Pure Deathwing - How are we doing?

[G8Keeper]

 

P.S.: On a side note, funny you would menton Bretonnia. I was a HUGE Bretonnia fan in WFB, and the only reason I haven't picked up AoS, is because I still have not seen an army that can really be considered a successor of the great bretonnian army

 

Same here 

 

I think we'll see some more Gravis units coming for all marines and these will become the "new" DW.  Bikes? Who knows, they do need new kits.  They can then do upgrade kits for DW & RW and it all fits nicely into their current model. Heck they could even do White Scar bike upgrades.

[Grand Master Raziel]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I expect that in a full-Primaris Dark Angels chapter, Gravis armor will replace Terminator armor for the Deathwing. It's a pretty straight swap. We could maybe use some variants of Aggressors to flesh out the Deathwing, but an obvious successor already exists.

With Ravenwing, it's a little less clear. Absent models we have yet to see, there's no obvious Primaris successor to Bike Squads. Maybe GW will state that Ravenwing take to the new jump packs instead of bikes, but that makes them not very distinct from Raven Guard. Another possibility is the Ravenwing adapts to using the new grav-transports, which sadly wouldn't make them very distinct from Greenwing, though I suppose GW could give them some rules love - like being able to disembark a transport after it moves, perhaps, and maybe an upgunned Impulsor variant as a replacement for Land Speeders.

All that said, not coming out with a Primaris Bike Squad seems like leaving money on the table to me. Maybe Forge World will step in.

[Hannibal]

I like your secret 4) idea. But I really do wonder how it would go down with the community of players. You'd still be breaking the tradition of a DW being formed by Terminators, and the RW being on bikes or vehicles.

 

 

I think that with the article in September issue of White Dwarf they already broke that tradition. To me it seems that ...

 

A) ... pre September 2019 "Deathwing" equals in "Terminators, Landraiders and Cybots".

 

B) ... post September 2019 "Deathwing" equals in "heavily armoured infantry, Landraiders, Repulsors (not yet confirmed, just some interpretation by me) and Cybots".

 

September White Dwarf also showed some paintings of Primaris Dreadnoughts and they mentioned that heavily armoured Primaris are incorporated into Deathwing. The only heavily armoured Primaris out there right now are Mk X Gravis armoured guys which are only Captains, Inceptors and Aggressors right now.

 

I DO NOT think, that there has to be a special "Primaris Terminator" of any kind, I think they just opened the door for yet to come heavily armoured melee centric Primasris to be included in the Deathwing.

 

Therefore I DO think that they already shifted the Deathwing background. To me it seems that Deathwing no longer is a special "inner circle" of any kind which seek and hold secrets. It´s just a special way to organise parts of the DA forces. It seems to me that DA will loose some depths in their background.

 

What does it mean to us?

 

I think you´re either a traditionalist who says "Deathwing is nothing but Terminators, (classic) Cybots and Landraiders, then you will go and collect an ary that might be outdated sonner than later.

Or you´re swallowing the pill and start painting Gravis armoured Primaris in bone colors to get some new units to your "NEW Deathwing" or "Deathwing 2.0", maybe with a less strong link to the background of the past.

 

Background (or Lore) seems to be in progress right now.

[UtariOnzo]

I disagree on the part about the Deathwing no longer being Inner Circle and just organisational. I assume you read the article, in which case it was painfully clear that prospective Primaris marines wanting to join the Deathwing had to undergo the same rituals as their Firstborn brethren. That is the total opposite of dumbing down and removing the Deathwing from the inner circle.

 

Whatever rules GW comes up with to represent Deathwing Primaris, it’s bound to include the Inner Circle/Deathwing keyword in there somewhere. Lore wise, the organisation is the same in terms of purpose, mission and traditions sans ‘terminators only’ which isn’t that big a leap for me given I can remember power armoured Deathwing members and the absolute hegemony that was 2nd/3rd ed Dark Angels where we were just a supplement and took most of our rules and units from the bland and basic Codex:SM

[Berzul]

Yeah, DW will certainly change, all things considered.

[Fajita Fan]

 

 

To take this further, consider the revival of the successors mechanic, and the incorporation of rules to make your own craftworlds and kabals. Something that I am pretty sure will also be applied to every other army in the game. I LOVE this mechanic, as it allows you to make the ary your own. Custom colors, and custom traits, to match what you envision YOUR army as. But, at the same time, going heavy on the identity making mechanics  of the game into the rules and traits, but not on the unit availability, is a tradeoff that starts to make the armies different pretty much on nothing but a couple of rules and a color scheme. Over time, it will get old, I feel that all marines are pretty much the same collection of units, just with a few different traits.

Dunno how long you’ve been playing 40k but this was the 4th edition Marine codex. You chose minor or divergent traits that had in game bonuses or taxes but it was deemed too complex for the younger players to grasp. Something about Jervis’s kid not being understand the concept.

 

Seeing DW and RW lose the troops classification was one of my sadder GW moments as I love small, elite armies through modified force orgs with “Take X as an HQ and Y becomes troops.”  Invalidating my fluffy armies like DW or 5th edition Sanguinary Guard to force me buy new models makes far less sense than selling me on starting a whole new army!

[Berzul]

 

 

To take this further, consider the revival of the successors mechanic, and the incorporation of rules to make your own craftworlds and kabals. Something that I am pretty sure will also be applied to every other army in the game. I LOVE this mechanic, as it allows you to make the ary your own. Custom colors, and custom traits, to match what you envision YOUR army as. But, at the same time, going heavy on the identity making mechanics of the game into the rules and traits, but not on the unit availability, is a tradeoff that starts to make the armies different pretty much on nothing but a couple of rules and a color scheme. Over time, it will get old, I feel that all marines are pretty much the same collection of units, just with a few different traits.

Dunno how long you’ve been playing 40k but this was the 4th edition Marine codex. You chose minor or divergent traits that had in game bonuses or taxes but it was deemed too complex for the younger players to grasp. Something about Jervis’s kid not being understand the concept.

 

Seeing DW and RW lose the troops classification was one of my sadder GW moments as I love small, elite armies through modified force orgs with “Take X as an HQ and Y becomes troops.” Invalidating my fluffy armies like DW or 5th edition Sanguinary Guard to force me buy new models makes far less sense than selling me on starting a whole new army!

Which is why I said REVIVAL.

 

;)

[Deadman Wade]

Technically, with certain detachments you can avoid taking troops, but yeah, that army will suffer from not having enough CP. Which is strange from fluffy side - Belial (commander of the Deathwing) is getting better at giving orders to tacticals than to his own company.

I understand the need in having bonuses for taking regular troops, but punishing players that want to take fluffy army of terminators is still strange.

[Berzul]

I do believe there was a designer's note or comment a while back, that the fact is that this is by design. If I am correct, and am remembering right, the whole point was to discourage elite armies or elite configurations. Armies that worked by using only vanguards, spearheads and outriders. This, so as to push for players playing armies in a more traditional sense. With troops as the backbone, and elites being used more sparingly.

 

Thing is, this goes entirely against the logic of the army we play, since it is designed to have one big formation of elites, one big formation of fast attack, and have them work and cooperate as veritable armies in their own right.

 

The Deathwing don't go hunting for the fallen as one squad in a sea of greenwing. They go as a big terminator force to crush the fallen angels.

The Ravenwing don't send in one bike squad along side a block of foot soldiers. They scout ahead on their own, at top speed.

 

So, the logic behind detachments as a discouragement for elite and fast attack based armies, is one that may make sense for many codices, but not much for ours.

[Fajita Fan]

It’s a huge disservice to people who spend hundreds of dollars to build 2,000-3,000 points of an army like Deathwing only to be told we now have a huge Vanguard detachment that can never be practically fielded again. GK can still take terminators as troops.

[Berzul]

Well, hopefully the next update will fix this, somehow

[G8Keeper]

Get your emails in folks. There doesn't seem to be any of the main batrep channels running much DA to make any noise (aside from Tabletop Tactics RW force) that I've seen and apparently they do have a little sway these days, so we need to do it ourselves.

[Berzul]

Maybe we could work a proposal to email them? Backed up by the community here all at once?

 

We have thrown a lot of ideas around, but we still nees to organize them

[Berzul]

So, if you were to design a specialist detachment for the DW to try and make them better, how would you go about it?

 

Here is what I'm thinking:

 

DEATHWING STRIKE FORCE - 1CP

Makes a detachment into a Deathwing Strike Force, granting all DEATHWING units the STRIKE FORCE keyword.

 

WARLORD TRAIT - Relentless

If a Strike Force Character is your warlord, you can give him this warlord trait, which gives him and any STRIKE FORCE unit within 6 inches of him the Objective Secured special rule.

 

RELIC - The Perfidious Relic of the Unforgiven

Bringing this back from 7th, as a relic for a Strike Force character, which gives you a roll, once per turn, any time a psychic power is cast near the user, to deny it. It denies it on a 5+ if the caster is up to 24 inches away, on a 4+ if the caster is up to 18 inches away, on a 3+ if the caster is up to 12 inches away, and on a 2+ if the caster is up to 6 inches away.

 

STRATAGEMS

 

1 CP / 2 CP (depending if the unit is of 1-5 models or 6+ models). Use it after a Strike Force unit arrives via deepstrike. That unit can advance after being deployed, and also adds +2" to all charge rolls for the rest of the turn

 

1 CP. Use it at the beginning of the shooting phase. Chose a Strike Force unit. Until the end of the phase, the profile of every Storm Bolter in the unit is changed from Rapid Fire 2, to Pistol 4.

 

 

---

 

The idea here would be, making the deathwing as part of an army into a formation that can hold objectives (solving some of its dependancy to troops), granting them a relic that follows the fluff of previous editions and improves upon the psychic resistance of the regular watchers, and giving them two stratagems. One that can either improve the charge of a unit of Knights or manage the positioning of a unit of regular terminators, and one that can help a squad to break through a tarpit of infrantry if it gets bogged down.

[G8Keeper]

I guess it depends on what we want.  Do we just want a Vigilus style formation or do we want to be able to field a full DW force with a decent amount of CP to use? If the former, that's a good start although I'd possibly change the relic as we already have Watchers in the Dark for DW squads that does it better for 5pts (granted once per battle per unit).  If the latter, we need to either make DW troops if Belial is taken for example, or add some form of CP generation into the mix.

[Deadman Wade]

Get your emails in folks. There doesn't seem to be any of the main batrep channels running much DA to make any noise (aside from Tabletop Tactics RW force) that I've seen and apparently they do have a little sway these days, so we need to do it ourselves.

Grim Resolve recently did very nice narrative batrep, it's Vigilus campaign Deathwing vs Black Legion.

[Berzul]

I guess it depends on what we want.  Do we just want a Vigilus style formation or do we want to be able to field a full DW force with a decent amount of CP to use? If the former, that's a good start although I'd possibly change the relic as we already have Watchers in the Dark for DW squads that does it better for 5pts (granted once per battle per unit).  If the latter, we need to either make DW troops if Belial is taken for example, or add some form of CP generation into the mix.

 

I'm being pessimist, and assuming that, at most, we will get a specialist detachment.

[G8Keeper]

 

Grim Resolve recently did very nice narrative batrep, it's Vigilus campaign Deathwing vs Black Legion.

 

 

I'll have to look at them with a name like that!

 

If we're part of a Psychic Awakening book we will get more than a detachment.  If we're not, we'll get a new codex so.....

[ValourousHeart]

So, if you were to design a specialist detachment for the DW to try and make them better, how would you go about it?

 

I think making the specialist formation cost CP, when CP are in such limited supply for formations like DW and RW is part of the problem.

 

The minimum fix to Outrider, Vanguard and Spearhead detachments would be to boost them to +2 or +3 CP.  The better fix would be to scale CP with the game size, with only a minor boost based on formations.  However they fix it, they should want to avoid encouraging spamming minimum formations for extra CP.

 

Giving troops access to more CP is fine, but the current disparity level between them is to large.

[Berzul]

I think they should change it so that base cp is larger

 

For instance, 5cp for a Battleforged army. 1 per turn. Then bonuses for detachments.

 

Patrols +1

Barallions +3

Brigades +7

 

Vanguard, Outrider, Spearhead, Supreme Command +2

[Fajita Fan]

I'm not a pro gamer but I'd think CP would be tied to the number of HQs, not the number of force org choices in an army.  Then you limit the number of HQ choices in anything but the regular force orgs, nerf the bonuses from CP so the game doesn't devolve into CP spam, then give DW back the ability to hold objectives like troops so my very expensive army can come out of its case again. 

[Deadman Wade]

I'm not a pro gamer but I'd think CP would be tied to the number of HQs, not the number of force org choices in an army. Then you limit the number of HQ choices in anything but the regular force orgs, nerf the bonuses from CP so the game doesn't devolve into CP spam, then give DW back the ability to hold objectives like troops so my very expensive army can come out of its case again.

Exactly. CPs should be a characteristic of a HQ, and stratagem choice should be tied to them as well. More points for captains, less for chaplains, lieutenants and librarians.

IMO, Kill Team has it much better - when your leader isn't out of action, you get CPs every turn. It makes players think how to spend them. Regular 40k encourages to burn CPs on powerful combos early game instead of forcing careful management.

Currently it's like "I'm a better commander when I have 15 scouts in my force, without them I can barely issue any orders".

[Fajita Fan]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.  CP should be a stat on the leader with chapter masters, company commanders, broodlords, Hive Tyrants, and lord commanders should all generate more while chaplains, Primaris LTs, aspiring champions, mekboys, and librarians generate less.  

[Berzul]

That could work... Would take away the advantage that brigade spammers like Astra Militarum have, and even the playing field a bit.

 

You could have it work like:

 

Patrols have a max of 2 hqs

Batallions have a max of 3 hqs

Brigades have a max of 4 hqs

 

Vanguard, Outrider and Spearhead have a max of 1 hq eaxh

Supreme Command has a min and a max of 3 hqs.

 

Then keep 3cp as the base for a battleforged army, and make characters give cp.

 

Captain level HQs give 3

Librarian/Chaplain level HQs give 2

Lieutenant level HQs give 1

[Stormxlr]

That wouldn't work tho. AM still has the cheapest HQs. Either way I think CP generation should be removed from list building mechanics.

Give everyone same amount of fixed CP every game based on point level played. Solves all the list building problems.

For example 1CP for every 200 points rounding down. So at 1k game you will have 5CP and 10 at 2k.

 

Remove CP regen from character powers. Make it a mechanic of the game.