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It just seems to me that they aren't. Consider that they are very expensive and never scoring ... why not take another unit of assault marines? That bums me out because IMO death company are the reason to play blood angels (vampires in spaccccce!!!). Oh well, playing a loyalist army makes me feel dirty.

An extra attack, Relentless, Feel No Pain, and Furious Charge, plus the option to throw wargear upgrades on them?

Rubbish.

My resident BA player says giving them bolters makes them an effective walk and fire unit, as they are relentless, and their annoyingly hard to kill, but not worth firing your plasma at.

As Jaon said, I think of them as expensive scouts. You don't want to shoot at them, but if you don't they wreck you. In fact I think they do this even better than heavy bolter scouts.

I know of a few people who think they're so worthless they've made tournament winning armies based around them.

non-scoring expensive novelty IMO. Ard Boyz saw almost no successful BA players. In a world filled with melta guns they are hardly cost effective if you give them bolters, and if you give them more than bolters they become a choice target as they are super expensive. The current kings of the toutnement seen are IG and SW, with a few interlopers here and there.

I think a more relevant question might be, "Are Blood Angels ever a good choice?"

SaintHazard wrote:I think a more relevant question might be, "Are Blood Angels ever a good choice?"

I dunno, perhaps I should play wolves instead.

Augh, how would that be better?

If you ask me, avoid Edward and Jacob Marines altogether.

I personally play Vanilla Marines, but my next Marine list will use the BT codex, and I've got a Deathwing (DA) list on the back burner.

That is, if you wanna play Marines at all. There are lots of fun armies out there that aren't cheese factories.

SaintHazard wrote:Augh, how would that be better?

If you ask me, avoid Edward and Jacob Marines altogether.

I personally play Vanilla Marines, but my next Marine list will use the BT codex, and I've got a Deathwing (DA) list on the back burner.

That is, if you wanna play Marines at all. There are lots of fun armies out there that aren't cheese factories.

Like DARK ELDAR!!!!

DE are the biggest cheese factory in the world.

I wonder sometimes why I adore them as much as I do.

I love my Death Company, I do run a unit of 20 to 25 with bolters and they do wreck just about anything they hit except for a LashWhip spam unit with Bonesabre.

A big unit in a LRC with maybe a Reclusiarch is the way to go for reliability.

I use them whenever I can. I usually run a 5 man team with 2 Powe Weapons, a Power Fist and a Hand Flamer mounted in a Godhammer Land Raider, and they perform spectacularly. Although they usually eventually get wiped out, they really prove their worth, taking a fair number of enemies down first.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I created this article a couple of months ago. It may be worth having a look.

How to Arm Your Death Company

Noisy_Marine wrote:It just seems to me that they aren't. Consider that they are very expensive and never scoring ... why not take another unit of assault marines? That bums me out because IMO death company are the reason to play blood angels (vampires in spaccccce!!!). Oh well, playing a loyalist army makes me feel dirty.

you can get the same job done with assault marines, which are cheaper and scoring and dont have rage. leave these guys at home.

The advantage they have over an assault squad is in their wargear options, being able to pop multiple power weapons into the squad and having FNP and FC without needing the accompanying priest makes them useful more often than you would think. A couple of these crazy bastards in a drop pod can add in a level of threat that regular assault marines cannot (not always, but obviously if you are putting them in your list you have a strategy to override their rage handicap.

Absolutely they are a good idea! 20pts a model for a marine statline with 3 attacks a turn (4 on the charge) furious charge, feel no pain, fearless, relentless, can take as many power weapons and or power fists as they want... sign me up please. Add a Chaplain to the unit and they get to re-roll failed to hit and wound rolls on the turn they charge.

But they don't score! So what? Stop thinkiing of them as troops that don't score (they can still contest btw) and think of them as elites that don't take up an elite slot.

But they Rage!... Again, so what! If they are in a transport they ignore the rage USR so stick 'em in a Rhino. Or, what I like to do is put them in a drop pod and throw them in my opponents face. Then rage doesn't matter much they just run around wreaking havoc. Your opponent has to deal with them, which means less is able to focus on targetting the rest of your army freeing it up to do what it needs to do.

I think Death Company are OK if they're in a StormRaven or otherwise mech'd up.

Topics like this make me sad... because I have just under 20 death company, and they are my pride and joy. They are grotesquely over equipped too, though fortunately I did have the good sense to magnetize their jump packs.

The main issue with them seems to be cost, though it's more the cost of getting them where you want them without Rage messing up your day. They pay so much for jump packs that a land raider works out cheaper if you have a lot of them.

But I do wonder sometimes if a Rhino or a Drop pod might be the better option. 10 Death Company in a Drop Pod start to look very reasonably priced... You are not guaranteed the assault, but maybe that is where skill and strategy come into play. If you used the rest of your army right and dropped DC in the right place and managed to get the assault anyway, well then you save 200 points, which you could put into an additional ten man assault squad... And I think it would certainly be easier to get your plan to work with 10 extra assault marines bouncing about.

I also quite like the idea of Death Company as a small Elite unit, 3 x Death Company and a Chaplain, with Jump Packs, 2x Power Weapons and a Thunder Hammer, Deep Striking with Decent of Angels, and FNP... That could really kick something big's ass.

SaintHazard wrote:Augh, how would that be better?

If you ask me, avoid Edward and Jacob Marines altogether.

I personally play Vanilla Marines, but my next Marine list will use the BT codex, and I've got a Deathwing (DA) list on the back burner.

That is, if you wanna play Marines at all. There are lots of fun armies out there that aren't cheese factories.

Hey, Saint Hazard, you wouldnt happen to be the kind of person that when someone even mentions Vampires/ Werewoves, you go "OMG! TWILIGHT! GROSS! THAT'S A STUPID ARMY!" You are aware that Vampires and Werewolves have been around MUCH MUCH MUUUUUUUUUUUCH longer then the god awful twilight novels? Just a question.


Anyway, My build is 6 deathcompany, inferno pistol, drop pod

Great distraction/ line breaker unit.

Yeah, except not all of them have horrible fluff, unimaginative naming conventions, ridiculous over-the-top rules, and nipples on their armor, all of which is combined into a codex that can only be described as "fan-spank making it into the canon."

SaintHazard wrote:DE are the biggest cheese factory in the world.

I wonder sometimes why I adore them as much as I do.

I see you cannot be satisfied. I supposed next you'll tell me that chaos marines are cheesy!

Noisy_Marine wrote:

SaintHazard wrote:DE are the biggest cheese factory in the world.

I wonder sometimes why I adore them as much as I do.

I see you cannot be satisfied. I supposed next you'll tell me that chaos marines are cheesy!

Less so than Marines or DE. Chaos Marines spout a lot of cheesy crap, but at least they're entirely honest about it.

"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD"

"Oh man what the hell is wrong with you people?"

"We just like to kill things. We scream that 'cause it gets us pumped, and it sounds cool."

"Oh, fair enough. At least you're not making excuses that revolve around a psychic corpse sitting on an expensive toilet."

Well you never know. Maybe the new Dark Eldar codex will suck.