Need some help with DA in general

[angel2burst]

Hey guys the names Karver and i need your help, iv been playing DA for about a year now at my local GW and why i love them, well i cant seem to win or even doing good with them to the point iv haven't won a game in near a month and its geting a little tiring losing again and again and again. I don't know if it is my dice, my luck, my strategy, or my lists. So iv been trying to work on them (my dice have been banished to the corner and have start to listen) but i still need to work on my strategy and my lists. So im going to list what i got and i got a bit and if you could help me with that it would help

P.S my friends like to do 2000-2500

 

DeathWing

5 squads of 5 terminators with 1 heavy and 1 chain fist per squad

1 deathwing command squad 4 TH/SS, 1 Champion, a banner and Cyclone missile on the TH/SS

Belial

Librarian with terminator armor

Land raider redemmer

Venerable dreadnought

 

Ravenwing

Sammael

Libarain on bike

12 Ravenwing bikers

8 black knights

1 Land speeder

2 Nephilm Jetfighter

1 StormRaven(i use the NJF and the storm raven as Astartes Storm Wing and i use the NJF as storm talons because i hate the base model)

 

Greenwing

4 Company Comanders

1 Interrogator-chaplain

4 Librarian

1 Techmarine

1 Command Squad

5 Full Tactical Squad

1 Full scout squad

2 Rhino
1 Drop pod

1 Full assault squad

1 Devastator squad

1 Predator

1 Vindicator

 

Other

1 Imperial Knight Paladin

 

I got a lot to work with but i just dont fully know how to use it all and some help would be great any ideas, combos,tricks,lists would help, guys i want to win a game. And you guys have been playing Darks Angels for a lot longer than i have. Well even if i keep losing still have to get back to the fight.

FOR THE LION

 

 

[aura_enchanted]

Well what do you normally play against brother? Our army is sort of a double edged sword. If someone knows what your going to do and your army isn't built around flexing to meet the needs your going to struggle a lot if it's varied opponents. But at the same time if your opponent came expecting ravens and he got greenwing well he's going to have a bad day isn't he?

[angel2burst]

Black Templar with some IG

Necrons

Salamnders

IG Tank(FW tank list)

Dark Eldar

Tau

Also though i never get to play against them my store main army is CSM

This are the usually army's i fight brother

P.s at one point or another i have fought every army under the sun at my store from SOB to 30k World eaters

[aura_enchanted]

The bt with ig will be tough to crack but basically drowning him in plasma and bringing lascannons will do much to handle his land raider crusader bs. If hes just biker spamming with them and using the ig for fire support and bodies they will get chewed up all the same. A whirlwind would also not be a bad idea.

 

Necrons Will have a similar problem the first list does. He has various shenanigans he can pull with his relics and he has good anti tank but struggles against weight of gunfire and wound stacking. You need to focus down his squads and do everything you can to widdle squads and vehicles down. Taking off his deathmarks and annihilation barges will wreck shop.

 

Salamanders: sorry too many options here

 

For fw ig he's a scumbag. I'd just not play, but one idea would be ravenwing melta biker spams, or combi melta spam with veterans drop podding. You could also use thundernators in 4++ land raiders

 

Dark eldar is interesting. Basically gunline here. Bringing a fortification and your superheavies would be useful here. Dark eldar rely on speed and maneuverability. When their forced to slow down and play at slower pace against a wall of guns. Their just doomed.

 

Tau, this ones easy. If he's not farsighted enclave. Bring land raider marines, assassin codex dataslate vindicate, a whirlwind, and then either veterans or terminators. Pull some 4++ shenanigans.the vindicare assassin is a hard counter to buffmander as he can peg a buffed battlesuit from far enough away that he can't ve retaliated against (your literal table edge), he can ignore any saves he chooses to place on them, and if he opts for tanks instead his shots are str 10 ap2. So regardless of what he does he's either going to lose a crisis suit every two turns, or he is going to wound his riptide rule free, or he's losing tanks. Feel free to take more of them I encourage it. Another strategy is to play maelstrom of war. Tay suck at being a mobile force. Their a codex built for gunlining and when you take them out of their element with lots of good los blocking cover and he's forced to potentially run like a madman for objectives mid or late game. You have his number. Tau can't run forward, they only know how to stand still, walk, and retreat.

 

Also if you don't already have it get the gerantius dataslate. It's from the sanctus reach campaign book or white dwarf 2014 series issue no. 24

 

Knight gerantius is fast enough to follow a land raider crossing a field and he would have saves better than a bloody warhound (if he hugs the 4++ land raider, he has 3++ or 4++, and iwnd).

 

As for chaos a good strategy is just to stack inner circle and preferred enemy, bring good anti air such as a contempor mortis, and force him to take as much time as possible getting to you. Stall as much as you can and you will have delt all the damage you need. Chaos armies (if they haven't walloped you to death by this point) have very bad end game potential. Things that live that long won't be super scoring and will either be very mobile but weak, and sluggish but good. Cap as quickly as you can and his goose is all but cooked.

[Simiel]

Hmm I would use as much of  your green wing as possible more bodies on the table means more wounds the enemy has to chew through, with librarians as your commanders.

 

Use your Imperial Knight and Land Raider, the Knight for pressuring your opponent and distraction, the Land Raider for Line of Sight blocking mainly. Hopefully your predator is Annihilator Pattern ( Las-Cannons ) as you seem to be lacking a little in anti-tank.

Take your Rhino's too for troop mobility.

One Drop pod is generally useless ( unless your combining it with a solid Belial Deathwing Assault ) and is probably not worth taking as what ever comes out of it will likely be to exposed.

 

Try to resist a Terminator heavy list, until you've racked up some more experience as there not easy to play, generally there not much more survivable at the moment than regular marines ( especially against Eldar and Tau ) and there damage output is only average for there points.

 

Shame you have only 8 Black Wing Knights as they are one of the best units in the codex, two units of 4 or only one single unit, if your opponent knows what he's doing, would be shot of the board to easily. Use them, but expect to loose them so make sure you get your monies worth ;)

 

If you can, get hold of some Whirlwinds as there a great fire support units and one of the few units we have which ignore cover and Necrons and Tau hate Whirlwinds!

 

Another squad of Devastators wouldn't go amiss either.

 

My main piece of advice is always, always play the mission, know the biggest threats against you and if you're going to struggle with them mitigate them either by deployment or distraction/sacrifice. We generally lack the fire power to table opponents so in Purge the Alien style missions denying victory points is equally as important as scoring them for our selves.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

Play only maelstrom of war missions and ensure your army has good mobility. Suddenly your opponent that is used to castle up and shoot you into oblivion has to  move and fulfill objectives to actually win the game.

[Master Antaeus]

There are no hard and fast rules, but when you build a unit, consider the following:

 

What is this unit's role/How do I maximize their ability to perform that role?

 

Is this unit cheap enough that I can expend it on a distant objective/can this unit provide enough long-range firepower to offset its absence from the rest of my troops?

 

When you build an army, you MUST be able to answer the following questions:

 

1.  How does this army kill Armor 14? 

If your answer is assault, then you need to re-work that.

 

2.  How does this army kill hordes?

 

3.  How does this army kill Heavy Infantry (marine or terminator equivalent) in large numbers

 

4.  How does my army kill flyers?

In general, you should plan to face 2 armor 12 flyers.  The easiest answer is to bring flyers of your own.

 

5.  How does this army strike into my opponent's back field?

Typically, your opponent's most fragile/high damage output units will be squirreled away in the back field.  You must have the ability to reliably kill them.

 

6.  How does this army kill large amounts of high-toughness 3+ or 2+ save monstrous creatures?

 

A few things to consider about Dark Angels and space marines in general:

Your army is slightly overcosted, consider it by a point or two per unit.  Not unwinnably so, but enough that every battle will start you with a small disadvantage.  You must play to your advantage; combining rank and file squads with deathwing terminators for a first turn alpha strike can be devastating and give you the ability to even the odds quickly.

 

Running pure Deathwing is hard.  Yes, they are very difficult to kill, but your tiny number of bodies means that a bad round of saves can cost you the game.  As a game wears on, your opponent will tend to target your hardest units first, while he has the most of his hard-hitting weapons or units still in play.  You must do this as well, targeting his most damaging units first, while protecting yours.

 

Know when to ignore a unit.

A smoked, shrouded land raider crusader full of grey knight terminators is not a worthwhile target, though it is a tempting target.  That unit is going to clock in around 650 points.  Unless you have a reliable way to defeat cover, you are better off going after softer targets with your billy badass weapons.  In fact, you can use this to your advantage; dropping a large number of troops in your opponent's face first turn will force him to keep his LRC near his own lines to bail out his own softer troops. 

 

If your opponent is all GKTs in Land Raiders, then that sucks.

 

Some notes on your units:

The Knight is really good, but I would run him as an Errant with a Melta cannon.  The Battle cannon is good, it's 2 shots and is great for crowd control, but on a standard 4x6 table, 36" is plenty with the knight's 12" move.  If you need crowd control that badly, you can always assault with it.

 

I am assuming since you listed them first that your typical army relies heavily on Deathwing Terminators.  Nothing wrong with that, except they are expensive.  If you field any bikes with them, I would field a single unit to teleport/bail your terminators out of a bad assault.

 

A drop-podded (divination) librarian in a large tactical or veteran squad with can do a lot to anchor your army, especially since it's going to spend a lot of time right in front of your enemy.  A terminator librarian would be better, and if your buddies will let you proxy one, I would try that out.

 

If these are all different players at your local gaming hole, I would wonder how well they/you know the rules.  I don't think anyone gets 100% of the rules right, even in a single game, but you must know your army front to back and use its rules as a framework for what you do with it.

[Disciple of Caliban Sgt]

All sound advice above. I also would recommend trying the "Dualwing" if you haven't yet. Use the fluff from the book and make a ravenwing and deathwing mixed army. Use ravenwing for your melta and plasma (attack bikes and ravenwing black knights) and keep your deathwing deepstriking in for non scatter flank overload.

 

The one point cannot be stressed enough is that DA are just a bit behind the power and point curve. Meaning they are hard to play. Don't get too discouraged (I know it can be hard) but remember if you are playing different armies all the time you are playing and learning per army. See if you can get games, like 5 or so, against the same army type in a row. It helps you learn their units and what to kill what with. If you are experienced in this area then you just have to hammer home the DA stuff. Our learning curve is steep and tough to begin with but you will get it mastered. If stuff just isn't working trying thinking outside the box. Try stuff that sounds crazy to you that you would normally never do and then account for sheer luck as well. When in doubt ask someone at your store if they play DA how and what they would do.

 

Good Luck

 

DoC

[SnakeChisler]

Most builds for Da are elite builds and.every loss is keenly felt

 

When I 1st started playing DA I stank it took me quite a while to come to terms with how to get the best out of them

 

You've a lot of stuff and my guess is your chopping and changing around I got really into the bikes and voila I started playing better mostly coz I liked the models so I had too.

 

There are some combo's that work better against certain opponents but you need to get some core units in and stick with them.

 

Even when I use a lot of deathwing I still use a ravenwing command squad with the upgrades my librarian on a bike is standard I then build my list from there Sam if it's a Bod list all bikes another librarian if I go in another direction.

 

Specific tips well Tau hate psykers and Pfg is mandatory as is a whirlwind or 3

 

Necrons eat vehicles so don't buy anything expensive

 

Chaos marines take the deathwing knights as they have prefered enemy and a buff to their maces to ap/3/2

 

Etc

[angel2burst]

Thank you brothers for all you advise, this is  the best help iv gotten with DA period question though

1. whats the best way to protect my knight from deep striking melta vets because most of the time they show up and blow it away.

2.what would be a good general list, brothers that you would recommend keep in mind that i want to build towards having a all comer list to deal with all the above.

[Raztalin]

Maybe a FW Mortis Contemptor with the AssCans or AutoCans, if its still it gains Skyfire and Interceptor (or did up until 7th - can anyone clarify?) just start it within range of the Knight...

Or an ADL maybe with the Skyfire and Interceptor weapons mounted on it ... ?  Basically something with Skyfire and Interceptor :) I'm sure there are other options too though!

[angel2burst]

So i went back and after reading all your advise i spent some time creating a army list, tell what you think

 

HQ

Librarian, psyker level 2, power sword

Librarian, psyker level 2, power axe, terminator armor

 

Troops

Tactical squad 10, plasma gun, rhino

Tactical squad 10, plasma gun, rhino

Tactical squad 8, plasma gun, drop pod

 

Fast attack

Ravenwing Attack squadron 3, 2 melta guns

Ravenwing Attack squadron 3, 2 melta guns

Ravenwing black knights  7, huntmaster has a melta bomb

 

Heavy support

Devastator Squad 5, 4 plasma cannons

tri-lass predator

 

Formation

Astartes Storm Wing

1 Stormraven, multimelta, las cannon

2 storm talons, skyhammer mislle,assault cannon

 

The basic idea brothers is that this is fast list meant to play objectives, the drop pod with the termi librarian drop onto a objective and hold while the rest of my army moves forwards and use speed to there advantage and the devastator squad with the librarian stays in the back to hold 1 objective, any thought on this list brothers?

[SnakeChisler]

In terms of the list looks nice and organized

Some Nice solid units in there and 30 marines for your opponent to chew through and it will take him a while, option to combat squad giving you 3 scoring units per Rhino squad for mission based games.

[SvenONE]

Well I'll tell you first that DA isn't an easy codex to play, anyone who says it is is either lying or playing against themselves.  So don't be too hard on yourself about losing.  Know that you're already handicapped to begin with.  As a pure codex, DA will struggle.

 

It's funny because on paper when you look at the units you have at your disposal you'd think you'd be ok.  I've never put together what I thought was a bad list, on paper, but when I try them out I get mauled.  All of those codices you are going against have a much wider scope of units to go with.  I'll go through each of what you have:

 

Your Deathwing models:

Stormbolters, 5 power swords, 25 powerfists, maybe a few heavy weapons and fire power.

 

Your Ravenwing models:

More Bolters (I imagine a banner)

At most, 8 (if you divide those RWAS into 4 groups of 3) special weapons, not including combis

Some twinlinked plasma shots

Some heavy weapons in your speeder.

Somewhat durable and mobile high volume fire Air Support

 

Your Greenwing models

Bolters and footslogging tacticals

some heavy support

 

All of those lists are mostly centered around low volume S4/AP5 shooting.  You're simply not going to win with that.  All of those armies you are playing against are basically fielding the same strength shooting for cheaper and more efficient in cost.  Necron Warriors, DE Warriors, Tau Fire Warriors/Pathfinders, IG are all very efficient codices with how their points are spent.  C:SM and CSM are on par but have more varied units in the rest of their codex (Thunderfire Cannons, and the bevvy of Heavy Support/Fast Attack options in CSM).

 

What DA lacks is any real major punch or threat to keep the enemy on their toes, or slowly whittle them down.  I'll use the Necron Annihilation Barge as an example, since you say you play Necrons a lot.  This unit has a 24" range, AV13 on front and sides, and tosses out a twin-linked tesla shots at S7.  Any 6s and you're GOING to be zapped.  It's a model that can't be ignored, is tough to kill and is almost guaranteed to whittle down whatever infantry it's facing, it's also crazy cheap.  Riptides, Tank Squadrons, Stormtalons, Thunderfire Cannons, Soulgrinders, Maulerfiends, etc.  These are all units that are effective at what they do.  They don't go down easily and WILL kill things.  We don't really have those units other than Predators/Vindis, and those eat up points into other things.  

 

As far as unit lists are concerned I would ditch Terminators for now, there's too much high strength/high volume shooting out there -- 1s happen, especially when lots of dice are being rolled.  Start with your Imperial Knight, and work with a Greenwing Drop Pod/Rhino/Bike list with perhaps another heavy support like a Vindi or two, then fill out your lists with bodies.

 

 

I've got about 7 or so games now with my Knight using these lists, 5 with the first, 2 with the second.  I'm of course being a hypocrite by saying this (referring to my first comment), but it's been night and day.  These have been games against my friends who have been whooping me over the last year.  Blood Angels (x2), Chaos (Tzeentch/Nurgle and Khorne lists), Orks (omg stomp vs Orks is too funny), and Tyranids (which has been REALLY tough for me lately).  While these games have been close wins, I was in far more control because I had a unit like the Knight in my army.  

 

Don't over commit/split your forces, you can't afford it.  Place objectives in a way that you can get a majority of them in 1 or 2 turns.  Don't send your HQs after the real pugilists in this game, our HQs are really bullies against Infantry.

[Disciple of Caliban Sgt]

What he said ^^^^^

 

Deathwing are a lot of fun to play but I probably lost 40 games in a row playing them. Against horde armies you better bring the bacon...............because its beyond an uphill battle but can be a lot of fun. I like to think of it as a desperate last stand sort of thing.

 

Drop pods are good for learning how an army plays. You must support and it teaches you exactly where you deploy and how much that effects everything. Some love Rhino's (not me personally) but give me a drop pod and I'm a happy man.

 

DoC

[SvenONE]

Oh and as far as protecting the Knight is concerned, don't forget that we have the Darkshroud and the Power Field Generator at our disposal.  Darkshroud in front of a Knight gives a 5+ (it's an intervening model) which drops it to a 4+ cover all around.  The Ion Shield is still pretty good.  The good news is that whatever is crazy enough to drop pod next to it is probably dead the next turn from it.

[aura_enchanted]

So i went back and after reading all your advise i spent some time creating a army list, tell what you think

 

HQ

Librarian, psyker level 2, power sword

Librarian, psyker level 2, power axe, terminator armor

 

Troops

Tactical squad 10, plasma gun, rhino

Tactical squad 10, plasma gun, rhino

Tactical squad 8, plasma gun, drop pod

 

Fast attack

Ravenwing Attack squadron 3, 2 melta guns

Ravenwing Attack squadron 3, 2 melta guns

Ravenwing black knights  7, huntmaster has a melta bomb

 

Heavy support

Devastator Squad 5, 4 plasma cannons

tri-lass predator

 

Formation

Astartes Storm Wing

1 Stormraven, multimelta, las cannon

2 storm talons, skyhammer mislle,assault cannon

 

The basic idea brothers is that this is fast list meant to play objectives, the drop pod with the termi librarian drop onto a objective and hold while the rest of my army moves forwards and use speed to there advantage and the devastator squad with the librarian stays in the back to hold 1 objective, any thought on this list brothers?

we cant take the stormwing. the only dataslates we can take are those tied to the imperial knights (gerantius), and the dataslate for the vindicare assassins. the dataslater you list there is for codex space marines only

[BigGumbo]

Maybe a FW Mortis Contemptor with the AssCans or AutoCans, if its still it gains Skyfire and Interceptor (or did up until 7th - can anyone clarify?) just start it within range of the Knight...

Confirmed - it's in IA2 2nd Ed. Remember, though, that Skyfire and Interceptor no longer interact, so you need to keep your Mortis moving if you want it to shoot ground targets...

[Raztalin]

@aura_enchanted I'm pretty certain we can take it, especially now in 7th...if you could highlight where it explicitly states we cannot it'd be much appreciated. I think we can even take the Tau anti air formation if we wished...

[SvenONE]

 

we cant take the stormwing. the only dataslates we can take are those tied to the imperial knights (gerantius), and the dataslate for the vindicare assassins. the dataslater you list there is for codex space marines only

 

 

I've seen you say this before, but as far as I know you're able to bring any dataslate so long as you can ally with the parent codex.  Can you show me what says we can't bring this?

 

If anything the new edition made this better as not only can we take this, but we can also board the stormraven with the new battle-brother rules.

[Raztalin]

It's the impression I was under too...intrigued to see what the adverse opinion is based on :)

[mika_angelus]

 

 

we cant take the stormwing. the only dataslates we can take are those tied to the imperial knights (gerantius), and the dataslate for the vindicare assassins. the dataslater you list there is for codex space marines only

 

 

I've seen you say this before, but as far as I know you're able to bring any dataslate so long as you can ally with the parent codex.  Can you show me what says we can't bring this?

 

If anything the new edition made this better as not only can we take this, but we can also board the stormraven with the new battle-brother rules.

 

 

Sadly we can't board the Stormraven. The dataslate I have say's that only Codex : Space Marines model can embark. It wasn't upgraded to 7th edition so far.

[aura_enchanted]

@aura_enchanted I'm pretty certain we can take it, especially now in 7th...if you could highlight where it explicitly states we cannot it'd be much appreciated. I think we can even take the Tau anti air formation if we wished...

It says explicitly in the dataslate and I quote:

 

"this dataslate is for use with codex: space marines"

 

You literally read it off the preview pages on the black library website if your eyesight is good enough.

 

At no point does it mention another army at all or another codex that can use it. The only way you can take it is if you take an allied detachment or a formation from codex space marines.

 

The slate your referring too is not a formation its just a dalaslate like the reclusiam command squad, cypher, or bel akor. While a formation would be: strike force ultra, or the tempestus scions vanguard strike.

 

Gw May be many things but they aren't stupid enough to let us field the traitor cypher.

[Raztalin]

@aura_enchanted Thanks for the slightly back handed reply ;)  My eye sight seems to be working well enough thanks.  I really dont want to de-rail this thread or end up in a war of words with anyone, but I think we need to make sure all info is accurate:

I have said Dataslate in front of me (is yours the interactove one or the eBook one?), and it doesnt specify that at all in my version, and i've checked there is no update pending for it ... Looking at the preview page on the Black Library site (its the eBook version there) it has the same wording as my interactive one which just says that "the Formation consists of Units chosen from Codex: Space Marines."

 

Mine also states:

 

“Independent Formation: The Adeptus Astartes Storm Wing Formation does not benefit from the Chapter Tactics special rule, but units from Codex: Space Marines that are included in the same army can begin the game embarked on the Stormraven Gunship, and can embark on it during the game.”

Excerpt From: Games Workshop Ltd. “Dataslate - Storm Wing.” iBooks.

 

And yes as Mika_Angelus states; it doesn't seem to have been updated for 7th yet. 

 

The way I undestand the 7th Ed ruleset for chosing an Battle Forged Army is: Primary Detachment - Allied Detachment(s) - Formations (these can be the Independant Formations)

 

At the end of the day if your oppenent has no issue with you using it then there is no issue using it.  TO's may have a seperate ruling so check with them first.  Me - I'll use it, and have no oponents that have an issue with it either.

[SvenONE]

Yes the language says it's chosen from the C:SM, not for use with.  Formations are described right in the BRB around page 120 or so, you can bring them so long as you can ally with them (in a battle-forged list).

 

The part about transports is in the description of allies.  Battle-Brothers can ride in each others transports, as described in the Allies rules section (~p126).  Given that the dataslate was released before 7th, I'll say that it can be interpreted either way since I doubt that GW updated the language between the editions.