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Hello,

I have been toying with the idea of making a pure Deathwing force for an upcoming tournament. However, having such a low model count, relying on reserves (To an extent) and being such a low ranged army. Sure you have CML's on all squads, but that doesn't seem like enough firepower. Assault Terminators are great with their 3++ save, but not being able to assault the turn they come in hurts.

Furthermore, if they get charged they are hitting with only one attack, sure its at S8, but will it even hit? One thing I could see doing to fix this is by including a LC in each squad, but that still only goes so far.

Is it me or are they outdated?

Any good lists/tactics you guys got for a good tourny build?

Terminators have 2 base attacks, so TH/SS termies have 2 attacks a piece.

Right, I'm sorry, forgot about that! That gives them a bit of a boost.

Whats your thoughts on the banner upgrade. I was thinking of making Master of the Deathwing's squad a bit more "killy" by giving them more LC's than the normal squad would have. However, lacking the 3++ scares me.

Also, Master of the Deathwing with LC's or TH/SS?

You're not necessarily reliant on deep strike or reserves. Most of the time, you want to deep strike either one squad (Belial's, with the apothecary and maybe the standard, and Belial, so they are an in-your-face threat for the enemy from Turn 1) or no squads. Occasionally you might want to DS 3 squads; this latter situation is the only time when you need to rely on reserve rolls at all (and only for one squad, since if you DS 3 squads, 2 of them can show up Turn 1 as Deathwing Assault). I would probably only consider DS-ing 3 squads against a pure shooty army (Tau or most builds of IG), as I wouldn't want to have to weather all that firepower for all the time it took me to walk to them with all squads.

In most missions, vs most opponents, DS-ing Belial and his squad, and starting everything else on the board, is going to be more effective than DS-ing everything.

Very good point, I actually didn't think of that. That would make sense to have Belial's squad with TH/SS rather than LC correct?

Would you suggest a pure terminator army, or adding in some dreads/bikes?

Bikes are definitely worth it as long as you don't take too many. They are the best way to get melta weapons into a DA list and can be helpful if you want to Deep Strike in. Attack Bikes with MM are good, as are Typhoons for the additional missiles (they have to be in separate squadrons which limits the number you can take though). I would avoid Dreads unless you aren't using your Terminators with CML, in which case they can be useful for fire support.

As boring as it sounds DW work best with multiple identical squads. 1 guy with CML, 3-4 TH/SS and 1-2 LC, 4 squads of those is a very solid core to a list. You deploy everything on the board and just walk at your opponent firing missiles at him. You have Storm Shields so don't need to hug cover, can take being charged by just about anything and can deal with just about anything in combat by themselves. You take 1-2 Claws just for the bonus attacks against horde type lists, any more and you start to compromise your survivability. Belial with his Command Squad are the only ones you should Deep Strike, as they provide a great 'deal with me or die' squad in your opponents face early on.

I've been using a group of Ravenwing Bikers in my 1,500 point list, however, I'd prefer Mono-Deathwing. They performed decently, I ended up facing GK that just so happened to have Warp Quake, so I didn't DS anything.

So far my setup has been:
-TH/SS x3
-CF x1
-LC x1
-CML on one of them.

Would you suggest the banner for the Master's squad?

Banner's optional, really, if you have the points. It's quite expensive for the benefit it gives. I like it anyway, just for enhancing the "deal with this threat" feel to that squad.

You can add other stuff in, quite effectively -- either small devastator squads in cover, or Ravenwing bikers (in this form, probably: 3-man bike squad with 2 meltas, plus multimelta attack bike), or vehicles (TML/MM speeders are a particular bargain in the DA codex, as are venerable dreads).

Hmm Devastators, didn't think of them, what loadout would you suggest? Lascannons?

Also, I had 2 squads of 3 bikes, and an attack bike, with the meltas you said, but they seemed a bit to fragile.

Would 15 Terminators be enough for 1500 points? I would of course add in other units.

15 Terminators is probably a bit light for 1500 if they are your only scoring units and you don't have Land Raiders (I don't recommend them because you could just take another squad for the same price, but they should keep you alive a bit longer). 4 Units of Deathwing + Belial leaves you 400 odd points to spend on other stuff, which is plenty for support units.

If you take Devastators then definitely stick to Missile Launchers, they are more expensive than nilla Marine Devs no matter what you do but with Lascannons they are stupidly expensive. Tbh I wouldn't bother with them until you get to higher points levels, you can get better fire support from cheap Typhoons and Dreads and with CML everywhere its not like you desperately need the Missiles anyway. The other Heavy choice worth considering would be the Dakka Predator, just to give you some more horde control.

Bikes are going to be fragile no matter what you do, but in this list they have a very specialised role. Unlike many lists you don't rely on melta to kill all your opponents vehicles, you only need them to kill the really tough stuff or help out in critical situations. Keep them behind the line of Terminators and generally out of the way until you need them, then jump them forward kill a vehicle and probably get killed in return. One squad is probably all you can afford at 1500pts, if you take two you end up with no other support units.

Don't bother with Devastators.

Apothecary is a must.

Banner is optional.

You've got 4 decent options for accompaniment:

TML/MM landspeeder
Ravenwing melta bikers
Vindicator
Predator

I think the TML/MM landspeeders are a no brainer, and I actually like to leave them in reserves. I take 2 Vindicators in 2k and reserve those also. Let my 31 Terminators blob forward, let the Vindicators come on late after I've softened some long range AT up, and the speeders can take cover behind the vindies.

I could do the TML Speeders, or predators, right now I have no Vindicators?

Would you suggest two predators, or speeders?

That totally depends on what you want them to do.

Speeders are even MOAR missile launcher saturation and acceptable anti-AV14 with the MM. Their 24" mobility also lets them contest objectives late game.

Preds are static fire support, generally best against AV11-12. You're not going to want to put them into reserves as much because you lose the sponsons the turn you roll on.

Hmm. Thinking Speeders may be a better choice, I have been worried about AV 14. MM's would be a good addition!

Speeders, Predators, Dreadnoughts are all useful. The termie squads are best taken with CMLs and TH/SS. Deathwing is pretty good if you give it the right support.

Hey revackey, read the new FAQ. Deathwing Storm Shields and Cyclone Missle Launchers have been brought up to date.

3++ the place up.

I have SS on everyone, however, I am finding dreads a bit lacking, I believe I could get 2 predators instead of two dreads, which would you guys suggest?

As of now I have 20 Termies, 3 TML Land Speeders and 1 TL Lascannon Dreads.

Personally, I like a pair of autocannon/DCCW venerable dreads, as a bit of extra insurance against AV11/12 spam; you can generally hide them in the early game, so as to limit return fire till you wipe out the stuff that can hurt them at range, then move in closer to bash stuff in CC. They also serve to discourage people from getting too close to your speeders, and are nicely tough to remove from objectives (I've had several games where my troops were all but wiped out from my home objective(s) but I still had a dread or two there contesting). Preds have more firepower, but are more easily killled, particularly in CC.

At 1500 pts, though, you don't have a great deal of room for much more than your 4 DW squads + Belial + 3 speeders, right? Maybe 160 pts spare, if you have a CF on each of 3 squads, and the apothecary on Belial's? I guess that gets you a Ven Dread plus extra armour, though, which is something for your enemy to at least think about... I guess the only problem with a loadout like that (only 4 vehicles) is that there's an obvious target for all your enemy's anti-transport weapons. I kind of prefer either 6+ vehicles or none, if possible.

Yea, I have everything decked out. And I agree, having this little vehicles is not ideal, thats why the devastators intrigued me.

I'll be trying that out.

RayJ's "Death Hammer" concept uses no vehicles at all -- just termies + devs, plus (since he tested out termies + devs at a tourney) bikes:

http://hiddeninthewarp.blogspot.com/search/label/Death%20Hammer

I haven't actually tried the termies + devs approach enough to really pass judgement on it (and rarely play 2000+ point games), but have had some success with termies + bikes. If you've not used Ravenwing bikes much already, though, I'd recommend at least trying out a pure Ravenwing biker list before expecting double-wing to do all that well -- it takes a fair bit of finess and practise to use Dark Angel bikes effectively, because they're even more expensive and fragile than Space Marine bikes. It can be done, though.

I'm kind of curious how playing Dualwing has changed with the new FAQ. Seems to me that Ravenwing Attack Squadrons aren't as useful because; first, RW Apoths can't help DW anymore, and second, MM Typhoons are more effective than MM Attack bikes.

I would appreciate any thoughts as I can't play, only theory-hammer lately.