A couple questions for building back my DA army

[Helias_Tancred]

I'm looking at building back my Dark Angels. I have a couple questions I wanted to bounce of you guys.

 

 

1. Right now I have built a 10 man Intercessor squad, a 10 man Hellblaster squad, two 10 man tactical squads, Azrael, Ezekiel, Master Lazarus, a regular marine Master, and a regular marine "command squad" (Ancient, Apothecary, Champion, and two vets).

 

2. Should I hold off to do this until after 9th is out?

 

3. Can I get a head start now and do my Ravenwing element, my Deathwing element, maybe a few solid DA units that won't be any different in 9th?

 

4. What do you use to base your battle company models now that GW doesn't make Caliban Green spray anymore? FYI I tried Army Painter Angel Green and didn't care for it, went on way too heavy even at 14" away with passes. Going airbrush isn't an option for me right now.

 

5. I'm curious whether the bladeguard veterans will be Deathwing or Company Vets? Ditto for the primaris bikes?

 

Thanks.

 

 

[Skywrath]

Here is what I observed. In response to your questions.

 

1. Hellblasters, Intercessors, Azrael, Ezekiel and the Apothecary (Ravenwing) are all good options. I want to say Champion is good to, but as lot of the fellow DA know, I have a bias towards that unit.

 

2. It's probably a good idea, however there are a few safe units. With the changes to battalions and detachments, we might not need intercessors anymore. Bit of a bold statement, but that's the impression I got. The safe units, if you absolutely want to start building away are: Aggressors (to replace intercessors), Ravenwing HQ and the apothecary, Deathwing Knights. Maybe Deathwing Terminators with the new changes.

 

3. See 2, under the safe units. I'd hold off on the Ravenwing, with the exception of the Ravenwing Apothecary, and the HQ choices. 

 

4. I just paint mine with caliban green, the traditional method, so wouldn't be able to help you there.

 

5. The picture confirms they will be in the Deathwing, and the outriders in the ravenwing. It's been stated multiple times. I hope they will be a pleasure to paint as the other primaris units.

[Helias_Tancred]

Here is what I observed. In response to your questions.

 

1. Hellblasters, Intercessors, Azrael, Ezekiel and the Apothecary (Ravenwing) are all good options. I want to say Champion is good to, but as lot of the fellow DA know, I have a bias towards that unit.

 

2. It's probably a good idea, however there are a few safe units. With the changes to battalions and detachments, we might not need intercessors anymore. Bit of a bold statement, but that's the impression I got. The safe units, if you absolutely want to start building away are: Aggressors (to replace intercessors), Ravenwing HQ and the apothecary, Deathwing Knights. Maybe Deathwing Terminators with the new changes.

 

3. See 2, under the safe units. I'd hold off on the Ravenwing, with the exception of the Ravenwing Apothecary, and the HQ choices. 

 

4. I just paint mine with caliban green, the traditional method, so wouldn't be able to help you there.

 

5. The picture confirms they will be in the Deathwing, and the outriders in the ravenwing. It's been stated multiple times. I hope they will be a pleasure to paint as the other primaris units.

What about Sammael? I always enjoyed using him. Or say a Talonmaster?

[Skywrath]

Both good options, I'd say. With the Talonmaster, I'm not sure whether we would get a primaris-fied version on him with the 9th edition release, but if you don't have one already, I'd say go for it. 

Edited June 21, 2020 by Skywrath

[Polythemus]

So here’s a somewhat cynical take on the state of marines, that I’d love to be proven wrong on.

The entire marine infantry range is being replaced. This includes bikers, grunts, and yes terminators. While the company line is “no you can use any model you’d like”, the reality is that favorable points adjustments and the slow creep of new weapons are only available to primaris equivalents. This also means that transports things like rhinos land raiders are also being phased out, unless your a chaos player. So where does that leave marine players?

 

You can try to get on board with this change, get on eBay and look for deals, paint up some primaris stuff.

You can take up guard who are not likely to change as their scale is unlikely to be readjusted

You can get some vehicles / characters painted up. Flyers, repulsor executioners, maybe a knight.

 

Luckily you haven’t invested to much to the point that looking at replacing huge swathes of army and the money time and paint supplies that requires. Good luck.

[Malakithe]

You picked a weird time to jump back in tbh. This is a transition period until 9th is out. Its been confirmed that varies codexs are being released after as well so youll likely have to get a new book within some months after 9th drops. If it were me I would go ham on Primaris stuff while using old kits for chapter specific bitz to decorate them.

 

I would stay away from all generic non-chapter specific old kits for sure with the exception of the flyers since there doesnt seem to be rumors of Primaris flyers...yet. I do sense a new land speeder type in the future though.

 

Of course you can get whatever you think is cool and fun but be prepared for all non-Primaris to be moved to Legends eventually. 

[Berzul]

Id say, wait it out a bit. See how 9ed releases. Also, might not be a good idea to go with firstborn units as they are ever more evidently being phased out of the game for good.

 

 

... Unless you want to go "old scho", and collect them specially. In which case, pick em up before they go away.

[Helias_Tancred]

Thank you for the collected feedback.

[Fajita Fan]

There is a list out there of items that will see a price increase, I think there’s a link on the WC page to everything that’s going up. You might browse the list for things you’re interested in and buy them now but wait to build till you see the points. Also, magnets are your friend. 

[Grand Master Raziel]

I'm looking at building back my Dark Angels. I have a couple questions I wanted to bounce of you guys.

 

 

1. Right now I have built a 10 man Intercessor squad, a 10 man Hellblaster squad, two 10 man tactical squads, Azrael, Ezekiel, Master Lazarus, a regular marine Master, and a regular marine "command squad" (Ancient, Apothecary, Champion, and two vets).

 

That's a solid start.

 

2. Should I hold off to do this until after 9th is out?

 

I think there are units that are going to be safe for a while. We have a ton of stratagems that benefit Ravenwing and Deathwing units, so building those up is going to be a safe bet.  I personally don't think battalions are going away, so Scouts are good as cheap Troops choice and can push out your starting board control  for less than Infiltrators. Plus you can give them sniper rifles to threaten characters and generate some mortal wounds. 

 

Then of course there are the Primaris units. You could get a couple Impulsors to tote your Hellblasters around. You could pick up some plasma Inceptors. Aggressors are a good unit, and smart money is on them being the new Deathwing eventually.  Eliminators are also considered a fine unit.

 

3. Can I get a head start now and do my Ravenwing element, my Deathwing element, maybe a few solid DA units that won't be any different in 9th?

 

I'd say it's safe to invest in Ravenwing Knights, Deathwing Knights, Talonmasters, Sammael (both configurations), the Ravenwing characters, the Deathwing Ancient, and Asmodai.

 

 

4. What do you use to base your battle company models now that GW doesn't make Caliban Green spray anymore? FYI I tried Army Painter Angel Green and didn't care for it, went on way too heavy even at 14" away with passes. Going airbrush isn't an option for me right now.

 

I'm afraid I can't help you there. I play a successor chapter with a different paint scheme.

 

5. I'm curious whether the bladeguard veterans will be Deathwing or Company Vets? Ditto for the primaris bikes?

 

Apparently Bladeguard being Deathwing and Primaris Outriders being Ravenwing have been confirmed.

 

Polythemus, on 21 Jun 2020 - 06:47 AM, said:

So here’s a somewhat cynical take on the state of marines, that I’d love to be proven wrong on.

The entire marine infantry range is being replaced. This includes bikers, grunts, and yes terminators. While the company line is “no you can use any model you’d like”, the reality is that favorable points adjustments and the slow creep of new weapons are only available to primaris equivalents. This also means that transports things like rhinos land raiders are also being phased out, unless your a chaos player. So where does that leave marine players?

 

Here's my take on the situation. First of all, we have no idea what the transition timeline looks like. The whole OldMarine range is unlikely to vanish overnight. Sure, Primaris are the wave of the future, but OldMarines will continue being playable.  Even if GW stops supporting them as Matched Play legal, they could still be repurposed for 30K. Plus, considering the size of the Marine fanbase, I wouldn't be surprised if fan-based rules support took over if and when GW sunsets them for good. Look at what happened when GW transitioned from Warhammer Fantasy to Age of Sigmar. 9th Age was developed. I daresay Warhammer Fantasy had less fans than 40K Space Marines do.

 

Also, look at it this way: Let's say you spend $60 on a typical midrange Space Marine kit.  $60 would get you dinner and a movie, or maybe one new video game. That'll give you an evening's entertainment, or maybe a few days worth,  possibly a week. Longer I suppose if the game has a good online component. That same amount of money spent on the GW kit, you get out of it the time assembling and painting it (assuming you like that kind of thing - I do), and then every time you use it in a game. Let's say you use it in 5 games. Assuming a 3 hour game, that's 15 hours of game time - easily 3-4 times the amount of time you'd have gotten out of spending the money on dinner and a movie.  That is not a bad return on your entertainment money. 

 

That's not to say you should go out and drop a ton of money on Tactical, Assault, and Devastator Squads, but those units have been pretty pants for years before Primaris came along. In 7th edition, the only way GW could get players to use those units on a widespread basis was basically to bribe them by allowing people who played Battle Companies comprised of them to take their transports for free, thus turning Marines into a weird variation of a horde army.  However, I don't think a new player is going to regret purchasing things that are good now. And like I said earlier, down the road there's always 30K.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 25, 2020 by Grand Master Raziel