Multiwing Musings.. Again

[Frater Cornelius]

I can not help but return to my favourite subject when it comes to Dark Angels: Multiwing. It is basically what I love about it. Visually, it is the most appealing army I have ever seen and I am ever so determined to bring them to the table.

 

From my experience, Obj.Sec. is not as big of a deal is most cases, especially with DA. We do not have dedicated capping units, so we are very likely to shoot Jetbikes and what-not off the objective as opposed to simply scooting by. This is why I do not want to spend too much time discussing whether to take Belial or Sammael. Not a fan of Azzy. He is a slogging PA dude and I do not really like fielding those.

My HQ choice is Sammy. He has decent shooting, he is EW and AP2 at I5 in melee.

 

The first question that comes up is whether to pick up a Command Squad? Given how in a Multiwing list you have far less Bolters than in a pure list, I think that the Banner should not be a deciding factor. DW CS does not get my me as moist as it should, especially since most of what they have can be replicated with regular TDA.

The only CS worth mentioning in my eyes are the Black Knights. Talons are awesome, as is the 'nade launcher. Worth taking them? I suppose so, since Sammy needs a bus.

 

Troops is something I would like to save on. Usually I would say to get full RW unit to have more Bolters for BoD and get Speeders. Here I would get 2-3 minimal units with Meltas or Plasmas and a MM attack bike and be done with it.

 

This one will be interesting now. Elites. DW TDA to pop down turn one to build pressure. I am actually tempted to take two units with rather minimal gear. Maybe two dudes with Thunderstorm and one dude with a PC and call it a day.

Thoughts on that one? Maybe DWK are a better distraction?

 

FA and HS. Well, since the theme seems to be bringing more Plasmas than you can carry, how about more Plasma? I am looking at Black Knights. They bring Plasmas, Rad Shells and all that goodness. The question is, how to run them? MSU styled with minimal units of 3 to force the enemy to do overkill? Or are we looking at units of 5 to 6?

 

To top it all off, I suppose a Sicaran never hurts.

 

So, there it is. My thoughts on Multiwing. Any sort of feedback is highly appreciated. I am so close to finding the right balance and take them to the table. I simply refuse to go full RW, since it is by far not as visually impressive to me ;)

[Loar]

If I run multiwing I usually just take 1 squad of deathwing knights and call it done. These are either dropped turn 1 onto something important from teleport homers from scouting RW, or givin the VIP treatment in a LRC with a RW command squad with bolter banner and PFG behind it. If they are an assault army I then sit back at bolter range daring the opponent to come in against a gauranteed DW knight charge and black knight countercharge, if they are a shooty army I move forward at them with strong front mech and good speed to shoot and get up in their face at the same time.

If I am running sammy i am always running a lib on a bike as well. The main lineup however with sammy and bike lib is that the bik lib always has a pfg and goes with the command squad with the bolter banner or fortitute banner. I then take an actual full size RW squad and stick sammy in that, and actually upgrade the sarge and give him a power weapon. The rest of my RW are MSU or additional RW command squad/black knights. There are a few reasons for this setup that i take:

First off if i want multiple black knight squads i can take two RW command squads, these are 10 points cheaper each than just the black knights by themselves and dont take up a fast attack slot.

Second, Sticking the bike lib with PFG in the banner command squad makes them a durable target and usually gaurantees the squad survives an extra turn at least (even more with a darkshroud with +2 jink and apothecary). If you are running the bolter or fortitude banner your army is probably built around it, and keeping it alive is synergy level priority one, a good opponent will know this and try and snipe them out first. Making this a really difficult task can either make them have to ignore it altogether, or overextend to take out just them and let you run rampant with the rest of your force. The other important factor is that the lib gives them fearless (black knights/RW command squad dont have inner circle for some weird reason), and the lib gets skilled rider in return which he doesn't have by default. Win win.

Third, the reason to stick sammy in a basic RW squad gives you multiple high level threat squads instead of just a so so command squad deathstar. He is EW and has an invulnerable save so you can stick him in front to soak some wounds for the normal RW bikers, or use them as more ablative wounds for himself. Sammy also gives them skilled rider and inner circle which normal RW bike squads don't have by themselves. This lets you be really aggressive with a big bike squad up front with a bolter banner or feel no pain running into mid level threat targets and being bait (with hit and run if you need it), allowing the command squads, heavy support, deathwings or MSUs to run around and do what they need to. If one RW squad gets wittled down, sammy can still break off and join another to confer skilled rider to them, or join up with the RW command squad/deathwing knight squad midgame (DW knights with hit and run can be hilarious).

The main reason in all this is to spread your special rules out as much as possible and have nothing wasted or overlapping. It also prevents you from an "eggs in one basket" scenario, RW or DW deathstars are not that threatening compared with some others in the game, I think we accel by having multiple mid lvl threats causing the opponent to make tough decisions, instead of an impenetrable one they either destroy or for sure lose against. It also is way more fun to play and play against imo

PS these are my tactics and I find they work fairly well and I enjoy playing them, your experience could differ. Either way you should post your list once youve played and are happy with it. I am curious what you will finally arrive on. Good luck!

[Disciple of Caliban Sgt]

If I bring a TH/SS guy I'm bringing a DWK instead. Same Survivability (even more so if you keep them base to base) and they are one time much more killy than the TH/SS.

 

I say bring one big unit of RWBK because I find people focus on them and T5 gets easier to kill by the codex. I always bring two nade launchers so I can reduce Init and Toughness.

 

If you bring more than one then I'd go MSU for the others. For Ravenwing I'd go Two full squads with Speeders. Melta all the way. If you think Four bikes and two Attack bikes are enough melta for your Meta I would say Heavy Bolter AssCan for the speeders. Expensive but helps with your low dakka problem.

 

Personally I would not go with PC cannon for Termi's. I'd go with AssCan's to help with dakka. Only time I go with PC is when I have a ton of Termi's and a few Missile Launcers first.

[SvenONE]

Whoa, lots of musing in there for sure.  Quite honestly everything you're describing sounds most like you like Ravenwing with whoever else can fill the gaps.  Sammael, RWCS, RWAS+AB and Speeders? how many points do you have left to bring along the rest of the chapter.  But no matter, Fortitude is always a safe bet.  Also after watching a Space Wolf player against an Ork horde, Counter Attack almost looked half interesting.  I didn't think I'd ever say that, but I did start to think twice about that banner.

 

2 Units of terminators even without gear is north of 400 points, if causing pressure is your goal, I don't think you need to spend that much to do that.  As it is you're going to have a bunch of bikes in your enemy's face.  If you want to spend that many points, you should bring an Imperial Knight.  It's far more durable, faster and stronger than any terminator squad.

 

Honestly, your multi-winging sounds more like dual wing.  Unless you're playing a 2000 point+ game.

 

I wouldn't sell a regular PA command squad short.  A Dev-banner bearing squad that sits inside a LRC, while about 150+ more than any other command squad will last a lot longer than those, not to mention a far more durable distraction (CS love to draw fire, may as well make it seriously tough to kill).  Not to mention you can have a bike squad run next to it and also throw out those TL bolter shots.

[Frater Cornelius]

Aye, I should've really called it Dualwing :P

 

But Sven, you pointed out one issue that I have when trying to make Dualwing: RW keeps taking over.

If it wasn't for those damn Black Knights, things might be a tad more balanced. Internally, that is.

However, visually, DW still win and a pure bike army simply does not appeal, unless I can come up with conversions that would make Attack Bikes and Black Knights look drastically different from regular bikes.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

IMHO it's very hard to balance 50% RW and DW. One of them has to take predominance or you sacrifice effectiveness. A good Dualwing is either RW with a splash of DW or vice versa because too much of one wing and the other doesn't have the points to bring the shine.

[Frater Cornelius]

IMHO it's very hard to balance 50% RW and DW. One of them has to take predominance or you sacrifice effectiveness. A good Dualwing is either RW with a splash of DW or vice versa because too much of one wing and the other doesn't have the points to bring the shine.

Don't make me open another thread about how to make pure Ravenwing more visually diverse :P

 

Funnily enough, a week back I wanted to quit DA because of the update, but now it is a major motivation to keep playing, because the dualwing mechanic just might change for the better :D

[SnakeChisler]

The backing up of ravenwing can be done in a number of ways

 

Standard terminators though are a hard sell given my local meta, the split force with 400 ish points works though Sam & his boys swanning around backed up with something with a lot of bang.

 

Death wing knights fit the bill by you need 10 pushing the cost up to 500

SvenONE is using a knight

I use multiple LOD squads

 

The advantage of the knights are they are down turn 1 and have to be dealt with the disadvantage is they are on foot and you'll find the can get bypassed

The imperial knight gives again a fire magnet ± 12 movement with good board presence

LOD gives you ignores cover with multiple units at the expense of coming in t2

 

All these units are there to take the heat off the bikes anyone who plays ravenwing knows you can't nonce around at 80 points base for 3 + 2 melta guns its expensive and you've gotta get your hits in 1st.

 

With the rise of super heavies & large MC's the dwk's are a real pain for your opponent to deal with, field 10 put them on the board spread across as large an area as possible attach sammael & scout for nids/orcs etc or scout bikes ds attach Sam run use sams warlord trait to run more

 

I forgot to mention the dwk now have hit & run with Sam 3 d6 shunt on a terminator squad marvelous

[Frater Cornelius]

Sammaels Warlord Trait does not work when he joins DWK, seeing as Run and Turbo-Boost are two different types of movement and when movement is made during the shooting phase, the entire unit must do the same.