Check out this idea.

Belial, w/ whatever weapons you feel like giving him.

3x 5 company vets w/ las/plas

4x 5 deathwing w/ assault cannons

ravenwing teleport homers to your points limit

 

Happy Hunting

 

no you cant, they just suck.

The stuff you talked about is all that you can afford...no ravenwing teleport homers.

Its actually only 1515 points. So in a 1750 pt list you still have 235 points to buy raven wing with.

That's three bikes w/ two meltas and a power weapon and an attack bike w/ muti-melta.

leaves thirty points for a deathwing standard or an apothecary.

..and what a great list that would be.

Lemme think, a lot of this is from memory as I didn't buy the dex but only read it a few times at the store.

Master of Ravenwing is 205, he gets the AV14 Speeder

A 6 bike Ravenwing squad with a PF is 245 I think, assuming the melta guns are still 10 a pop, it works out to 265 a squad.
10 Devs with 4 Lascannons should be 305 Points, assault cannon speeders are 100....

I was thinking something like 2x10 Devs w/ 4 Lascannons combat squadded out to 4 squads. Two Ravenwing bikers as troops with the dual meltas, they can pull of a first turn charge when they need to most of the time, which is just great against a lot of armies. Plus you get to run up and melta/tl bolter them before charging, not a bad deal.

The speeder is probably the Best HQ they've got, he's a scoring unit and he's an AV14 Fast Skimmer, what's not to love?

Problem is with all the compulsary stuff bought you can get one speeder tornado in the army and still have a little over 50 points to spend on the list before you hit 1500 points, and it's still not that good.

I think Dark Angels are competitve, so much so that I will probably start the army.

There are several ways to get them competitve, but it really forces you to throw out the conventional Marine lists, and start reavaluating things from the ground up.

Here are a few of the lists that have been thrown around that I think show a lot of promise.

Drop Pod Dark Angles:

Green Bloater has tested this list, he said that a Chaos Deamonbomd gave up on the third turn versus it. Here is a rough list of what he took:

Master of the Ravenwing

x2 Veterans in Drop Pods (since they have base 2 attacks, variable squad sizes and multiple weapons to choose from)

x2 Ravenwing Sqauds

x3 Assault Squads (they get free Drop Pods, have 2 attacks as well because of their CC weapons)

Ravenwing

Any army that can field 7 Land Speeders regularly with one being AV14, backed up by bikes and the rest of the army list seems good to me. Though it will be extremely fragile.

Deathwing

I am experimenting with a Deathwing list right now. It seems to me that you can't avoid at least one Ravenwing Sqaud. Since it doesn't have the shooty that other Terminator Heavy lists have, you have to rely more on assault. Something that the Deathwing Assault rule helps out well with.

Shooty Dark Angels

A core of 2 Las/plas Tactical Squads and 2 4 Lascannon Devestator Squads gives you 10 Lascannons split between 6 units for 1000 points. Not a bad core. Plus your access to Ravenwing, Assault Suads, Terminators, etc. can provide a good support.



Overall, I don't think the list is bad. I just think it will take a while for players to adjest.

Posted By Mahu on 03/14/2007 6:45 AM
x3 Assault Squads (they get free Drop Pods, have 2 attacks as well because of their CC weapons).

Unless, I'm missing something, DA Assault Squads don't get Drop Pods for free. Assuming the usual squad size of 8 Marines, and assuming the Drop Pod costs 50 (I think they cost a different amount in the DA Codex, right?), then you're paying 54 points for the Drop Pod.

In addition, you're losing the Assault Marines' greatest advantage: mobility.

I don't see how Assault Squads in Drop Pods would work. Drop Pod lands late and everyone piles out on opposite side to hide, although that's not always possible. Enemy blows up Drop Pod and kills (statistically) one or more of the Marines. Assault Marines walk 6" around the corner and assault a sacrifical unit or are unable to assault. Assault Marines then die to incoming fire.

I don't get the pluses there.

EDIT: Thinking about it, maybe three squads of them working in tandem could work, although the chances of that are damn slim. Almost non-existent, in fact. And the army working against one other army in one game is hardly proof that the army concept works. I can't think of a better army for a DP-ing SM army to take on than a CDB.

Is it unplayable? Not at all.

Is it as competitive as comparable armies (i.e. Lysanderwing)? Not on your life.

I have tried to make DW a decent list and let me just say that termies are relegated to their third editioon role as shelf trophies.

DA as a whole arent bad at all, but for the love of god dont take termies in your list. They are just no longer worth the points.

• No second heavy weapon
• no vet skils
• no weapon options for the sgt (such as combi flamers)
• no drop pods (not that they are neccessary)

Balanced with:

• Mixed assault weapon squads
• DW assault rule (wow! [/sarcasm])
• Fearless (this shouldnt be considered a boon, but a detriment as you get outnumbered easily, making you even worse in assault and taking more wounds)

Big whoop. Overall less, for MORE POINTS!

DA are fine as an army if you completly ignore termies.

Stu-Rat, technically Assault Squads are just overpriced Marines with a free Drop pod. The difference is important because a free drop pod doesn't give up any points when it lands. Green Bloater will have to come on here and tell us why that is a good idea to take them. But I think it has to do with recieving charges more than trying to pull of a charge yourself.

Hellfury, I don't have any experience yet, but in thery I don't think Deathwing is that far off from competitve. The current list I have has 30 Terminators compared to the Lysanderwing of 25. So even though my shooting is greatly reduced, I can put down more numbers than a Lysanderwing in Terminators, and I can be better in assault. If Deathwing goes up against Lysanderwing, it all comes down to how many Lysanderwing can kill before they are out assaulted.


Here is my current list if you are interested in what I am looking at:


Beliel, Master of the Deathwing w/ Lightning Claws = 130 ptz.

Deathwing Terminator Squad w/ 3 Lighting Claws, 2 Thunderhammer/Storm Shield, Deathwing Standard = 240 pts.

x3 Deathwing Terminator Squad w/ Assault Cannon = 250 pts. (750 pts.)

x2 Deathwing Terminator Squad w/ CML, Chainfist = 240 pts. (480 pts.)

Dreadnought w/ Heavy Flamer in Drop Pod = 180 pts.

6-man Ravenwing Bike Squad = 220 pts.

Total = 2000 pts.

That's 30 Terminators, 4 Assault Cannons, 2 Missle Launchers, and at least a Thunderhammer in each squad.

Compare to Lysanderwing which is usually 25 Terminators, Lysander, Librarian, 3 Land Speeders, 2 Scout Squads. Which equats to 13 Assault Cannons, every terminator has Powerfists.

This is basically how the game will go. Deathwing set up their bikes behind cover. Lysanderwing sets up Scouts and Land Speeders behind cover. Scouts are usually spread out to allow the Lysanderwing player to better react to the enemy, so Ravenwing Bikers use their scout move to put a teleport homer as close to the Scouts as possible, whilst still maintining cover. If Deathwing goes first they drop three squads next to one of the scout squads in an effort to kill them to the man to force the Lysanderwing to deploy on the opposite side. The Deathwing will try and split the difference between the two scout squads so if they survive the Lysander Drop they can assault on turn two. If Lysander goes first, the Land Speeders will try and kill the ravenwing bikers is they can, but because each biker is Fearless and has a teleport homer, good luck. First they would have to see them and then kill every one of them to stop the inevitable. Say that half my Terminators are exposed to fire on turn two. A single 2 Assault cannon terminator squad can kill 1.55 terminators on average so five squads can kill 7.73 out of 15 which is roughly half. However, if the Deathwing player can assault the Lysanderwing line and hold them in combat, eventually they will win because of the higher initiative Lightning Claws on the sergents and the fact that Beliel and his squad will evetually show up and join the fun with his 6 attacks on the charge and the 15 lighting claws and 8 Thunderhammer attacks from his squad.

I most definately agree that the Deathwing will be fighting an uphill battle, but I don't think it is an instant wash in Lysanders favor.

For my own plans... Venerable dreads, belial, few termi squads, probably with heavy flamers... honestly if I can have then knocking on your door on turn one why not a str5 ap4 template?  couple small ravenwing squads, destructor pred or two, and techmarines <no upgrades> with gun servitors.  Heck I debated using plasma cannons on the dreads, and making all the gun servitors PC's as well.  Maybe the army will end up being rather novelty, but I will have fun with it.
Aztralwolf

Anyone noticed how incredibly cheap the autocannon/heavy bolter preds are?

Might be an idea to exploit this, not sure how it would fit into the army otherwise..

I was thinking on basing the army list on the books strengths.

1 unit of terminators that always gets to deepstrike on turn 1

Cheap predators (seem best with the cheap autocannon)

Likely first turn assualting bikes (so why not take a few) I was thinking 3*3 with fist sarge and 1 with dual melta/plasma for first turn tank busting or something.

Speeder because even at 100pts its still worth it for sure.

HQ + troops are all that is missing.

Posted By Mahu on 03/14/2007 8:13 AM
 If Deathwing goes up against Lysanderwing, it all comes down to how many Lysanderwing can kill before they are out assaulted.

Thats a pretty big "if".
Imperial fists get more for the points, simple as that. Fearing DW assault is ok if youre 12 years old I suppose.

Posted By Mahu on 03/14/2007 8:13 AM

Hellfury, I don't have any experience yet, but in thery I don't think Deathwing is that far off from competitve. The current list I have has 30 Terminators compared to the Lysanderwing of 25. So even though my shooting is greatly reduced, I can put down more numbers than a Lysanderwing in Terminators...

Untrue. I can have up to 52 termies in a lysander list, but on average no more than 30 (5 x 6 man units...) The one thing Lysander cannot match againt DW is tha amount of different termie units.

Posted By Mahu on 03/14/2007 8:13 AM
....and I can be better in assault.

I am not so sure about that. You discount many things in your theory. First off, I use furious charge for my termies, prefering to go first @ str 5 (three of those attacks are with a power sword) as opposed to utilizing powerfists.If the librarians squad hits belials squad, i will not only go first, but I will have up to 12  str5 power weapon attacks before you can even raise a lightning claw.

By that factor alone, I will out assault a deathwing army. In this case, I can even use torrent of blows against you, picking out your precious assault weapons.

Thats not even taking into consideration my being able to out shoot you if you decide to use assault weapons in your squad. which can aslo use torrent of fire against you quite easily, giving me a nice CML/LC termie for my efforts as an example. You better add an apothecary to that unit...

Not to mention I will be able to bring down all my forces at once, and being able to choose when to bring them down.

No, I dont think that the new deathwing can stand toe to toe with lysanderwing at all. You spend far too many points on needless options such as bikers to ensure a teleport homer.

But what would I know? I only played DW exclusively for the last year and a half and I only have fought against the new DW with my lysander numerous times for the past 4 months using the new DA codex with extremely competant opponents. While it isnt a slaughter, they do have distinct disadvantages that wont allow DW to fair any better than they did last edition.

DW assault and mixed weapons hardly make up for what they used to be, and even then it was a tough fight to pull off draws.

As I said before, Termies are a wash out for the new DA, but I encourage anyone who feels that they will be a competitive army in 4th to dream away in candy land about their imaginary victories.

[edit]

Posted By Mahu on 03/14/2007 8:13 AM

Here is my current list if you are interested in what I am looking at:


Beliel, Master of the Deathwing w/ Lightning Claws = 130 ptz.

Deathwing Terminator Squad w/ 3 Lighting Claws, 2 Thunderhammer/Storm Shield, Deathwing Standard = 240 pts.

x3 Deathwing Terminator Squad w/ Assault Cannon = 250 pts. (750 pts.)

x2 Deathwing Terminator Squad w/ CML, Chainfist = 240 pts. (480 pts.)

Dreadnought w/ Heavy Flamer in Drop Pod = 180 pts.

6-man Ravenwing Bike Squad = 220 pts.

Total = 2000 pts.

That's 30 Terminators, 4 Assault Cannons, 2 Missle Launchers, and at least a Thunderhammer in each squad.

Compare to Lysanderwing which is usually 25 Terminators, Lysander, Librarian, 3 Land Speeders, 2 Scout Squads. Which equats to 13 Assault Cannons, every terminator has Powerfists.

This is basically how the game will go. Deathwing set up their bikes behind cover. Lysanderwing sets up Scouts and Land Speeders behind cover. Scouts are usually spread out to allow the Lysanderwing player to better react to the enemy, so Ravenwing Bikers use their scout move to put a teleport homer as close to the Scouts as possible, whilst still maintining cover. If Deathwing goes first they drop three squads next to one of the scout squads in an effort to kill them to the man to force the Lysanderwing to deploy on the opposite side. The Deathwing will try and split the difference between the two scout squads so if they survive the Lysander Drop they can assault on turn two. If Lysander goes first, the Land Speeders will try and kill the ravenwing bikers is they can, but because each biker is Fearless and has a teleport homer, good luck. First they would have to see them and then kill every one of them to stop the inevitable. Say that half my Terminators are exposed to fire on turn two. A single 2 Assault cannon terminator squad can kill 1.55 terminators on average so five squads can kill 7.73 out of 15 which is roughly half. However, if the Deathwing player can assault the Lysanderwing line and hold them in combat, eventually they will win because of the higher initiative Lightning Claws on the sergents and the fact that Beliel and his squad will evetually show up and join the fun with his 6 attacks on the charge and the 15 lighting claws and 8 Thunderhammer attacks from his squad.

I most definately agree that the Deathwing will be fighting an uphill battle, but I don't think it is an instant wash in Lysanders favor.

For the sake of comparison, here is what I typically bring in 2000 pt Lysanderwing.

1 Captain Lysander w/ furious charge 387 Pts

     3 Terminator Command Squad
          Power Fist (x3); Storm Bolter (x1); Assault Cannon (x2); Furious
          Charge Skill
1 Sergeant, Power Weapon (x1); Bolter-Flamer; Furious Charge Skill
              

1 Epistolary Librarian 389 Pts
     Force Weapon; Power Weapon (x1); Furious Charge Skill, Terminator Armour
1st Might of Heroes 5
2nd Fury of the Ancients 9

     3 Terminator Command Squad
          Power Fist (x3); Storm Bolter (x1); Assault Cannon (x2); Furious
          Charge Skill
1 Sergeant, Power Weapon (x1); Bolter-Flamer; Furious Charge Skill


4 Terminator Squad 260 Pts
     Power Fist (x4); Storm Bolter (x2); Assault Cannon (x2); Furious Charge
     Skill
1 Sergeant , Power Weapon (x1); Bolter-Flamer; Furious Charge Skill


4 Terminator Squad 260 Pts
     Power Fist (x4); Storm Bolter (x2); Assault Cannon (x2); Tank Hunter Skill
1 Sergeant , Power Weapon (x1); Bolter-Flamer; Tank Hunter Skill

4 Terminator Squad 260 Pts
     Power Fist (x4); Storm Bolter (x2); Assault Cannon (x2); Tank Hunter Skill
1 Sergeant , Power Weapon (x1); Bolter-Flamer; Tank Hunter Skill

4 Scout Squad 113 Pts
     Sniper Rifle (x3); Missile Launcher (x1); Infilitrate Skill
1 Veteran Sergeant, Sniper Rifle, Teleport Homer

4 Scout Squad 113 Pts
     Sniper Rifle (x3); Missile Launcher (x1); Infilitrate Skill
1 Veteran Sergeant, Sniper Rifle, Teleport Homer

1 Vindicator Assault Tank 125 Pts

1 Whirlwind Battery  85 Pts

No traits

Models in Army: 37
Total Army Cost: 1992


You are being outshot, as you already know. I wonder what would be left for you to make your fabulous assaults after I plow you down with ordnance?

As before in the 4th ed SM codex, assault termies are the biggest waste of points. The DW assault rule does not make them any better, it just makes them a priority target. Thanks for the VP's!

Posted By vsurma on 03/14/2007 8:59 AM
Anyone noticed how incredibly cheap the autocannon/heavy bolter preds are?

Might be an idea to exploit this, not sure how it would fit into the army otherwise..

Yeah, they cost less by the same amount that a Vet costs a normal SM squad.  Add in the added cost of the plasma gun and lascannon in a Tac squad (And the requirement to have 10 bodies in the squad), the price break isn't enough to be worth it.

Hellfury, it just might be different playstyles.

The Lysanderwing I usually play against never takes Furious Charge, full scout squads, and Land Speeders over the two tanks you take.

I wonder thought, why would you factor Furious Charge as an advantage over Deathwing? First, Deathwing is dropping in on turn 1, that means the turn you show up, you are the one on the recieving end of the assault negating your Furious Assault. Second, even if you do get a charge against the Deathwing, you are either only having a sergent get higher strikes or your turning your powerfists off niether seem that impressive to me.

I do agree that Lysanderwing has the advantage. The access to Veteran Skills, and the second heavy is a huge boast.

But I do think that Deathwing can be competitve because a) they get the first turn deepstrike allowing assaults on the second turn, b) you can field more Terminators, c) they are Fearless, unlike regular terminatorss, d) they are not assault terminators, rather regular terminators that can take a few Assault Terminators here and there, e) access to the banner of the Deathwing allows a squad to have a rediculous number of attacks per Terminator.

I fully admit that your experience may trump my opinion, but I think you are too quick to judge the new Deathwing.

Posted By Mahu on 03/14/2007 10:58 AM
Hellfury, it just might be different playstyles.

The Lysanderwing I usually play against never takes Furious Charge, full scout squads, and Land Speeders over the two tanks you take.

I wonder thought, why would you factor Furious Charge as an advantage over Deathwing? First, Deathwing is dropping in on turn 1, that means the turn you show up, you are the one on the recieving end of the assault negating your Furious Assault. Second, even if you do get a charge against the Deathwing, you are either only having a sergent get higher strikes or your turning your powerfists off niether seem that impressive to me.

I do agree that Lysanderwing has the advantage. The access to Veteran Skills, and the second heavy is a huge boast.

But I do think that Deathwing can be competitve because a) they get the first turn deepstrike allowing assaults on the second turn, b) you can field more Terminators, c) they are Fearless, unlike regular terminatorss, d) they are not assault terminators, rather regular terminators that can take a few Assault Terminators here and there, e) access to the banner of the Deathwing allows a squad to have a rediculous number of attacks per Terminator.

I fully admit that your experience may trump my opinion, but I think you are too quick to judge the new Deathwing.

As someone who has tried to make the new DW workable, I think your opinion that I am making hasty decisions is unfounded.

You dont have to be impressed with Furious Charge. But before I left Montana, it was reckoned by the DW players I gave access to the prerelease DA codex for use came to fear how out DWed their DW armies were because of that factor.

belial cannot go toe to toe with lysander's libby sqaud because of Furious charge alone.

a) they get the first turn deepstrike allowing assaults on the second turn
Hardly an advantage. But if you like it and think its makes them playable, have fun.
 b) you can field more Terminators
As I already pointed out, that is untrue, unless you factor in games that have a huge amount of points, and then termie heavy armies start to become worse because of how radically outnumbered and outmaneuvered they are.
c) they are Fearless, unlike regular terminators
LOL! And this is an advantage how? Normal termies have ATSKNF which is vastly superior tactically than fearless.
 d) they are not assault terminators, rather regular terminators that can take a few Assault Terminators here and there
Mixed assault or pure assault, it is quite proven that assault termies are considerably over priced, because they cannot shoot. Thats all there is to it.
 e) access to the banner of the Deathwing allows a squad to have a rediculous number of attacks per Terminator.
+1 attack per termie in that squad? Yeah, that might be scary if I somehow have a brain tumor and allow them to assault.

The only good thing that jervis has added for the DW is termie apothecary.
But it is only a single one, so they dont make much of a difference. Now if every squad could have access, then I wouldnt be nearly so down on them, as atleast they would have the staying power to make it into assault to use those purdy lightning claws. I would glady trade an assault cannon for an oppurtunity to pay +25 points for an apothecary.

Sorry bud, but I will just have to respectfully disagree that DW youre proposing is anywhere near competitive. Good luck trying though. Just dont have a brain hemorage as I did trying to make an army I wanted to work so bad turn sour because it is a sad option and merely a wisp of a memory of what it once was. Thats sad because it wasnt that great to begin with.

Posted By Mahu on 03/14/2007 8:13 AM
Stu-Rat, technically Assault Squads are just overpriced Marines with a free Drop pod.

You say potato, I say tomato.  Hugely overpiced is more like it. And you still paying more points for a unit that loses mobility, gives up points and can't do anything. Seems fairly stupid to me, but like I said maybe I'm missing the obvious.

Posted By Mahu on 03/14/2007 8:13 AM
The difference is important because a free drop pod doesn't give up any points when it lands.

The drop-pod may not actually give any points itself but the squad certainly will. When you have the choice between a useful unit in a drop-pod that sacrifices 15VPs or a useless unit that gives up nearly 200VPs in a drop-pod that doesn't, I know which one any competitive player is going to take. 

Posted By Mahu on 03/14/2007 8:13 AM
Green Bloater will have to come on here and tell us why that is a good idea to take them. But I think it has to do with recieving charges more than trying to pull of a charge yourself.

Hmm... so a slow-moving unit with short-range weaponry that will have trouble doing anything, just stands there and waits to be charged?

Sorry, don't see the point you're trying to make.

That is huge, you can shut down enemy shooting earlier and even get the drop on units that rely on Deepstrike. Versus a Lysanderwing, that usually means I have a better chance of charging you before you charge me.



I already posted a 2000 point list with 5 more Terminators than a Lysanderwing can legally field. I do admit that a Lysanderwing can field a better support system than Deathwing can.



That is a huge advantage. I can't tell you how many times I wiped out a Terminator Squad by breaking them in assault with a Bloodthirster and a support unit (so they couldn't pull out of assault).



That's why most Deathwing Squads will have more Powerfist Marines than Assault Marines. But the fact that I can have a Lighting Clawed Sergent automatically makes the Deathwing Sqaud slightly better at assault. Remember your Terminator Squad with Vet. Skills and 2 Assault Cannons is actually more expensive than the typical Deathwing Sqaud (by a small fraction)



That's why you use other Terminator Squads or your Ravenwing bikes to pin a squad in place to follow up with the super assault squad. Or against most armies, they drop on turn one right in front of a week spot in the lines and wait.



Beliel himself can't, but Beliel with a Terminator Sqaud with lightning claws and the Banner of the Deathwing can. Like I said, you are either going first and bouncing off my 2+ or your waiting until after the lightning claws to distroy over half your squad.



But I digress, you have the superior experience and it is obvious neither of us will change our minds anytime soon. I fully admit that I may become just as bitter towards them as you.

I am curious however to see what kind of Deathwing lists you where experimenting with.

Posted By Mahu on 03/14/2007 11:53 AM
...you can shut down enemy shooting earlier and even get the drop on units that rely on Deepstrike. Versus a Lysanderwing, that usually means I have a better chance of charging you before you charge me.

I don't get this, either. How can you get the drop on units that rely on deepstrike? Half your army lands on Turn #1, with nothing to shoot at. His deepstrikers come in on Turn #2, land near your Termies and wipe them out. You now have half an army, coming in on random turns, against his army (and he might still have deepstrikers available). You have no option to charge. 

I already posted a 2000 point list with 5 more Terminators than a Lysanderwing can legally field. I do admit that a Lysanderwing can field a better support system than Deathwing can.

You mean termie squads and not just termies right...?



That is a huge advantage. I can't tell you how many times I wiped out a Terminator Squad by breaking them in assault with a Bloodthirster and a support unit (so they couldn't pull out of assault).

Odd. I find that fearless is a HUGE disadvantage. Must be regional play styles.




That's why most Deathwing Squads will have more Powerfist Marines than Assault Marines. But the fact that I can have a Lighting Clawed Sergent automatically makes the Deathwing Sqaud slightly better at assault. Remember your Terminator Squad with Vet. Skills and 2 Assault Cannons is actually more expensive than the typical Deathwing Sqaud (by a small fraction)

And more effective, by a huge margin.



That's why you use other Terminator Squads or your Ravenwing bikes to pin a squad in place to follow up with the super assault squad. Or against most armies, they drop on turn one right in front of a week spot in the lines and wait.


I find that wishful thinking at best, but possible.



Beliel himself can't, but Beliel with a Terminator Sqaud with lightning claws and the Banner of the Deathwing can. Like I said, you are either going first and bouncing off my 2+ or your waiting until after the lightning claws to distroy over half your squad.

Youre kidding me right? Belial with 5 LC and a std get 32 str 4 power weapon attacks on the charge at Initiative 4.
A libby using power weapon, might of heroes and FC along with his squad get  up to 12 power str 5 weapon attack and 9 more normal str 5 attacks at initiative 5.

Tell me again how belial is better? Certainly, who ever charges whom will be the clear winner, but the point remains that belial and his squad will crumble under assault by a libby with FA is beyond a doubt. As I said before, how you percieve Lysander matches up against DW is clearly not as well thought out as you beleive.

But your right though, you definatly wont change my mind. Been there done that. Have fun with it, as saying it most certainly will be a challenge is a huge understatement.

Anyways, Ill do better than give you a list, Ill give you a battle report posted months ago here.
www.dakkadakka.com/Forums/tabid/56/forumid/17/view/topic/postid/125964/Default.aspx

You are oversimplifing. Every Lysanderwing has a support squad, usually scouts that deliever homers to keep the Terminator drop he gets safe. If the Deathwing can get to the center of the board and wipe out one support squad, than he can either assault one way or the other. It is statistically improbable that any Lysanderwing can wipe out every terminator the turn they drop. That is assuming a few things a) the Deathwing does no damage to the already set up units the turn they drop, b) Every Lysander terminator squad kills above statistics, c) there is absolutely no terrain for the Deathwing to limit return fire. d) the Lysanderwing has enough room to set up their whole army with enough room to deny the charge of the Deathwing Terminators (which on a standard 4' x 6' board is only 12"-24" from the table edge if the Deathwing take the center).



Math Time!:

Librarian with Might of Heroes, 5 Terminators, Furious Charge charges Beliel's Squad:

Librarian gets (let's say maximum for sake of arguement) 6+3 = 9 attacks on the charge, 5.94 hit, 3.92 wound, 2.6 dead Terminators

Sergent gets 3 attacks, 1.5 hit, .99 Wound, 0.65 dead Terminators

4 terminators turn there powerfists off, 12 attacks, 6 hit, 3.96 wound, 0.63 dead Terminators

So if everything goes you way perfectly (assumeing the Deathwing don't have a Librarian as well, assuming you pass your test for might of heroes, and assuming you roll the maximum amount of attacks) = You kill 4 Terminators

Beliel and a Terminator are left.

Beliel gets 5 Attacks standing still (there is no reason not to take lightning claws on him), 3.3 hit, 1.65 wound + 0.825 re-roll = 2.475 wounds, 1.634 Dead Terminators

Terminator with Lightning Claws gets 3 attacks, 1.5 hits, 0.75 +0.375 = 1.125 wounds, 0.74 dead Terminators

So in return, I kill roughly 2 in return. So you don't outnumber me horribly, therefore you are tied into CC for us both to support.

Not so much a wipe out as it seems. And that is assuming a lot as well.

Let me see if I understand this logic.

Your going to deep strike and shoot his scouts. (by the way, even with 3 assault cannons, you only get 4 scouts if they're in 5+ cover, and they will be against another deep strike list)

Hes going to deep strikes around 20 inches (which allows room for a scatter) away and shoot you. (and he can force a later drop with his re roll)

Knowing you have no possible way of catching him, and no possible way of out shooting him, you forfeit.

Sound about right?


Assault Terminators were not viable in the vanilla codex, why would they be playable after a price hike? Deep Striking has always encouraged shooting, not assault. If you think about it, there are zero CC units that deep strike. Why? Because it lets them shoot at you first, not the other way around.

Hmmm dark angels rock so hard i can hardly believe you posted it that way. Ok now that out of the way.

Assault and deepstrike is very nice when you play a ravenwing and DW mix. By the way many assault units i can think of in the marine army do have deepstrike???? If you play pure DW your going to be outshot by Lysander. If you play Lysander than you will be beat in cc. Simple enough.

By the way you cannot take Lysander and play the true fists and still have furious charge. Where did you ever dig that up?????

Posted By Mahu on 03/14/2007 12:45 PM
Math Time!:

Librarian with Might of Heroes, 5 Terminators, Furious Charge charges Beliel's Squad:

Librarian gets (let's say maximum for sake of arguement) 6+3 = 9 attacks on the charge, 5.94 hit, 3.92 wound, 2.6 dead Terminators

Sergent gets 3 attacks, 1.5 hit, .99 Wound, 0.65 dead Terminators

4 terminators turn there powerfists off, 12 attacks, 6 hit, 3.96 wound, 0.63 dead Terminators

So if everything goes you way perfectly (assumeing the Deathwing don't have a Librarian as well, assuming you pass your test for might of heroes, and assuming you roll the maximum amount of attacks) = You kill 4 Terminators

Beliel and a Terminator are left.

Beliel gets 5 Attacks standing still (there is no reason not to take lightning claws on him), 3.3 hit, 1.65 wound + 0.825 re-roll = 2.475 wounds, 1.634 Dead Terminators

Terminator with Lightning Claws gets 3 attacks, 1.5 hits, 0.75 +0.375 = 1.125 wounds, 0.74 dead Terminators

So in return, I kill roughly 2 in return. So you don't outnumber me horribly, therefore you are tied into CC for us both to support.

Not so much a wipe out as it seems. And that is assuming a lot as well.

However, if the termies don't turn thier power fists off, it's a different story. 

Using fractions because your math is off.

Librarian kills 8/3 termies.  Sgt kills 2/3.  Total kill 3 1/3, leaving Belial, one lightning claw, and 2/3 power fist (For argument's sake).

Belial kills 5/3 termies.  Lightning claw termie kills 3/4, leaving 1 7/12 power fists.  Enough kills that they can take the squad out of combat and just splatter Belial with fists. 

Of course, this assumes that the squad doesn't charge so as to not engage Belial or to only engage Belial.  It also ignores the 1 29/81 terminators that are killed by the squad sans librarian shooting.

Posted By 5thelement on 03/14/2007 2:59 PM

By the way you cannot take Lysander and play the true fists and still have furious charge. Where did you ever dig that up?????

Youre mistaken. Just follow the entry in Lysander's profile, then the entry for command termies.

Lysander's rules for command squads:


Terminator command squad entry:


Notice anything that allows characters that are attached to the command squad to take vet skills?

Something tells me that you enjoy it when you get to post that.

Lol.
Its only the 6th time I have had to post it.

I am sure it wont be the last time either.

Biggest advantage of Deathwing over Lysanderwing is that the former is allowed at tournaments and the latter is not. I can't remember ever being at a 40K tournament that allowed special characters.

As a separate argument I'm not so sure you're allowed to buy Lysander Furious Charge since special characters can't be given any new upgrades. The fact that he can take a command squad doesn't change the fact he can't be given any new weapons or wargear or veteran skills

Posted By Mahu on 03/14/2007 12:45 PM

I don't get this, either. How can you get the drop on units that rely on deepstrike? Half your army lands on Turn #1, with nothing to shoot at. His deepstrikers come in on Turn #2, land near your Termies and wipe them out. You now have half an army, coming in on random turns, against his army (and he might still have deepstrikers available). You have no option to charge.

You are oversimplifing. Every Lysanderwing has a support squad,

Ah, I see. You're actually over-simplyfing by defining an army's competitve ability by putting it up against one other army. I was never talking about Lysander-wing, but in fairness, you were.

Still, the points you make are largely irrelevant. Any army with a sizeable deepstriking component will benefit, when going up against a similar army, in going second. Thus the Deathwing 'advantage' of landing on the first turn is in, reality, a huge drawback.

 

And that still doesn't answer my first question, namely: what possible use is taking a droppod for DA Assault Marines?

Posted By Therion- on 03/14/2007 7:00 PM
Biggest advantage of Deathwing over Lysanderwing is that the former is allowed at tournaments and the latter is not. I can't remember ever being at a 40K tournament that allowed special characters.

As a separate argument I'm not so sure you're allowed to buy Lysander Furious Charge since special characters can't be given any new upgrades. The fact that he can take a command squad doesn't change the fact he can't be given any new weapons or wargear or veteran skills

As for special characters, historically I agree. Except with the recent lack of the caveat of  "with opponents permission" since necrons, tourneys have increasingly been known to drop the restriction concerning special characters. Especially the larger tourneys.

As for the issue of Lysander being able to utilize a vet skill, I'll make a post in YMDC so as not to derail this thread any further than it already has, in the link below.

www.dakkadakka.com/Forums/tabid/56/forumid/15/postid/148725/view/topic/Default.aspx

well, if nothing else, this thread has convinced me to give my terminator army magnetic arms so I can swap between Deathwing and Lysanderwing...

Heh, thats the best sentence of this thread so far, Clang.

have to agree with hellfury on this one

i've played a pure DW longer than he has and the new rules do not aid in fielding a pure DW force. or a pure RW for that matter

scout bikers and DW assault pretty much garauntee a couple things

 

1.your bikes/speeders are going to be primary targets

2.your bikes are going to be sacrificial way over-priced scouts

3.anything you drop on DWA better be well hidden because you no longer have the firepower to wear down an enemy unit and you are limited to such a small squad that the return fire is likely to whipe out your DW units before they get to move if they land badly.

the libby skills really don't help a deep striking force unless you get really, really, close and beside you have to waste a bunch of points on belial to even do a DW style army now. and i say waste because he is basically a no frills captain that eats up points better spent elsware.

 

the reality is that the new dex was specifically designed to feature DAs as a battle company with DW/RW support instead of having them as thier own stand alone armies.  if your really wanting a fast bike speeder army your actually better of with white scars now, as the main things that made RW better(all seeing eye, jink save, skilled rider, land speeder tornado squadrons) are gone.

same goes for DW your actually better off paying a  few more points base for a bunch of grey knight termies who still do great in CC without loosing thier shooting ability and have alot more optional gear.

Posted By Therion- on 03/14/2007 7:00 PM
Biggest advantage of Deathwing over Lysanderwing is that the former is allowed at tournaments and the latter is not. I can't remember ever being at a 40K tournament that allowed special characters.

Both require a special character...

Like I said, it is difficult to answer because it isn't my tactic, However, I know that the player who used the list plays very defensively. I played him in a tournament against a Blood Angels drop pod list, and his strategy was to line up all his pods and force you to come to him if you want any chance of scoring Victory points. Drop Pods are difficult to remove from the table (my list had all sorts of anti-tank). So I can see how making Drop Pod troops count on base number of attacks as a defensive strategy could work. Besides, it is one of the few ways the Dark Angels can field Pods without taking a limit tactical squad or filling up your elites slots. So in the context of the army list, I don't think it is a bad choice.



Beliel is not a special character, he is a named HQ choice that you can only take one of. Just like all the characters in the Eldar codex.


Let's get off the Deathwing subject for a minute...

What about Scouts in Drop Pods, sure they take up a precious elites choice. But they are cheap, have Str. 4 Shotguns, and can take a powerfist. I can see 10 of them dropping and "peppering" and enemy squad Vice President style. The move-shoot-assault flexibility of the squad can work well once they land.

So how about this for a list:

Beliel

x2 Deathwing Squads

x3 Scouts with Shotguns, Powerfist, Drop Pod

x2 Assault Squads in Drop Pod

Ravenwing Support Squad

Land Speeders to fill in points.

The points might work out.

Posted By Mahu on 03/15/2007 6:47 AM
Like I said, it is difficult to answer because it isn't my tactic,

I understand that. However, it does seem a little foolish to bring up a viable tactic without any knowledge of said tactic. Not knocking you, just your reasoning. 

Posted By Mahu on 03/15/2007 6:47 AM
I played him in a tournament against a Blood Angels drop pod list, and his strategy was to line up all his pods and force you to come to him if you want any chance of scoring Victory points.

 Hmm... well, I can see how another droppod list would have a little trouble in the perfect circumstances. In most games, another droppod army should be able to run rings around this army. More firepower, equal mobility.

Any other army would rip through this army and tactic in a second. SAFH? Blow up the pods, taking some of the Marines, and sit and wait. Assault army? Blow up the pods, taking some of the Marines, and use your greater mobility to take the army apart piecemeal in assault. Mech army? Zoom around the pods and kill the Assault Marines at range.

So I still don't get it. I'm not expecting you to answer, just stating the obvious.

You might (and it's a stretch) be able to prevent the opponent from getting more than a few VPs, but you won't get any. Unless you're playing for a draw, it's pointless. 

Posted By Mahu on 03/15/2007 6:47 AM
Drop Pods are difficult to remove from the table (my list had all sorts of anti-tank). So I can see how making Drop Pod troops count on base number of attacks as a defensive strategy could work.

 Droppods are easy to destroy, if that's what you mean. If you mean remove from the table, then that's different. Either way, it's irrelevant.

I think it is extremely relevent. Unless you absolutlely distroy it, a wrecked Drop Pod does exactly the same thing as a landed drop pod, I.O.W. is is still blocking terrain.

Granted 33% of your penetrating hits cause a 6 with a D6" explosion but what about the other 66% of the hits you put against it. You are what, removing a storm bolter, or distroying it with an Immobilized result after the SB is gone.

So, they are easy to distroy, they are not easy to remove as an obsticle. Therefore, if a Drop Pod player camps behind a wall of Pods, your essentially having to go over or around them to have any hope of reducing the units below scoring or getting any VPs from them.

Obviously this tact falls apart against some armies though.

Posted By skyth on 03/15/2007 3:14 AM

Posted By Therion- on 03/14/2007 7:00 PM
Biggest advantage of Deathwing over Lysanderwing is that the former is allowed at tournaments and the latter is not. I can't remember ever being at a 40K tournament that allowed special characters.

Both require a special character...

That of course is incorrect like others pointed out. Characters that are classified as special characters require the opponents permission to use while characters that are just characters do not.

Nightbringer isn't a special character at all, and neither were Old One Eye and Red Terror in the old Nid codex. However, Tigurius and Lysander for example are clearly special characters, and the larger tourneys you mentioned specifically ban special characters.

Posted By Therion- on 03/15/2007 10:01 PM
Characters that are classified as special characters require the opponents permission to use while characters that are just characters do not.

By that definition, Lysander is just a character.  He does not require opponent's permission to use. 

Posted By Mahu on 03/15/2007 8:46 AM

Droppods are easy to destroy, if that's what you mean. If you mean remove from the table, then that's different. Either way, it's irrelevant.

I think it is extremely relevent. Unless you absolutlely distroy it, a wrecked Drop Pod does exactly the same thing as a landed drop pod, I.O.W. is is still blocking terrain.

Granted 33% of your penetrating hits cause a 6 with a D6" explosion but what about the other 66% of the hits you put against it. You are what, removing a storm bolter, or distroying it with an Immobilized result after the SB is gone.

So, they are easy to distroy, they are not easy to remove as an obsticle. Therefore, if a Drop Pod player camps behind a wall of Pods, your essentially having to go over or around them to have any hope of reducing the units below scoring or getting any VPs from them.

Obviously this tact falls apart against some armies though.

You're missing my point. It's irrelevant not because of the opposing army but because of your (universal 'you', not you personally) tactics. If you have a small unit of assault troops without long-range weaponry and limited mobility hiding behind terrain (be it terrain or droppod), then it's not a threat.

To reiterate, a SAFH won't go near you and you won't get near them. An assault army won't be threatened by you. A mech army will just ignore the terrain.

So the droppod serves no purpose whatsoever, except in very rare cases to give up a few VPs while gaining none back in return.

Thus, the irrelevant comment.

Posted By Therion- on 03/15/2007 11:04 PM

As for special characters, historically I agree. Except with the recent lack of the caveat of  "with opponents permission" since necrons, tourneys have increasingly been known to drop the restriction concerning special characters. Especially the larger tourneys.

Nightbringer isn't a special character at all, and neither were Old One Eye and Red Terror in the old Nid codex. However, Tigurius and Lysander for example are clearly special characters, and the larger tourneys you mentioned specifically ban special characters.

Since there really isnt special characters made any more, the distinction is somewhat blurred.

They should be called named characters now, as the use of the word special character has been defunct for awhile now.

But thats besides the point.

The point is that larger tournies in the US  barely recognize the distinction anymore as well. In short, youre mistaken about special characters being banned. Atleast, they are allowed in the united states (I am not sure what the status of special characters legality are in old blighty)
I dont frequent tournies as much as I used to, but at a recent RTT a couple weeks ago they not only allowed the use of special or named characters, but they fully used the GT packet for their rules since the RTT packet is in such a state of neglect.

I think it is quite safe to say that you will be seeing tournies using named characters in the future. Even the larger Tournies right now allow special characters. Those would be the largest of them all, the Grand Tournies. If you look on page 4 of the link below, you will see proof for yourself.
gt.us.games-workshop.com/Rules/assets/2007GT40kRules.pdf

[edit]

It appears that UK allows special characters in their grand tournaments as well, just not special characters that require opponents permission to field according to the fourth page of this PDF.
uk.games-workshop.com/tournaments/pdfs/40k-gt-pack-2006.pdf

Reading comprehension. By my definition Lysander is a special character, and all special characters can be used only if the tournament organisers so decide. Of course my definition might be wrong, but you can't say that by my definition Lysander is just a character since his entry clearly says he is a special character. Don't try to misquote me.

Hellfury I don't play in the US, ever, since it would be quite idiotic for me to travel ten thousand kilometres to play 40K. However I do play in Europe, and around here most tournaments ban all special characters. UK GT allowed special characters this season, but especially in the FB section GW got mostly bad feedback about the decision so I wouldn't expect to see special characters anymore come next season. If Alessio Cavatore can be trusted, next season the only named characters that will be allowed in both 40K and FB will be those that are printed in the army list sections and not at the back. Alessio admitted that characters that are in the back section of a codex or army book aren't really playtested at all and because of that they can be drastically underpowered or overpowered.

Do you realise that EU has almost 200 million people more than the US, and that even England alone holds many other tournaments as large as the UK GT each year? Quoting something from a UK GT rules pack doesn't really say anything about how the game is played in Europe. There are a lot of players who absolutely despise the UK GT. Even so it's all irrelevant because like I pointed out next year even the UK GT will be back to banning anything classed as a special character. Named characters are fine, as long as they can be found in the normal HQ section of the army book.

My original point stands: Deathwing is good because it's allowed at tournaments while Lysanderwing is not.

Posted By Therion- on 03/17/2007 10:33 PM
My original point stands: Deathwing is good because it's allowed at tournaments while Lysanderwing is not.

There's two things wrong with this statement.  The first is your assertion that the Deathwing is "good".  It's pretty obvious just from a basic analysis that it's not.  The army has no firepower, a miniscule model count, and the supposed advantage of being able to put lightning claws on normal terminators won't ever come into play.  Except, of course, against lousy players who don't know enough to back away from your slow infantry, or against assault troops that would gladly charge assault terminators.

The second thing that's wrong with your statement is that you are ignoring every tournament where Lysander and other special characters are allowed, then declaring that he's not allowed anywhere since you've ignored all those other tournaments.  It should be fairly obvious why this is a specious argument.

I didn't say the army was powerful I said it's good in comparison to Lysanderwing. Any army is better than an illegal army, don't you agree? Now do you have an opinion of your own or did you just post because you're bored? If you intend to build a serious reply usually you need to have some subject matter in your text and not just brief commentaries on the arguments of others.

To be fair, everyone that lives in the states can ignore therion-, because Lysander is very legal here, and Mahu and Hellfury's debate is a very valid one if you are thinking of taking a terminator heavy army list to any tournament in the states.

Everyone that lives elsewhere can agree with therion- that arguing about lysanderwing is useless because he won't show up to the tournament, so you're stuck with deathwing or 'nilla termi wing.

Someone from either side of the pond arguing about what army you're not going to see at a tournament because of different rules is rather idiotic.

That said, since I live in the states, and since I feel that the DA codex has boned the deathwing, all of my deathwing termies have since "morphed" into Imperial fists.

Posted By Therion- on 03/18/2007 12:07 AM
I didn't say the army was powerful I said it's good in comparison to Lysanderwing. Any army is better than an illegal army, don't you agree?

Since the character is perfectly legal for the North American game, and since this is a North American centric board, I hardly see where you get off claiming that the character is illegal to use.

Now do you have an opinion of your own or did you just post because you're bored? If you intend to build a serious reply usually you need to have some subject matter in your text and not just brief commentaries on the arguments of others.

Perhaps you should stop pretending that ignoring what your opponent writes is a valid debating strategy. I pointed out exactly why the supposed advantage of the Deathwing is a worthless concept for an army and you ignored it.

Posted By Therion- on 03/17/2007 10:33 PM

Do you realise that EU has almost 200 million people more than the US...

Yes, but that doesnt mean there are 200 million more gamers.

Posted By Therion- on 03/17/2007 10:33 PM

... and that even England alone holds many other tournaments as large as the UK GT each year? Quoting something from a UK GT rules pack doesn't really say anything about how the game is played in Europe.

I was aware that there were other large tournies in the UK, but to someone who doesnt play in the UK, it seems reasonable to assume that if the GW UK GT rulepacket is anything to go by that special characters COULD be allowed. But you would know more about the european scene more than I.

Posted By Therion- on 03/17/2007 10:33 PM

My original point stands: Deathwing is good because it's allowed at tournaments while Lysanderwing is not....[allowed in Europe]

You forgot to add "Allowed in Europe." to the end of that sentence. Typo fixed.  Even though it makes little sense to ban one special character and not another. Technically, neither are "special characters" in the third edition sense of the word..

One question though, is that the only distinction being made here between characters from part of the list and from the back of the book?

Either allow all of them or dissallow all of them. One or the other. It makes alot of people rather disenfranchised when they see their special character isnt allowed but army "X" special characters are, especially when we are talking about two books from the same edition. I really doubt GW would publically admit that they have poor playtesting on anything (even though it is painfully obvious most of the time).

I personally dont care which as I am little affected by the loss of Lysander should tournies in the U.S. choose to ban special characters.
My whole strategy isnt lost because all of my terminators dont come in on the same turn when Lysander is no longer present in the list.
Deathwing on the other hand, would be quite crippled, as they would be forced to only take 3 termie squads at max because of the loss of Belial.

But back onto the topic at hand.  I really think 3 pred destructors with 2-3 techmarines backed up with gun servitors could be rather successful.  Back that up with some nice combat squads in cheap razorbacks, throw in the one squad of deathwing termi's.  Would make for a fun army.  You would still be moving around with those 5 man squads in RB's while setting up a deadly fire base from the preds and servitors.  Ok so yeah you arent going to outshoot IW, but I still think it would make DA a little meaner on the table.

The only way I can think of to make Dark Angels 'not suck' is to play them as vanilla Spase Mahrienz (with or without traits) and simply pretend the new 'dex doesn't exist.

Posted By nyarlathotep667 on 03/18/2007 4:20 PM
The only way I can think of to make Dark Angels 'not suck' is to play them as vanilla Spase Mahrienz (with or without traits) and simply pretend the new 'dex doesn't exist.

That was the general approach under 3rd. It looks like what I'll be doing with 4th too.

Maybe by 5th ed. Jervais won't be working at GW any more and we'll have a shot at a decent codex.

Posted By Asmodai on 03/18/2007 4:31 PM

Maybe by 5th ed.

oh are you ever optimistic

Personally, if i were to somehow be convinced to play DA, I would make a combined forces army.

A single unit of termies for the noevlty factor of hitting the table turn one.

A squad o rmaybe two of DA vets.

The cool DA libby.

As many razorback units that I could. Very flexible, but very expensive.

a couple whirlies with new incendiary bombs.

Eschew everything else that is too expensive to be considered viable. Which is pretty much everything else.

I think there are Valid points for both Mahu and Therion. Its sometimes a regional thing for some tourneys to ban special characters while others allow special characters within the points limit.

Deathwing has its advantages and disadvantages.

Lysander wing seems to have more advantages than disadvantages.

But the Dark Angels require a different approach to the Marine army and in my opinion it is simply trying to break out of the over-done drop pod marine army, Shooting Marine Army, Lysander Wing army, plasma army. Those armies are just plain overdone and unimaginative but with Dark Angels its more about combined arms and the army working together to do the job instead of independent units.

Yes, but you can already do combined arms and working together with the Marine list, and do it better too. The DA just suck less in that department than they do in all others. It doesn't mean they bring anything new to the table in that regard.

It all depends on your style of play. I don't use Termies or bikes; what I do tend to use (when not running 6 venerable dreads) is lots of Marines, usually in large units. DA will, I think, work well for me, because it will give me the ability to take the big squads, but still get full use from my heavies AND specials by combat-squading them, rather than wasting potential kills because a heavy has to take the long shot.

It's unfortunate, but it seems the best way to have DA not suck is not to use the units that make them special and exceptional. "Not sucking" is not the same as being heavily competitive, however, and I doubt any DA configuration will be able to stand on even ground with Zilla Nids or drop-pod codex Marines.

Posted By Therion- on 03/18/2007 12:07 AM
Any army is better than an illegal army, don't you agree?

But Lysanderwing is not illegal Therion.

Not allowed in certain tournaments in Europe is not the same as an 'illegal army'. The Armoured Battlegroup list is generally disallowed in tournaments, doesn't make it any less legal than Codex: Space Marines.

Try not to confuse the distinction.

BYE

Posted By Asmodai on 03/18/2007 9:38 PM
Yes, but you can already do combined arms and working together with the Marine list, and do it better too. The DA just suck less in that department than they do in all others. It doesn't mean they bring anything new to the table in that regard.

Combat squad Devs, Whirlwinds which ignore cover, and dirt-cheap Destructors are all nice, though unfortunately all in the HS slot.  35pt Rhinos w/smoke and searchlight are much more reasonably-priced than the old standard 58 or 59 pointers.  Same with 50pt HB Razors.  The points savings in transports are unfortunately largely lost in powerfists and a couple of other places, but you’re shifting points out of non-scoring units and into scoring units, which is helpful.

 

Anyone who was already running a mechanized marine army (which is not a tournament dominating build but is certainly competitive and fun) can still build a good list with this codex.  My own army will lose a couple of heavy weapon shots, but looks like it will still get around the same total firepower on target on any given turn, as the units will be more task-focused. 

 

Overall it’s definitely weaker than the core SM codex, but that does tend to actually HELP you in soft scoring if your tournament includes that.  Codices which are perceived to be underpowered are seen less often, and the players who field them are often seen as being the opposite of powergamers.  Hopefully both the SM and Chaos dexes will get reined in a bit and brought into line with the DA ‘dex.  If not- well, you can still field your DA using vanilla rules.

The only thing that jumped out at me in the DA Codex as far as being a potential source of power is the Command and Veteran Squads, and their ability to take lots and lots of overpriced Power Fists. Overpriced is a problem, but 3 in a 10 man squad is something that most people won't be prepared to deal with.

Personally I can't be bothered to figure out a good list, if there even is one, because I find the overall quality of the Codex to be offensive.

I'll have to agree with Nyarlathotep, and continue to play my DA models with vanilla rules.

That's a 10 man squad with base 2 attacks each (before second weapon bonus), so that's 12 powerfist attacks on the charge.   And any number of them can have combat shields (or storm shields) for a nominal cost. Would make an amazing, if expensive, zillakiller squad.

I find the oposit to be true. If you beat someone with a normal list they think its ok and your running a normal list (or as normal as 6-9 oblits can be. But if you beat them with an underpowerd army they acuse you of being a gimic army and docking your soft scores.

Do you play with crackheads? That is the exact opposite of what I've seen since I got into the game. That reasoning astounds me.

Not defending it, just what I have seen.
The same goes for new armies such as necrons and grey knights being called overpowered (with the obvious exception)

It would be easier to just say you get docked on soft scores if you win.

Posted By IntoTheRain on 03/22/2007 9:57 AM
It would be easier to just say you get docked on soft scores if you win.

QFT

I still hold out hope that there are some good strong lists that can be made from the Dark Angels. Looking at the codex again I think you can make a good list by sticking with the "bargains" that are there. Mainly Plasma Cannons, Razorback, and Destructors. What about the below list?

Company Master w/ 2 lightning claws 130

3x Tac Squad (10) w/ 1 plasma gun, 1 Plasma Cannon, Power Sword, and Razorback 260x 3 = 780

Ravenwing bikes (3) w/ 2 melta guns, multi-melta attack bike 190

2 Land Speeders w/ multi-melta 130

1 Land Speeder w/ multi-melta 65

Devestator Squad (10) w/ 4 Plasma Cannons 265

2x Preditor w/ auto cannon,2 hvy bolters 95 = 180

Total: 1750

This can have 14 scoring units by splitting the tacs, devs, and Ravenwing. Has 7 plasma cannons, 7 heavy bolters, 4 multi-meltas, 2 auto cannons, 3 plasma guns, and 2 metla guns. It has a little Hth in the split tac squads and the commander who could join one of the squads. Deepstriking termies beware because of the plasma cannons. Escalation has all seven plasma cannons on the board, but no dedicated armor killing, though the p. cannons can do some light work if needed.

I just see that many marine armies will be hurt by this list since it has great AP killing, while the templates and and vehicles will seriously hurt a swarm army. It even has its mobile elements. I see Zillanids being a problem since this list would only kill slightly over one Carni a turn and that drops big time as the nids start shooting (duh).

The Wraith

Posted By IntoTheRain on 03/22/2007 9:57 AM
It would be easier to just say you get docked on soft scores by players who are themselves poor sports if you win.

Fixed your typo.

My suggestion: Find better opponents.  Even at tournaments, the local play environment generally determines the quality and sportsmanship of the players. 

Posted By the_wraith on 03/23/2007 5:47 AM
I still hold out hope that there are some good strong lists that can be made from the Dark Angels. Looking at the codex again I think you can make a good list by sticking with the "bargains" that are there. Mainly Plasma Cannons...

This is your error.  I like your reasoning and your list otherwise, but Plasma Cannons are inherently poor in v4 due to the requirement to put the hole in the template over a model’s base, as well as the removal of infantry screening (which actually gave people an incentive to bunch some units into base contact).  An opponent playing even marginal attention to unit spacing can easily prevent you from getting multiple hits.  The only times you will generally get multiple hits will be against Deep Strikers, Necrons piling out of a Monolith, or occasionally units squeezing into a small piece of terrain for cover. 

 

A 5pt savings vs a Lascannon for a weapon which rarely gets to use its single advantage, and is always an inferior choice against any vehicle or any creature T6 or higher, is a false economy.  I’d suggest putting no more than one or two Plasma Cannons in any given list for fluffiness and to take advantage of those above-mentioned tactical situations if they come up. 

Mannahnin, I agree that V4 hurt the blast weapons, but I have found that being able to move the blast marker's hole around on the base usually will allow me one to two partials. Also, I have found most people start the game with good spacing, but as they move units, they start grouping together. Still, I could easily adjust the list by giving the Company Master a power weapon instead of the LCs and replace the plasma in the tac squads with lascannons. I still like a few blast weapons just to keep my opponent spread out some.

The Wraith

After playing yesterday, I unloaded my Dire Avengers out the back of their Wave Serpent. I had to withstand a round of 4 Frag Missiles in the following turn. While I suffered very little damage, I was actually thinking how a Plasma Cannon would have prevented me from ever getting into that position with the Avengers. One or two in an army definitely has merit. Sammael having one that can move 12" and still fire should be one of the mandatory Plasma Cannons.

I have a Dev Squad with 4 Plasmas in my army.

They're very hit-and-miss. Some games they'll pulzerize the core of the opponent's army, other games they'll overheat, miss and plink off individual models.

It's a gamble taking them.

Right now, I've got one in the my current DA build; Sammael. Ever since the change to the Salamanders (who could get Signums in their Dev Squads, 3rd edition), I wouldn't run 4 in a Dev Squad either. I agree that is a big gamble.

Right now, Sammael seems to be the best suited for it. Mobile heavy weapon who can wait for Deep Strikers (5 Terminators is pretty much on full hit and 4 partials if it is a 5 man unit).

I just had my first chance to read through the codex yesterday and think the list has potential, just not spam potential.  It seems like the all Ravenwing Army is more viable than it was before, but the all Deathwing Army got neutered.  The new psychic powers struck me as being very useful for a Librarian arriving via Ravenwing/Deathwing strike.  Granted, the Hellfire power is not reliably devastating, but the Librarian and his Deathwing backup could be placed on the board Turn 1 and put out a respectable amount of firepower even without the 2nd Asscan.  It is possible to put him in a position where he will have several chances to make good use of the Hellfire power.  Half the time it will be abe to kill MEQ's without armor saves.  Combine this sort of hammerfall with concentrated fire from divided devastators, tac squads split between aggressively postured HB razorbacks teams and plas/plas or las/plas stationary squads,  land speeders, small groups of bikers turbo boosting willy nilly, with the odd attack bike thrown in.  I think this army has the potential to be a real headache for mech skimmer armies and several other competitive builds..

If everything in the DA army did not cost 10 to 20 points more per model I would agree.

The codex nickles and dimes you to death like taxes, you end up paying more points for less.

I've been thinking of a da army using ravenwing plus one squad of dw termies that have two hq's attached to deathwing strike lately. But when you buy term armor for a chaplin or libarian, they loose an attack! Models in Term armor need to have term honors again. Not only that, a 3 wound  da chaplin in term armor costs 15 points(20 more if not in term armor)! It gains no special ability over a normal SM chaplin, and it only has 3 attacks with no way to get more.

The units are too expensive and too weak to just shove infront of an enemy army.

The army just flat out sucks. No two ways about it.

Although I agree that Dark Angels are weaker than Vanilla marines, I do love the rules for Ezeikel. Mind worm would work great on Canifexes and Hive tyrants in a Nidzilla list, which is becoming common.

I thought Mind Worm was great too.... Untill I saw it counts as a heavy weapon shot.

I finally got my copy of the codex. If you were already playing mechanized, it's not awful. I took the tournament army I used most recently (December) and converted it over as directly as possible:

From 1850 the list wound up at 1855, two six man tac squads had been turned to a single ten, an eight man assault squad went to five, I lost three models net, one lascannon, one plasmagun, and 1A and blades of reason on my chaplain. In return I got Frag and Krak everywhere, two vet sgts I don't realy need (but who do help with Target Priority rolls) and the use of the combat squads rule- for three tac squads and a dev squad. Honestly, it's playable. If I drop Extra Armor from my vehicles, I'll actually wind up 55pts under, instead of 5 pts over.

If I actually modify my list to account for the rules, it's in better shape. If I drop my (now) 165pt 3-Las Pred and either the Dread or the Speeder, I can afford a second 10 man Dev squad with 2 Las and 2 HB. If it's the Dread, that leaves me only 15pts shy of a ten model assault squad. Not bad.

More list analysis in the following Army Lists thread:

http://dakkadakka.com/Forums/tabid/56/forumid/14/view/topic/postid/151375/Default.aspx

   I know it wasn't totally effective, but I have always played my Dark Angels with veteran sergents and 10 man Squads (except for the devistor sqaud in a razorback).

   I just always thought that it looked better that way, even if I did suffer a couple more defeats. So, as a whole I do like the Dark Angels codex.

   The one thing I hate is the absence of an armory. I really like being able to give my characters artificer armor, which I now can't. Plus I hate it that techmarines are not independent characters.

I was just glad my local FLAGS was cool enough to exchange my copy (DA Codex) for other GW products which I put toward another Fex for my bug list.

Posted By Lemartes on 03/27/2007 1:23 PM
I was just glad my local FLAGS was cool enough to exchange my copy (DA Codex) for other GW products which I put toward another Fex for my bug list.

best idea in this thread.

I can't stop myself from posting another substance free rant about how crappy the DA Codex is.

There's a million reasons to hate it, but the biggest one, the one that makes me wonder if Jervis has ever even PLAYED THE DAMN GAME, is the way all the ICs have 3A and no option to buy Term Honors. Why? Has anybody in the history of 40K EVER fielded an IC without Terminator Honors? Or, at least, anybody who isn't slowed/Jervis?

The smart thing to do would be to just give them all Terminator Honors, roll the cost into their total, and move on.

I used to sneer at the "they're dumbing it down" crowd. It's getting to the point where I can't anymore, because they're plainly correct.

Jervis: Listen up, 'guvnah.' You don't need to make the rules simpler, you need to make them less idiotic. You gave Bolt Pistols to every Dark Angel, ostensibly so they can shoot and assault, and yet the rulebook says, by the RAW, that they can't if they're "carrying" a Bolter. The issue isn't complexity. It's quality. You're just making simpler crappy rules.

Don't forget that even when you buy a chap or librian term armor they loose an attack, as they loose a bolt pistol and the DA term armor does not give term honors.

These guys just have no clue, they remind me of the people who wrote the 4th edition tyranid codex. In the White Dwarf battle report before the Tryanid codex came out they said "we took vennom cannons to destory land speeders because they are open topped"  What the heck??!?! First off speeders aren't open topped and vennom cannons allways glance anyway!

except for the fact that they are immune to it because they are synapse creatures.

read how mind worm works then read the synapse rule in the nid dex

 

:|

are you outta your flippin mind samwise?

ravenwing got nutered just as bad as DW if not worse. jervis had them both re-written in such a way that niether of them make good stand alone armies but are rather only facets of a general battle company force or have to work together as per fluff.

it is still the same small number of models, still just as fragile, costs more points, lost most of its skills and now lacks the firepower balancer that made it an effective stand alone force. most of my RW is not boxed up in the closet.

 

 

I just watched a 3000pt game the other day between Dark Angels and Black Legion. The Dark Angels where primarily Death Wing. 4 Term Squads, 2 LRC's, 2 IC's with Term Armor, and 3 Dreads. Only thing not Deathwing was a 10 Man squad of Tac marines in a Pod.

The Black Legion got raped in ways that would make a Japanese business man weep.

The DA player in our group has only lost one game so far, and that was to my Codex Marine army. The list is far from neutered. From what I've seen, it's more a players problem if he can't handle the army, not the books problem.

Clearly the fact that you witnessed Dark Angels (with two LRCs) beat 'Black Legion' in a 3000pt random game at your 'local store' must mean that Dark Angels aren't nerfed. Because of the information you just brought us all the stupid rules that have been pointed out in this thread now suddenly changed to good rules and all the points inefficient units transformed into cheese. Or, not. What kind of slow was controling the Chaos army? What kind of an army did he play? If he didn't use Siren OR Iron Warriors he was already playing his army well below its potential. I don't even want to ask what his unit choices were or how he played his army because I already know.

Wow, that was harsh.

The point I was raising is that the "stupid rules" as you put it, do not fail at all in practice.

"If he didn't use Siren OR Iron Warriors he was already playing his army well below its potential."

Or you mean, he wasn't cheesing it to the extreme. The Chaos list was a strong build, but I'm not going to bother going into it. Won't matter, since it's obvious your one of those gamers who has to see an Army having a cheese list to be any good.

Posted By djones520 on 03/28/2007 3:49 AM
4 Term Squads, 2 LRC's, 2 IC's with Term Armor, and 3 Dreads. Only thing not Deathwing was a 10 Man squad of Tac marines in a Pod.

I don't see how anyone could lose to that list even if they were trying. 

32 models at THREE THOUSAND POINTS

You have no business being in a tactics forum if you find that a powerful list.  Or if you think dark angels got a buff. 

At 3000 points I can field a Lascannon for each one of those models with my Guard...

It would probably be a one-sided game unless I decided to kill each model with a particular designated Lascannon with no repeats.

The mechanized army is playable. buy everything but devsquads rhinos or razorbacks and split the squads when you have the opportunity. I don't see a lot of reason to use rhinos though, and think power-for-point ratio you'll find any good vanilla army to be better.

Ravenwing is useless. Deathwing is useless.

That's my complaint. My 12 landspeeder ravenwing army now has about 7 superfluous models. Thanks GW!

I can't get rid of my tornado speeders at 12-15 dollars apiece (built, painted to a gaming standar - some in not the best shape due to missing footpegs/pointy things, but whatever). Why? Because who the hell wants to buy them at 100 points for an AV10 skimmer with a 24" range main gun.

I can't recall the last time a codex was so completely fumbled. At least Eldar players could still use most of their units.

I wouldn't say most of their units, but the Eldar got enough cheese to somewhat make up for their share of bad army/unit design. The Dark Angels only have a bunch of disadvantages and a couple of weird units.

This thread should be renamed:

"Why dark angels suck more than anything ever known".

I have to agree with the seeming general consensus that 32 models @ 3000pts are no match for many normal 2000 pt armies made, armies that arent even at their full cheese potential such as iron warriors or siren princes.

man you got off easy.

out of the 27 models in my pure RW force at 1850 i managed to salvage TEN to put into my mult-wing force.

 

sheesh what did he spend the points on? my old DW list had 30 terminators and 3 dreads all with vet skills , 2 heavy weapons per squad, homers and being led by a top end librarian at 1850 points....

at 3,000 points i would expect a bit more.

It seems obvious enough that the DA did take some hits. But what I am hearing from a lot of folks is that if a list isn't optimal then it just won't work at all.

That's kinda stupid. Do you all drive ferrari's to work? No! Then anything else just won't work. No, a Corolla will not get you to work, Can't happen. Sheesh.

How about stretching our tactical knowledge beyong merely making a strong list and try to make the DA work. Or is that too much to ask? Is that above our collective tactical ability? If it isn't dropping termies, iron warriors or siren we just CAN'T figure out how to make it work?

The DA list is NOT even nearly as powerful as others. But what about in an objective game or grabbibg table corners? Having up to 12 scoring units in your troops should count for something. As we often use drop pods as cover and to close lines of fire can't we also do that with the cheaper rhinos? The things are worth at least a turn of moveable terrain. Losing a 30 some point rhino to a lascannon is worth it if that shot would have taken out a 40 point terminator.

Come up with some ideas.

ender502

It's more that: "If a list isn't decent, it won't work for me."

If you can't hang against even half-assed tournament armies, why bother?

This list can do one type of list that is essentially the same as a vanilla marine list, but not quite as good.

That isn't enough to make a codex worthwhile to me.

I think it's safe to say that other than the mechanized/shootie type list, every other DA build is a sack of crap incapable of beating down your little brother's foot slogging dark eldar.

Hope you never get beat by them...

I can tell you with certainty I will never lose a game to the new dark angels that doesn't involve me rolling d4s.

I have come up with two lists and two lists only. A Ravenwing/Deathwing combo or a mechanized list involvoing cheaper Rhino's, Razorbacks, and Predators. Both lists after playing and number crunching are still sub par with equivalent lists taking from the generic Space Marine dex. Believe me I have tried because I am one of those personality types who likes to make impossible things possible. I hope to be presently suprised and see someone achieve success with the new DA dex. I could possible see a mechanized build rising up but I doubt it.

Wow, this is all very exciting...

As someone who doesn't even own the codex yet, I feel the need to take up this challenge. Somebody buy me the book, and any minis I would need to add in (assuming my opponent would be unoffended by blue dark angels for the sake of debate), and I will take anyone on in a 1500 point alpha level cleanse.

Come on, buy me stuff so I can beat you with it...

Good luck with that one, sparky.

If you build a DA list and beat a 1200pt Therion list with it I'll eat my hat.

So just buy you the whole army and gosh you'll beat me with it. Ristrict the game to Alpha level cleanse to boot. Sounds like a great deal to me. Sir, Bolter and Chainsword need your posts back.

A sense of humor is a rare commodity 'round these parts.

Looks like someone's hard at work decreasing the clue supply as well.

This is the one reason I'm bummed about deploying in a couple weeks. I'm building a DA army, but I won't have it done for the Baltimore GT. I'll have to use my Eldar instead. I'll take the handicap. Heck, I do it now with non optimized lists and do just fine.

Posted By Longshot on 03/30/2007 9:52 AM
I can tell you with certainty I will never lose a game to the new dark angels that doesn't involve me rolling d4s.

The anonymous internet allows all to be the best generals ever! Me? I have never lost a game. No list can beat me. I have a stratagem to destroy anyone. Yeah, and i've also won every Golden Demon ever. All those guys holding the trophies bought the mini's from me already painted... And maybe you'd like to meet my wife.. Morgan Fairchild! Who i've seen naked!

The right circumstances and the right rolls can beat any list.. No matter how tooled up it may be. Saying that we will NEVER lose against a particular list is kinda silly.

ender502

Too late; he's stuck his neck out already.

dictionary.reference.com/browse/hyperbole

Mechanised doesnt work, because what the Codex gives it takes away. I run a Razorback mounted Marine army. I built the army this way for fun, and because I think that marines should have a low model count and lots of toys as befitting an elite force. I expect to get spanked for it, but it is suprisingly effective.

A Razorback neatly contains a six man squad ot a five man command team with character. With the exception of the Command squad and maybe one tac squad with fist the passengers and ride never mix. Think of them as tracked turrets backing up shooty squads. Despite being entirely mechanised the army is not for assault.

Now I can now have a much needed 20pt discount on razorbacks if I choose DA. Though I also have only five man squads, no heavy weapon and mandatory sergeants all round. Yes I can take combat squads and a Razorback, but I refuse to use my turrets as transports (except for objective grabbing and spcial forward deployments). All in all I would lose valueable firepower, size optimisation a ton of points. DA mechanised, no thankyou.

For me the only build is Ravenrush. ake three or four 3 man bike units attacks bikes and maybe tornados if you want them. Scout thebikes forward and drop deathwing a further 6" forward from that. Done right your termies are ready for a second turn assault. If you dont get first turn you will take casualties from your bikes (rapid fire range) but if you have enough enough will survive. If you get first turn you are golden.

In either case shoot with your termie assault cannon, and then pile in your bikes (suicidally if needed) to block LOS to your termies with close combats. This should let your lighning claws get into play on turn two. They should be able to assault targets as far up to within 6" from the opponents table edge. Not bad for termies.

The second wave of termies carry heavy flamers, and are dropped very close to the action. The core of the army is either Belial led termies, or podding tacticals. I see no need for a firebase with this type of army.

I am not sure as yet how I would handle a super mobile army, but Ravenrush works well against static deployments like Tau or Guard easily enough. Ravenrusgh works, but is an eggs in one basket approach, and only the versatiklity of the Ravenwing contingent prevents it from beinmg a one trick dog. You get a lot of mobility with your army to begin with, but as you deploy Deathwing they act as anchor points for your army, and force you to focus. This is what makes DA interesting, far more tactical than other Codexes, a finess list.
This is why I like to codex, but 40K is sadly not a tactical game beyond choosing your focus of army list, and therefore DA fails to deliver.




I would love to try a Ravenrush army with mechanised shooty tacticals/devastators for friendly games at 3000pts. The DA codex is strong on versatility that way, but sadly weak on costings.

Longshot- Brought a smile to my face. We need more humor here.

I'm building a DA army, but I've discovered I really need to decide on either shooty; mechanized or fast. The points are too prohibitive to mix it up.

Three Devastator Squads with 3 Razorbacks has a lot of appeal. I can get 15 heavy weapons and 9 seperate units out of just 3 Force Org slots. However, it costs a good deal and I have a very hard time justifying the Ravenwing. Synergy has got to work and points are becoming an issue. I'll totally concede this point.

Orlanth- I haven't played against a static Tau army in quite some time. Must be refreshing. However, an Inquisitor w/ Emperor's Tarot seems to help getting 1st turn. 35 Points and a spare Elite slot. I'm seeing min size RW squads w/ Melta guns, Melta Bomb and a MM Attack Bike for the mech lists. Getting first turn against Mech Skimmer lists is where they can be hurt. If one RW squad can stop a WS, Falcon or Hammerhead, I'm happy. I'd be even more happy if the 50 point Attack Bike successfully pulls this off.

ROFLO

static tau, thats a good one

 

4th ed, new dex tau-static/footslogging tau=dead tau.

 

Mughi3 - Broadside lists still work. However that another topic.

Sarigar - I dont think you can afford the Elite slot. But as you noticed Ravenwing have enough firepower to take out enemy armour.

My Random 2 cents

The new DA Dex is a forshadow of what is to come in the SM:redux, the needing 10 men in a tact squad to get a heavy weapon, Plasmaguns at 15 points, Pods going up in price,  Tornados/Land speeders going up in price!

Mark my words its going to happen the Nerf bat shall know no mercy to the space marines and when the dust settles you will look upon the DA with new light...

Now back to your regulary scheduled forum-cast.

The only defense this codex has is "You can build a list that isn't quite as horrible as your 9 year old cousin's mandrake-heavy dark eldar."

In other words, it's indefensible. Stop it. Any time you can take your list and make it bette with the vanilla dex while retaining your concept, you're invalidating the codex. All it does is trade a lot of points for a tiny bit of tactical flexibility and a few special characters.

Some people will say, "But, the army gives me the ability to make a fluffy list with Dark Angel background, and use the special characters I know and love." That's great. But Eldar, Tau and Tyranids and Vanilla SM show that you can make a list both competitive and fluffy at the same time.

They've made plenty of competitive dexes this edition that are truth be told fairly balanced amongst each other.

Why do the random SM offshoot dexes suck? There's simply no reason for it and there's zero reason for people to be defending such crap development with phrases such as, "But I can make a list that's almost competitive," or "I saw it win a game once."

And no. Ravenrush is not good. It is horrible. The worst design of the dex by far, other than say, the 30 scout and devastators with no guns army.

There is one name of the game with this codex - lots of marines and cheap transports. 100pt tinfoil speeders, 35pt bikers, and 250pt terminator squads with one assault cannon can bite my arse.

Try playing Ravenlush against a real terminator army like, say, Mauleed's pods or Lysander, and let me know who comes out on top.

Last edition subcodices were basic marines with boosts. This edition GW learned. Now its basic marines with boosts and drawbacks. OH NOOOOEE!

Its not too hard to make a competitive list from codex DA. Simply start with stuff that got boosted, add stuff that complements the powerhouses and avoid stuff that got nerfed.

DA step by step:

1. Powerhouses:

- Take 2-3 Predator Destructor with HBs.

- Take that HQ on a Landraider-Speeder guy.

2. Stuff to complement these:

- Take 1-6 of 5 Marines with Plasmagun, Powerweapon Vet. and a naked Rhino + 5 Man with Lascannon.

- Take single Speeders with MM and Flamer.

Take these and you get a strong all comers army that can deal with any opponent. The MM speeders are slightly worse then 80 point Tornados, but do benefit a lot from all the mobile cover your rhinos (and preds) can provide. Also you saved quite some points on the Predators allready.

Rhino-sniping might become quite popular: You leave a small gap between two advancing rhinos so that your hanging back lascannon can only see an opponents special weapon trooper.

These gaps can be used by Speeders as well to minimize returnfire to the fragile crafts.

Finally you can have your 5 man units jump out and rapidfire through such gaps, while being protected by the rhinos from enemy charges. Think of a wild west corral here.

For flavor one could ad a few bikes and a single terminator unit.

Anyone who thinks the DA can still be competive needs to play the chaplin in term armor game.

Take a Chap in term armor and say he's a DA chap with stormbolter oh boy 3 attacks... Now make him a normal Sm chap in term armor with stormbolter 4 attacks all the same rules and less points!

The problem is all the restricions and being nickled'n dimed to death. Every time you write up a DA list you can re-write the list with the SM normal dex and gain 100-150 points back in a 1500 point army.

And as for this redo of the SM codex... it's been confermed allready that the dex isn't coming out for awhile/being worked on. So don't hold your breath waiting for that book.

And Raider, There are no boosts in this codex aside from a few of the special hq's.
If you point out free bolt pistions I'll be happy to point out where people with a pistol and a bolter cannot fire and charge under RAW.  The codex needs(like all of them) an FAQ to fix a few things and maybe open up some options again.

Posted By ender502 on 03/31/2007 11:52 AM

And maybe you'd like to meet my wife.. Morgan Fairchild! Who i've seen naked!

...yeah....thats the ticket....

The Pred destructor got a boost. He got quite a bit cheaper. And the thing has been in winning lists for the old price.

Now consider that he is a great counter to Landspeeders, MeQs in cover, everything with 4+ save, light tanks etc...

Add that hes mobile and has an AV13 front.

These things are undercosted, extremely versatile and(!) durabel.

The only thing you miss are a few guns versus heavy tanks and AP2, like Meltas and Lascannons. Both are not that hard to get for DAs.

But it doesn't kill Marines, Tanks, or Monsterous creatures all that well, and that's what people use in 40k. It also takes up a Heavy Slot, and Devastators with the Combat Squads rule are one of the few "decent" things that exist in the DA codex.

DA actually have a ridiculously hard time getting enough things that kill monsters/tanks/marines well for a reasonable number of points.

The only good slots in the entire codex are HQ (and only Sammael) and heavy, and the best deal in heavy is something that doesn't kill tanks or monsters or marines. Kind of ironic in a way. So you get stuck taking dev squads which are still sub-par when it comes down to it. I'd rather have las/plas squads any day.

I know it's been said, but if you can make your list better with the plain codex there isn't enough of a boost.

There is not a single list so far posited that would not be better vanilla.

Speeders and bikes? Be swift like ze wind and take scout bikes/bikes as your troops, for fewer points and with meltabombs. And your speeders are 15pts cheaper each.

Terminators? Pretty much any list you take will be better because your termies get two heavy guns.

Mechanized? You can take six man squads in razorbacks which are vastly better than DA's 10 man squads in razorbacks which can split 1/3rd of the time (not in escalation). This list is pretty gay honestly but it's still better vanilla.

Post your best DA list and I'll fix it as vanilla for you, free of charge.

Azriel
Ezikiel
term squad 1 ac
las plaz 10 man squad x2
full 10 man dev 4 hb
full 10 man dev 4 ml

sammal
5X2 man tac plas
2X plas cannon/HF ven dread
10X2 man dev all plas
5 man dev all las

How about the one I posted earlier?

Company Master w/ 2 lightning claws 130

3x Tac Squad (10) w/ 1 plasma gun, 1 Plasma Cannon, Power Sword, and Razorback 260x 3 = 780

Ravenwing bikes (3) w/ 2 melta guns, multi-melta attack bike 190

2 Land Speeders w/ multi-melta 130

1 Land Speeder w/ multi-melta 65

Devestator Squad (10) w/ 4 Plasma Cannons 265

2x Preditor w/ auto cannon,2 hvy bolters 95 = 180

Total: 1750

Posted By davidson on 04/02/2007 4:21 PM
Azriel
Ezikiel
term squad 1 ac
las plaz 10 man squad x2
full 10 man dev 4 hb
full 10 man dev 4 ml

Librarian with fear/fury/term armor,  termie command squad, dual assault cannons (400ish)

6 x 6 las/plas squads ( 690)

8 man dev with 4 ML (200)
8 man dev with 4 HB (180)
== 1470

Posted By IAMYOU on 04/02/2007 10:58 PM
sammal
5X2 man tac plas
2X plas cannon/HF ven dread
10X2 man dev all plas
5 man dev all las

Chaplain on a bike with bolt pistol, artificer armor, terminator honors (150ish)

3 x 6 las/plas (345)

2 x lascannon/ML venerable dreads (300 or so)

2 x 8 dev with 2 ML/2 Las (460)

6 man dev with 2 las (160)

More guns and 50-100 pts left over.

Posted By the_wraith on 04/03/2007 5:27 AM
How about the one I posted earlier?

Company Master w/ 2 lightning claws 130

3x Tac Squad (10) w/ 1 plasma gun, 1 Plasma Cannon, Power Sword, and Razorback 260x 3 = 780

Ravenwing bikes (3) w/ 2 melta guns, multi-melta attack bike 190

2 Land Speeders w/ multi-melta 130

1 Land Speeder w/ multi-melta 65

Devestator Squad (10) w/ 4 Plasma Cannons 265

2x Preditor w/ auto cannon,2 hvy bolters 95 = 180

Total: 1750

Even easier this time.

Requires be swift as the wind

hq
Master with lightning claws and terminator armor (130ish?)

troops
3 x 6 man squad with las/plas and razorback with HBs (555)
2 x 6 man las/plas squad (230)
1 x 5 bikers with sarge, meltabombs, powerfist, 2 meltaguns, homer (215)

fast:
3 x 1 landspeeder tornado (240)

3 el cheapo predators (315)
= 1685
100pts to burn on whatever you want. I took some editorial license with this list because a 4 plasma dev squad is pretty slowed, but you can drop your tornados to multimeltas and drop one predator and buy that squad.

List is still way, way better.

Bear in mind I did all of those with no thought or reference to the codex, completely from memory, in about 5 minutes each. Numbers may be a point or two off, feel free to call me if they are and I'll fix them .

yeah longshot is right on the money

ive run the numbers and i can make a more effective, nearly all terminator, grey knight list than a deathwing list for the same points

 

i can also do a white scars list that makes the new incarnation of ravenwing look pitiful by comparison. i could literally outride and outshoot them now if i used WSs

Yup I agree, every time I try to write a DA list it turns out to be crud. The models turned out pretty good but the rules are so...*****

Posted By Longshot on 04/03/2007 3:35 PM
Even easier this time.

Requires be swift as the wind

hq
Master with lightning claws and terminator armor (130ish?)

troops
3 x 6 man squad with las/plas and razorback with HBs (555)
2 x 6 man las/plas squad (230)
1 x 5 bikers with sarge, meltabombs, powerfist, 2 meltaguns, homer (215)

fast:
3 x 1 landspeeder tornado (240)

3 el cheapo predators (315)
= 1685
100pts to burn on whatever you want. I took some editorial license with this list because a 4 plasma dev squad is pretty slowed, but you can drop your tornados to multimeltas and drop one predator and buy that squad.

List is still way, way better.

How is this better? My list would beat this one easily, baring dice rolls. I have a more mobile element in the three small combat squads with sarge and the plasma. This will let the plasma be more useful than in your build. The plasma cannons will tip the balance against the las cannons unless you stretch your units out to their max and then most likely the P cannon could only see part of your unit making it easier to kill the Lascannon (though this depends on terrain). The only thing I see as a problem are the three tanks since my army needs the fast attack to strike at them for any large chance of success. In escalation I would also have all the plasma cannons on to pick off your force as it came on the table peice meal.

5 lascannons, 5 plasma guns, 3 assualt cannons. 6 heavy bolters, 2 melta guns, plus whatever a cheapo predator has (sorry, I dp not have my book here to look up the points an what that give you), 35 guys, 6 light tanks, 3 heavy tanks, and 12 units. Compared to 7 plasma cannons, 7 heavy bolters, 2 auto cannons, 4 multi-meltas, 3 plasma guns, and 2 melta guns, 44 guys, 6 light tanks, 2 heavy tanks, and 14 units. Do the three predators make up for the difference?

Also, what is so bad about four plasma cannons in a dev squad? Especially when you can split them.

 

The Wraith

"Also, what is so bad about four plasma cannons in a dev squad? Especially when you can split them."

Read the 4th edition rules for blast templates.

Posted By the_wraith on 04/04/2007 5:47 AM

5 lascannons, 5 plasma guns, 3 assualt cannons. 6 heavy bolters, 2 melta guns, plus whatever a cheapo predator has (sorry, I dp not have my book here to look up the points an what that give you), 35 guys, 6 light tanks, 3 heavy tanks, and 12 units. Compared to 7 plasma cannons, 7 heavy bolters, 2 auto cannons, 4 multi-meltas, 3 plasma guns, and 2 melta guns, 44 guys, 6 light tanks, 2 heavy tanks, and 14 units. Do the three predators make up for the difference?

Also, what is so bad about four plasma cannons in a dev squad? Especially when you can split them.

Three cheapo Preds are Destructors with HB sponsons.  1 AC and 2 HB each.  That makes his gun count 5 lascannons and 3 assault cannons to your 7 plasmacannons and  4 multimeltas, 5 plasmaguns to your 3 plasmaguns, 12 heavy bolters to your 7, 3 autocannons to your 2, and 2 meltaguns each. 

While your multimeltas are neat when they work, his list has vastly more anti-troop AND anti-tank firepower, because lascannons put out consistent long-range, high strength and low AP shots, while Multimeltas usually only get off one or two shots a game.  You have more models, but your units are not as effective at their jobs.  And he still has 12 scoring units to your 14, making that one advantage a rather slim one.

I'm also trying to get my DA to work, but it's a tough row to hoe.

Sadly, plasmacannon are terrible against everything except squads piling out of transports or deep striking.  Everyone else can reliably and regularly spread out enough to keep you from getting multiple hits.  And S7 is really inadequate against vehicles. 

Plus my vet in the biker squad has a powerfist

Anyway, I don't want to oversell my point and piss people off, but this is just the way I see it. Every iteration of a list I come up with is better as vanilla. The margin can be small, so that the vanilla is only a tiny bit better, as it is in Mannahnin's list (posted in army lists).

But being only a little worse in every way than SM:Blueguys doesn't make you a codex. Every codex is supposed to have strong points, where it can make a certain type of list better than other codexes can.

Codex DA and codex BT are missing that which makes them failures in my book, and not worth using unless you really want one of the unique things.

As far as building a functional DA army, there're a few things you get that are worth taking advantage of:

No cover save whirlwinds
cheap predators
splittable devsquads
librarian with the uber leadership save power
Sammael
cheap transports

Most of the functional things here are in the heavy slot, making the army a really tough sell.

Everywhere else you lose points or gain nothing over either Chaos or SM.
-Your bikes are worse
-Your landspeeders are no better, but cost more
-Your terminators are no better, but cost more (even Chaos termies are better due to range of reapers)
-Your tac squads are no better, but cost more (significantly - double the cost for a lascannon)
-Your jump pack squads are about the same but can't form the optimal 6-8 man units. 10 is OK though so this is a wash.
-Your dreadnoughts are no better, but cost more
-Your HQs are craptastic with few options
-Your scouts are elites but get sexy shotguns. Still mostly useless.
-Your veterans are ok if you really want to fight, due to the fairly cheap termy honors, but too expensive for most applications.


The challenge is to come up with a list that is either better, or drastically more flexible than a normal marine list with similar components.

One big problem to keep in mind is that, when buying cheap transports, your squad does not get to split during escalation. This is a severe neutering to the combat squads rule and imho makes it almost worthless for tactical squads who intend to take transports. Dev squads with no transport sound fine of course.

Maybe you could do something like:

Sammael (speeder)
3 x Landraider (normal, for lascannons)
30 scouts with pfist vets
2 x 3 man bike squad with meltaguns (troops)
assault marines to fill out points

Probly the best landraider army since it gets a fourth Av14 guy (skimmer) and can use cheap bikes as troops while still getting assault marines.

still kind of sucks though, and takes 2k pts to be happy. slim at 1850.

longshot, I think the veterans are a bit more of an advantage then you make them out to be but other then that your list is spot on.

the only build not mentioned that has potential to be better then codex is the marine horde list (which is more of a gimmick list and not that great in 4ed but still has potential). Problem is the list isn't that great until about the 2000 point level.

The other factor which doesn't bear mathematical calculation is the usefulness of the combat squads rule. This rule MAY have enough tactical utility to make up for a lot of the stupid little handicaps they take (like being forced to take veterans in every squad, and paying more for virtually every effective weapon than regular marines do).

Unfortunately, as Longshot has pointed out, the idiotic way Combat Squads works with Escalation utterly nullifies its utility in those missions. That's 1/3rd of games if you roll by the book, and literally 50% of all games played at UK GTs.

I do think I will be painting up a Librarian with a jump pack, though. He's 140pts and gets 1 fewer attack than a marine one, but his powers are unique. The flamer one averages S5 and has a 50/50 shot of low enough AP to penetrate power armor. That's not too shabby.

I find it strange that there is this mentality that if 'X' it is not as good as the last edition had it, then 'X' sucks in the new edition, period. Did template weapons become downgraded, yes, but they are still viable. All it takes is one patrial to make it better than a lasconnan shooting at a unit and that is normall not that difficult to find. There is also the intangible of forcing you opponent to spreadout ansd disperse their firepower, while you can stay in a tighter formation. Not to mention I have always found S7 weapons to be good secondary vehicle killers. Maybe to comes from playing the Tau too much with their combined arms feel, but this army has that feel as well.

Yes, those predators do tip the balnce of heavy weapons in his favor, but I do not see how his is better against hordes. The extra heavy bolters fielded are offset by the plasma cannon. Yes, yes, the template thing.... A horded has a terrible time not bunching up around terrain and if they do stay spreadout then the army will come in way too peice meal to be that effective.

I would still love to have this battle. I think the outcome would suprise many on this board. Thanks for the replies though

The Wraith

That's why I think a marine horde seems like a decent build with Dark Angels. Unlike any horde build using the marine dex, the dark angels can take the necessary 10 man squads and not have most of them sitting arond babysitting a heavy weapon.

Posted By the_wraith on 04/04/2007 11:11 AM
I find it strange that there is this mentality that if 'X' it is not as good as the last edition had it, then 'X' sucks in the new edition, period. Did template weapons become downgraded, yes, but they are still viable. All it takes is one patrial to make it better than a lasconnan shooting at a unit and that is normall not that difficult to find. There is also the intangible of forcing you opponent to spreadout ansd disperse their firepower, while you can stay in a tighter formation. Not to mention I have always found S7 weapons to be good secondary vehicle killers. Maybe to comes from playing the Tau too much with their combined arms feel, but this army has that feel as well.

The problems are that in many circumstances you won't get that partial, and that slots for lascannons are so precious in a DA/SM army that taking S7 guns in them is really shooting yourself in the foot when a heavy vehicle comes on the table.  Yes, S7 is great for "secondary" vehicle killers, but you need primary vehicle killers.  And a combination of Multimeltas and Plasmacannons just can't substitute for S9 with 48" range.

IME (and I just got back from a weekend in which I played 7 games of 40k), the instances in which squads bunch up are not common enough to make the small blast template very effective.   I like the concept of having one or two in an army to make people worry a bit about their movement and deployment, and to punish Deep Strikers, but taking them en masse in place of Lascannons is akin to madness.

Posted By the_wraith on 04/04/2007 11:11 AM

Yes, those predators do tip the balnce of heavy weapons in his favor, but I do not see how his is better against hordes. The extra heavy bolters fielded are offset by the plasma cannon. Yes, yes, the template thing.... A horded has a terrible time not bunching up around terrain and if they do stay spreadout then the army will come in way too peice meal to be that effective.

I would still love to have this battle. I think the outcome would suprise many on this board. Thanks for the replies though

The only horde army I faced this last weekend that had any trouble spreading out was a rare footslogging Ork force.  And they had grot screens to give them a 5+ cover save against any blast templates coming their way.

Against the Genestealers and other light infantry I saw, heavy bolters were quite effective, no matte how the enemy spread themselves out. 

Posted By the_wraith on 04/04/2007 11:11 AM

I would still love to have this battle. I think the outcome would suprise many on this board. Thanks for the replies though

Hey, it could certainly come out with a win.  Apart from the Plasmacannons vs the lascannons when it comes to killing each other, his advantage in the matchup isn't enormous.  But it's there and it's demonstrable in simple math.  And it means that, on average, you'll win a bit less than an equally skilled player using a nearly-identical list built with C:SM.

When an army can be shown by arithmetic to get less of the stuff it needs for MORE points, players wonder what incentive exists to play it? 

Certainly sweet models are one.  But you can use most of them with the regular codex. 

Combat squads are a joke. Combat dev squads you say? Just take the trait that allows you to play 6 dev squads if you want to so bad.

People have these medium sized tac squads with las cannons for a few reasons. Mostly because they get shot at and die. So the extra marines are there to soak wounds for the las cannon. And they still have enough bolters to put some dakka on the field.

This whole "well you can take some guys and move foward" thing is nonsense. You can do the same thing with the SM codex, just take 5 guys give them what ever and move them forward! It's another troop slot but big woop, when's the last time you maxed out your troop choice with sm's in a 1500 point game?

And with all those 5 man squads running around, torrent of fire bends DA over the table.

Since the concept of "sucks" is relative, once they release Codex: Nerf Marines, then the Codex: Nerf Angels will look decent again. Or at least be equally weak.

Then they'll have to release Codex: Nerfzilla to match up with the upcoming Codex: Nerfdemons. After they've done all that, we might actually see Codex: Orks, which will probably just suck, since nerfing would be redundant.

There really isn't a mathematical way to make a list with Codex: Nerf Angels that can't be built a little better with C:SM. I think you've all proven that here.

The best chance is to take the AV 14 Landspeeder and then build something that will be just as good as Vanilla once "C:SM redux" removes half the assault cannons from everyone else's terminator squads and forces power armor into combat squads too. Hey, maybe non-combat squad formations will be a Trait!

Then we can all go buy Tau, since they will be the last in line for rebalancing.

I was going to say /sarcasm but I just realized I'm probably not far off...

I'm beginning to think seriously about converting my Ravenwing army to Fallen DA (using the Iron Warriors rules), using obliterators as corrupted Deathwing members, bikers as bikers, marines as marines, and converting a landspeeder or two into tanks (would make a pretty cool looking defiler .

This total nerf of my 7000 pts of marines burned me very very badly.

I wouldn't. The day you finish the conversion Chaos will be nerfed worse and a new 'FAQ' will be released saying that DA and BT can still take Chapter traits from C:SM and players were stupid and unfluffy for thinking otherwise.

I no longer consider the dex worthy to be called Dark Angels as I once remembered them (Ahh the good ol days) and don't really like Nerf Angels so I think I will go with Jervis Angels at my local FLAGS. That way when a youngster comes up and asks "but I thought they were called Dark Angels" I can start with my good ol days stories prior to codex Jervis Angels. If the trend continues others could follow: Codex Jervis marines or how bout them Chaos Jervis marines. Then the youngsters will give me those strange looks like I have gone senile and play with thier combat squads anyway.

Posted By Recklessfable on 04/04/2007 2:10 PM
Since the concept of "sucks" is relative, once they release Codex: Nerf Marines, then the Codex: Nerf Angels will look decent again. Or at least be equally weak.

Then they'll have to release Codex: Nerfzilla to match up with the upcoming Codex: Nerfdemons. After they've done all that, we might actually see Codex: Orks, which will probably just suck, since nerfing would be redundant.

There really isn't a mathematical way to make a list with Codex: Nerf Angels that can't be built a little better with C:SM. I think you've all proven that here.

The best chance is to take the AV 14 Landspeeder and then build something that will be just as good as Vanilla once "C:SM redux" removes half the assault cannons from everyone else's terminator squads and forces power armor into combat squads too. Hey, maybe non-combat squad formations will be a Trait!

Then we can all go buy Tau, since they will be the last in line for rebalancing.

I was going to say /sarcasm but I just realized I'm probably not far off...

Lol.

Why not just make a new edition, instead of reprinting every codex just so that DA players can sleep warmly at night knowing theyre not the only redheaded stepchild?

A new edition isn't a bad idea. The 4th edition rulebook has a wide range of easily correctable errors.

I'd be happy to see 5th edition released this Christmas or so with some balance tweaks and a better written core rulebook.

Posted By Mannahnin on 04/04/2007 11:29 AM

The problems are that in many circumstances you won't get that partial, and that slots for lascannons are so precious in a DA/SM army that taking S7 guns in them is really shooting yourself in the foot when a heavy vehicle comes on the table.  Yes, S7 is great for "secondary" vehicle killers, but you need primary vehicle killers.  And a combination of Multimeltas and Plasmacannons just can't substitute for S9 with 48" range

Maybe it is part of the meta game around here, but I rarely have problems finding atleast one partial with a template. I also do not see a problem with not having lascannons in troop squads. The Tau I play do not have that option and they do well without. Now, the thing I would worry about is how fragile my tank busters are and that might make me reconsider if I ever made this army. Still, few armies field moer than one or two AV13+ vehicles and hopefully I have enough to deal with that.

Right now I am working on two other armies, though this one is moving up on the list because I like taking armies people think suck and win often with them....

The Wraith

The number of all Av12+ skimmer armies in this edition has made lascannons necessary. You're shootin yourself in the foot having more than one or two plasma cannons. Period. Even with one and a partial, that's only 50% more effective than a lascannon at killing guys but infinitely worse than a lascannon at taking out AV12 (the benchmark).

Winning often isn't hard. It's playing against good players with good armies and winning often that's hard. I have lost zero out of 40 or some-odd tournament games in the last couple years because frankly most of the people who play 40k are scrubs.

You won't have enough to deal with the following common lists in my area anyway:
Drop pod dreads.
Mech eldar
Mech tau
Mech marines (5 razorbacks, 3 predators, dreadnoughts)
Mech Sisters (3 exorcists, tons of rhinos)
Mech guard (5-6 chimeras, 3 hellhounds, 3 leman russes)
Godzilla nids (wound my gunfexes on a 4 v. wound my gunfexes on a 2. thanks for making the +1 toughness worthwhile)

Perhaps your local metagame is different but over here there's either a ton of vehicles or none, mostly, in good lists. And no I'm not counting your cousin's blood angels.

Posted By Longshot on 04/05/2007 9:02 AM
The number of all Av12+ skimmer armies in this edition has made lascannons necessary. You're shootin yourself in the foot having more than one or two plasma cannons. Period. Even with one and a partial, that's only 50% more effective than a lascannon at killing guys but infinitely worse than a lascannon at taking out AV12 (the benchmark).

Winning often isn't hard. It's playing against good players with good armies and winning often that's hard. I have lost zero out of 40 or some-odd tournament games in the last couple years because frankly most of the people who play 40k are scrubs.

You won't have enough to deal with the following common lists in my area anyway:
Drop pod dreads.
Mech eldar
Mech tau
Mech marines (5 razorbacks, 3 predators, dreadnoughts)
Mech Sisters (3 exorcists, tons of rhinos)
Mech guard (5-6 chimeras, 3 hellhounds, 3 leman russes)
Godzilla nids (wound my gunfexes on a 4 v. wound my gunfexes on a 2. thanks for making the +1 toughness worthwhile)

Perhaps your local metagame is different but over here there's either a ton of vehicles or none, mostly, in good lists. And no I'm not counting your cousin's blood angels.

I am light on all of those except Mech Eldar and Mech Sisters. So far I have not lost to either of those two though. I have seen mech Tau, but I doubt I have seen it in the hands of a good player. They never win

Out of what you mention the ones I would worry about are the Eldar, guard, and nids. With the guard being the worst match up. These I do feel at a disadvantage with the list I proposed. Glancing on fours is enough for me to be happy. I should fear the dreads list, but I have never seen one be effective either.

I cannot claim such a lofty record as yours for I have lost games and I do not keep track. Though I know I win many more than I lose in tournement play. Your are right, most people are scrubs in tourneys, but that makes it more fun in the later rounds when you play better people.

The wraith

Ya actually with lascanons id rather have autocanons with tank hunter or even just autocanons, lots of assault canons and lots of melta heck with the expensive las canon. I do take them against cron but really not to many in my regular list.

Two things make lascannons better that autocannons or assault cannons

1. 48" makes everything better.
2. AP2.

Lascannons can be used to reliably kill monsters, armored troops and any tanks anywhere on the board roughly, terrain willing. Can't be said about autocannons or assault cannons, which are range limited and not reliably AP2.

Obviously I don't think every gun you take should be a lascannon but you need a minimum to be able to deal with certain threats that can and do come up.


p.s. I'm not bragging about my tournament record. If you played against the lists we see down here you'd never lose either.

And if you played against the lists I saw at Adepticon, you'd swear by the lascannon. Seriously. It was amazing. I've never seen that many tight/maximized lists at a tournament.

At the team tournament I fought...

Round one: Infantry-heavy Blood Angels x2, with three jump pack squads (including two DC), a pile of guys, a Dread and a Pred for extra fire support. This was probably the softest list of the weekend.

Round two: Godzilla nids with Genestealers for support and meiotic spores.

Round three: Footslogging Ork Horde with two Demolishers, tons of Rokkits, and Grots to screen the Mobs.

Round four: Godzilla nids with Genestealers for support.

On Sunday I faced...

Footslogging Death Guard horde with summoned Plague bearers, Defiler, Pred.

The most optimized Mech Tau list I've ever seen- three Devilfish, three Rail heads, two Pirhanas, 4 Crisis in three units, 2 Crisis ICs.

Webway Dark Eldar Raider Assault with four shooty warrior squads (two DL each) and three Ravagers. This was the only army all weekend against which Plasmacannons might have been good. Still, do you prefer two hits, glancing on a 3+ or 4+ (Ravagers), or auto-glancing once (or 2+ for the Ravagers)?

similar in some ways to my list. but mine is more of an armored company so allmost all my points are tied up in the vehicles and upgrades-5 fish (pathfinder/firewarrior) 3 hammerheads and a tank hunting tooled out HQ crisis suit at 1850.

and contrary to the previous post i do win with it, quite alot, as long as i am not fighting necrons

Longshot: "Two things make lascannons better that autocannons or assault cannons"

I agree with a lot you have posted, but not that lascannon are better than assault cannon. Have some advantages over yes, but not better than - which is something else entirely.

Lascannons vs. assault cannons are apples and oranges. One is either a slow or static weapon and the other is meant to be moving fast or busting out of a pod. Each have their uses but I wouldn't put a lascannon in a pod or think that a static assault cannon was a good idea.

ender502

Posted By Longshot on 04/05/2007 12:01 PM
Two things make lascannons better that autocannons or assault cannons

1. 48" makes everything better.

Autocannons do have 48" range,  and are usually only taken in Havok squads where they are definitely more points-effective than lascannons.

In infantry squads, definitely go with lascannons

What about a 9 Rhino armylist? It fits easily into a 2000 point army. You can have Powerfists and Melta Guns in every squad (Vet squads getting 2 Meltas). After playing against certain Mech Sister and Mech Marine builds, it seems the DA's could pull it off pretty well. I would think this could actually succeed at Recon.

Posted By Orlanth on 04/05/2007 2:44 PM
Longshot: "Two things make lascannons better that autocannons or assault cannons"

I agree with a lot you have posted, but not that lascannon are better than assault cannon. Have some advantages over yes, but not better than - which is something else entirely.

I guess I should have worded this more like:

"There are two things that make lascannons preferable to assault cannons."

Having played with tons of assault cannons in various lists, I know they're good. But they're also short ranged and not always AP2. The latter is really not that important statistically but it feels important when I play that my assault cannons always roll a ton of hits and no 6's

Is it possible that simply nobody will admit that the vanilla marine codex is omfg-stupid-overpowered? What happened to the give-and-take that existed before the trait system and stupid-broken assault cannons in every other unit?

Is it a bad thing that DA can't field more than 1/2 dozen assault cannons easily? Or scare half of an army off of the board because of one stupid and horrendously undercosted librarian?

Don't misunderstand me--I haven't lost a game with my Eldar to any flavor of Marines yet in 4th edition. But the sheer number of scoring units that Dark Angels can field has me slightly nervous about upcoming tournaments...

If anything the new DA book is stronger than the vanilla 'dex because of the potential mobility of the list. The main weakness of vanilla marines is that they are undergunned if they go mech, and easy to avoid/assault if they go gunline. The new Dark Angels codex has a good chance of mopping the floor with most vanilla variants, if played by a competent general. Too bad all of *those* are too busy winning with armies that are actually cool...

EDIT: all of the above assertions were made assuming a tournament environment with proper amounts of terrain and objectives more complex than "kill as many bad guys as possible"

"Is it possible that simply nobody will admit that the vanilla marine codex is omfg-stupid-overpowered? What happened to the give-and-take that existed before the trait system and stupid-broken assault cannons in every other unit?"

No, it's quite fairly balanced against Chaos, Eldar, Tau, Tyranids and the other major armies. You can make competitive and not so competitive lists with any of them. They're all in the same bracket.

(Which isn't to say some tweaking would be a bad thing - but the people that want to rip the soul out of it and abandon the trait system really seem to just be expressing venom towards Marine players rather than a balanced view of the Codex's merits and flaws.)