Dark Angels: 7th Edition Winners & Losers

[Ultra Magnus]

With most of us are hungrily devouring the new rulebook over the weekend and trying to assess the impact to our favorite lists, I thought it might be fun to start collecting our thoughts on those units that received the dreaded nerf bat or a new lease on life under the new rules. Here are some of mine:

Losers:

Scouts

Scouts are marginally worse in almost every configuration, losing the ability to charge in the bottom half of turn 1, losing Pinning & the Rending rule on sniper rifles in exchange for a watered down version, and, (though it doesn't effect Dark Angels), even had their LSS transport now become vulnerable to template based weapon attacks. Only the bolter configuration remains unchanged.

Mace of Redemption

This beloved relic suffers with changes made to the Blind USR for melee attacks. Rather than rolling for the Blind check immediately and with immediate application as in 6th, now the Blind test is taken at the end of the phase, meaning it will only effect the next round of combat not the one you are currently in. So much for your Chaplain heroically charging in to cripple an enemy unit or survive that first round of challenge against a tooled up foe.

The Ravenwing

The change to the Jinks USR makes already fragile units laughably so, especially skimmers. With no adjustments to points, these units are now either easily destroyed or sacrifice their offensive power just to have a chance to stay alive. For example a jinking LSV can either a) not fire its primary blast weapon or fire its alternate mode as snap shots that have as good a chance of blowing it up as to actually hit it's target. If Sammael's unit jinks, he can't fire his plasma cannon, and the Black Knights are hamstrung with their grenades and talons. Nice.

Belial & Azrael

Neither of these guys were directly effected in terms of combat ability but the move to "everything scores" did put a damper on the value of their FOC shifting abilities. Yes troops get "Objective Secured" but still we paid a heap for "scoring Terminators" which essentially now every army can take without paying the points for these mediocre beatsticks.

Characters

They lost precision shots/strikes which makes taking that Ravenwing Champion a suspect move and they no longer provide much of a sacrificial speedbump in challenges as all the wounds just pour right on through.

Chaplains

They did not get worse per se, only relatively due to changes to challenge mechanics and the increased importance of psykers.

Winners

It is not all gloom and doom! Some of our units actually got some minor enhancements, even if they may not exclusive to Dark Angels (e.g. general vehicle improvements) so won't necessarily shift the competitive meta as much.

Nephilim

Our much maligned flyer actually got a bit of a boost with changes to the vehicle damage table. In addition to making it slightly tougher to shoot down, the new Crash & Burn addition to the Immobilized result gives it an increased ability to also shoot down competing flyers.

Ezekial

Ezekial appears to me to be the stand out winner from the 7th Edition rule changes. Mind Worm looks to be a bit more usable with the changes to focused witchfire powers, his high masterly level provides much needed psychic defenses, he can now potentially cast multiple witchfires for additional killiness, and the new psychic phase allows him to cast blessings and maledictions the turn he comes in (say from a Drop pod) providing insane boosts to our alpha strikes. His Book of Salvation also appears to now contain spells for summoning demons and he now even has a reason to fire that master crafted bolt pistol. What's not to like?

Dedicated Transports

Dedicated transports are now considered scoring units ("super scoring" if taken by troops) as well as benefit from the increased toughness of the new vehicle damage table. This strengthens all versions of mechanized lists as a drop poded tactical squads will now put down three (combat squaded) scoring units on an objective that need to be removed before it can be claimed by the enemy.

The Deathwing

They can now score without Belial (although you lose Objective Secured benefits) and Splitfire no longer requires a leadership check removing some of the randomness from your plans. Also Landraiders have been given a new lease on life through the combination of the new vehicle chart, scoring capability, and the newly FAQ'd status of the PFG. Finally the new reserve rules eliminate the 50% requirement and allow for the potential for a full turn 1 Deathwing Assault.

Vehicles and Dreadnoughts

Both become a bit tougher to kill with the new vehicle damage tables, and none more so than the Deathwing Landraider.

PFG

Our favorite piece of archaic war gear just got ALOT better with the recent FAQ, which appears to once again allow it to operate from within, and to the benefit of vehicles. Expect Techmarines and Librarians to experience renewed (continued?) popularity as the "field bearers" of our new new mechanized lists.

Any to add to either category? Competing view points on any of those selected?

[Prot]

I was waiting for this thread to pop up!

 

I'm not going to go through it point by point... but my initial thoughts:

Strangely enough I put Belial and Az in the WIN category! - Super scoring units are gold in this edition imho.

 

Sadly, I do agree Ravenwing is toast.

[Komrk]

I believe that walkers now have a locked area for firing rather than 360 now so that something

[SvenONE]

I unfortunately can't comment as I was away all weekend and couldn't pick it up in store on Saturday! I hadn't heard that sniper rules had changed, quite honestly I don't know if I ever had a sniper score a pinning result from an unsaved wound, and if they did it was inconsequential anyway. Never thought about the RWGL and the jink until you mentioned it (does turbo-boost at least provide a +1 still?). That's a stinker indeed. I've always seen the champion (other than DWC) to be losers anyway

I'm grabbing the book tomorrow and playing Wednesday so I can have a slightly better opinion.

EDIT: Just read something about how Focussed Witchfires work, apparently you just have to score 1 more successful charge than is required and you pick the target. That's really, really good for Mind Worm provided GW doesn't make it a Warp 2 or 3 power. Look Our Sir is still a HUGE problem, but at least we're over the first hurdle for Mind Worm.

[Ultra Magnus]

@Prot

 

Interesting read on Azzie/Belial. I just feel that the extra points you pay for them now makes them a bit more questionable. A generic HQ with tactical squads will get you your Objective Secured units and you STILL get your termies or bikes as scoring if you need them. It makes it more of a judgment call than it was previously for sure. As for Ravenwing I commiserate with you. Guess who is sitting on an entire list worth of unassembled Ravenwing boxes. Yup, this guy. :)

 

 

@Sven-

 

The removal of Pinning from Sniper's is situational but still a nerf. More important to my mind is the removal of Rend, which removes Sniper Scouts ability to potentially damage anything AV11 and up. Also turbo boost no longer effects your Jinx save, it just provides extra movement. As for Mind Worm, I too am excited about it. I was crushed after your original mathhammer of it in a post a while back but it looks like it may be seeing a resurgence under the new rule. Even if you miss your focus roll, it no longer hits a random target but the closest one, giving you the potential, with proper positioning of hitting your intended target anyway.

[durdle-durdle]

I don't rave wing lost THAT much. I'm relatively new, I admit, but I almost never need to jink. Its like 95% armor saves. On top of that, with a dark shroud, they get a 3+ instead of a 4+. And if you have the dakka banner, its not as huge of a deal to snapshot. Coincidentally, dark shrouds can get a 2+jink and snapshot now for what its worth. Then there's the new shrouding psychic ability which can put a squad at 2+ without the dark shroud

 

 

What I really want to try though is an azzzy star with azrael, a huge blob of guard and cheap IG psykers with santic for sanctuary and hammer hand. S5, 3++Sv, fearless furious charge guard? Yes.

 

Also dreads have hammer of wrath now.

[Polythemus]

Dark shroud now always has 2+ cover save availible, (ninja'd by durdle)

Death wing assault got better (no reserve restriction though you do auto lose. if no models on the board at the end of game turn.)

Walkers can fire over watch regardless of facing.

I don't know where I fall on the undeniable bike/terminator FOC extenders. Might be useful, seems overpriced.

I pity those of you who have regular demon opponents.

 

I think it might be too early to call on ravenwing, jink is more reliable, and is improved but we're not really any worse off since there are so many ignores cover weapons. Plus it's kind of an alpha strike list anyway so you are relying on the first turn same as before. PFG is still your friend.

 

The question becomes how to use Ezekiel. Rhino or pod? Podded with a command squad and azreal might be pretty sweet, but rhino gives more mobility.

[durdle-durdle]

28 pt company vets with storm shields and sanctuary?

 

There's a divination power that let's psykers reroll failed saves. Ezekial has 2+ armor. Not quite fatey, but still powerful.

[Retaliation]

The question becomes how to use Ezekiel. Rhino or pod? Prodded with a command squad and azreal might be pretty sweet, but rhino gives more mobility.

Drop Pod if you have strong deathwing elements to attach to after deep striking, rhino otherwise would be my guess. 

[aura_enchanted]

I hope we get an faq/errata soon. If we are first in line (or second considering how unplayable nids got). We will need it or we will be forced to take allies. Gk probably seem the best choice or the am

[SvenONE]

 

@Sven-

 

The removal of Pinning from Sniper's is situational but still a nerf. More important to my mind is the removal of Rend, which removes Sniper Scouts ability to potentially damage anything AV11 and up. Also turbo boost no longer effects your Jinx save, it just provides extra movement. As for Mind Worm, I too am excited about it. I was crushed after your original mathhammer of it in a post a while back but it looks like it may be seeing a resurgence under the new rule. Even if you miss your focus roll, it no longer hits a random target but the closest one, giving you the potential, with proper positioning of hitting your intended target anyway.

 

 

I'll be redoing the math soon! I'm a huge fan of Ezekiel as an HQ and would like to see more people finding a reason to use him! The downside is that with the shooting phase coming AFTER the psychic phase you won't be chewing away any of those ablative wounds until after (aka reducing the options for LOS). Ooooo visit to in-laws, why did you waylay my effort to get the book!

[Shubniggurath]

Ezekiel definitely got better, which is nice. Also, as I usually field lots of Terminators, I'm really happy with those changes to the reserve rule. From what I understand, ideally, you could let your opponent start, and then do one massive alpha strike with lots of terminators and maybe some drop pods. Looks good to me .

[durdle-durdle]

Yep!  i'm excited to try out foot slogging terminators that won't be shot at for several turns trying to cross the board.  

 

Random question, in the DA wargear section, it says that any terminator can replace their stormbolter with a combi-weapon.  Is this for ALL terminators or just the HQ terminators who specifically say they have access to that section of the dark angels wargear section?  I would hapilly take that for 6 points a piece on some terminators!  turn one drop in and use two squads to blow up three tanks.  (2-3 at one, split one at another tank, other squad does 2-3 at one, and splits one at the other tank.)    nevermind, found it on the internet.  Now that i don't need belial, i could try a different version of this with two librarians deep striking with two squads of DWT to pop a tank and put a hurt on two infantry squads.

[Prot]

Ezekiel-Glad to hear he's better. I never touched him... but if you guys say Mind Worm is the bomb.... I believe you. lol

 

Ravenwing- Okay, here's my thing with Ravenwing... It's the build I've played most and found it could be potent with the dakka banner. However, as more and more codexes came out, Jink started getting worse and worse. Too many armies started coming out that simply ignore it... Heldrakes, Tau, Mawlocs, Deathstrikes, D-flamers, etc etc.

 

So when at first the False Rumour came out that 'ignores cover' was going to mean -2 to cover save, I was pretty happy about that... then of course it turned out to be false (who on earth actually gets a kick out of spreading false rumours about a game?)

 

In my personal experience, it became less and less usable to A) rely on Jink as a survival mechanism (in a competitive environment) and therefore B ) take a Dark Shroud which without the ability to provide cover basically becomes an easy 'First Kill' for your opponent.

 

So on one hand the issue comes from good ol' codex creep, but on top of the loss of cover from these units, now you're telling me I gotta Snap Fire everything when I do get a chance to Jink? No thanks. It's just too expensive for a situational ability.

 

All the power to you guys continuing with Ravenwing. I'm not saying I won't play it... it's what attracted me to Dark Angels, but I think to start 7th I'm going to focus on my Deathwing.

 

Deathwing: Again, nothing negative happened here. I still like Belial giving me super scoring.  The mentioned loss of having 50% on the table is a nice touch.  I may mix in drop pods... maybe even get Ezekiel in there.

 

Nephilim... I just finally painted mine. I'm not sure if the new rules make it worth 180. I still see more value in it as a pill box with Avenger. But I do plan to try it out even though I see the Necron Flyer as a true value with half the price and twin linked shots that hit 3 times on a 6! Still I will definitely give the Nephilim a fair shake.

 

My  only starting unit may be a scoring Landraider (hidden as much as possible) unitl the rest comes down. Could be lots of fun.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

Also: Dreadnoughts gained hammer of wrath attacks and Nephilim has a nice missile lock.

I disagree on Scouts being losers. Tactical objectives are good to use scout infiltrate.

[Garath]

.... Ravenwing where going to get nerfed - like they always did in the past . It was simply a question of time. The one competitive "build" with multiple Ravenwing Knight units still works.

Nobody mentions Deathwing Land raiders.... not only are terminators super scoring, LR if taken as transports are ALSO super scoring.

I sense a parking lot idea :

Belial

Libby with PFG

Dw command squad with BoD, LR transport with dwv

5 Termies, LR transport with dwv

5 Termies, LR transport with dwv

2000 pts?

Step one -deal with most units that have Ap2 , Step two - no one can one shot those tanks . Step 2 - drive around in scoring Land raiders . Step 4 - shake hands

[Master Avoghai]

I'm actually more positive about RW...

 

Fact is we've lost jink for one year now with all the codex released with all the ignore cover rule. I've recently lost an entire squad of RW under dominions fire because they got an act of faith that granted them with ignore cover...

Damn, if even codexes abandonned by GW gets it... <_<

 

So nothing new here : you have to chose before shooting if you jink so if you know that your opponent will get ignore cover, don't do it. If he does, analyze the type of shoots and do it if necessary.

 

To me it's only sad for RWGL because you won't be able to improve your charge effect. But if you plan to charge, double plasma talons shots are not always a good thing as it risks to make the charge range too long.

 

I don't think you've mentioned transports. They really get better now. You'll often need 3 success shots to kill them. Even with lascan. And often they will remain destroyed on the field providing cover for your troops.

Moreover, they do contest now, even immobilized, and they count as troops if it's the rhino/pod of your tacticals.

This allow to play very aggressive strategies with pod arriving directly on an objective or RZB moving toward it while providing support shooting.

 

Of course the Land raiders are the great winners, particularly the DW troops one... I'm waiting for the FAQ to see if they modify something concerning the PFG.

[Phaeton]

Tough Landraiders - YES!

Battle brothers transporting our units - YES

No more reserve bull:cuss - YES

 

Deathwing get some serious buffs

 

For example, pair of my new rosters: 

 

http://hq-builder.com/timeline/post/1389

 

2 LRs + Stormwing

 

http://hq-builder.com/timeline/post/1372

 

LR with DWK + foot Deathwing

[Master Avoghai]

For example, pair of my new rosters:

 

http://hq-builder.com/timeline/post/1389

 

2 LRs + Stormwing

 

http://hq-builder.com/timeline/post/1372

 

LR with DWK + foot Deathwing

What in your first list you don't take your LR as troops transport? They gain the objective secured special rule...

[SnakeChisler]

Ravenwing are still what they were I've not had a cover save on them in quite a while my opponents spam ignores cover at every opportunity and an armor save is a bit of a luxury as well.

 

Tigarius Centurion + Thunderfire spam / Tau Buff Commander spam / Wave Serpent Spam

 

You basically learn to live with it and maneuver round it as has been said the PFG is your friend and there has been some quite neat new additions and what applies to us for Jinx is far worse for Eldar who I think this was primarily aimed at.

 

The new version of Misfortune is a absolute corker, salvo Bolters with rending is the stuff dreams are made of and as has been said your 35 point Rhino got a lot more useful.

 

If your playing Maelstrom of War with tactical objectives then we have all the tools to take on anyone, so far we've had a couple of games and I really like it its just what the game needed you simply can't camp on an objective or zip onto it turn 5 you have to generate points all during the game.

 

I only play at the club or at home with the odd club comp but I really hope Maelstrom becomes the normal mode of play, outflanking deep striking tactical maneuvers and sacrifices for key objectives. For example in the last game I had I outflanked a bike squad killed enough of my opponents troops to then control the objective giving me 2 points (2 control cards for that objective) + D3 for controlling double the number of objectives than he did (mission card) which swung the game in my favor. We've not had time to finish the game so its still sat there at the bottom of 5th and were not sure who is going to win, he has a couple of objective cards to cash in making it a draw but needs to draw some more points or make a play for mission objectives and I've got to match it going 2nd.

 

You really need to keep the points ticking over in this mode and taking mega deathstars basically is relying on wiping out your opponent

[Phaeton]

What in your first list you don't take your LR as troops transport? They gain the objective secured special rule...

Sure, but not enough points, sadly.

Inspired by the example of Garath, I write this: http://hq-builder.com/timeline/post/1391

Try to shoot down those 4++ repairable venerable dakka armed LRC

[SnakeChisler]

Overkill works both ways as far as I can see even if the challenge is with a single model your squad still gets to give him a kicking.

 

Big thing with Flying Daemons they have to land before they can assault so no aerial straight into combat

 

and

 

New powers let you negate invulnerable save against daemons by -1 

[Master Avoghai]

His Book of Salvation also appears to now contain spells for summoning demons and he now even has a reason to fire that master crafted bolt pistol. What's not to like?

I wouldn't rely on that.

 

Summonings are WC3 with any double causing a warp peril...

 

Just to get an idea : rolling 3d6 to cast it gives you 16% to succeed while in the same time 46% to get a peril.

 

Ezekiel still suffers from the lack of inv save.

 

So I don't think he gets anything from v7

[Chaplain Lucifer]

He makes your army have d6+3 warp charges from the get go which is overwhelming to a psykerless army, the possibility to deny enemy shenanigans on your units at 12" radius, and extra WS to units around him. Choose santic demonology and you put Ezekiel with Terminators and:

- Get banishment for free.

- WS5 terminators.

- 3 chances of gettinggate of infinity for DS twin linkined goodness

- 3 chances to get hammerhand: S6 ezekiel, s10 termies and s6 termie sgt with powersword!

-3 chances to get sanctuary. 2++ or 4++ termies!

or

3 chances to get cleansing flame. use gate of infinity, get within 9" for cleansing flame, finishe with twinlinked stoem bolters and AC/HF.

 

Or go for divination:

get prescience for free!

- foreboding makes assaulting those termies a challenge.

- forewarning gives termies a 4++

-perfect timing gives ignore cover to termies. :)

- precognition is not bad per se

-misfortune is awonderful curse

.scrier's gaze isn't bad as well.

 

Sure a regular librarian can do some of that... but Zeke is a cool guy and buys drink after work.

[Isiah]

Great topic!! I'm enjoying everyone's considered input.

 

Haven't gotten the 7th book yet - waiting for the A5 starter box version to appear on a well known auction site ;)

 

As for my beloved Deathwing. Loving the idea of running Ezekiel as their unbound HQ - and running an Inquisitor and a GKT squad for some Psychic high jinks. Plenty of standard Land Raiders too.

 

For me the new Psychic phase is very exciting and makes 7th worth it :yes:

 

Cheers

I