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So I was wondering how people equip their Death Company and what works best. So i want to know what weapons and upgrades work well in a 1500pt army and a 2000pt army, Also what would you equip them with if they are in sqauds of 5 and how would you equip them in sqauds of 10. baring in mide that i would always take a chaplain with the unit. So any tips?

Most people put a melta or two (or infernus pistol) and max out power weapons.

Many take a single thunder hammer or power fist as well.

So in a squad of 5, might take a hammer and two-three power weapons and a meltagun. Thats about as much advice i can give from what i've previously read. If you use the search function you'd find this is a pretty common question. I play against BA mostly and i find that you must keep your DC out of enemy shoot as long as possible, so drop pod or rhino them as careful as possible

This is all theory, as I've never run a DC myself, but I think you should plan to keep them fairly cheap. I would suggest just giving them a Power Fist, and maybe an Infernus or even Plasma Pistol, for potshots against vehicles they end up chasing.

I have two main reasons for feeling this way. First, you are always running the risk that the squad will end up moving so as to be unable to do anything and you'll often be out of cover as well. Therefore, the more you spend on them, the more risk you add. Second, one of their major virtues is that, as-is, they are very cheap for their profile. Since they are already CC beasts, especially with a Chaplain, you'll probably find yourself with significant overkill if you load them up with Power Weapons. You'd probably rather spend two rounds in combat anyway, so they can't be shot.

Whatever you do, magnetize their arms and their backpacks.

By the way, a ride is pretty much mandatory. It appears to me that a Stormraven is ideal. The main problem with Stormraven lists is that you need multiples and nasty cargo to fill them. DC help you because they don't use the Elites slot, and give you access to a Dread that comes out of the Troops slot. They can also be cheap, which helps.

Does no one else have any tips for me. Is there anyone who uses death company in their army wanna help me out. I would preferably have them in CC for 2 turns so I charge but only finish them in the opponents assault phase as to stop them being shot at by my opponent.

It's way too expensive to give them all power weapons. You'll get up to Terminator prices with just half-assed Terminators.

5 Death Company with 4 pws and 1 pf = 200
5 Terminators with LCs and 1 with a TH/SS= 205

I can see an apples and oranges argument here since it's troops vs elite slots, but I'm just doing a cost/performance comparison.

DC are good at picking on things weaker than them, the terminators will do that as well. Terminators will at least give you a chance vs other good assault squads as 3+/fnp won't hold vs good melee squads.

dc get more attacks, higher strength and initiative, higher weaponskill(i think they have 5, cant remember), and most important of all - they can make a sweeping advance. When put with a chappy, they reroll to hit AND wound. That is some serious asskicking. Each dc with a pw has a reasonable chance to kill 2-3 MEQ on the charge each. So a 4 man death company squad can wipe out a 10 man tac squad in basically one round before they even get to hit back. In CC the FNP is far more effective because only a pw can negate it. In shooting, FNP is often bypassed by double strength weapons and ap1-2.. So DC are CC monsters, far better than terminators.

Lemartes, jump packs, and slingshot that melon-fether around the table.

Death Company = Lemartes delivery system

Is Lemartes that good i've been slightly wary of him not knowing if he is worth it when I can use a Rechlusiarch.

redkeyboard wrote:Is Lemartes that good i've been slightly wary of him not knowing if he is worth it when I can use a Rechlusiarch.

Yes. In fact, I don't take DC without him anymore. His stat line gives up a wound, attack, and knocks him down to BS4.
But for this you gain the normal chappy liturgies, a MC power weapon, and (coolest of all) if you toss a wound on him, he jumps to S5 with 5 attacks. I've killed demon princes with Lemartes. The man is an absolute beast.

Edit: Oh, and don't forget that Lemartes has Furious Charge, and FNP. That's S5, I7 on the charge. The man can match up against the most deadly assault troops you can offer.

Here's why he's worth it: he's 50 points. He's worth the same as a thunder-hammer equipped DC and substantially better.
The Reclusiarch, while epic, costs 130 points.

I think you mean he is 150pts or do you mean hes 50pts more than a standard chaplain. I also just realised that he has a jump pack standard so that is awesome.

I usually run mine with my Reclusiarch, in a razorback with standard TL h.bolters, and a thunderhammer. easy, cheap, and my very own living tomahawk missile. aim and forget all the way through

Can you put Lemartes in a Rhino with 9 Death Company? Or does his jump pack prevent that?

I go with 1 power fist 1 power weapon and one melta pistol per 5 death company. Power weapon spam isn't necessary when you have a chaplain and charge your throwing so many reliable wounds and hits that the odds favor you no matter what you fight. 10 death company on the charge with one chaplain vs 30 orks = 28.971 dead orks and that is not including any power weapons on the shooting right before the charge. (btw 10 death company + chaplain vs 10 Meq = 11.588 dead meqs. again this is not including power weapons.)

And Lemates can not go in a Rhino. I wish he could take the jump pack off. :(

Hytanthas wrote:And Lemates can not go in a Rhino. I wish he could take the jump pack off. :(

Wow. That makes Lemartes almost completely unusable

BTW: Based on which rule do you think Lemartes cannot be put in a Rhino with his Death Company? I think it's because it says "Death Company can include Lemartes" and "If the squad does not have jump packs, it can select a dedicated transport". But if you include Lemartes in the squad, it has jump packs, so it cannot select the transport. Is that correct?

Jump infantry cannot embark in rhinos.

I like using 5, thunder hammer and infernus pistol and throwing packs on them to let them DoA in. Drop them somewhere in the backfield and force the enemy to deal with them. This way you kind of direct them to a location.
I dislike transports for them because "good/reliable" ones cost too much (LR, stormraven) and the others (razor, rhino, DP) can get popped so easy. Once you get the death company out on the ground, they are just way too slow to actually do anything useful with rage. Jump packs expose them to more fire initially, but allow them to catch up to anything kiting them so they are at least doing stuff.

That being said, all your opponent needs to do is move a transport 7+ inches and place it close to the death company in the direction he wants them to go. They chase it around, if melta fails, they can always try to hit on 6's. It stinks, because I loved the white dwarf system because it gave us free DC, and they were useful. Now we pay for something we can't control, lame. They are the reason I started BA back when...

Well my tactic so far was to put 10 DC in a rhino and powerslide them towards the enemy, popping smoke launchers. That works pretty well, as such a rhino absorbs enough fire that the DC then can survive, or at least the rest of the army doesn't draw much other fire.

That tactic is pretty cool as you can probably charge something on turn 2, but of course if you get tarpitted or chase after an enemy transport it completely sucks. I guess that's why you need AT in the unit to destroy it if you catch it

But of course, I like the "DoA and let the enemy force to handle them", especially because I wanted to try out Lemartes and I just learned he does not fit into a rhino.

Jump infantry cannot embark in rhinos.

Says who? All I can find is that you can only select a dedicated transport if the unit doesnt have jump packs.

DC needs to be run in either a Landraider or a StormRaven. Move up fast and deploy and assault. I like to run small squads w/o jumppacks and a few power weapons and a Fist. You need the fist incase you get tangled up with a dread, and it helps on assaulting vehicles you chase around.

I guess my problem with death company is that, for their points, i think assault termies do it better.
Even on the charge, an equally priced squad of death-company kitted out with power weapons loses against TH/SS terminators- that damn 3+ invulnerable save is just too good. And, given the fact that hammers are S8, using lemartes to soak up a wound as he would normally is no longer a viable option.

Drix wrote:I guess my problem with death company is that, for their points, i think assault termies do it better.
Even on the charge, an equally priced squad of death-company kitted out with power weapons loses against TH/SS terminators- that damn 3+ invulnerable save is just too good. And, given the fact that hammers are S8, using lemartes to soak up a wound as he would normally is no longer a viable option.

Math might be wrong but 5 TH/SS Termies against 3DC w/Power Weapon 1 DCw/Chainsword and Chaplin and DC gets the Charge, the DC kills 4.47 Termies before they get to swing. The Termies kill one DC.

That is a point for point cost . Add to this that the DC will more than likely shoot into the unit before charging, and there is the possibility of killing a Termie before hand.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kosta wrote:Well my tactic so far was to put 10 DC in a rhino and powerslide them towards the enemy, popping smoke launchers. That works pretty well, as such a rhino absorbs enough fire that the DC then can survive, or at least the rest of the army doesn't draw much other fire.

That tactic is pretty cool as you can probably charge something on turn 2, but of course if you get tarpitted or chase after an enemy transport it completely sucks. I guess that's why you need AT in the unit to destroy it if you catch it

But of course, I like the "DoA and let the enemy force to handle them", especially because I wanted to try out Lemartes and I just learned he does not fit into a rhino.

Jump infantry cannot embark in rhinos.

Says who? All I can find is that you can only select a dedicated transport if the unit doesnt have jump packs.

Missed this one. The BRB says so. The section under Jump Infantry.

redkeyboard wrote:So I was wondering how people equip their Death Company and what works best. So i want to know what weapons and upgrades work well in a 1500pt army and a 2000pt army, Also what would you equip them with if they are in sqauds of 5 and how would you equip them in sqauds of 10. baring in mide that i would always take a chaplain with the unit. So any tips?

For a ten man squad I give them two powerfists.
For a five man squad I halve that.
That's all I ever take. Anything else is too much of a point sink for a non-scoring rage unit.
Also, if I take them at all, I put them in a Stormraven so I can control them better.
And if you're going to take a chaplain, take Lemartes, who will fit in a Stormraven.