Give it to me straight...

[Disciple of Caliban Sgt]

Dean that Picture is AWESOME! Love it. FW seems to be the best way to get uber competitive with our DA and still stay DA. There is an article out there (can't remember where) about Deathwing Knights being the most damaging unit per points out there. The biggest issue is getting them to target with LR's or FW are your best bet. The other issue is that they aren't a multiple use unit. You get your one good thumping to give to a unit and that's it. However they are resilient and can go through hordes with light armor pretty well.

 

Favorite tactic of mine is too send them right up the middle and have them gut the "deathstar" or uber unit in my opponents army.

Example I had a huge Mega Battle with 4K points per player 4 players per side. I had a LR Crusader with 5 DWK's and a Chappy in TDA. They took on a 10 man Terminator Squad with a mix of shields and a Chapter Master with TH/SS. His were footslogging and I got the charge. He took out one of the guys with overwatch (go figure) and then I proceeded to kill 6 his Termi's with smite on the charge. I then killed another 3 in the ensuing rounds and took all but one wound off the Chapter Master. I admit this was lucky rolling on my part and he failed saves a lot but after that they have done wonders for me every time I have employed them properly.

 

Other than DWK's though I can't think of an uber unit. Maybe Ravenwing Black Knights as they do a pretty decent job. There are of course hard counters to these two units but I believe that's the case with all "uber" units.

DoC

[Darkangeldentist]

Dark angels are a competitive army but it often isn't easy to use them competitively.

 

The strong and wonderful themes that draw most people to Dark angels (Deathwing and Ravenwing mostly) encourage people to design their lists with a strong theme and frequently that limits your options and lessens the overall effectiveness of the lists you can create greatly. A pure Deathwing army looks cool, it has some great tricks and sometimes plonking down units of terminators in the opponents face after they've spent two turns ineffectually trying to delay the advance of your land raiders is game breaking but it's got a whole bunch of really terrible matchups as well. Ravenwing can be just as bad, they often have more models and a slightly better range of tools alongside the mobility to get them into position at any point in the game but they are so brittle. Regular dark angels marines just tend to feel insufficiently different from standard space marines and lack a few of the toys.

 

The Dark angel codex doesn't have an easy drop option that will just make your list compeititve. That doesn't mean there aren't good choices, just no 'must haves' although Deathwing knights are borderline broken in my view. (If they could take some guns they would be ridiculous.)

 

I've just had my first game of 7th edition, playing against guard. My opponent conceded before we got to turn 3! He took 6 different Leman russ (one with Pask) some psykers and a host of veteran guardsmen with loads of plasma and it got shot/clobbered so badly by my ravenwing with Deathwing knights that my opponent felt he had no chance. In 7th edition I think Ravenwing have the potential to be really competitive if used well and can force a opponents to reassess their plans.

 

Earlier in the year I attended a local event (my battle reports are lurking somewhere on the forum) where I got to pit my Deathwing against some of the nastiest filth in 6th edition and came out with only a single loss. I was lucky to do so but you need a bit of luck in this game. In 6th Deathwing were pretty ok, now I think that with some of the changes they are no worse off than before, possibly a little better even but Deathwing are always going to be one of the toughest armies to field effectively and competitively due to their brittle nature and limited firepower. You need a good strategy against your opponent to counter their plans and execute your own effectively at the same time. Do not fall into the trap of Deathwing assaulting everything you can because a lot of the time you are just bunching up you models and sometimes offering them to opponents to kill. (Interceptor can be horrible on deep strikes.)  DWA can be powerful and nasty when used well but it is only worth it against certain foes and when commiting the right units against the correct targets.

[Brother dean]

I'm confused. I've never had enough luck (or any ) with DW knights. 3+ armor just seems to tarpit them.

 

Interceptor's hard counter is to not come down in los of AA. I think DW got better from the vehicle changes and "Super Scoring".

 

[/opinion]

[Darkangeldentist]

Locally there are not that many space marines but even when faced with 3+ saves knights are not bad against marines. The champion's flail is AP 3 and he has an extra attack over his fellows so will usually kill a couple. The sheer number of saves they can force will inflict casualties so although I may not wipe them out in a single round the knights are still going to win. It's not that unreasonable to expect the knights to get through it without taking any casualties either (although perhaps I've just been lucky there).

 

There are quite a few chaos marine players though and they along with most xenos forces really hate to see Deathwing knights on the table.

[Kilofix]

Also btw, DA have the best iconography. I have a version  inked on my back. But that's between us, dont tell my Chaos brothers.

[Disciple of Caliban Sgt]

Brother Dean I've got to agree with the good Dentist on this one. My DWK's usually wreck face with or without the charge. I either LRC them or Deepstrike 7-8 and let them be a giant distraction and if the opponent ignores them next turn they pay the penalty. It might not work so great on MSU type MEQ but against just about anything else they are murderers for me. I kind of use them for anti Tank as well but usually monsterous creatures or a large unit of something that must die sort of thing.

 

DoC