Early reflections on pure Deathwing...

[Darkangeldentist]

The recent thread on pure Deathwing in the current meta spurred me into getting them out and putting a pure Deathwing list on the table a little while ago. Now, nearly half a dozen games in I'm happy with the list I'm using and feel confident to want to share my thoughts and conclusions about them. More games will hopefully see more material to write about but so far initial impressions have been good enough to continue with them.

Now before my most recent run of games with pure Deathwing I had been in a bit of an uncertain place regarding my Dark angels. I am happy with the codex and have been playing a number of different lists. My only criticism was my inability to field all the toys I wanted at once. Just from those lists I feel obligated to say that if you wish to punish your opponent and ensure their destruction, adding some Black knights or a ravenwing command squad will give you a much more potent and powerful list. A librarian, command squad and small unit of black knights will provide all the distraction and speedy mauling units you could ask for.

List:...

Currently I am thinking about attending a throne of skulls event which means I'm getting mostly 1500pt games and fielding the below list.

Belial (sword of silence and storm bolter)

Librarian (mastery level 1, force axe and storm bolter) auspex

5x Deathwing terminators with heavy flamer

5x Deathwing terminators with assault cannon

5x Deathwing terminators with assault cannon

Land raider

Land raider

I have also played the odd 1750pt game for which the following was added;

5x Deathwing knights

Melta bombs for the librarian and a couple of chainfists for the terminator squads

The list is enjoying a spell of good fortune, it's sneaked wins in all my games with it so far getting the better of Orks, Grey knights and Eldar. I've also had games where the librarian was on bike and a terminator squad was swapped out for a ravenwing command squad against Necrons. The most significant reason for my success must be attributed to my saves which for some of the games have been so ridiculously good I have felt guilty.

I am fielding basic land raiders for a couple of reasons, I know that others out there have fielded Deahtwing with crusaders and they are excellent tanks but the regular land raider provides (in my view) better anti-tank punch at long range and copes better against flyers due to fewer concerns over range. My squads are small enough to fit inside so I can choose to deathwing assault Belial, the heavy flamer unit and librarian if I wish and deliver a punishing first turn of fire or if I am going first and the target is right I can deploy the lirbarian with a unit and use the land raiders to limit the amount of fire that can be directed at them.

Strategy and Tactics:

The list follows a fairly simple strategy, Belial and his heavy flamer unit act as a suicide unit to attack one flank and maul as many models as possible with the heavy flamer. Ideally this causes plenty of damage and set up the rest of the army to then focus fire on either mopping up the survivors of that unit or directing fire at those units best placed to retaliate against Belial's unit. Land raiders make for pretty effective gun platforms when moving 6" a turn and the assault cannon units have respectable firepower that can be effectively focused and when used in this way it has caused respectably effective damage. I always roll for my divination power and so far have only defaulted to prescience in 2 games. Misfortune can outright win you games and perfect timing can similarly completely change the way a game will unfold. Precognition turns the librarian into a bullet catcher extraordinaire and pretty deadly in combat too. Foreboding and Forewarning I haven't rolled and along with scryer's gaze are probably powers I would be likely to swap for prescience. It's a real shame that I can't afford the extra level but he does a job in the list and does it very well. Just prescience along helps ensure that whatever terminator squad it's placed on will almost never miss a shot and will more than likely smash everything they get to swing at.

In most games the librarian has deployed and walked around the table with an assault cannon squad. This highlights one thing about my opponents and their lists. All of them have so far had fairly limited long range firepower. I know that this more than anything has been a huge factor in my ability to dictate the flow of my games but all of my opponents have been good players and known their own armies. Also it's worth mentioning that quite a lot of armies now rely on quite short to mid ranged firepower.

So Belial and co' drop in (generally the first turn) and roast whatever is most vulnerable to the heavy flamer and/or needs to be removed first. The rest of the army moves 6" closer to get all their guns into range and focus fire into reducing the retaliation from my opponent as much as possible. Ideally this splits my opponent's forces so that only a reduced portion can commit to dealing with Belial and his unit. The changes to charges mean that trying to flee from Belial is much harder, move and charge will average about 13" of threat with much greater potential and with another 2 squads of terminators and two land raiders in the other direction it forces some very stark decisions. Belial himself is quite difficult to remove and the sword of silence makes him a threat to anything with a toughness value and 3+ or worse save.

The alpha strike from this army is minor but significant enough to change the flow of the game so that my opponents have always been left struggling to regroup. The key has been always careful and fortunate placement of Belial's unit thanks to his precision deep strike since attacking a vulnerable flank from a position with limited direct lines of sight and range to increases the impact of the rest of the armies shooting as it tries to divide my opponent's army. The big advantage is that as alpha strikes go it is extremely reliable, land raiders are difficult to crack at long range and between night fight, cover and a little bit of luck with scenery it doesn't need first turn to ensure I've still got all my pieces alive and well to attack on my first turn.

Anecdotal tabletop experience....

Following are some of my games with this pure Deathwing list, rather than battle reports I'll try to keep things brief with notes to the significant moments in the games.

Two games against Wazzdakka bikers list, some 30 Ork bikers with two small units of deffkoptas and a dakka jet being the main features. Not nob bikers or warboss true but the guy has played that and likes this better, the points saved means he can chuck out truly horrific quantities of firepower and it's almost as dangerous trying to charge his units as it is trying to stay out of combat. Nonetheless my games both ended up in my favour, the first being won by first blood advantage due to the scenario being two flags and the game ending on turn 5. The second game saw the emperor's protection guiding my dice to an almost jaw dropping extent as not a single terminator fell to the combined firepower and charge of Wazzdakka and 15 bikers! (He rolled about average except for the powerklaws but it all just bounced off the terminator armour. ) The librarian rolling perfect timing for his power meant that one of my assault cannons reliably kept gunning down bikers.

Eldar game against Iyandan wraith army, my opponent rolled one of the best rune of battle powers 'jinx' and to be honest I think that power if downright evil. Improving your own unit's saves may be more reliable but reducing the enemies is downright horrible. Despite this however Belial's sword cut down over half a unit of wraith blades with ghost swords and the rest failed to hit enough to make an impact. My opponent deployed a little poorly as his wraith lords were unable to support his wraith guard with the threat of combat charges so that my early gamble with Belial was not nearly as dangerous as it could have been. The disastrous charge of his two wraith blade units saw both destroyed in a single round leaving his seers squaring up to Belial and a couple of terminators. He was also unlucky attacking the land raiders, a poor volley of shots from a unit of wraith guard and the wraithlords failed to make more than a hull point for damage and the gambit saw terminators disgorge to charge in and crush that unit as well. Even his crimson hunter let him down with only a crew shaken result on the damage table. Worse was to follow as the snap firing lascannon returned the favour with interest.

This next game was against Grey knights at 1750, my opponent went totally overboard with the skew on this list. Draigo and Coteaz lead a full unit of paladins with all the bells and whistles on. Two rifleman dreads, and a couple of grey knight units filled in the rest of the points but really it was all about that unit. My opponent made a couple of terrible miscalculations with his deployment. In completely hiding his dreadnoughts from my land raiders it meant Belial had a safe spot to deep strike behind one and gun it down with storm bolter and the heavy flamer. The game quickly came down to a simple long range bombardment as my land raiders unleashed salvoes of lascannon fire into the paladins who were holed up in a ruined building waiting for the rest of the grey knights to arrive from reserve. When they did the terminators got out of the land raiders and gunned them down. The reason my opponent made his mistake was remembering about the deathwing knight's smite round would more than likely see them gut his paladin unit and with the land raider to ferry them around I would likely get the charge. So he put them all in a ruin and waited for me. Except that I didn't have to and it took him too long to respond to that.

Another couple of games where I'd stuck the librarian on a bike and taken a ravenwing command squad have also given me some experience against Necrons. The list was 1750 and sported 12 wraiths led by 2 destroyer lords with war scythes and mind shackle scarabs, 3 annihilation barges with tesla weaponry and a pair of night scythes with large units of necrons warriors inside. This game was won by the ravenwing command squad as a first turn rad grenade and plasma volley followed by the rest of the army's firepower piled into a single wraith unit saw the quick demise of it and it's lord followed quickly by the second whilst the lascannons eventually brought down the barges. By the time the night scythes arrived the necrons were in a desperate situation needing to cripple the terminators with massed fire but my saves were good and the retaliation saw a whole unit deleted after it broke from the focused fire and assaulted by Belial. A night scythe was also brought down by the land raiders lascannons in the same turn.

Summary...

So I've not had that many games but the ones I've had have cemented a few convictions about Deathwing and in particular 'pure' lists that do not utilise aid from other sections of the chapter.

The first is that a pure Deathwing list is not the most powerful way to run a terminator heavy force. There are so many good value and extremely useful options to help deal with many of the threats that can cause grief to terminators. Without doubt (in my view) are Ravenwing black knights (or command squad) just for the plasma and grenade launcher let alone the speed, teleport homers and complimentary combat prowess. However just because something is not the most powerful way to field an army shouldn't put you off fielding it the way you want.

Second and probably the most influential aspect of fielding a Deathwing army is the admission that luck will always dictate your games. It is a game of dice but with such a low model count and so few units a few lucky rolls from your opponent or unlucky ones from you can drastically change the flow of a game. Which is why I recommend the following couple of things...

Land raiders: Doesn't really matter what kind now that multi-meltas are available to all as an upgrade, all of them can deal with enemy tanks if you want them too and each has its merits. Personally I prefer the regular land raider because it's as happy at long range as it is at short range. Being closer to the enemy helps when delivering terminators whilst being further away reduces the options many opponents have or dealing with the land raider. Crusaders have the greatest transport capacity and bring hefty infantry clearing firepower alongside a bit of tank busting. Redeemers are perhaps the most niche but I want to give one a try. In terms of up close and personal they have the greatest potential for clearing infantry as cover means nothing to them and the machine spirit rule makes up for the problems of getting both templates out. Really consider the deathwing vehicle upgrade, the preferred enemy bit is a gimmick most of the time but re-rolling a damage result does increase the chances of the tank surviving a penetrating hit. Which when you've spent so much on the tank in the first place is generally a good thing. It is by no means essential but virtue of land raiders general resistance to enemy fire means that when something can get a penetrating hit, it's a good thing if it doesn't kill it. Forcing the opponent to take each of those 4 hull points off a land raider sucks up rather a lot of resources and that keeps your terminators alive longer. Which at the end of the day is your first and greatest priority.

Squad organisation: Another thing that has become clear to me is that tactical terminators are almost certainly the best way to field Deathwing in a 'pure' list. A thunderhammer and stormshield still provides the best combination of combat punch and survivability but it's limited to combat only and without the luxury of different and more substantial ranged options I think the storm bolter has finally come into the light. Assault cannons are back to being my preferred heavy weapon most of the time. Split fire opens up the efficiency of fire for the unit and the assault cannon is a decent weapon against all targets. The cyclone is a good buy and arguably better since you can flit between frag and krak rounds to take down the right target, not to mention that you also get a storm bolter. The heavy flamer has always been a bit of a favourite but it's so situational that the only times you'll ever get to use it will be on arrival from deep strike (when it will be filthy) or jumping out of a land raider. You'll rarely get to fire it a second time since against a lot of foes it's too deadly to let stay on the table and it's forward position to make the most of it means that it'll also be one of the first models to go down.

Mission strategy: This last aspect is the most variable but revolves around the fact that most missions will be objective based and contesting those objectives is now harder than it used to be. Deathwing doesn't like to split up, neither does it like to fight on someone-elses terms so it's important to try and dictate where and how the battle will be fought. Clumping objectives closer together makes it easier to force control of the game to hinge around one location. You can influence how spaced objectives are quite a lot by applying a bit of thought to their placement. If the opponent deploys an objective first then deploy your first objective and any further ones as close as you can to that one. If you deploy the first objective then place it as close to the centre as possible. The opponent can only deploy so far away from that centre objective and your further one(s) can be placed closer to theirs. Regardless of how many objectives there are in total or who deploys the first one you can skew the deployment of them to push the area of the battle into the location where the majority of the objectives lie.

I'll be adding more to this thread as I get more games in and hopefully I'll be able to get games against some of the bogeymen forces that are floating around. (I need to find some local Tau players.)

[Barzyn]

Sounds like a good list but what would you add if you went up to 2,000 pts? another land raider or another squad of deathwing knights or another squad of terminators (if terminators how would you equip them?)

[march10k]

Very interesting reading, dentist! I definitely support your choice of mars over crusader, given the role that you've assigned your land raiders. My only concern is that the reduced number of shots in your list, combined with the first turn DWA of Belial's squad (exposing them to immediate retribution for the damage they'll do) seems like it would make it impossible to deal with large numbers of infantry. How would you handle a boyz-based ork list, or an IG list, or a "living carpet" nid list, and so on?

[Master Avoghai]

I totally second what you say concerning termis : in v6 I find hammernators less useful. 40k v6 is more a matter of saturation hence you're more likely to see your termis die under volleys of bolters than plasmas... So you'll use your 2+ anyway.

Added to that, hammernators used to save your termis against power weapons. Now most of them are AP3, it also makes bolternators more reliable.

[Gillyfish]

Very, very interesting, as ever Dentist. What I like about your list is the simplicity and the reliance on a number of core units. It doesn't necessarily need the headline stuff to do well and has quite a degree of flexibility about it. Do please let us know how the other games go.

[elphilo]

Its always good to hear about Deathwing wins

My only concern is, like in the previous thread, Tau and Daemons. Tau will have a lot of interceptors, usually on Ion accelerated Riptides, so Belial's squad is at a severe disadvantage then. Daemons won't really care about your shooting, since they all get invulnerable saves. And will either bog you down with MCs or khorne hounds, or maybe both! Eldar are still a concern as well, if your Eldar opponent had run Wraithguard instead of Wraithblades I think you would have had a different situation on your hands.

Regardless great wins and I hope you keep up your winning streak. Can't wait to hear more

[Darkangeldentist]

Well the next 250pts would probably spent on the mastery level two upgrade for the librarian, the lion's roar, either one or two deathwing vehicle upgrades to the land raiders and a venerable dreadnought with either assault cannon or plasma cannon. That's a little over the 250 so would have to drop a chainfist and probably the melta bombs but my main focus for 2000pts would be towards making my choices a little more survivable and adding a little extra flexibility. The extra power really makes a huge difference in my view.

 

 

Regarding how I try and deal with horde lists. It would require a change of tactics for Belial's drop, I might well go for a second turn drop in the hopes that my opponent would split their forces a bit so Belial and his unit would be less exposed to retaliation and probably better able to take out support elements. Tyranids have few and often rarely seen effective guns to take out land raiders, their best and most likely to be seen bet is getting into combat. So Belial and co will likely go for a turn two drop whilst the bulk of the army hides inside the raiders waiting to jump out and most effectively punish specific elements of the opponent's army. The librarian might go with Belial to help drop cover saves and so I can hide everything from their small arms fire. The focus will be on using the lascannons early to remove their key monsters. Synapse removal will be the highest priority. The land raiders can potentially drop a tyrant a turn. Which I will want to do. As I recommend against any Tyranid list, focus on splitting their army up so that it can't react effectively. If the land raiders and terminators remove a tervigon anchoring one flank and Belial deletes half a mob of gaunts it should cause enough havoc to destroy that flank. Between the lascannons, heavy bolters and assault cannons it's not so unlikely to happen either. Split fire means that the storm bolters can still be used against gaunts. So the plan will be to split the nid army and remove their synapse control so that the mobs of little critters can be forced to take morale checks and hopefully break to flee off the board. The lascannons make this plan possible although by no means reliable and will be dependent on terrain and my opponent's saves. Combat will be likely essential and Belial is great against their monstrous creatures so long as they aren't sitting on full wounds but even regular terminators are likely to drop them in a single round of combat.

 

Ork boys are a similar strategy, except that the units are easier to break once the initial mass of boys are culled a bit. The aim will be to take advantage of the land raiders to limit his lines of sight to my terminators and remove his transports and dreads/kans. Shootas (all varieties) are effective in the numbers the orks can bring to bear but with a couple of huge tanks to limit line of sight it should be possible to significantly reduce their chances to shoot my terminators meaning that the assault cannon squads can cull respectable numbers of boys a turn. (Assuming about average rolls, a 5 man unit could be killing 5-6 orks a turn. Times by two and add a pair of heavy bolters and nearly half of a full sized mob could be removed each turn.) Once the mobs reach a certain level they become much, much more susceptible to morale issues and combats can result in them fleeing. How my luck with armour saves go will be the defining feature of such a game. Still, Belial's heavy flamer deep strike, if well timed should see a painfully effective turn of shooting and leave the orks flat footed and unable to bring enough to bear against any one element. Ork nob bikers and warboss will be a problem but the auspex reduces their resilience significantly. Challenges really save the army as Belial and the librarian are solid choices to remove Ork nobs leading units or the warboss respectively. The librarian is an excellent assassin against a war boss, mostly down to his force weapon. Fortunately even a level one librarian can cast his power on his turn and then have a warp charge in the following turn to activate his force weapon. A librarian with precognition is a dastardly difficult guy to bring down.

 

Guard are a more of a challenge because they can field so many low AP weapons. Here the focus will be on removing threats to the land raiders and taking out their officers. Fortunately Guard tend to have more, smaller units to make up their hordes and depend on specific elements to solve particular problems. Depending on the number and size of the threats to my land raider Belial will drop in first or second turn to remove their command unit(s), the heavy flamer being an ideal weapon for this job and storm bolters being potentially enough to delete another or maul a unit with a bit of luck. Cover is unlikely from this particular threat due to my advantage for position. Retaliation will inevitably be painful but the key will be to divide and conquer, guard more than any other foe are vulnerable to the advantages given by split fire. Storm bolters alone can cull a significant number of guardsmen and a single assault cannon can remove a whole heavy weapons team. It also means that once close I can direct a single storm bolter at the unit I would like to assault and shoot the majority of fire at one further away. This means each terminator squad can potentially wipe out two squads of guardsmen a turn depending on squad sizes and how well combat resolves. The difficulty will become dependent on what kind (or how many) vultures and/or leman russ demolishers/executioners they bring. However those suck up points quickly and in the case of the vultures, devotes considerable resources to reserve. Which makes the potential for an early game advantage greater. Belial is more of a suicide unit in this match up than any other but his sacrifice is also probably the mostly likely to swing the game. I've also noticed that guard more than anyone seem to bring a defence line with them alongside a quad gun. Amusingly, if I can grab that weapon I can use it against his vultures when they arrive and nothing appeals to me more than the thought of my opponent's flyer being shot down by his own answer to flyers. I do know a good guard player who favours the massed ranks approach so will try to get a game or two against him soon. I will let you know how it goes.

 

 

Edit: thanks for the additional replies. On the ion accelerator riptides specifically I am not quite as upset as I initially thought. If they do use the main gun to try and take out my deep strikers then it will be at BS 3, no marker lights and a 2/3rd's chance to scatter into their own units if they go for the big blast. (Hardly something a Tau commander would advise.) Now because Belial's unit will almost always come down right next to at least one enemy unit that makes such a response almost as much a gamble for them as it does me. In addition there is the bonus that their main gun won't be able to shoot in his turn. Essentially removing it as a concern from my list of worries from marker light boosted silliness. To minimise the damage even on a direct and ideal hit I can position the heavy flamer further away, even to the point of risking Belial and even assuming he makes all successful wounds I only need to make one invulnerable save to keep the heavy flamer alive. One of those will be on Belial and his is better anyway. Lastly to consider is the possibility of terrain that might allow me to prevent line of sight between us. Which would be ideal.

[Cactus]

Arg, my eyes! Would you mind splitting your post into paragraphs dentist?

 

[edit] I did manage to read it though. Some good ideas in there.

[Darkangeldentist]

Apologies, I edited my post and the preview removed all my spacing. Hopefully I've spaced it out enough now to stop looking like an impenetrable wall of text.

[Darkangeldentist]

I've managed another couple of games. One more at 1750 against the same Grey knights I had mentioned previously, this time the mission was the one objective each and my opponent did not make the same mistake as previously. However the extreme skew of his list and the relative distance of our objectives meant that the game came down to first blood which I was lucky enough to win thanks to the extremely resilience of my land raiders. (Luck had more to do with it than anything else.) 

 

The second game was against imperial guard at 1500. Not perhaps the most traditional list in the respect that it's got an eradicator leman russ but in the current game that large strength 6 blast and it's ability to ignore cover have a lot of potential against horde armies and with 3 heavy bolters it's got plenty of regular fire to fore armour saves. Sly Marbo, a vendetta, veterans in chimera, some weapon teams plus a couple of largish infantry platoons held together by a lord commissar and command HQ with a manticore to finish things off. Quite a lot of lascannons and plasma, a few grenade launchers and one hell of a lot of lasguns. I know to respect guard and their firepower and it is always intimidating to see them fill so much of the board. I rolled precognition for the librarian and kept that power.

 

The table had an even scatter of ruins a few craters and some tank traps. A fair amount was capable of breaking line of sight and the deployment was hammer and anvil (so lengthways with deep deployment zones). Mission was the scouring and the objective were all placed in a general cluster around the middle. One was quite deep inside the guard deployment zone. I won the roll for deployment so placed my land raiders quite close to each other as far forward and in the middle as I could, the assault cannon squads inside. Belial, librarian and heavy flamer unit went for deathwing assault (first turn). The guard had placed their aegis defence line to one corner of their deployment zone, one end abutted to the table edge, the other next to a ruin one a raised base so that it rather effectively blocked line of sight over it. This formed a very solid defensive castle for my opponent who proceeded to fill this roughly 24" square with bodies till the whole corner was filled with guardsmen, tanks and guns! The commissar lord and command HQ went in the back with the las cannon teams whilst the plasma and lascannon platoon took up position behind the defence line, the eradicator supporting them and to finish off the line the manticore and chimera went behind the ruin to allow me no immediate way into his castle. Then the second infantry platoon deployed and fairly well spaced formation to occupy as much space as possible around the defence line. Pushing back any landing spot to either be directly in front of his entire army, or at least 12-15" away from his cordon. 

 

Night fighting was in operation for the first turn and as Belial appeared next to a unit of guardsman and heavy bolter teams the land raiders split up and surged forwards. One deployed smoke and the other went flat out moving around the ruins. The heavy flamer split fire to roast 6 guardsmen whilst the rest of the unit deleted the heavy bolter crews. The unit of guard held their nerve but the survivors weren't happy. In reply the lights went on and everything that could was ordered to fire at maximum effect at Belial's unit, first rank, second rank orders were given out like candy but it mattered naught...well almost, between the massed lasguns, a pair of flamers, the manticore, chimera and vets plus a few extra plasma and lascannons I felt very luck to have survived with Belial on 2 wounds, the librarian and 2 deathwing terminators.

 

Second turn precognition went on the librarian and he took his on path to tackle the command unit with the flamers, the terminators disgorged as the land raiders moved up and the shenanigans began. My theory crafting with Deathwing had been to use split fire to allow me to shoot more effectively at units whilst still being able to assault. Well it worked, the units camping outside the cordon in a different ruin made a lot of their saves but another trio of heavy bolters teams lost one of their numbers, broke and fled outside of assault range...(drat and I had clumped my terminators very badly too!) but Belial and his survivors got to shoot a storm bolter at the chimera and then gun down another of the guardsmen from the squad my heavy flamer had mauled. Against the main block my shots were mostly directed at his lascannons which had the desired effect removing them from the table. The terminators succeeded in the assaults and charged in. The chimera was blown sky high killing all but 3 of the vets, only one of which had a special weapon and the blast killed one of my own terminators, a platoon guardsman and another 3 guard from various units. The survivors broke and fled off the table. It had been a dis-ordered assault on the chimera so Belial had been able to charge the guard unit I had shot at and killed the survivors in combat. The librarian did much the same in his fight breaking the platoon command which fled never to rally. Unsurprisingly the other terminator assault also went well, the guard overwatch killed the sergeant but combat saw over half the unit slain and they fled leaving the terminators to regroup behind the defence line. The guard tried and mostly failed to regroup, with the commissar too far back to inspire his troops to rally. However both his reserves had shown up, the vendetta flew in low with an angle on my terminators taking cover behind the defence line whilst Marbo ambushed my terminator squad that had been left flatfooted by the flight of the guard weapon teams. Whilst the guard weren't rallying they weren't going far either. Much to my opponent's dismay though, the ruin and manticore were blocking line of sight to Belial. So everything went at my regular terminators. I feel I was lucky here, Marbo's demo charge scattered to only catch a couple of terminators and the eradicator in a case of friendly fire also scattered to kill Marbo but I still lost 3 of the unit and the rest of his army's shooting deleted the other squad of terminators although it took a lot to finish them off.

 

The game after this devolved a little as Belial and his partner crushed the manticore, the librarian jumped into more combats and the land raiders moved to protect my surviving squad and gun down as many guardsman as possible with the lascannons taking potshots on the vendetta. My opponent conceded when Belial got into single combat with his lord commissar and slew him in a challenge, his unit broke to flee off the table and after that the guard didn't have enough left to contest more than one objective and I was going to be on the most valuable one with my last two terminators surrounded by land raiders.

 

Victory to the Deathwing! 

 

After the game my opponent confessed that he felt he'd made a mistake in deployment believing he should have deployed in the other corner. The ruins in that area were more open, so I would have been able to gain line of sight on his tanks more easily but more importantly I could not have shielded Belial's unit the way I did which prevented his lascannons from shooting them and I would have had a slightly more difficult time getting to his army with the raiders. He also made a minor error with the vendetta as it ended up unable to shoot all it's lascannons on the turn it arrived at anything because his shooting against my terminators was so successful.

 

I also made mistakes leaving a terminator squad bunched up assuming I'd make the assault into a unit of heavy bolter teams. However they fled and I was left flat footed standing around and only the unfortunate scatter from Sly saved the unit I think. All through the game I think my opponent was a bit unlucky with his scatters. The manticore didn't get a direct hit once and each time scattered off it's main target completely. My armour saves were pretty good for the game, the first turn in particular I feel I was lucky because it meant Belial had a coupe of terminators left to help crush tanks in the following turns. 

 

 

Summary:

 

So the theory crafting worked. The game followed almost exactly as I hoped it would with the land raiders shielding the terminators so that I got to jump out, shoot and assault in a co-ordinated manner to maximum effect to damage two units of guardsmen with each terminator squad. Belial and the librarian did better than I expected since they survived the guard's initial retaliation and proceeded to take at least 2 units out of the game each turn. I didn't have many terminators left at the end (all of two regulars) but the guard were down to only a couple of squads and command units plus the eradicator and a vendetta on a single hull point.

 

I'm hoping that I'll get another chance for a game against guard before too long but it may be a while. Still, I am impressed by how well the Deathwing got on against an army with enough guns so that on paper at least he could have wiped out my entire force in a single turn. Very fun game and very close up to the point where Belial and the Librarian were in combat with his last full strength guard squads. 

 

 

[march10k]

Daemons won't really care about your shooting, since they all get invulnerable saves.

Au contraire, mon frere! (forgive my spelling, lol)

Having invulnerable saves doesn't make them laugh at shooting, per se. It only makes them laugh at the AP of said shooting. Spamming fire (ok, the dentist doesn't have any shooting to spam, but that's not the point ) brings them down just as surely as it brings down guardsmen in cover.

So the plan will be to split the nid army and remove their synapse control so that the mobs of little critters can be forced to take morale checks and hopefully break to flee off the board. The lascannons make this plan possible although by no means reliable and will be dependent on terrain and my opponent's saves. Combat will be likely essential and Belial is great against their monstrous creatures so long as they aren't sitting on full wounds but even regular terminators are likely to drop them in a single round of combat.

I haven't seen too many nid lists lately that don't have redundancy in terms of synapse coverage. You'll find that you need to remove more than one TMC or unit before you get so much as a single unit of gaunts out of synapse. DW definitely has the tools to handle every aspect of the tyranid codex, but I fear that the tools that you have selected are good for killing big and medium bugs, but not little ones. I think your challenge will be to sidestep the little ones in order to get to the ones that you want to kill...and your opponent's challenge will be to force you to engage the little ones while using them to bubble-wrap the big ones. Maybe a drop that sandwiches a targeted TMC or two between Belial and the tanks? That way, he's forced to bubble wrap in 360, perhaps thinning the wrap enough for you to get through without getting swamped by the gaunts?

(Assuming about average rolls, a 5 man unit could be killing 5-6 orks a turn. Times by two and add a pair of heavy bolters and nearly half of a full sized mob could be removed each turn.)

I think that even with an assault cannon, 5 tactical terminators kill more like 4-5 orks per turn. The stormbolters only kill 2 2/3, and the AC kills 2 2/9, for a total of 4.89 dead greenskins. Except on VS. Then it's 6.52. Add in the 3 5/9 from two TLHB, and it's 8-9 dead orks per turn, and 10 on VS. Nowhere near "nearly half" of 30 orks per turn on average rolls.

I guess it depends on how many orks are out there. I faced 180 scoring boyz plus assorted odds and ends at ard boyz regionals, and was soundly thumped because I didn't have the tools to remove ~250 models. Even scaled down to lower points, you could see 4x30 orks plus support.

I think your strategy would have to be somewhat similar to the anti-nid strategy. Those hordes of boyz are no threat until and unless you get stuck in with an intact mob. So DWA belial against the lootas or whatever he's using for heavier shooting, and aim to charge out of a land raider and claim the warlord VP, but keep as many models as possible buttoned up inside a tank for as much of the game as possible...you literally don't have enough bullets to make a dent in the green tide. I would play VP denial and try to pick off a few small points like first blood (DWA with Belial) and tank-shocking through his lines to assassinate his warlord, and then just try to contest by parking a tank next to one objective and having the termies charge out to get stuck in with the defenders of another objective on turn 5, then hang on and pray that they can't attrit you in time to claim anything.

Challenges really save the army as Belial and the librarian are solid choices to remove Ork nobs leading units or the warboss respectively. The librarian is an excellent assassin against a war boss, mostly down to his force weapon. Fortunately even a level one librarian can cast his power on his turn and then have a warp charge in the following turn to activate his force weapon. A librarian with precognition is a dastardly difficult guy to bring down.

Wholeheartedly agree. DW are excellent at dealing with expensive/elite single models.

Guard are a more of a challenge because they can field so many low AP weapons. Here the focus will be on removing threats to the land raiders and taking out their officers. Fortunately Guard tend to have more, smaller units to make up their hordes and depend on specific elements to solve particular problems. Depending on the number and size of the threats to my land raider Belial will drop in first or second turn to remove their command unit(s), the heavy flamer being an ideal weapon for this job and storm bolters being potentially enough to delete another or maul a unit with a bit of luck. Cover is unlikely from this particular threat due to my advantage for position. Retaliation will inevitably be painful but the key will be to divide and conquer, guard more than any other foe are vulnerable to the advantages given by split fire. Storm bolters alone can cull a significant number of guardsmen and a single assault cannon can remove a whole heavy weapons team. It also means that once close I can direct a single storm bolter at the unit I would like to assault and shoot the majority of fire at one further away. This means each terminator squad can potentially wipe out two squads of guardsmen a turn depending on squad sizes and how well combat resolves. The difficulty will become dependent on what kind (or how many) vultures and/or leman russ demolishers/executioners they bring. However those suck up points quickly and in the case of the vultures, devotes considerable resources to reserve. Which makes the potential for an early game advantage greater. Belial is more of a suicide unit in this match up than any other but his sacrifice is also probably the mostly likely to swing the game. I've also noticed that guard more than anyone seem to bring a defence line with them alongside a quad gun. Amusingly, if I can grab that weapon I can use it against his vultures when they arrive and nothing appeals to me more than the thought of my opponent's flyer being shot down by his own answer to flyers. I do know a good guard player who favours the massed ranks approach so will try to get a game or two against him soon. I will let you know how it goes.

Yeah...guard are tough...it's impossible to decide how to deal with them before you see what actually shows up, there are just way too many viable builds....and more than enough room to throw in a little suboptimal-but-surprising flavor. I do think the most dangerous to us is pure infantry spamming meltas. 460 points gets you 5 squads of 10 with nothing but a melta, two squads of six with nothing but a demo charge, and a PCS with 2 meltas. Three of those sets costs 1380, and gives DW fits because it's 201 models with 21 meltas and six demo charges spread across 24 units, with plenty of points to spare, and nothing more required to make it legal except for an HQ. Throw in Al Rahem, and 1/3 of the mob above will outflank. Add a telepath to your CCS (with 4 plasma guns and camo cloaks), and Rahem's mob come in on the flank of choice 8/9 of the time. It sounds outlandish...but I'm 4 meltaguns short of being able to field it (and I prefer to play mech anyway, HP be damned!)

Edit: thanks for the additional replies. On the ion accelerator riptides specifically I am not quite as upset as I initially thought. If they do use the main gun to try and take out my deep strikers then it will be at BS 3, no marker lights and a 2/3rd's chance to scatter into their own units if they go for the big blast. (Hardly something a Tau commander would advise.) Now because Belial's unit will almost always come down right next to at least one enemy unit that makes such a response almost as much a gamble for them as it does me. In addition there is the bonus that their main gun won't be able to shoot in his turn. Essentially removing it as a concern from my list of worries from marker light boosted silliness. To minimise the damage even on a direct and ideal hit I can position the heavy flamer further away, even to the point of risking Belial and even assuming he makes all successful wounds I only need to make one invulnerable save to keep the heavy flamer alive. One of those will be on Belial and his is better anyway. Lastly to consider is the possibility of terrain that might allow me to prevent line of sight between us. Which would be ideal.

Agreed. I've used the hulls of my crusaders to deny LOS to intercepting riptides...it only works if I'm not too close, they're freaking tall! But denying LOS is a good tactic, as is danger-close DS (which only Belial can do)

[Polythemus]

Well i am intrigued by the new usage of the dual raider list. Do you see it as possible to use both lrc and regular lascannon LR or "mars/godhammer pattern" one gets close one hangs back a bit?

[facmanpob]

Well i am intrigued by the new usage of the dual raider list. Do you see it as possible to use both lrc and regular lascannon LR or "mars/godhammer pattern" one gets close one hangs back a bit?

I think the problem with one LR hanging back is it allows the opponent to prioritise his targets more effectively.....2 x LRC charging forward basically says "doesn't matter if you knock one LR out, the other is gonna be there next turn!"

[Gillyfish]

Nice work on the victory against Guard dentist - nice to see your plan worked. Do you have any further games lined up? Perhaps against other armies?

[Darkangeldentist]

Thanks for the replies, I aim to get more opponents and hopefully face all the different codices if I can. However I don't know precisely when or what kind of lists I will be able to pit the Deathwing against. Tau are definitely on the list but I have no regular opponents at the moment who field them. Daemons are a possibility though.

 

I will no doubt try to mix up the land raiders at some point in the future but as mentioned, having two of the same makes it tougher for opponents to focus fire and know they are doing the best thing with their firepower. If they can see one is a more immediate threat than the other then's much easier to focus fire to remove it. Whereas when both are being used in much the same manner it becomes more difficult. Lascannons and heavy bolters also give long range punch which helps enormously against a few opponents. Being able to damage foes without risking the raiders or their cargo by closing with the foe does help a lot against some opponents. The grey knight matchups in particular were won in no small part due to the issues he because of his mid-ranged firepower.

 

 

March10k, thanks in particular for the detailed reply. I am glad we agree on most points but I although I don't deny anything you've said I do feel you are being a little overly pessimistic about a couple of things.

 

First one is the Nids, definitely true about the synapse redundency, it's a strange nid player who doesn't include some but I've mostly seen that tied up in monsters. Tyrants and tervigons usually. In this matchup Belial and co will almost certainly drop second turn but I would probably still aim to have first turn. If they have flying tyrants starting on the board the land raiders have a half decent chance of killing on first turn before they can fly up into the air to swoop and reduce the damage. They are not easy to hide completely. If they want to play safe and fly from the start then they've got to go into reserve, which suits me, less stuff on the table at the start. Tervigons may take a couple of turns to kill but they still go down from the land raider fire. I have often seen Nid armies with only three or four synapse anchors and the loss of each whilst it may not cripple the army it does reduce the footprint of the force in regards to how reliably it can spread out and depend on stuff do what they want. Punching the holes I need to get the terminators in to crush their monsters will be the most difficult thing.

 

Orks, my averages may have been a little too simplistic, I still reckon 5 is about right for a unit's shooting and whilst it still doesn't add up to half a mob of boys, less if they get saves it's still enough to mean that after a round of combat they are unlikely to be still fearless. So far I've only faced more elitely themed green skins, although they've had far scarier firepower and resistence to shooting because of that focus.

[march10k]

 

Well i am intrigued by the new usage of the dual raider list. Do you see it as possible to use both lrc and regular lascannon LR or "mars/godhammer pattern" one gets close one hangs back a bit?

I think the problem with one LR hanging back is it allows the opponent to prioritise his targets more effectively.....2 x LRC charging forward basically says "doesn't matter if you knock one LR out, the other is gonna be there next turn!"

 

 

I agree...two different kinds of land raiders lets the enemy decide which one he needs to kill and which one can be lower priority.  It also means that losing a tank deprives you of a capability.  Finally, different land raider types typically have different roles, and will therefore not likely roll side-by-side.  That violates one of the principles of war: mass.  You want to keep your forces concentrated while the enemy's are dispersed.  If you have a mars pattern hanging back and shooting while a crusader charges straight at the enemy, you're splitting up your forces, and that's rarely a good idea (mass is only critical at the time and place that decides the outcome of the battle...you can have different groups moving independently, as long as they converge at the right time and place...kind of like [american football reference] two linebackers breaking into the backfield at separate points...to meet at the quarterback!)

 

So I would say either two mars, or two crusader/redeemer.  The crusader/redeemer are going to be doing pretty much the same thing, so they would naturally travel together, but you'd still have the problem that the enemy picks which one to target, so I'd stick to one type...in my case, the crusader, but which type is appropriate for you depends on what you want them to do!

[Isiah]

Just my 2 cents, the 2 x LRs rock - or at least they did back in 4th edition when I was using such a configuration - right down to the inclusion of the Librarian too.

Looking back at your list DaD this does look like a throwback to previous DW glory days. Strange how the game (editions) develop, yet the list option seems to have gone full circle to what the DW were always good at: murderous mid-range fire power followed by assault.

Cheers

I