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I really like the fluff on Dark Angels and love the models but it seems like they are vastly inferior to just vanilla marines now. Does anyone have any suggestions for either army building or anything I may be over looking. Possibly just field them as vanilla marines?

They do need somewhat of an update, just the codex IMO. Considering a space marine captain has better stats then a DA chapter master

Their scouts have better stats then C:SM ones! Not too sure on any other major difference

One cool thing is the deathwing! An all termie list which if memory serves allows a termie with assault cannon and storm shield among other things, which makes for interesting squads, other than that i don't know much sorry

You can field them as DA, C:SM or even as fallen CSM, which is pretty nifty IMO

Death Wing lists are top tier now, very, very powerful.

If you want a mixed force, they can still spam out 5 man units in Razors.

If you aren't really focused on competitive play, a Double Wing or pure Ravenwing army is till very good, if not a true top tier build.

If you take a mix of everything, I think you will be disappointed in how they perform on the table top, unless you are a very good player. They pay more for everything and this, obviously, erodes their efficiency.

The more DW units you include, the better the army will be. A cyclone, 3 TH/SS and a LC is the load out I prefer. Take Belial to make them troops and now you have fearless scoring units that are good in assault and shooting. Toss in some cheap Typhoons and Predators and you have a solid army.

The more tactical marines you add though, unless you min/max them, are just going to dilute your overall power level.

For DA, like Reecius said, Deathwing is a great list (though not top tier). Belial with TH/SS is a fantastic buy for every single DA army build out there, even non-deathwing themed lists.

If you dont have the models for a full Deathwing, here are some bullet points for what makes a strong DA army.

First, the speeders get a discout on missile launcher+multimelta, so I would take those.

Second, Ven dreads are a bit cheaper than vanilla, while not keeping the WS/BS upgrade the main benefit of venerable is the damage reroll, so I like them. Plus, the asscannon and plasmacannon are the same cost as the multimelta, so if you want to include those weapons he is a good bet. Also gets the heavy flamer for a bit cheaper. My DA dread is venerable with plasmacannon/heavy flamer, and I think he does pretty well for himself.

Third, while the bike squads are overpriced and can not turboboost on their scout move, a 3 man bike squad with 2 meltas + fist sarge, with a MMAB added on, is still a great buy. All units in the DA book that combat squad are scoring units, so your 3 man bike squad which MUST combat squad the MMAB off are now 2 scoring units despite not being troops.

Fourth, Land Raider Crusaders are a tiny bit cheaper than the vanilla counterparts IIRC.

So a 'vanilla' ish DA army, built like vanilla marines, would include:

Belial/THSS
Belial's command squad assault termies with banner+apoth
Land Raider Crusader
2 missile/multimelta speeders
3 bikes, 2 meltas + fist, MM attack bike
2x 10 man tac squad, las cannon/melta/fist, in a rhino
2x ven dreads with extra armor hflamer +weapon of choice

That comes out to around 1850 if I remember my point values correctly. You have the hammer unit with a raider, you have fast attack support, you have many scoring bodies as the termies, the bikes and the 20 tac marines can all hold objectives, you have decent melta, and the ven dreads are fantastic in some matchups. If you really dislike the ven dreads then you can downgrade for combipreads, which only pay a little bit more than vanilla marines do.

There is only one real reason that the above list is not more of a contender than vanilla marines, as it has more shots and more scoring units than a comparable vanilla marine army would have. The one thing missing is a good librarian for the Dark Angels. The 100 point Wolf Libby, BA libby, and Vanilla Null Zone Libby are each some of the most point efficient characters you could ask for, and they all have very useful psychic powers and a psychic hood for defense. Compared to the more expensive LD9 DA libby, whose powers are no where near as diverse or useful, and the DA feel the lack of a good libby option pretty hard.

I think they FAQ'd the combat squading = scoring wording...

link

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1620225a_Dark_Angels_Version_1_1.pdf

Very interesting... so what did the last sentence use to read? At work so codex is out of hand.