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After running out of magnets and running short on shoulder pads (and cash) I'm needing to make decisions on what the unit is going to run with. For Belial do I give him the 3++ with the shield or do I take advantage of I5 and let three other squad members absorb the power weapon and AP1/2 attacks? Also, it seems that 3 TH/SS and 2 Claw terminators is a winning combination, however for a unit that is assaulting out of a land raider and with a member with a heavy flamer should I go with 2 of each or 3 Hammers and 1 claw or vice versa? Thanks.

I'm fairly set with running them in raiders and will not be considering the walking cyclone squad until I've at least playtested the list, but thanks if anyone was going to mention it.

Also painting question: Would a Deathwing apothecary be the standard white or would he remain bone colored?

How many squads are you running in raiders? What is the point level you are building for?

If you are doing 3 squads, with 3 land raider's, then I would go with 4 thunder hammer storm shield, 1 heavy flamer/chain fist.

3 squads just isn't enough to be able to afford the more lightly protected lightning claws.

I really like the versatility of the 3 thunder hammer/storm shield and 2 lightning claws, with a cyclone one one of the thunder hammers.

My other favorite is 4 thunder hammer/storm shield, and 1 chain fist, heavy flamer.

The 2k list as it stands.

HQ
- Belial
- Sammael

Troops
- Deathwing Terminators w/apoth
- Deathwing Terminators
- Ravenwing Bikes (melta x2)
- Ravenwing Bikes (melta x2)

Fast
- Typhoon
- Typhoon
- Typhoon

Heavy
- Crusader
- Crusader

So with two it definitely wouldn't be worth it to run claws on them then? Does this go for Belial as well?

I would be tempted to leave Belial with the lightning claws, that takes the most advantage of using his high ws and initiative. Plus it keeps you from assinging instant death wounds to him. Really the only thing you would ever assign to him would be plasma shots (if you had the th/ss). Personally I see more use out of the chapter standard than the apothecary (if you aren't taking both). Especially since you will be relying on your crusader for delivery anyways.

Well for me, the fact belial is an IC makes me leave him with a SS so he can be better at dueling. I do find it humorous that no one is advocating leaving him the the Sword of Silence

TH/SS is a better combo for the few numbers you have, so I'd leave out most of the lc, even though they may add some versatility to your squads (against hordes they'd be useful) I think you should just go with th/ss, and the protection. As for the apothecary, the chapter banner I agree would be more useful, but if you are intent on playing an apothecary (which is useful nonetheless) it can be painted however you want. I've seen them with just the arm white, only a shoulder pad White or the whole model White!!

I've found myself using 2 LC and 3 TH/SS in the Deathwing squads, with a CML... And I use the Apothecary option more often than not, but I deploy via Deathwing assault or just normally into cover (on objectives)... Running with the LRC I think that the standard would be far better though.

Since you're also using the Master of the Ravenwing, any thought to the 15 point Apothecary in one of those squads? T5 and FnP might be annoyingly difficult to shoot with "low end" weapons...

Painting the Apothecaries, not sure what the current DA schema would be, but I field Consecrators in the old DA Legion colors and I typically use a variant of the RT colors for mins, red helmet with the white "helmet stripe"... Might look OK on bone white...

Hadn't really thought about the standard instead of the apothecary, I just figured it would be useful for whatever happens to shoot at it should one of the Crusaders go down or if they massacre something and get stuck out in the open for the opponents turn.

I like the idea of giving the bikes FnP but what to drop? I could drop a speeder and get the banner for DW and the Apothecary for the bikes, then do... something with the 35 pts. power weapons for the sgts and a meltabomb?

I wouldn't dream of running Belial with LC's any more. As an IC and such a huge threat, you just end up losing him in the first round of any assault involving an MC or Power Fist. Just not worth it imo. Give him the 3++ and enjoy dishing out 5 WS 5 Thunder Hammer attacks on the charge (also of note, definitely take the banner, giving yourself 30% more TH attacks every round of combat is amazing.

If he had even the standard Iron Halo he would have in 5th edition, I could see using Lightning Claws, but only having a 5++ is really pretty bad nowadays.

Imo, with new faq, I think it's best to have entire unit with TH/SS (Belial included)... Even apothecary and cyclones termie should have TH/SS

I see. Definitely seeing the use for that banner now. 24 S8 attacks on the charge plus whatever got crisped is pretty brutal.

I've got a good deal of S8 with the triple Typhoons, even with the 3++ I don't really want to lose the ability to charge av14 and carve it up with the chainfists so I'm not dependant on rending to death.

I would definitely put an SS on Belial as well as take both the standard and apothecary (if possible?). In regards to your painting question. Page 65 of the Dark Angels Codex has a picture of a DW Apothecary. He is in full bleached bone armor, and his hood, right knee pad, and left powerfist (with the narthecium) are all skull white.

I really should've checked the codex first with that one... nah, who am I kiddin? Yall are awesome

It's worth noting that Belial with a TH/SS is cheaper than a codex marine termie captain with basic gear, and he's actually the same cost as a codex captain in PA with a thunderhammer and nothing else. Of course the aforementioned lack of an iron halo alone is reason enough to take the delicious 3++ IMO.
I miss every basic captain having rites of battle.

lol, what's really ironic is that he has Rites of Battle, but when you play a competitive DA list you pretty much only field Fearless units. /sigh

@Warmaster do you usually assign Belial to squad clearance duty? I know you went up against a pretty powerful BA DoA list so please tell me how do you feel about heavy assault armies vs DW?

both apothecary and standard is worth it. FNP for bikes is good. but you don't have much anti-horde, maybe drop speeder and whirlwind, or atleast 2 LCs for terminators?
ans TAKE TH/SS is much better than LC nowadays
painting: see codex
but I play only 1 LC in my squads, but I always have 2 vindicators in my standard lists, so I don't struggle against horde so much

Whirlwind? I don't have one, or did you mean drop a Typhoon for one? How much anti-horde should I have at this points level?

I like Belial with the LC/LC combo. That many I5 LC attacks makes it worthwhile. You don't generally need to keep him alive (you're buying him because he unlocks Termie troops and because he's a cheap-ish HQ), but those early attacks from him can make all the difference if you are up against other capable CC troops striking at I4.

Don't send him anywhere near MCs -- if there's one nearby, detach him from his Terminator squad and send them after the MC. Belial can go and slice up some ordinary troops by himself -- he excels at that kind of thing, even without FNP.

Luco wrote:Whirlwind? I don't have one, or did you mean drop a Typhoon for one? How much anti-horde should I have at this points level?

Maybe 2 vindicators and/or whirlwinds, or other anti-horde stuff

The all TH/SS option is good, but I prefer having a few of the lads with LC for the I4 attacks and 3-5 of them depending on standards and charging of course, but still a number of PW attacks at I rather than I1 has cleared out a number of more difficult squads for me (Salamander TH/SS termis) before they can strike back... But definately the Apothecary and CML should be on either TH/SS or LC terminators :-)

I'm not really sure if the Deathwing really HAVE a good answer to something like an IG horde of powerblobs and the like... My Whirlwinds are really shining for me there, but they are "less useful" against a lot of the other more common options... I've been running with at least one (kept a lot of the old missile "boxes" from the old model kits, 8 of them together make a decent WW rack to convert a Rhino hull over easily)

the unforgiven wrote:

Luco wrote:Whirlwind? I don't have one, or did you mean drop a Typhoon for one? How much anti-horde should I have at this points level?

Maybe 2 vindicators and/or whirlwinds, or other anti-horde stuff

Yes, but getting 2 would mean I'd need to drop a Crusader unless I missed something and I can take it as a transport now

@ everyone
Let's say I were to add a Whirlwind or a Vindicator to the list for an anti-horde role, what in the list would you drop?

Also, I guess I'm hanging on to the extra 35 points from the dropped Typhoon so I need to drop 50 points to add a Whirlwind. I dislike the idea of dropping another Typhoon because those are my transport poppers while also being fairly decent against horde themselves, yet everything else is going to hurt my redundancy.

Well, must say after FAQ-ed cyclones to have 2 shots, 5 squads of termies have 10 blasts... Add 2 more typhoons and 2 vindies and I think that 14 blasts and 2 large blats should be an answer to hordes...

Luco wrote:

the unforgiven wrote:

Luco wrote:Whirlwind? I don't have one, or did you mean drop a Typhoon for one? How much anti-horde should I have at this points level?

Maybe 2 vindicators and/or whirlwinds, or other anti-horde stuff

Yes, but getting 2 would mean I'd need to drop a Crusader unless I missed something and I can take it as a transport now

@ everyone
Let's say I were to add a Whirlwind or a Vindicator to the list for an anti-horde role, what in the list would you drop?

Also, I guess I'm hanging on to the extra 35 points from the dropped Typhoon so I need to drop 50 points to add a Whirlwind. I dislike the idea of dropping another Typhoon because those are my transport poppers while also being fairly decent against horde themselves, yet everything else is going to hurt my redundancy.

at this point....hard to drop anything, everything so usefull....
or maybe you got enough frags for anti-horde?

I was thinking that I had enough between the four frag blasts a round and the crusaders. Though I'd have 6 without the dw banner and rw apoth.

Chinchilla wrote:Well, must say after FAQ-ed cyclones to have 2 shots, 5 squads of termies have 10 blasts... Add 2 more typhoons and 2 vindies and I think that 14 blasts and 2 large blats should be an answer to hordes...

+1

I mean you really want the ravenwing guys cause they are your anti-tank. I just think only two squads of termies is just not enough at 2k.

Y'all really want those terminators walking... am I missing something? Do crusaders really suck at dealing with hordes?

Chinchilla, that doesn't give me nearly enough points to put into anti-tank duty. Yea it takes care of horde nicely, but anything with AV14 I'll have to ignore or glance to death. 240 gives me... one six bike squad with two meltaguns.

thehod wrote:@Warmaster do you usually assign Belial to squad clearance duty? I know you went up against a pretty powerful BA DoA list so please tell me how do you feel about heavy assault armies vs DW?

I"m really liking the 2 lc/3 th&ss combo. It's nice and versatile. I think people running all th&ss will feel the pain the first time they run up against anything that removes an attack (dire avengers I'm looking at you). I especially like the versatility it gives your command squad. Belial should never be attacking an mc or dreadnaught, you configure squads with 4 th/ss and 1 chain fist for dreadnaughts and mc's. With the 2/3 + belial as the command squad you dish out 6 ws5 init 5 lightning claw attacks, and 10 more lightning claw attacks at initiative 4. Against an average ws 4 unit that nets you 9 hits, usually about 6-7 wounds, that will neuter most units you get into btb with. That unit ran through a logan wing army. It also allows you to sit in cover and get initiative 4 or 5 hits in against things like genestealers, ravener's, incubi, the nasty stuff that doesn't have grenades.

In my lists I currently use I either use bikes to block off assaults, or I allow the assault on a th/ss unit. I then counter charge with the lc/th set up to help whittle down the opponent. It seems to be working pretty good so far. I also like to peel Belial off a lot to send after little targets, ig command squads, hormagaunts, etc. Stuff that I don't want to waste a full terminator squad for.

Luco wrote:Y'all really want those terminators walking... am I missing something? Do crusaders really suck at dealing with hordes?

Chinchilla, that doesn't give me nearly enough points to put into anti-tank duty. Yea it takes care of horde nicely, but anything with AV14 I'll have to ignore or glance to death. 240 gives me... one six bike squad with two meltaguns.

It is not really a question of having them walk. The problem is with Elite armies (i.e. Loganwing/Deathwing) is that they lack bodies. Your deathwing army is relying on a little over 20 models to secure objectives. FNP won't keep those low of numbers for long. I am not a Deathwing player, so I can't give exact advice, but I did once run a Sanguinary Guard + Dante Army for a bit. It was a lot of fun, but at 1500 pts, it lacked enough models to deal with the amount of firepower it faced. I would just try and get as many terminator squads as possible in the army. With that said, I would probably drop Sammael and maybe a typhoon in order to get more terminators.

I think at 2k pts, maybe something like so...

-Belial
-Termie squad w/ Apothecary & Standard
-3x Termie squad w/ CML
-2x Ravenwing Bikes (2x Melta, 1x MM)
-2x LRCs

I read over the codex, and I thought maybe if you end up running three total DW Termie squads. Two of them could start on the table and start in the LRCs, the third could Deathwing Assault on the Ravenwing Bike squads turn 1. That would get one squad in prime location right from the start while you support moves up from the table edge. If you cut out one more Termie squad, you could then include a Typhoon Missile Launcher Speeder and then a Whirlwind. The only issue there is I don't think running a single Typhoon would be a good idea, as well as a Whirlwind, but to each his own.

Goodluck either way sir.

I've also been toying with the idea of deathwing.

Well at 2k....

Belial

6 Deathwing squads with CML as troops,

1 Ravenwing squad with 2 melta guns and a MM attack bike.

1 Deathwing squad with no upgrades as an elite choice.

1 deathwing will be enhanced with apothecary and banner.

Squad make up of deathwing will probably be 5 assault squads with 3TH/SS and 2 LC, and 2 tac squads.

Reasoning...

Since I already have 6 troops choices I just don't see a need for Sammael to make ravenwing troops. Having troops being able to turbo boost onto an objective is really really good, but Sam's cost is almost another deathwing squad and ravenwing are far less survivable than deathwing.

Ravenwing are needed for a proper deathwing assault if I go first. If I go 2nd the ravenwing would need to be reserved and would need to turbo boost onto the board which would be less than ideal. Besides teleport homers they also provide some melta support.

35 Terminators is pretty good target saturation.

The 10 tactical terminators would most likely be behind assault termies or in cover. I see a need for tac termies because in objective based games I'm probably going to need something to hold the objectives, and if termies are going to be camping an objective stormbolters can be useful. It also provides a small degree of anti horde firepower.