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Hi All,

I have been able to get my nephews into 40k now I have a great excuse to play more. Anyways, one bought a pack of Mandrakes and the other bought a Dark Angel's veteran squad. I am very familiar with Dark Eldar, since there are some players at my shop, but for Dark Angels, I do not really know much since there are very few players at the shop and I have yet to battle one.

So I was hoping the Dakkanaughts out there could help me determine a good 500-750 Point list that is diverse, fun and as economical as possible for this hobby (competitive is a tertiary goal). His brother (Dark Eldar) will probably take something along the lines of 5 mandrakes, archon + DE Battleforce. I (orks) will probably take 2 squads of gretchin, 25 shoota boyz and a kff big mek + some armor if we go over 500 points

Any suggestions for the DA and loadouts for the men? Assume 500 or 750 Points.

Thanks,
~Dave

P.S. He loves complicated tactics and would really enjoy capitalizing on reserve rules, infiltrate, outflank, deep strike and have a weapons emplacement or two.

On a serious point, buy a vanilla codex as their one is outdated. Then wait for a new codex, which sounds like it should be arriving soon.

My suggestion would be get the ravenwing battle force.
Ravenwing(or a biker army as vanilla marines) is not the easiest to play though it is competitive enough(vanilla biker lists are looking good right now).
Then the models look cool and the small conversions are easy.
The boxset is a good price.

The usually advice is that only a pure terminator army is competitive. These are slightly harder to model and collect.

for a cheap competitive force at 500 (at 750 expand to ten man tacs.)

Librarian
2 5 man tacticals
2 typhoon speeders

you have something like 40 pts for upgrades and it can kick bottom.

I veto the use of DA librarians. They have ld9 and stupidly low mastery level of 1.

I do like the cheap typhoons.

750 points

1 Captain 100
2 10 Man Tacticals 340
1 Dreadnought 115
1 5 Man Terminator 200

Amazingly, this is exactly what you get from an AOBR. This gives you rules, templates AND some orks to trade with someone to reduce the cost.

Once you have this all painted up and ready to go, hopefully you will have a new codex to truly flesh out your Dark Angels.

If you want to spend the money - and go for the current costs get three typhoons. These are all safe purchases and things that can be modified to your liking.

If you want some variation, buy a 10 man box of tacticals and a box of devastators. This will give you multiple options for your heavy weapons and a devastator squad when you want to expand it to 1000 points.

AOBR gives you 1 10-man tac squad, not two.

If you are going by the DA book, your points costs are a bit off DAaddict.

If you went by what is in AOBR for DA it would be:
Company Master 115pts
-power sword
Deathwing Terminator Squad 215pts
Dreadnought 125pts
Tactical Squad 180
-missile launcher
-flamer
Total points: 635


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Now, seeing as you already have a box of vets, you could kit them out for now as more tac marines, or possibly run them as a dev squad using the special and heavy weapons from both AOBR and the vets box.


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If you went with AOBR and the vets box, you could go with:

Tactical squad(5-man) 110pts
-flamer
-power maul
And then possibly add meltabombs to one of the sergeants for that last 5 points to put you at 750.


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Oh, and as far as economical, you can pick up the space marines only frmo aobr for around $40-45 on ebay

In small point games you need numbers. I'd take 2x 10 Tactical Marines w/ special, heavy weapon led by an HQ (Chaplain, Captain) and one Dreadnought.

A 5-man terminator squad is going to do a lot more for you than a 10-man tac squad, and the points cost is barelt\y different at all.

What makes the Dark Angels stand out from normal codex marines is the Deathwing and Ravenwing (terminators and bikes)

but a 500 pts you are very limited as these are expensive (pts wise) models.

those Veterans will work just as well for codex marines, so you still have the choice to go with a different chapter. But if you want to stick with DA, then I suggest getting a RW battleforce. the models in this box always work for me, at any pts level.

Bikes also provide a good challenge, as you will be outnubmered, but tougher.

Sample list would be something like this:

750 pts
Sammael in Landspeeder
RW attack squadron: srgt with PW and plasma pistol, Apothecary with plasma gun, plasma gun
RW attack squadron: 1 srgt awith melta bombs, 2 meltaguns
Attack bike with HB
Company Veteran squad: HB, plasma gun, PW, and one storm shield

To get this list, all you need is the RW battleforce and a few extra bits, plus the veteran squad you already have, and the codex.
So somewhere around $150 for all of that.

Good luck hunting the fallen


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Or perhaps start with the Deathwing.

1 box of Assault terminators
1 box of Ranged terminators
1 Terminator Captain
for a total of $120
add in the veterans and you have a list like this:

Belial w/ TH/SS
DW Terminators Srgt with TH/SS, TH/SS, CML/SB/PF, SB/CF, SB/PF
DW Terminators Srgt with TH/SS, TH/SS, CML/SB/PF, SB/CF, SB/PF
5x Veterans with HB, SS, Plasmagun

You only get 1CML in the ranged termies box.
Making deathwing is tricky. I would use the 10 sets of arms from the assault termies boxset, then 5 AoBR termies bodies with assault termy bodies, then find 2 CMLs and also get the dark angel sprue set.
Compare this to buying a ravenwing boxset which looks sweet already.
Then AoBR is cheap, doesn't look cool and the models in the DA codex are bad value for points.

My hope is that the new codex will make DA more competitive without going to Deathwing or - to a lesser degree - Ravenwing.

I think the suggestion of going with AOBR either outright purchase or Ebay is your best bet to start on this route.
If you want the most competitive arount 750 points I would look at

1 Belial
2 x 5 Deathwing with 2 CML
1 x 3 Ravenwing Bikers with 2 Meltaguns or Plasma Guns.

It will be a bit over 750 but it provides you with the ability to place Belial and one squad deploying via Deathwing strike off of the scout moving Ravenwing and then have a second squad to come in later.

At that point you could do it with 5 AOBR terminators and 1 box of terminators. Give the CML to the second squad that comes in and the assault cannon to the first squad. Also hope the box gives you 2 chainfists then you can put one in each squad.

If you take it up to 1000 points, then buy a box of 5 assault terminators and give them SS & TH. This should allow you to balance out your squads..

1 Sgt with TH & SS, 1 TH & SS, 2 Stormbolter and PF
1 CML with Stormbolter and PF

1 Sgt with TH & SS, 1 TH & SS, 2 Stormbolter and PF.
1 Assault Cannon and CHF

1 Sgt with TH & SS, 3 Stormbolter and PF, 1 with Assault Cannon and ChF

1 Belial

If you ever want cheap CML you can buy the turret for this small tank for only 77 cents. This missile launcher is only a little bit smaller than the GW CML.

http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/outlaw/latest/24589

OK, that is a find.

MFletch wrote:OK, that is a find.

Yeah, It made me very happy when I found that. I bought ten of those right away. under ten dollars total. And now I have a CML for each squad of my 50 terminators, which are mostly magnetized to for greater weapon options.


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http://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_wq_PTVllDDQ/TbnhGL8is9I/AAAAAAAABE0/i8H7y5UX5Yc/IMG_1284.jpg

comparison pic of GW CML and reaper's missile turret

I really like the AOBR option, and expanding from there.

That seems to have a good diverse set of models and also very economical and provides all the rules and some models for his brother to fight him with.