Death Co Loadout.

[Ornithologist]

So having gotten the opportunity recently, I am taking the chance to look at the loadout on my Deathco.

 

The way I used to do it was per 5 Death Co Marines:

 

1 Powerfist/Boltgun

1 Powersword/Bolt pistol

3 Chainsword/Bolt pistol

 

(At the time Thunderhammers weren't an option, Now I am changing the Fists to hammers as I pick up extra hammers).

 

So, how do you load them out?

[Panzer]

I don't load them out at all since I play Primaris, however if I were using them I'd build them the same way you do except for using Bolter instead of Bolt pistols. ^^

[toaae]

Currently, for my second generation of my BA, I am building an all Bolter/Chainsword DC. Down the line, I'll add some thunder hammer and Power Sword guys, but for now, I'm keeping them cheap, relying on sheer volume of attacks.

[Pendent]

My experience is that you really want to run bigger squads of DC these days. I find 10 is where you start being able to reliably kill most things on the charge but your mileage may vary depending on local meta.

 

I run mine with-

2x Thunder Hammers

2x Power Swords

6x Chainswords

 

They all have bolt pistols at the moment because I hate proxying and haven't had the heard to start ripping hands/arms off to replace them with bolt guns

[Quixus]

I'd go with 1 Hammer/5 DC, 1 Power Sword, Boltgun/5 DC, 3 Chainswords, Boltguns/5 DC. Scale up as needed. If points are scarce drop the Power Sword.

[Paladin777]

That’s what I am doing with mine. I just got a second box they couple of days ago which will put me up to 10 total.

[Explorer1]

Depends on what you want them to do. Because their load out is so flexible you can get them to do anything really. 

 

However, my experience is that you need to specialise them. Mixed load outs made me always feel I needed something else, or something different in the unit. I'm now fixed on a 15 man unit with Bolters and Chainswords for horde control and screen clearance, and a 10 man unit with 5-6 Thunder Hammers for killing big scary things.

[tychobi]

Bolter chain sword. At 5 man they are not worth buffing and the special weapons make them juicier targets than they need to be. Reputation alone puts a target on their heads and any more than 20pts a model is probably too much. I assume u go jump packs

[dread05]

Are thunder hammers worth it over the fist + bolter loadout? I doubt it.

[Panzer]

There's some disagreement, but I personally value the D3 stat over the D1d3 highly.

[Pendent]

Random damage is going to fail you when you really need it. Knowing for certain you're going to always deal that 3 is a big deal

[slowclinic]

I'm running 10 with 2x Power Swords and 1x Power Fist, all with Bolt Pistols. Same as I played in 7th, because I'm not bothered about changing the load out. So far, it's worked fine, although I have five unpainted that I'm going to use to boost the unit with 1x Thunder Hammer and 4x Chain Sword/Bolt Pistol for a unit of 15. MSUs aren't working for me in this edition, and buffing a large unit of DC to sweep up the board while SG drop in with DoA in the backfield seems to be the way to go.

[Buggane]

Thought it better to put this in here than start a fresh thread but does anyone run DC in a rhino? I wondered whether it might make a more durable distraction than DC that start on the board, and saves you the CPs from.their strategem

I'm running 10 with 2x Power Swords and 1x Power Fist, all with Bolt Pistols. Same as I played in 7th, because I'm not bothered about changing the load out. So far, it's worked fine, although I have five unpainted that I'm going to use to boost the unit with 1x Thunder Hammer and 4x Chain Sword/Bolt Pistol for a unit of 15. MSUs aren't working for me in this edition, and buffing a large unit of DC to sweep up the board while SG drop in with DoA in the backfield seems to be the way to go.

How do they fare getting up the board? Do you have something else to distract away from them?

[slowclinic]

Thought it better to put this in here than start a fresh thread but does anyone run DC in a rhino? I wondered whether it might make a more durable distraction than DC that start on the board, and saves you the CPs from.their strategem

I'm running 10 with 2x Power Swords and 1x Power Fist, all with Bolt Pistols. Same as I played in 7th, because I'm not bothered about changing the load out. So far, it's worked fine, although I have five unpainted that I'm going to use to boost the unit with 1x Thunder Hammer and 4x Chain Sword/Bolt Pistol for a unit of 15. MSUs aren't working for me in this edition, and buffing a large unit of DC to sweep up the board while SG drop in with DoA in the backfield seems to be the way to go.

How do they fare getting up the board? Do you have something else to distract away from them?

 

 

I've only played a few games with BA so far as I'm primarily a Guard player, but I've had a decent amount of success jumping between cover - I should have pointed out they're all kitted out with jump packs. A warlord nearby with Heroic Bearing helps them stick around a little longer. In general, I've found SG to be much more effective than DC, and a combination of the two on the board are better than the respective units on their own. 10 Hellblasters and a Auto/Las Predator in the backfield seem to draw a fair bit of attention too...

[superwill]

I've run them about 20 times now in 8th, including 3 tournaments (in 2 of which I finished 3rd)

 

When I run them it's always about the hammers. Taking 1 per 5 or something to that effect leaves you with a squad who is not so much "versatile" as it is "confused". I've tried a squad which is mostly chainswords/boltguns with a few hammers and a few axes, but in the end it's a really half-hearted option. If you charge infantry it's a waste of the hammers and if you charge vehicles/monsters only 3 guys will actually do anything, which usually won't be enough.

 

I like to run a 10 man squad - 5 hammers and 5 bolter/CS as ablative wounds. 5 hammers leaves me confident they'll kill what the charge, and 5 bolter dudes means if I lose some on OW it doesn't affect me too bad and they can even absorb a combat interrupt by a character most of the time. Any more than 10 and you'll have to set aside 2CPs for them to pass leadership. I used to roll with 15 man squads but their leadership is just so low that once 10 are dead the other 5 will just run anyway. But my 10 man squad with 5 hammers, hunting big threats, is always one of my MVPs.

 

Can't imagine ever taking fists over hammers - I think I'd almost rather a single hammer dude than 2 fist dudes, flat 3 is just a hell of a lot better. Even if you average out at 2 damage it's still much worse to roll a 1 then 3 or 3 then 1 than it is to do flat 2. So basically a fist is worse than flat 2. And yeah, I don't think I'd ever use a bolt pistol on them unless I was just playing super casual.

[dread05]

Somewhat relevant question, how do you model them with chainswords and bolters without them looking ridiculous? The bolters in the sprues are attacked to arms meant for holding them with both hands iirc. They way I imagine it is, cut the bolters from the arms, cut the pistols from some arms, glue the bolters to the pistol arms. It sounds like it could work, but the less cutting I have to do, the better!

[Panzer]

Either glue Chainswords without arms to their hips or don't give them Chainsword bitz at all? I mean Chainsword are for free anyway and can be considered the standard loadout if you don't give them any power weapons.

[dread05]

That chainswords without arm thing, I remember I tried to find some for a priest conversion, and I count find anything apart from some space wolf bits. My idea with cutting arms doesnt work actually, since half the chainswords are left haned and half are right handed, but bolters only come one way.

[Paladin777]

It actually ends up looking better than you’d think.

[Quixus]

That chainswords without arm thing, I remember I tried to find some for a priest conversion, and I count find anything apart from some space wolf bits. My idea with cutting arms doesnt work actually, since half the chainswords are left haned and half are right handed, but bolters only come one way.

Remove the pistols from the bolt pistol arms, remove the boltguns from the boltgun arms and glue them to the bolt pistol arms. For brownie points magnetize both weapons. Use the handflamer/inferno pistol arms fro more variety.

[Thoridon]

I use 2 methods for replacing bolt pistols with bolters depending on which arms I have available.

 

If the bolter is on the usual right arm but I need to put it on the left arm on a model I cut the whole bolter away from the hand (including the trigger). Ater cutting the bolt pistol off the model's left hand (being careful not to damage the hand itself) I then just file the contact surfaces to be flat and glue the bolter onto the hand as with the model on the left in the picture below.

 

If the model needs a bolter on the right arm that's even more simple as I just cut the bolt pistol hand and replacement bolter hand off at the wrist, leaving both as a a hand with the weapon attached. Then just file the connecting wrist joints to be flat and glue together, which was done with the model on the right.

 

(Ignore the paintwork, they're still in progress)

 

 

It takes a couple of minutes to do a batch of 5 and once you've added paint I don't think it's noticeable that they've been cut and replaced.

 

I use the wrist chopping method a lot to change both melee and ranged weapons or to kitbash as you really can't see the join with power armour wrists once painted. Just depends if weapons are already attached to the correct sided hand or not.

[Charlo]

2 Swords and a Hammer per 5-7 guys depending on the size of the game. All bolt pistols on my guys because of old rules but people seem to love bolters these days as the ranged option 

[dread05]

I use 2 methods for replacing bolt pistols with bolters depending on which arms I have available.

 

If the bolter is on the usual right arm but I need to put it on the left arm on a model I cut the whole bolter away from the hand (including the trigger). Ater cutting the bolt pistol off the model's left hand (being careful not to damage the hand itself) I then just file the contact surfaces to be flat and glue the bolter onto the hand as with the model on the left in the picture below.

 

If the model needs a bolter on the right arm that's even more simple as I just cut the bolt pistol hand and replacement bolter hand off at the wrist, leaving both as a a hand with the weapon attached. Then just file the connecting wrist joints to be flat and glue together, which was done with the model on the right.

 

(Ignore the paintwork, they're still in progress)

 

 

It takes a couple of minutes to do a batch of 5 and once you've added paint I don't think it's noticeable that they've been cut and replaced.

 

I use the wrist chopping method a lot to change both melee and ranged weapons or to kitbash as you really can't see the join with power armour wrists once painted. Just depends if weapons are already attached to the correct sided hand or not.

 

I'd like to know what tool you're using to cut the arms at the trigger. My hobby knife looks way to crude for such a job.

[Panzer]

A hobby knife usually works well enough for such a job with a fresh blade.

[Thoridon]

A knife with a good blade cuts through the plastic quite easily and cleanly. I'll use that when I want a clean edge on both sides of the cut.

 

If I don't want to keep both halves of whatever I'm chopping up I'll just use clippers with the flat edges on the side I'm keeping. The other half will get a little damaged then but if it's an arm I'm cutting a gun off and don't need for anything else it's the fastest approach.