DC kamikaze unit, all your eggs in one basket

[Thargrim_Bloodwolf]

After looking at one of the Blood angel white dwarf issues and reading the battle report I thought that the use of death company in the army was fantastic since they just chopped through as much as possible and did it very quickly. The unit for me would be used as a sort of suicide force of shock troops that goes straight into the middle of the enemy lines in a storm raven and unleashes a 10 man squad of DC with a chaplain and a DC dreadnought with blood talons. Personally I would opt for this build:

Chaplain-100

10 DC- 240

p.fist, inferno pistol, bolters

DC dreadnought-125

talons

Stormraven-215

assault cannons, multimeltas, EA

 

What do you all think of this combo? I think it has potential but it would probably be a massive points sink which would leave you down on stuff to spend on the rest of the army.

[awfulawful]

That combination is hardly suicidal. Homicidal would be more accurate.

 

There's no reason to have bolters on a DC squad in a Raven as they can assault right out of the ramp. Also, if you want to shave some points off, take a few men out of the squad. Maybe add a power weapon (in addition to the fist) though.

[Sokhar]

Death Company are relentless, so they can double-tap the bolters before charging into combat. Seeing as they're already ridiculously killy in close combat, its not a terrible option. Particularly useful against stuff that can cut them down before they get a chance to swing, like halberd-Grey Knights or Death Cult Assassins.

 

Back to the original topic, yeah, its definitely a point sink. Its a scary unit, but one that costs a lot of points. More importantly, its a scary unit that is one "skimmer destroyed" result away from being stuck on the wrong part of the board, moving 6" per turn while being influenced by Rage. You can lessen this somewhat by keeping the Raven in reserve, but then you have a huge chunk of your army not doing anything for the first several turns. Also unless the enemy is within about 20" of your board edge when you come on from reserves, you STILL have the same issue of having to hope that your opponent can't shoot down the raven in one turn.

[nicolo]

If they rapid fire their bolters, doesn't that exclude the possiblity of them assaulting? Which then defeats the point of putting them in an expense assault vehicle just to shoot. If that is what you want put ten in a drop pod and fire away and next turn assault. You will save 170ish points.

Other than that I love death company dreads and use them in stormravens all the time, it is in my opinion the best dreadnought transport platform in the game. However I usually pair my death dred up with something else in the raven, and put my death company in a razor or rhino depending on how many I am fielding.

[Alkana]

Death Company are relentless

[Brother Captain Ritter]

Death Company are relentless

 

What he said. Death Company can rapid fire before an assault.

[Morollan]

I still think the Bolters are a bad move, other than on a Fist/Hammer guy. You're gambling on getting into assault straight from the Stormraven. Why would you then want to lose 10 WS5, S5, I 5 attacks that reroll misses and failed wounds for 10 BS 4, S4 shots?

[billga]

Two words: Nemisis Halbred

[Morollan]

Two words: Nemisis Halbred

 

Grey Knights are not the only opponents you will face. In any event, ten Bolter shots = 1.11 casualties vs MEQ. So shooting first will remove 1 GK, who probably won't be armed with a Halberd, leaving exactly the same number of people to attack you before you swing. Ten cc attacks = 2.31 casualties vs MEQ. So you're giving up 1.2 casualties to remove someone who is going to strike after you anyway.

[Claws of Corax]

I think some are missing the point that relentless allows a model to move and fire heavy and rapid fire weapons as iff they were stationary. Further are able to assault after doing so.

 

Rapid firing the bolters gives a chance of killing a few enemies before charging.. thus reducing the number of attacks suffered before your own attacks (when against a unit with Init higher than 5)

 

Claws

[BOBMAKENZIE]

Two words: Nemisis Halbred

 

Grey Knights are not the only opponents you will face. In any event, ten Bolter shots = 1.11 casualties vs MEQ. So shooting first will remove 1 GK, who probably won't be armed with a Halberd, leaving exactly the same number of people to attack you before you swing. Ten cc attacks = 2.31 casualties vs MEQ. So you're giving up 1.2 casualties to remove someone who is going to strike after you anyway.

 

How do you figure there will be enough halberds to be a threat but simultaneously make it out to be unlikely a halberd will have to be taking some saves?

[alejandrinus]

Why would you then want to lose 10 WS5, S5, I 5 attacks that reroll misses and failed wounds for 10 BS 4, S4 shots?

Indeed are 20 BS4 S4 shots rapidfiring with relentless then 30 WS5 S5 I5 attacks on the charge in case you dont get a hammer or a fist

[Morollan]

How do you figure there will be enough halberds to be a threat but simultaneously make it out to be unlikely a halberd will have to be taking some saves?

 

Erm..I don't. Not sure where you're getting that impression from to be honest. All I'm saying is that the GK player will remove a non-halberd model as a casualty from any shooting so the extra shot from the bolter doesn't actually reduce the amount of damage you take before you get to attack.

[Brother Captain Ritter]

I also view the bolters as a way of still making the unit threatening in case things don't go as planned and you get dumped off away from assault range. You can still shoot them in the butt with the bolters if they try to kite your Death Company around the board.

[Sokhar]

Two words: Nemisis Halbred

 

Grey Knights are not the only opponents you will face. In any event, ten Bolter shots = 1.11 casualties vs MEQ. So shooting first will remove 1 GK, who probably won't be armed with a Halberd, leaving exactly the same number of people to attack you before you swing. Ten cc attacks = 2.31 casualties vs MEQ. So you're giving up 1.2 casualties to remove someone who is going to strike after you anyway.

 

Great. Now run the numbers against Death Cult Assassins. Don't actually, as I'll do it for you. Using your arbitrary 10 shot formula, we end up with about 3 dead Death Cult Assassins from those 10 shots. Not bad. Moreover, crunching the numbers for those 3 DCA's (not counting any grenades or psychic power shennanigans, which is an unlikely assumption and skews things even more so in the blood angels' favor), you have 2.25 Death Company marines hacked down without a save by those 3 DCA's alone, and before the Death Company marines ever got to swing. Throw in Hammerhand, Rad Grenades or Psychotroke Grenades and the blood angels losses spike a lot higher.

 

The real point with this is that you're so focused on the mathhammer that you're missing the entire forest fixating on one tree. With 10 Death Company Marines plus a Chaplain, even with bolters on the models you're spitting out 30 WS 5, Str 5, I 5 attacks that re-roll to hit and wound, plus 4 power weapon attacks with the same. And we're not even bringing the dreadnought into the equation. How often does the opposing unit survive something like that? Do you really think that trading one attack that hits on 3's and wounds on 3's with an AP of - for one attack that hits on 3's and wounds on 4's with AP 5 and lets call it an "effective initiative of 11" is going to result in you losing combat? Probably not. You're still going to stomp face like nobody's business. So the bolters are a contingency investment. If you're facing a poor matchup, they help even the odds a bit by putting out some damage before charging in. If the Raven gets shot down, you can still move and shoot effectively. If there isn't a nearby target, you can still shoot. And the only thing you've lost in the process is 1 point of strength plus the re-rolls.

 

Anyway, its kind of wandered off the point. I've already discussed the limitations and liabilities of running a unit like this. This particular post just illustrates how people get so fixated on creating the most uber-killy, "optimized" unit possible, that they end up handicapping themselves and actually limiting the potential of their beatstick unit. Its about as dumb as what a tournament opponent ran against me, when he had a Sanguinary Guard squad where each member had an Infernus Pistol, a joined Sanguinary Priest had an Infernus Pistol, and Dante had his as well. Did that unit smoke a tank when it deepstruck in 3" away on turn 2? You're damn right. But would spreading the Infernus around or opting for a couple of power fists instead have both increased his damage potential and given him more flexibility? You bet your ass.

[AbusePuppy]

Erm..I don't. Not sure where you're getting that impression from to be honest. All I'm saying is that the GK player will remove a non-halberd model as a casualty from any shooting so the extra shot from the bolter doesn't actually reduce the amount of damage you take before you get to attack.

 

That isn't how casualties work anymore. You assign wounds then roll saves, so the GK player will not have a choice about which model to remove; more likely than not, he will have to pull a Halberd model because they will be predominant in the squad. (I am assuming you cause enough wounds that he will have to allocate to non-Psycannon models, since that's statistically likely with that many shots.)

 

I agree with you- Bolters aren't worth it- but your reasoning there is flawed. Shooting with Bolters against many armies will be a poor choice because it gives them the ability to pull casualties to put you out of range of a charge in many cases or (if they're SM) auto-fail their morale check and scoot away from you. The benefit of sometimes killing some extra dudes sorta is simply not worth giving up your focus for- what if you are stuck in combat for more than one turn? Pistols become vastly superior. What if you are charged? Pistols are better. What if the enemy has Stealth or a similar rule? Pistols are better. There are simply too many situations where Bolters' utility is compromised for me to ever want to take them.

 

They aren't atrocious, but they will pretty consistently be worse than BP+CCW.

[Morollan]

Two words: Nemisis Halbred

 

Grey Knights are not the only opponents you will face. In any event, ten Bolter shots = 1.11 casualties vs MEQ. So shooting first will remove 1 GK, who probably won't be armed with a Halberd, leaving exactly the same number of people to attack you before you swing. Ten cc attacks = 2.31 casualties vs MEQ. So you're giving up 1.2 casualties to remove someone who is going to strike after you anyway.

 

Great. Now run the numbers against Death Cult Assassins.

 

Why would I do that when I was commenting on Nemesis Force Halberds and on the fact that Grey Knights are not the only army you will face?

 

Using your arbitrary 10 shot formula

 

Funny, I wasn't aware that 10 models armed with bolters in rapid fire range firing 10 more shots than 10 models armed with bolt pistols was 'arbitrary'. I thought it was just maths that was directly related to the unit that the OP posted. My bad.

 

The real point with this is that you're so focused on the mathhammer that you're missing the entire forest fixating on one tree. With 10 Death Company Marines plus a Chaplain, even with bolters on the models you're spitting out 30 WS 5, Str 5, I 5 attacks that re-roll to hit and wound, plus 4 power weapon attacks with the same. And we're not even bringing the dreadnought into the equation. How often does the opposing unit survive something like that? Do you really think that trading one attack that hits on 3's and wounds on 3's with an AP of - for one attack that hits on 3's and wounds on 4's with AP 5 and lets call it an "effective initiative of 11" is going to result in you losing combat? Probably not. You're still going to stomp face like nobody's business. So the bolters are a contingency investment. If you're facing a poor matchup, they help even the odds a bit by putting out some damage before charging in. If the Raven gets shot down, you can still move and shoot effectively. If there isn't a nearby target, you can still shoot. And the only thing you've lost in the process is 1 point of strength plus the re-rolls.

 

The rest of your post is fair enough I suppose but I prefer to arm my DC for close combat because that's what they're there for and what they're best at. I don't need them to shoot and frankly 10 shots at 12-24" range per turn is really neither here nor there. If they're stuck in a position where their bolters are their main contribution then something's already gone very wrong.

[Brother Captain Ritter]

The rest of your post is fair enough I suppose but I prefer to arm my DC for close combat because that's what they're there for and what they're best at. I don't need them to shoot and frankly 10 shots at 12-24" range per turn is really neither here nor there. If they're stuck in a position where their bolters are their main contribution then something's already gone very wrong.

 

and without the bolters it's going to be even wronger. Some people prefer to make small sacrifices for versatility. Scary units like DC get a lot of attention and your opponent will not likely allow them to be put into a situation where they can easily assault. In the likely case that things do go wrong as you said, the bolters allow the DC to "stay in the game" instead of just being a point sink that chases a skimmer around the board. Bolters can knock out most skimmers, bikes, or anything else that would try to kite a death company and take them out of the fight.

 

Assuming things do go right, losing an extra attack in CC isn't going to really make that much a difference anyways, especially with a chaplain in the unit.

[BOBMAKENZIE]

How do you figure there will be enough halberds to be a threat but simultaneously make it out to be unlikely a halberd will have to be taking some saves?

 

Erm..I don't. Not sure where you're getting that impression from to be honest. All I'm saying is that the GK player will remove a non-halberd model as a casualty from any shooting so the extra shot from the bolter doesn't actually reduce the amount of damage you take before you get to attack.

 

I get the idea of what you're saying they will try and maximize the wounds against non Halberd things but Wound Allocation sort of stops them from even trying when we're talking 10 wounds...