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Is there anything worse than Dark Angels? A friend of mine is doing Dark Angels and trying to be competative with them. I was thinking of doing the same. So far I'm planning on running an O'Shovah based Tau army. Our target army size is 1750. This is for Kublacon 2008.

The goal is the worst codex, with the best possible list from it. And no, I won't be doing kroot (thats just silly)

If you really want a challenge you should play Space Pope Tau.

O'Shovah is OK, especially if you're not pushing to 2000.

Sazzlefrats wrote:Is there anything worse than Dark Angels? A friend of mine is doing Dark Angels and trying to be competative with them.

Indeed, DA is a challenging army. I'd take Sammael on a Speeder (possibly not in the new ed.), three cheap Predators, some shooty Tacticals, and one RW Assault squadron for counter strike.

How about Renegades and Heretics from IA:Siege of Vraks?

IG without Hardened Vets and with their leadership rolled at random, but only the first time you have to test it. Unfortunately they probably can't get the "most awful army" crown because they've got some sweet heavy support options.

This dissuscion can not be complete with out mention of pure grey knights. Some of the most over costed units in the game....

This dissuscion can not be complete with out mention of pure grey knights. Some of the most over costed units in the game....

o'shovah tau can be more powerful than normal tau, to be perfectly honest

I would say Codex DA and Codex Daemonhunters are tied for crappiest at the moment.

Farsight Tau is strong at 1500- points. Above 1750 the list restrictions become a real issue for competitive play.

I think pure Grey Knights are among the lowest levels of competition.

Honestly, you can just keep adding crisis suits with shield drones to the list. How is that a limitation?

Farsight with a full retinue
3 x 3 crisis suits with two shield drones and a mix of twinlinked guns

2 x 6 fire warriors

skyray, hammerhead, 3 broadsides with shield drones

Seems like a fine list to me, and if you need to scale above 1750-1850, start adding fire warriors. They're a decent unit.

Oh and you can add a ninja o, or another full retinue with shield drones.

Nowhere do I see you running out of good places to spend your points.

They're not super optimal ways, but sure beats the gak out of dark angels

Demonhunters must be the worst codex, while the Tau book is actually pretty good. If you're going for the best army from the worst codex, I think you'd have to go Demonhunters.

Pure DH. However, DA are a close second to the bottom.

Before you start bashing on DH talk to lemartes. Ever since his advice on Gks my 1850 list hasnt lost yet. And no i dont just play noobs and my friends.

Most armies can be used effectively. It just takes a real good grasp of their tactics and that is a hard thing to achieve with many armies.

That works in theory, Snorkle, but not in practice...

Granted, all armies are able to win, and tactics reguarding to that army are always unique, but that doesn't eliminate some armies as better then others.

for example, Tau have superior domination to the movement phase with jet packs, decent if not superb skimmers and the conjunction of their long range weaponery (at least, rail guns and pulse rifles[? whats the fire warrior weaponery?]), but in the end, it takes some careful manuvering to pull off a good Mech Tau army. on the flip side, most newbs can pull out a victory with Nid-jira with little problems, and skilled players can straight up shut out their opponents with the same, if not less, amount of manuvering.

Just becuase most armies can be played effectively, doesn't mean that most armies are balanced in respect to one another.

I would say that straight DH is probably the worst codex, because even in conjunction with IG or WH, they still seem to take a background role.

You're right. I just meant that every army has it's own strenghts. DH are quite good against stronger characters, but it's true that they don't do well against much else. And so on...

Catachans. They pick a load of bad doctrines, done 'properly' they will doom an IG list.

Hello! This is my first post on Dakka, although I do frequent other web sites quite often.

The reason I'm making my first post here is I must say that those of you saying DA are one of the worst codex's (?) are way off base. They are pretty much my main army right now and I have found them to be so versatile for a marine army. In the last two tournaments I have played in, I have gone undefeated (4-0-2), even winning the last one. I think I have won about 75-80% of my games with them atleast.

The possibility of taking bikes or terminators as troops is a huge advantage over 'vanilla' marines. Also, having bikes and attack bikes that can scout move!?! I have taken down so many peoples tanks on the first turn because of that!

Are the people who say they suck actually PLAYING the army or are they making judgment calls with no experience?

wow, this really IS your first post on dakka, isn't it.

um..yeah it was. Does that mean something special to you?

It's just funny to hear people knocking one codex/army or another when they have no experience playing it. As someone stated before, each army has it's specialties and weaknesses. I and many other DA players (check bolter and chainswords forum) believe that compared to the other marine codex's out there, they are every bit as equal if not better. They are just a marine army however and everyone knows how to beat a marine army, is that why you guys think they're terrible?

Plus, you can't beat the background!

I always like O'Shava the best myself...

um..yeah it was. Does that mean something special to you?

it's just that dakka sometimes is known to be full of people who whine about something liek this all the time. I'm sure there are a few here who get what I meant.

Plus, you can't beat the background!

I wouldn't poke it with a stick. there Space Marines (Hurr!), but they have a daaaaaaaaark secret. (insert x-files theme here)

they have dresses....no wait, everybody knows that

While Daemonhunters aren't a power list - I did go 2-1 with Daemonhunters at the Ard Boyz finals.

I remember that Masaaen won the West Australien GT with DHs, using 3 Land Raiders. This was 2 or 3 years back.

Mission Syzergy wrote:
Plus, you can't beat the background!

The Lion was a jerk who sucker punched Leman Russ.He couldn't even keep his own legion from turning on him.

Pure Grey Knight Army its hard to play with but you can win bt you can make it so you lose all your games hahaha Steep Learning curve .....Just take nothing but Grey knights and Grey knight termies with no Heavy weapons lol

Anything DA can do, Vanilla marines can do better....list-wise anyway.

...at least the DA have some Tactics-type toys they can play with. (DW/RW synergy, and Deathwing Assault)

Other than that, on paper, Vanilla always looks better. Compare a DA dreadnought to a Vanilla one and you have a metaphor for comparing the two armies in almost every catagory.

....and I'm a DA player with a good win record too. (maybe 2 losses since the new codex came out)

Sazzlefrats wrote:Is there anything worse than Dark Angels? A friend of mine is doing Dark Angels and trying to be competative with them. I was thinking of doing the same. So far I'm planning on running an O'Shovah based Tau army. Our target army size is 1750. This is for Kublacon 2008.

The goal is the worst codex, with the best possible list from it. And no, I won't be doing kroot (thats just silly)

Chris Marshall placed 9th at the Ard Boyz tournaments, and has won a ton of local RTT's with his Dark Angels. I think its weak players, not a weak book.

Mission Syzergy wrote:um..yeah it was. Does that mean something special to you?

It's just funny to hear people knocking one codex/army or another when they have no experience playing it. As someone stated before, each army has it's specialties and weaknesses. I and many other DA players (check bolter and chainswords forum) believe that compared to the other marine codex's out there, they are every bit as equal if not better. They are just a marine army however and everyone knows how to beat a marine army, is that why you guys think they're terrible?

Plus, you can't beat the background!

B&C Has far more people on the DA forums that will disagree that DA are just fine. Ravenwing and Deathwing only work at certain point levels (where they have enough support/bodies and the enemy doesn't have enough weapons designed to take them out)

Other than those few instances, in order to be very effective, it generally means playing tactical squads, devastator squads, and cheap transports and predators. All of those things can be played in vanilla marines (and the cheaper HQ and upgrades more than make up for the higher costs on vanilla tanks)

The problem isn't that you can't win with DA, it's that you can't win consistently with DA at every point level unless you're playing something that doesn't really include Deathwing or Ravenwing. Without those, you might as well be playing vanilla marines.

Also, at smaller point values, many lists will look similar because DA cannot add individual bodies to squads outside of the veterans squad. I play DA a ton, and I can win with them quite easily when I don't run Deathwing or Ravenwing, but then, they just aren't really DA anymore. I got into DA for the Deathwing, and I feel they should be viable against most opponents at every point level.

Ask the people on B&C again (or check a couple of the recent threads again) There's a lot of small things the DAs need to get to really "work". That being said, for the OP: Play DA if they interest you, just do your homework to find a list that works for you and the point value you are playing at.

Well said Ray