Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

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

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

have to agree with hellfury on this one

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

scout bikers and DW assault pretty much garauntee a couple things

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

Both require a special character...

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



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


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

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

So how about this for a list:

Beliel

x2 Deathwing Squads

x3 Scouts with Shotguns, Powerfist, Drop Pod

x2 Assault Squads in Drop Pod

Ravenwing Support Squad

Land Speeders to fill in points.

The points might work out.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Obviously this tact falls apart against some armies though.

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

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

Both require a special character...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Obviously this tact falls apart against some armies though.

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

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

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

Thus, the irrelevant comment.

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

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

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

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

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

But thats besides the point.

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

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

[edit]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe by 5th ed.

oh are you ever optimistic

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

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

A squad o rmaybe two of DA vets.

The cool DA libby.

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

a couple whirlies with new incendiary bombs.

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

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

Deathwing has its advantages and disadvantages.

Lysander wing seems to have more advantages than disadvantages.

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

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

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

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

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

But Lysanderwing is not illegal Therion.

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

Try not to confuse the distinction.

BYE

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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