You CAN take pure DW!

[deadangel101]

There has been a lot of debate about this in the rumors, so I want ti put it to rest. Yes you can take an army of pure Deathwing in the new codex, though you may not want to (more on that later).

 

The confusion is over two different special rules. The Deathwing Stike Force DETACHMENT states under Restrictions states "all units in this Detachment must have the Deathwing special rule or be Dedicated Transports. Units of Venerable Dreadnoughts in this (Deatchment) may only include one model, which must be given a Drop Pod as a Dedicated Transport.

 

It then includes the special rule Summoned to War, which states "all unuts in this Detachment must begin the game in Deep Strike Reserve."

 

Note that this is SEPARATE AND DISTINCT from the Deathwing Redemption Force FORMATION special rule Deathwing Assault, which states in part "if this Formation includes a Venerable Dreadnought embarked in a Drop Pod, the Drop Pod automatically arrives at the start of the chosen turn, and ignores the normal rules that determine when a Drop Pod arrives." This has been the rule that all pure DW players (including myself) have been complaining about.

 

What this means is, if you want to play a pure DW army, you use the Deathwing Strike Force DETACHMENT. You then must take at least one Venerable Drwadnought in a Drop Pod, which will automatically depoloy from Deep Strike Reserve on turn 1, per the rules for Drop Pods. The restrictions described under Deathwing Assault do not apply because the Deathwing Strike Force Deatchment has a different special rule: Summoned to War.

 

Following turn 1, the rest of your Deathwing units then deploy from Deep Strike Reserve normally, rolling for each unit's availability.

 

Now, you will most likely want to include at least a Ravenwing Attack Squadron FORMATION because it gives some important benefits. Under the special rule Summoned to War, it states "if you include a Ravenwing Attack Squadron or a Ravenwing Strike Force, you xan choose to automatically pass or fail any Reserve Rolls you make for (the Deathwing Stike Force), there is no need to roll." You also get the use of the special rule Summon the Deathwing under the Ravenwing Attack Squadron which states any Deathwing unit that Deep Stikes within 12 inches of a Ravenwing unit will not scatter.

 

You aren't required to take the Ravenwing, but you probably want to.

 

Hopefully this puts the debate to rest, and perhaps ups the general opinion of GW's game designers.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

And people will argue with you that with RW it's not pure DW and that they don't want to pay for a Ven Dread. ;)

There's a 3rd option that is Unbound which lets people put what they want since pure DW lost ObSec then it hardy matters that it is Unbound.

I hope this thread gets people to realise that the way they field DW will be different now, they can't be stuck in the past. Some remembered the days were to field DW any Character in TDA would do as HQ. When they changed to mandatory Belial, people revolted, spoke, threw away their armies because no way they wanted to put a SC as leader when anybody could do it. Now the situation is the same... you are forced to change how you build your pure DW but you can still field it.

 

Change is good, forces you to think out of the box.

 

Cheers!

[Epimetheus13]

Yes...true - but. We don't necessarily want to play "hide the Dreadnaught(s)" which comes down on turn 1, it's hardly fun or fluffy. But if we go first, we would have to, to avoid auto-lose risk. Even if we go 2nd, that Dreadnaught(s) is unsupported and likely to be destroyed.

 

You're right about encouraging taking Ravenwing. Combi-arms seems THE way to go, even more so this codex.

 

Edit: ninja'd - was responding to deadangel.

[deadangel101]

You get up to 11 Elites slots. Take 3-5 Ven Dreads in pods. Problem solved.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

And now with 4 attacks, Ven dreadnoughts is something that you might want to have... They can be S10 WS5 BS5 problem solvers.

[WellSpokenMan]

I think Dreads in general have been overlooked so far.  4 attacks and they all have Grim Resolve, both of which will make them harder to tarpit.

[Elios Harg]

You get up to 11 Elites slots. Take 3-5 Ven Dreads in pods. Problem solved.

3 Ven Dreads in pods is a minimum of 490 points. That's going to be 1/3 to 1/4 of your army.

 

Plus despite being 4A and grim resolve, they are still only AV12 and 3HP meaning not terribly hard to kill for being you or only units on the board to start. In addition, pure Deathwing loses the ability to take them in squadrons as they must be podded.

 

Currently, the "best" way to field PURE Deathwing is using the DWSF to get your Ven. Dreads and additional DWKs then a DWRF to make sure you can get units on the board on turn 2. Without Ravenwing,the DWSF is too unreliable.

[march10k]

Um...unbound.  Problem Solved, unless you're in a tournament, in which case you're not going to be competitive with deathwing anyway...maybe black/white, but not pure deathwing.  Actually, I think under the new codex, a black/white list will be pretty strong in tournament meta...

[deadangel101]

I said it could be done, not that it would be competitive. In fact, I also mentioned that you may no longer want to take pure DW because of the bonuses you get with RW.

[Pbenner]

Fun play will be unbound for me.  I'll take whatever toys I want, conventions be damned.  

 

In a tournamant, it will be dual wing.  I have a Lucious Drop Pod, I will use it.  It has fun rules and fits the requirements of the formation.  It protects my Dreadnought the turn it comes down, and the dreadnought is not bad in versatility.  Assault Cannon and CCW (With a flamer most likely) will be my build.  A small Deathwing Strikeforce that I can call down where I want them with a RW based cluster?  I hate to have to change what I've done for 5 years, but oh well.  That which will not change, dies...

 

Paul