Recent game vs Deathwing Assault

[crucial]

Good day fellow traitors, how goes the Long War?

 

I just want to share my musings on a game i had last week against our enemies from the 1st Legion - the Dark Angels!!

 

Second game I'd had against them and i'd literally sat at work for a week before the game musing on set up/turn1/turn2 tactics in regards to their Deathwing assault special rules (which lets their entire reserve force of terminators deep strike on either turn 1 or 2 - dark angel players choice made in secret before set up).

 

I decided the best way to deal with this was to go for an all mechanized list (tanks + troops in rhinos etc) which would mitigate his deep strike shootyness to basically assault cannons + cyclone missile launchers.

 

The 1500pts list:

 

Prince

Mace, MoT, Wings, Power armour, Level 1 mastery (smite - gotta love BS5!)

 

10 CSM

MoK, Ubergrit, VotLW, 2 Plasmaguns

Rhino

Dozerblade, slicey-death blades

 

10 CSM

MoK, Ubergrit, VotLW, 2 Plasmaguns (A usual loadout. Rage and ubergrit give an impressive ammount of attacks on the charge which is what you need vs 2+ saves)

Rhino

Dozerblade, slicey-death blades (the tank shock D6 S5 thingy - wanted to give them a try.)

 

Mutilator

MoN (wanted to try him after some chaos list won a UK GT with a list with a single mutilator in... sounds sexy)

 

Helldrake (its a given in many lists but if i'm honest i'm yet to see it do anything apart from demoralise the opponent slapping flamer templates on whatever it wants..)

 

Predator

Twin-las & bolter sponsons (I thought weight of fire was better and cheaper than las sponsons - it let me give smite to the prince which was useful for when he arrived from reserve and couldn't charge)

 

Vindicator

Siege shield (favourite tank - S10 AP2 is useful for mind games - and deepstriking termies haha)

 

Forgefiend

 

The angels were 2 squads of deathwing terminators (one with belial for his no scatter), a land raider crusader with deathwing knights, a librarian, and a lonesome tactical squad. Hes new to the army so its not min-maxed as of yet. He is however an accomplished general with his armies.

 

The chaos list worked perfectly - My vindicator, predator & forgefiend (deployed in a line in that order) spent their first turn standing with their backsides against the table edge. The vindies side armour was against the left table edge while the forgefiends side AV12 protected the predators AV11. Both Rhinos moved forward, popped smokes & i hoped for Deathwing assault next turn.

 

I was right and this set up basically ensured shooty death for his terminators if they deployed in my face like they had done previously. He deployed them mid-field, knocked some rhinos open and waited for my turn 2 where everything moved forward, my helldrake & prince arrived from reserve and these poor terminator squads literally took 1500pts worth of shooting!

 

Job done. strategic set-up had negated the dangerous deathwing assault alpha strike crazyness for this game atleast. But this is when it got interesting...

 

Knowing victory was beyond him & being sickened by the amount of fire the daemon prince took (only suffering a single wound from a quad gun a lone dark angel commandeered took over) he charged shiny new deathwing knights (from a land raider), belial (last of his deathwing guys), some tactical marines and a single librarian straight into the daemon prince.

 

The librarian refused the challenge  the prince rolled a 2 for the mace and he proceeded to kill the marines & a single deathwing knight. Belial fluffed his attacks but the damn knight champion guy caused 2 wounds which brought the prince down to 1 with the 3 other knights yet to strike - not looking good..

 

They caused 4 wounds - i rolled a 5, a 6 and two 1's... which i rerolled into another 5 & a 6 !!! He somehow survived & the mace done its work (screw you knight champion) then next turn he rolled a respectable 4 extra attacks and wiped up everything!

 

It seemed pretty amazing at the time. crazy 5++ saves! The angels were tabled by turn 4 with only the rhinos and a handful of csm shot down! 

 

It brought up something which we couldn't sort out though - are wounds caused by the black mace cursed rule done using wound allocation or directly against who actually took the toughness tests?

 

Good game - I've been living in fear after seeing alpha striking deathwing assault knock out my heavies in one shooting phase & me having to rely on Khârn and his berserker squad to take care of everything...

 

P.S. The lone nurgle marked mutilator charged his vacant land raider crusader on turn 4 and chopped it up with his dual chainfists - even after the damn deathwing vehicle penetration reroll! For those who haven't, won't & outright refuse to use this little guy - i urge you to find 61pts from somewhere. It seems to me there will always be a use for this little guy in a game.

[derpasaurus]

Pray to whatever god you choose that he doesn't get into the bikes thing. Ravenwing homing beacons + deathwing = omggolly geebbqlolqqq
I beat them by castling up and waiting. limiting their access to my side armor much like you did. The Heldrake won't do much against termies other than force some easy wounds, but MAN does it tear up deathwing. Oh you get cover saves? How cute. 

[Slayer le Boucher]

Pray to whatever god you choose that he doesn't get into the bikes thing. Ravenwing homing beacons + deathwing = omggolly geebbqlolqqq

I beat them by castling up and waiting. limiting their access to my side armor much like you did. The Heldrake won't do much against termies other than force some easy wounds, but MAN does it tear up deathwing. Oh you get cover saves? How cute. 

2 Heldrakes with baleflamers=enjoyment for all!

 

Also tarpit the DW Knigths with 2 x 35 Cultists with a Dark Apostle, gives every one MoK and the Axe of BF to the Apostle, and watch the magic.

[minigun762]

If nothing else, kudos for you for coming back here to share your successful tactical analysis of the situation. Too often we talk about the units in a vacuum (or maybe it just seems that way).

 

I see you're a man after my own heart with your selection of 3 different heavy options. I'm building up to the same idea as yours, though I'm replacing the vindicator with obliterators.

[the jeske]

 

The vindies side armour was against the left table edge while the forgefiends side AV12

how did you turn ? as any turn would place parts of the vindicator outside the table which is illegal .

[nurglez]

Guessing within a few inches of the table edge, as opposed to right up against it.

[*Furyou Miko]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but MoT on the Daemon Prince means he can't have Smite as a level one. He has to take at least one power from the Tzeentch discipline. He'd have to be level 2 to have Smite.

[crucial]

If nothing else, kudos for you for coming back here to share your successful tactical analysis of the situation. Too often we talk about the units in a vacuum (or maybe it just seems that way).

 

I see you're a man after my own heart with your selection of 3 different heavy options. I'm building up to the same idea as yours, though I'm replacing the vindicator with obliterators.

 

I got abit carried away with the topic if i'm honest but i hadn't vented in a long while.

 

The 3 different heavy slots is because i've not got round to buying a second predator/vindicator yet.

 

What i find interesting is when i stick the 140pts 'cheap' all triple-las predator in a list the feeling i get is 'thats points well spent - the internet would be proud of that choice', however i'm honestly struggling to find uses out of it in the games i play. I'm not sure if its the rest of the list or the tactics employed.

 

The vindicator on the other hand ALWAYS (and i mean every time!) proves effective in games, at times throwing things in my favour early on. I'd read about the reputation it garners among regular opponents but am still surprised by this tanks effect on a game. Shield its sides with your almost redundant rhinos and watch it take the fire like its Horus incarnate!!

 

 

 

The vindies side armour was against the left table edge while the forgefiends side AV12

how did you turn ? as any turn would place parts of the vindicator outside the table which is illegal .

 

 

Guessing within a few inches of the table edge, as opposed to right up against it.

 

Yeah this was the case nurglez, just leaving the models side armour line of sight BRB rule out of enemy models.

 

Jeske what are your thoughts on the deathwing assault and how do you counter it?

 

Sorry to burst your bubble, but MoT on the Daemon Prince means he can't have Smite as a level one. He has to take at least one power from the Tzeentch discipline. He'd have to be level 2 to have Smite.

 

Aw crap it seemed to good to be true.. Tzeentch powers are lacking aswell imo..

[*Furyou Miko]

Doombolt is quite good, and BoC is too if he's ML2. IT's just the other half of the lore that's completely lacklustre.

[Iron_Within]

I just had my first game against the dark Angels; I have to say it was the most harrowing game I've ever had. 

 

Everything refused to work for me, I threw 8 plasma gun shots at his DW knights and hit once, which he saved ofc, three units unloading into them killed not jot. Though in the end I won, this was because of the two helldrakes I took and some last minute luck in burning his marines off the objective. It was was of those games I spent most of it with my head in my hands, the one where your opponents getting annoyed for you because he rolls three sixes for penetrating again and you cannot roll anything than the dreaded "2". His army was a mix of Greenwing, DW and RW, balanced. He took a jetfighter which did well with it's strafing runs.

 

I'm seriously starting to think however the helldrake is the most broken thing in 40k though. I won the game only with the Helldrakes. Though cultists are amazing, annoyingly blobs that won't get off objectives because they are such a low target priority.

[Excessus]

Haha, I faced a ravenwing allied with grey knights...it was a horrid experience and a total loss...

 

...but maybe I was more afraid of those darn psyker squads than I had to, though they are soooo unfair with only one of their guys looking up! :(

[Iron_Within]

Ha I think you and I failed our player moral checks.

[Warsmith Aznable]

I played 2000 points against a DA alpha strike list. I totally forgot about the Deathwing Assault thing, and was dismayed when Belial and ten Deathwing Terminators (2 AssCans and 8 TH/SS) landed right behind one of my Forgefiends. Amazingly enough they didn't manage to do anything but put a single glancing hit on it, so in the next turn my Dreadnoughts and Forgefiends (arranged to cover one another while forming a robot gun line) hosed them off the board. Without Belial and Co. the rest of his list was easy pickings.

 

Had those Deathwing been able to start assaulting things, however, it would have gone much differently. My opponent has discovered aggressive multi-charging, and in the next game strolled through half my allied player's list with Thunder Hammers a-swinging.

 

So the trick will be balancing a formation to prevent rear armour shots, against letting them spend the rest of the game hiding from shooting by assaulting things one after another. I'll probably have to start bubble-wrapping the rear AV with cheap cultists to prevent my machines from getting assaulted turn 2.

 

Thinking about it in this context (Deathwing Assault), the Ectofiend seems a lot more useful than I initially supposed it would be. I was using Hadesfiends, but they were paired with plasmacannon/missile launcher Dreadnoughts, with a Defiler theoretically anchoring the line. I say theoretically because I forgot to pack it, then I forgot it was in my list, so I ended up playing with a disadvantage in points. It's hardly a conventional set-up (I like my war-bots) but we could run any of those three things in pairs as backfield support that would be capable of by-passing 2+ armour, as well as Vindicators (which I also own a pair of.)

 

Just some rambling thoughts about dealing with Belial and Friends.

[derpasaurus]

The plasmafiend is AMAZING against them; just nukes them in droves when they land. That and my vindicator make my buddy think really carefully about where he wants to land. i always fill the rear armor holes on my list with huron and  my chosen, so if he lands behind the tanks its just as scary. 

 

On the same token, the hadesfiend is nice because it gets so many shots off, often he'll fail a save just from having to roll so many dice because of the easy wounds str 8 gets, and I don't have to worry about gets hot or scatter. I've found them to be about equally effective, the plasma scares him more tho because of the 3 area shots. Oh your DW Knights are t5? that's great I just hit them all and still wound on 2s :D (now if only I can hit with all 3 at once...)

[the jeske]

J eske what are your thoughts on the deathwing assault and how do you counter it?

most DA armies wont run more then 2 units of DW terminators , if he is playing a pure DW then he just lost to IG/SW or DA/IG or IG or SW. he also is unable to counter  necorn flyer builds . chaos problem is it has problems with +3inv terminators , if he is using different then they are dead from normal csm/pms[plasma] oblits[plasma] and the bikers+lord[melta+ax or CF depanding on nurgle/khorn set up of the lord]. as to how counter deathwing assault , it cant. If he is basing his army around it. we dont have quake and if we set up before him , he will chose goin in 1st/2ed depanding on the scenario[relic] , who goes first and what ally he or we use.

I must say am very suprised people advocating ecto fineds and specialy vindis . taking those means you have 0 actual flyer counters and the range on both of those is realy bad + vehicles in an edition where necron are viable will always be a huge gamble.

 

 

 

 

'thats points well spent - the internet would be proud of that choice'

it isnt . AC/las sponos preds x3 if you ever happen to use them .

[Iron_Within]

The main thing I'm struggling with 3++ terminators, the DW knights are simply ridiculous against us because it negates so many options (small arms fire struggles due to T5). I'm thinking of ways to try and counter it and I'm coming up empty really. Even firing your whole army at it they still have a potential to survive. Anyone got any suggestions on killing them?

[Vesper]

Ectofiend in their face. As Jeske pointed out, that lowers our anti-flyer options, but hey, the Dark Angels have flyers that you can ignore.

[*Furyou Miko]

^^; My only weapon against assault terminators is Doombolt, so I'm hosed.

[the jeske]

Ectofiend in their face. As Jeske pointed out, that lowers our anti-flyer options, but hey, the Dark Angels have flyers that you can ignore.

only this means tailoring . if both players do it , then the DA ends up with a IG/DA mix and wont run more then 1-2 termi squads[closer to 1 probably]

[derpasaurus]

I love how all my ideas are bad ideas but all my ideas work.
Metas vary, you know.

[the jeske]

nope . meta doesnt change . If flyer necron builds were dominant at the start of 6th they were so everywhere . some people may have played them better , some may have played them worse . plus there is also the random factor , unless you are expirianced the only way to be sure about a build is to play 100games against all builds played by people .

cirucus , nidzilla , IG gunlines , razorspams worked the same way around the world . people dont make meta[unless the whole local community picks units from a codex at random] , its the basic rules first and special codex rules second .

I also doubt if anyone is interested if something works in a local enviroment [be it yours or any other players] , what people are interested in is stuff that always works.

[crucial]

So are wounds caused by the black mace cursed rule done using wound allocation or directly against who actually took the toughness tests? I'm still confused by this one. Hopes its not wound allocation

Also it looks like my opponent completely forgot about the T5 if in base contact with 2 other models rule for deathknights.

We got a danger of this thread going into what i call 'Jeske waffle overload'

nope . meta doesnt change . If flyer necron builds were dominant at the start of 6th they were so everywhere . some people may have played them better , some may have played them worse . plus there is also the random factor , unless you are expirianced the only way to be sure about a build is to play 100games against all builds played by people .

cirucus , nidzilla , IG gunlines , razorspams worked the same way around the world . people dont make meta[unless the whole local community picks units from a codex at random] , its the basic rules first and special codex rules second .

I also doubt if anyone is interested if something works in a local enviroment [be it yours or any other players] , what people are interested in is stuff that always works.

Can i just say ever since i joined these forums over 5 years ago Jeske, you never change. You always come across rather blunt & downright rude at times when expressing your views on this game we all play.

The thing is not everyone is bothered about high-level play & the 'metagame'. Frankly if the game was as cut & dry as you make it sound - where people automatically lose because they used a forgefiend - or didn't take allied guard - then it would be terrible. Whats the point in options in a codex if 75% of them result in an autolose? - Thankfully this isn't the case, theres simply far too many variables.

Some metagame posts really suck the life outa the game for me when i read them but i know this crap is only about 1% of the overall hobby. Sad thing is if new players read some of this and are completely disheartened by the thought of a game with only 5 viable lists.

[derpasaurus]

My store has no necrons, and we all share a mutual hatred for the Necron Flying Circus. The most fliers in any list I've ever played against is 2. One of us has an Aegis Defense Line.
Yup. Metas are the same everywhere, alright.