringer from an outdated codex nontheless.There is a tiny chance that you will have a single terminator left of your second round of combat with him.

 

And another remark for your list:It cant hold that much against of tons of poison weapons from DE or gaunts with the tervigon(i think)buffing them up.

You will be outnumbered and you will be forced to roll a bucket of saves each turn which are bound to fail eventually.Plus you footslog em,meaning they are the plaything of the faster units.Granted CMLS are going to do a lot of hurt,but there is a ton of thingies in the new dexes that can withstand them one way or the other.

[Azurious]

In a local shop if there is no metagame then id say yes.You will trash em most of time.

In a grand tourney if you want to win it id say no.You will go far enough with a good list but in the end you will find a player that will have a list that plays to the all termy armys major flaw.And the major flaw is that it isnt an all commers list.You cant reliably counter hordes(non elite orcs/non zila nids) or heavy armored lists(guard).That is not to say its impossible its just that they arent geared for that and you dont have the numbers or mobility.

 

 

I'd have to respectivly dissagree with this, I have never had any bother dealing with horde orks or mech guard, in fact they are 2 of my favoured match ups, The only list that really frightens me is venom spam dark eldar.

 

The reasoning behind this is simple, on the face of it DW does not have large quanties of anti horde, however in 9 out of ten instances a squad of termies will take the charge of 30 boys/gaunts and win in a few rounds (unless you have been sleeping with your die's sister and they are feeling affronted ^^), if you charge it reduces the time considerably and if your are using your command squad its even better, While mech guard can deal with speeders very quickly they lack anything that overly threatens 4+ squads of termies with TH/SS, CML and so is quite easy to neuter with the correct target prioity.

 

Venom spam however has the speed to stay out of your leathal cc range and has the armour saturation to deal with losing a few veichles each turn, counting the fact that each veichle can pump out 12 shots pur turn at 36" range this puts a lot of amour saves on your low model count army and can be very difficult to deal with.

 

In short I would say that a well construced list (taking account your local meta) would up there with the most comeptitive lists out there, as with everything though it does have to be played right and takes a little time to get used to ^^

[Droma]

DW currently does well against anything but venom spam like Azurious mentioned. Even then it's still possible to pull out wins just through the sheer amount of missiles we can lay on the table. If they other player is good though then it becomes very tough.

 

DW eats mech IG for breakfast tbh. We don't at all fear chimera's and once they're on foot they're toast. The matches are pretty even against BA/SW/GK and like I said our hard match is DE. Orks depend entirely on the list they throw at you, some are hard some are very easy. All the other codex's we don't have much trouble beating if played correctly.

[breng77]

I have to agree with those that say Mech IG is actually a good match up for DW. As are most MEQ armies. Which means that a well build DW list is automatically competitive since most top tier armies fit that description. DW has bad matchups against anything that can pack in tons of wounds though CC or Small arms fire. DE venom spam is one such match-up (though if you can get first turn, and have a good round of shooting this can be mitigated) I don't agree that straight DW is good at dealing with horde, the math simply does not back up the statement that 5 termies can accept a charge by 30 boyz and win that combat (they might hold long enough to get help, but they are unlikely to win.)

 

30 boyz (29 with a PK nob) dole out 116 S 4 attacks on the charge, on average that means they hit you 58 times resulting in 29 wounds, a 2+ save means that 1/6 saves will get failed and unless you have a lot of wound allocation, that means like 5 dead termies (maybe 4), and then the power klaw is decently likely to finish you off. Even if it does not you have one termy striking back which usually will kill 1 ork, which means that you then take 3 fearless saves, and if your still alive you likely die on the next turn.

 

If you charge them it is slightly better, but not much (87 attacks, 43 hits, ~14 wounds = 2 dead termies, you kill on average 4 orks, the Nob might kill another termi, but lets say you win by 2, 2 more orks die. In the next round of combat you now take 69 attacks, 34 hits, 11 wounds, likely kills another 2 termies, you kill maybe 2 orks, and the fight continues. 5 terminators (unless all LC armed with the DW banner, and a chaplain, on the charge) simply don't kill enough orks in any one round to quickly get through that combat.

 

Tyranids is a much better matchup as they tend not to run huge squads, and the horde units they run have fewer attacks. In addition cyclones/termies in general are good at dealing with monsterous creatures and taking out tyranid synapse creatures.

[Brother Immolator]

I dont know guys.I have seen seasoned players loose to this tactiscs i mentioned not always OFC but victory usally hangs in the balance(all to make it more interesting really ).A unit of gaunts with poisons tarpitting a unit of terminators?Even if the termies dont die they will be there for a couple of turns,not the best use of a terminator squad.You might have not seen but if you have a nid player try it.If i am not mistaken the power is called catalist.I dont remember excactly.

 

DW eats mech imperial guard for breackfast!?!?!Sorry but it is i who have to respectfully desagree on this one.Its a close match up if you know what are you doing,but you can only survive only so much hits.Even the stray lasgun shot will eventually take down footslogging terminators when resieving volumes each turn and you have only that much men on the field.How will you footslog against lets say 2 executioners throwing 3 plasma plates each at you each turn?And not counting the rest of the army....

 

I would agree with the orks that it all depends on the list.Thats why i said about elite lists.Those are taken piece meal.Now face lets for the arguments sake 170 burnaboys(remember they count as power weapons in CC)and the situation looks grim.

 

Against SW i have to say the match is not even.If they deploy logan wing we have the edge.

 

With Gk i disagree.First of all if they deploy Draigo wing they all have more wounds on the table and better equipment at reduced costs compaired to a deathwing squad.

Also whether you take the charge or you charge them you are at a disadvantage.They all have those pesky grenades.

Then we come at the intiative and number of attacks.For the points you took the cml,i(if i was a gk player)will give a fraction to get to all squad members

falcions to give them a better save.Now i have 4++ one attack more than you and i strike at initiative.If i pass my check for hammerhand i have increased strength as well.plus depending on the situation you might have even reduced toughness.

To cover against those CMLS i can give my paladins,who will be on the forefront will have a libby with a shrouding.

 

Anyway as you can see if someone knows that he will face deathwing and taylor a list he can give them a really hard day.Against metagamers dw is not so good.Against all commers you have more chances.Not in the least to say that they are horrible.They are on of the good options,not the best though.

[themadlbb]

So is a footslogging DW list the best way to go? What are some good DW tactics? I have the following terminator units so far...

 

8 Tactical Terminators

2 Chainfist Terminators

1 Terminator with cyclone missile launcher and chainfist

1 Terminator with cyclone missile launcher

5 Terminator with power sword

5 Terminator with thunder hammer and storm shield

 

Can I build some competitive DW units from this? What else do I need?

[Droma]

You need more TH/SH terminators. In a 2k game I run 6 DW squads 3x TH/SH 1x LC 2x shooty and give them all CML's. Do you have any dark angels upgrade sprues or the ravenwing battle force? The upgrade sprues give storm shields and the battle force gives spare typhoon missile launchers you can convert into CML's.

[Dark Angel 13]

Just finished a 8 week escalation league that started at 1500 and worked up to 2500 in blocks of 250 to get our local group ready for the time crunch of trying to play 2500 pt games in two and a half hours for 'Ard Boyz. I ended at 6-0-1, that's no losses but I did miss a week. The top four were two spacewolves, and a DE player that I had my tie with due to slow play issues. We started the finals today with a play off between the top four. I beat one of the spacewolves and play the DE player next week for first place. Are they competitive? Yes. What do you need to be competitive? More TH/SSs and CMLs. It's not creative or original, but to go up against the newer power levels we need to take advantage where we can.

 

My list:

 

Belial

 

Int. Chap. in terminator armor

 

Belial's command squad w/ apothecary TLLC, standard bearer w/ PF/SB, TH/SS CML, and TH/SS

 

2x 3 TH/SS, 2 TLLC, one with CML and one with an assault cannon

 

2x Sgt w/ PW/SB, assault cannon, 2x PF/SB, and oneTH/SS

 

2x Ven Dred, one with Assault cannon, and one with a plasma cannon

 

Three man RW squad w/ PW sgt and two melta guns

 

2x squadron of one Typhoon speeder

 

2x Vindicator

 

Auto cannon predator w/ HB sponsons

 

2 HQ

2 Elites

5 Troops

3 Fast Attack

3 Heavy support

 

Fills out most slots on the FOC, but it takes 2500 pts to get there. If I had more TH/SS termies I would replace them in the list, and I may buy a box or two before 'Ard Boyz. I feel cheezy doing it, but I'm tired of getting the floor mopped with my models by the sons of Russ.

[breng77]

I dont know guys.I have seen seasoned players loose to this tactiscs i mentioned not always OFC but victory usally hangs in the balance(all to make it more interesting really tongue.gif).A unit of gaunts with poisons tarpitting a unit of terminators?Even if the termies dont die they will be there for a couple of turns,not the best use of a terminator squad.You might have not seen but if you have a nid player try it.If i am not mistaken the power is called catalist.I dont remember excactly.

 

Tarpitted by gaunts? I rarely see anyone with more than about 10 Gaunts in any one squad. Usually minimal squads to get tervigons as troops (who can then spawn more gaunts but average around 10 for each spawning) 10 Gaunts are unlikely to tarpit termies for very long unless it is multiple squads. Catalyst gives them FNP which DW simply does not care about (it helps their MC against missiles, and helps against fearless wounds but really not much else)

 

DW eats mech imperial guard for breackfast!?!?!Sorry but it is i who have to respectfully desagree on this one.Its a close match up if you know what are you doing,but you can only survive only so much hits.Even the stray lasgun shot will eventually take down footslogging terminators when resieving volumes each turn and you have only that much men on the field.How will you footslog against lets say 2 executioners throwing 3 plasma plates each at you each turn?And not counting the rest of the army....

Well people rarely run 2 Executioners as they are rather pricey. I have only seen one player run 2, and they were in one squadron, both had sponsons so it was 10 Plasma templates, and he got off 2 rounds of shooting and killed 2-3 termies. Then I assaulted them and they never got to shoot again. I'm hardly saying it is an auto-win, but for most Mech IG opponents who build lists to handle other mech opponents DW is a pretty good matchup if you play correctly (which is not just walk across the table)

 

I would agree with the orks that it all depends on the list.Thats why i said about elite lists.Those are taken piece meal.Now face lets for the arguments sake 170 burnaboys(remember they count as power weapons in CC)and the situation looks grim

 

Comments like this make me think you really don't have a clue as you cannot run 170 Burnaboyz in an ork army.

 

Against SW i have to say the match is not even.If they deploy logan wing we have the edge.

 

Maybe maybe not, "logan wing" when run effectively is not all terminators so the opponent will have more bodies. The advantage DW has is that most SW armies bring lots of Missiles, which don't ignore 2+ saves.

 

With Gk i disagree.First of all if they deploy Draigo wing they all have more wounds on the table and better equipment at reduced costs compaired to a deathwing squad.

Also whether you take the charge or you charge them you are at a disadvantage.They all have those pesky grenades.

Then we come at the intiative and number of attacks.For the points you took the cml,i(if i was a gk player)will give a fraction to get to all squad members

falcions to give them a better save.Now i have 4++ one attack more than you and i strike at initiative.If i pass my check for hammerhand i have increased strength as well.plus depending on the situation you might have even reduced toughness.

To cover against those CMLS i can give my paladins,who will be on the forefront will have a libby with a shrouding.

 

Sorry but I would love to face Draigo wing out of all the GK builds I think it is one of the weaker builds especially against DW. While they might get more wounds, most attacks by the DW army treat them as single wounded models (and ignore FNP if they have it). They don't all have pesky grenades (you need to buy either techmarines, or inquisitors, or another GK HQ to get those and if you have Draigo it is already a lot of points). Falcions don't give you a better save just +1 attack if you take them your save is 5+, as a GK player you would never (IMO) pay for them Halberds are better, swords which are stock give you a 4++ in CC only. Also remember that while GKs go first (and Paladins can kill a DW squad in CC, which is why you charge them with more than 1), every wound by a Thunder hammer counts as 2 against paladins, so you will kill lots of them if you survive their attack. Lastly sure you can pay for a libby with Shrouding for cover against Missiles, but you get a 2+ armor save, so whats the point?

 

Anyway as you can see if someone knows that he will face deathwing and taylor a list he can give them a really hard day.Against metagamers dw is not so good.Against all commers you have more chances.Not in the least to say that they are horrible.They are on of the good options,not the best though.

 

All I can see is that if someone does not know the rules, he can get cheated apparently. Also when you talk competitive you are not talking about list tailoring (sure I can make a list to beat any list, but it will often die to other lists). They are very good against the mech heavy meta game at most events, and while I'm not sure they are the top of the heap (they have the elite army problem of bad dice = loss really quickly), they are one of the more competitive builds in the game.

[Azurious]

On the executioner idea, firstly the top tier mech ig lists DONT run them as 3x2 hydras or 2x2 hydras and a manticore are the optimal choice. Executioners have 2 big cons in that they are easily around 200pts a pop for 1 (not quite sure of exact pricing) and they are very easily mitigated with maximal spacing in your squads, make sure your 5 termies are exactly 2" apart from each other and the average amount he is hitting is 0-1 termies based on how the template scatters :) plus plasma weapons are one of the reasons we take storm shields ^^

 

The real reason DW does so well against mech IG is down to the list design, IG is built around wrecking the mech of an opponent before sweeping in to mop up with massed infantry fire. As DW is almost an entirely infantry force we drastically reduce the effect of the IG's alpha game as instead using transports to keep our guys safe/hurtle across the board, we are more than happy to trudge slowly all the while sending streams of missiles at whatever might be threatening us. This means that instead of Alpha striking our advantages the IG is resigned to either sit back and trade shots at a distance or speed forward and hope they can work their way through 4-6 squads of termies before they get stuck into CC. Neither of these options play to the strengths of mech IG.

All of this isnt even taking into account that winning the roll for first turn is of much greater importance to an IG player than a DW one and if we can secure first turn it brings the game as close to the bag as possible without acctually being in it ^^

 

GK are a funny one and tbh I don't think anyone has seen a true master of them yet as they simply haven't been out long enough. However when looking at draigo wing (the example used above) and the pros they bring to the board I have to say it seems like another favourable match up for DW. Draigo wing runs off the old nob bikers idea, 2 wound rock solid dudes with lots of sneaky wound allocation and FNP to make them a knightmare to take down. However they are very expensive with a 10 man unit running to around 650-700 points, I'm running 3 squads of DW for that amount ^^. Now the real reason DW enjoy this kind of set up so much is that we strip the guys of their 2 main pros, thunderhammers and stormshields not only make us resiliant enough to weather the power weapon attacks from a unit, they also ignore their multiple would allocation and FNP which greatly reduces their survivability, in fact it really becomes a face off between them hitting first but us having the 3++, when you consider that we are bringing at least 15 guys for every 10 they have it becomes a simple matter of quantity and by my reckoning we should win out.

 

While I would have to agree that on the face of it mathhammer says that 30 ork boys on the charge should by all rights take a DW squad I have just never found this to be true, now i'm not a mathmatician so iv no idea why this would be the case, the only explanation I could place on it would be the fact that with wound allocation meaning you don't roll all the saves in one lump, that messes with the chances of success, all I can say is that every time I have faced down a mob of boys its always ended in my favour, and pretty quickly too. (maybe its the lucky Irish green I paint my termies with ^^)

 

I would agree that SW are the most even of matchups we face, in these fights it really comes down to us having to neutralise the rune priests asap as if left unchecked jaws can really ruin our low model count armies day, however if we can deal with them the fight becomes the same as any other marine force, weather the fire slap the PA guys about in cc. But this one is all about the way you play the army rather than either list having a serious advantage over the other.

 

As Breng said in regaurds to list tayloring, anyone can wright a list that will cream a specific force if thats what its being designed to do, however they would be very very silly to bring it to a tournament where they will be required to face a variety of opponents.

[breng77]

I'm not sure the Draigowing is an auto-lose, if it is built to be shooty, as they can stay at 24" away and pump out wounds (which TH/SS DW cannot really do) but the fact that it uses paladins is not any kind of advantage against DW, Straight GK termies would actually be a tougher fight for DW. The problem is that those lists both play like old deathwing more or less (PRe-FAQ) which means neither is top tier as far as the GK dex.

[Azurious]

I'm not sure the Draigowing is an auto-lose, if it is built to be shooty, as they can stay at 24" away and pump out wounds (which TH/SS DW cannot really do) but the fact that it uses paladins is not any kind of advantage against DW, Straight GK termies would actually be a tougher fight for DW. The problem is that those lists both play like old deathwing more or less (PRe-FAQ) which means neither is top tier as far as the GK dex.

 

 

Definately not an auto win for the DW, just a favourable match up. As with everything it would come down to how each army was played and luck of the dice ^^ Having never fought against a Draigowing army though im just guessing and even then thats only based on my opinion that DW nullify what I see as the main reason to pay 55pts plus per model ;)

[breng77]

pretty much, as I said, against DW I would rather just have a plain old GK termi as he will do the same thing for 15 points cheaper (except the WS 5 and the meh.. psychic power).

[themadlbb]

Wow Dark Angel that list looks nasty! So let me ask a couple of questions, because that seems like exactly the direction I want to go in.

 

1. you say you would replace one squads if you had more TH/SS terms, what would your optimized competitive list look like?

2. Right now I'm mostly playing at 1500 points. What did your 1500 list look like?

 

 

My friends and I are very competitive, so while cheese is often commented upon, its never an issue. So, feel free to hit me with a really velveeta list!

[Brother-Captain Sharp]

Interesting. I seem to be the only one in the thread so far who doesn't run an all foot army. I instead run something like this:

 

Belial- TH/SS 130 points

 

Deathwing Squad- Banner, Apothecary, 3x TH/SS, 2x LC 270 points

Deathwing Squad- 1x PF/SB, 1x CF/SB, 1x PW/SB, 1x CML/PF/SB, 1x SS/TH 240 points

Deathwing Squad- 1x PF/SB, 1x CF/SB, 1x PW/SB, 1x CML/PF/SB, 1x SS/TH 240 points

Deathwing Squad- 2x PF/SB, 1x PW/SB, 1x CML/PF/SB, 1x SS/TH 235 points

Deathwing sqaud- 1x LCs/CML, 2x LCs, 2x SS/THs 235

 

Land Speeder Typhoon w/ multi-melta 75

Land Speeder Typhoon w/ multi-melta 75

 

Land Raider Crusader 250

Land Raider Crusader 250

 

Total: 2000 points

 

12 missile shots, enough chainfists and multi-meltas to handle AV14, and 2 good assault units. Because I still have shooting in the sqauds armed with CMLs (excepting the assault squads of course) I can handle horde armies outside of combat (biggest problem with SS/TH spam. Would you rather shoot and kill Genestealers at range or assault them and rely on 3++)? Each unit has at least one SS to soak wounds, but for the shooting squads, they will be hugging cover or the Land Raiders, so a lost SS just means a 4+ cover save instead. 2 Land Raiders act as moving cover, as well as delivery for Belial and the other squad if needed (if no need to assault, they walk). The list also manages to still put 5 squads of terminators down for a 2000 point game, meaning I'm one short of maxed. Every once in a while I'll yank the second LRC and swap to 6 squads, 5 shooting and Belial's.

 

Either way, this list or something like it has won me the past 4 tournaments I've played in. While the tournaments weren't at national conventions, they were spread through different regions with different metas, and this list was able to handle every comer. Anti-horde in storm bolters and Crusaders, anti tank in missiles, Chain fists, and melta, and anti-MEQ in assaulting power weapons and missiles. Just thought I'd throw out a list other than a foot slogging list (which I find incredibly boring).

[Droma]

@sharp

 

I've been experimenting with foot lists and they do ok. However I normally run a list closer to yours and it is pretty nasty. Personally I'd make the second assault squad also 3xTH/SH 2xLC but I can see why you went the other way as well. When I get a second typhoon speeder I'll have to test your list out.

[Brother-Captain Sharp]

@sharp

 

I've been experimenting with foot lists and they do ok. However I normally run a list closer to yours and it is pretty nasty. Personally I'd make the second assault squad also 3xTH/SH 2xLC but I can see why you went the other way as well. When I get a second typhoon speeder I'll have to test your list out.

Yeah, it's my off-squad. It'll assault not as deadly stuff to terminators or assault horde units. So more attacks is good. Belial and his squad take on the heavy hitters or units with large amounts of power weapon attacks.

[pueriexdeus]

My first game in 18 months went like this:

 

Score one for the DW vs. Nids

 

I went to a new place last night, here is my 2000 point list.

 

Belial, LC's

Cmd Sqd: Apoth, Standard, 2x LC's, 3x TH/SS, CML

DW Sqd: 2x TH/SS, 3X SP/PF, CF, CML

DW Sqd: 2x TH/SS, 3X SP/PF, CF, CML

DW Sqd: 2x TH/SS, 3X SP/PF, CF, CML

DW Sqd: 1x TH/SS, 3X LC's, SB/PF, CML

 

Libby

 

Ven Dread: MM/HF, DP

Ven Dread: Ass Cannon/HF

Mortis: TLAC

 

I have never been to this new place and have no idea what to expect.

 

Found a guy willing for a 2000 point game. Off the top of my head he had:

 

Hive Tyrant w/bodyguard

Tervigon

Carnifex

Lictor

Warriors x3

Shrike x4

Genestealers x10

Gaunts x30

Gargoils x30

And a couple of other individual creatures and 3 model units that I have no idea what they were.

 

We were playing Command and Control, Table quarters, three objectives. He had the first move. I thought I’d be toast.

 

End model count:

 

DW; Belial w/ Cmd Sqd, DW Sqd of four, two Dreads. Two Objs.

 

Nids; Hive Tyrant, Fex, Warriors x3, foot slogers x3. One Obj.

 

In a nut shell the twin TH/SS in my squads played a crucial role in the DW CC survivability. The down side was a serious lack of Daka. Barring lots of Power Weapons the DW will hold a hoard in place. Fortunately my three Dreads were able to cause serious damage to several enemy units. Next time I think I’ll just bring Mortis Dreads, shooting was more valuable than CC for them.

 

Of note is the fact that I did not have to face any serious fire from the Nid player. Against technologically advanced armies that might be a factor I'll need to look at.

 

I think I'll bring the same list next week and see if I can get a game in with some puppies or Dark Eldar.

 

Full batrep can be found here.

[krewl]

I think Breng pretty much said what I wanted to say already on how many bad match-ups DW should have.

 

In short I have faced plenty a tournament with these termies (Growing from 5 terminators to a truly addicted 31 now in 1750 points ^_^ ) and they have very few bad match-ups.

I am NOT discussion anti deathwing lists (Say full combi plasma sternguard with las/plas razors, a null zone libby and plasma devs or something as over the top).

As one can always tweak to build a list specially for that weak spot but it would be weak vs so large a percentage of other armies your own list would not be close to competitive.

 

I have yet to face venom spam as stated because dutch players have been very slow on the DE uptake, I have seen several of them in Belgian tournaments I have been to, but not played them yet.

So I would not know what to expect but a lot of venoms, so I expect a huge amount of targets and shots, maybe with mounted plaster types?

I'll see that when it happens, those 16 Missile shots I pump out should do some damage and movement and targetpriority have always played a huge role in how much damage an opponent can do.

 

Same for the Mech IG list, I played good players specifically asking for a game vs their list and my list won.

Also MC and horde gaunts, if I face a tervie list, how many tervies will I take out with 16 ML shots a turn? 12 of those missiles will be on termies, so they keep shooting for a long time into the mission. (termie CML's have a very high % of actual fire from their theoretical 2 missiles each turn because they do not shake or stun and can only be removed (Typically) after you kill most or all of the squad. )

I'm not going to debate each and every army here, I'm not trying to convince everyone that deathwing is the best ever.

 

 

Understand me correctly, most games are not easy wins , and I do lose here and there. But usually when I lose I lose, not the army I just did something stupid which costs me the game. (Or dice fail, hey that happens)

All I am sharing is that MY deathwing in MY games did well playing along for the top places, take from that what you like, but at the very least you could say that DW do not suck ;)

 

So if you like 2+ saves and all that good thunderhammer Jazzz, go for it, you could have picked worse armies!

[Bartali]

I have to agree with those that say Mech IG is actually a good match up for DW. As are most MEQ armies. Which means that a well build DW list is automatically competitive since most top tier armies fit that description. DW has bad matchups against anything that can pack in tons of wounds though CC or Small arms fire. DE venom spam is one such match-up (though if you can get first turn, and have a good round of shooting this can be mitigated) I don't agree that straight DW is good at dealing with horde, the math simply does not back up the statement that 5 termies can accept a charge by 30 boyz and win that combat (they might hold long enough to get help, but they are unlikely to win.)

 

30 boyz (29 with a PK nob) dole out 116 S 4 attacks on the charge, on average that means they hit you 58 times resulting in 29 wounds, a 2+ save means that 1/6 saves will get failed and unless you have a lot of wound allocation, that means like 5 dead termies (maybe 4), and then the power klaw is decently likely to finish you off. Even if it does not you have one termy striking back which usually will kill 1 ork, which means that you then take 3 fearless saves, and if your still alive you likely die on the next turn.

 

If you charge them it is slightly better, but not much (87 attacks, 43 hits, ~14 wounds = 2 dead termies, you kill on average 4 orks, the Nob might kill another termi, but lets say you win by 2, 2 more orks die. In the next round of combat you now take 69 attacks, 34 hits, 11 wounds, likely kills another 2 termies, you kill maybe 2 orks, and the fight continues. 5 terminators (unless all LC armed with the DW banner, and a chaplain, on the charge) simply don't kill enough orks in any one round to quickly get through that combat.

 

Tyranids is a much better matchup as they tend not to run huge squads, and the horde units they run have fewer attacks. In addition cyclones/termies in general are good at dealing with monsterous creatures and taking out tyranid synapse creatures.

 

My experience tallies with brengs. Not so good against anything that can generate a lot of wounds, or has a lot of bodies.

Otherwise, fine !

[LardO'Blood]

I actually am very successful against orks, usually I can just frag a boyz squad down to half strength in a turn or two, making it much, much easier to dispatch. I usually run a LRC meaning I can knock out another bunch of orks when they are closer. My peeve with orks are nobz or meganobz with a warboss, as they can be hard to kill before I get up close and pack the same punch (though no invulnerable save) as my terminators.