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I've run a pretty similar army since 8th started and had a lot of fun with it. There are a few auto-loss matchups, but it'll compete with many of the heavy hitters. I've had great luck with Deathwing Knights and Land Raider Crusaders. I want to love terminators, but they really only achieve okay status with Belial or Azrael giving them rerolls. If Deathwing Assault ever becomes 1/2 CP, they might be a little more worthwhile, but they're a thematic choice at best until then. Azrael and Belial are basically auto-includes in a DW list, and if you have the guts to run large unit of DWK, a librarian can be very helpful, too. It's a great list that won't break the bank. Have fun!

So I was looking at the dark angels codex, planning out my build, and came across something unexpected.

The codex says that a srg of a tactical squad can replace both his bolt pistol and bolter with items from the equipment list. This means you could do stuff like have a squad of 10 men, you can have a guy with a plasma gun, a guy with a plasma cannon, and a srg with 2 combi plasmas right? That seems silly and awesome at the same time.

A 5 man squad, each with srg with 2 combi plasma and a plasma gun comes to only 108 pts, not bad.

Personally if I am reading that right I am thinking dual storm bolters on him, giving a 10 man squad 26 shots, that's a bit cool. Dire avengers exarch eat your heart out.

I... think you can do that?

You may or may not get -2 to hit total if you fire the combi-bolters in addition to the plasma? I don't know?

The Sergeant Equipment list allows for the unit to take 1 combi weapon. There is a ‘take one of these’ lists and a ‘take up to two of these’ lists.

Aleister_Dakka wrote:
The Sergeant Equipment list allows for the unit to take 1 combi weapon. There is a ‘take one of these’ lists and a ‘take up to two of these’ lists.

OK thanks, I totally missed that last night. I was thinking that was crazy odd that they would do that for dark angels and not normal marines, but then again dark angels are an odd group and I could also see that being allowed.

Oh well my dreams of a single dude firing 8 bolter shots at 12" will have to go back to the bikers dudes.

so how did the Dark Angels end up doing at the LVO? I didn't see a single list that seemed to employ Deathwing at all. Very sad. GW really needs to do something about making Terminators more viable as a whole. Maybe that also involves nerfing Plasma a bit, I don't know.

I think if all Terminators were 5 points cheaper they'd be a lot closer to being viable. And if the Deathwing Assault stratagem was 1-2 CP instead of 2-3. Or, perhaps have it be a "once per game" deal and let it be 1 CP for 1 unit to do it, or 3 CP for 2 units. Or something. Just spitballing here.

bobafett012 wrote:
so how did the Dark Angels end up doing at the LVO? I didn't see a single list that seemed to employ Deathwing at all. Very sad. GW really needs to do something about making Terminators more viable as a whole. Maybe that also involves nerfing Plasma a bit, I don't know.

I think at least 1 list was in the top 100, maybe 2? I think competitively Ravenwing is what is doing the best (which is still low/middle of the pack). It's cool that Ravenwing can sorta hang, I am hoping the updates can really push DA up there a bit more. I think everyone in this thread shares your sentiment about termies and Deathwing. I doubt Deathwing will ever be competitive, which is a bummer. But, Ravenwing might be our shining beacon with a bit of a buff.

35 per Terminator might be about right. Deathwing assault really needs to be cheaper, somehow. With RW bikes readily available and able to use SotR, precision mass dakka isn't really all that awesome. It's definitely not worth a whopping 3 CP when you can have your plasma units eviscerate something huge for 1. 2 CP for a full termies unit to fire twice would be something I'd use. I still don't think it'd be amazing, but it would at least make the strat functional.

As for LVO, we didn't do so hot. It looks like sammael and planes was the weapon of choice, which is not terribly surprising to anyone here, I'd imagine. There were a couple Azrael gunline in the middle of the pack, but that's just not a viable strategy when Dark Reapers do everything that list can but do it better.

Radikus wrote:

bobafett012 wrote:
so how did the Dark Angels end up doing at the LVO? I didn't see a single list that seemed to employ Deathwing at all. Very sad. GW really needs to do something about making Terminators more viable as a whole. Maybe that also involves nerfing Plasma a bit, I don't know.

I think at least 1 list was in the top 100, maybe 2? I think competitively Ravenwing is what is doing the best (which is still low/middle of the pack). It's cool that Ravenwing can sorta hang, I am hoping the updates can really push DA up there a bit more. I think everyone in this thread shares your sentiment about termies and Deathwing. I doubt Deathwing will ever be competitive, which is a bummer. But, Ravenwing might be our shining beacon with a bit of a buff.

The real problem with DA right now that stopped them from being more common in the top 100 was they are not good soup ingredients. As a single codex I think we are one of the more well rounded, but there is almost nothing on our list that can't be gotten for cheaper somewhere else. There were two other problems, minuses to hit were very common, which hurts our plasma units, and the our -1 to hit bubble was ignored by the most common meta list (ynarri-altioc). BA did better than us because they can handle dark reaper spam better than we can, and their players are bit more willing to cheat (descent of angels totally works like that).

When Ynarri get adjusted down to sane level, I expect Dark Angels will do better since they are a hard counter for us. Still in the land of soup, ingredients are king, and we are just not a good soup ingredient. So Until they fix soup (and we have to accept that may never happen), we just won't be a top army.

TBH, that's what the codex looked like to me when I first went through it, but I got told how crazy I was and how great it was.

It'll be somewhat interesting to see how Custodes do, because they are ridiculously Elite, far more than DW, but they have like twice the wounds and some other goodies to keep them alive. I'm just not sure small points decreases would do very much to make terms competitive even in non-DW space marine armies.
For instance, in my army, 5 points cheaper doesn't even give me 1 extra squad of terminators, more like 3 extra terms. of course the points drop is needed, I just think there has to be more adjustment than just that. Maybe go back to 2 heavy weapons per squad, maybe 3 wounds, tone down over charged plasma, or a combination of some of these things.

And yeah, the deathwing assault stratagem is pretty much garbage for the cost. I can't believe anyone, play testers, GW's guys though that 2/3 CPs for extra bolter fire was worth that cost... now if it also did something like add 1 to wound roll, or -1 to their save, then maybe, but the way it is now is not worth the cost. Should have been 1/2CPs, or 2/3CPs for ALL Deathwing terminator squads deep striking that turn. Oh well, I have been a DW player since the mid 90's, i'm certainly not going to stop now, just some terminator love would have been nice!

I REALLY wish that they would've had a homing beacon strat that allowed bike squads to drop a marker similar to stealth suits for Tau. Dropping DW squads within 6" of your opponent would give them the reliability they need for their cost.

that would certainly make DW Knights far better and more reliable for sure! right now it'd expensive ass transport or bust.

I think melee termies may be fun to transport in a storm raven with a chaplain dreadnought, an ancient and asmodai for extra attacks.
They would be absolutely devastating, but probably not very competetive.
Storm raven paired with a darkshorud is likely to survive a round of shooting and get termies into position, unless youre facing those dark reapers, then youre screwed

Timur wrote:
I think melee termies may be fun to transport in a storm raven with a chaplain dreadnought, an ancient and asmodai for extra attacks.
They would be absolutely devastating, but probably not very competetive.
Storm raven paired with a darkshorud is likely to survive a round of shooting and get termies into position, unless youre facing those dark reapers, then youre screwed

Problem is that doesn't work. I tried writing a list with the exact same setup, but the SR only holds 12 models, so 5 terms is 10, the ancient makes 12, so no room for asmodai unfortunately. Got to run LR crusader to get them all in.

bobafett012 wrote:

Timur wrote:
I think melee termies may be fun to transport in a storm raven with a chaplain dreadnought, an ancient and asmodai for extra attacks.
They would be absolutely devastating, but probably not very competetive.
Storm raven paired with a darkshorud is likely to survive a round of shooting and get termies into position, unless youre facing those dark reapers, then youre screwed

Problem is that doesn't work. I tried writing a list with the exact same setup, but the SR only holds 12 models, so 5 terms is 10, the ancient makes 12, so no room for asmodai unfortunately. Got to run LR crusader to get them all in.

Run two stormravens

That seems to be my problem with deathwing knights as well, they are already expensive, but if they can get into CC they are arguably worth it. Getting them into CC is the problem, even with master of maneuver it's still about coin flip odds, and that requires you to have your warlord deep strike behind them. Adding a transport skews the value proposition, so it's easy to tie up almost a third of your points getting 10 wounds of models into CC.

I'm hesitant to make that kind of investment in a TAC list, especially since other units can fulfill similar roles, for a lot less.

 Grimgold wrote:
The real problem with DA right now that stopped them from being more common in the top 100 was they are not good soup ingredients.

this is the right context. The highest ranking Imperial players mixed Guard, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, etc. Custodes will probably appear in the next tournament's soups.

I do think Azreal and a few primaris marines are good in soup but it's hard to compete with the more specialized factions. And yes the best possible Dark Angels list probably includes other Imperials. It's possible that GW will add another carrot or stick to make soup armies less common, but for now they're firmly in the Competitive meta. (Getting mad about this is a waste of your time and do it in another thread.)

The things I see as attractive as "soup" from DA would be

Character land speeders (people are going crazy for custodes bikers right now, our speeders are equally good IMO.)

Plasma Inceptors with WOTDA. The issue is that you don't want to take a ton of these guys at the cost so it makes finding the right detachment tough.

I think Sammi and a talon master with 3 scout squads and 1-2 plasma ceptor squads could fit nicely with some other armies in a soup

Other marines (blood angels seem best) or some guard.

I honestly think in the current meta Azzy + helblasters is an expensive trap. I think Ravenguard do helblasters better against things like dark reapers (deploy in range of the reapers. ) But in both cases I think helblasters struggle against things like dark reapers. (what doesn't) where your character speeders don't

I believe right now Dark Angels are the most flexible Imperial Army out there. I think is a Codex that offers a ton of flexibility in how you want to build and play your army.

But as others have said, this is better achieved by using just Imperial Soup. In the context of "Codex-only" armies thought, I don't think other imperial army that can accomplish what DA can.
That doesn't mean theres not some balance changes to be made, of course, specially for DeathWing.

I'm not sure it's fair to say hell blasters struggle against dark reapers, It's like saying tokyo struggles against godzilla, when the problem isn't tokyo it's how OP godzilla is. As for soup maybe black knights, but that's a stretch because ingredients are usually cheap and/or specialized neither of which really apply to black knights.

 Grimgold wrote:
I'm not sure it's fair to say hell blasters struggle against dark reapers, It's like saying tokyo struggles against godzilla, when the problem isn't tokyo it's how OP godzilla is. As for soup maybe black knights, but that's a stretch because ingredients are usually cheap and/or specialized neither of which really apply to black knights.

When talking about competitive meta Dark Reapers should be excluded to measure how good a unit is. They are just so OP that they negate wholle factions like Tyranids or Imperial Guard from existing. They will be nerfed, and if not, whell. We are screwed

Yeah most peoples expect a nerf to Dark Reapers and/or Alaitoc in the big March FAQ update.

bobafett012 wrote:

Timur wrote:
I think melee termies may be fun to transport in a storm raven with a chaplain dreadnought, an ancient and asmodai for extra attacks.
They would be absolutely devastating, but probably not very competetive.
Storm raven paired with a darkshorud is likely to survive a round of shooting and get termies into position, unless youre facing those dark reapers, then youre screwed

Problem is that doesn't work. I tried writing a list with the exact same setup, but the SR only holds 12 models, so 5 terms is 10, the ancient makes 12, so no room for asmodai unfortunately. Got to run LR crusader to get them all in.

I tried a list the other week where I had 7 DW Knights, Asmodai and a regular Apothecary in a LR Crusader.

Is it close to a 1000 points? Yes, yes it is.

Does it completely delete whatever it manages to charge? Yes, yes it does.

I've an idea for a Ravenwing force (essentially because I want an excuse to use those sexy new Custodes jetbikes as a Sammael conversion) but I'd like to know if it would at least be semi-comp.

The list is essentially Sammael, Talonmaster, 8 Black Knights, a Darkshroud, 2 Dark Talons and 3 squads of Scouts.

I'm not sure if it's too few models or too narrow a strategy? Thoughts and usage/list building tips please.

Just curious, what is the main reason that people are taking Hellblasters over an all plasma cannon Devastator squad? The HBs are definitely more durable, but the Devs would get an average of 2 shots each out to the full 36". One of the Devs also gets +1 to hit making it better against all the -1 to hit floating around or guaranteed not to overheat on no minuses. Is the mobility of the hellblasters the deciding factor, and if so are people taking the assault versions?

Movility and - 4 AP are my reasons to take hellblasters over devastator.

(Removed for being nonsensical)

 daedalus wrote:
I'm a fan of the mobility and the deep strike nature. Plus they're flying. The opponent HAS to remove them otherwise I shut down one of his units on an assault, then walk away, shoot again, and shut down the unit again.

I think you're thinking of Inceptors not Hellblasters. Just curious, (I don't have the codex yet) how are you assaulting a second time when you leave combat. Shooting yes, due to Fly keyword, but I didn't think you were allowed to charge after falling back normally.

White Scars can fall back and charge in the same turn, but sadly our boys in green cannot. Still, the tactic of shoot, charge, fall back, and shoot again is a viable thing for Inceptors.