Give it to me straight...

[syypher]

How competitive do you guys think DA will be in 7th? 

Back in 5th I ran a DA army and it was super fun. I don't need to be the most competitive army out there, but I want a GOOD chance of winning. A lot of the players locally bring pretty tough lists! Tau, Eldar, Daemons galor (before the Daemon factory thing even came out) etc.

Big reason for my hesitation is is another DA player here, and he almost always loses... he deepstrikes T1, and bam, they shoot off 1-2 squads of his termies. Then they do 1-2 more next turn after he gets through the bubble wrap and it's just too wittled down for him to win. It seems his games always end the same way even though he tries different tactics.

That aside, can DA actually keep up? If so, how? All I've seen is DS then get shot to death/kited and shot to death for the local DA player :/

[Aradiel]

well, dwa is a option, not a obligation, also it can be done in t2. maybe he just sucks at it? as for being competitive i cant really help. im not and i havent played for a long time, maybe 2 or 3 games in very early 6th

[Chaplain Lucifer]

We will be as competitive if not more in new edition if missions have the tactical objectives. It levels the playground and forces some of the powerfull armiesarmies out of their confort zones.

If you face Tau, Eldar, demons, then I feel sorry for you because they'll still be the top dogs.. it's not our Codex.. it's their codex! But with new missions you have a better chance than before.

As for your DA player friend, T2 is usually the better turn to deepsstrike... but there can be something wrong with his army list and or tactics...

[Brother Bahram]

I almost play DW. Sometimes I use some regular marines/scouts.

It's hard when you always loose every game.

When I use DWA, always t2. Why? I've have a better view of the battle field and can put the guys at an objective etc.
Never DS without Belial. It's to dangerous with scatter.
We excell with LR'c with PFG.

It would be nice to view his army list, easier to tell what he can change in the list or give him som advice.
 

[Disciple of Caliban Sgt]

syypher,

 

What I noticed for me when I first started was I was terrible with DWA. I mean drop guys in the open in front of the gunline of doom terrible. Now of course I still do that on occasion if I want a giant distraction for the rest of my army but I found mixed wing to be better for me as an army overall. I haven't gotten my Greenwing finished but planning on Drop Pods out the wazoo for that (putting them together sucks though).

 

I agree with Lucifer in that they are probably better now than they were. DA have always been an army of using good generalship and talent I think. I'm not saying other armies aren't the same thing but Generic marines get a lot of the toys that make us get better at the pieces we are lacking. Also if you think about it you've got all three wings as an army. So you can specialize but once again it takes learning the game and becoming better.

 

So ya it will be rough when you start but get a few games in and you will get better. Watch out for armies like Tau/Dar etc. Those are not a good judge of how your army does because what I've found is players now will and do bring all the good units from everywhere to cover all aspects with no weaknesses. This is no fun for me but some might enjoy it. So play and enjoy however you'd like to but remember we have to use our generalship and remember First Legion............the one and only Loyal legion left.

[SnakeChisler]

A good General will still win with a decent codex and ours isn't bad with a lot of options

 

While some of the better players may hop on the latest bandwagon he's probably just not good enough to beat the opponents he's up against. For example i was watching a match up at a local comp DA v demons the demon prince comes steaming and issues a challenge the guy accepts with Belial who promptly gets destroyed yet he's sat in a squad of death wing knights who can 1 hit pulp the demon. He lost his warlord didn't seem to know about fortress of shields in the next phase probably forgot you could turn on the beat sticks to S10.

 

You have the tools and while DA are not top table there's enough there to beat anyone

 

I would add that predictability is going to be an issue I have death wing but normally play ravenwing and have some heavy support options, my opponents know this so can't pre list tailor against me ,I've often played mixed at well so they need to balance their lists

[xnickbaranx]

How competitive do you guys think DA will be in 7th? 

 

Back in 5th I ran a DA army and it was super fun. I don't need to be the most competitive army out there, but I want a GOOD chance of winning. A lot of the players locally bring pretty tough lists! Tau, Eldar, Daemons galor (before the Daemon factory thing even came out) etc.

 

Big reason for my hesitation is is another DA player here, and he almost always loses... he deepstrikes T1, and bam, they shoot off 1-2 squads of his termies. Then they do 1-2 more next turn after he gets through the bubble wrap and it's just too wittled down for him to win. It seems his games always end the same way even though he tries different tactics.

 

That aside, can DA actually keep up? If so, how? All I've seen is DS then get shot to death/kited and shot to death for the local DA player :/

 

I'll give it to you straight. I am a Dark Angels player - through and through. I have had a very difficult time winning games. I think in 6th Edition I played 30+ games and only won 1 in a standard environment? I won a couple more playing Zone Mortalis.

 

However, my list of options is not optimized to make use of the most competitive options in the book. My fully painted 1850 army is entirely Greenwing (no drop pods however) and it just cannot compete with most of what people field.

 

I can't tell you what will win games, but an optimized list that wins games I believe is possible out of the book, but it will be a hard fought battle and you will likely be more frustrated by the learning curve than if you took one of the top tiered armies.

 

Ultimately, being a Dark Angels player is about absolutely loving the army through thick and thin because we rarely get a moment in the sun. If you can get down with that, then go Dark Angels all the way. But if you're going to want to jump ship if you have a rough go out of the gate, DA's probably aren't your best choice.

[Prot]

How competitive do you guys think DA will be in 7th? 

 

Back in 5th I ran a DA army and it was super fun. I don't need to be the most competitive army out there, but I want a GOOD chance of winning. A lot of the players locally bring pretty tough lists! Tau, Eldar, Daemons galor (before the Daemon factory thing even came out) etc.

 

 

 

Can you handle the truth? :)

 

Srsly though, I will give you my 'straight opinion' but most people probably aren't going to like what I'm saying. In fact I normally don't really respond to these types of post for fear of negativity, however you play in a very similar environment to mine.

 

Here we don't pull punches. We have a lot of fun, but nothing is off limits and with many of us attending tournaments, often some sort of tourney list is being tested and tweaked.

 

That being said, I will say the DA codex falls in the bottom 4th of codexes imo. Just my opinion, but perhaps the scariest part of this is we are a 6th ed codex, created in a short time frame when GW was being conservative. We aren't that far off from Chaos which I also played heavily in 6th.

 

What is competitive? To me it is Ravenwing...I had by far my most success against some of the nastiest stuff with pure Ravenwing.

 

So what went wrong? What IS wrong?

 

Perhaps a totally different debate but in two words I say: Codex Creep. 7th edition has nothing to do with our mediocrity in my opinion. The new codexes (aside from Nids) have one upped us considerably. The stuff I started facing in the closing months of 6th was just putting me at too great a disadvantage.

 

Considering the way GW has been cruising on this path, I honestly believe it will be more of the same for the foreseeable future because of their release rate and trying to get everyone to jump on the latest/greatest.

 

I could go into greater detail on list types that new codexes present staggering challenges to DA, but that's kind of beyond the scope of this.

 

So there you go.That's just pure honesty from me with no intent to flame or get anyone upset. Again, I answered this because your environment sounds very similar to mine. And environment is a HUGE variable when answering these types of questions imo.

[syypher]

Thanks for the responses guys.

I just really like Terminators (one of my favorite models) and Dreadnoughts (second favorite) so it's just SO tempting to switch from my current Eldar force to DWA. I like the way Eldar look too but MSU squads of DW terminators in Land Raiders is just SO much cooler than MSU squads of Dire Avengers in Wave Serpents! 

Now, I forgot to iterate that I'm not necessarily looking to just drop pod my entire army, but looking for ways to make the DA codex as competitive as possible. 

Was thinking something with a bunch of DW Terminators in Land Raiders and Deathwing Knights in LRs. Give it to me straight... do some other marine codexes do the Terminator + LRs just better than DA? 9__9


@Prot: Thanks for your input. It's much appreciated :) Kind of sad the way it is then... but it's good to know before I invest hard earned $ into it >_<

[SvenONE]

The issue is that the codex gets in it's own way. As a concept, before you start adding points up, the book makes sense. But when you actually put these lists on the table, seeing all the things your opponents have, it becomes obvious we're a bit limited. It's easily the most bland 6th edition codex as far as content goes (compared to others). We're also still the only codex aside from Daemons who don't have any supplements.

I've only had one game so far against my Dark Eldar friend and it was a massacre (some poor drop pod scatters contributed to that though). I've watched a bunch of games now in my shop and at first I thought the dynamic objectives would help our army overall, but now I'm not so sure -- I think RW will still be our best and most effective lists. But it still might be too early to tell.

One of my biggest issues of the internet is that people will say "Oh, Dark Angels are good, people don't know how to play them" and provide no clear information as to the "way" they should be played, leaving it shrouded in a mystery that for some reason everyone must discover for themselves. Playing a Dark Angels army is not easy, they just aren't good at anything in particular. They've got some kooky rules, and some interesting units, and some gimmicks. In fact, I hate the PFG for what it's done to this codex, it's the only thing ever worth talking about, and the fact it's the only reason we are taken as allies is a REALLY telling thing.

If you're a fan of their aesthetic (which all of us primarily are) then you can handle their shortcomings, but I certainly wouldn't play them as a first choice army if I didn't like their fluff.

Thanks for the responses guys.

I just really like Terminators (one of my favorite models) and Dreadnoughts (second favorite) so it's just SO tempting to switch from my current Eldar force to DWA. I like the way Eldar look too but MSU squads of DW terminators in Land Raiders is just SO much cooler than MSU squads of Dire Avengers in Wave Serpents!

Now, I forgot to iterate that I'm not necessarily looking to just drop pod my entire army, but looking for ways to make the DA codex as competitive as possible.

Was thinking something with a bunch of DW Terminators in Land Raiders and Deathwing Knights in LRs. Give it to me straight... do some other marine codexes do the Terminator + LRs just better than DA? 9__9


@Prot: Thanks for your input. It's much appreciated Kind of sad the way it is then... but it's good to know before I invest hard earned $ into it >_<

MSU and Deathwing Terminators/Land Raiders are an oxymoron. You are going to be slumming it compared to your Eldar, especially when you see how many models a DW army ends up with on the table.

[SnakeChisler]

DA are hard to play due to the low model count and every loss being painful

 

A list I've been mulling over is a mixed Ravenwing Deathwing force using initially a Crusader + Banner of Devastation with Deathwing Knights.

 

I had thought of an all Knight version ie the immortal of the immortals but getting hold of a couple of Land Raiders + another Deathwing Knight squad is holding up the project basically  2 Crusaders both with Deathwing Knights + 2 Ravenwing command squads with a Psyker Biker in each with 2 sniper squads as troops

 

Whatever happens at least they'd go down in a blaze of glory oh and look really cool on the table

oh and thats 30 models for errr 1800 points ish

[Kilofix]

Thanks for the responses guys.

I just really like Terminators (one of my favorite models) and Dreadnoughts (second favorite) so it's just SO tempting to switch from my current Eldar force to DWA. I like the way Eldar look too but MSU squads of DW terminators in Land Raiders is just SO much cooler than MSU squads of Dire Avengers in Wave Serpents!

Now, I forgot to iterate that I'm not necessarily looking to just drop pod my entire army, but looking for ways to make the DA codex as competitive as possible.

Was thinking something with a bunch of DW Terminators in Land Raiders and Deathwing Knights in LRs. Give it to me straight... do some other marine codexes do the Terminator + LRs just better than DA? 9__9

@Prot: Thanks for your input. It's much appreciated Kind of sad the way it is then... but it's good to know before I invest hard earned $ into it >_<

I still think that if you want to go Terminators then all DA is the way to go (above Space Wolves and Grey Knights).

A few things about DA:

+ Now with 7th, they can Reserve and Deep Strike their entire force (just hide a small Scout squad somewhere first turn).

+ DA Termis can front a Storm Shield model (this is key against Plasma) even in shooty squads to take hits

+ DA Termis can get Plasma Cannon - which helps against other Termis

+ DA Termi Knights can kill large MCs in CC and are tough to kill themselves when paired with a char w/Narthecium

+ DA Termis with Belial for Scatterless, Twin-Linked and choose turn Deep Strike

They aren't the most competitive but they still work against certain lists. Last game I played GKs vs all Deathwing and I lost badly because I didn't have sufficient AP2 Plasma (I had three Servitors with Plasma Cannon that my opponent killed early).

[SvenONE]

Knights can't be combined with an Apothecary, Standard of Fortitude yes, apothecary no.

[Garath]

Let us pretend for a moment that you want a competitive army and that uses what the DA codex can give.

The few things that DA can do ...and no one else can do are:

Scoring Land Raiders with scoring terminators inside that have a 4++ inv save and force the opponent to re - roll damage dice.

Everything else we field can be killed by a lot of broken combos out there. We have to go for a skew list ...

In a competitive setting, you're facing things that are by default hard to kill.The only way DA can deal with a lot of stuff like Screamer star lists, Tau , demon swarm lists,Necron lords on command barges (those are borken to 11) is denial. That's right...

LR parking lot !!

The name of the game is : if it can kill a Powerfielder ( a DWLR unde PFG- it's gonna catch on ) - it needs to go down. Once you deal with targets that CAN kill your LRs, the termies are gonna contest HIS objectives (as they are super scoring) and we can win.

Hq: Belial

Libby with PFG, bike

Troops: Termies in LR

Termies in LR

It's a lot of points - and in fact it's 4 scoring units . Forget about DWA - people can handle it. Let them chew on the metal of those tanks.

[shabbadoo]

And Belial can't choose the turn of his own Deepstrike, but shows up on the turn other DW units DWA.  Also, you would only need the Scouts if you decide NOT to Deepstrike on Turn 1.

 

I have always liked Dreadnoughts in particular, all varieties, and now they are quite a bit more resilient than before (even the non-Venerable ones).  Deathwing backed up by a couple Drop Pod Venerable Dreadnoughts (I favor multi-melta & heavy flamer for these) are a nasty thing.

[SvenONE]

Oh, also if you choose Dark Angels, you have to put up with the "jokes" from your fellow players about how you're a traitor.  

 

AS LONG AS YOU KNOW THE TRUTH OF WHAT A TRAITOR TRULY IS THIS ISNT A PROBLEM.

[Shubniggurath]

Depending on who you're playing against, Dark Angels do have pretty good chances at winning. If you're playing in a really competitive environment, well tough luck, we're not meant to deal with that crazy bull:cuss competitive players are fielding. But if you're playing with friends or people who just want to have fun, you've got good chance. Except when playing against Eldars, I just can't seem to win against them .

[xnickbaranx]

Even playing against friends...

 

I played against my friend's Daemon army to take 7th for a test run and he just took a hodge podge of crap so he could bring all the psychers he had to "try out the psychic phase". His army wasn't optimized for the tournaments we normally attend and he decimated me.

 

One of the previous posters referenced the "kooky rules" in the Codex. There's some really great synergy between Ravenwing and Deathwing in theory. They compliment each other in a completely fluffy way. But everything is so expensive points wise that when I come up with an idea and and start totalling it up, I run out of points before I can fit all the pieces of the puzzle. Its frustrating.

[Brother dean]

Oh, also if you choose Dark Angels, you have to put up with the "jokes" from your fellow players about how you're a traitor.  

 

AS LONG AS YOU KNOW THE TRUTH OF WHAT A TRAITOR TRULY IS THIS ISNT A PROBLEM.

And they will accuse us of being cross dressers...   I prefer:

 

http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w20/fred40k2002/3qcexn.jpg

[syypher]

Well.. middle finger to GW for making the codex not up to par with the rest. Or at least give it something broken that it can keep up. Like all the other codexes have SOMETHING that make them REALLY good and people take THAT thing and now the rest of their codex power level goes up. Doesn't seem like we got that then... kind of sad. I want to be able to keep up with the competitive players but if this is the truth of the codex, then looks like it'll be too much of a constant uphill battle and hardly a level playing field. :(

[syypher]

That reminds me... anything in FW or data slates or detachments that can make DA maybe go up a couple notches in the power ranking of top codex/armies? Isn't there a land raider thats immune to melta or something lol

[Tanyr]

As far as detachments go, i've been considering a small detachment of imperial guard. You have the infamous Azrael blob, plus i would like to try out adding a ministorum priest to a squad of deathwing knights for rerollable armor/invulnerable saves in close combat, plus frag grenades. That they can now ride in the same transport is icing on the cake. Enginseers with PotM, frag grenades and cheap repairs also seem to have potential to tag along for the ride.

 

Grey Knights seem to blend well with us. The ability to bring scoring terminators, an inquisitor for servo skulls, interceptor squads for swift objective grabbing, and their vehicles can now cast sanctuary ( without the additional perils penalty we would suffer ). Sanctuary and additional psykers seems especially helpful, since we've a significant number of units that either already have or grant invulnerable saves, and our own psykers come at a premium for space marines.

 

It doesn't feel very fluffy, Dark Angels associating with the inquisition, but we had that very combination in Pandorax, which the guard were in as well. I don't know if this would do anything to make us climb a rank or two, however. It adds a few potentially lethal skills to our own units, at the risk of watering down the overall effect. That, and there are reasons we work alone...

[Garath]

That reminds me... anything in FW or data slates or detachments that can make DA maybe go up a couple notches in the power ranking of top codex/armies? Isn't there a land raider thats immune to melta or something lol

 There is. And it's good.  One thing, it's not a dedicated transport for termies and therefore , nod scoring.(if that's what you ment)  .

 

  There's the whole IG tank army thing.  If we choose greenwing as our main force -  we can support it with IG tanks . A PFG protecting a squadron of Russes still is a scary thing.

 

  How on earth do we kill the Eldar,Demon and Necron cheese out there  using OUR codex is beyond me ...

[Kilofix]

 

That reminds me... anything in FW or data slates or detachments that can make DA maybe go up a couple notches in the power ranking of top codex/armies? Isn't there a land raider thats immune to melta or something lol

 There is. And it's good.  One thing, it's not a dedicated transport for termies and therefore , nod scoring.(if that's what you ment)  .

 

  There's the whole IG tank army thing.  If we choose greenwing as our main force -  we can support it with IG tanks . A PFG protecting a squadron of Russes still is a scary thing.

 

  How on earth do we kill the Eldar,Demon and Necron cheese out there  using OUR codex is beyond me ...

 

 

That larger Land Raider is a Spartan. Carries 12 TDA (25 regular), Armored Ceramite makes it Melta immune. 4 twin-linked Las Cannons.

 

The other thing is for Apoc, since Battle Brothers can now share transports in 7th, you can load a Super Heavy Storm Lord (Open-Top Assault) with 15 TDA.

[Tanyr]

Another Land Raider that's immune to melta/lance is the Land Raider Achilles. It's thunderfire cannon lets it fill a spot that we're somewhat lacking in a traditional list. The transport capacity of six hurts it, and it costs more than the Spartan in points, but it is still an option.