Does Youtube know the Dark Angels better?

[Prot]

So I stumbled on this the other day, maybe you have too:

 

 

 

 

Essentially about 2/3 of the way through the video at about 16m 20s mark, the author suggest a "strong" build using the Inner Circle Task force.

 

The list is as follows:

 

Now I personally don't think this list has any teeth, and one of the 'tricks' he eludes to is illegal, BUT to be fair there are some takeaways from this that might be helpful

 

What do you think? Out to lunch? Or worth trying?  I don't want to say too much. I'd like to hear general thoughts.. perhaps you've even played something similar?

 

 

[jaxom]

It's taking the three meta Dark Angel blobs and rounding them out with Bladeguard.

1. Asmodai with 10 AsInterceptors in a Land Raider Redeemer. The AsInterceptors get full rerolls to hit and wound, with +1 to wound on the Vowed Target. Forty attacks, plus Asmodai's attacks, is nothing to sneeze at. Point the LRR at the greatest threat and then get aggressive. The inside squad can charge the turn they pop out of the LRR. Full rerolls on any objective helps mitigate the usual Inner Circle weakness when not on the Vowed Target.
2. Azrael with 10 Hellblasters, enough said.
3. 10-man Deathwing Terminator Squad with Chaplain. Bring them in turn 1 with Deathwing Assault, and up to 3" away with Relic Teleportarium strat. Shoot the hell out of something and then charge something; preferably taking out whatever the opponent is using to hold their backfield objective. A thing to note is the Chaplain in TA gives +1 to melee Wound roll, so the unit is the troubleshooter away from the Vowed Target. 2+/4++ save and Unmatched Fortitude strat helps keep them alive.

Okay, what about the rest of it? Two min-size Scout Squads for cheap action-takers and objective holders, nice and straightforward. The two squads of six Bladeguard go into the Repulsor. Thirty-six wounds with 4++ re-roll 1s plus Unmatched Fortitude to make wounding harder and you have a hell of a tarpit; toss in Duty and Death strat to 4+ fight on death. When attacking, you can use the Martial Mastery strat to reroll wound rolls of 1 or full rerolls on the Vowed Target. The +1 to Wound on Vowed Target helps, of course, if they're on it. The Repulsor helps keep them mobile and Emergency Combat Embarkation allows for movement shenanigans.

[Tacitus]

Note that using the Relic Teleportarium Strat means no charging that turn. 

[Prot]

13 hours ago, jaxom said:

It's taking the three meta Dark Angel blobs and rounding them out with Bladeguard.

1. Asmodai with 10 AsInterceptors in a Land Raider Redeemer. The AsInterceptors get full rerolls to hit and wound, with +1 to wound on the Vowed Target. Forty attacks, plus Asmodai's attacks, is nothing to sneeze at. Point the LRR at the greatest threat and then get aggressive. The inside squad can charge the turn they pop out of the LRR. Full rerolls on any objective helps mitigate the usual Inner Circle weakness when not on the Vowed Target.
2. Azrael with 10 Hellblasters, enough said.
3. 10-man Deathwing Terminator Squad with Chaplain. Bring them in turn 1 with Deathwing Assault, and up to 3" away with Relic Teleportarium strat. Shoot the hell out of something and then charge something; preferably taking out whatever the opponent is using to hold their backfield objective. A thing to note is the Chaplain in TA gives +1 to melee Wound roll, so the unit is the troubleshooter away from the Vowed Target. 2+/4++ save and Unmatched Fortitude strat helps keep them alive.

Okay, what about the rest of it? Two min-size Scout Squads for cheap action-takers and objective holders, nice and straightforward. The two squads of six Bladeguard go into the Repulsor. Thirty-six wounds with 4++ re-roll 1s plus Unmatched Fortitude to make wounding harder and you have a hell of a tarpit; toss in Duty and Death strat to 4+ fight on death. When attacking, you can use the Martial Mastery strat to reroll wound rolls of 1 or full rerolls on the Vowed Target. The +1 to Wound on Vowed Target helps, of course, if they're on it. The Repulsor helps keep them mobile and Emergency Combat Embarkation allows for movement shenanigans.

 

 

Well out of all the detachments he chose to use Inner Circle to make this 'strong' list. I'm guessing he has somewhere between 0-5 games with it. (I'm not being facetious, but this would be my guess).

 

I don't own a Redeemer anymore but I reserve my Landraider usage for Ultramarines for this very reason: no bodies, poor damage, and no anti-vehicle. The Vowed objective doesn't work on 2 accounts: 1. Your opponent rarely parks vehicles on objectives that are vowed and says, 'come at me bro'.  2. There is a very secret trick known only to the very few on the inner sanctums of the Rock on how defeat such a tactic: Don't put anything of value on the objective.

 

The whole premise of taking a bunch of survivable models (that really don't survive that well to shooting) and then taking more of them, and then a few more and making a stand on an objective will definitely get you some points, I just rarely win that way. (I also have to face someone willing enough to pour value into the Vowed objective).

 

The other 'issue' with this list/detachment is it is extremely resource heavy. You find yourself debating between -1 to wound  and AoC. Then you have to figure out if you have enough CP to actually commit to doing damage. (The fists are lethargic and will bounce on vehicles.)

 

I know this sounds rough, but I'm just being honest with my actual experience. 

 

I'm still leaning towards 'this codex is admech weak' but I do think the best of it might be in the Ravenwing. However my first game with my list will be this week.

[Karhedron]

14 hours ago, jaxom said:

The two squads of six Bladeguard go into the Repulsor.

 

Interesting, I haven't watched the video but my first thought looking at the list was that the Repulsor would be for Azzy and the Hellblasters while the BGVs foot-slog towards different midfield Objectives.

[Prot]

2 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

Interesting, I haven't watched the video but my first thought looking at the list was that the Repulsor would be for Azzy and the Hellblasters while the BGVs foot-slog towards different midfield Objectives.

 

Actually in the video he mentions that. 

 

I will say in my experience with this actual setup I don't like starting Azrael in a vehicle so I get the 2 CP.  However in T1 it can be good for starting in the vehicle, getting out to a good firing position, and mounting the Bladeguard.

[jaxom]

3 hours ago, Prot said:

The whole premise of taking a bunch of survivable models (that really don't survive that well to shooting) and then taking more of them, and then a few more and making a stand on an objective will definitely get you some points, I just rarely win that way. (I also have to face someone willing enough to pour value into the Vowed objective).

 

The other 'issue' with this list/detachment is it is extremely resource heavy. You find yourself debating between -1 to wound  and AoC. Then you have to figure out if you have enough CP to actually commit to doing damage. (The fists are lethargic and will bounce on vehicles.)

 

Yeah, it relies a lot on quantity of attacks in melee to get anything done against tanks, and really needs that +1 to Wound to make it happen.  I would assume the list is run on the premise of using the 4++ most of the time and saving the CP for Unmatched Fortitude.

 

2 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

Interesting, I haven't watched the video but my first thought looking at the list was that the Repulsor would be for Azzy and the Hellblasters while the BGVs foot-slog towards different midfield Objectives.

Entirely possible. I'd rather footslog the Hellblasters because they have Assault and 24" range, while the BGV's have pistols.

[Prot]

4 minutes ago, jaxom said:

Yeah, it relies a lot on quantity of attacks in melee to get anything done against tanks, and really needs that +1 to Wound to make it happen.  I would assume the list is run on the premise of using the 4++ most of the time and saving the CP for Unmatched Fortitude.

 

The 4++?  

 

All I know is with this army, and UM I tried Termies a lot. I even made the mistake of trying a handful of Chainfists which are horrid without some huge reroll buff.  Now in DA you'd figure it would be better, but I haven't found that to be the case personally.

6 minutes ago, jaxom said:

Entirely possible. I'd rather footslog the Hellblasters because they have Assault and 24" range, while the BGV's have pistols

 

I agree. Plus I often do put an Apothecary on, and even without the apothecary, if a dude dies, there's a good chance he fires back anyway. Also if you have foresight for Oath, this makes a very potent overwatch squad. Just my 2 cents. Not a lot of armies can use Hellblasters as efficiently so I do use tend to use them with DA if only for nostalgia (Weapons of the Dark Ages anyone?)

[jaxom]

26 minutes ago, Prot said:

The 4++?  

The logic I've heard from tournament players is in two contexts. Terminators vs AP2 weapons, it can be worth it to just take the invulnerable save instead of using AoC, and save the CP. And then in discussing Bladeguard (particularly when they can reroll a result of one.) vs AP1. All the infantry except the AsIntercessors have an invulnerable save, so it may have influenced how often the list designer expected to use AoC.

[ashc]

I'm not buying it, no anti-vehicle and not enough support for the few units taken to actually do it's job. I run something similar without the Bladeguard, instead popping Hellblasters and Azrael with the Repulsor and taking an Ancient with the Terminators - they are a shooting unit primarily and the Ancient helps improve that ability whilst the chaplain doesn't. Normal Land Raider and a Ballistus Dreadnought for some anti-tank that this list doesn't have, and a Lieutenant with combi-weapon to provide some extra help to actually hurt stuff that may not be on the vowed objective.

[twopounder]

Since I don't really play and stopped chasing meta, I've been much happier. I wouldn't put much stock into youtube videos, especially since GW is updating the rules more than once every 4 years now.

 

Part of the fun used to be experimenting with builds to find fun combinations, not copying off the internet to smoke your opponent as hard as possible. Seems GW is following the 3 turn win formula of MtG though.

[Prot]

2 hours ago, ashc said:

I'm not buying it, no anti-vehicle and not enough support for the few units taken to actually do it's job. I run something similar without the Bladeguard, instead popping Hellblasters and Azrael with the Repulsor and taking an Ancient with the Terminators - they are a shooting unit primarily and the Ancient helps improve that ability whilst the chaplain doesn't. Normal Land Raider and a Ballistus Dreadnought for some anti-tank that this list doesn't have, and a Lieutenant with combi-weapon to provide some extra help to actually hurt stuff that may not be on the vowed objective.

 

It sounds like you are running something similar to one of my earlier lists. I also was using the normal landraider and Ballistus. The beauty of the Ballistus is it stays cheap and isn't easily shifted.

 

I haven't used an Ancient with the terminators though. I seem to default to Libby or Captain. (No Belial anymore.... just another terrible dataslate).

 

I was thinking of the Phobos LT for the Objective ability (basically mimics the Inner Circle detachment... which why it's so hard to convince myself that Inner Circle is usable compared to Phobos LT and Gladius or Firestorm, etc.)

 

But you're right and I agree the proposed "strong" list has no teeth overall. I think the author greatly overestimates Terminator damage, and the actual 'survivable' termies (Deathwing Knights) isn't in his list.

 

As a side note I used to get good use out of the Brutalis and I think he fits a list like this, but I haven't been able to fit him in with points being such a premium. The way I typically used him was something that could gauge trouble in my zone, hold a home objective yet do a strong counter charge, or take care of opponent dreads/etc. The Termies really lack in that area.

 

The bad part of that idea is I found using dual Brutalis nearly eliminates the need for Terminators (at least that's what I found.)