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Does anyone run this army? I searched the forums, but most posts are from 2006, and the few that are from recently have few to no responses. This is an army I have loved, fluffwise for years, but never gotten around to building.

I just want to know what works for people who run this list; Is LR spam the hallmark of a competitive army? 3 dreads? Assault cannon spam? Im intrested in what works for those who play the list, before I build it. I am having a hell of a time sorting it out.

I've run them in the past... It gets extremely boring - fast. As far as I personally know, and I can easily be wrong on this, but you can't do a pure Deathwing army anymore...

-J.

Yes you can. Very easily actually. Dreads- elites, Troops- Termies (by taking belial), and land raiders - heavy.

It is still a good list. It is not a top runner vs the harder of ard boys style lists but still does well in standard RTT.

What I have noticed with them, I have run the army for nearly 8 years, is that assaults are the last place I want to be. They are not a fast army but are very mobile. They loose little effectiveness when on the move. They fit into a very small area so are great at flanking. Combined firepower is where they shine. They will lose assaults by attrition and hidden powerfists and weapons. So better to blast them with guns till they are nearly dead then assault if you need the extra range. Has won me many a game and tournament.

This is only one way to play them. It has been the most effective for me but there are many schools of thoughts.

Yes you can. Belial or whatever his name is makes Deathwing termie squads into troops choices.

Termies as troops, dreads in elites, some landraiders - no problemo!

Old Man Ultramarine runs one...

Sometimes pure, sometimes with Ravenwing.

I know he put a lot of thought into the load outs but he could help you on this.

I run deathwing. It's about shooting, timing, and depending on who I'm playing I use Mortis pattern dreads for fire base.

Bad thing is you have to use the 4th ed DA codex, so you don't get the nice updated items in the SM codex.

LR are good, take one of each and run. Chappy with CC squad is always good.

Just depends on your scenario, deployment, etc.

I like it because it was built for a reason and I've also always liked the DW fluff.

Sha1emade wrote:Yes you can. Very easily actually. Dreads- elites, Troops- Termies (by taking belial), and land raiders - heavy.

It is still a good list. It is not a top runner vs the harder of ard boys style lists but still does well in standard RTT.

What I have noticed with them, I have run the army for nearly 8 years, is that assaults are the last place I want to be. They are not a fast army but are very mobile. They loose little effectiveness when on the move. They fit into a very small area so are great at flanking. Combined firepower is where they shine. They will lose assaults by attrition and hidden powerfists and weapons. So better to blast them with guns till they are nearly dead then assault if you need the extra range. Has won me many a game and tournament.

This is only one way to play them. It has been the most effective for me but there are many schools of thoughts.

I agree. I fought one recently and beat them in an annihilation mission because of their bad deep strike rolls and constant fire from three chaos space marine squads, then finished them off with my own terminators and took out their two dreadnoughts with my two land raiders. Their was a Dark Angels land raider on the table, but it didn't actually do anything. I chalk it up to a couple of mistakes from a player who was new to 5th edition and my kinda cheesy list. However, having been on the receiving end of that treatment many times lately, It was actually kind of refreshing to take that perspective.

For starters, thanks to 5th ed wound allocation, DW is very, very durable. With every termie in each squad equipped differently, it is much easier to keep them alive against volume of fire, since you allocate and roll for wounds on each termie seprately...three 1's rolled by a uniquely equipped termie on armor saves is only one dead termie, instead of threee dead termies in a standard squad.

Second, thanks to them being troops, bringing 5 fearless scoring terminator troops will make several army lists just cry...try to remmove them from an objective.

Third, DA still have access to the old style Psychic Hood. This means that if you take a Libby with your DW, you can shut down pyskers from anywhere on the table.

Fourth, combining the DW with the RW is simply fantastic in 5th, especially in high point games where you can take both Belial and Sammael. Now you have scoring Bikes with a scout move and tele-homers...this makes your "DW Assault" termies very, very happy...and your opponents very, very sad

No, DW is not the strongest list out there, but then again it never was. It however, much stronger in 5th than in was in 3rd or 4th, thanks to wound allocation and the new scoring rules.

I think Deathwing is still viable, however there are some major drawbacks due to 5th.

Fearless sucks for DW now, due to the 5 man squads if they lose combat, they have to take all those "fearless" saves.

The army suffers from low model cout. This is not necessarily the result of 5th, its just that horde armies are very good now and I find DW just can't kill them all.

Thats all I got so far.

In my proxied DW army I have found that adding 1 or 2 small RW bike squads makes the army a bit more forgiving, and more mobile. Expecially if you take some MM attack bikes for your anti tank, leaving room for you Dreads to be more anti-horde role. I also think a LRC with Bael and his apothicary in it gives you a 6" protective bubble in case one of your terminators dies. Basically DW will feal the loss of every terminator.

However DW has become chaper to make due to AoBR. So I guess thats bonus?

Casper wrote:Fearless sucks for DW now, due to the 5 man squads if they lose combat, they have to take all those "fearless" saves.

lol...so wrong. Fearless is great for the DW!

Exactly how do 5 guys lose combat by enough wounds that they have to take "all those saves", given that they are a small squad to start with?

Honestly, with 1 PW, 1 pair of LCs, 1 TH/SS, and 2 PFs, they should inflict at least 5 wounds on the opposing squad. With only 5 guys in your squad to start, the only way you should usually lose combat is if your entire squad gets wiped,and then there are no "fearless" saves to take. Otherwise, if you lose small, you are only looking at making 1-2 "fearless" saves at 2+. Given the choice of 1-2 saves from losing combat or taking a chance on running every time you get shot, it is much better to know that your small 5 man scoring units will never run.

The DW can't lose combat by enough that taking saves matters. Either they win, they are completely wiped (like any other unit can be), or they lose small (due to being a small squad to start)...it is mathematically impossible for them to lose by enough that taking "fearless" saves is going to make much of a difference, especially if they are all uniquely equipped, which is the only way to run DW in 5th.

I've played Deathwing from 4th edition on. Agreed with the points on fearless but you at least get your full armor save. Armor allocation does indeed help the squads although it does seem that my Assault Cannons are the ones that fail an inordinate number of times.

I actually prefer using the gear from the Dark Angels book over the new SM book. DA Librarians are still a beast in HtH, smoke still makes you auto glance, and as stated before that the psychic hood is still tops. 5th overall gave them a nice boost with the 4+ cover save.

The only thing I don't like is Belial. He's a worthless character who would never see the table otherwise. A crusader with him with LC, a Libby, and his command squad upgraded to a cyclone / standard in a Crusader has been about the only way I've found that he actually contributes to the game. A regular captain would do just as well though.

See, I love Belial.

Just over 100 points for a Captain in Termie armor that makes all of my DW troops...yes, please!

In addition, he allows you to take both an Apothecary and Std Bearer in a Terminator troops choice...fantastic!

Plus, you get all this for less than a SM captain in termie armor. Yeah, he has slightly worse stats than a vanilla captain, but his point is about army comp and buffs, not just about him going toe to toe with the opposition...you have an entire army of termies that can handle that job

P.S. His cheap cost also helps you fit more termies and their upgrades in the army...I prefer to have a cheap decent HQ over some huge point sink CC beast.

I think that DW is an army that got a lot stronger in 5th edition and is one of the most competitive armies that the DA can make (which is a low bar but still). You basically have three options:

1. Infantry Horde, maybe with some Dreads for backup

2. Mech/Landraider Spam. Adds some mobility but fewer squads.

3. Doublewing - DW Infantry with a RW squad or two for teleport homers and extra mobility. Potentially most competitive but probably hardest to play.

Alerian wrote:See, I love Belial.

Just over 100 points for a Captain in Termie armor that makes all of my DW troops...yes, please!

In addition, he allows you to take both an Apothecary and Std Bearer in a Terminator troops choice...fantastic!

Plus, you get all this for less than a SM captain in termie armor. Yeah, he has slightly worse stats than a vanilla captain, but his point is about army comp and buffs, not just about him going toe to toe with the opposition...you have an entire army of termies that can handle that job

P.S. His cheap cost also helps you fit more termies and their upgrades in the army...I prefer to have a cheap decent HQ over some huge point sink CC beast.

The problem is, before the DA codex re-write, you didn't have to take a special character to make a deathwing army, so in that regard, he costs you more than you would have had to pay, for lackluster rules that we used to get for free. That is why people don't like Belial.

whitedragon wrote:

Alerian wrote:See, I love Belial.

Just over 100 points for a Captain in Termie armor that makes all of my DW troops...yes, please!

In addition, he allows you to take both an Apothecary and Std Bearer in a Terminator troops choice...fantastic!

Plus, you get all this for less than a SM captain in termie armor. Yeah, he has slightly worse stats than a vanilla captain, but his point is about army comp and buffs, not just about him going toe to toe with the opposition...you have an entire army of termies that can handle that job

P.S. His cheap cost also helps you fit more termies and their upgrades in the army...I prefer to have a cheap decent HQ over some huge point sink CC beast.

The problem is, before the DA codex re-write, you didn't have to take a special character to make a deathwing army, so in that regard, he costs you more than you would have had to pay, for lackluster rules that we used to get for free. That is why people don't like Belial.

I know that we didn't need a special char before, but back then we were forced to play pure DW (termies, dreads, LRs) to get Termies as troops. Now, thanks to the Belial change, we can play Dualwing or even regular DA with Termies as troops. For that reason, I prefer having him around.

Oh, BTW Chappies in termie armor cost 135 in the last DA codex, and Captains (with LCs or TH/SS) and Librarians went up from there. So, He is the cheapsest useful DW HQ we have had for a long time too.

It Belial were not required, would you take him over a chaplain or a librarian as a single HQ choice? From the old book to this one, he has cost me a dreadnought since that's what had to come out of the list to replace him.

My "normal" list looks like:
Belial
Term Librarian
3x Terminator w/ AC
1x Terminator w/ Cyclone
LR
either a second LR or 2 Dreads

I like the dreads for extra fire support and for whenever I get stuck into combat and the dreads cover the terminators not being able to sweeping advance.

What's a good ratio of weapons in a Deathwing unit? The hth options, like thunderhammer and lightning claws, are cool, but if the army works best when shooting, should they even be used? Or kept to a minimum?

If you want to use the wound allocation to the best benefit, I would suggest. 1 Sgt PW, 1 CF, 1 LC, 1 PF and 1 ML. That way every termie is different and you still have mostly shooty. The ML is exchangeable with AC and HF to suite your taste. Also the LC is interchangeable with the TH/SS option. This has worked best for me and as far as I know the best way to take advantage of the wound allocation.

The nice thing about this style of army is that it's simple to play. Terminators as a troop choice has some advantages that helps offset the extremely low model count inherent for this list. Also as mentioned being able to take a standard bearer and apothecary in one of your troops also helps.

My list has a Grey Knight Grand Master with three Grey Knight terminators for his retinue. It's expensive but it also adds another dimension to the army not possible with the DA librarian.

G

I have a friend who runs deathwing. Its a strong list if used correctly. But due to small model count, you have to be careful with it. Also, deathwing can field 3 venerable dreadnoughts, and in 5th edition, they are very hard to kill. 30 terminators and 3 venerable dreads is a hard list to stop.

Elnicko5 wrote:Does anyone run this army?

Well I have lurked on the forums for a while so I figured I might as well post my first reply to this. I my self have played DW since 3rd edition. I am what one might call a “DW Purest” I started when all you had was 47pt terminators, dreads, and your land raiders were dedicated transports. I will not run any other units but theses with one exception which ill get to in a sec. I love the DW and have ridden the crazy wave of ups and downs we have gotten. Below are the two lists I run the first is Pure DA codex. This is my current Tournament list. The second is about to become my new Tournament list “in my local area” because we are just about to start allowing limited Forge World rules.

2000pt (DA codex only)
HQ #1 – Belial (Master of the Deathwing) 130pts
Pair of Lightning Claws

Troop #1 – Deathwing Terminator Squad 240pts
Terminator Sgt – Power Sword and Storm Bolter
Terminator – Chainfist (+5) and Storm Bolter
Terminator – Power Fist and Storm Bolter
Terminator – Pair of Lightning Claws
Terminator – Pair of Lightning Claws and Cyclone

Troop #2 – Deathwing Terminator Squad 250pts
Terminator Sgt – Pair of Lightning Claws and Deathwing Banner (+25)
Terminator – Chainfist (+5) and Heavy Flamer (+5)
Terminator – Pair of Lightning Claws
Terminator – Pair of Lightning Claws
Terminator – Pair of Lightning Claws

Troop #3 – Deathwing Terminator Squad 225pts
Terminator Sgt – Pair of Lightning Claws
Terminator – Chainfist (+5) and Heavy Flamer (+5)
Terminator – Pair of Lightning Claws
Terminator – Pair of Lightning Claws
Terminator – Pair of Lightning Claws

Elite #1 – Dreadnought 200pts
Searchlight and Smoke Launchers
Assault Cannon
Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon w/ Heavy Flamer (+5)
Venerable (+20)
Drop Pod with Storm Bolter (+50)

Elite #2 – Dreadnought 200pts
Searchlight and Smoke Launchers
Assault Cannon
Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon w/ Heavy Flamer (+5)
Venerable (+20)
Drop Pod with Storm Bolter (+50)

Heavy Support #1 – Land Raider “RAKIEL” 255pts
Searchlight and Smoke Launchers and Storm Bolter (+5)
Heavy Support #2 – Land Raider Crusader “NESTOR” 250pts
Searchlight, Smoke Launchers
Heavy Support #3 – Land Raider Crusader “ZARIAH” 250pts
Searchlight, Smoke Launchers
The second list here is a lot more fun to play and is more “in your face”
2000pts (DA codex and IA 2 update)
HQ #1 – Belial (Master of the Deathwing) 130pts
Pair of Lightning Claws

HQ #2 – Damocles (Command Rhino) 60pts

Troop #1 – Deathwing Terminator Squad 250pts
Terminator Sgt – Pair of Lightning Claws
Terminator – Pair of Lightning Claws
Terminator – Power Fist and Storm Bolter
Terminator – Power Fist and Storm Bolter
Terminator – Chainfist (+5) and Assault Cannon (+30)

Troop #2 – Deathwing Terminator Squad 250pts
Terminator Sgt – Pair of Lightning Claws
Terminator – Pair of Lightning Claws
Terminator – Power Fist and Storm Bolter
Terminator – Power Fist and Storm Bolter
Terminator – Chainfist (+5) and Assault Cannon (+30)

Troop #3 – Deathwing Terminator Squad 250pts
Terminator Sgt – Pair of Lightning Claws
Terminator – Pair of Lightning Claws
Terminator – Power Fist and Storm Bolter
Terminator – Power Fist and Storm Bolter
Terminator – Chainfist (+5) and Assault Cannon (+30)

Troop #4 – Deathwing Terminator Squad 250pts
Terminator Sgt – Pair of Lightning Claws
Terminator – Pair of Lightning Claws
Terminator – Power Fist and Storm Bolter
Terminator – Power Fist and Storm Bolter
Terminator – Chainfist (+5) and Assault Cannon (+30)

Elite #1 – Dreadnought 175pts
Searchlight and Smoke Launchers
Assault Cannon
Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon w/ Heavy Flamer (+5)
Drop Pod with Storm Bolter and Locater Beacon (+45)

Elite #2 – Dreadnought 175pts
Searchlight and Smoke Launchers
Assault Cannon
Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon w/ Heavy Flamer (+5)
Drop Pod with Storm Bolter and Locater Beacon (+45)

Elite #3 – Dreadnought 175pts
Searchlight and Smoke Launchers
Assault Cannon
Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon w/ Heavy Flamer (+5)
Drop Pod with Storm Bolter and Locater Beacon (+45)


Heavy Support #1 – Deathstorm Drop Pod 95pts
Assault Cannons (+20)

Heavy Support #2 – Deathstorm Drop Pod 95pts
Assault Cannons (+20)

Heavy Support #3 – Deathstorm Drop Pod 95pts
Assault Cannons (+20)

The basic play behind this list, only thing deployed is the Damocles, first turn Drop pod assault your Death storms and wreck face, depending on placement of drop pods and units you can range anywhere from 4 to 36 assault cannon shots on the opponents units in the first shooting phase, turn 2, bring in dreads and pick off hard to hit units and use the orbital bombardment on the biggest foreseeable problem, now there units are softened up you bring in your squads of terminators and take objectives added by not scattering off of locater beacons and Damocles’ teleport beacon rules. This list is a lot more fun to play than the first one and your opponents never see it coming =D

PS sorry for the long post, hope this helps.

Thank you everyone for the replies, I like the idea of abusing wound allocation, but wonder if it diminishes my efficiency if I go all shooty. I like the idea of allied GKs, dont think I would have thought of that.

Deathwingboy- Congrats on coming out of the shadows. So you run your deathwing primarily as assault, interesting. Completely the opposite approach I have been recommended, but I like it, then again, what is not to like. I thank you for the insight into your lists and tactics, they will definitely be invaluable, considering I dont have the ability to proxy my list.

The more I think about it, the more I kinda want to run double wing, Ive always been a fan of armies that are hard to win with.

Dualwing are actually a pretty strong list. I run one with both Belial and Sammael.

You have the ability to arm every termie and every biker uniquely, whitch really helps with would allocation. You also can run 2 apothecaries with a 6" range in that list, which is what I do (hiding the termie apoth in a LR for a nice size bubble). Plus Sammaels speeder and my LRC give my opponent 2 AV 14 vehicles to deal with.

Also, the bikes give you a fast scoring unit, as well as homers for your termies.

Yes, it is a challenging list to play, but when used properly, it is a strong list.

In theory you can run 3 apothecaries if you have Belial & Sammael. It might be excessive, but one Command Squad with an apothecary and a pair of plasma guns is certainly worth considering, as well as your terminator apothecary and your biker apothecary...

I think that doublewing, as the foundation of a DA list, is the best way to play to the DAs' strengths: scoring terminators are very tough to remove from objectives, and the free teleport homers on an already strong unit (Ravenwing bike squads) mean you don't need to worry about transport for your termies -- just DS a couple of squads in with Deathwing Assault on turn 1, and lob a 3rd squad in from reserve later.