Not so pure Deathwing

[Darkangeldentist]

This week just past I took part in a 40K team event as a last minute fill-in to help prevent byes. I took my Dark angels of course and decided to have a bit of fun with Deathwing with a bit of bike support.

 

The lists were 1850pts so this is what I brought.

 

Belial (with sword and storm bolter)

Librarian on bike with power field generator, melta bombs and mastery level 2

Ravenwing command squad with 2 extra members and apothecary

 

6 Deathwing terminators with 2x thunder hammer +storm shields and a heavy flamer

5 Deathwing terminators with assault cannon and 1 chainfist

5 Deathwing terminators with assault cannon and 1 chainfist

 

Land raider

Land raider

 

 

The tournament allowed allies, forgeworld and datasheets but no escalation super heavies or stronghold assault buildings. So there was an interesting mix of stuff out there, much of which I was completely unfamiliar. Since it was a team event the pairing of opponents was a little more protracted than normal, it allows a little influence on what you may face depending on what lists the opposing team has. Since I was part of the mercenary team filling in our set of lists was rather less competitively kitted out than the others. The tournament pack also specified that missions would not use firstblood as a secondary objective and would last 6 rounds.

 

 

Game 1 Emperor's will

 

First game I was to face Nids, my opponent was using a tyranid datasheet allied to his main nid force. The datasheet made his gargoyles come back, count as scoring units and deny my from contesting or claiming objective they were on. He had 3 smallish mobs of gargoyles and between the main detachment and the allied one he had 3 winged hive tyrants (two with paired devourers and one with lash whip and bonesword plus devourers), 2 harpies and 3 crones! Also a big blob of 30 termangants, tervigon and a venomthrope.

 

 

I won the roll for deployment and chose to go first after some initial dithering. Belial and the heavy flamer unit would deathwing assault whilst the bikes and land raiders (with an assault cannon squad in each) set up in the centre of the table. (Which was rather too open with only a small building in the centre a few largish rock strewn about and some small forests.) He deployed almost everything in a long line across from me with the gaunt swarm surrounding the tervigon and venomthrope (tucked in behind the brood dispencer) around the centre of the field with the two dual devourer tyrants covered by a unit of gargoyles. To the left flank went a pair of the flying beasts (can't recall if crones or harpies) whilst the bonesword tyrant deployed further on the right flank with another unit of gargoyles in front of him, furthest out on the flank went the remaining flying monsters. The ravenwing command squad scouted forward and set eyes on the warlord tyrant. Since all his winged monsters were deployed I would at least get one turn where I could shoot effectively at them.

 

 

Early game

 

The opening turns were impressive as Belial came down and roasted the shielding gargoyles from the tyrant that was his warlord for the ravenwing to gun down in a hail of plasma. A harpy/crone on the right flank went down to the combined fire of the assault cannon squad and land raider on that flank. On the left flank another flying monster took a couple of wounds from lascannons but the assault cannon squad inside did not get out. The nid first turn saw the tyrant that had rolled catalyst cast it on himself and the other tyrant before both took to the air and flew towards the bikes. The other flying monsters also took to the air and pretty much everything that could shoot at the Ravenwing command squad did. After the dust settled only the librarian and 2 bikers were left (with the librarian one a single wound), the gargoyles swarmed forwards as did the gaunt horde and the tervigon stomped directly forward and birthed 15 more gaunts. (It did not run out!) In response the land raiders respositioned as the ravenwing chased after the huge gaunt mob and Belial headed towards the centre of the table (and my objective marker). The twin-linked weapon got lucky and a tyrant was wounded and fell to earth just close enough for Belial's unit to risk a charge on it. Luck was with me and Belial charged in the challenged the alien beast but the effort to make combat stole his strength for only a single wound got through to the monster. The bikes tried to hide by charging into the mass of gaunts but after combat was done I'd only killed 4 and lost yet another biker. In his turn the challenge continued with neither making headway on their foe but the bikes fell to the mass of gaunts clawing at them. The land raider in the centre of the table was caught by one of the flying monsters but they failed to destory the tank, although they did stun it.

 

 

Mid-game

 

Mid game and the stunned land raider managed a lucky wound on one of the monsters but was doomed so the squad inside got out and charged into the spawned brood of gaunts, spliting fire to maximise the impact they shot down a few of the largest unit of gaunts before barrelling into the mob infront of them. On the right flank the squad remounted their land raider as it continued to try and damage the flying circus. Belial after what turned out to be a 4 round fight finally managed to bring down the tyrant (terrible slap fight till then) and consolidate over toward the central land raider as it was blown up by a harpy/crone and tervigon. The terminators who were fighting the gaunts were at risk of being swamped when the mob that had taken down the ravenwing crashed into them but they held firm losing only the sergeant to the mass of claws. Belial and co managed the navigate the wreckage of a land raider to peform a disordered charge on both tervigon and harpy/crone, I left both on a single wound! However I also only lost a single terminator.

 

 

Closing stages

 

As the game edged towards the endgame the tervigon exploded and took out a handful of gaunts in it's death throes as Belial's unit clobbered the other monster as well. They consolidated on and the timing of the combat's end meant they were able to head towards my opponent's objective and charge a unit of gargoyles and the venomthrope. They wiped out their alien foes over two rounds, the other combat saw the gaunts finally begining to run out of bodies as the Deathwing crushed the chitinous bodies. The land raider and terminators on the right flank wiped out the last unit of gargoyles but still couldn't get a bead on the flying monsters above. On the last turn an extra unit of gargoyles appeared (he finally succeeded a roll for them to come back) and the last tyrant and a harpy did a combined charge on the Deathwing in that area but the terminators held firm and reduced the harpy/crone to one wound. In the end I held one objective to his none and won by a not so large margin. There was less than 300pt difference in victory points, it had been a bloodbath.

 

 

More reports in following posts.

 

[lost_angel]

Nice read as usual dentist - especially considering your recent points in prot's thread. More and more these days I'm impressed with Belial's pinpoint deeptrike/heavy flamer combo and it's great to see it used well by popping the tyrant's bubblewrap. 

 

Looking forward to the rest.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Yep, great read Dentist. Well done on a hard earned win, that really does prove the sweetness of a DW win ;)

[Darkangeldentist]

Thanks for the replies and good to hear you are enjoying them.

 

Game 2:

 

 

The mission was big guns never tire with 4 objectives which got spaced around a battlefield of city ruins quite evenly around the centre. There were a lot of ruins with several that properly blocked lines of sight. The most interesting and peculiar aspect of all these ruins was that none of them were based meaning we would be able to move freely at ground level unless breaking through walls. Deployment was vanguard strike.

 

My opponent was using Tau with farsight enclave suppliment, lots of bits of gear I was unfamiliar with but the list comprised of a command with marker drone flock buzzing around him, 3 riptides, a hammerhead, pair of broadsides, unit of firewarriors and 3 trios of crisis suits some with missile pods and one with fusion blasters. Lastly a unit of pathfinders. There was a lot of missiles in his list and all the riptides had interceptor.

 

The Tau would be going first and deployed in a line, the riptides occupied the open ground in the middle of his deployment zone with the crisis interspersed between them in rather more protected positions. The fire warriors took a smallish forest to hide themselves, whilst the broadsides and pathfinders had a lovely multi-level ruin with a balcony to stand on the upper levels with great lines of sight past the rest of the Tau forces....this ruin had solid walls on the ground level, which became quite important. I deployed both land raiders with assault cannon squads inside next to each other parked quite far back in such a way as to completely hide the librarian and command squad. Belial and heavy flamer unit would Deathwing assault.

 

 

Opening gambits:

 

The Tau battlesuits advanced, a rail gun shot from a hammerhead went wide as a barrage of self-guiding missiles sought out the librarian and his power field killing a single member of the command squad. The fusion blaster crisis suits scooted forwards as fast as they could through the ruins aiming to get their guns into range to crack open the Dark angel tanks in the following turn. In response the Dark angels surged forwards as Belial landed in the ruins underneath the pathfinders and broadsides, although I had not targets to see wall completely blocked line of sight to them. Despite this a barrage of interceptor missiles were launched from riptides towards their location and single terminator fell. One land raider darted to the left flank and the terminators got out in a rather risky and very long charge on the fusion suits. The other squad stayed inside their raider as it advanced with the ravenwing and librarian darted through the ruins, turbo-boosting to close. Initial shots were unimpressive, lascannons caused a single wound on a riptide and the terminators failed to impress with their shots but knowing how desperate the situation was commited their charge. Overwatch killed the sergeant but despite difficult terrain the terminator charged 11" into the crisis suits and wiped them out in a single bloody round of combat.

 

The Tau were in a state of surprise seeing the unexpected threats confronting them and repositioned in an attempt to tackle them as well as they could. The pathfinders and broadsides evacuated the building to get away from Belial and most smart missiles navigated the rubble to attempt to whittle down the unit. First the marker lights lit up the Deathwing and then the riptides unleashed their fire into the squad that had caught the crisis suits. Missile armed crisis suits fired barrages of missiles into the bikes and they were reduced to just a couple of members and the librarian. A riptide charged into the survivors of the assault cannon terminators and it's weight crushed even as their powerfist knocked off a couple of wounds. (He had rolled for the improved save this turn and succeeded.) The Dark angels launched more aggressive moves in response to this, the remaining ravenwing and librarian chased after the wounded riptide as the land raider carrying the other terminator squad disgorged it after the crisis suits on that flank. Belial and his unit advanced through the walls to shoot the broadsides and pathfinders roasting half the lightly armoured scouts before barrelling into the broadsides crushing them. Again I lost a terminator to the deadly Tau supporting overwatch fire. The librarian and bikes managed to narrowly bring down the riptide they were fighting and the remaining assault cannon squad crushed the crisis suits and consolidated behind a wall out of sight. The land raiders were crushingly disappointing this turn failing to kill or even wound anything.

 

 

Consolidating ground:

 

The Tau had lost several units but still had many of their heavy hitters still intact, the commander moved away from the assault cannon terminators and towards Belial as did the riptides and most of the remaining Tau guns. Both riptides powered up their protective shields and one finished off the Ravenwing whilst the rest of the Tau army focused all their fire into Belial leaving him alone and wounded but still standing. The assault cannon squad with nothing nearby moved back towards and into the land raider as it advanced for clearer lines of sight and both focused their lascannons onto one of the riptides. Belial decided to go after the Tau commander and survived the overwatch fire to see combat but the Tau hid behind his mob of drones whilst the Dark angel sliced the buzzing robots apart slowly. The riptides started to move as did the hammerhead back towards the centre of the field to contest and control more objectives. The hammerhead was still missing with it's railgun. One riptide charged into Belial and wounded him as he continued to cut down the marker drones. This combat went until, just as Belial wiped out the last of the drones the commander's nerve broke and he fled leaving Belial fighting a forlorn hope against the hulking riptide.

 

 

End game:

 

Seeing the Tau commander flee, a land raider trained lascannons on him and as the other punished the crisis and firewarriors for remaining visible. Only a couple of casualties were caused and the Tau held. Belial got charged by the second riptide and he was now fighting two of the towering alien constructs! He held for now but was down to his last wound. Eventually he fell to the blows from the riptides as the hammerhead and firewarriors continued to rush towards the objectives. The last terminators remained with the land raider protecting them as they angled towards objectives as well whilst the tanks continued to land lascannons into the riptides. One was brought to it's last wound whilst the other was on 3. In the last turn the hammerhead finally came through and a perfectly landed snap shot blew my rear most land raider to pieces leaving the tau sitting on 3 objectives. (One with a hammerhead, the last crisis and finally fire warriors on a third. The remaining land raider was within 12" of the objective held by the firewarriors but blocked by a riptide. So the terminators advanced on the hammerhead. Split fire the assault cannon onto the riptide that was down to it's last wound and killed it! Stormbolter shells pattered off the hammerhead harmlessly before powerfists ripped it to pieces. The land raider decided on a tank shock last ditch to deny him the objective, tracks dug into rubble and the tank surged towards the riptide and the warriors. The riptide knowing it must defend it's fellows went for death or glory with a smash attack. It's attempt was brave but in this instance foolish as the tank trundled through it and crushed the alien constuct beneath it's tracks. The sight was too much for the fire warriors, they broke and fled!

 

Victory to the dark angels! The last turn was a whirlwind of shocks as first his hammerhead turned things around by blowing up a land raider that had been camping an objective safely and then my do or die tank shock caused an even greater turn around. Awesome game and very fun.

[Polythemus]

Wow nice use of the tank shock. I like the narrative style you've got going here. well constructed imagery, brief and quality writing. Sounds like a pretty epic conclusion to a great matchup, way to utilize all your assets.

[Gillyfish]

Tank shock - an oft overlooked option! What a way to win a game - very nicely done and a great read as ever, Dentist. :)

[Darkangeldentist]

Game 3:

 

The mission would be crusade and my opponent was using Necrons. Destroyer lord with scythe and mind shackle scarabs plus a max boat of wraiths stood out most but there were two 6 base swarms of scarabs, 2 min units of immortals, a 10 strong unit of warriors in an ark. An overlord with res orb led one unit of immortals who would be borne into battle by a night scythe and a second night scythe would deliver death marks and 'that' cryptek! Lastly a pair of annihilation barges and a doom scythe. Very nicely painted army and some interesting tweaks to the otherwise fairly familiar usual suspects from necrons. All the immortals had tesla weapons.

 

I won the roll and gave my opponent first turn. I did this for two reasons, first was that his units would have to get out of the transports to contest and secondly, I could ensure he had no chance of damaging me thanks to the land raiders. His fliers and their cargo would also hopefully arrive before Belial dropped since this game I decided to have them come in on the second turn.

 

The table had some very large rocky formations that broke up the table a fair bit and a few smallish forest areas dotted about. Lastly there were a couple of low walls to provide more cover. The objectives were scattered about the centre of the table evenly so it would be easy to move between them. My opponent deployed with the destory lord and wraiths in the centre flanked by scarabs and the barges, the ark went to my left flank and the small walking immortals stood on the objective in his deployment zone. I deployed the raiders in a huddle opposite with librarian and bikes behind them.

 

Initial engagement:

 

The necrons surged forwards, scarabs and wraiths pushing towards the Dark angels as fast as they could. The ark and warriors inside advanced into range to send a volley of gauss fire at the nearest land raider but the power field blocked the shots that would have harmed the tank. Nothing else could scratch the land raiders. Seeing the foe in front of them both raiders advanced and disgorged the units from inside to deal withthe scarabs. The ravenwing dived through a forest directly towards the wraiths and lord, managing to plant a rad grenade on them but since they were out of rapid fire range only one fell to the plasma talons. A land raider shot at his ark but failed to damage, the assault cannon squad that had gotten out of it shot their assault cannon at it and luck was with me as torrent of shells blew the floating tank out of the sky, storm bolters raked the scarabs before the terminators charged into them to wipe the scuttling creatures out. The other squad split it's fire at the scarabs and wraiths and managed to reduce the wraiths to only 2 models but had a disastrous charge failing to wipe out the swarms and losing two of their number in the process!

 

As the first of the necron reserves arrived my opponent was put on the back foot trying to work out to deal with the land raiders. The night scythe with overlord and warriors were the only things to arrive and the ominous flier moved up to shoot at the ravenwing. Between the barges and scythe I was left with only two ravenwing and the librarian who were then assaulted by the destroyer lord and wraiths. This combat was decidedly uneventful as the librarian and lord failed to impress each other whilst the ravenwing killed a single wraith for no loss. The ravenwing then hit and ran out of combat over towards the rest of the necron forces. The scarab debacle continued with another terminator dropping, still one more base survived. The warriors who had lost their transport attempted to damage the land raider again but their efforts were once more thwarted by the librarian's power field. To do this they had bunched up terribly and meant Belial's arrived heralded their death. The heavy flamer nearly wiped out the unit which was finished off by an assault cannon before the rest of the unit charged into a barge and reduced it to so much scrap. The ravenwing attempted to bring down the other barge but only immobilised it. The scarabs were finially finished off. Whilst all this was going on the land raiders disappointed me slightly by failing to achieve anything this turn.

 

 

Brutal counter-attacks:

 

The rest of the necrons arrived and the doom scythe immediately fired it's devastating death ray at the land raiders, one was unharmed but the other destroyed a lascannon on the other. Alas from my perspective the unharmed land raider was then clove in twain by the destroyer lord's blade. Belial and his friends were attacked by the death marks and the cryptek's weapon killed nearly half the unit by himself, the rest of the unit did little but did manage a wound on Belial. The bikes who had failed to destroy the barge were wiped out by the tesla weaponry brought against them and things were looking quite daunting. Undaunted the Belial confronted and slew the cryptek, though the charge cost him more of his bodyguard and the deathmarks held in spite of their losses. A now lone assault cannon terminator charged and destroyed a barge as the combined efforts of the still 4 man terminator unit and land raider killed the destroyer lord and wraith. Things were getting drawn out and the necron fliers were struggling to keep targets in their sights, before one flew off it desposited the overlord and immortals on an objective and they tried vainly to gun down the lone terminator. The doom scythe continued it's attack on the land raider but in vain this time. Belial and his fellows slew the last of the death marks but only the heavy flamer member was left. The lone terminator charged in against the immortals who had cowered behind ruins all game and managed to catch them in combat. As Belial was about to move up and support him the doom scythe swung around in the sky and the death ray caught him in the blast, alas his iron halo was not enough and the heavy flamer was left alone to aid his likewise fellow.

 

 

End game:

 

The battle was drawing to a close the deathwing managed to hold out and for a moment it looked like the necrons would go into full retreat after a surprisingly effect round of shooting but they regrouped quickly and attempted to recapture the objectives they had abandoned. The doom scythe continued it's dominance of the skies but all for nought as enough terminators survived to retain two objectives to his one at the close of play. I had 5 models left on the table but control of the objectives and my opponent only a trio of immortals with their overlord and his fliers.

 

Another victory to the dark angels!

 

This game saw a number of really shockingly lucky and unlucky moments with more of the former for my and latter for my opponent. He had rolled quite poorly for his wraiths and terribly for the lord who went down to a heavy bolter despite a sempirturnal weave granting him a 2+ save. On the other hand my terminators getting bogged down for 4 rounds against scarabs and losing 3 of their number to them was nearly as damaging to my game. Very interesting game and I was surprised how nasty the doom scythe proved. The thing that stood out most about this particular game though was how difficult my opponent found it to keep my infantry in sight of his flier and their guns. All my models moved around the mid-table to force him to fly over me and thus be facing the wrong way. It helped a lot in reducing the amount of telsa fire I took in the later stages.

 

 

[Tanhausen]

Very nice reps...and you certainly don't expect the result.

 

Sounds like you had a blast :)

[Polythemus]

Well played sir I thought i read at one point that you ran down a fleeing enemy. Do you mind clarifying what you meant? Its nice to see you do so well with the 1st company, it seems you never lose! I hope to emulate such an achievement. Well done.

[Darkangeldentist]

I did indeed have fun Tanhausen.

 

Polythemus, which point are you referring to? I may have given that impression at one point in the Necron game but it was meant to. Apologies for any confusion. Funny you should mention my track record (spoiler) as this next one was not so glorious for the 1st legion.

 

 

Game 4:

 

The mission was the scouring but tweaked to use fewer objectives but fast attack choices would still be able to score and be worth the extra point. Deployment would be vanguard strike

 

My opponent was using an alliance of Eldar and Dark eldar. A pair of jetbike farseers, couple of waveserpents with dire avengers, min jetbikes and two wraith knights (with heavy wraithcannon) were joined by Baron (something or other), a couple of min dark eldar warriors in venoms and a huge mob of beasts. Mostly the ones with invulnerable saves but a few razorwings were scattered in there as well. The farseers joined this huge mob alongside the baron. My opponent had comically bad luck rolling for his powers. He wanted fortune but failed to roll it on either farseer. I rolled  perfect timing and prescience on my librarian.

 

The table was city ruins but unlike my previous city table these ruins had almost no effect on line of sight and had bases. What made this much more serious and impactful on the game was the size of some of them which in a couple of cases exceeded 12x18"! They took up a lot of space, granted a lot of cover but there was almost nowhere to hide.

 

I won the roll for sides and first turn. Feeling forlorn about lack of difference between deployment areas I chose not to swap sides. The land raiders deployed in places where they could advance safely and the Librarian and command squad deployed centrally as forward as possible. They would scout straight forward when the time came. Belial and the heavy flamer would be coming down via deathwing assault turn 1.

 

My opponent deployed in a slightly curious fashion, the waveserpents were huddled to my left flank with one venom next to them and the other more over to my right flank. In front of the wave serpents the wraith knights deployed with a large area of ruins providing them cover. From almost the mid-line to the furtherest edge of my right flank was spread the horde sized mob of beasts with farseers and the baron. The baron would be granting them hit and run plus the farseers would still be providing significant pyschic support.

 

 

Initial engagement:

 

As Belial arrived behind the baron and next to the bulk of the eldar forces the Librarian cast perfect timing on himself and the ravenwing command squad as they dived into the ruins in front of the beasts. The land raiders advanced and the terminators got out of them. Lascannons shot at a venom and wave serpent bringing down the dark eldar skimmer and immobilising the wave serpent. A rad grenade hit the beast pack and the plasma talons spat fire at the throng of alien animals killing several. The heavy flamer and Belial's storm bolter added their firepower and took out more of the unit and the effects were starting to expose the characters hiding amongst them. The assault cannons and storm bolters of the regular terminators raked across the farseer and Baron killing both due to their weakened constitutions from the effects of the rad grenade. (A single stormbolter shell accounted for the baron.) Only secondary farseer, a single beast master, razorwing and 3 chymera remained by the end of this fusillade. The retaliation was almost as devastating though, waveserpents and venom focused shots on the ravenwing as dire avengers and wraithknights concentrated on Belial and his unit. Both were reduced to barely a single member of the unit and their respective characters by the end and the wraithknights both charged into combat with Belial. The master of the first company was lost from sight beneath the fists of the huge constructs even though he inflicted significant damage onto one of them. The last of the ravenwing were pulled from their bikes leaving the librarian trapped in combat with alien beasts.

 

 

Mid-game:

 

One squad of terminators retreated inside their land raider as it advanced whilst the other unit hoped they might limit incoming fire by using what little solid pieces of ruins walls there were. The other land raider tried to track the light eldar and dark eldar tanks but to no effect. My shooting was on the whole utterly useless as the wraith knight, feet barely covered by the base of a ruined building dodged all shots that came it's way. (He made just about all his cover saves on these things during the game.) The stormbolter and assault cannon fired at the dire avengers and dark eldar warriors leaving both units mauled but still alive. The last dark eldar warrior from that unit ran inside the remaining still mobile wave serpent. This and most of the army moved around to bring their guns to bear on the terminator squad still out in the open and sheer weight of fire saw the unit fall. The librarian also fell foul of the multitude of claws and teeth tearing at him. Worse was to come as the wraith cannons from one of the wraith knights tore into the hull of the occupied land raider and blew it sky high.

 

The terminators who survived the blast readied themselves and started towards the towering wraith knights in the hopes of achieving some kind of vengeance but alas, although their aim was true the ruins seemed to hide the construct from harm. They were caught flatfooted and charged by the monstrous construct and wipe out.

 

 

Desperate rearguard:

 

With only a single land raider left to defend the scenario I tried vainly to hold out from being wiped out completely. It managed to finally bring down the wounded wraith knight and some desperate tank shocks temporarily broke the eldar jetbikes that had zoomed up to claim an objective and the huge tank was bulling the farseer and last surviving beasts from the pack. Alas as the final turn came about the wraith knight's heavy wraith cannons found a weakened spot in the hull and destroyed the marine vehicle in a quite spectacular but harmless explosion.

 

 

Loss to the Dark angels and victory to the xenos.

 

 

Review and conclusions as to what went wrong:

 

This was a very tough game and things fell to pieces quite quickly after an initially successful opening gambit. I made two significant mistakes which impacted more than expected and led to my defeat. First was my choice of table side. In spite of the table not really having any scenery that would properly block line of the sight I had given my opponent far more area terrain to deploy in. If we had swapped sides he still would have been able to claim cover for his important pieces from across the board but not deploy them inside area terrain to always claim cover.

 

The other mistake I made was where I brought Belial down. The beast pack was so spread out I was only ever going to be able to catch 4-5 models with the template and I could have done this at either end of the unit. From where I did place him helped expose the characters in the unit which did contribute somewhat to their demise but their position was in easy range for both the dire avengers, dark eldar and wraith knights to focus fire on them in the following turn. Had I placed them towards the other end I would still have hit a similar number of models and the characters would still likely have died to the impressive number of wounds placed on them by the fire I concentrated into the unit.

 

In this game luck was not with me as it took depressingly little effort from my opponent to take down the ravenwing. Only a single wave serpent and venom shot at them and took the unit down to just 2 models who were then bludgeoned by the beasts in combat.

 

I do not regret ignoring the wraith knights at the start of the game, they were always going to be tough to take down and even had I focused the ravenwing's fire onto one there would have been a respectable chance of not bringing it down. Belial and his unit, had I been more fortunate with saves (or my opponent less lucky with his blade storm shots) then he might have survived for a second round of combat and potentially cut a wraith knight down by himelf.

 

 

Next post will have the final game of the event, more eldar....hmmm.

 

[Polythemus]

All good things must come to an end. Brave of you to post a loss. Subjecting yourself to tactical scrutiny is a healthy gambit, and I feel that we often learn more from our  failures than our success.

[InterrogatorChaplainKamjin]

3 out of 4 games so far still a good win ratio.that 4th game from what I read it seems your opponent deployed expecting the deepstrike & willing to risk the early onslaught....but with those dual Xeno scum its sorta pick your poison I would have focused close in myself as well if was mostly D-wing...(.I 2nd the thought you learn more from losses then wins....keep bathing the Xenos in Flame!!)

[Darkangeldentist]

My opponent did deploy well  to avoid the worst outcome from Belial's arrival but it actually left him open to the assassination of his HQs because they ran out of 'look out sir' targets in range! He also played the right game of focusing on wipe my infantry out first and relying on the presumption that he would have at least one wraith knight left to deal with the land raiders.

 

Game 5:

 

 

Last game would be purge the alien (how appropriate), so kill points against more Eldar. No wraith knights this time but instead was a plethora of unfamiliar and strange eldar tanks. The xenos had also negotiated the aid of some Salamanders. His army was nicely painted and very interesting to see on the table. It consisted of a farseer and spiritseer, the former in a waveserpent with dire avengers whilst the latter would guide wraithguard in a second wave serpent. A small unit of rangers and two min jetbike units rounded out the eldar troops. He also had a small unit of warp spiders, two hornets (small forgeworld skimmers with 2x pulse lasers each!), a pheonix bomber and warp hunter (flacon type skimmer with a large distort weapon). The marine compliment sported a level 2 librarian with min unit of scouts and a storm talon with assault cannon and missiles.

 

Deployment was dawn of war and the table was the same one I'd fought the Necrons on, a few very large rocky outcrops with small forests and walls dotted about. I won the roll for deployment and first turn and decided I would need it to catch his skimmers. I deployed the ravenwing in the centre of the table and a land raider either side of them. My opponent deployed a hornet in each corner of his deployment zone, rangers in the small forest to my left flank and the scouts with librarian to my right flank behind the huge rocks. The warp hunter and jet bikes went into reserve. He deployed the farseer and dire avenger's wave serpent in the centre with warp spiders behind them and the wraithguard inbetween that and the hornet to my right flank. Further away from my land raiders and bikes. I scouted the ravenwing straight towards him and prayed he would not steal initiative.

 

 

Opening gambits:

 

The eldar were caught by surprise as Belial and his squad landed next to the rangers and split their fire between them and the warp spiders. Only a single ranger survived the heavy flamer but only a single warp spider fell. The ravenwing sped towards the farseer's skimmer and blew it out of the sky in a flurry of plasma shots, the Eldar inside were unharmed as the skimmer retained enough control to simply drift to the ground. Lascannons from the land raiders tried and failed to make any further impact as they made a steady advance with the Deathwing inside staying put to see what retaliation the eldar would make. The Farseer immediately focused his powers to curse Belial with misfortune and guide the hornet's shots. The warp spiders and dire avengers advanced on the deathwing and unloaded as much firepower as they could on the bone armoured terminators. Valiant and staunch as they were the Deathwing protecting Belial fell to the alien's guns which were all focused on them leaving Belial alone and wounded to be charged by the dire avengers and farseer. He challenged the farseer to single combat but neither to get past the other's armour.

 

This initial exchange spurred the other terminator squads into action, the squad on my left flank disembarked and charged in to rescue Belial as the right flank's land raider disgorged terminators who crushed the wraithguard's waveserpent. Spiritseer and wraithguard retreated from the wreckage and readied to take aim. The ravenwing and land raider shot down the hornet on the right flank as the left flank's land raider shot down another warp spider but couldn't get a bead on the remaining hornet. The combat around Belial was brutal and short, the farseer remained impervious to Belial's blows but the avengers and last ranger were all crushed beneath the powerfists of the deathwing. The farseer fled to escape the now hopeless situation exposing the Deathwing to retaliation. Sensing the danger their commander was in the pheonix and warp hunter arrived along with one unit of bikes. The bikes skipped behind the massive rocky outcrop to stay out of sight as the storm talon and pheonix flew on to shoot at the deathwing who had rescued Belial. Alas even without the malign attentions of the farseer's psychic might the firepower proved too much and Belial and the terminators fell to the weight of fire. The wraithguard were a little less successful killing only two terminators with their cannons and the warp hunter managed to miss the ravenwing completely. The scouts and librarian made a bold move towards the ravenwing and an errant bolt pistol shot killed one.

 

 

Battle is joined in full!

 

The Librarian seeing fellow marines aiding such xenos scum was enraged, summoning his might he led the ravenwing against the scouts to wipe them out through a mixture of plasma fire and combat. The land raiders tried in vain to kill the farseer despite hitting and wounding him with all their lascannons! The last of the deathwing charged the wraithguard to crush the constucts with their powerfists taking the spiritseer down as well. In response the storm talon and pheonix focused all their firepower on the deathwing and the weight of fire again proved too much for my armour. The warp hunter focused it's fire on the ravenwing and although it's distort weapon moved close to unleash a torrent that should have ripped the ravenwing to pieces, the librarian's power field shielded all but one of them from harm. Next turn the librarian and bikes attempted to take vengeance on the tank but luck abandoned me and it survived barely scratched! The land raiders this time managed to to take the farseer and destroyed the last of the warp spiders at well. Having failed to kill kill the warp hunter it backed up slightly and unleashed it's template of doom again, another biker fell and the librarian was down to his last wound. Above the pheonix redirected it's flightpath to attack the ravenwing and I was down to only two bikers.

 

 

The final hours:

 

On the second attempt the black knights of the command squad finally managed to bring down the warp hunter but the effort left them huddled next to the wreckage. The land raiders turned around and advanced slowly to focus their fire on the jet bikes lurking in my deployment zone. The shots were true and only one survived the volley. With the eldar bomber now almost directly over the ravenwing it's unleashed it missile launchers to bombard the ravenwing and as the storm talon added it's shots to the attack the last infantry I had on the table fell, leaving me only the land raiders. As the dusk slowly arrived the land raiders stood unassailable on the battlefield with only fliers and 3 lurking jetbikes left of the xenos forces.

 

As we counted the killed point it was clear victory had gone to the Dark angels, 13 kill points to 6. Win for the Dark angels.

 

 

So in the end I won 4 out of 5 games, enjoyed them all and have come away very content with the list. Deathwing is a very compact and tricky army and although the addition of the bikes makes it a little less strongly themed than some it still feels very much a Deathwing army. The power field generator is an awesome piece of kit and although I did have several amusing instances where I gave my opponent invulnerable saves it was definitely worth the cost. Land raiders with saves are diabolical on an opponent's attitude towards them. A heart can sink instantly if, when they finally get a penetrating hit on such a tough tank, it ignores the damage completely because of a guy on a bike hiding behind it.

 

[InterrogatorChaplainKamjin]

Gratz....I like the addition of the RW I think it adds some moblity to a mostly DW army...

[Darkangeldentist]

This will be something of a final assessment of my armylist, how it performed and what its reliable capabilities are.

 

 

Performance:

 

Winning four out of five games was impressive and all of those games had plenty of back and forth resulting in quite close margins of victory for those that I won but a fairly crushing difference in the game that I lost. Deathwing is an army that will rarely roll over the opponent and can fall to pieces quickly if things go wrong.

 

In the first game I didn't make any terrible mistakes save letting Belial get tangled up in that challenge which could have gone much worse for me but I do count it as a mistake as refusing would have left the rest of the unit to clobber the tyrant for what would hopefully been little loss thanks to the storm shields (and my opponent only hit once with the first round of attacks). As it turned out though the challenge going on so long proved helpful since when it finally ended Belial and his unit were able to charge straight into combat with two monstrous creatures which had come down to beat up a land raider.

 

Game 2 I was lucky, that first charge that caught the Tau fusion blasters was a long shot in the extreme and alongside Belial's rather more reliable and planned impact it put my opponent on the back foot. The last turn gambit was another example of my good fortune in that game as the riptide could easily have destoryed the raider after the tank shock. My armour saves were good for the most part and in particular the terminator squad that charged the fusion suits impacted heavily on the game by soaking up all of his shooting from the second turn and forced him to commit to combat with the riptides.

 

Game 3 saw an interesting mixture of good and bad fortune swing the course of the game back and forth a bit but overall the outcome was pretty close to what I expected given the matchup and fact I was going second. My opponent suffered more from the sometimes quite extreme dice rolls, particularly with their timing but the reserves rolls that held back his deathmarks in particular worked to his advantage and his doom scythe proved very reliable for it's death ray beam which never failed to roll less than 12 for the length of the line.

 

Game 4 was where it came a little unstuck for me. I made mistakes and my luck ran out for saving throws. The ravenwing in particular but the key decision was to land Belial and his unit next to where the wave serpents and both wraith knights could retaliate against them in the turn following arrival. Had I landed them over towards the flank where the ravenwing commited the eldar would only have been able to shoot Belial's unit with the wraith knights and wave serpent's main guns, so not the units inside which would have made the decision about what to shoot the Ravenwing with harder and Belial would only have been charged by a single wraith knight. I might well not have killed his warlord and the Baron in the first turn's shooting but I may still have happened due to how much he had spread the unit out. I had chosen the wrong side of the table for deployment which gave my opponent terrain to deploy in. Had I chosen the other side I would have had a lot more difficulty deploying and moving up the land raiders but it may well have been useful. Lastly it might have been beneficial for me to have for once Deathwing assaulted with all the terminators (using the ravenwing teleport homers) to increase my firepower on that first turn just that little bit more.

 

Game 5 saw events follow their expected course most closely I suspect. The eldar tanks and small units got shot down out of the sky quickly when any damage stuck whilst the alien's ability to focus fire and torrent the small Dark angel units meant I was unable to keep any infantry alive long. I made one mistake getting the assault cannon unit out of their land raider to rescue Belial. Had I left Belial to hit fate the combat may have gone on for several turns but I would have got something out of the squad in the shooting phase (either against the hornet or to hopefully kill off the last warp spider) or the squad could have stayed in the land raider for a turn and allowed me an easier time taking down the hornet and farseer in a later turn.

 

 

 

Strength and reliability of the list:

 

The list feels quite strong, none of the lists I faced were weak by any stretch and all used by good players. The tournament particulars for fixed objectives, no first blood and fixed game length (6 turns) did impact somewhat in particular for knowing when to commit for objectives and giving greater value for going second.

 

Two land raiders protected by a powerfield generator is a really, really tough prospect for many lists. With standard lascannon land raiders the list has a respectable quantity of long range tank busting firepower. It makes toughness 4 multi-wound models worry and can cause respectable damage on monstrous creatures as well. Short range tank busting specialists that come forward risk getting shot and assaulted by ravenwing black knights or Deathwing, potentially before they get a chance to blow up the land raiders.

 

The raiders also provide that priceless benefit of complete protection for the terminators carried inside until they get out. Belial and whichever unit he accompanies can arrive when and where I want, which helps their survivability and twin-linking a heavy flamer that can always land in an ideal location to place the template can be amazing.

 

Overall the list is quite brittle, it's not forgiving of mistakes and even harsher to bouts of bad luck with armour saves. It's strength lies in how difficult it can be apply any damage in the early game (since the bikes tend to hide behind the land raiders when going second) and how well it can apply pressure when going first. Going first allows the ravenwing to cause impressive damage with their plasma talons and grenade launcher. This is particularly valuable against forces with expensive, modestly reslient units like wraithlords, riptides, hive tyrants, wave serpents and the like. They can cause a lot of damage and when facing units like the wraiths you can multiple the effectiveness of the other guns in your force. (Amusingly when facing space marines this makes the face off against centurions with grav weapons very brutal. If you get the plasma talons and rad grenade to land the land raider lascannons will then be able to instant death the centurions. Meaning just the bikes and land raiders could take out a whole max unit of six in one round of shooting.

 

 

General tactics:

 

There are a few general tactics for Deathwing armies that I have found.

 

Split-fire for assaults: This ability is much more useful than it first appears. It is at it's most powerful when you have a unit nearby that you wish to assault. Take the Ld test to split fire and if successful fire a single gun at the intended assault target. Then direct the rest of the guns at something else. This can create all sorts of sneaky situations to your benefit. Shooting a storm bolter at a tank so you can charge in and destory it with powerfists whilst other storm bolters and assault cannon savage guard/dire avengers/orks/etc... some way off. Sometimes you need the heavy weapon to hopefully take out or damage a tank or monstrous creature before the terminators charge into a mob of infantry. The main strength of this rule is how flexible it makes a unit of terminators when directing their attacks.

 

 

Land raiders as transports: Although there is no need to make them a dedicated transport having a squad inside a land raider does generate several benefits. First and foremost is the protection to the squad inside. That unit does also provide a significant deterent to foes that would threaten the land raider. A full terminator squad charging out of a land raider preceded by a round of shooting is sizeable indeed. A lot of the tank busting specialists that pose the most reliable and severe threats to land raiders have very short ranges. So unless they arrive via deep strike there is a good chance the combat threat of the Deathwing will discourage opponents from taking down the land raiders, or if they do try you will be able to counter them before they achieve their goal. (6" move + 6" disembarkation +2D6" assault range is a pretty long threat range.) The advantage in my view of the basic land raider over crusaders and redeemers is that with lascannons you have valuable firepower at great distance so there is little need to rush forwards early in the game. This gives you a little more control over the engagement.

 

 

Limit enemy fire: This is why land raiders and Deathwing assault are so powerful to a deathwing list. By ferrying around part of your army in such well armoured tanks and keeping part  of it off table you can reduce the opponent's firepower to a small handful of guns. With only a small portion of their army able to do anything in the first turn or two you can negate (for the most part) the firepower advantage they will inevitably have. When all they can see are armour 14 tanks the only guns that are relevent are those that can crack that armour. This is also why getting into combat is vital in spite of the risks involved getting there. In combat you can only be attacked by other models involved in that combat. Very small units such as terminators can become easily surrounded after pile-ins so that opponents can struggle to deliver other units to that fight. More significantly if your opponent does wish to send units into an ongoing combat those units cannot shoot that turn at something else. Terminators are deadly close combat troops when they get to swing and ravenwing have hit and run so if you pick your fights there is little risk of becoming bogged down in a futile combat. Ideally you will want to have combat end during the opponent's turn so you can consolidate, move and charge again but it's difficult to create that unless you have hit and run. The key thing is that between combats, high armour and carefully focused fire you can greatly limit your opponent's ability to shoot at you effectively.

 

 

 

Identify threats and mission achievers from the opponent: This more about strategy and use of specific tactics dependent on the situation (mission, table, etc...) and opponent. Every army must have scoring units though, these must be identified along with what your opponent's strategy for them will be. A lot of the people at the tournament had multiple small units designed to either hide in reserve early game or sit in transports to keep them alive. Only the tyranid player brought a large quantity of troops and he had means of generating more. It is a difficult decision whether to focus on killing scoring units that have little purpose but to objective grab near the end of the game but it is worth remembering that if they do not have any scoring units victory will likely be yours or dependent on secondary mission criteria.

 

Identifying the most significant threats to your army is something everyone should do. With land raiders this identification gets a little skewed. Very few weapons reliably destroy a land raider and it is easy to spot what the opponent has to deal with them. The tricky aspect here is that your opponent will also know what tools they have to deal with the land raiders and plan accordingly. This can make it more valuable ignoring these units because you know the opponent will use and preserve them to deal with the land raiders. Fusion blasters and melta guns must get really close to have a decent chance of cracking open a land raider and that dictates their use on the table it also means you will often get a chance to attack them first. When you know what your opponent is going to do, you can plan around them. If the odds of your opponent destroying your land raider are quite low then it's often better to prioritise other targets. A tyrannofex falls into this category, each shot (of two) has a 50% chance of hitting and there's a 50% chance of that hit damaging. That's 25% odds for each shot doing any damage. Due to the poor AP there is little chance of the land raider exploding from a penetrating hit. So on average a tyrannofex will take one hull point every other turn shooting a land raider, less if the power field generator or cover is factored in. Unless the land raider is destroyed this means that each turn the tyrannofex shoots at the land raider it is adding nothing to the battle. It can be ignored until you can bring tools to bear that will kill it in one turn such as charging terminators.

 

Using the weekend games as examples. The nid game saw me using the land raiders as mobile bunkers early on forcing my opponent to come down from the skies to deal with them. Even with smash attacks it took more than one round of combat to take down a land raider and I was able to assault the winged monsters in retaliation. (More luck than design as it turned out but the plan was there from the start.) I kept the terminators in the tanks or combat as much as possible to prevent/limit his attacks on my infantry.

 

Against the Necrons he had a good number of threats to the land raiders and I encouraged him to bring those tools forward early on. The terminators jumped out of the raiders to attack first and reduced his threats to the tanks significantly whilst also allowing me to negate the initial unit advantage he began with. 

 

The Tau game saw a good example of how the gambles about using land raiders as bait both pays off and risks the list. His hammerhead spent most of the game taking shots on land raiders but it was only on the final turn that he actually damaged one and alas blew my tank up in one hit. That nearly cost me the game. However it meant the hammerhead did virtually nothing else all game.

 

In the game I lost I made a fatal error believing that my opponent would prioritise using the wraithknights to deal with the land raiders early using his heavy wraith cannons. He did not and instead made the sensible choice of focusing on the terminators and bikes first which I had not placed well enough to limit the firepower he could focus on them. In this case I should have played more of a distance game with the terminators to limit his shoot charge options with the wraith knights and made it more risky to get the troops out of their transports early on. These changes might have not only lessened his retaliation in the first turn significantly but also allowed me to preverse the assault cannon squads by remounting them into my tanks and karting them across to effectively deliver damage later in the game. (Instead of getting slowly erroded by his shooting.)

 

The last game probably brings the most informative examples though. My opponent had very, very limited means of dealing with the land raiders, pulse lasers and wraith cannon were about it, the warp hunter also had a chance of doing damage due to the distort rule. I ignored these threats initially and focused on his support and harrassing elements first. (Farseer and wave serpent, rangers and warp spiders.) I had hoped he would focus the hornet's fire on the land raiders before I shot at them even though he could only cause glancing hits because he had so few other options to dent them. Alas he was just as canny as I and focused them instead on my infantry to take advantage of the number of shots those little tanks put out. I was fortunate that it was a kill point mission as the final position where he had virtually nothing that could dent the land raiders but that was all I had left meant I still claimed victory in the end.

 

 

Apologies for the wall of text, I hope it isn't too much in one go and that what I has said is coherent and intelligible. With any luck I hope it helps anyone thinking about fielding a Deathwing army.

[Isiah]

Fabulous and well written conclusions. Always great to see you gaming and analysing.

 

Cheers

I

[Tanhausen]

Very nice analysis, I enjoyed the reading one of the best DW-tactica and reps I recall in a LONG time.

 

This will be something of a final assessment of my armylist, how it performed and what its reliable capabilities are.

 

[snip]

 

 

General tactics:

 

There are a few general tactics for Deathwing armies that I have found.

 

Split-fire for assaults: This ability is much more useful than it first appears. It is at it's most powerful when you have a unit nearby that you wish to assault. Take the Ld test to split fire and if successful fire a single gun at the intended assault target. Then direct the rest of the guns at something else. This can create all sorts of sneaky situations to your benefit. Shooting a storm bolter at a tank so you can charge in and destory it with powerfists whilst other storm bolters and assault cannon savage guard/dire avengers/orks/etc... some way off. Sometimes you need the heavy weapon to hopefully take out or damage a tank or monstrous creature before the terminators charge into a mob of infantry. The main strength of this rule is how flexible it makes a unit of terminators when directing their attacks.

 

IIRC, that is not so...and its a big difference. Don't have the BRB with me, so I'll have to rely on my memory...

 

The "Split fire" USR reads something like:

 

You decide that you want to split fire, DECLARE objectives (this here is primary objective, that there being secondary objective) and then you roll a LD test to see if you suceed.

 

If you do, fine, split fire as desired.

 

If you don't, everything shoots at the primary objective.

 

Sounds like a meek point...but it ain't, because suddenly, 25% of the times (failed LD checks) you can't multiassault that chimera or whatnot...

 

Please do correct me if I'm wrong!

 

ologies for the wall of text, I hope it isn't too much in one go and that what I has said is coherent and intelligible. With any luck I hope it helps anyone thinking about fielding a Deathwing army.

 

I'm POSITIVE that it will help any DW player up their game significantlly...because this hindsight look is usually one of the most overlooked tasks in anyone who tries to improve their gaming :)

[Darkangeldentist]

Thanks for the supportive comments Isiah and Tanhausen.

 

In regards to the question about split-fire. Here's the relevent wording from the mini-rulebook.

 

"When a unit that contains at least one model with this special rule shoots, one model in the unit can shoot at a different target to the rest of his unit. To do so, the unit must first take a Leadership test. If the test is failed, the unit shoots as normal. If the test is passed...."

 

The Ld check happens first.

[Tanhausen]

Don't want to be an :cuss but ...does it say "If the test is passed designate a second objective"?

 

We had a whole argument about this at a tournament...actually my opponent and a refree, since I couldn't care less.

 

It went along the lines of shooting first a turrent and then the sponsons...and all we care about is will we survive to swing the hammer at Ini 1 :P

[lost_angel]

Don't want to be an but ...does it say "If the test is passed designate a second objective"?

The wording just refers to targets in the split fire rule and doesn't insist that you designate one unit or the other as primary or secondary objectives for the purposes of either split fire or assault. Seems like a perfectly valid tactic and one that smaller armies like DW can benefit greatly from. It's pretty situational though and won't always be a game breaker. Just handy to have.

Hope that helps.

[Tanhausen]

It does, thanks for the reply :)

 

Sorry for the rules question DAD :)

[Darkangeldentist]

Nothing to apologise over Tanhausen, everyone is justified in querying rules to make sure they have been played right. Anyone can make a mistake or interpret a sentence incorrectly so it's important that there is no stigma for asking and checking.

 

Thank you for asking.