Deathwing for a DA Noob

[Balthamal]

Greetings fellow sons of the I Legion.

 

After 15 years of devoting time to Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Chaos and recently my own chapter of vanilla marines, the advent of Dark Vengeance has whetted my appetite for some slightly more sinister heroes.

 

I currently have in my possession the contents of the Dark Vengeance Ltd Ed plus a few spare bikes which I'm going to be using as part of an escalation league just after Xmas. I'm planning on adding to my collection:

 

A Ravenwing battleforce

A Storm Eagle

A Predator Executioner

A Mortis Contemptor

 

Ideally I want to utilise a full Terminator army since I just love the models. However I'm a little bit wary of rushing out and buying several boxes of them without seeing when the new Deathwing boxed set rumoured to be heading our way comes out.

 

My questions are thus:

 

1) Is a pure Deathwing army viable under the current rules

 

2) Would the models listed above provide competitive advantages to the contents of DV

 

3) Do DA have fluffy allies anymore? Or are we still the great loners of the Imperium

 

 

Any help would be gratefully accepted

[AngelVeto]

1) yes, you'll sadly not have any fast attack, and your heavy support will be limited to land raiders (for a fluffy list) but I circumvent that by also fielding ravenwing bikers. As fluff wise they do work in tandem when it comes to Huntin the fallen, plus having teleport homers 24" up the battlefield before the game even starts is always nice for deathwing assault.

 

2) I wouldn't be able to comment as I don't use anything besides the bikes from DV that I have converted some to attack bikes but they do work nice.

 

3) I'm not sure

[elphilo]

1) Is a pure Deathwing army viable under the current rules

Yes, supposedly it is the only one viable for tournaments. I don't agree with my previous statement 100%, but I do feel that the Deathwing is a strong list.

 

2) Would the models listed above provide competitive advantages to the contents of DV

 

The Ravenwing Battleforce is always a nice addition to a DA army. Unfortunately our Ravenwing is a little overpriced, hopefully that will change with our new codex which is supposed to come out in the next few months. Don't hold your breath though :down:

 

I would think the Storm Eagle would be awesome in a Deathwing army, I don't' have the rules in front of me, but a flying transport is always good in my book :devil:

 

I haven't played with the Predator or the Contemptor, so I can't comment on that

 

3) Do DA have fluffy allies anymore? Or are we still the great loners of the Imperium

I honestly don't know what would be considered fluffy. But as The Shadow Guard points out:

 

4) What, if any, Chapters - outside of the ranks of the other Unforgiven - would the Dark Angels be least uncomfortable working alongside? Are there any that might be less inquisitive than others? You know, about the whole "They look like you guys, but with Chaos bits on them" issue?

According to the new FW Heresy era book "Betrayal" the Salamanders are identified as being closest to the Dark Angels.. thogugh I find no previous backgorund to suport this. Also, based on old fluff, the DA and SW campaigned together for a long period, hence the rivalry..which may also make them more likely to work together.

 

Hope this helps!

[EPK]

1 can go as above mentioned, but people do or have played full DW - it would require dreads for heavy support which could still fall under the 1st co. umbrella.

 

My answers to 2:

 

A Ravenwing battleforce - Great addition. Land speeder Typhoons are a nice supplement to a DW force and you get more bikes which you find useful in the next codex I assume - though they are still okay now. I like to run LS Typhoons in pairs.

 

I haven't personally used them any FW rules/models, but I will try to give some feedback nonetheless...

 

The Mortis is the one I know for sure as being a good support option to DW - I haven't personally used them, but you will see them featured in army lists on the site - having skyfire from them eliminates the need for a defense line gun emplacement or even allies.

 

I'm not so sure about the Storm Eagle, a pricey AV12 unit to throw some pricy Terminators into. But, it is a flyer, and the DA currently lack one.

 

Speaking of Predators in general, I can say they are a nice AT support unit for DW, typically the Autocannon w/LC sponsons set up. That said, like Landspeeders, they are best run in pairs or more.

 

I should add that you will want to run Belial to make your terminator troops. Be that in a DW heavy or pure DW build.

 

And for 3, I'd say it would be fluffy enough for them to ally to IG as a PDF-type force (per Purging of Kaddilus). I'm sure a case could be made for C:SM as well, but yes, they are still typically loners. For instance during the 13th Black Crusade, it is noted here, that "The Relictors and Dark Angels chapters were forced to leave the main war effort and fight off several Kabals of Dark Eldar in response." However, it should be noted that just because the DA are working towards the same goal with an ally - it doesn't necessarily mean they are working side by side with them. It's a good assumption that they would have limited contact with their ally, if any, in some cases.

 

You should take a look at some builds here. And get an idea of how to expand. I know the expanding off the DV box has come up before and I don't think you need to go all fancy with all that FW stuff if you want to save some money.

[Harleqvin]

DW is good as a competitive army. As stated above a lot of people feel it's the only viable DA army list that stands a chance. All those are good for now seeing how you don't have a Belial model(currently they don't make one. You will have to make you own.) Eventually get a few more DW (Terminators of any sort. CML is lauded pretty well right now for it's price and it's a 2 shot Missile launcher krak or frag. TH/SS will help and a couple of LightClaws wouldn't hurt too much) and you will be fine, no matter what really if you are wanting to do DW when the new codex comes out. I am a fervent supporter of magnets for weapon options on anything.

 

Yeah. Those are good to add for some more competitiveness. The StormEagle isn't useable in tourneys usually. Same for the Contemptor. As most places don't consider them official GW even though they are made by GW just in it's FW department... As counts as the contemptor is fine as a dreadnought at those places. I wish more places would allow FW stuff to be used in tournaments.

 

Currently fluff wise anything Imperium you will be fine with allying with, Except maybe Inquisition.... Rules wise anything not EVIL(chaos pretty much.) is ok as we can fight along side Orks..........

Although I love the old fluff that the DA wouldn't even help out IG if there were Ratlings or Ogryns because they weren't human enough for them. lqtm

[Balthamal]

Thanks for the feedback so far. After taking on board everything that's been noted up to this point I think Deathwing is a go. Will certainly include some Ravenwing in there too though, the battelforce is quite tasty.

 

As far as the forgeworld stuff goes, its simply a case of me liking the models themselves rather than worrying too much how effectively they'll perform as part of a competitive build. I've managed to get some mileage out of so called noncompetitive lists before (All jump Blood Angels anyone) against min/max spam so we'll see. But yeah the price on some of those things is on the wrong side of bleeding edge, especially the Storm Eagle. But hey, its a cool model and I like the fact it can be used as a pure gunboat, which is what I'll probably use it for rather than risk it dropping off terminators in plain sight.

[Zhent]

The Contemptor model is incredible, and I highly recommend getting one even if you plan on using it as a regular dreadnought. I would go as far as to say it may be the best FW model that I've ever purchased, between the quality of the cast and the poses you can get it into. And I've built 4 of them so far.

 

One other important note - the Mortis-pattern contemptor is a heavy support option, not an elite choice. A regular contemptor is an elite choice, so depending on how crazy you want to get you /could/ put up to 6 of them on the field at once. :)

[Balthamal]

Yeah I'm getting them all, just to own the models more than anything. I've become a massive fan of forgeworld so as soon as the release more HH legion stuff, for legions I'm actually interested in, then I might get stuck in there too. Hard part is deciding what to include since I already have a Land Raider Achilles.

[facmanpob]

If you want to run pure DW then you are going to need some more Terminators. If you currently have just the DV ones, then might I suggest picking up a box of Assault Termies, a box of tactical termies, and 5 Assault on Black Reach termies from ebay. The Black Reach termies are brilliant for customising, and you get enough different weapon options in the Assault terminator box that you can create a bespoke force of 20 terminators including your DV ones. :D