No DAngle thread yet? We've got enough info for some parts of the codex and I've already begun playing the new detachments: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/649628.page

Ravenwing seem like the real stars. Last night I played a Ravenwing Strike Force detachment with two bike squads and a bike command squad, alongside the Land Raider buddy formation and some AdMech. I'm happy this allowed me to eliminate all of the tactical marines from my list without buying Sammael*, assuming GW didn't screw up that detachment's Ravenwing HQ requirement.* And the first turn turbo-boost re-rollable jink save is a Big Deal. I gotta think it'd be even better with a Darkshroud or two, especially now that they've 3 hull points and affect ALL DAngles. Could they finally be better than White Scars?

The combo of first-turn turbo-boost and second-turn deepstrike without scatter sounds like a great combo, both theatrical and hard-hitting. But can that overcome Deathwing's still-high cost? And are all-Deathwing armies viable, or do they really require Ravenwing or other allies?

For Greenwing, Grim Resolve shuts down assault armies, but did any DAngle player really have problems with them before? I wish the Lion's Blade meta-formation could've gotten those reroll doctrines instead. Also the requirement to take Assault Squads and Devestators instead of bikes and centurions. Is the Lion's Blade formation as competitively viable as the Gladius Strike Force? Maybe they're more resolute objective holders, which is the whole point of throwing out so many bodies?

(I gotta ask y'all to keep complaints about your black and bone dudes losing ObSec confined to that news thread.)

I think the Ravenwing/Deathwing combo you mentioned is huge. Being able to avoid enemy fire to get in deep to deploy even just a few terminator squads in their face, alongside the bikes already in their face, is a hell of a one-two punch.

It would be cool if you could take a bike captain/librarian to lead the ravenwing strike force, but TBH I was probably just going to use Sammael anyways!

You should not be happy about not having to run sammael. he is freaking good now. shooting multiple guns, vector striking and other features makes him a competent leader of a biker force.


Lions Blade confuses me a bit. it has the ultimate "you cannot assault me" power, making even tau stare at shock, but they are nor a very shooty codex to begin with...I'm not sure what you are supposed to DO with that.

I'I'm excited to run Sammael with his new rules. So glad i just finished my ravenwing army. (for the time being)

I'm not seeing Vector Strike as part of Sammael's rules, where are you seeing that?

I do plan to run a Librarian on a bike, not really concerned with the current wording issue. I really need to get a Dark Shroud though to make my units even more survivable that first turn. Then drop in some terminators and DW Knights on Turn 2.

Looks like DA got the shaft again. Nerfed Deathwing Assault, and some rubbish overwatch rule (which isn't going to stop you getting shot to bits by scatterlaser jetbikes).

Once again Ravenwing seems like the monobuild.

Guess I'll be selling mine soon...

zerosignal wrote:
Looks like DA got the shaft again. Nerfed Deathwing Assault, and some rubbish overwatch rule (which isn't going to stop you getting shot to bits by scatterlaser jetbikes).

Once again Ravenwing seems like the monobuild.

Guess I'll be selling mine soon...

I'll take em haha

Since my group is faqing the crap out of this book I'll add my 2 pennies as I fully expect several tourneys and a lot of groups to do the same.

First off I will be adding at least 2 libys and Sammy to my ravenwing strike force, I'm more than likely going to take the land speeder formation at full strength if it can take 5 land speeders, all with hb/mm or dual mm, pricey but 10 mm bs5 shots is nothing to sniff at, especially if they can deep strike down, even if I have to jink that's still 1/2 hits with a mm, the shroud will not be taking the assault cannon as I intend to always jink just in case.

I may even break out my vengeance, since I painted it so nicely it seems a waste not to.

I think this codex is more of a side-grade than anything. At least for my army (Ravenwing). Loosing Rad Grenades was pretty huge, it basically drops you from S 8 and S6 to S 7 and S 5, which is a big deal.

Interestingly, they are much more assault oriented now, which is weird. I guess it is supposed to represent them capturing people, where White Scars just shoot you in the face until you die from it.

The Ravenwing Formation is pretty savage. That first turn turboboost, with super jink, then shoot at full ballistic skill? Yeowza. Black Knights have always outclassed Terminators at the same price point, but now they are MORE survivable, bring their own, essentially unkillable fast assault transport, and still have better shooting. It's not a subtle army at all now. You drive up, get one turn of good shooting with your pile of BKs, weather the return fire with your 2+ REROLLABLE COVER SAVE, then double tap again at full BS and dive in. The danger of moving up too far and getting assaulted on your own first turn is pretty minimal since nobody wants to take the kind of overwatch fire massed Black Knights and the Ravenshield spit out.

Oh and you can't be overwatched. And you have hit and run. Ouch.

The support squadron or whatever it is called is a big deal. You can park Land Speeders in ruins now, take a full squad of typhoons, and spit out 10 missiles and 15 heavy bolter rounds a turn. Did I mention you have a 2+ cover save and a 48" range with your standoff weapons? Very survivable.

I believe the Darkshroud is still only going to throw stealth around itself in a 6" bubble, but it would be sweet if since it is now in a vehicle formation it is 6" from the footprint of the formation.

Darkshroud is much more viable now that we have 12 fast attack choices. 4 BK squads, 2 Dark Shrounds, Sam, and as many aircraft as you can pack in sounds pretty brutal. It's basically the army you always wanted to play but had to go unbound to do. Regular bikers aren't really worth it, they are just too outclassed by White Scars to make good use of shooting, and aren't punchy enough in assault to make the most use of super jink and hit and run. All you took them for in the past was meltas or flamers anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, in any kind of campaign game they are going to be a tough opponent. I know not a lot of people play that way anymore (shame) but putting a balanced RW force on the table is like an auto-Slay the Warlord every time you're not facing Nids. With all the bonuses they get for killing the warlord that might leak over into competitive play. Combining good card draws with formations and you can get something idiotic like 12 VPs from killing the enemy warlord in certain situations.

the codex is still a decent one and vastly superior to the last one. Greenwing isn't as strong as some C:SM builds granted, but I expect to see people using the Skyhammer force with Ravenwing and just using their green dudes with C:SM rules. The Hammer of caliban detachment is pricey, but kind of fun. 3 base ablative Predators with tank hunter/monster hunter shielding a BS 5 Land Raider. park some DW knights inside, move up with the 3 Preds surrounding the raider (You're allowed to shoot through your own vehicles in the squadron) and just have some fun.
Ravenwing is solid and I expect the base will be RWSF plus the speeder support sqdn.
Deathwing supporting Ravenwing is not too bad, but not awesome. Yes, move and shoot after deep strike makes them more survivable, but it's still typically only 1 heavy weapon. A LIbby dropped into enemy territory with Interromancy should be a lot of fun. Plus a DW command sqd only paying 5pts to get FNP, that's pretty damn cheap! Granted, it does replace his powerfist.

The book as been linked online and I noticed something odd:

The Ravenwing Strike Force detachment has a spot for three HQs (one mandatory, two optional) and requires that all units have the Ravenwing special rule. Unless I'm missing something there's no way to actually give an HQ the Ravenwing special rule, Sammael is the only one who comes stock with it. Therefore, Sammael is the only HQ you can take with the detachment, which is somewhat disappointing (and silly considering that there are extra spots that can never be used.

I could be wrong if I'm missing something somewhere that allows you to impart the RW special rule, but I'm not seeing it anywhere.

confoo22 wrote:
The book as been linked online and I noticed something odd:

The Ravenwing Strike Force detachment has a spot for three HQs (one mandatory, two optional) and requires that all units have the Ravenwing special rule. Unless I'm missing something there's no way to actually give an HQ the Ravenwing special rule, Sammael is the only one who comes stock with it. Therefore, Sammael is the only HQ you can take with the detachment, which is somewhat disappointing (and silly considering that there are extra spots that can never be used.

I could be wrong if I'm missing something somewhere that allows you to impart the RW special rule, but I'm not seeing it anywhere.

Yes GW screwed up. It will likely be FAQ'ed but until then most reasonable peoples will allow you to use another HQ on a bike. Just ask your Tournament Organizer ahead of time.

Seems like the DA battle company build has some nice differences from SM. Cheaper entry cost (Auxillary is 55 points rather than 165) for one. Also kinda like the Auxillary formations more in DA but that's probably personal preference. I think they may have the better drop pod based battle company, due to support and synergy with ravenwing/deathwing. Really nice ability to beta strike turn 2. Need to run the number a bit more though.

As for ravenwing HQs; I imagine that the bike will have rules which give the ravenwing rule like the terminator armour did in the last book. Don't have the book though.

I think the so far mellow reaction is for several reasons;
1) Codex hasn't released yet so most people haven't seen or experienced it.
2) People are starting to realize it is ridiculous to claim formation/codex X is unbeatable every week. The reaction to CWE was frankly ridiculous with people literally using witch hunt rhetoric.
3) There are a lot of codexes that are up to par now. Necrons, CWE, Ad Mech, and SM are all on par with each other with 2-6 top tier builds that can tackle ravenwing 2+ rerollable jink armies. Ironically this ravenwing army does better against most of those than it does against Khorne Daemonkin which is the only new army that lags a behind the power curve. Not nearly as far as many claim but enough to notice, largely due to the rules interpretations. This list gets a lot longer when you consider forgeworld and allies. There currently are at least a dozen army lists which are all top tier level and at least twice that which are showing up in top 8 at GTs.
4) All of the newer codexes either have methods to reduce or ignore cover or are primarily melee damage dealers. This means a lot of armies are not dealing with rerollable 2+ cover saves. Many armies will not even notice the difference between a jinking ravenwing and will just be thankful that they don't get the improved hammer of wrath that white scars get or the 4+ FnP that iron hand command squads on bikes get.
5) Durable armies can always be out played. An army that kills you to a man cannot be outscored very easily but an army that cannot be killed definitely can. Is the new ravenwing realistically more durable than decurion necrons; debatable. However they are nowhere near as killy as most of the mass outrage formations and codexes that have come out recently. IMO super durability is actually worse to play against than super killy as the games take longer and each individual strategy and tactic is worth less. Outplaying super killy leaves a dead super killy, outplaying super durable leaves you up a couple of pts or in a better position.

In many ways a proliferation of high cover saves actually has the effect of increasing the value of melee threats and ignore cover shoots. Melee always ignores cover so it is always a good answer to high cover saves.

Eating tau level overwatch ain't funny even for toughest mellee guyz. Moreso on squads that hit and run and can't be swept.

Sammael

Darktalon
Darktalon
Darktalon
Darktalon
Darktalon

Darktalon
Darktalon
Darktalon
Darktalon
Darktalon

Void Shield Generator

1850

Does the Ravenwing Strike Force have a Fortification slot? Or can you take an additional Fortification detachment?

 koooaei wrote:
Eating tau level overwatch ain't funny even for toughest mellee guyz. Moreso on squads that hit and run and can't be swept.

Come now. The overwatch is only extends past the unit charged if you take a formation of land speeders...wow, a reason to take land speeders

The BS boosting abilities all specify if the unit has not jinked and only in a few cases do they boost it above BS2, those cases requiring a LOT of non ravenwing units.


BTW the ravenwing have to turbo boost to claim their jink saves turn 1 with full BS afterward. This means no shooting turn 1. So actually they essentially give up shooting turn 1 to get closer and shoot at full effect turn 2. How likely with scout and outflank is it that you couldn't have just shot turn 1 within optimal range, then jinked, and shot snap shots turn 2. Heck, there is actually a pretty good chance that being bikers with hit and run they might not want to shoot the target when they get close but rather assault so they can hit and run out to shoot a better target. It is not a foregone conclusion to use this ability.

so what are people's thoughts on the loadout for the Landspeeder Support Squadron?

I'm currently thinking
darkshroud stock
2 LS with Typhoon and HB
1 LS with AC/HB

300pts.

That's a solid unit.

I'm not sure if I want to switch that to 2 AC and 1 Typhoon. I already have 1 Typhoon built, but other landspeeders can be given anything.

 Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Sammael

Darktalon
Darktalon
Darktalon
Darktalon
Darktalon

Darktalon
Darktalon
Darktalon
Darktalon
Darktalon

Void Shield Generator

1850

Um... Hide sammy first turn?

But, yeah... that detachment is balls out crazy...

Not that I would do this...buuuuuuuuuut:
Sammy

3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM
3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM
3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM
3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM
3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM

3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM
3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM
3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM
3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM
3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM

3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM
3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM

That's only 1460pt so far...

33 Bike units... shooting either 44 melta gunz & 24 bolters or 66 bolters...

12 Attack Bikes with Multi-Melta...

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

 whembly wrote:

 Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Sammael

Darktalon
Darktalon
Darktalon
Darktalon
Darktalon

Darktalon
Darktalon
Darktalon
Darktalon
Darktalon

Void Shield Generator

1850

Um... Hide sammy first turn?

But, yeah... that detachment is balls out crazy...

Not that I would do this...buuuuuuuuuut:
Sammy

3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM
3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM
3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM
3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM
3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM

3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM
3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM
3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM
3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM
3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM

3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM
3 RW with 2x melta guns + 1 AB with MM

That's only 1460pt so far...

33 Bike units... shooting either 44 melta gunz & 24 bolters or 66 bolters...

12 Attack Bikes with Multi-Melta...

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

you can't split the AB off unless the bikes are full strength. Under combat sqds, you have to have 7 teams that are then split into 3 separate units. If you just add an AB to 3 bikers, it stays with it. Besides, too much melta, 1/2 the bikers should be grav.

There's no rule anymore forcing AB to be split off anymore?



That sucks.

And yeah, I'd do half meltas and half gravs as they're the same costs.

Grav is 15, Melta is 10.

Is the combi-grav on the Vet Sarge worth an additional 20 points? I'd give him melta bombs to be a threat to vehicles if I were to upgrade, but I've never been a fan of vet sgts.

 Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Grav is 15, Melta is 10.

Is the combi-grav on the Vet Sarge worth an additional 20 points? I'd give him melta bombs to be a threat to vehicles if I were to upgrade, but I've never been a fan of vet sgts.

Huh... I thought I saw gravs and meltas at 10 and plasmas at 15.

We then... back to meltas if that's the case.

Also, according to leaked page 148. Full RW squads can splits it into THREE units... two units of 3 bikes and the single attack bike.

Hmmm... I think I'd rather just go with 3 man RWKnights and just purchase single attack bikes per slots:

Sammy,

3 RWK
3 RWK
3 RWK
3 RWK
3 RWK

1 attack bike w/ MM
1 attack bike w/ MM
1 attack bike w/ MM
1 attack bike w/ MM
1 attack bike w/ MM

That's 850pts there... a good core.

Other than Deathwing, whom I'm still not sold on, who makes a good ally for Ravenwing? An Imperial Knight with the Icarus anti-air guns?

I'll prolly use my grav-cannon Cult Mechanicus destroyers with them.

axisofentropy wrote:
Other than Deathwing, whom I'm still not sold on, who makes a good ally for Ravenwing? An Imperial Knight with the Icarus anti-air guns?

I'll prolly use my grav-cannon Cult Mechanicus destroyers with them.

skyhammer annihilation force would be a nice addition.

A nice addition would be a libbie conclave with three lvl 2s on bikes.

I am super excited to try out the new dex next weekend. I agree the codex feels quite strange and in some ways rushed. But DA now shines with pure Ravenwing or mixed wing, green or white.

These are the list i want to give a spin next weekend against Eldar, which i constantly lose to


List 1.

1850

Ravenwing Strike Force - 920

Hq

Sammael 200p.

Fast

Ravenwing Bike Squad, 6 bikers,melta bomb, 2x grav, combi grav, attack bike, multimelta 250

Ravenwing Bike Squad, 6 bikers,melta bomb, 2x grav, combi grav 195


Elite

Ravenwing Command Squad, 6x bikers, apothecary, Blade of C. 275



Raven Wing Support Squadron - 350

Darkshroud , assault cannon 95
3x Land Speeder , multi melta, cyclone missile launcher 85


Deathwing Strike Force 585

HQ

Librarian with terminator armour 90p

Elite

Deathwing Command squad with 3x TH/SS, , Apothecary, assault cannon - 255

Deathwing Knights 235


List 2.


1845

Ravenwing Attack Squadron 335

Ravenwing Bike Squad, 6 bikers,melta bomb, 2x grav, combi grav, attack bike, multimelta 250
Land Speeder, multi melta, cyclon missile launcher 85

Ravenwing Attack Squadron 335

Ravenwing Bike Squad, 6 bikers,melta bomb, 2x grav, combi grav, attack bike, multimelta 250
Land Speeder, multi melta, cyclon missile launcher 85

Deathwing Strike Force - 1175

HQ - 115

Librarian, mastery lvl 2, terminator armour, storm bolter 115

Elite

5x Deathwing Command squad with 3x TH/SS, Apothecary, assault cannon - 255

5x 5x Deathwing Command squad with 3x TH/SS, Apothecary, assault cannon - 255

7x Deathwing Knights 325

5x Deathwing Terminators, stormbolters, cyclone 225

Will be interesting to see if list 2 does well with the guarantied DS turn 2 and no scatter as far as the enemy deployment zone.

You can only have one Deathwing Apothecary per army, sadly.

@Al Haquis
I like your first list overall because it has a lot of different tools to deal with your opponent. Hopefully the Darkshroud can bring enough cheese to the table that it'll give you a chance against the Eldar gouda.

Hmm, what about adding the "Battle of Keyek" Relic of glory to a Dark Talon. 195 pts for a str10 ap2 ignore cover blast flier could be quite nice?

Grav is clearly worth the 5 extra points on the majority of the bikes. Not all but it is really good against almost all armies and lists

Anti air is still a problem. The fighter isn't great, the missiles are OK but only against xenos flyers. AV 12 imperial stuff (with jink) isn't going to care much. It will make FMCS jink, bit BK already do that. It doesn't have the ability to hard kill a heldrake or a flyrant, even under ideal conditions. Better off taking a fire raptor.

 Silverthorne wrote:
Anti air is still a problem. The fighter isn't great, the missiles are OK but only against xenos flyers. AV 12 imperial stuff (with jink) isn't going to care much. It will make FMCS jink, bit BK already do that. It doesn't have the ability to hard kill a heldrake or a flyrant, even under ideal conditions. Better off taking a fire raptor.

Dark talon is still a pretty good unit for its points

Sure, I agree, bit it doesn't do anything against aircraft.

 Silverthorne wrote:
Sure, I agree, bit it doesn't do anything against aircraft.

I agree as well. But in the end it wasn't designed to. Conceptually or mechanicaly.

I think the nephilim should be 150pts when you compare it to a storm raven.

army list over here ~~~ http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/653861.page

Anti-air role could be filled better by Mortis dreadnoughts than the Nephilim I think - I agree that it's still a bit overcosted. At least Mortis dreadnoughts are a bit more versatile, and Dark Angels can take more than one, which is perfect.

I feel Dark Talons are still too fragile to be good. 3 HP AV 11? When they jink they can't even shoot the Rift.

Ignores Cover will ironically be good in Ravenwing mirrors (those happen in a blue fookin moon)

Dark talon is fine I think. All you really need is that T2 rift bomb + stasis bomb for a charging black knights unit.

Fly off the table if forced to jink, and remember, our flyers re-roll their jink saves. Nothing fragile about that.

Then you lose out on a turn of shooting? Can you drop the bomb if you jink?

The bomb is pretty underwhelming. You can already do the same thing with Interromancy without waiting for turn 3. Black Knights want to be in combat turn 2.

 Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Then you lose out on a turn of shooting? Can you drop the bomb if you jink?

The bomb is pretty underwhelming. You can already do the same thing with Interromancy without waiting for turn 3. Black Knights want to be in combat turn 2.

Pretty sure bombs can be dropped if jinking. I'll have to look it up.

True, but you need 3 warp charges, it won't always work, and can be denied. The bomb will almost always hit at least a portion of the unit. And it's -3 Initiative as well, mind wipe doesn't do that.

Put it this way: if it's a threat you need to drop the bomb on, it'll charge you in turn two or be charged by you in turn two.

The flyer comes in on turn two, and most likely will only be able to drop it turn 3. Now you certainly have hit and run, so it does help for the turn 3 charge, but there's a good chance it won't be
able to affect the crucial combat on turn two.

Also, being str 4 ap 5 makes it a little rubbish for getting to the bit with the initiative check, unless you're fighting IG or something. It's really more useful for Deathwing or Greenwing,

Staple of any green wing will be command squad with the relentless banner.

Well I'd like some Squadrons of Mortis Dreads for sure.
But afaik there is currently no place for FW models in the formations unless they update their rules...
You can't just substitute a Dreadnought with a Mark V Mortis Dread, they're not the same. You'd need an extra CAD for these to bring in.
So, for now, my fire raptor is being shelved.. :/

My brother plays Dark Angels. I think he will be pleased - they look like they have received some serious buffs.

IMHO Deathwing still suffer from the problem that Terminators are a bit too expensive for their damage output, and dreadnoughts of any type are too easy to glance to death. But they have still received some nice looking buffs e.g. the upgrade that gives them fear.

tedurur wrote:
Hmm, what about adding the "Battle of Keyek" Relic of glory to a Dark Talon. 195 pts for a str10 ap2 ignore cover blast flier could be quite nice?

It would probably perform well, but I find it hilarious that a design from the late 40th millenium (when the Nephilim was first introduced, and the Dark Talon is based of the jetfighter so it's probably even younger) participated in a battle during the Great Crusade.

Can not the nephilim take twin-linked lascannons?

So I just realized you can build an all landspeeder army with rerollable 3+ jink... (2+ on the Darkshrouds themselves.)

Sableclaw + 11 units of Landspeeder/Landspeeder Darkshroud + a couple of the plasma one

It would take 27 Scat bike shots to strip one HP from a speeder jinking near a dark shroud.

Of course, if you ran into a mobile melee army, I don't think all the overwatch in the world would save you.

 BrotherGecko wrote:
Can not the nephilim take twin-linked lascannons?

It can, and it makes it marginally better at its job, but not by much. It does stand a better chance of immobilizing a flyer due to AP2, so there is that.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 BrotherGecko wrote:
Can not the nephilim take twin-linked lascannons?

It can, and it makes it marginally better at its job, but not by much. It does stand a better chance of immobilizing a flyer due to AP2, so there is that.

Actually, the chance is the same... you just have a better chance of destroying instead of whatever the 1 result is.

Mavnas wrote:

Of course, if you ran into a mobile melee army, I don't think all the overwatch in the world would save you.

What about the Ravenshield?

 raiden wrote:
Staple of any green wing will be command squad with the relentless banner.

The idea being they are loaded with grav?

kingleir wrote:

 raiden wrote:
Staple of any green wing will be command squad with the relentless banner.

The idea being they are loaded with grav?

Which is outclassed by normal bike command squad both in terms of mobility, durability and cost...

Mavnas wrote:
So I just realized you can build an all landspeeder army with rerollable 3+ jink... (2+ on the Darkshrouds themselves.)

Sableclaw + 11 units of Landspeeder/Landspeeder Darkshroud + a couple of the plasma one

It would take 27 Scat bike shots to strip one HP from a speeder jinking near a dark shroud.

Of course, if you ran into a mobile melee army, I don't think all the overwatch in the world would save you.

Shrouded confers to the unit so the darkshroud AND the speeders have a 2+ jink in the open

In a 2,000 point game, what would be a good proportion of Ravenwing to Deathwing?

I played a 10 man RBK deathstar with only 1 librarian and a support squadron.

Believe me when i say that these guys are near indestructible.

I plan on running a 3 man SM conclave on bikes for 2+ casting of invisibility or forewarning.

People are trash talking grim resolve like it isn't great but that unit alone put out 20 plasma, 2 bolter, 3 heavy bolter, 12 assault cannon, and 6 missile shots. Hitting on 5s or better


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Relapse wrote:
In a 2,000 point game, what would be a good proportion of Ravenwing to Deathwing?

2000pts of ravenwing lol

Seriously, if you were to run both, take the 1hq and 2 5 man termie squads. Anymore i think would be wasted. Thats already at least 600pts you aren't spending on ravenwing

Ravenwing certainly sounds like the fun way to go, with so many options in it now. I am annoyed that we lost the ability to add a Land Speeder into a bike squad (sure, there is the formation that does the same thing, and the Ravenwing detachment has so many FA slots to make up for it). Might have to trawl through Ebay to round up more DV bikes, attack bikes, and land speeders. Never really did like the bigger speeders, but I might have to pick one or two up eventually.

I like that the RW command squad can go up to six models, I'm currently thinking of running several of the Ravenwing formations along with a Deathwing formation (really nice that the RW teleport homers have a 12" range due to their formation). I'll have to check my inventory of models to see what I can do. Could be fun drive the bikes forward and use that 12" teleport homer range to drop the DW units behind enemy vehicles.

Yeah that formation is much better than just taking a bike squad. The only reason i see not to is if you need all your speeders for support squadrons

The command squad only gets one more model than it use to. I think, now they are closer to invincibility, 10 bk is a better option

How well would a las/plas razorbacks run in the demi company? I have no experience with that particular load out. I'm thinking of running the tacticals w/ grav cannons, the devs w/ grav cannons and the assault w/ flamers

Then the hammer of caliban predator w/ twl las and hb sponsons and a landraider.

For about 1850pts.

No sure about any of it as I've never ran any of that stuff before.

 jokerkd wrote:
Yeah that formation is much better than just taking a bike squad. The only reason i see not to is if you need all your speeders for support squadrons

The command squad only gets one more model than it use to. I think, now they are closer to invincibility, 10 bk is a better option

Command squad is still pretty good. The apothecary can make the squad even more difficult to kill, and can be a good line of defense against low AP ignores cover. But having 10 dudes in a squad is pretty tough too, and could be murder in CC as well with all those S5 Rending attacks...

As for the speeders, I will also have to go to eBay and hope I can still find some for cheap. I only have one at the moment (other than Sableclaw).

Love sableclaw vector strike - its the "drive be closer" meme but for real.

 BrotherGecko wrote:

Then the hammer of caliban predator w/ twl las and hb sponsons and a landraider.

that a single predator? Formation requires a unit of three. I made this mistake playing with the leaked pics.

axisofentropy wrote:

 BrotherGecko wrote:

Then the hammer of caliban predator w/ twl las and hb sponsons and a landraider.

that a single predator? Formation requires a unit of three. I made this mistake playing with the leaked pics.

Meant that to be predators as in 3 lol, apologies.

So, here's a question I'm asking myself at the moment : From reading the codex, it seems pretty clear to me that with the loss of the dakka banner, basic marines really have no place in a competitive setting.

It looks to me as if the codex is pretty much Ravenwing > Deathwing > anything else.

What are your toughts on the matter? Is there any way to make green wing viable, or do we just never use them again?

Lastly, considering what seems to be (with every precaution taken considering this is still early) a very ravenwing oriented codex, what are our best choices for allies?

Well with 2 Demi companies at 1850pts I've built a list that has 550 free points. 50 marines in 10 squads and 10 razorbacks all objective secured seems to be extremely good. Then I just support it with a raider and 3 whirlwinds with shred, tankhunter and monster hunter.

Looks to me like ravenwing or battle companies are the way to go with a very distant second is deathwing in this edition.

Deathwing are too slow, too expensive and not particularly tough compared to mass transports or jinking ravenwing.

Yeah I think the Lion's Blade (2 demi companies) option with support (either ravenwing or other) will be at least as solid as pure ravenwing.

 BrotherGecko wrote:
Well with 2 Demi companies at 1850pts I've built a list that has 550 free points. 50 marines in 10 squads and 10 razorbacks all objective secured seems to be extremely good. Then I just support it with a raider and 3 whirlwinds with shred, tankhunter and monster hunter.

Looks to me like ravenwing or battle companies are the way to go with a very distant second is deathwing in this edition.

Deathwing are too slow, too expensive and not particularly tough compared to mass transports or jinking ravenwing.

Oh I can see that working out at 1850, I have more trouble seing it at 1500 tought. I assume you are taking full lascanons right?

Ravenwing are nigh-invincible to shooting, so you should make them as tanky as possible in CC as well.

Iron Hands Chapter Master + Obsec bikes.
Skyhammer + Ravenwing makes for a strong double punch, especially if you come in on turn 2.
Conclave of Librarians on bikes make fantastic allies as well, chapter of your choice.

Other than that mono-ravenwing is a perfectly fine and tier 1 build- the msu spam itself cripples a lot of armies who lack the ability to handle so many 2+ / 3+ rerollable cover saves
and targeting efficiency in from the small units.

Razgaros wrote:

 BrotherGecko wrote:
Well with 2 Demi companies at 1850pts I've built a list that has 550 free points. 50 marines in 10 squads and 10 razorbacks all objective secured seems to be extremely good. Then I just support it with a raider and 3 whirlwinds with shred, tankhunter and monster hunter.

Looks to me like ravenwing or battle companies are the way to go with a very distant second is deathwing in this edition.

Deathwing are too slow, too expensive and not particularly tough compared to mass transports or jinking ravenwing.

Oh I can see that working out at 1850, I have more trouble seing it at 1500 tought. I assume you are taking full lascanons right?

Honestly not sure, looking at a mix of las/plas and asscans. Probably something like asscans on the assault razors and las/plas everywhere else.

For 1290pts running 2 Demi companies I can get 10 5 man squads. 6 grav guns for the tacs (1ea), 8 heavy bolters for the devs (4ea) and 4 flamers for the assault (2ea). Plus 10 razors with 8 las/plas and 2 asscans. And I master with relic blade and combi plas (DV master) and a no frills chappy.

Then you could spend 55pts on a scout squad for you aux choice and blow the rest beefing up the demi companies or whatever you want.

So how about smashfecker, 10 black knights, Sammy and a interomancy / telepathy liby for a unit?

 Formosa wrote:
So how about smashfecker, 10 black knights, Sammy and a interomancy / telepathy liby for a unit?

More librarians are needed, they have more utility than additional Black Knights. Ravenwing Psyker Conclave!

Although you could join 10 Black Knights to 5 Librarians, Sammael and Smashfather...

For me the best thing so far is the Ravenwing Support Squad. 3 typhoons and a Darkshroud is amazing. The crazy part is the ability to overwatch another unit, and at BS 2.

The question is does the stealth rule apply to the speeders in the unit?

Um.. If the shroud puts out the bubble and it cannot be affected by its own bubble, then yeah the rest of the unit would I think, but then the shroud would also get it because 1 model confers to the rest of the unit....That's mighty confusing

Soss wrote:
For me the best thing so far is the Ravenwing Support Squad. 3 typhoons and a Darkshroud is amazing. The crazy part is the ability to overwatch another unit, and at BS 2.

The question is does the stealth rule apply to the speeders in the unit?

Yes, the unit has both Stealth and Shrouded provided both the Darkshroud and at least one other Land Speeder are alive.

Darkshroud has Shrouded. Other Speeder gets Stealth. Both those rules apply to an entire unit as long as one model in the unit has them.

Is pure Ravenwing better than Skyhammer + Ravenwing? I can't decide if the alpha strike potential outweighs the sheer durability of pure RW.

 Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Is pure Ravenwing better than Skyhammer + Ravenwing? I can't decide if the alpha strike potential outweighs the sheer durability of pure RW.

It's a tough call. Though i think the think the Skyhammer would be a massive distraction to keep fire off of your RW units. Second turn, you can have your entire army in the enemies deployment zone and everything firing at full BS.

So good

 Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Is pure Ravenwing better than Skyhammer + Ravenwing? I can't decide if the alpha strike potential outweighs the sheer durability of pure RW.

It is actually a really tough question.

RW + Skyhammer lets you turbo boost turn 1 and then land the skyhammer + have everything in range to open up on the opponent turn 2. The nastiest part of this is that even reserves strategies may not help against this.

Pure Ravenwing is vastly more durable than a skyhammer and really doesn't need anything from any other force as they have good melee, grav guns (unit of 3 bikes w/ 2 grav guns), MM attack bikes, plasma talons, and AA. There really isn't much need to play games with reserves as the majority of alpha strike lists will find a ravenwing force with darkshroud support to be more than they can handle due to the MSU nature of it and the 3+/2+ rerollable saves. Really the biggest benefit allies can bring is being something on the board turn 1 as the RW have to all go into reserves together or deploy together.

IMO the libby conclave with white scars libbies on bikes actually makes a great ally for a RW force. They give the attack bike and bike squads skilled ride thus letting them get up to the vaunted 2+ rerollable cover. They can also roll up shrouding and invisibility which can quickly make you extremely durable. This also lets you take more grav and MM in the form of bike squads and attack bikes which are massively cheaper than the black knights. Admittedly you sacrifice some pretty good melee abilities for this.

BTW has anyone figured out how a nephilim deploys as "normally". I have been assuming it goes into reserves despite the rest of the force deploying but that may be wrong.

We've been playing that it goes into reserves and doesn't affect the rest of the force.

So I just played against a ravenwing knights squad with the librarian conclave attached and it was brutal. A 2+ re-rollable jink save with feel no pain from endurance is pretty much completely unkillable for my space marines, or at least I havent figured out how to do it. Not to mention they still have plasma talons and the librarians shooting attacks as well. Any ides on how this can be countered?

Culexus can stop them for a turn or so, but with all the twin-linked plasma, hammer of wrath and automatic hit and run it isn't too hard for them to gun him / run him down.

Drop pod grav devs with Tigurius rolling perfect timing, or drop WWP D-scythe (harder to pull off as most likely the Bikestar will always be in close combat.) Thunderwolf star with Conclave support
works too, although it's more vulnerable to shooting.

They just don't really have a hard counter, this is why they are an amazing unit. Killing the Darkshroud with Ignores Cover is more vital.

They don't have a counter in the current top meta builds. Which is good for the game.

If faced with fast assault units or hordes they fold, in close combat they are 1W R5 3+ models for 40 points.
BS2 overwatch will help you only a little with this.
Their worst nightmare are canoptek wraiths.

Is there a prevailing opinion as to which heavy weapon for Deathwing termies is the best? I know the assault cannon is pretty solid, but what about the others (Plasma Cannon, CML, Heavy Flamer)? Are they any good? The reason I ask is because I recently got a second DV Deathwing squad from eBay, and I'm thinking of doing a conversion to swap out the assault cannon for something else. I'm thinking plasma cannon or CML, but what is the best? I am planning on running a DeathRaven list in the future.

I could find a place for heavy flamer (in a DS squad that can come in precisely, or an assaulty one in a land raider), cyclone (nice and versatile), or assault cannon (also very versatile). In some ways the cyclone is a better generalist weapon than the AC (the massive range helps), and we now have split fire so you don't have to worry any longer about wasting SB shots every time you shoot the cyclone. Not so convinced about the plasma cannon.

can't use your BS2 or higher overwatch with a plasma cannon which is a new concern.

 Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Culexus can stop them for a turn or so, but with all the twin-linked plasma, hammer of wrath and automatic hit and run it isn't too hard for them to gun him / run him down.

Drop pod grav devs with Tigurius rolling perfect timing, or drop WWP D-scythe (harder to pull off as most likely the Bikestar will always be in close combat.) Thunderwolf star with Conclave support
works too, although it's more vulnerable to shooting.

They just don't really have a hard counter, this is why they are an amazing unit. Killing the Darkshroud with Ignores Cover is more vital.

Imperial Knight Acheron anyone? Those rerollable jink saves don't work very well against a giant S7 ap3 template....

With Conclavestar casting invisibility on a 2+ it's hard to get any template weapons off save the first turn.

Acherons are also pretty rare, availability speaking.

Wraiths are common but Necrons have no way of negating psychic powers aside from allying a Culexus, so the Ravenstar beats up on DLord+Wraiths and Orikan + Lychguard pretty hard. Obviously Lychguard rerolling 1s is a hard beast to kill, but I believe the Command Squad has sufficient weight of fire + close combat attacks to put them down. With Interromancy you can possibly get up to 6 attacks on the charge including HoW, roughly 60+ saves with Preferred enemy and prescience re-rolls.

Necrons also have very limited access to Ignores Cover so the rest of the army that isn't close combat does zip in terms of damage output (already low in Decurion.)

Eldar also have huge problems against unless they tailor, having to roll Perfect Timing.

Although now that I think about it... it might be nice to bring Ravenguard allies for that whole +1 to nightfighting and shrouded t1... Since DA don't have chapter tactics then Ravenguard ICs could confer shrouded right?

Probably could save you points since realistically you want the cover saves for the first turn anyways and you are going to want a Librarian conclave from C:SM

When everyone talks about the Conclave... are we talking about the DA Librarius Conclave? Or the new SM Conclave?

I'm talking about the new C:SM conclave.

If you want the DA psychic powers you could probably just run one or two on bikes for that primaris.

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:
I'm talking about the new C:SM conclave.

If you want the DA psychic powers you could probably just run one or two on bikes for that primaris.

Okay... cool.

I wanna do that ConclaveStar too... but, with the DA's Conclave to keep in the "family".

Anyone have suggestions to fit Ezekiel?

Probably a small CAD with commandsquad+Drop pod+ ezekiel. Then add in the DA Conclave+RW Formation.

Honestly Dark Angels were my first army before I got into Iron Hands and successors , and they still hold a place for me as one of the cooler factions.

Now that Dark Angels have such cool new rules I think that I can get the best of both worlds with some great ally builds. I love the whole "no overwatch for you, but I get a super-overwatch" aspect.

So this codex for me has been a major let down. As far as I can tell you can't field solo wings very easily at all. Ravenwing and Deathwing got the nerf stick and the only good thing to come out of the book is running two demi companies, and if I wanted to do that I might as well play space marines.

So here are my thoughts.

Deathwing, big issue number one is they are not objective secure anymore, which in the world of maelstrom is about as big as a nerf you can get. Sadly that same goes for ravenwing. Secondly you can't take a deathwing army with out running a green wing of some kind. The formation no longer lets you deep strike turn one and the hole formation has to be in reserve. Last time I checked you can not end first turn with nothing on the board. You can't take termies as troops so you can't use a combined arms detatchment to get around that rule. So unless you play unbound, or I missed a rule, you can no actually take a full deathwing army. That to me is utter nonsense.

There are still some other major problems. One, Belial still stinks, he was only good because he can make termies troops, they took that away and did not reduce his point cost at all. Venerable dread naughts are still mediocre at best, and are still probably not worth taking.

Termies got cheaper, but not by enough to make them remotely useful. Over all the deathwing got worse, WORSE, they were already extremely hard to win with, now you might as well not take them at all, deathwing players got shafted. After 2 years of seeing 0 terminations because they were so weak this was a really chance for GW to make them strong and worthy of being put on the table. I guess they decided they wanted to put the nail in the terminator army coffin.

I personally run raven wing and have for the past 2 plus years. What made them good was the fact the hole army could be objective secure. Now none of the army is objective secure. With the formation they have, you can't use flyers, you can't take any HQ's in addition to Sammy, and you have to start the game on the board. It is an insane nerf. I know people will say re-roll jinx is a buff, and it is, against list they were already strong against, but this book did nothing to help the ravenwing against thing there weak against, flyers, close combat, and ignore cover armies. Moreover thanks to the removal of the devastation banner I am now playing white scars. Grav guns seem like the only effective way to go now, I can't even out flank with melta's anymore. Its the same problem at death wing, if I put the formation in reserve they don't arrive until turn two, so unless I bring greenwing, I won't have any models left on the board after turn one. In addition last time I checked flyers have to be in reserve unless they can hover, and i did not see the hover strike rule on any of the flyers, so you can't run solo-ravenwing with RAVENWING FLYERS. I would love to know who wrote the ravenwing rules, becuase it is utterly disgraceful the piss poor job they did. Overall I think this was a really piss poor way to treat the ravenwing. Ohh and Sammy is still a 200 point tax but no longer give objective secure to the army. So they nerfed an already weak mandatory HQ.


They turned our codex into a vanilla space marine book. I have seen a lot of lists on hear with demi-companies. Now thats fine I suppose but what made dark angels unique was the death wing and ravenwing. These two factions, who fluff wise are the strongest elite fighters in the chapter, are now arguably the weakest part of the codex. So a thought for people, if every dark angels player just runs demi-companies, because in my opinion there insanely strong, then what makes us different from vanilla marines? And if that's the case did dark cangels just turn into black templar? In my opinion that is what this codex feels like and that is insanely disappointing.

Way to underestimate your new codex man. I'll try to explain point by point why:

Deathwing, big issue number one is they are not objective secure anymore, which in the world of maelstrom is about as big as a nerf you can get. Sadly that same goes for ravenwing.

True, they lost that. If you go for the wings you are now aiming at firepower. Playing the objective game is now for the green guys.

Secondly you can't take a deathwing army with out running a green wing of some kind. The formation no longer lets you deep strike turn one and the hole formation has to be in reserve. Last time I checked you can not end first turn with nothing on the board. You can't take termies as troops so you can't use a combined arms detatchment to get around that rule. So unless you play unbound, or I missed a rule, you can no actually take a full deathwing army. That to me is utter nonsense.

This is still getting discussed. That rule isn't clear. It is possible that if you take non DS-able guys or Land Raiders you can field them normally. Yes though, losing turn 1 DS hurts.

There are still some other major problems. One, Belial still stinks, he was only good because he can make termies troops, they took that away and did not reduce his point cost at all. Venerable dread naughts are still mediocre at best, and are still probably not worth taking.

He got a couple of buffs to counterbalance it. Still not the best guy out there, but honestly he never was and now he is a bit better.

Termies got cheaper, but not by enough to make them remotely useful. Over all the deathwing got worse, WORSE, they were already extremely hard to win with, now you might as well not take them at all, deathwing players got shafted. After 2 years of seeing 0 terminations because they were so weak this was a really chance for GW to make them strong and worthy of being put on the table. I guess they decided they wanted to put the nail in the terminator army coffin.

And this is where you are really wrong. Termis got greatly buffed. Greatly. You're looking only at the stats on them, not on the fact that the whole codex is in synergy with them. The interromancy practically screams Deathwing, it covers all it would ever desire. The interactions with the Ravenwing got shot up 2 levels. The buff to ravenwing is a buff to deathwing, those teleport homers are nigh invincible. The beta strike that a deathwing/ravenwing army can pull off is almost broken good.

I personally run raven wing and have for the past 2 plus years. What made them good was the fact the hole army could be objective secure. Now none of the army is objective secure. With the formation they have, you can't use flyers,

Still under discussion, with most agreeing that "Deploy normally" means that the flyers go in reserve. Oh and those flyers got the biggest buff in the codex, especially the talon.

you can't take any HQ's in addition to Sammy, and you have to start the game on the board. It is an insane nerf. I know people will say re-roll jinx is a buff, and it is, against list they were already strong against, but this book did nothing to help the ravenwing against thing there weak against, flyers, close combat, and ignore cover armies. Moreover thanks to the removal of the devastation banner I am now playing white scars. Grav guns seem like the only effective way to go now, I can't even out flank with melta's anymore. Its the same problem at death wing, if I put the formation in reserve they don't arrive until turn two, so unless I bring greenwing, I won't have any models left on the board after turn one. In addition last time I checked flyers have to be in reserve unless they can hover, and i did not see the hover strike rule on any of the flyers, so you can't run solo-ravenwing with RAVENWING FLYERS. I would love to know who wrote the ravenwing rules, becuase it is utterly disgraceful the piss poor job they did. Overall I think this was a really piss poor way to treat the ravenwing. Ohh and Sammy is still a 200 point tax but no longer give objective secure to the army. So they nerfed an already weak mandatory HQ.

Sammy got quite some buffs too, he is worth every single point.
White scars lists only dream of being able to do half the things that a RW army can do. Forget gravs, black knights rock too hard (and cost less).

Dude, DA conclave with 5 biker libbys with mindworm at 24 inches!

I know this thread is primarily for Main force Dark Angels, but the Ravenwing makes it easy to take two small squads of melta bikes that can turbo boost turn 1, count as jinking, and deliver full ballistic meltas turn 2. Just an option.

OK, without thinking about stars and other allied combos, I want to know how to kit out my 12 RW bikes. We are a pretty casual group so I don't need uber-hammer to be a big factor.

Options I'm considering....3x4 bikes with 2 specials in each (2 melta, 1 plasma or grav if I convert)

Or, is it best to go 3 bikes with 2 meltas and add the Attack bike with MM into 1 sqd.

As for the attack bikes, run solo? I'm guessing that's better than doubling up but I'm wondering if they'll do better in a bike sqd.

If I do go 2x3 bikes, w 2 meltas and AB w MM, that'll leave me with 6 bikes. I honestly don't like the option of 3 bikes in a sqd, just too easily killed. 6 seems like overkill though unless I go 2x flamer and equip sgt for melee. I do feel black knights do a better job of this by far however.

So this being said, 2 x 4 bikes w 2 melta, AB w MM (175pts) seems like a pretty durable unit. If I don't go Land Speeder support squadron (don't have darkshroud and 3rd speeder yet) then adding a Typhoon to each sqd makes a nice Attack sqdn using the typhoon at range to "mark" targets for the bikes to finish with BS5 melta.

 raiden wrote:

 Silverthorne wrote:
Sure, I agree, bit it doesn't do anything against aircraft.

I agree as well. But in the end it wasn't designed to. Conceptually or mechanicaly.

I think the nephilim should be 150pts when you compare it to a storm raven.

Yes rerolling 3 up jinks makes it far inferior

DirtyDeeds wrote:
I know this thread is primarily for Main force Dark Angels, but the Ravenwing makes it easy to take two small squads of melta bikes that can turbo boost turn 1, count as jinking, and deliver full ballistic meltas turn 2. Just an option.

Indeed.

With the new SM books, I think parking lot vehicles will be en vogue again with the freebie DT Demi's.

Food for thought...

-Sammy
-10 Ravenwing Knight
- Attack Bike w/ MM
- Attack Bike w/ MM
- Attack Bike w/ MM
*** DA Libriarian Conclave
-Ezekiel
-4x lvl2 Librian on Bike.

Clocks in at 1350 pts.

I really like the lone Attack Bike in this formation, escourting a librarian... turbo-jink 1st turn for jink saves, then nuke vehicles by turn 2.

The only issue I see here is what to do with Ezekiel...

Desrok1 wrote:
So this codex for me has been a major let down. As far as I can tell you can't field solo wings very easily at all. Ravenwing and Deathwing got the nerf stick and the only good thing to come out of the book is running two demi companies, and if I wanted to do that I might as well play space marines.

So here are my thoughts.

Deathwing, big issue number one is they are not objective secure anymore, which in the world of maelstrom is about as big as a nerf you can get. Sadly that same goes for ravenwing. Secondly you can't take a deathwing army with out running a green wing of some kind. The formation no longer lets you deep strike turn one and the hole formation has to be in reserve. Last time I checked you can not end first turn with nothing on the board. You can't take termies as troops so you can't use a combined arms detatchment to get around that rule. So unless you play unbound, or I missed a rule, you can no actually take a full deathwing army. That to me is utter nonsense.

There are still some other major problems. One, Belial still stinks, he was only good because he can make termies troops, they took that away and did not reduce his point cost at all. Venerable dread naughts are still mediocre at best, and are still probably not worth taking.

Termies got cheaper, but not by enough to make them remotely useful. Over all the deathwing got worse, WORSE, they were already extremely hard to win with, now you might as well not take them at all, deathwing players got shafted. After 2 years of seeing 0 terminations because they were so weak this was a really chance for GW to make them strong and worthy of being put on the table. I guess they decided they wanted to put the nail in the terminator army coffin.

I personally run raven wing and have for the past 2 plus years. What made them good was the fact the hole army could be objective secure. Now none of the army is objective secure. With the formation they have, you can't use flyers, you can't take any HQ's in addition to Sammy, and you have to start the game on the board. It is an insane nerf. I know people will say re-roll jinx is a buff, and it is, against list they were already strong against, but this book did nothing to help the ravenwing against thing there weak against, flyers, close combat, and ignore cover armies. Moreover thanks to the removal of the devastation banner I am now playing white scars. Grav guns seem like the only effective way to go now, I can't even out flank with melta's anymore. Its the same problem at death wing, if I put the formation in reserve they don't arrive until turn two, so unless I bring greenwing, I won't have any models left on the board after turn one. In addition last time I checked flyers have to be in reserve unless they can hover, and i did not see the hover strike rule on any of the flyers, so you can't run solo-ravenwing with RAVENWING FLYERS. I would love to know who wrote the ravenwing rules, becuase it is utterly disgraceful the piss poor job they did. Overall I think this was a really piss poor way to treat the ravenwing. Ohh and Sammy is still a 200 point tax but no longer give objective secure to the army. So they nerfed an already weak mandatory HQ.


They turned our codex into a vanilla space marine book. I have seen a lot of lists on hear with demi-companies. Now thats fine I suppose but what made dark angels unique was the death wing and ravenwing. These two factions, who fluff wise are the strongest elite fighters in the chapter, are now arguably the weakest part of the codex. So a thought for people, if every dark angels player just runs demi-companies, because in my opinion there insanely strong, then what makes us different from vanilla marines? And if that's the case did dark cangels just turn into black templar? In my opinion that is what this codex feels like and that is insanely disappointing.

This book is right at the vanilla/eldar power level. If not there very close. You're cray

 whembly wrote:

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:
I'm talking about the new C:SM conclave.

If you want the DA psychic powers you could probably just run one or two on bikes for that primaris.

Okay... cool.

I wanna do that ConclaveStar too... but, with the DA's Conclave to keep in the "family".

Anyone have suggestions to fit Ezekiel?

Probably a small CAD with commandsquad+Drop pod+ ezekiel. Then add in the DA Conclave+RW Formation.

Not a great idea in general. The knightstar unit done properly is A LOT of points. Wasting an extra 150 on 'zeke is not going to help.

The SM one is superior in almost every way. It's not like you can't use a DA scheme and just use SM rules

Basically, if you want the DA formation, that's cool. But if you want to use them for the knightstar, you're doing yourself no favours


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Man..... i need to start checking for more pages before i reply :/


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 bullyboy wrote:
OK, without thinking about stars and other allied combos, I want to know how to kit out my 12 RW bikes. We are a pretty casual group so I don't need uber-hammer to be a big factor.

Options I'm considering....3x4 bikes with 2 specials in each (2 melta, 1 plasma or grav if I convert)

Or, is it best to go 3 bikes with 2 meltas and add the Attack bike with MM into 1 sqd.

As for the attack bikes, run solo? I'm guessing that's better than doubling up but I'm wondering if they'll do better in a bike sqd.

If I do go 2x3 bikes, w 2 meltas and AB w MM, that'll leave me with 6 bikes. I honestly don't like the option of 3 bikes in a sqd, just too easily killed. 6 seems like overkill though unless I go 2x flamer and equip sgt for melee. I do feel black knights do a better job of this by far however.

So this being said, 2 x 4 bikes w 2 melta, AB w MM (175pts) seems like a pretty durable unit. If I don't go Land Speeder support squadron (don't have darkshroud and 3rd speeder yet) then adding a Typhoon to each sqd makes a nice Attack sqdn using the typhoon at range to "mark" targets for the bikes to finish with BS5 melta.

Dont forget sergeant s can take combi grav/melta

jakejackjake wrote:

Desrok1 wrote:
So this codex for me has been a major let down. As far as I can tell you can't field solo wings very easily at all. Ravenwing and Deathwing got the nerf stick and the only good thing to come out of the book is running two demi companies, and if I wanted to do that I might as well play space marines.

So here are my thoughts.

Deathwing, big issue number one is they are not objective secure anymore, which in the world of maelstrom is about as big as a nerf you can get. Sadly that same goes for ravenwing. Secondly you can't take a deathwing army with out running a green wing of some kind. The formation no longer lets you deep strike turn one and the hole formation has to be in reserve. Last time I checked you can not end first turn with nothing on the board. You can't take termies as troops so you can't use a combined arms detatchment to get around that rule. So unless you play unbound, or I missed a rule, you can no actually take a full deathwing army. That to me is utter nonsense.

There are still some other major problems. One, Belial still stinks, he was only good because he can make termies troops, they took that away and did not reduce his point cost at all. Venerable dread naughts are still mediocre at best, and are still probably not worth taking.

Termies got cheaper, but not by enough to make them remotely useful. Over all the deathwing got worse, WORSE, they were already extremely hard to win with, now you might as well not take them at all, deathwing players got shafted. After 2 years of seeing 0 terminations because they were so weak this was a really chance for GW to make them strong and worthy of being put on the table. I guess they decided they wanted to put the nail in the terminator army coffin.

I personally run raven wing and have for the past 2 plus years. What made them good was the fact the hole army could be objective secure. Now none of the army is objective secure. With the formation they have, you can't use flyers, you can't take any HQ's in addition to Sammy, and you have to start the game on the board. It is an insane nerf. I know people will say re-roll jinx is a buff, and it is, against list they were already strong against, but this book did nothing to help the ravenwing against thing there weak against, flyers, close combat, and ignore cover armies. Moreover thanks to the removal of the devastation banner I am now playing white scars. Grav guns seem like the only effective way to go now, I can't even out flank with melta's anymore. Its the same problem at death wing, if I put the formation in reserve they don't arrive until turn two, so unless I bring greenwing, I won't have any models left on the board after turn one. In addition last time I checked flyers have to be in reserve unless they can hover, and i did not see the hover strike rule on any of the flyers, so you can't run solo-ravenwing with RAVENWING FLYERS. I would love to know who wrote the ravenwing rules, becuase it is utterly disgraceful the piss poor job they did. Overall I think this was a really piss poor way to treat the ravenwing. Ohh and Sammy is still a 200 point tax but no longer give objective secure to the army. So they nerfed an already weak mandatory HQ.


They turned our codex into a vanilla space marine book. I have seen a lot of lists on hear with demi-companies. Now thats fine I suppose but what made dark angels unique was the death wing and ravenwing. These two factions, who fluff wise are the strongest elite fighters in the chapter, are now arguably the weakest part of the codex. So a thought for people, if every dark angels player just runs demi-companies, because in my opinion there insanely strong, then what makes us different from vanilla marines? And if that's the case did dark cangels just turn into black templar? In my opinion that is what this codex feels like and that is insanely disappointing.

This book is right at the vanilla/eldar power level. If not there very close. You're cray

yeah, I have no idea how he can look at this book and feel it's a nerf, lol.

The codex itself is a disappointment, I have to agree. They had the opportunity to take various steps to make Terminators a competitive force but didn't, and the book suffers from
terrible internal balance. Black Knights + Darkshroud support is so strong there's literally very little reason to take anything else.

Things they could have done to make the book speshul (utter wishlisting):



Arguably re-roll jink is the worst thing Ravenwing could have gotten because it thoroughly unbalances the game and makes opponents without Ignores Cover (Necrons, Orks, Dark Eldar) immediately screwed.

Sammael... is problematic. I do agree he's overcosted by 20-30 points but that's neither here nor there at the moment since he's compulsory. His warlord trait giving you a 5" minimum
charge is a huge buff and takes all the risk out of assault. Plasma cannon should have been changed to plasma culverin or something 30k-ish.

Otherwise, Conclave should have been brought in line with the SM version and Ezekiel not compulsory. The codex could have been better in almost every way; in comparison with Codex SM there's a total lack of internal balance and so many errors.

He plays ravenwing and still doesn't think it's good lol

 jokerkd wrote:
He plays ravenwing and still doesn't think it's good lol

I'm not saying 2+ rerollable jinks aren't good, they're bad for the game in general.

Just picked up the codex today. I'm sad. No power field generator. Guess my DA allies are going into a box.

I don't think Deathwing is all that bad, as far as terminators go. Mixed weapons, split fire, reroll on deep strike, shoot and run or run and shoot. Without changing the entire way terminators are represented in the game, I'm not sure what could be done.

 Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

 jokerkd wrote:
He plays ravenwing and still doesn't think it's good lol

I'm not saying 2+ rerollable jinks aren't good, they're bad for the game in general.

You got in just before me. I was referring to desrok1

Grav command squad is 200pts, the same price as a black knight squad with five models.

Can't tell me that plasma talons are better than a grav command squad unless you get into cuddling range. In which case, your 2+ jink isn't going to mean much in a minute...

I suppose the order of the day is going to be rending thunderfire cannons, Tigurius rolling on divnation, etc. to deal with that in a marine army.

I do think that Dark Angels biggest strength is going to be ravenwing. Can they still scout? I think someone said earlier they can't outflank their melta anymore, which would be a nerf. But since they already pay 25 points per model compared to a white scars 21, if you aren't taking any deathwing you are wasting the teleport homers.

I think we'll,see more ignore cover possible models thrown into armies, or anything that can reliably soak the plasma fire and kill a bunch of Knights in combat. Or av14.

 Crazyterran wrote:
Grav command squad is 200pts, the same price as a black knight squad with five models.

Can't tell me that plasma talons are better than a grav command squad unless you get into cuddling range. In which case, your 2+ jink isn't going to mean much in a minute...

I suppose the order of the day is going to be rending thunderfire cannons, Tigurius rolling on divnation, etc. to deal with that in a marine army.

I do think that Dark Angels biggest strength is going to be ravenwing. Can they still scout? I think someone said earlier they can't outflank their melta anymore, which would be a nerf. But since they already pay 25 points per model compared to a white scars 21, if you aren't taking any deathwing you are wasting the teleport homers.

I think we'll,see more ignore cover possible models thrown into armies, or anything that can reliably soak the plasma fire and kill a bunch of Knights in combat. Or av14.

they can still outflank. the whole ravenwing strike force has to either start on the table or be held in reserves. considering an attack squadron is now a formation of it's own, you can still take a bike squad and outflank it, even when running a strike force

Want to know why re-roll jinx are not that good, its because it just makes the ravenwing better, against lists it was already beating, Tua, eldar, cent-start, libby enclave, flyrant spam, hell drakes, demons, all the list ravenwing was bad against, they are still bad against. 2 up re-rolls does not help you against any sort of ignore cover, which most armies will have. Ravenwing are still weak in close combat, and still have no way to deal with flyers.

So Ravenwing still stomp a good chunk of lists, but still have severely bad match ups. Which is the problem. Also, not sure why you love to jinx so much, the ravenwings a shooting army, if your jinxing, next turn your not doing anything.

So my point still stands, our flyers are still not table worthy. Sammy is still a tax, they still lose to many of the other codexs out there. They no longer have objective secure. Which is one of the biggest nerfs, We live in an era of maelstrom! Objectives win games, not kill points, not number of models still alive, and as it stands ravenwing can't contest anything.

I won't touch on the deathwing, as i still feel there unplayable in any competitive way. Not to mention you have to take green wing to field them, which wooo, I can't even run a solo death wing army anymore YAY!

Ravenwing as far as I am concerned is meh, at this point. It will do ok against list that can't touch there weakness, close combat, ignore cover, flyers, and mass objective secure.

Demi-company is still the best, free drop pods, all objective secure, sooooo, I guess we are a vanilla space marine codex.

I play at a very competitive game store, so I see lists that place nationally, and I have played against them, so I can say with a good amount of confidence, solo-ravenwing armies are still not where they need to be to be good. They only way I have seen some potential is ravenwing with allies, like the libby conclave, on bikes, or running like thunderwolf cav.

But hey if you like the codex good for you, it for you to enjoy, just my opinion on how this codex feel way short of expectations.

 bullyboy wrote:
I don't think Deathwing is all that bad, as far as terminators go. Mixed weapons, split fire, reroll on deep strike, shoot and run or run and shoot. Without changing the entire way terminators are represented in the game, I'm not sure what could be done.

What could have been done is to make them less fragile to small arms fire, they die like flies.

Stop looking only at the stats and look at the synergies.

Turn 1: RW goes wherever it likes untouched.
Turn 2: DW arrives with precise deep strike. RW assault the shooty units or interromancy takes care of them. Sammael joins the biggest termi unit and protects against small arms with jink. However you do it, nothing is able to seriously shot your termies.
Turn 3: Pain (with +3 on charge and a model that slingshots through difficult terrain)

Spoletta wrote:
Stop looking only at the stats and look at the synergies.

Turn 1: RW goes wherever it likes untouched.
Turn 2: DW arrives with precise deep strike. RW assault the shooty units or interromancy takes care of them. Sammael joins the biggest termi unit and protects against small arms with jink. However you do it, nothing is able to seriously shot your termies.
Turn 3: Pain (with +3 on charge and a model that slingshots through difficult terrain)

Too many assumptions regarding the opposing player and terrain, extrapolation on a possible scenario is not helpful in justifying why they are good in your opinion.

The stats Terminators have are not assumptions, they are fact. The stats are not competitive in the slightest. Terminated would be a better name for these woeful models.

I'll agree that DW isn't great, i can only see it being useful as a small addition to a RW army.

Ravenwing, however, got much better. The play testing i have done so far has been brutal. The "no overwatch for you but all the overwatch for me" makes close combat much easier on us.
The knightstar unit, built properly, may as well be unchargable.

The flyers absolutely ARE usable now. Missile lock, strafing run, and S7 missiles make the nephalim actually effective.
The talon with s10 ap2 + Bomb is also better.
take the silence squadron and laugh......

No playable list has army wide ignores cover. Sure you can tailor one, but will it be balanced enough to face any other armies?
And IF the meta changes to try and tackle a new book, it only proves how strong that book is

I dont see why everyone is stoked about the turn 1 Turbo then shoot turn 2...we already have scout on our bikes and attack bikes (and sometimes speeders too!!)

Scout up (behind cover if going 2nd) and first turn melta the stuff you dont like, then jink. Stop the enemy from being able to shoot you as any roll of the dice can be failed, but you cant lose the dice roll if the enemy cant roll a die!

I'm not a DA or Eldar player, but doesn't the Eldar wraith flamer list have a lot of ignores cover? And isn't that already a thing in the current competitive meta?

The fact that a unit can be made invisible so easily with a conclave is one of the three things that make a knightstar so OP

The fact is, we didn't have anything remotely like a deathstar before this codex. Now we do. If someone doesn't like like running OP units, thats up to them, but they shouldn't complain that their codex is gak because the units they want to run didn't get a buff

 Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
The codex itself is a disappointment, I have to agree. They had the opportunity to take various steps to make Terminators a competitive force but didn't, and the book suffers from
terrible internal balance. Black Knights + Darkshroud support is so strong there's literally very little reason to take anything else.

Things they could have done to make the book speshul (utter wishlisting):

Spoiler:

Interrogator-Chaplains adding buffs other than Zealot - there's literally no reason to take him over a Librarian.
Special Character Chaplains: Asmodai still sucks. He needed a serious buff to be competitive, which he didn't get. Should have re-introduced Sapphon.

Azrael- Needed a cc buff to bring him in line with other LoW (although CC isn't really his thing) and the command rod options of the Command Rhino to represent his strategic mastery, like Zandrekh.
Being a glorified PFG for his points cost does him no favours. Should have given RW and DW Obsec.

Belial - Should have given Terminators Obsec, giving you a reason to take him. Should have inbuilt EW and inbuilt FNP and 3++ save, and the ability to sweeping advance.

DWT: Serious points cut, like -10 pm. Inbuilt FNP and preferred enemy. Ability to charge out of deepstrike.

Deathwing Knights: Same buffs as deathwing but retaining STR 10 AP 1 smite. The new smite is rubbish and there's no reason to ever use it aside from panic. +1 wound.

BKs: Already the best unit in the codex (possibly the game) they didn't need any buffs aside from not losing the nerf to Rad grenades. Was -1 T really breaking the game?

RW Squads: Fine.

Land Speeder Vengeance: for 120 points it really needs Ignore Cover on the Plasma or no Gets Hot to be even considered worth taking.

Nephlim: Would Str 8 missiles really have broken it? Avenger bolt cannon should have been Heavy 12, rending, in line with the Knight Warden.

Dark Talon: Stasis bomb should have not required wounding to force initiative check. Rift cannon large blast.

Deathwing/Ravenwing formation allowing T1 deepstrike.
Deathwing Knights/ Black Knights formation allowing T1 deepstrike and charge.

Arguably re-roll jink is the worst thing Ravenwing could have gotten because it thoroughly unbalances the game and makes opponents without Ignores Cover (Necrons, Orks, Dark Eldar) immediately screwed.

Sammael... is problematic. I do agree he's overcosted by 20-30 points but that's neither here nor there at the moment since he's compulsory. His warlord trait giving you a 5" minimum
charge is a huge buff and takes all the risk out of assault. Plasma cannon should have been changed to plasma culverin or something 30k-ish.

Otherwise, Conclave should have been brought in line with the SM version and Ezekiel not compulsory. The codex could have been better in almost every way; in comparison with Codex SM there's a total lack of internal balance and so many errors.

I agree with your overview of the codex. Its more powerful, but still dissappointing. They keep trying to make the RW/DW combo attack thing happen, but it's just too many points. If there was a skyhammer type thing that let DW guys immediately assault after landing if within range of a RW homer, that might be something, but otherwise you are dividing your army up into too many things that don't support each other well. And people are going crazy over the BK but I consider the loss of Rad Grenades to make their new jink shenanigans almost a push as far as effectiveness overall goes. the 1-2 of a toughness debuff followed by a wall of mass reactives from the dakka banner will be sorely missed.

Sam is tough. His rules are pretty decent and you can see why they pointed him the way they did, but he is just hardly ever worth it. If in addition to his regular warlord trait he had something that gave him a VP every time he killed a character and D3 VPs when he killed an independent character, he'd be a good deal. There in't much more they can do with his stats to make it work. I also hate how they made his fluff more boring. He had the coolest background of any loyal space marine. Ramping out of the back of a disintegrating thunderhawk on the last jetbike in the Imperium? Awesome. Giving him the ability to challenge in the movement phase when he rides over someone to represent him flying over and grabbing a dude would have been cool.

Anyone got opinions to devastator load outs for the Demi Company? Right now I'd love to run 4 grav cannons in a drop pod but it is a metric ton of points.

 BrotherGecko wrote:
Anyone got opinions to devastator load outs for the Demi Company? Right now I'd love to run 4 grav cannons in a drop pod but it is a metric ton of points.

Is this a single demi-company or a doubled one? If it's doubled, I kinda like the idea of running two Lascannon plus a Lascannon razorback. Reasonably cheap, still respectable against vehicles.

Devs in drop pods is not a good idea. Even with grav, 12 shots will net you 2 hits on average, then any half decent player will focus fire on them before they can shoot 20 at bs4

 jokerkd wrote:
Devs in drop pods is not a good idea. Even with grav, 12 shots will net you 2 hits on average, then any half decent player will focus fire on them before they can shoot 20 at bs4

Why only 2 hits? Since it's a Salvo weapon and not a Heavy don't you shoot at full BS? Might be I'm wrong on this, though, let me know.

You do shoot at full bs, but you shoot less shots and at half range.

DirtyDeeds wrote:
You do shoot at full bs, but you shoot less shots and at half range.

Yeah, the 12" can hurt, but still, if you're landing with a drop pod and you have your movement out of said drop pod you can get in range. Which is still 12 shots, of which probably 8 will hit, and then with re-rolls To Wound because of the Grav-Amp.

my plan is to simply have a squad of 5 devs with 2 grav cannons in a rhino. (maybe 2 sqds). The grav cannon is so expensive that it paints a huge "kill me" target on it's back, and marines are easy to kill. 2 can fire out of a rhino hatch and the rhino is a better ablative than 2 more marines (roughly same cost). This works even better in a battle company where the rhino is free.

I'm thinking for right now 1 demi company.

Trying to come up with a good load out for the 5 devs and 5 assault.

I'm also trying to decide if I should use razorbacks or drop pods for either of them.

 Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

 jokerkd wrote:
He plays ravenwing and still doesn't think it's good lol

I'm not saying 2+ rerollable jinks aren't good, they're bad for the game in general.

This is definitely true. The Imperium should be sweeping tournaments soon with their broken combos


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Desrok1 wrote:
Want to know why re-roll jinx are not that good, its because it just makes the ravenwing better, against lists it was already beating, Tua, eldar, cent-start, libby enclave, flyrant spam, hell drakes, demons, all the list ravenwing was bad against, they are still bad against. 2 up re-rolls does not help you against any sort of ignore cover, which most armies will have. Ravenwing are still weak in close combat, and still have no way to deal with flyers.

So Ravenwing still stomp a good chunk of lists, but still have severely bad match ups. Which is the problem. Also, not sure why you love to jinx so much, the ravenwings a shooting army, if your jinxing, next turn your not doing anything.

So my point still stands, our flyers are still not table worthy. Sammy is still a tax, they still lose to many of the other codexs out there. They no longer have objective secure. Which is one of the biggest nerfs, We live in an era of maelstrom! Objectives win games, not kill points, not number of models still alive, and as it stands ravenwing can't contest anything.

I won't touch on the deathwing, as i still feel there unplayable in any competitive way. Not to mention you have to take green wing to field them, which wooo, I can't even run a solo death wing army anymore YAY!

Ravenwing as far as I am concerned is meh, at this point. It will do ok against list that can't touch there weakness, close combat, ignore cover, flyers, and mass objective secure.

Demi-company is still the best, free drop pods, all objective secure, sooooo, I guess we are a vanilla space marine codex.

I play at a very competitive game store, so I see lists that place nationally, and I have played against them, so I can say with a good amount of confidence, solo-ravenwing armies are still not where they need to be to be good. They only way I have seen some potential is ravenwing with allies, like the libby conclave, on bikes, or running like thunderwolf cav.

But hey if you like the codex good for you, it for you to enjoy, just my opinion on how this codex feel way short of expectations.

Ravenwing weren't beating any of those lists. And most armies may have some ignore cover. Like a a way to get a couple hits per turn that way but that's it. Ignores cover is actually rare. Deathwing sucks because terminators suck.

At my hobby store a group of us look at the top lists and then run them against each other. That flying demons/ ork list that won recently? I just ran that. I understand completely what you are saying but ravenwing can definitely win alone and if you aren't allying your imperial army you are not optimizing your lists usually.

I'd go for minned out gladius/ lion's blade with ravenwing detachment as well. I can see a lot of win here


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BrotherGecko wrote:
I'm thinking for right now 1 demi company.

Trying to come up with a good load out for the 5 devs and 5 assault.

I'm also trying to decide if I should use razorbacks or drop pods for either of them.

Drop pod if you use grav on cents otherwise razorbacks with be a more competivive choice. More obsec units that can move is better

 Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
(snip)

Wraiths are common but Necrons have no way of negating psychic powers aside from allying a Culexus, so the Ravenstar beats up on DLord+Wraiths and Orikan + Lychguard pretty hard. Obviously Lychguard rerolling 1s is a hard beast to kill, but I believe the Command Squad has sufficient weight of fire + close combat attacks to put them down. With Interromancy you can possibly get up to 6 attacks on the charge including HoW, roughly 60+ saves with Preferred enemy and prescience re-rolls.

Necrons also have very limited access to Ignores Cover so the rest of the army that isn't close combat does zip in terms of damage output (already low in Decurion.)

Eldar also have huge problems against unless they tailor, having to roll Perfect Timing.

I've been thinking a lot about this, as my housie is dusting off his RW... and I have 'rons and Eldar to test.

Necron lords have access to flamers, and there is a one-use AP2 relic flamer that I might start running. They have a weak way to counter psychics (gloom prison on the spyder... pretty rubbish, but it's something). I'd consider allying in a culexus.

Eldar warlocks primaris power is Reveal - I think it removes stealth *and* shrouded from the target unit?
Eldar wave serpents. Everyone seems to think that they were nerfed heavily... actually, I think they're still good. Not OP like before, but still good, and they put out avg. 7 S6 ignores cover shots at 24".
Wraithguard with d-scythes. I think these may now just be an essential unit to run. Probably want two, in WS, so expensive, but they seem like a hard counter.

I just noticed the Champion's Blade of Caliban is no longer Unwieldy! Do they now have value in the Ravenwing Command Squad? S5 AP3 four attacks on charge WS5

axisofentropy wrote:
I just noticed the Champion's Blade of Caliban is no longer Unwieldy! Do they now have value in the Ravenwing Command Squad? S5 AP3 four attacks on charge WS5

I think it's worth it. The Corvus hammers can rend 2+.

So after playing a game today my feeling is that the Ravenwing Command Squad/BKs is where it's at, call it Knight spam. Just run a basic CAD with scouts as troops, a basic libby on bike HQ and then max out on your allies and Ravenwing command squads.

Why? RCS is great in both shooting and close combat so the jinking penalty is not as severe. They can get FNP which synergizes well with things like the Iron Hands Smash Master. Their jinks are stock 3+ rerollable. Backed with FNP that's plenty durable. Throw in a darkshroud or ravenwing support squad for the 2+ rerollable. You can easily have 3-4 of these units running around or more.

Probably the scariest matchup is Cent Star with perfect timing. The Culexus assassin is an ally option to consider.

This list is extremely resilient versus any list that depends on weight of fire or quality: Flyrants, Tau Missile Sides, Eldar.

Black Knights are excellent against non CC oriented units and Twinlinked BS2 overwatch does work against CC oriented armies on the charge.

It's very mobile so it can react to scout spam or objective oriented lists.

It would be interesting to see how it fares against Necrons, another resilience based army.

While I think Centstar or drop pod cents backed by perfect timing are a problem for it, I disagree that Tau will be. Often marker lights are concentrated in one or two units which a highly mobile list like Knight spam can react too and neutralize. Or just bring a Thunderfire cannon.

Battle company is another interesting match up. Knight spam is mobile so that helps and any Knight squad can in principle munch a transport + squad per turn. That's still a lot of bodies to work through. I think it would probably depend on some mulit-assaults which the bike bases make easier.

jakejackjake wrote:


This is definitely true. The Imperium should be sweeping tournaments soon with their broken combos

You are talking about 200 point for that before taxes. There is no way to do that for less, Sammy is the only IC with reroll. Sure if your store allows bikes to grant RW to ICs that's another problem, mine fortunately doesn't.

 jadedknight wrote:
So after playing a game today my feeling is that the Ravenwing Command Squad/BKs is where it's at, call it Knight spam. Just run a basic CAD with scouts as troops, a basic libby on bike HQ and then max out on your allies and Ravenwing command squads.

Why? RCS is great in both shooting and close combat so the jinking penalty is not as severe. They can get FNP which synergizes well with things like the Iron Hands Smash Master. Their jinks are stock 3+ rerollable. Backed with FNP that's plenty durable. Throw in a darkshroud or ravenwing support squad for the 2+ rerollable. You can easily have 3-4 of these units running around or more.

Only one RCS in an army can have an Apothecary. I didn't see it at first.

wheresmypulitzer wrote:

 jadedknight wrote:
So after playing a game today my feeling is that the Ravenwing Command Squad/BKs is where it's at, call it Knight spam. Just run a basic CAD with scouts as troops, a basic libby on bike HQ and then max out on your allies and Ravenwing command squads.

Why? RCS is great in both shooting and close combat so the jinking penalty is not as severe. They can get FNP which synergizes well with things like the Iron Hands Smash Master. Their jinks are stock 3+ rerollable. Backed with FNP that's plenty durable. Throw in a darkshroud or ravenwing support squad for the 2+ rerollable. You can easily have 3-4 of these units running around or more.

Only one RCS in an army can have an Apothecary. I didn't see it at first.

Yes I missed this too, it used to be every unit and you were restricted by how many bike HQs you had. No more, now it is one per army. This not withstanding I still believe that mathematically the Black knights (command squad or not) are vastly superior to regular bikes.

 jadedknight wrote:

wheresmypulitzer wrote:

 jadedknight wrote:
So after playing a game today my feeling is that the Ravenwing Command Squad/BKs is where it's at, call it Knight spam. Just run a basic CAD with scouts as troops, a basic libby on bike HQ and then max out on your allies and Ravenwing command squads.

Why? RCS is great in both shooting and close combat so the jinking penalty is not as severe. They can get FNP which synergizes well with things like the Iron Hands Smash Master. Their jinks are stock 3+ rerollable. Backed with FNP that's plenty durable. Throw in a darkshroud or ravenwing support squad for the 2+ rerollable. You can easily have 3-4 of these units running around or more.

Only one RCS in an army can have an Apothecary. I didn't see it at first.

Yes I missed this too, it used to be every unit and you were restricted by how many bike HQs you had. No more, now it is one per army. This not withstanding I still believe that mathematically the Black knights (command squad or not) are vastly superior to regular bikes.

Couldn't agree more. My lists will mostly be Ravenwing formation with Sammy on Corvex in a maxed out Ravenwing Command Squad, a dark shroud and typhoon speeder squadron, an allied librarius conclave on bikes and as many black knights as I can fit.

Those Skitarii Dragoons have such good synergy with Ravenwing. Since they don't benefit from the overwatch immunity but can still use the stealth I'm thinking of sticking a few with Radium Jezzails with a darkshroud for a nice 4+ cover save.

If that overwatch immunity could be conferred to battle-brother allies I would add in some Sicarians as well.

Overall I am quite satisfied with the new dex, it really upped the Dark Angels game quite a bit.

Darkshroud affects only Dark Angel faction units.

axisofentropy wrote:
Darkshroud affects only Dark Angel faction units.

I read in my dex that it grants stealth and fear to any friendly units in its bubble, but only overwatch immunity to units from the Dark Angels faction.

Kersplakastani wrote:

axisofentropy wrote:
Darkshroud affects only Dark Angel faction units.

I read in my dex that it grants stealth and fear to any friendly units in its bubble, but only overwatch immunity to units from the Dark Angels faction.

Do you have the digital codex? My printed codex clearly says Dark Angel faction for both.

This may have already been asked but as far as the demi company is concerned, how should we go about AA?

Personally right now I'm hoping FW will FAQ mortis dreads into the demi company or as a DA auxiliary. Barring that happening I can not decide what would do the job right now.

 BrotherGecko wrote:
This may have already been asked but as far as the demi company is concerned, how should we go about AA?

Personally right now I'm hoping FW will FAQ mortis dreads into the demi company or as a DA auxiliary. Barring that happening I can not decide what would do the job right now.

I think the only viable choice is the SM formation. The silence squadron is a lot better now but flyers are not the best AA choice do to either arriving to early or too late.

 jokerkd wrote:

 BrotherGecko wrote:
This may have already been asked but as far as the demi company is concerned, how should we go about AA?

Personally right now I'm hoping FW will FAQ mortis dreads into the demi company or as a DA auxiliary. Barring that happening I can not decide what would do the job right now.

I think the only viable choice is the SM formation. The silence squadron is a lot better now but flyers are not the best AA choice do to either arriving to early or too late.

Mortis is a favorite in my DA army... if you're looking towards FW... take a gander at the Hyperions Defense Arrays (in Aureonautica I believe).

Frankly, you have enough options in the codexs that can take down flyers. From speeder squadrosn (massed HB + CML for the win!) or RW Knight's plasma talons can throw enough in the air to do decent damage. For DA... weight of fire is a thing.

My go to list will be something along the lines of:
-Sammy to lead the RSF
-A libby on bike when it will get FAQ
-A Command Squad with Apoth for HQ
-Lots of 4-5 man Bike squad, with dual Melta or dual Grav
-1 Land Speeder Support Squadron (3 speeder + Shroud)
-Still debating on how to finish up the list. Will probably be Termi or 1 flyer.

I would Ike to make a few notes on blackknights vs bike squad
-range, black knights are shooting at 9" for full effect, grav bikes can skirt at 18" away. Much better for when you need to shoot something your bikes do not want to be in combat with. (MCs, dreadknight, knights, terminators, meganobs, etc)

Cheaper- a squad of 4 with 2 grav guns costs about 10pts more than a bare squad of knights.

Effective- whether given melta or grav, (and a combi weapon)
These units of 4-5 will almost always make their points back,

Choice - with normal bikes you have the option to take land speeders, or attack bikes, as part of the unit, now that they aren't troops this is a bit less useful, but still nice to have.

-special rule, they make better use of the grim-resolve special rule at firing at bs2. They don't want to charge anything that is slightly melee oriented. So just let them charge you for extra shooting.

 raiden wrote:


Choice - with normal bikes you have the option to take land speeders, or attack bikes, as part of the unit, now that they aren't troops this is a bit less useful, but still nice to have.

Land Speeders are no longer an option in Bike squads. But Attack Bikes may now remain with a unit of three bikers, which makes for a good triple-melta threat, or even four with a combi-melta.

axisofentropy wrote:

 raiden wrote:


Choice - with normal bikes you have the option to take land speeders, or attack bikes, as part of the unit, now that they aren't troops this is a bit less useful, but still nice to have.

Land Speeders are no longer an option in Bike squads. But Attack Bikes may now remain with a unit of three bikers, which makes for a good triple-melta threat, or even four with a combi-melta.

You can have a Land Speeder if you take the Ravenwing Attack Squadron formation. The formation even has cool bonus(es)! The downside is that they no longer have Obsec, as has already been mentioned. Still the best way to take bikers that aren't Black Knights.

@Mods: Sorry if this is thread necromancy, I'm just trying to revive interest in discussing tactics for my favorite army!

Great news! http://www.blacklibrary.com/Downloads/Product/PDF/Warhammer-40k/7th-faq/Dark_Angels_v1.0_Dec15.pdf

Page 159 – Ravenwing Strike Force, Restrictions
Replace this with the following:
‘All units in this Detachment must have the Ravenwing
special rule (pg 148) or be a Dark Angels Character
equipped with a Space Marine bike.’