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So first off, I'm used to playing IG, or troop-loaded SM armies. I'm new at this elite stuff. My meta consists of a Khorne Berzerkers heavy CSM army, a shooty Tau, Tervigon heavy 'nids or horde Orks. I wanted to try a deathwing because I am damn tired of hauling three bags for my IG across town in the subway and buses.

Now that this is out of the way...

I'm struggling with the role of the Assault Cannon in termi squads. My first thought was to give it to my TH/SS squads to give them something to do on the way to the scrap, but then I'm not sure I want to get it shot at, and it's still only 24 inches of range. Then I thought I could give it to my SB/PF squads, but reason that, should I really bother to give them another gun at the same range for that price?

Shouldn't I just focus on CML instead, for every squad? 48 inches of STR 8 is better, imho, but I haven't played it yet, and I'd like to model the army once, not re-do my models constantly.

Land Raiders? Should I bother? I got a Ravenwing Battleforce which I think could get me there faster with the teleport homer.

I prefer to have CMLs in my squads over anything else. Remember that you get 2 shots per CML. So each squad can fire 2x Str 8 shots to crack tanks or 2x str4 ap5 blasts to deal with hordes per turn.

LR can be useful if you want to deliver a deathstar to the enemy. If you go with the LR, I prefer the LRC, but the redeemer isnt bad. Stay away from the lascannon one.

CML's also do not remove the termies TH/SS. The longer range means possibly not having to deep strike depending on the opponent or situation.

I would also try for land speeders oddly enough. They pay much less for the typhoon/multi combo than current marines so you can get a few extra out of the box.

As far as land raiders, the crusader isnt a bad option if your going to ferry Belial's command squad. I do find LR's in general to be very meta specific as to their effectiveness. You mentioned Tau who kinda snicker at them, while Orks and Khorne have a much more difficult time.

Uh... I'd have thunk the LC one gave the army needed AT punch. I'm terrified of being stranded all the time with an Assault squad out of reach of anything.

CMLs are the way to go. You can insta-kill any non-eternal MEQ with S8AP3 shots. Blobs and hordes die to the S4 template. Each squad can take one, so you have the potential to shoot a dozen missiles each turn. Even with the new rules your going to roll a 6 in their somplace so you can take on flyers too. The new glance vs Hull points rules lets even mass TH/SS take out land raiders by glancing it to death. Draigo-wing hates them because THs insta-kill Pallies and the GK weapons are now AP3. So you save on a 2 and he saves on a 5. Also the new missions are all objective based with various bonus points. Plant a couple of TH/SS/CML squads on the objective and most armies will be hard pressed to get you off.
Watch out for Dark Eldar. 18 to 24 Lances a turn, each of them AP2, will smash entire squads each turn.
The speeder gets a free Melta and super cheap Typhoon launchers. The new squadron rules also help. If you get immobilized instead of dieing you just stay behind as a seperate unit with a missile and Melta. Now he has to waste more shots at you to finish off that little annoyance.

Deathwing is essentially a gunline. This is due to number of reasons. Mostly as you can not guantee to get into assault, either: you teleport down, in which case the enemy can move away, or assault you if it is in their favour.
or: you run across and the enemy runs away.
Landraiders are too expensive and become a huge target.

The CML is really cheap, then the assault cannon is just too short ranged.

The best tactics is to sit back with all your units together supporting each other, so the enemy doesn't divide and conquer you. You need to plan to walk your termies onto the objectives by the end of the game.
This is an important issue, as termies die surprisingly fast if a unit if left by itself.

Honestly for deathwing, going all thunderhammer storm shield with a CML in each unit is really good.

Don't even bother with anything but terminators, unless you take landspeeders with missile launchers as well. The landspeeders can help deal with air threats, and will live far longer in a deathwing army than in any other. Plus having some speeders allows you to put more deathwing in reserve when you really need to.

Mathieu Raymond wrote:So first off, I'm used to playing IG, or troop-loaded SM armies. I'm new at this elite stuff. My meta consists of a Khorne Berzerkers heavy CSM army, a shooty Tau, Tervigon heavy 'nids or horde Orks. I wanted to try a deathwing because I am damn tired of hauling three bags for my IG across town in the subway and buses.

Now that this is out of the way...

I'm struggling with the role of the Assault Cannon in termi squads. My first thought was to give it to my TH/SS squads to give them something to do on the way to the scrap, but then I'm not sure I want to get it shot at, and it's still only 24 inches of range. Then I thought I could give it to my SB/PF squads, but reason that, should I really bother to give them another gun at the same range for that price?

Shouldn't I just focus on CML instead, for every squad? 48 inches of STR 8 is better, imho, but I haven't played it yet, and I'd like to model the army once, not re-do my models constantly.

Land Raiders? Should I bother? I got a Ravenwing Battleforce which I think could get me there faster with the teleport homer.

I'm not a fan of assault cannons as I generally have bad luck with them (I've maybe rended with them once or twice in a dozen games sadly). CML have been covered quite well in the thread already but I will put in a plug for the heavy flamer as well. I generally divide my squads when possible into two types... anti-infantry or anti-vehicle/MC. The CML plus a chainfist and TH/SS is good for the later but the heavy flamer is good for the former. I like the idea (and have liked the effects in actual practice) of putting down a str5 ap4 template and covering 5-8 guys after deepstriking. With the heavy flamer rules on overwatch, it'll also add some needed firepower to the squad as well on the enemy's turn. With 3 of the 4 armies you mention being infantry based generally, I'd recommend adding a heavy flamer or two to the army. The key is to pick a target prior to deepstriking and use the flamer wisely (don't land behind a landraider on purpose or somesuch).

Ravenwing bikers are a good addition especially as bikes have gotten a boost overall in 6e. They now have a 4 or 5+ cover save due to jink and the teleport homers are a godsend. With the old dawn of war mission gone, you're pretty much getting a good use out of them (due to scout) almost every mission. I've sadly taken mine out of my carrying case because I've decided to go pure 1st company with my counts-as Deathwing but definitely not because they didn't do well. My favorite tactic was to scout them up first turn, deep strike termies onto them right away, and then move and meltagun/krak grenade the nearest high point vehicle. They were admittedly a suicide squad that rarely survived past turn 3 but they frequently got double their points back.

As for land raiders, I'm a fan of them overall but I haven't use them yet in 6e so can't comment on that too definitively. The ability to glance them to death does hurt but they also got a boost in that disembarkation now occurs 6" from the hatch. They lost 6" of vehicle movement if they want to deploy termies to charge but they "gained" a 6" disembark distance to mostly make up for this. I don't see the loss of the vehicles 6" as too much of a problem as that means that I'll be able to fire a second weapon at full BS compared with before when they only fired a single one with the 12" move via POTMS. If they didn't have assault ramps, I'd tell you that they're definitely not worth it.. but they do! Cover saves are now easier to get for vehicles but they're also lower in value (5+ instead of 4+) so that's a bit of a wash. All in all, I'd say that landraiders are a judgement call in 6e without a definite yay or nay. If you've got the model, definitely try it out a couple of times yourself. If you don't yet, try and play against someone with a LR and see how hard it'll be to subjectively take it down.

Mathieu Raymond wrote:So first off, I'm used to playing IG, or troop-loaded SM armies. I'm new at this elite stuff. My meta consists of a Khorne Berzerkers heavy CSM army, a shooty Tau, Tervigon heavy 'nids or horde Orks. I wanted to try a deathwing because I am damn tired of hauling three bags for my IG across town in the subway and buses.

Now that this is out of the way...

I'm struggling with the role of the Assault Cannon in termi squads. My first thought was to give it to my TH/SS squads to give them something to do on the way to the scrap, but then I'm not sure I want to get it shot at, and it's still only 24 inches of range. Then I thought I could give it to my SB/PF squads, but reason that, should I really bother to give them another gun at the same range for that price?

Shouldn't I just focus on CML instead, for every squad? 48 inches of STR 8 is better, imho, but I haven't played it yet, and I'd like to model the army once, not re-do my models constantly.

Land Raiders? Should I bother? I got a Ravenwing Battleforce which I think could get me there faster with the teleport homer.

1. The real role for Assault cannon is there is no role. Consider Tactical Deathwing squad 1 Power Sword/Stormbolter 3 Powerfist/Storm Bolter 1 Powerfist/Storm Bolter/Cyclone=10 BS4 S4 Ap 5 shots and 2 s8 AP 3 shots versus a tactical squad with 1 Power Sword/Stormbolter 3 Powerfist/Storm Bolter 1 Powerfist/Assault cannon=8 BS4 S4 shots 4 BS4 S6 AP4 Rending shots. So assault cannons are fo army's with Av 14 and AP 2 as these armies don't care that you brought a krak missile.

What i would do is mix in 1-2 asault cannons in Deep Striking squads to take out high priority targets.

I'm not a fan of Ravenwing homer bikes but a lot of people like them so to each his own.

Land Raiders are a Yes they are quite durable and hard to kill (unless you play against necrons) So they are quit useful also IMHO the twin-linked weapons on raiders give them a better chance of taking don flyers and are therefore worth it.

Also i know you haven't said it but you needa divination librarian. prescience isa god-send.

DW tactics have largely been covered above, now, I think, so I'm going to agree with the majority. You can't go wrong with the following as a basis for building and playing DW:

Start with Belial (probably with Thunder Hammer, these days, though the Lightning Claw is still a good option, I think, so he can leave his squad and bully weak units like IG Vets)

Add his command squad: troop terminators with 3 x thunder hammer, 1 x thunder hammer / apothecary, 1 x thunder hammer / Cyclone.

Add as many more troop terminator squads as you can afford. Each squad has 1 x thunder hammer / cyclone, 1 x chain fist / storm bolter, 1 to 3 more thunder hammers, and 0 to 2 more storm bolters, to taste.

With remaining points, consider extra chain fists / the Deathwing standard / speeders with cyclone missile launcher and multimelta / ravenwing bikers, depending on personal preference.

Deploy everything on the board, or everything but Belial and his command squad (who deep strike and go krumping heads).

Your deployment should depend on the enemy weaponry. Against armies who are most effective at 24" or less, or 36" or less (which includes lots of Necron armies, lots of Tau armies, lots of Tyranid armies, and lots of Grey Knight armies, among others), deploy so you're just under 48" away.

Shoot the feth out of them for as long as you can, maintaining that 48" range as long as you can. Bear in mind objectives though. Depending on how far the objectives are, you may need to start walking some squads early on. If you have to do that, do consider walking all your guys in -- there are several units that can take on and beat a 5-man DW termie squad, but not many that can do the same against three 5-man DW termie squads that are close enough to support each other.

Pretty simple really.

To be completely honest, I wouldn't recommend starting a new deathwing army till the rumored book comes out. Right now the TH/SS is the same price but who knows if it'll get charged the wolfguard premium for that particular loadout. With rumors of DA being in the starter set and having a new codex on the horizon, I'd hold off on building models unless you're going to magnetize the arms. The "killer" build for Deathwing could be completely different in a few months.

Well, I had already 2 assault cannons, so I'm going to have to rebuild some anyway, and even if they do come out a tad more expensive, I still believe the 3++ save is worth it.

I don't own a LR, but my chaos friend does, but rarely uses it, so I could bum it as a count as for a game. I painted it for him, so he kinda owes me anyway.

See, I haven't played it yet, but I'd have imagined I wanted to DS about half my squads to get to objectives faster, mainly via the bikers (which could be used as support, if no juicy vehicle was out there, which there rarely are in my meta)

Thank you all for the great tips. Goes to show something can be dynamite on paper, but experience tells you otherwise.

Land raiders are hard to transport across town compared to models in a case.
Raiders: stop CMLs from shooting; become huge targets for all the antimech the enemy has; strangely doesn't make the army that more mobile; reduces the number of models on the board; doesn't bring enough firepower; et cetera, so I would not go raider.

Also most of the time I would not deep strike: this stops you from firing everything at the enemy; it separates your relatively immobile army which just asks for trouble; mishaps do happen even with a homer in the list; to do in numbers means you have a unit off the board not adding to your quite limited firepower; you are relentless and hard you can just casually walk to objectives; getting close to the enemy doesn't mean you can assault them, they will either back away else assault you if it benefits them which well it might; et cetera.

The real issue is deathwing is not forgiving enough to build a weakened list.