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So I've been lurking around Dakka for a very long time and thought I'll bring out the lot of models I had painted but about never used before. And since they were mostly painted in DA colours, i figured "Meh, why not?"

I purchased the Dark Vengeance set and used it as the basis for my list, and also included some additional stuff that I had lying around

HQ
Belial (HQ1) - 190
Librarian (HQ2) w/ Mastery 2, Terminator Upgrade - 130
Deathwing Command Squad w/ Plasma Cannon, Standard of Fortitude - 320

Elite Choice
5man Deathwing Knights w/ Perfidious Relic - 245

Troop Choice
5man DW Terminator Squad w/ Assault Cannon - 240
5man DW Terminator Squad w/ Cyclone Missile Launcher - 245
5man Tactical Squad w/ Plasma Gun - 85
5man Tactical Squad w/ Plasma Cannon - 85

Fast Attack
Ravenwing Attack Squad w/ Plasma Gun, Sarge w/ Melta Bomb - 100

Heavy Support
Contemptor Dreadnought Mortis Pattern w/ Dual Kheres Assault Cannon, Cyclone Missile Launcher, Extra Armour - 230
Devastator Squad w/ 4x Plasma Cannon - 130

Total Point Cost 2000 Flat



My Overall strategy is to take the Ravenwing on turn one and set it out to scout (as well as Beacon something for my Terminators to drop onto on turn 1. They will of course be accompanied by the Devastators sitting on some preferably high rise terrain for cover saves and Tactical Squads will move out and camp objectives as needed. The Contemptor is a more or less last minute addition since everyone and their grandmothers over at my gaming community started spamming Helldrakes and Stormravens like crazy, so its objective is naturally to down any flyers in the air, as well as getting into a position where it can comfortably lay down fire support for front-line fighters. The Deathwing would basically be my deathstar solution when fighting MC/ICs while serving as bodyguard for Belial, while my Deathwing component just runs around tanking and shooting stuff with the Command Squad providing 12'' FNP to the Terminators so they can maximise their survivability and staying power.

My Impression of the Dark Angels army is that it has a very shooty solution to everything. But as with Terminators, it is kind of wasteful IMO to use that on a shooty unit choice, so I've tried to balance out on areas that seemed to make me too lopsided in battle. Still, I've only have clocked three 750 point battle using the stock Dark Vengeance setup with the Dark Angels so far, and thus I've tried to build a Take All army list that I can use against any kind of army without losing flat out. The primary opponents around my area are mainly Chaos Space Marines, Grey Knights, Blood Angels and a few Tau gunline players hovering around and so far, the Grey Knights players been trashing my ass with Dragiowing armies.

Arguably speaking, this list is more or less thought up based highly on appearance factor rather than utility in combat so I would really appreciate critiques and ideas on how to make this build more resilient, and what sort of Improvements I can make when boosting this core army up to 2500 or 3000 point battles. There's a mini competition at the 3000 point bracket coming up later this year, and I'll really like to improve my army and my skills to be ready for that.

-PS: I would also like to ask:
1) Is it redundant to have Belial inside if I have bikers to provide non-scattering Deathwing Assaults? (As in, In any case I think Azrael would be a better option to allow myself to run Dualwing Armies when needed)
2) In a shooty army, I preferably want a powerful close combat unit to protect those holding the gunline up, which is why the Deathwing Knights are in my list. Question is, do I REALLY need them? Or is it entirely within the realm of possibility to simply replace them with a normal Termi squad?
3) I have this wicked intention of deploying a Spartan Assault Tank in my army. For 300 points, this can basically deploy my Deathwing Knights (which would probably be a core of 10men+Belial for 22slots) in the enemy's face and wreck their gak up by allowing Assault on the disembarking turn (as opposed to having to sit at one corner on turn one without doing anything).

I would keep belial. He allows the deathwing to be troops and also you still get the teleport homer if your 3 bikes get killed turn 1

Yah, plus when Belial DP's in, he gives his squad twin linked. I drop him in with a 10 man squad to get more well aimed shots in. Throw in two Missile termies or AC termies and you have a ton of twin linked firepower in the backfield for distractions.

would keep belial. He allows the deathwing to be troops and also you still get the teleport homer if your 3 bikes get killed turn 1

The use for Belial is to Deep Strike away from any Teleport homer because of the pinpoint accuracy
His homer is kinda useless as ALL Deathwing Assaulting units have to arrive on the SAME turn (clearly stated in the codex), so if he's not on the table the turn the DWA takes place, it's useless.

You should group your two 5-man Tac squads into a 10-man unit that you combat squad if needed, just in case you get the Kill-points mission (you don't really need the extra sergeant)

If your local is very flyer heavy, your contemptor won't be enough to stop'em all, especially as it's the only unit in your army with an AV and will get all the love from your opponents' heavy weapons, you could benefit more from Flakk Devastators (though they are very fragile to Helldrakes ...)
You could remedy to that with a Storm Eagle with lascannons that could double as your "flying Spartan", or maybe a Caestus to put 2*5-man Termie squads in there (can't shoot at flyers though, maybe ram'em, can't remember right now), or maybe bring a friendly Thunderbolt from your Navy pals, that's one real air superiority fighter at 180 pts (and gorgeous as well)

I think you're better off with Belial than Azrael as you currently have no decent unit to put Azrael in and you couldn't take the DW Command Squad with the banner that goes along pretty well with your total of 21 Termies
I'd take the DW Champion in the command squad, you gotta love that S6 AP2 halberd ... (goes well with the PC for hunting your opponent's Sv2+ as well)


(note that I tried not to touch to most of your army here, keeping it mostly intact)

TanKoL wrote:

would keep belial. He allows the deathwing to be troops and also you still get the teleport homer if your 3 bikes get killed turn 1

The use for Belial is to Deep Strike away from any Teleport homer because of the pinpoint accuracy
His homer is kinda useless as ALL Deathwing Assaulting units have to arrive on the SAME turn (clearly stated in the codex), so if he's not on the table the turn the DWA takes place, it's useless.

You should group your two 5-man Tac squads into a 10-man unit that you combat squad if needed, just in case you get the Kill-points mission (you don't really need the extra sergeant)

If your local is very flyer heavy, your contemptor won't be enough to stop'em all, especially as it's the only unit in your army with an AV and will get all the love from your opponents' heavy weapons, you could benefit more from Flakk Devastators (though they are very fragile to Helldrakes ...)
You could remedy to that with a Storm Eagle with lascannons that could double as your "flying Spartan", or maybe a Caestus to put 2*5-man Termie squads in there (can't shoot at flyers though, maybe ram'em, can't remember right now), or maybe bring a friendly Thunderbolt from your Navy pals, that's one real air superiority fighter at 180 pts (and gorgeous as well)

I think you're better off with Belial than Azrael as you currently have no decent unit to put Azrael in and you couldn't take the DW Command Squad with the banner that goes along pretty well with your total of 21 Termies
I'd take the DW Champion in the command squad, you gotta love that S6 AP2 halberd ... (goes well with the PC for hunting your opponent's Sv2+ as well)


(note that I tried not to touch to most of your army here, keeping it mostly intact)

I see the points you made for him and I agree mostly except for the contemptor comment. That thing is a beast! Maybe if there were a few more armored targets though it would help his survivability.

I wouldn’t say my community here is very heavy on fliers. Most of them do take one flyer unit from time to time for the fun of it, Except for that GK chap with three Stormravens in his list. Most of the Chaos players do run that detestable Helldrake though, and that is my primary worry.

I ended up deciding that Azrael isn’t worth the points one would have to invest into. In the first place, given how Azrael is a close combat monster, it’s kind of counterproductive that he stands alone, considering the fact that Dark Angels, about don’t have any worthy close combat unit like BA do. My reservation with putting all my Terminators into one gigantic deathstar squad is the problem of getting them to hit hard on multiple fronts simultaneously. Granted, I’ve never actually ran a 10man Terminator squad before so I wouldn’t know better, but isn’t Splitfire rule for DW Terminators only allowing one member to split off to hit another target? That means, on a situational basis, one would have to waste 8 shots + 1 heavy weapon on an enemy squad I may not need so much firepower to remove as opposed to two squads firing at one common enemy squad, and each split-firing their heavy weapons at a more durable target.

I had considered fusing the two 5 man terminator squads together, but then that’ll drop the amount of troops I can have contesting objectives. The Tourneys here often are based around claiming objectives and holding flag points as opposed to plain eradication of the opponent’s forces (Granted, if it was the later scenario, I probably wouldn’t be in this dilemma since DA’s pretty good at wiping boards) so I thought it wouldn’t hurt splitting the 10 man squad into two teams to sit on objectives.


At the stages where the bolted on component of 500 and 1000 point extra components come into my army, I was thinking of getting Imperial Guard Allies to run a pair of Vendettas for air-to-air and ground attack options, and on the flipside I can get infantry squads of guardsmen blobs to take objectives (making my Tacticals pointless and allowing me to retire them to take more terminators) and basically soak up firepower that would have been meant for the Terminators.

The other thought, is to run either Grey Knights to gain access to their Paladins and Purgation Squads to boost both long range and close combat powers the DA possess, or run Assault Marines from the Blood Angel Codex. Also: Fast Baal Predators. The considerable worry in this case is that 1k points isn’t enough to flesh out enough Grey Knights for them to be worth the investment, and if I ended up seriously dumping enough IG into the field, pieplates will utterly rape them.