Tournament Play with Dark Angels

[Balthamal]

Following my re-introduction to tournament play last weekend I thought I'd share some of my experiences and impressions from using Dark Angels. I'll state at the outset, that I consider myself a fluffy gamer, I build lists that I think would fit in with the lore and theme of a particular army. Being well aware that there was serious potential to run into min/max, spam and all sorts of WAAC shenanigans I made several concessions with the composition of the force, namely including a Land Raider Achilles and Hyperios Weapons Platforms for the Valk/Cron Air overkill (as it happens there were 3 lists built along those lines but I did not end up playing them).

 

My list was:

 

Belial

Terminator Librarian /w Divination

Deathwing squad /w assault cannon

Deathwing squad /w cyclone

Deathwing squad /w plasma cannon

Tactical squad x10 /w plasma gun/plasma cannon

Tactical squad x5

Scout squad x 5 /w sniper rifles/missile launcher

2 Hyperios ADP

Ravenwing attack squad 2 plasma guns /w 1 multimelta attack bike

Land Raider Achilles

 

Before going into the games I'll be 100% honest, I got annihilated. Finishing with a 0-1-4 record for my weekend's work (I'll be admitting myself to chamber 42 for penance at such a shoddy display of battlecraft), I was, to say the least, extremely disheartened, not so much for not managing to win a game but for the total absence of enjoyment for the majority of the time. I definitely don't play to crush everyone under my boot heels, I want to get something from my games. Now into the juicy parts.  

 

Game 1 vs Alpha Legion, led by Huron.

 

Sadly, this game proved to be the peak of my enjoyment of the weekend, although it has to be said it was a hell of a peak. From the off we ripped into each other killing right left and centre. Nothing was safe, and as we gradually got whittled down it became a contest of whether his forgefiend/ land raider could polish off my Achilles before it in turn broke the remaining squads in the army. I thought I'd pulled out a very hard fought win at turn 5 with a paltry 4 tactical marines and scouts left standing but luck abandoned me and my winning position at the close of turns 5 and 6 didn't hold out until the end of turn 7 and a draw was the result.

 

Thoughts: 8 Chosen running down the board with plasma guns hurt, as much as the deathwing thinned them out the sheer volume of shots and my total inability to make invulnerable saves (I made 2 all game) cost me the bodies I needed to close out the game. It was extremely enjoyable watching the Achilles dropping shell after shell into the tight mass of troops. Thundefire cannons are a loss to the legion.

 

Game 2 vs Salamanders /w Space Wolf Allies led by Vulkan.

 

Following the slight disappointment of not holding on for a win in game 1 (it was slight, I had far too much fun in the game to care about not winning such was the excitement) I was looking to continue the trend and hopefully pick up a win this time around. One look at my opponents list and that notion melted like ice in the oven. Everything was optimized for maximum turn 1 casualties (5 Drop pods) and the number of meltas/flamers defied belief. After losing the roll off to go first I wrote off any chance of winning and was proved right. Dropping 2 unit of combi-weaponed out sternguard plus grey hunters and rune priest around The Relic, and proceeded to lay waste to everything that happened to come near due to the re-rolls offered by vulkan who cleaned up with the rest of the army on turn 2. Somehow I managed to push on until the end of turn 4 before being wiped out by the massed bolter fire and blasts from 2 mortis contemptor dreadnaights

 

Thoughts: Was it a cheese list? Possibly. Was it competitive? Certainly. In fairness to my opponent he had obviously come to win and he was meticulous in chasing down the W. My advantage of opting for a turn 1 deathwing assault was completely blown out of the water by teleporting into a deluge of combi fire. In fairness on the turn they arrived they did inflict some casualties, wiping out the grey hunters and rune priest in addition to chalking off several members of the sternguard squads but the arrival of the other 2 tactical squads and vulkan the following phase decimated them through weight of fire and the game was effectively over. The one thing I didn't think of doing was deep striking the terminators in such a way that the drop pods couldn't deploy in the centre field blood bath.Chalk that one down to the learning curve.

 

Game 3 vs Chaos Space Marines led by Abaddon

 

The final game kicked off at around 4pm and I was a tad tired at this point (having been on the go since 7) but still optimistic about ending day 1 with an even record. Looking through my opponents army I wasn't over confident of winning but was hopeful that I could edge the close game it promised to be given the majority of his points were sunk into a land raider/ vindicator and 2 squads of obliterators. I won the roll off and decided to be aggressive from the start (being slightly more passive in the previous 2 games had hurt my chances and I was determined to take a stranglehold early). I left the ravewing in reserve intending to outflank them behind the vindicator and landraider and remove their threat.  With my turn 1 DWA set and my army at the very edge of my deployment zone in preparation for our capture our HQ mission I felt my luck could be in. Wrong. He promptly stole the initiative and removed the majority of my army from the board in 1 devastating round of shooting. I decided to try and rip the heart out of his army by teleporting my 3 deathwing units in behind his ADL to threaten his HQ point and remove his troops in 1 stroke. The following 5 minutes convinced me it wasn't my day and sucked any remaining enjoyment from the game. Out of the torrent of twin linked fire that found its way into the 2 tactical units only 2 died and I lost 1 terminator to the overheating plasma cannon. The remaining 3 turns consisted of my removing my models to his shooting and me setting a record for the number of ones rolled in a game (i'm pretty sure I have it outright after this disaster) summed up perfectly by the ravenwing outflanking to the wrong end of the board, the 2 plasma guns killing their wielders and me failing to penetrate a predator despite being within half range with a multimelta. With nothing left on the board at turn 4 I had suffered a crushing defeat.

 

Thoughts: Easily the worst game I can remember having. I have suffered sound beatings before (who hasn't) but this particular one drove me to a new low, mainly due to my complete inability to inflict any damage at all. I think in total he removed 4 models so I coudlnt't even console myself with the thought of at least taking some of his units down with me. Every single time I fashioned an opportunity to put a serious hurting on one of his units, the 1s appeared to torment me. It was so bad that at the end my opponent even apologized to me for the game. From a tactical side I should probably have reigned in the aggression but given I have seen initiative stolen once in around 35 games I put my faith in the stats and got spanked for it. It was also at this point that I regretted taking the 3 squads of terminators. Knights would have been a fantastic unit to have but given how my luck went in that game they'd have been as dead as the rest in double quick time. I also came to the conclusion during this game that I was not very good to play against. As much as it pains me to admit it, I probably took a lot of the enjoyment out of the game for my opponent by taking a lot of my ill luck with bad grace. Normally in games where the luck goes against me I tend to laugh it off with sarcasm but in this case it was far too acid and biting for the occasion  and this contributed to me being down overnight. Thankfully I managed to apologize the following day and he was gracious enough to accept it pointing out he'd had the same situation in his game 2.

 

 

I ended day 1 with a paltry total of 7 tournament points (the VPs from each game added to 3 for a W, D= 2 and L=1) having managed only 1 each for the loss in the second and third games. By the time I dragged myself home I was seriously considering skipping day 2, not as a "throw my toys out of the pram" but to avoid another 6 or so hours of getting whipped without any enjoyment from the games. In the end I decided to get my money's worth from the tournament, as well as convincing myself that with the draw system I'd be playing people who had a similar record to me after day one and that my luck couldn't possibly desert me as it had on the Saturday

 

Day 2

 

Game 4 vs Tyranids

 

After picking myself up and making my way to the venue I approached this game with something approaching optimism. Having a quick chat with my opponent I learned that he had lost his 3 games the day before having taken the sharp end of the stick with the draw (he had played 2 people in contention for overall winner) which i could empathize with and looking at his list I felt a lot better, no spam just tyranids he'd included because he liked the models. My kind of guy. The mission itself was a modified version of Big Guns Never tire, with each heavy support option providing a bonus victory point for being destroyed and an extra 2 if all of them were wiped from the table. There were also 5 objectives scattered around the board, that all had the potential to explode every turn that someone remained within 3 inches of them. 

 

Having managed to win a roll off, and keep the 1st turn for the first time all weekend I decided to play more tactically than the previous day, being careful to measure my distances and generally pay much more attention to the battle as a whole. My first problem were his heavy support choices. 2 Terrorfexs. Barring my librarian I had no way of putting the monsters down in a single turn and they were sure to spread death through my army. My second problem was the lack of terrain on the board, there were ruins on all 4 sides and a central hill but nothing else leaving plenty of open space for his swarming horde to bear down on me.

 

The game itself tended to see-saw for the majority of the time until the 4th turn his hive tyrant arrived with a unit of warriors. The deathwing squad and librarian plus the ravenwing squad failed to kill any in the shooting phase and both failed their charges leaving the ravenwing at the mercy of the wave of clawed death chasing them down. They were wiped in short order and the group ploughed on towards my unit of tactical marines.

 

By the end of turn 5 I was in a strong position, my Achilles had shrugged off everything thrown at it plus I had in my control 3 objectives to none, giving me a very comfortable 10-2 score.And it was then that everything went wrong.We rolled and went into turn 6 giving him the chance to snatch some points from me. Following a crushing assault on my tactical squad the hive tyrant contested their objective (somehow, somehow 3 marines managed to survive) and he managed to secure line breaker by running a broodlord into my deployment zone but I was still standing nicely on 7-4. Again the roll dictated the game continue and so we moved quickly through the last turn. His terroxfexs finally succeeded in taking down my Achilles netting him a very nice 3VPs, the hive tyrant chewed through the tactical squad and his turn managed an 18" charge into the deathwing claiming an objective. After the mountain of attacks from the tyrant and his 10 warriors I managed to make all 7 invulnerable saves (5+) but then undid all of that by failing 8 out of the other 15 regular saves removing my last chance of getting anything from the game and handing him another objective (his warlord trait made the tyrant scoring).I had 1 deathwing squad and belial contesting one objective but to hammer the final nail in my coffin my last remaining scout was killed by his exploding objective as the game ended seeing my 7-4 lead convert into a 9-0 loss.

 

Thoughts: Random game length eh? What can you do with it. Out of all my games over the 2 days this is the one I'm still unsure how I feel about. On the one hand I'm still seriously annoyed that I had played out the first 5 turns as well as I could have to set up a crushing win yet was forced into 2 further costly turns in almost a carbon copy of Game 1, the difference being instead of eeking out a draw my opponent on this occasion ended up with a shattering win. On the other hand given that he'd had pretty much the same rough deal as me on day one I kinda felt that even though I lost I was happier it was to someone who was coming off the back of a crappy day as well. I just wish he hadn't stolen my best chance of a win haha. Tactically I played it pretty much to perfection. His terrorfexes couldn't down my landraider and my shooting carved him apart except the 1 turn i needed it to come good and the dual-wing let me down. On the flip-side I had nothing that could deal with them apart from the odd multimelta and plasma gun dotted around the army. My snipers were too erratic only scoring a couple of wounds none of which rended leaving him to fall back on a 2 up save. Oh how useful sternguards would have been here.

 

Game 5 vs Dark Angels

 

After seeing what was likely to be my only win of the weekend snatched from me I approached my final game with total ambivalence. After finding out it was to be against a fellow dark angel player I made the effort to provide at the very least sporting opposition. The army itself was very nicely painted and I quite liked the composition of the list: a nice block of tactical squads with a land raider crusader and contemptor dreadnaught providing firepower and a unit of Deathwing Knights supplying punch.

 

The mission itself was a pure kill point affair and I managed to secure myself the first turn again. As it turned out this was something of a fail because once I saw the deployment of the opposition I kissed goodbye to a win or a draw. The entire army was blocked in behind an ADL standing waiting and daring me to come forward and try n get some points. Given the lack of virtually any long range weaponry in my army it was going to be up close bloody and above all, a beating. After a fairly quiet first turn (nothing was in range and LoS was broken up nicely across the board) I brought my DWA on turn 2 and attempted to get some early kills in. I bagged first blood by putting away a rhino and made some inroads into his tactical squads but failed to force them to break ( being perilously close to the table edge seeing them hot foot it off the board so early would have been a huge boost) and the consequences of that failure were about to become all too apparent. With the banner of devastation in the middle of the command squad 2 tactical squads a 10 man devastator squad and the crusade I think I ended up coping around 34 wounds. Needless to say my  squad of deathwing died painfully. The knights charged belial and opted to smite, killing him and a further 3 terminators for the loss of 1. The rest of the game was a case of a mountain of shooting followed by ineffectual return fire although in turn 5 i managed to score a few kill points by removing a rhino the devastators the knights and breaking 2 tactical squads. If the game ended then I might have suffered a narrow loss or possibly salvaged a draw. For the 3rd time however the extra turn was all too costly. The squads rallied and the rest of my army was carved apart in short order, completing a wipeout before the end of turn 6.

 

Thoughts. I didn't really expect anything from this game.The previous 4 had done a fine job of stoking my pessimism nicely and the lions share of the bad luck convinced me that nothing would be different this time around. What I was keen to see was how a greenwing army could be played. I have to say i was fairly impressed although I do take into account a kill point mission with terrain forming an effective box played firmly into his hands, especially with the banner ramping up the bolter fire to disgusting levels. Is it good? it's exceptional but requires careful use for optimal results

 

 

Overall I have to admit I didn't really enjoy the tournament. I'm honest enough to admit that this is partly because I didn't manage to win a game but I also knew going in that I would come up against a fairly decent caliber of opponent so losses were inevitable. I did get some enjoyment from the 2 days but the nature of my 2 losses on the Saturday pretty much took the wind out of my sails and left me on a downer for the Sunday. With hindsight, my army list was pretty useless, given how well all my opponents prepared for DWA, they ensured that when the boots hit the ground there was no one unit to be picked off but 4 that could soak up the fire and gun them down the following turn. Similarly the ravenwing also had huge bullseyes on themselves, as i was told post game, because the teleport homers are lethal and a double assault would be serious pain, hence they took priority. Overall the Achilles was fun. It just about made it's points back some games but the looks of fear and loathing it received were fun to see, especially in the games it shrugged off reams of fire. That said though a Mortis Contemptor would be a better choice given how effective they were in the games i played/saw

 

Would I attend another tournament? Yes I would. But with a vastly different list, that has been thoroughly play tested and hasn't got such glaring gaps in it to be exploited.

 

Well sorry for waffling on for so long. Hope it's been slightly informative if nothing else :)

[GlauG]

Ouch, sorry to hear you had such a bad time. :(  Nice to hear that your local Tourneys allow FW though, that must add a lot of variety!  I am tempted to say that you should have considered running some kind of banner-carrying Command Squad, possibly a DW one with Champion as well.  It wouldn't be cheap, but it might have added a little extra punch or fortitude that you might have been lacking, it looks like you had a very balanced list without anything to mark as a priority for the enemy besides the Achilles... The Deathwing Knights you suggested might also have worked.  Persevere though, Battle-Brother! :)  It seems like you have certainly learned from the experience.

[greendestiny]

Thanks for the write up.  I know it was a rough learning experience but it looks like you will be better off for it.

[march10k]

That's precisely what happens when you bring a fun list to a paid tournament. Most everyone else is thinking "pay $5, get $30 in prizes" or whatever...so you get crushed by cheese. I gave in to the dark side long ago...I NEVER bring any cheese to open gaming, and I bring nothing else to tournaments. I mean, thundernators backed by typhoons for the win! That's how I paid for the assault squads to complete my 5th company...the assault squads NEVER go to tournaments, but they're one of my favorite units (after my lascannon devastators) for pick-up games. For tourneys under the new book, I'll be bringing a (vennie) crusader-mounted full eight knights, a (vennie) crusader-mounted assault termie squad with belial, and two DWAing tactical termie squads...and naught besides, for 1850 points.  By going second and DWAing on turn 2, that literally lets me mass my full 1850 points inside a 12" circle anywhere on the board I want...plus, going second means deploying second, allowing me to plan where I want that "full weight of the deathwing" to fall AND avoid the most obvious enemy units designed to kill my land raiders.

[Balthamal]

Indeed. Certainly opened my eyes to the competitive nature of the game. Looking back I'd have only taken the 1 terminator squad and maybe bulked out the numbers, bulked out the second tactical squad, taken another squad of ravenwing and a mortis contemptor dread. Azreal would have been an option to beef out the scoring units. A command squad of some kind too. The one thing I would certainly take would be a devastator squad for some heavy hitting. The lack of that cost me dearly at the end of the day

[AngelVeto]

I feel your pain brother, my tournament last weekend saw me end with a 1-0-2 record, and my list was similarly fluffy.

 

Sammy in speeder

Ravenwing command squad with banner of devastation

2x 6 man ras w/ melta

2x mm ab

1x 5 man tac with plasma

7 dw knights

5 dw with ass cannon

Mortis dread TLLC

Nephilim with amb

 

I finished 15/18 because the one win I got, but first game was against shoota nids that saw all of my bikes wiped before I even got to go, and it was downhill from there. I lasted till turn 4

 

Next game saw me eke out a win against another nid player, but at the cost of most of my army (I had just enough bikes left to claim the two objectives)

 

Last game saw me against the leaning tower of beardyness that was fate weaver, 4 other FMC with flamers to taste. I think I made it to turn 5

[rover]

Don't worry mate, you will be fine. Enjoy the experience you gained. Your list just need few tweaks to be a bit more competitive and still have the fluff ;)

[thedeathguard]

I competed in a doubles tournament last weekend, and went 2-0-1, with greenwing

 

Here's my list

750

Librarian, pfg

Whirlwind, vindicator, rhino, Las plans razorback

10 Tactical plas, combiplas,ml

10 tactical fl, combifl, ml

 

I was impressed by my divination Libby with power field generator, possibly the best addition to this book.

Also the whirlwind was very good for its points...

 

I combat squadded my tactical every single time, the flamers were quite useless, plasma very good

 

I mostly advanced with a line consisting of rhino, rb, vindi inside the pfg bubble up to midfield grabbing objectives while my ww and ml armed combat squads aided by tau allies shot from afar.

 

The battle we lost I lost the power field early and my tau buddy could not pass a single ld test to save his life.

 

Lessons learned :

- don't leave home without a pfg and protect it

- maybe try smaller tactical squads

- more whirlwinds, everybody and their mother brought IG behind a ADL

- don't rely on foul xenos scum :-)

[facmanpob]

Yep, played 1750 last night against footslogging Chaos Marines with 2 big cultist squads. A deployment screw up saw my PFG Libby die in turn 1 which scuppered my plans and led to a narrow defeat. Man of the match were the Whirlwind and a squadron of 2 Typhoons.

 

Can't recommend the WW highly enough!

[march10k]

Good to hear that the WW is back in style...I love mine!  Even at 85 points, it was always welcome in my lists...and with the hair cut that it got...!!!

[elphilo]

I try to never leave home without the WW. It always makes up its points and with its price reduction, its a no brainer :)

[Izzuan]

I"ve been looking into running my WW again. Just been messing around with the new "toys" before I went back to the good stuff :)