New blood, too often spilt

[WatchCaptainAzrael]

Hello, this is my very first post in this forum, so I suppose I must present myself. I'm a guy that has a huge crush on the Dark Angels, and a love-hatred relationship with 40K tabletop. While I find it a game with potential for many interesting tactics, I also find it... crushingly meta-intensive. And I suck at meta, and adapting it to strategies.

 

What this means? It means that whenever I sail forth from the Rock, I embarrass myself and the Lion. It means that those under my charge whisper that perhaps I will become the battle barge's janitor servitor soon. It means that I cannot properly defend the Chapter's secrets!

 

It also means I play mostly on Vassal, and I've noticed so do a lot of you. :mellow:

 

EDIT: Either you, or the guys from 40k nation. It's been a while since I played there, so forgive me if I'm mistaken here.

 

If any of you would be so kind as to lend a hand to a fledgling Unforgiven in this cruel world of Wardian codices, jaded veterans and labyrinthine rules, you would be doing the future of the Chapter a great service. And you'd have my gratitude, which is the least important thing. :devil:

[Isiah]

Welcome aboard WatchCaptainAzrael ... there are some very experienced players around here who would relish this challenge. Also take time to look through the Army List section as this often contains really good nuggets of info to aid gameplay.

 

Cheers

I

[skink]

Indeed, welcome WatchCaptain. I think the thread on Dark Angel Tactica (authored by RayJ but containing input from numerous experienced DA players) towards the bottom of page 1 will be another strong starting point. As Isiah says, the army list forum is great; occasionally a list will pique the interest of multiple board users, and the resulting discussions are really useful.

 

What kind of force do you favour? The Dark Angels have 3 quite different facets as I'm sure you know; Deathwing (DW), Ravenwing (RW) and company marines and tanks (Greenwing; GW). Most armies usually seem to be DW heavy with RW support, but this is of course up to the general.

 

Where are your main issues? In which phases do you feel confident, and where do you feel weak? Are there any armies which you particularly dread facing, or indeed, feel ok against?

[WatchCaptainAzrael]

Thanks for the replies so far.

 

I don't have a particular "wing" I'm fond of, but as I tend to play low points games, I have mixed feelings on the DW. I feel it puts all its eggs in one basket no matter how you build it, so to speak. On the other hand, fearless terminators is always fun to have. Haven't tried RW yet, and my GW attempts have been less than happy as well.

 

As for my main issues... It's a bit hard to pinpoint, right now it's "losing all the time" syndrome. At the moment, I play less than once a month. The friend I bought Assault on Black Reach with can be a torture to play with as he takes every game as if it was something his life depended or or whatever. On the other hand, my LGS' staff can be.. to put it politely, extremely disrespectful. So I stopped going there altogether.

 

And I've been busy with GMing Deathwatch for my friends instead of actually working on becoming a better general last month. ;)

 

So yeah, just assume I'm 1/10 in all areas. :/

[Azrael Turnbull]

Alright then, fellow battle brother.

 

Let's forget about the army lists for now; after all, it's always more rewarding to play with your own. Give us an example of the army list you use and what your battle plan with every unit is. Rather than tell you what you should and shouldn't bring (surprisingly, this doesn't win a game by itself), we will give you advice on how to adapt your strategy. I find most beginners struggle with the proper use of Tactical Marines, for example; and they have a lot of points to make up for.

[WatchCaptainAzrael]

The last list I've used in a 1000 point game was:

 

Belial TH/SS

 

2x Deathwing Squads w/ TH/SS, Missile Launcher

 

Dreadnough w/ Lascannon, CCW/Flamer

 

Land Raider Crusader

 

In restrospect, I'm not sure what I was trying to accomplish with this list. :(

 

 

 

Currently, I'm considering trying this Greenwing list:

 

Company Master w/ power weapon, meltabombs

 

10 Tac squad, Sarge w/ meltabombs

 

2x 10 Tac squad, 9xBoltguns, Lascannon, Razorback w/TLLC, Sarge w/meltabombs

 

2x Whirlinds

 

Was planning on popping transports and/or heavy stuff with lascannons and pinning down infantry with whirlwinds to soften up the enemy. Combat squadded tacs w/las with sit on objectives, bolt tacs would contest them. Sarges and master have meltabombs to ensure just about every unit has anti-tank capacity.

[Brother Kovash]

As far as your DW list goes, using a Land Raider in a 1000 points list can be a big waste of points. I would suggest dropping it entirely and picking up another squad of terminators. Also, you should consider including an apothecary in whichever squad Belial joins to give feel no pain to the unit.

 

I don't play Greenwing much anymore, so I can't really recommend too much except that you should include a power first for the sergeant in the first squad, as well as another special weapon in each squad. Meltaguns are always a popular choice.

[Azrael Turnbull]

Kudos to Brother Kovash for doing exactly what I said we wouldn't do. xD

Land Raiders in small armies has always been controversial subject, but there are valid points on both sides.

 

To be honest, your Deathwing list is already quite a strong one; I would certainly fear it in a 1'000pt game. Where do you find it generally goes wrong? What does your friend usually field against it?

 

Be sure to let us know how the Greenwing list goes for you. :)

[Brother Immolator]

Kudos to Brother Kovash for doing exactly what I said we wouldn't do. xD

Land Raiders in small armies has always been controversial subject, but there are valid points on both sides.

 

To be honest, your Deathwing list is already quite a strong one; I would certainly fear it in a 1'000pt game. Where do you find it generally goes wrong? What does your friend usually field against it?

 

Be sure to let us know how the Greenwing list goes for you. :P

 

To be honest in a thousand point game i would not deploy terminators/land raiders.

There is too much small arms fire compared to small terminator numbers and a couple of strong weapons to take them out piece meal.

After all two tactical squads rapid firing can take out a couple of terms.

[Azrael Turnbull]

Like I said, Brother Immolator, using Land Raiders in small point games is a contraversial subject. There are 'good' players who are for and 'good' players who are against. It is not a subject I want to get into a heated discussion about. B)

 

We need to help our battle brother improve his gaming; not by advising him what he should use, but by advising him how he should use it. Something a great deal more important, in my opinion.

[Grand Master Raziel]

I have to admit, I'm also going to do what Azrael Turnbull said we wouldn't do. Giving advice on lists is way easier than giving tactical advice. Tactics are extremely situational - what's advantageous in one instance won't be so much in another. If you tell us what opponents you're having the most trouble with, we can try and shore up your ability to deal with them.

 

Anyhow, WCA, your DW list was pretty solid, so I'm just going to comment on your Greenwing list.

 

Company Master w/ power weapon, meltabombs

 

10 Tac squad, Sarge w/ meltabombs

 

2x 10 Tac squad, 9xBoltguns, Lascannon, Razorback w/TLLC, Sarge w/meltabombs

 

2x Whirlinds

 

Was planning on popping transports and/or heavy stuff with lascannons and pinning down infantry with whirlwinds to soften up the enemy. Combat squadded tacs w/las with sit on objectives, bolt tacs would contest them. Sarges and master have meltabombs to ensure just about every unit has anti-tank capacity.

 

The big hole in your strategy is relying on pinning to work. Most of the time it won't, making the Whirlwinds a marginal choice. Dakka Preds are only 10pts more expensive, and I think you'll get better results across the board with them than with Whirlys.

 

You're a little heavy on the meltabombs, too. I'd strip those off, and instead give meltaguns to a couple of your Tac Squads. I think you'll find the meltaguns a lot more useful overall.

 

You could save some points by fielding a Chaplain instead of a Captain - you don't have to pay for a power weapon that way.

 

Here's an idea: instead of taking that 10-man Tac Squad, take an 8-man Company Veterans squad. Link the Chaplain I suggested to this squad. You can still run them with bolters. You won't be losing much firepower, but gaining a whole bunch of attacks in close combat - with rerolls of misses when you charge. You gain a whole bunch of versatility that way.

 

One more thought: you might consider downgrading your Tac Squads' lascannons to missile launchers. It's a judgement call, but you gain a little duality that way, and you save a few more points - enough for a 9th Company Vet, or maybe enough to give a PF to one of the CVs.

 

To be honest in a thousand point game i would not deploy terminators/land raiders.

There is too much small arms fire compared to small terminator numbers and a couple of strong weapons to take them out piece meal.

After all two tactical squads rapid firing can take out a couple of terms.

 

You can mitigate this with a Termie Apothecary.

[Netfreakk]

In my experience it really depends on who you are facing and how consistent you are facing your opponent.

 

If you're playing the same person repeatedly with the same list and they're "customizing" their list to take you out, your deathwing will face issues. Your Greenwing is more flexible in it's tactics so I think you'll be able to make it work better against the hypothetical opponent.

 

If you're playing random people with random lists then you'll do alright with either lists.

 

Tactics wise. I found that majority of the time you can't be too timid with your forces. You're rhinos/razorbacks will be popped pretty quickly due to their low armor value so you'll sometimes have to sacrifice a shot to make your full movement. Other "small tricks" would be to hide one razorback behind the other in a perpendicular formation to block Line of sight (LOS) and pop smoke with the front vehicle and next turn do the same with the other vehicle in front. Other "small tricks" is if your opponent has split his army into two groups on two halves of the board, to use your vehicles to block LOS from one half of the board, unload and to rapid fire against isolated groups.

 

But these small tricks won't win you the game unless you have an overall strategy that you are trying to accomplish.

 

I think the most basic thing to remember when starting out is this: It is always better to over kill a unit than to try to calculate the odds and not destroy a unit and have that unit waste another one of your turns / harass you forcing your attention back to it later.

 

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Another thing I would like to say is to not get discouraged. This game has been around for a long time and people who has more experience will have an edge. You're main focus should be to have fun. I'm a super competitive person so I understand the frustration for not winning. If your finding it being super frustrating I would recommend you just talk to your friend and ask him what he would do in your situation at certain points in the game or to write each other's lists, or to do a two vs two at a FLGS so you'll be working together and have fun strategizing with eachother against a "common enemy".

 

Once you've got a good grip on your army and their capabilities and figured out the "small tricks" that you can use to your advantage you'll find that you'll be able to compete with your friend and have a much more fun time.

 

I do agree with Turnbull as well that at this point lists won't matter until you get the fundementals down as well as understanding the limitations of each unit and opposing unit.

[Brother Kovash]

Sorry about that Turnbull, I couldn't resist. I find that talking about tactics can sometimes be too situational for others to understand, since you can't see them in action. We can always compare lists and analysis them ad nauseum, because army lists are easier to comprehend since we all have the book available.

 

That being said, I'll try an experiment tomorrow when I go gaming. I'm going to see if I can get a few 1000 point games in with WCA's exact Deathwing list and report back what I can. Hopefully I can get to play against a couple of different armies to get a good idea of some tactics to use. The only change I might make is use a regular Land Raider and have Belial's "Command Squad" deep strike in.

 

 

Edit: grammar.

[Brother Immolator]

Like I said, Brother Immolator, using Land Raiders in small point games is a contraversial subject. There are 'good' players who are for and 'good' players who are against. It is not a subject I want to get into a heated discussion about. :(

 

We need to help our battle brother improve his gaming; not by advising him what he should use, but by advising him how he should use it. Something a great deal more important, in my opinion.

 

 

Yes indeed but we should advice him that somethings are not good to be done.Lets say for the discussions sake using whirlwinds to strike terminator heavy armies.Or using bikes as CC troops primarily.This sort of thing.I didnt give him tactics or unit selections just a pointer.

 

What i dont agree if i am allowed to say so is brother Grandmaster Azriels suggestion which borders list tailoring:

Tactics are extremely situational - what's advantageous in one instance won't be so much in another. If you tell us what opponents you're having the most trouble with, we can try and shore up your ability to deal with them.

 

I dont believe list tailoring is the answer to a problem.Ill withdraw to the shadows for now,since we all barged in here and started shooting like 10 doctors above a patient.

 

As for the apothecary:Yes you can but if you play against the new sisters and they deploy rending heavy bolter squads you have the potential of eating 30-40 shots a round.

[Brother Immolator]

That being said, I'll try an experiment tomorrow when I go gaming. I'm going to see if I can get a few 1000 point games in with WCA's exact Deathwing list and report back what I can. Hopefully I can get to play against a couple of different armies to get a good idea of some tactics to use. The only change I might make is use a regular Land Raider and have Belial's "Command Squad" deep strike in.

 

That would be the best approach IMHO.

[Brother Kovash]

That being said, I'll try an experiment tomorrow when I go gaming. I'm going to see if I can get a few 1000 point games in with WCA's exact Deathwing list and report back what I can. Hopefully I can get to play against a couple of different armies to get a good idea of some tactics to use. The only change I might make is use a regular Land Raider and have Belial's "Command Squad" deep strike in.

 

That would be the best approach IMHO.

 

Yes, I'm hoping that experimenting with the list myself will yield the best results. I can always proxy my Land Raider as a Land Raider Crusader, but I like the idea of having one unit deep strike so I can counter-deploy against my opponents.

[WatchCaptainAzrael]

Lots of new answers, so much so I don't know where to start replying. :D

 

As I said before, I don't really have a FLGS around my area. Or rather I do, but the 'F' is as in 'FFFFFFFUUUUU-' and not 'friendly'. I'd rather not play with the people there at all. As for my friend... I hate losing, I hate getting into verbal fights for stupid reasons and I hate having my failures rubbed on my face. All of which happen during a game with him. Quite frankly, and allow me to vent a bit further, 40k tabletop has mostly given me grief on account of these starling personalities that are my city's playerbase. Hence, my turning to Vassal for online gaming. At least there I'm not too angry to think straight when I'm losing.

 

Personal issues with my fellow players aside...

 

Earlier today, while playing with my greenwing list, I was faced with one of my ugliest flaws as a general... My poor deployment skills. I have no tact whatsoever for the deployment phase. I can't seem to make the best of my strengths and end up maximizing my weaknesses. It only gets worse as the game drags on, as I tend to be uncreative in my movement phase and barely make the best of the terrain. If I'm not shooting at something, I feel as if that unit's being useless. As several of my units start up being useless, I keep them in a disadvantageous position and try to fire anyway. It's a recursive cycle of failure and inefficiency.

 

As for meltaguns, I'm not a fan of the special weapons. Two of them have less range than a bolter, and the other one has a chance of killing your own tac. Besides, what's the point of a meltagun? By the time I footslog my guys to one of their vehicles, they've probably had time to unload their template artillery shots of marine instagibbing and have some to spare. And let's not talk about stuff like the Avatar of Khaine with its invulnerability to melta fire.... So yeah, I prefer bolters. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I even took meltabombs...

 

So yeah, I wasn't lying when I said I needed help.

[Grand Master Raziel]

I dont believe list tailoring is the answer to a problem.Ill withdraw to the shadows for now,since we all barged in here and started shooting like 10 doctors above a patient.

 

Wasn't proposing to tell WCA how to list-tailor, as I'm sure he can probably figure that out for himself. I'm sure all of us have a few little nuggets of tactical wisdom we can share on defeating any given opponent with whatever you happen to be fielding.

 

As for meltaguns, I'm not a fan of the special weapons. Two of them have less range than a bolter, and the other one has a chance of killing your own tac. Besides, what's the point of a meltagun? By the time I footslog my guys to one of their vehicles, they've probably had time to unload their template artillery shots of marine instagibbing and have some to spare. And let's not talk about stuff like the Avatar of Khaine with its invulnerability to melta fire.... So yeah, I prefer bolters. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I even took meltabombs...

 

Well, for starters, you shouldn't be footslogging your Tacs anywhere. They've got transports to get them inside the firing radius of those short-ranged special weapons. The meltagun, for instance, may only have a 12" range for a footslogging unit, but it's got an 18" range inside a Rhino firing out the top hatch (move 6", fire 12" out of the firing point) and a 26" range if you're willing to disembark the squad (move 12", disembark up to 2" away from an access point, fire 12". Suddenly, that "short range" meltagun has quite a threat radius. Ditto flamers. Useless for footsloggers, but potentially quite effective for a unit riding in a track.

 

So, you have to try and shake the idea that a unit that isn't hurting an opposing unit is being useless in that turn. For one thing, it's projecting a threat radius your opponent has to take into account when he plans his movement phase. The movement phase is probably the most important part of your turn. You use the movement phase to set up later turns of effective shooting and assault. In large part, you win this game by achieving localized supremacy over your opponent - basically by "ganging up" on selected enemy units with overwhelming force while limiting his ability to do the same thing to you. Localized supremacy may be achieved by hitting an opposing unit with one uber-unit, or by piling on the offensive capabilities of multiple units as needed. You're going to do that by outmaneuvering your opponent, so you're going to have turns where your units aren't shooting or assaulting, just moving. You're better off spending a whole turn just moving so you can set up a subsequent turn of really effective shooting than you are standing still or moving slowly in order to have multiple turns of poor shooting. Often, I won't have all that much shooting for the first couple turns of the game, because I'm moving units into position.

 

So, why the meltagun? Because melta weapons are really the only weapons which reliably kill vehicles in this edition. Lascannons, MLs, and such can reliably suppress them, but even quite modest vehicles can potentially soak up a lot of damage in this edition. Meltas, however, have a pretty good chance of popping open virtually anything. You have to kill transports to get at what's inside, and you have to kill support tanks to keep them from killing your stuff, or to score Kill Points. They also reliably wound monstrous creatures, ignore all armor saves in the game, and will instakill up to T4 models. Against this, they are ineffective against the Avatar of Khaine and the Necron Monolith. Meltas are too effective against everything else to discard just because a pair of units have goofy special rules against meltaguns.

[Brother Immolator]

Wasn't proposing to tell WCA how to list-tailor, as I'm sure he can probably figure that out for himself. I'm sure all of us have a few little nuggets of tactical wisdom we can share on defeating any given opponent with whatever you happen to be fielding.

 

Glad to hear it.I am always happy to find people sharing this opinion since IMHO it makes the game better.

[WatchCaptainAzrael]

Well, I'd have further input for this thread if the person I'm playing a game with had decided to continue today. As that's not the case, more questions. :huh:

 

What are the virtues of splitting tacs into combat squads and using razorbacks for transporting the melta-bearing squad, and how does it compare to the humbler rhino? I imagine that it's better to take a TLHB razor if I'm using it to transport meltas?

 

Still waiting on Brother Kovash's input on how badly my list embarrassed him. :D

[Grand Master Raziel]

What are the virtues of splitting tacs into combat squads and using razorbacks for transporting the melta-bearing squad, and how does it compare to the humbler rhino? I imagine that it's better to take a TLHB razor if I'm using it to transport meltas?

 

The upside is you get 2 heavy weapons in 1 Troops slot. The downsides are the increased cost, the loss of the firing point, and not being able to transport the whole squad should you want to keep it as one unit. It's a judgement call, but I will say that usually I opt for the Rhino.

 

That said, in this area we have one minor advantage over the later dexes - we can take a special weapon in a 5-man Tac Squad. This lets you have the meltagun and the Razorback both w/o needing to leave a 5-man squad sitting around somewhere because they won't fit in the track.

[Brother Kovash]

Well I hate to admit it, but the list did very poorly. I played against my friend Charlie who plays nids, and right from the start I knew I was going to be in trouble. He played with:

 

Swarmlord (HQ)

Warrior Prime (HQ) with lash whip, bonesword, scything talons

 

16 Genestealers with scything talons, rending claws, toxin sacs, adrenal glands

12 Termagaunts with devourers, toxin sacs, adrenal glands

2 Hive Guard

 

He deployed his prime with the genestealers, and he used his termagaunts to surround his swarmlord.

 

Because of the small points battle we played on a 4x4 foot board.

 

I had first turn, deep struck one squad with Belial, which landed within 2 inches of his Hive Guard. Shooting phase I opened fire with the Land Raider and the Dreadnought, and I either failed to wound or he made his cover saves on everything. I only killed one genestealer with the CML, due to scattering and armor saves.

 

On his first turn he ran with everything. I had expected him to use his genestealers against the squad that deep struck, but he ran straight forward after my dreadnought. He then moved the termagaunts towards my HQ squad, and during his shooting phase managed a few wounds but I saved them all.

 

On my second turn I disembarked the squad inside the Land Raider and moved them forward to prepare to assault. Shooting phase I did much better, taking out 7 of his genestealers. I then assaulted the Hive Guard and wiped them out, but against the genestealers it was another story. He wiped me out completely before I could strike back. The genestealers managed 7-8 rending wounds, and his prime managed 2-3 more. Along with all of the regular wounds, there was too much to spread around.

 

On his second turn he moved the gaunts forward and shot everything at the HQ squad. He rolled a lot of wounds, and I failed 3 of them. Assault phase he charged with everything. The genestealers wrecked the dreadnought with their rending claws, and the HQ squad took too many wounds to survive. I conceded at that point, since all I had left was my HQ and the Land Raider.

 

These results are not the best because I only played once against a horde army. I think that using a Land Raider Crusader might have helped thin out his horde before the assault phase, but you can't count on it. If one squad had been equipped with storm bolters it would have helped big time.

 

The best advice I can give is to mix your squads up with their weapons. At this point level you're not going to face too many AP1 or AP2 weapons, so you might only need 1 TH/SS per squad. The CML are fine, nothing wrong with them. I'm not sure how much heavy armor you play against, but dropping the lascannon from the dreadnought might be a good idea as well.

 

I'm going to play again today, so I'll do my best to get some more games played. When I first got to the store on Saturday I got pulled into a 2v2 4000 point battle, so that took a few hours to complete. Best of luck to you, and stay tuned for more reports!

[WatchCaptainAzrael]

Eh, sorry about handing you a recipe for defeat, Brother Kovash. Hope my noob list performs better in the next games.

 

As for the heavy armor, pretty much everyone I've played against have some form of vehicle spam, hence my fixation with lascannons.

[Grand Master Belial]

I'm not an avid gamer but one thing I can comment on is the high level of negative remarks in your posts. Going into a game expecting to fail usually guarantees failure. You acknowledged some weaknesses and it looks like you are on the cusp of making some changes in thinking regarding move or fire. Meltas might help against the vehicle spam in place of lascannons. But the first thing is to go into a game with a positive attitude and feel confident in your list. If not, change it until you do feel confident. If you still end up on the wrong side of the dice, take heart in what victories you DID accomplish.

 

One suggestion I can make is try some Arenas of Death on your own. Pit your squad (modified or not) against some known quantity (Rhino with Tac Squad). These little mini games that you can do on your own help you to see how different weapons work on the table top. The threat circles mentioned above would be good here to practice. AoD's can be strangely entertaining in their own way and they can help you build up a bit of a Mathhammer background through practical experience instead of crunching numbers. Brother Kovash is doing it now with your whole army but you can do it with parts and you get away with a number of proxies/counts as something else until you are comfortable with your results.

[WatchCaptainAzrael]

Well, I'm a pessimist. If I do things expecting the worst, then I'm rarely surprised when everything goes under. Might seem a bad way to live, but it suits my needs and life situation just fine. Didn't help I was in a foul mood when I wrote that one long post.. Also, I'm actually seeing slight improvements overall in my playstyle, just not enough to ensure victory. Obviously, I still have a lot of rough edges in need of polish.

 

But tell me.. what are these Arenas of Death you speak of?