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I bought a friends Dark Angels army in the lead up to 8th. I did run Marines back in like 5th edition but haven't played 40k since then.

 

I had a casual game to try out the new rules today.  No Pictures! Sorry! 

 

I played against an Imperial Fists player about 1850 points on a 4x4 table. No scenario or deployment. 

 

After action thoughts first.

- Terminators at close range really pump out the shots 

- Venerable dreadnoughts seem very good, especially in close combat against multi wound models like terminators which they one hit kill. 

- Tacticals in cover are tough to kill with shooting and provide a good weight of fire. 

- Azrael's 4++ bubble is less useful with heavily armoured models like Deathwing and Land Raiders who are normally getting at least a 5+ save anyways even against Lascannons. However missed rolls to hit were very nice, now if only I could make a to wound roll...  

 

I brought 

 

Azrael

Belial 

 

5x Terminators with Assault Cannon 

5x Terminators with Assault Cannon 

5x Terminators with 3 Lighting Claws, 2 TH and SS 

Dreadnought with Multi Melta 

Land Raider

Land Raider Crusader 

 

I placed one unit of DW in Reserve

Belial and the Assault Termies in the Crusader 

DW in Raider 

Azrael was on foot between the two raiders to give them the invulnerable save. 

 

Fists had 

Captain in Terminator armour

Captain on foot 

3x10 Tactical Marines 

10 Terminators with 2 Ass Cannons 

Land Raider 

2x Venerable Dreads 

 

He placed the Terminators and captain in reserve 

 

Turn 1:

 

DW:

Raiders moved forward. Crusader lights up a tac squad in the open and with the Raiders Heavy Bolter they wipe them out. Raider put 4 wounds on the Fist's Raider with Las Cannons.

 

Fists:

Focus fire on the Crusader and drop it to 5 wounds.

 

Turn 2:

 

DW: 

DW drop into the back field shoot a tac squad and then charge a dread doing a couple wounds but losing a couple models in return.

 

Assault Terms and other squad disembark, and move forward. Shooting is terrible and I only kill a couple tacticals. Assault Terms fail their charge against the other dread.

 

Fists:

Terminators drop in behind my lines, making Azrael who couldn't keep up with the Raiders the closest target. They shoot and then charge and kill him in combat. Raider kills my Dread in shooting. Tacticals light up the assault terminators and drop a couple of them. His dread in the backfield misses my terminators and I do a couple more wounds. His other Dread charges my regular Terms and kills a couple for losing a couple wounds.

 

Turn 3:

 

DW:

Raider shoots at the Terminator captain for minimal effect. Crusader shoots the terminators and kills one. Terminators in the backfield kill the dread. Bellal and the last Assault Terminator charge the Term Captain but he is left with one wound. His other dread kills the last of my other terminator squad. I don't have much left

 

Fists:

Weight of fire from Tacticals and Terminators kills the Crusader, and the Raider does like 9 wounds to my Raider which is then charge by the dread which kills it. My Deepstriking terminators are killed by his Power Armour captain in assault. In the other assault his Terminator captain kills Belial but is killed in turn by my last TH SS Terminator. Who is now my only model on the board.

 

We called the game at that point.   

 

 

I pretty much experienced the same when I tried a DW game. 2W is nice and certainly does improve them slightly against small arms fire but as a whole Terminators still struggle in that you are paying a premium for generally the same firepower as much cheaper tactical squads. If they get into combat Terminators do tear stuff up but a 9" charge after deep strike is such a low odds play and generally weight of fire means charging "next" turn often means your Terminators are mostly gunned down. 

 

As best I can tell Terminators can be good as shock troops so long as they have some sort of movement manipulation (warp time, teleport homer, etc) to help combat their lack of mobility. Deathwing, unfortunately, don't get any of that. Instead we are forced to grab extremely expensive land raiders, which did improve but when you are paying over 500pts to get a squad of 5 Knights into combat most opponents are going to just sacrifice some chaffe to it and care little about it. 

 

I think DW armies will struggle even more vs horde armies as their low volume but powerful CC attacks won't mean much either, they simply won't have enough swings to ever threaten an army with 150+ models. Imo DW Terminators need to come down like 10pts per model for them to be competitive in 8th. Either that or maybe have some sort of Terminator Dev squad that doesn't have power fists and can take 4 Heavy weapons in a 5 man squad. As it stands 1 Heavy weapon for every ~250pts in models is very low volume firepower. Add in that said unit is paying a premium fr close combat effectiveness so said heavy weapon is likely going to only get to shoot once or twice and you are just outclassed by every other type of force. 

 

That said, in some other matches I've seen single small squads of Deathwing knights in an otherwise Greenwing/Ravenwing army do work. A single squad can be a devastating backline deep strike without sacrificing much firepower but a whole army of DW just feels so minified in the shooting phase and so slow that they are rarely a threat in the close combat phase. 

I agree. The cost versus the number of attacks can be quite horrible. I haven't had a lot of time with the book to work things out but over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be trying Dual Wings. Knights to block, and Black Knights to shoot. I think that might work well, but I've got to experiment more with the new edition.

I agree. The cost versus the number of attacks can be quite horrible. I haven't had a lot of time with the book to work things out but over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be trying Dual Wings. Knights to block, and Black Knights to shoot. I think that might work well, but I've got to experiment more with the new edition.

 

Ya I'm planning similar, Dark Talon is really strong now. Azreal is amazing. Auto-cannon Ven dreadnaughts are really strong. Dark Shroud is super powerful. Imo Dark Angels are in a really good place as a whole, its just the DW side is quite lackluster.

Even shooty terminators are a close combat unit. You are paying nearly half the cost of the unit in equipping (their default) close combat weapons. By contrast, about 1/10th of their cost is shooting weapons. They need to be in close combat as much as possible to earn their keep. This is no different than previous editions except that now they are actually decent in close combat thanks to not having to always attack last.

In general, the good old SB+PF terminator is a CQB/Close Combat focused unit now.  As such I think we need to be cognizant of how we're dropping them on to the field and how important getting at least one first turn charge off will be.

 

First things first, we have plenty of anti-horde close combat options and combinations.

 

The Deathwing Ancient is damn near indispensable for that +1 attack and Belial is a must-have for his all-phase to-hit re-roll bubble.

 

I don't think Azrael is very suited to the Deathwing, for a better character to follow your ground-pounders (at least one squad in an LRC with a couple character in tow is a good plan that gives you a bunch of units to play with) pick Asmodai.  When paired with a pure CC squad (and hopefully the Ancient) a unit of DWKs can become pure melee blenders (especially with the Flail allowing overflow damage to pass on).

 

The Deathwing Champ is also an interesting anti-horde unit.  Against units of 5+ models he is getting 5-6 S7, AP-4, D3 damage attacks.  That is enough to threaten a great many units.

 

The minor characters are a new paradigm that we would be remiss not to explore further.  The utility added by the Apothecary, Ancient, and Champ are interesting and also come at a pretty good price in most cases.

 

And of course, we should also be keeping in mind things like the Rifleman Dread as a potential cheap shooty unit.  That is 8 shots, S7, AP-1, dealing 2 damage each.  It can handle light anti-vehicle work, it can deal with infantry, and if it digs down in to cover on the back line it can be real hard to shift.  That 136 for the basic model or 156 for a venerable (if you like running more thematic pure DW).

 

DW are still pricey and will still likely have an uphill struggle in some matchups.  But I think we can get a lot of mileage out of this basic setup:

 

1) A core of flexible shooty+assault focused DW terminators.  Either Assault Cannon or CML equipped.  Form them up around Belial and an Ancient.  On the first or second turn, use a CP to improve chances of getting at least one charge off the drop.  Engaging and at least pinning a single unit will be invaluable.

 

2) A core assaulty unit, like DWK's formed up around at least Asmodai, and optionally a champ.  Pop them in a LRC and roll them forward.  If the enemy focuses on the DW right in their face, then the LRC will have an easy time coming in.  If they try to split focus, the LRC will be hard to take out with unfocused shooting and will absord a ton of punishment as it rolls in.

 

3) A back line composed of ranged dreads or even battle company support elements.  What DW really tend to lack is cheap, long-ranged firepower.  If you are married to DW only, Rifleman Dreads are great again.  If you are flexible, have a look at the Razorback and maybe an embarked Devastator squad or two.  So long as we have some weighty 48" fire on the field, we'll have some things to make the enemy sweat.

 

I'd caution going too heavy on the Land Raiders in either case.  While we are no longer penalized for not using an expensive teleport-related ability, mech is super expensive in this edition and Land Raiders are among the priciest.  In a 2000 point game, I can't see taking more than one.  Above that?  I'd probably spring for a second standard-pattern one to bring another 5-man assault unit to the party alongside the main event assault unit.  They provide excellent anti-tank (but sadly their transport capacity just isn't enough to run a 5-man and a character).

 

I don't think infantry+some transport Deathwing is really workable.  Terminators are great shock troops where they can hit a single weak point in the enemy line, but if they have nothing else around they will still get enveloped and overwhelmed.  But we have a lot of new tools (minor characters and buff auras) as well as a lot of old friends returning in new and improved forms (Dreads and Land Raiders) that can really help the cause out.

 

Deathwing will still be a niche list with a high learning curve, of that I am sure.  But I think we're more flexible and workable than we've been in eons.  But then, I sort of cut my teeth playing Deathwing back when they were 60 points per model base and had worse weapons (2nd Edition), or 52 points per model base and had worse weapons, a worse save, and had the 3rd Edition Craftworld Eldar codex to contend with.

 

Deathwing have never had it easier, but I look forward to the new list paradigm where we are a bit more flexible and wont simply be chumped by every army on the planet.  Hell, with GW revising lists every year, maybe we will find terminators are a hair to expensive and they'll get a price break somewhere (my guess is to build the power fist cost in to the profile like the DCCW on the Ironclad and make it a bit cheaper on terminators if the cost is an issue).  It's better chances than we've had in over 20 years at least, so I'll gladly take the odds and run with them to see how we fair this time around.

 

It's going to take a lot of brainstorming to get used to the new tools we have, and I think it will require some vastly different strategies than those we were used to employing in the past.  Mech-wing with an assault focus (4th Edition pseudo-codex, possibly our strongest point in history) is too costly to run at most standard point levels (but then, it is for all marines).  Pure null-deploy is no longer a thing (though we no longer rely on RW for precision either).  Some kind of middle ground perhaps.  Assault-focused but without giving up on heavy amounts of high-impact shooting.  Dreads and Land Raiders can really bring the thunder these days, terminators have basically doubled their shooting output per squad while being twice as durable against small arms fire, and characters offer a suite of buffs that affect whole portions of our army.

 

It is, at the very least, interesting times for us and I'll be interested to see where we sit after a year or so of play.

I played my first game with Deathwing against Dark Eldar at 1500 points. 

 

Lists were

Belial

5 Deathwing Knights

5 Deathwing AC, CF

5 Deathwing AC, CF

5 Deathwing AC, CF

Land Raider HK Missle, Storm Bolter

 

vs.

 

Lelith Hesperax in a raider

Succubus and Wyches in a Raider

Wracks in a Raider

Wyches in a Raider

Wyches in a Raider

5 Incubi in a Venom

Ravager

Razorwing Jetfighter

(Not sure on all the wargear)

 

It was Eternal War Mission 1 and I got to pick deployment sides. I rolled short edges and three objectives were on one side. Since I was facing DE I took the side with the three objectives and deployed everything but the Knights. We played 5 rounds and called it do to time. At the end we both had an objective, one uncontested and one contested not close enough to call. I popped a Raider for first blood and both warlords were still alive. We both got linebreaker so 6-5 Dark Angels win. I lost one squad of regular Deathwing at the end and had another squad in close combat with one model left. The knights had one model left. 

 

My land raider had 3 wounds left at the end but took all the shooting until turn 4 when he charged it with a Raider.

 

Belial buffing three squads of shooty terminators was big and with the Land Raider as a target shooty guys never were targeted. Shooty guys still die easily in close combat though but can last a bit longer now.

 

Knights were outstanding even though they never got a charge off. They held Lelith, and her squad of Wyches in close combat for three turns. 

Looking at the Index more I think the Ancient is pretty crucial to up those limited number of close combat attacks. Belial and Ancient together are going to be the core of my Deathwing. With Land Raiders or Dreads in support. The venerable dread is a pretty nice upgrade for 50 points more. 

 

I'm also thinking about throwing in a few scout squads to act as a chaff and take the charge so that the Terminators can follow up the next turn. 

I played another 1500 points game against Eldar, again no pictures :sad.:

 

I ran:

 

Belial 

10x Tactical Squad with Flamer and ML

5x Scouts with Sniper Rifles and cloaks

5x Scouts with bolters

5x Terminators with Assault Cannon 

5x Terminators with Assault Cannon 

5x Terminators with 3 Lighting Claws, 2 TH and SS 

 

Land Raider Crusader 

 

He had 

Autarch on jet bike 

Spiritseer

 

Banshees

Fire Dragons 

Both in a Wave serpent 

 

Wraithguard in a wave serpent w/ the seer 

 

Striking Scorpions infiltrating 

 

Fire Prism 

 

Dark Reapers 

 

 

 

Belial and the regular terminators were in reserve. Assault termies and Scouts were in the crusader. Sniper scouts infiltrated into a piece of terrain. 

 

First Turn

 

I moved forward and put some wounds on the Fire Prism, Snipers did a mortal wound to the Autarch. I should not have moved forward so much.

 

Thinking about it now I think he might have moved his wave serpents up before getting out. Anyways Fire Dragons moved, and advanced and then put the pain on the Crusader dropping it to 4 wounds. The rest of his shooting then managed to kill it. His autarch charged in to the surviving assault termies but didn't do much and his Banshees failed their charge. Scorpions wiped out my scouts. 

 

Turn 2 

 

I dropp in my deep strike and wipe out the banshees. One group of Terms charge the Scorpions and make it. Other group charge the fire prism but fail. Assault Terms drop the fire dragons to just the exarch and the autarch is down to one wound. 

 

The rest of the game I was in combat for pretty much the whole time. He focus fired belial down to one wound then killed him with the autarch. Tacticals were stuck in a combat with a wave serpent the whole game (I guess they need a power fist but even then it would have taken forever)

 

My assault terms eventually kill off the wraighguard (who are also very good getting to fall back and shoot and then charge every turn)

 

We called the game in the end with all my units in combat and him with a couple units that could bounce around a keep away from me.

 

Thoughts:

 

My list 

 

The tacticals were impossible for him to shift out of cover, but spent almost the whole game in combat with a wave serpent they couldn't hurt 

The bolter scouts were good chaff to protect the assault terminators

Crusader I should have stayed at longer range with, and I really should have brought a god hammer to get in some Las cannons but only my crusader is painted.  

Terminators brought the pain shooting, but I dropped one unit out of range of belial and that was a mistake. In combat they really need some sort of buff or they suffer with only 2 attacks hitting on 4+  

 

Anything that can fall back and shoot is very annoying, (although I think we were playing that wrong too in allowing them to charge back in.) So flying vehicles like wave serpents or the wraith guard seemed very good.  

Edited by sultansean
Posted (edited) · Hidden by Chaplain Lucifer, June 24, 2017 - Off topic
Hidden by Chaplain Lucifer, June 24, 2017 - Off topic

I'm sorry but did you said your opponent brought ass cannons? I'd love to see the modeling for that.

 

 

 

(Yes I know what he meant)

 

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/butt_cannon_1761.jpg

 

http://i1.wp.com/www.theninjacafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/butt1.png

Edited by GreyRavenC

I think it is very important to bring a DW Apothecary, maybe two. Bringing back models on a 4+ or just healing them gives plenty extra value.

 

Considering that they're only 29 points more expensive than a standard terminator with SB/PF, they're also a very cheap way to get more command points by opening an extra Vanguard detachment. 

Do people think a all infantry deathwing army could work? I'm thinking I might try that

 

By all infantry do you mean all-Terminators or are Dreadnoughts included as well? First would be harder to work than the second. Dreadnoughts bring Twin Lascannons to the table, which can be very handy.

 

Do people think a all infantry deathwing army could work? I'm thinking I might try that

 

 

By all infantry do you mean all-Terminators or are Dreadnoughts included as well? First would be harder to work than the second. Dreadnoughts bring Twin Lascannons to the table, which can be very handy.

Well I do have a few dreadnoughts so would have no issue with running some

 

 

Do people think a all infantry deathwing army could work? I'm thinking I might try that

 

By all infantry do you mean all-Terminators or are Dreadnoughts included as well? First would be harder to work than the second. Dreadnoughts bring Twin Lascannons to the table, which can be very handy.

Well I do have a few dreadnoughts so would have no issue with running some

Consider that only half the army can start in reserves. Only TDA means some will footslog. I do not think that is a great idea.

My initial impressions of 8th is that either people run some very sketchy lists, or the point values are off for many units. A DW list get punished hard for the variance in average points killed per model. Some opponent lists simply restrict the termies' ability to earn their value back too much.

 

Yes, they can slaughter infantry or vehicles in close combat, and even rain doom on weak infantry with stormbolters. But sometimes even wiping a squad/turn will not earn them back their points over the course of a game.

Termies always had this problem. Even back in 2nd I rarely ran more than 2x5 of them. You had to have a very specific objective in mind for them or you ended up with a ton of points doing very little.

 

One of the biggest strengths they have always had is their ability to attract fire. When you run a pure DW list, that advantage disappears. You can no longer wreck your opponent with all the guns that survive because they shoot all they have at the termies.

In a way the land raider serves the same purpose in a pure DW list. Which is perhaps the biggest reason to run one. The 5 knights in a raider attracts more attention than they are actually worth against most opponents. Unless you have a particularly juicy target lined up for them to go at, chances are that they will not earn their points back - except if you factor in the added "stealth saves" of the rest of your army.

 

I used to keep a notebook of kill points for each unit during battle (hell of a task to keep track of in an efficient way). My DW termies almost never earned their points back against armies with units cheaper than space marines. And even against space marines there were typically enough lascannons and missile launchers that they got nuked quickly. Against more horde'y armies they always got clogged up killing something that cost less than them.

It will be interesting to see how those statistics go in 8th.

 

A pure DW list I would be weary to field though. As many armies have plenty of ways to deal with them. There is enough 2dmg guns out there that most armies will field them. And they get awesome value for points against pure 2w armies with low model counts. With the amount of primaris marines that will be showing up soon, expect most armies to have a good counter for them, and termies get punished for their forced ccws when compared against primaris marines.

 

When I get some time I will try to sketch up some simulations of various point equivalents against DWs. The current amount of battle reports is not significant enough in terms of statistical relevance.

Maybe Terminators were not designed to work on their own. I am happy to include one UM TDA unit or even two SW or Chaos TDA units, I would love to run Paladins. I would not be prepared to run a full TDA army, not even GK, because tactically they fall flat at the first hurdle. Maybe it is simply the fact that solo TDA armies are not meant to be competitive. Yes, I am aware of the existence of fluffy all TDA armies, but fluff and balance rarely go hand in hand, otherwise Marines would be even tougher, Eldar and Necrons would be insane on a 1v1 basis and Imperial Guard would usually play 2v1 against any given opponent. Edited by Immersturm

I think that if you are playing pure DW taking things like Land raiders and dreads are a must.  I think it is very tough though because DW squads really are only good at mid-range, so deepstriking is a must, but in order to deepstrike reserve units, you need equal numbers on the table.  So Belial and 2 DW squads, and an Apoth takes 4 deepstrike slots.  If your options for on the table are venerable dreads, and Land Raiders you end up getting very short on points quickly.  If you include Azreal as part of DW the best might be to keep him in the back field with The Venerable dreads.  But then you end up with very few points left.  The best I seem to be able to come up with is

 

 

Vanguard

Belial

2 x 10 DW Terminators with Assault cannons

2 x DW Apothecary

 

Vanguard

Azreal

4 x Ven Dread with 2 x TL auto-cannon.

 

Comes up 16 points shy of 2k.

 

Seems pretty lacking competitively due to low model count but puts out 32 S7 AP -1 D2 shots hitting on 2+ re-roll, wound most things on a 3+.  The termies are putting out 80 S4 shots and 24 S6 shots at 12" range with re-rolls from belial, and the apothecaries there to heal up each. (would have used an ancient but lack the points.).  If you dropped to a regular dread you could fit in the ancient.  Seems like a reasonable answer to hordes, but very prone to losing to an alpha strike.

My experience has been bad.
I think Deathwing may be dead for another edition.

 

2+ Saves are basically worthless now there are huge numbers of shots with -1 and -2 modifiers, terminators cannot stand up to volume of fire at all, the 2 wounds barely makes a difference.
You get a few more shots, but being so slow means many enemies can just assault you from longer range so you never get the 4 shots up close.

Land raiders just evaporate.  I lost 12 wounds on land raiders today to Shuriken Pistols.  Also the falling back rules mean if your land raider is engaged it cant move out of melee and shoot so the additional shots are worthless if you use it as a transport.  Despite being worse than it has been (Maybe better than 7th but nowhere near where they have been) Land Raiders went up in cost which is madness.

 

I'm holding hope for dreadnoughts but between terminators and land raiders both being duds AND increasing in cost and us having half the Command Points of everyone else I'm not optimistic about this edition.

I think that if you are playing pure DW taking things like Land raiders and dreads are a must.  I think it is very tough though because DW squads really are only good at mid-range, so deepstriking is a must, but in order to deepstrike reserve units, you need equal numbers on the table.  So Belial and 2 DW squads, and an Apoth takes 4 deepstrike slots.  If your options for on the table are venerable dreads, and Land Raiders you end up getting very short on points quickly.  If you include Azreal as part of DW the best might be to keep him in the back field with The Venerable dreads.  But then you end up with very few points left.  The best I seem to be able to come up with is

 

 

Vanguard

Belial

2 x 10 DW Terminators with Assault cannons

2 x DW Apothecary

 

Vanguard

Azreal

4 x Ven Dread with 2 x TL auto-cannon.

 

Comes up 16 points shy of 2k.

 

Seems pretty lacking competitively due to low model count but puts out 32 S7 AP -1 D2 shots hitting on 2+ re-roll, wound most things on a 3+.  The termies are putting out 80 S4 shots and 24 S6 shots at 12" range with re-rolls from belial, and the apothecaries there to heal up each. (would have used an ancient but lack the points.).  If you dropped to a regular dread you could fit in the ancient.  Seems like a reasonable answer to hordes, but very prone to losing to an alpha strike.

It would be pretty random against a mirror list. The ACs would slaugther termies, and most of the dreads would be alive for a while due to the lack of AP. On the other hand, the dreads get two times overwatch and a turn of fire to stop the termies from ripping them apart in CC. Azrael cannot fend off 20 termies+Belial off on his own. And if you deploy termies on defense, your opponents dreads will have a field day.

Or how about a superheavy with a gunline shield? Nowhere to deepstrike to and tons of guards to slaughter before you get to the superheavy. Even with 16 ACs killing a superheavy is not easy.

 

Full DW lists can be fun to play, but they have significant weaknesses that can be brutal if exploited. Stacking all these power units in a list seems so awesome. Yet, you still need to remember that for your 2000 points worth of low-model-count DWs, your opponent will field either something similar, or outnumber you significantly.

depends on the superheavy I guess.

 

16 autocannons against most super heavies (T8) 31 hits, 10 wounds, 5 unsaved, so 10 damage.  SO 3 rounds of shooting takes one out.

 

But yeah not the best list due to being pure DW.  Which is why I said I think from a competitive standpoint they are tough to make work.

 

A mirror match is likely deploy 1 Terminator squad and Apoth as bubblewrap for dreads, and deepstrike belial, the other squad and the apoth.  It would come down to dice and decisions which is what always happens in mirror matches.

 

I think greenwing is probably our strongest list, with a bit of RW and Deathwing to taste. 

Edited by breng77

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